Title: In Exitu Israel, Volume 2 (of 2) : An Historic Novel
Author: Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Language: English
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IN EXITU ISRAEL.

[Illustration]



 IN EXITU ISRAEL

 _AN HISTORICAL NOVEL_


 BY

 S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.

 Author of '_Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_,'
 '_Origin and Development of Religious Belief_,' '_The Silver Store_,' &c., &c.


 VOL. II

 LONDON
 MACMILLAN AND CO.
 1870



 OXFORD:
 BY T. COMBE, M.A., E.B. GARDNER, E.P. HALL, AND H. LATHAM, M.A.,
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.



IN EXITU ISRAEL.



CHAPTER XXI.


When Gabrielle and Madeleine had retired for the night to the little
bedroom of the latter, Madeleine seated herself on the bed, set her
candle on the table, and holding Gabrielle by the wrists looked full in
her face, and said abruptly: 'What brings you to Paris?'

The little peasantess was startled, and hesitated. Madeleine asked
after a moment's delay,--'You have come to trade on your youth and
beauty?'

Gabrielle's eyes opened wide. She did not understand.

'Yes,' said the Parisian flower-girl; 'God gives us comely
countenances, graceful limbs, and ready wit. These are our wares,
set up at auction to the highest bidder. So runs the world. God
did not make it so; it is the creation of privilege. I have tried
millinery-work--that did not suit me. I have tried wood-carving for
churches--that did not pay. I have sought admission to many another
trade--it was not open to women. So now my mother has sent me to
Versailles to sell flowers to the nobles and gentry of the court, to
be coaxed and petted and flirted with, to try to bewitch, ensnare,
shackle one of them. By all means, if possible, to entangle some rich
aristocrat. A glorious aim for woman! Hah! to estimate beauty at so
much; a straight nose at so much, ruddy lips at so much, dimples at so
much, laughing black eyes at so much, wit at so much, and virtue at
nothing!'

She paused and shook Gabrielle's arms passionately. Then she went on:
'Bread is scarce, all provisions are dear. Why? because speculators buy
up the corn,--keep it back to create a famine, and enrich themselves
on the sufferings of the poor. Can poor folk afford to keep daughters
at home to eat, eat, eat, and bring in nothing? First the interested
create destitution, and then they take advantage of it to buy of the
destitute what we would not sell except to save life. We are not poor
here,--we in this house, because we live on the scraps flung us by the
privileged classes. The corporal is salaried by the king to defend his
majesty and his majesty's prisons against the French people, whose
father he pretends to be; my mother makes caps and head-dresses for the
grand ladies, the wives and mistresses of the officers; Klaus gets his
living from the ecclesiastics, who buy his statues; and I sell flowers
to the queen and the court, and keep my eyes open, looking out for a
chance. Tell me now--why are you come here? On speculation?'

'I have come to Paris, because a lady whom I love is in the Bastille.'

'In the Bastille!' exclaimed Madeleine, dropping her hands.

'And I must do my best to obtain her release.'

The Parisian girl laughed.

'You are a foolish little peasantess,' she said; 'what can you do?'

'Did not Madame Legros obtain the release of Latude? Why, then, should
I despair?'

'Madame Legros had a hard time of it. She worked for three years, she
left no stone unturned, she was a woman of indomitable will.'

'And why should not I--with my faith?'

'Faith in what? in the righteousness of your cause? More the reason
that it should fail. Violence and injustice alone gain the day now.'

'Madeleine, I will see the king.'

'The king is nothing, he is in the hands of the queen.'

'Then I will see the queen.'

'The queen!' echoed Madeleine, with a shrug. 'If you are to prevail
with her, you must interest her vanity, her ambition, her love of
display, her passion for pleasure,--those are the only springs that
will move her.'

'Madeleine, I am sure I could persuade her to obtain the release of
Madame Berthier.'

'What Madame Berthier do you speak of?'

'The wife of the Intendant, Berthier de Sauvigny.'

'Take my advice and do not meddle. You will burn your fingers.'

'Madeleine!' exclaimed Gabrielle, 'I must, I must indeed do what I
can. The poor lady's last cry was to me to save her. I know that I am
nothing but a little peasant-girl, that I am ignorant of the ways of
grand people at court, but I feel in my heart that I have been called
to do something for her. Even if I cannot deliver her, I can, perhaps,
obtain permission to see her and attend on her in her prison.'

'Why is she deprived of her liberty?'

'Because she is a little deranged. Understand me, she is not mad, but
has been driven by ill usage into eccentricities. She is harmless, and
oh! so good.'

'Sit down on the bed, and listen to me,' said Madeleine, 'and you shall
hear exactly what your prospects are.' Gabrielle took her place beside
the Parisian flower-girl, and took her hand between her palms.

'Are you listening?' asked Madeleine; 'well, be prepared for the
worst. I am going to throw a bucket of cold and dirty water over your
enthusiasm.'

'I am prepared,' answered Gabrielle, feebly.

'In the first place,' began Madeleine, 'know that the great people do
nothing without requiring a return. What have you to give the queen? I
say the queen; for if anything is to be done, it must be done through
her.'

'Nothing to give her, but I may interest her.'

'You can only interest her through _herself_. Can you do that; can you
gratify her pride and love of display?'

'No.'

'Then put aside the hope of doing anything in that quarter. Now, who
influences the queen? The court; in particular the Count d'Artois. If
you gain him, you gain the queen, you gain the king, and you have what
you want.'

'Can I see and speak to him?'

'Certainly, nothing easier. Announce yourself as a pretty girl, and he
will be with you at once.'

'And has he a tender heart?'

'Most tender,' answered Madeleine, with irony.

'He will listen to the grievance?'

'Most certainly.'

'And you think he really will be moved?'

'No doubt about it.'

There was something in Madeleine's manner which grated on the young
Norman girl's feelings; she withdrew her hands from clasping that of
the Parisian, and said reproachfully: 'You are mocking me.'

'No, I am not,' answered Madeleine, vehemently. 'Poor simple child!
Do you not see what I mean? You are pretty, more than pretty, you are
beautiful, and with all the freshness of the country about you. The
amorous prince will be bewitched at once. He will grant you all you
want, take your request to the queen, insist on her obtaining from the
king a release for your imprisoned lady,--but, remember what I told
you. No one at court does anything without expecting a return.'

She looked at Gabrielle, who shrank from her.

'Mind,' said the city flower-girl; 'I counsel nothing of the sort.
I show you the only possible means of success which is open to you
in that quarter. I know the court. The court has made us French
poor. It eats the fruit of our labour, and it says, when asked any
little favour, Give! but what shall we give? you have taken our
means of subsistence and our liberties. And the court answers, you
have sacrificed to us your lives and liberties, surrender also your
honour.' The girl sprang from the bed, and whirling round the room,
cried in a tone of mingled bitterness and banter: 'Did they in olden
times pass their sons and their daughters through the fire to Moloch?
Hah! Versailles, temple of Moloch, I salute you! Hah! royalty, Moloch
of modern days, I prostrate myself before you. Sometimes I think I
shall live to see that charnel-house swept out, and the great idol
overthrown. The hope is too great, the prospect overwhelms me.
Gabrielle! have you ever heard of a vampire? The vampire is a dead man,
who leaves his grave to suck the blood of the living. Where there is a
vampire, a blight falls on the neighbourhood; old and young waste away,
their blood is drained off to nourish a corpse which it cannot vivify.
If the coffin be examined, it is found to brim over with blood; the
corpse floats in blood, and is itself bloated with blood--blood that
it has drained from young veins and hopeful hearts, withering hopes
and destroying youth. Gabrielle! monarchy is the vampire. It is a dead
system of the past, to which nothing can restore life. In olden times
it was a living, thinking, acting power; now it is a carcase, but not
a harmless one. It drinks blood to this day--the blood of the poor. It
feeds worms, too, the court sycophants.'

The girl paced up and down the room as she spoke; then stopped,
burst into a laugh, and said: 'And what am I but a courtier of those
bloodsuckers? What is my highest ambition but to draw off a little of
the blood they drink, that I may riot in it myself? God have mercy on
poor France! men cannot afford to be honest or women to be modest, when
their honest means of subsistence is snatched from them by harpies to
be flung broadcast among the profligate.'

Then, reseating herself, and drawing her hand across her brow, she
said, sadly: 'Why cannot I live on the work of my hands? Because
prejudice and law combine to shut me out from trades in which I could
honestly earn my bread. And yet I have wished to live quietly and
toil for my living; but the times are against me, because society is
against me. Alas, Gabrielle! what do you think is the proudest hope
of a Parisian girl? Why, to become a Du Barry or a Pompadour. A man
strives and denies himself to become a great judge, or a great artist,
or a great philosopher, but a girl's ambition is to be mistress to a
prince, a duke, or a count. It is not our fault, it is the fault of a
rotten society which overwhelms some men with wealth and reduces others
to beggary, and says to those who are down, your only hope of rising is
by vice, all honourable avenues are shut.'

Madeleine put her arm round the little peasant-girl, and added in a
soft tone, 'Do not misunderstand me, my little simpleton. I am not so
low as you seem to think--I have not fallen over the precipice, but my
mother and the necessities of the time are forcing me nearer and nearer
to it every day, and my heart recoils with fear and loathing.' She
began to cry. 'Dear Gabrielle,' she continued; 'I think that perhaps
with a new order of things we might look up to Heaven for help, instead
of groping for crusts of bread among the ashes of hell. I do not know,
but I think it might be so. Oh that a Revolution might come before the
edge of the precipice is reached, and I am lost!'

The poor Normande did not know how to comfort her. She thought of her
father, and how ready he had been to expose her to danger, forced
to it by his great need, by the slave-driver, Famine, and she asked
herself what had created that famine, and the answer came, the _Ancien
Régime_. She remained silent, and Madeleine, after a paroxysm of tears,
recovered herself, and then returned to the subject on which she had
questioned Gabrielle.

'I only showed you how hopeless it was for you to attempt anything like
intercession on behalf of Madame Berthier at court. I do not advise
you to take the only course open to you that promises success. Indeed,
I warn you from it. But I will help you, if you like, to speak to the
queen. It can be easily effected, as I am her flower-girl; only be not
sanguine, I am convinced of the fruitlessness of the attempt.'

'I must make the attempt. I must, indeed.'

'Very well, then you shall.'

'Thank you, Madeleine, thank you very much.'

'Poor little friend, I will do for you what I can, but that is not
much. Now let us to bed.'



CHAPTER XXII.


On the 4th of May, the opening of the States-General was inaugurated
by a solemn procession and service at Versailles. The king, the
queen, the whole court and the deputies of the three orders assembled
in the church of Notre Dame to hear chanted the 'Veni Creator.' The
hymn ended, the procession formed in the church, and passed out at
the great door, crossed the market-place and the Rue de la Pompe,
traversed the Place d'Armes, entered the Avenue de Sceaux, which did
not, as now, extend in its full breadth to the Place, but was blocked
in the middle by buildings; thence into the Rue de Satory, and so to
the Cathedral of S. Louis. The French and Swiss guards lined the way,
the walls of the houses were hung with tapestries and costly damasks,
and the whole length of the streets along which the court and deputies
were to walk was laid down with crimson carpets. The balconies were
hung with garlands, banners were suspended from the windows, and
triumphal arches spanned the road. At intervals, bands of music were
placed, and everywhere were grouped orange-trees and exotics from the
Versailles palace gardens. Crowds filled every vantage-point; windows,
galleries, roofs, presented visions of beaming faces, and as far as
the eye could see up the streets appeared heads. The Place d'Armes was
densely thronged, and the people were allowed to enter within the rails
enclosing the Court of the Ministers, and to cling to every bar, and
cluster in ranks on every step of the palace front.

The first in the procession were the five hundred and fifty deputies of
the Third Estate in black suits, white falling cravats, and black silk
cloaks.

As the head of this sable line appeared, a female voice exclaimed: 'Ah,
mon Dieu! there is surely a funeral!'

The speaker was Madame Deschwanden, whom the interest of the day had
attracted, along with Madeleine, to Versailles.

'A funeral, ah a funeral!' was echoed by several on all sides; then
Madeleine raising her voice answered, 'A funeral, yes. They are burying
abuses,' which raised a laugh.

'Who can that be, that little pale man, with parboiled eyes? My faith!
he is a cripple, he is deformed, they help him along, or he would not
be able to walk. I wonder who he is?'

Madeleine did not know, none of those around knew. It was George
Couthon, deputy for the Puy de Dôme.

'And there!'

A thunder of cheers rent the air as a large-built man, his huge
head covered with a heap of shaggy hair, a massive forehead, dark
well-arched brows and large luminous eyes, but with the lower portion
of the face scarred with eruptions, fleshy and coarse, emerged from the
church of Our Lady.

'Mirabeau! vive Mirabeau!' was roared by the crowd, caps were tossed
into the air, handkerchiefs were waved from every window, and flower
bunches fell at his feet, cast by fair hands from the balconies.

His firm-set lips curled with a smile, and with a bow he responded to
these enthusiastic greetings.

Presently a running fire of applause arose as a slender pale-faced
man with delicate features and an expression of ingenuous good faith
appeared. This was Mounier of Grenoble. There passed a man with small
face, retreating forehead and sharp eyes, a man with sallow complexion
and thin lips, and vivacity and energy depicted in every lineament.
No one noticed him on that day, he was an obscure deputy whom none
knew--Maximilian Robespierre.

Paris was unrepresented, the elections there had been delayed.

After the Third Estate, separated from it by trumpeters and drummers,
walked the nobility. The moment that they appeared, the cheering, which
had been continuous on the passage of the Commons, ceased abruptly. The
contrast they presented to the Tiers État was significant. Their dress
was black, the vest of cloth of gold, and the coat frogged with gold
lace. Their cloaks were of silk, their cravats of lace, and their hats
of the shape worn in Henry IV's reign, adorned with plumes. Among the
nobility, last, and lagging behind, walked the Duke of Orléans, burly,
with bad features, wearing large rings in his ears. Instantly a shout
arose, 'Vive le Duc d'Orléans!' which ran along the street and roared
from the Place d'Armes. The duke laughed good-naturedly, lifted his
feathered hat, bowed to the right and then to the left, and laid his
hand on his heart.

After the nobles came the curés in their cassocks, short baptismal
surplices, and long black cloaks, wearing on their heads the birretta.

A few shouts of greeting rose, not many, but some.

'Oh, Madeleine!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden, 'who can that priest
be? Look, do look at him!' She pointed to a slender abbé with a face
of great beauty and refinement. The smooth broad brow was massive, the
eyes large and soft, like those of an ox; the straight nose rather
long, and the lips and chin indicative of extreme sensibility.

Some one in the crowd shouted, 'Long live the Abbé Grégoire, the friend
of the Jew!' Madame Deschwanden looked round and saw an old man with
the features of an Israelite raising his hat above his white head and
waving his withered hand towards the priest who had attracted her
attention. Percenez, who was close to her, said, 'That curé has in his
face the making of a great saint and a great patriot. Long live the
Abbé Grégoire!' Then suddenly he exclaimed, 'Ah! there is a friend of
the people walking along a little way behind him. Vive le Curé Lindet!'

There were two hundred and fifty-nine curés, delegates to the Assembly.
They were followed by the bishops, thirty-eight bishops and eleven
archbishops, delegates like the curés and elected by the clergy, but
separated from their inferiors by a choir in scarlet and lace, bearing
silver cross and tall lighted candles, chanting the 'Exsurgat Deus,'
which had been chosen by the master of the ceremonies as an oblique
hit at the refractory clergy. The bishops wore violet cassocks, lace
rochets, and violet-hooded capes. Their gold crosses glittered on
their breasts. As they walked proudly along, not a voice was raised
in acclamation. Immediately after the bishops marched the Swiss guard
with their band, and then the King in his superb royal robes of
state, surrounded by his brothers the Count of Provence and the Count
of Artois, and the ministers. As he left the church, the cannons on
the Place d'Armes were discharged. This was the signal for universal
applause. It was heard running from street to street, rising in a
billow of sound from the market-place, rattling down the street to the
great amphitheatre before the Palace, where it rolled from side to
side, and was passed on down the Rue de Satory, whence it was wafted
faintly, and where it expired.

After the King and his group followed the Queen, with madame, the wife
of the Count of Provence, the Countess of Artois, the princesses, and
the ladies of the court, superbly dressed and covered with diamonds.
The queen's hair was rolled into a mountain of curls about her temples,
and bound round with a circlet of large diamonds and sapphires. Two
long locks fell on either side of her beautiful throat and rested on
her shoulders. The exquisite transparency of her complexion showed
to advantage that day. The excitement had brought a little brilliant
carnation to her cheeks. A chain of large pearls surrounded her neck
and supported a pearl cross, which reposed on her bosom. Two crystal
drops depended from her ears. Her brooch and stomacher blazed with
precious stones. She passed along the street, between the lines of
soldiers and the close-packed crowds, and not a voice was raised
to salute her. She felt it, and a hard expression over-spread her
countenance, she walked more erect, held her proud head up, and tossed
it slightly, as the curls teased her.

'How beautiful the queen is!' was whispered.

'And she so wicked!' sighed Madame Deschwanden.

'No, mother,' answered Madeleine; 'she is not wicked, but foolish.
She would not give one of those pearls to save a life; she would not
deprive herself of a pleasure to lighten a heavy heart.'

'Well,' said madame; 'if you do not call that wicked, it is cousin to
it.'

Some one shouted 'Vive le Duc d'Orléans!' and the cry was caught up by
about a hundred voices. The queen hated the duke, who was the leader of
the liberal party and a renegade from the traditions of his order. He
was the people's idol, the abhorrence of the court. The queen would not
tolerate his presence, and had refused to accept his homage. This was
well known. It was known that his was the name of all others to gall
her proud spirit, and the popular detestation of Marie Antoinette found
vent in that shout, 'Vive le Duc d'Orléans!'

Instantly a pang of annoyance, a flash of anger obscured her eyes; she
bent, as though suffering from a spasm. Madame de Lamballe, her pretty
little friend, started forwards from her place in the rear and lent the
queen her arm. Marie Antoinette rested her hand upon it for a moment,
and then with a defiant air continued her walk.

The royal family was followed by the procession of ecclesiastics
belonging to the cathedral, the church of Notre Dame and the King's
chapel, vested in their surplices and capes; the choir and acolytes
singing and censing around a canopy of crimson and gold, beneath which
the Archbishop of Paris bore the Blessed Sacrament, in a monstrance
blazing with rubies. On his right walked De Narbonne-Lara, Bishop of
Évreux, acting as deacon, in dalmatic of cloth of gold; he was at
Versailles as chaplain to the queen. On the left paced the dean of
Versailles in tunicle to match. Monseigneur Juigné, the archbishop, was
vested in cope of gold brocade, lined with crimson velvet; the deacons
and subdeacons held the corners; he was bare headed.

On entering the church of S. Louis, the Blessed Sacrament was elevated
to its shrine above the altar. The bands united to play a magnificent
triumphal march, as the court took its place. A daïs of purple velvet
sown with golden lilies had been prepared for the king and queen; the
princes, princesses, the grand officers of the crown and the ladies of
the palace grouped themselves around the throne.

The triumphal march ceased, and softly, unaccompanied by instruments,
the great choir sang the 'O salutaris hostia' to a simple melody
full of sweetness, whilst the fragrant smoke rose in clouds upon the
altar-steps around the elevated pyx, which blazed through it like a red
sun on a misty morning, and every knee was bowed in adoration.

The Marquis of Ferrières, in his Memoirs, thus recalls the feelings
inspired at the moment:--'This simple strain, true and melodious,
disengaged from the crash of instruments which choke expression; the
regulated accord of voices swelling up to heaven, confirmed me in
my belief that the simple is always beautiful, always grand, always
sublime.... This religious ceremony cast a gleam over all the human
pomp. Without thee, venerable Religion, it would only have been a
display of vain pride; but thou dost purify and sanctify, ay, and
aggrandise grandeur itself; kings, the mighty of earth, render homage,
real or simulated, to the King of kings. These holy rites, these
chants, these priests vested in their sacerdotal robes, these perfumes,
the canopy, the sun gleaming with gold and jewels! I remembered the
words of the prophet, "Daughters of Jerusalem, your King cometh,
take your bridal garments, and go ye out to meet Him." Tears of joy
flowed from my eyes. My God, my country, my fellow-citizens had become
identified with myself.'

The sermon was preached by Monseigneur Lafarre, Bishop of Nancy. It
overflowed with patriotic sentiments; but the prelate did more than
express his enthusiastic devotion to the good of his country,--he
reminded the court of its crimes, its pride, its lavish expenditure,
and its exactions. He bade it remember that it was the crown and the
court which had made luxury fashionable and had glorified dissolution
of morals, and he urged on king, queen, and all whom the Almighty has
placed in conspicuous positions, to consider their responsibility to
Him who set them there, and he bade them be very sure, that if they
slighted these responsibilities or used their place to exalt and
sanction evil, a Nemesis awaited them which would be as speedy as
terrible.

This sermon, so bold and patriotic, was not listened to without
interruption. The queen was observed to turn white as chalk; the king's
brothers, notorious for their immoralities, were differently affected;
Monsieur glanced at his mistress, Madame Balby, and then covered his
face; the Count d'Artois reddened, and beat with his foot upon the
stage of the platform on which the throne was placed. The ladies around
the queen fanned themselves and whispered audibly to each other. Some
of the young nobles moved their seats, and rattled their swords on
the pavement; others groaned and coughed, and the preacher's words
were lost. He paused, looked towards the king's throne; Louis XVI was
unmoved; he, an amiable, simple man, was untouched in conscience by the
reproaches of the bishop; he quite agreed with him in his verdict, and
appreciated his sentiments. But the queen had thrown all her weight
into the conservative side, and conservatism then meant the retention
of every abuse under which the country groaned, and the sanction of
every vice which outraged morality and disorganized society. When
Monseigneur Lafarre looked at her majesty, she met his eye with a
threatening glance of indignation. The murmurs increased, and it was
evident that the court and nobles were bent on preventing the preacher
from continuing his discourse. The deputies of the third estate became
excited, and agitation was observed among the deputies of the clergy.
Thomas Lindet, responding to a sudden inspiration, sprang to his
feet, looked across at the court, and cried:--'Magna est veritas et
prevalebit.' A roar of applause rose from the benches on all sides of
him and from behind. He sat down, and in perfect silence, without an
attempt at disturbance, the Bishop of Nancy concluded his discourse.

It was apparent to every one from that moment that the battle was to be
fought _à l'outrance_.

On the morrow, May 5th, the deputies assembled in the Hall des
Menus-Plaisirs, situated in the Rue S. Martin, opening out of the
Avenue of Paris.

Considerable changes have taken place in the town and château of
Versailles since the period of our tale, and it will be necessary,
in order that the events we shall have to record may be fully
comprehended, to give a slight sketch of the disposition of the
buildings as they then stood. Although Versailles was the place where
the king and the court resided, it had not then the neat and cleanly
air that it has at present. The streets, the avenues, the squares, even
the courts and corridors of the palace were encumbered with booths, and
stalls, and wooden caravans, which gave the appearance of a perpetual
fair.

The town on the side of the Avenue of Paris was closed by a wooden
barrier, placed a little in advance of the Rue de Noailles. The two
first buildings arresting attention on entering the Avenue were, on the
right, the hôtel erected by Madame du Barry, which was at that time
occupied by Monsieur the King's brother, and which is at the present
day turned into a cavalry barrack. On the left, immediately opposite,
at the corner of the Rue S. Martin, was the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs
of the king, now-a-days also a barrack. The principal entrance to the
hôtel was from the Avenue of Paris, which admitted into a court of
honour, at the extremity of which a grand flight of steps led into
a vestibule that opened on the Hall of the Assembly. This hall was
built on the side of the Rue des Chantiers, on higher ground, so that
its floor was level with the first storey of the Menus-Plaisirs. It
was entered also by a door opening on the street; and it was by this
door that the deputies were admitted, whilst that from the Hôtel des
Menus was reserved for the king. At the extremity of the hall, against
the wall joining on to the hôtel, stood the throne, and beneath it
the bureau of the president. The deputies were placed on benches. On
either side of the hall, behind the pilasters supporting the roof, were
galleries, to which the public had admission.

Into this hall, the king with a brilliant suite entered by the
state door, at one o'clock in the afternoon. The deputies had been
summoned at nine, but were only admitted as the herald summoned them,
bailiwick by bailiwick. As each group entered, the master of the
ceremonies pointed out to the clergy and the nobles and the commons
their respective places. During this lengthy business the deputies
remained crowded in a narrow dark corridor, which contributed greatly
to increase the confusion.

The herald summoned the bailiwick of Viller-Cotterets; the deputy of
the clergy was an unbeneficed curate, the delegate of the nobility was
Monsieur the Duke of Orléans. The curé drew aside and bowed, to permit
the prince to enter before him, but the latter refused. No sooner had
the duke entered the hall than it rang with cheers. The deputies had
all found their places at a quarter past twelve. Their benches were
disposed in a semi-ellipse, whose diameter was the platform supporting
the throne. The clergy sat on the right, near the throne, and the
nobles on the left; the third estate occupied the rest of the seats.

When the king entered, the house rose and uncovered, and received him
with thunders of applause. The queen was placed beside him on a lower
step. The royal family surrounded the king. The ministers, the peers
of the realm, and the princes were placed on an inferior stage of the
platform, and the rest of the suite placed themselves as they could.

The king having taken his seat, the nobles covered themselves;
whereupon, contrary to precedent, the commons also put on their hats.
This caught the queen's eye; she made a sign to the king to attract his
attention, and then whispered to him hastily. Instantly he bared his
head, whereupon all in the hall did the same.

The king opened the States-General by an address, awkward, timid, cold,
and colourless. He contented himself with assuring the delegates that
the debt was enormous, and that to pay it off was their business.

This discourse was followed by one from Barentin, Keeper of the Seals,
paler even than that of his royal master, in which he thanked Heaven
for having accorded to France 'the monarch whom it is her happiness to
possess.'

The minister Necker next spoke; he showed that the gulf of the deficit
was still gaping, that it amounted to fifty-six millions. Of the
constitution for France, which was so earnestly desired, he said not a
word, and he concluded with declaring that the votes of the deputies
were to be taken by order and not by heads.

This was the annihilation of the third estate, which, although as
numerous as the two other orders put together, would thus be reduced to
one against two.

Necker's speech lasted three hours.

The king rose at half-past four, and the estates were adjourned till
the morrow.



CHAPTER XXIII.


'So! Gabrielle, what do you think?' asked Corporal Deschwanden, a
couple of days after the riot at Réveillon's house.

The girl looked up wistfully at him. There was promise of good tidings
in the tone of his voice.

'You have to thank my wife and Madeleine.'

'For what?' asked Madame Deschwanden, turning sharply round.

'For having been so provident as to exert themselves to preserve some
of Réveillon's property.'

'The mother-of-pearl box!' exclaimed madame. 'Ah! I shall never forgive
you.'

'Yes, you will, when you hear all,' said the corporal, positively.

'Well, what is it, what is it?' asked the lady, stamping impatiently.
'You Germans are so slow, I have to fish for an hour before I can catch
a minnow. Take a Frenchman! he pours out everything into your lap at
the first appeal, and throws himself at your feet into the bargain.
But a German, or a German-Swiss, like you! My faith! I have to use a
screw for ever so long, and, in the end, I only extract little bits
of worthless cork. What is it? Will you tell me? Do you not see I am
dying--perishing slowly from curiosity?'

'Curiosity, yes!' said the corporal. 'That is the bane of women. Wife!
did you ever hear the story----'

'I'll have no stories. What is the news?'

'The news is for Gabrielle, not for you.'

'My faith! and are not Gabrielle and I one? Do not I enter passionately
into her projects? Do I not see clearly that if she succeeds, or even
if she fails, her self-devotion, her enthusiasm, which are charming,
will make her fortune and mine? Does she not repose her confidence in
me? Does she not make an oratory of my bosom, and find a sanctuary in
my heart?'

'My good wife and my good Gabrielle, understand now,' said the
corporal, in his broken French. 'I took the casket back to the Sieur
Réveillon. He is in the Bastille. He fears the people, so he has
procured for himself a _lettre de cachet_ confining him within the
walls of that fortress, which are quite strong enough to protect him
from the mob. And he is comfortable there, being great friends with M.
de Launay, the governor. Now that casket contained the jewels of Madame
Réveillon.'

'Mon Dieu! you do not say so!' cried Madame Deschwanden, despairingly.
'The jewels! And they might have been mine.'

'They not only might, but would have brought you to the wheel, liebe
Frau. Search was being made for them, as their value was very great.
How should you like to be broken on the wheel for robbery?'

'But, if it were not for the pain, it would be interesting,' said
madame.

'There is the pain, however, and that is terrible.'

'Yes; but the jewels--were they very beautiful?'

'I did not see them.'

'Oh, my faith! I wish I had looked at them. I have no doubt there
were amethyst earrings. I had a pair once,--they were made of glass,
you know, but they looked real, if you kept your head constantly on
the move, and were very vivacious, so that no one should examine them
closely. And they were stolen. The thief believed them to be real. They
were stolen from me at a ball, and how it was done I never could guess.
I never for a moment felt a hand near my face, or I would have slapped,
and scratched, and kicked. Mon Dieu! I would have bitten.'

'And I am positive you would have scolded.'

'Scolded! believe me! I would have stabbed the man through and through
with my sharp words, till he was little better than _veau piqué_. I
would have amputated his head with my tongue. You do not know what I
would have done!'

'I can guess.'

'Never! You do not know what I am capable of when I am roused. To you I
am an angel of peace, to those who rouse me----'

'A cat.'

'Fie! And I your wife. Well,' she seated herself on the edge of his
chair, and began to caress him. 'What have you got to tell us more?'

'The story would have been told long ago, if you had not interrupted
me. The Sieur Réveillon was amazingly glad to recover his box. I told
him that he was indebted to you.'

Madame Deschwanden caught the old soldier's face between her hands and
kissed it.

'What did you say of me?' she asked vehemently. 'He would think, from
the name, that I was a great Dutch frau.'

'I told him,' answered the corporal, 'that madame my wife, living
nearly opposite his house, had watched anxiously from the window the
destruction of his property----'

'Passionately desiring to render him assistance, but incapacitated by
her sex. Did you tell him that?'

'N-n-ot exactly.'

'Why not?'

'Because I did not think it strictly true.'

'Fie! sacrifice your wife to your conscience. Oh, I wish Bruder Klaus
had picked a pocket, or stolen a mother-of-pearl box!'

'I told him that you had preserved from destruction the casket which I
had the honour of returning to him. He was profuse in his thanks, and
he even offered me a turquoise ring for you.'

'Where is it?' asked madame, leaping from the chair; 'show it me
instantly.'

'I refused it.'

'Refused it!' echoed the little woman. Then, throwing up her hands,
she cried, 'Mon Dieu! what a thing it is to be married to the Ten
Commandments!'

'The Sieur Réveillon has promised to call on you and thank you in
person for having saved so valuable a portion of his property.'

'Then I shall get the ring, you shall see!'

'And in the meantime he proposes to render me a service.'

'What?'

'He asked me if there was anything he could do for me. I then mentioned
to him that Gabrielle, who had been servant to Madame Berthier, now
in the Bastille, was desirous of seeing her mistress again, and I
requested him to use his influence with the governor to obtain her
admission to the prisoner. He replied that leave could be obtained
without difficulty, as the lady in question was not a political
offender, but was confined on account of her derangement. It is the
custom at the Bastille for those who are incarcerated to have their
names changed, to facilitate their being forgotten. Thus Madame
Berthier's name has been changed to Plomb. M. Réveillon went at once to
the governor and procured the order for admission, and here it is.'

Gabrielle caught his hand and kissed it gratefully.

'I am ready to take you to the Bastille at once, if you are willing,'
said the corporal. 'Admission is only granted within certain hours.'

Gabrielle, without another word, made ready. She took her basket
with the cat in it, which Madeleine had amused herself with re-dying
saffron, so that the cat was now brilliantly yellow, and taking the
corporal's arm, issued with him into the street.

Madame Deschwanden was in raptures at the idea of hearing from the
girl, on her return, an account of her visit. Her husband, on leaving
the door, beat his forehead with his palm, and said:

'I was a fool to mention the turquoise ring to her. I have not heard
the last of it yet. Whenever she has her tantrums, that ring will be
brought up. Alas! would that I had more discretion, I should not have
mentioned the ring. I was not in conscience bound to do so.'

Deschwanden led Gabrielle out of the street into the court before
the entrance to the prison, occupied by the soldiers. She presented
her order, which had been countersigned by a magistrate, and parted
with the Swiss corporal at the second gate. She was told to cross a
second court, on one side of which stood the governor's house, to the
iron grating which closed the huge gate of the Bastille itself. At
this entrance she was taken in charge by a turnkey, who conducted her
through the long dark vault piercing the block of buildings to the
great quadrangle in the centre of the fortress. This court was formerly
much larger, but it had been cut in two by Sartines, lieutenant of
police in the reign of Louis XV, and a range of offices and prisons, in
a style destitute of architectural pretensions, was drawn across the
court from the Tour de la Chapelle to the Tour de la Liberté. The front
of this new building was decorated with a clock-face, fringed with
sculptured chains, and supported by two figures chained together by the
neck, the feet, and the waist. These two figures at the extremities of
these ingenious garlands, after having moved round the dial, met in
front of it, and formed a knot with their chains and limbs, and their
parting, recommenced their automatonic movements. The artist, guided by
the genius of the spot, had made one of these figures resemble a man
in the bloom of his youth, and the other an aged, decrepit man, with
blanched hair and bent back.

Around this large court rose six towers, each five storeys high. In the
well-court were two more, the tops of which appeared above the roof of
the new buildings. Between the towers of Liberty and la Bertaudière was
the new chapel, and between the latter and the Tour de la Basinière
was the gallery of archives. The ancient gate into the town, now walled
up, stood on the opposite side of the quadrangle, between the Tour de
la Chapelle, where was the oratory, used by the prisoners till the new
chapel was built, and the Tour du Trésor. The guard-house adjoined the
Tour de la Comté.

When the famous provost, Stephen Marcel, in 1377, fortified the old
enclosure of Paris with new walls and double fosses, to protect it
from the Free Companions, who were devastating France, he built a
gate at the east side of the town, which was called the Bastillon
Saint-Antoine. Under Charles VI, towers were added to this gate, and
a fortress was erected on the spot, and called the Royal Castle of
the Bastille. It played a great part in the intestine wars of the
Bourguignons and Armagnacs, each party attaching equal importance to
the possession of the fortress, as it was the key of the city.

The Bastille was not, like the Louvre, and most castles of the Middle
Ages, a square, or a parallelogram of crenelated ramparts, with towers
at intervals, capped with conical roofs and steeples, gay with blazoned
weathercocks, and crested with elegant metal work, but it was an oblong
irregular mass of thick double walls, containing rooms, halls, passages
throughout their length, flanked by eight towers scarcely detaching
themselves from the surface of the curtain, projecting slightly only
from the bed of masonry connecting them, and not surpassing the walls
in height,--a monument black and sinister, whose appearance and history
were alike gloomy.

Under Louis XIV, the Bastille attained its exclusive destination as a
State prison. Cardinal Richelieu did not suffer the rust to gather on
the hinges of its gates; but it was not till the second period of the
reign of the Great Monarch, that this royal château became an awful
gulf swallowing up, year after year, multitudes of unfortunates, of
every rank and station, persecuted and oppressed at the caprice of the
monarch, his ministers, his confessors, and his favourites.

In feudal times, only prisoners of a high rank had been consigned to
the Bastille; but, under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV and Louis
XVI, no citizen, however obscure he might be, could consider himself
safe from these _oubliettes_ incessantly gaping for victims. The action
of the regular tribunals and of the municipal authorities was null in
the presence of the Bastille, which was filled and emptied by order
of the king, without trial. _Lettres de cachet_ given, not only by
his majesty and the ministers, but also by the lieutenant-general of
police, consigned often innocent persons to an unlimited imprisonment,
without a form of trial; so that often a prisoner was ignorant of the
reason of his incarceration.

On the death of Louis XIV, thirty thousand unfortunates were found in
the State prisons; their only crime in the majority of cases was a
suspicion of heresy.

The _lettres de cachet_ did not fall with as great profusion under
Louis XV; but they were given and traded with in the most shameless
manner. The minister La Vrillière, the lieutenants of police Sartines
and Lenoir, placed them at the disposal of any great personage who had
some personal resentment to satisfy, and they were often sold blank, at
high prices, to be filled in by the purchaser with the name of a rival,
or a relation, and Sartines would send blank orders as a New Year's
gift to friends, or to nobles whose protection he solicited. Latude,
of whom mention has already been made, was dragged for thirty-five
years from prison to prison, to satisfy the resentment of a harlot.
Leprevôt de Beaumont was in the Bastille now; he had been there already
twenty-two years,--his crime, having undertaken to denounce before
the parliament of Rouen that iniquitous speculation in grain, known
popularly as the Compact of Famine, by which the corn-factors, men
like Foulon, favoured by government, bought up all the corn in the
land, and retailed it at their own price, so as to keep up the high
rate. Louis XV, interested to the amount of ten millions in the success
of this cruel scheme, shared the profit with the monopolists; Louis
XVI, too honest to participate in this, but too feeble to prevent
its continuance, did not repair the iniquities of his predecessors.
The Compact of Famine still continued; by that means, Foulon had
accumulated an enormous fortune.

The Bastille still received prisoners without trial. The annual
emoluments of the governor amounted to sixty thousand livres. He
had, however, but limited authority. Without an order signed by a
magistrate, he could not permit a prisoner to shave himself, to hear
Mass, to receive visits, to write letters, even to change his linen.
Those incarcerated were usually entered under other names. Their
relations were never informed of their captivity, nor of their death.
If they died, they were buried at midnight, two turnkeys assisting as
witnesses. The dying could not receive spiritual consolations, nor be
attended by a physician, without a superior order.

Whilst we have been describing the Bastille, the turnkey has been
conducting Gabrielle André across the court, then through a door in the
new buildings to a corridor, opening on one side into the dismal yard
at the back, called the Well Court, from a draw-well in the centre,
surmounted by a roof, and decorated with a scutcheon bearing the lilies
of France. On account of the height of the walls, the sun seldom
lighted the soil of this quadrangle, there was not space for a draught,
and consequently the walls were covered with mould and lichens. Fungi
sprang up between the interstices of the stones, a forest of little
toadstools encumbered the ground at the foot of the posts supporting
the roof over the well, and one of these beams was adorned with a huge
yellowish-white fungus, somewhat resembling, in shape and size, an
elephant's ear, which the warders respected as a natural curiosity.
On the opposite side of the corridor to that opening on this cheerless
court, was a range of small doors, numbered with cyphers in white.

The jailer stopped at 35, unlocked the door, threw it open, and
introduced Gabrielle; then said shortly,--'It is permitted you to be
with Madame 35 for one hour;' then he shut and double-locked the door,
and Gabrielle heard his retreating steps and the jingle of keys at his
girdle become gradually less audible.

The cell into which she was ushered was about twenty feet long by
fifteen broad. It was whitewashed, and floored with red-glazed tiles,
over which a piece of carpet had been laid near the bed; a curtain
suspended from a rod by brass rings screened the couch and the
wash-hand stand, and shut off the portion of the room near the door
from that lighted by the window. This lower part of the cell, which by
the curtain was made into a square apartment, was furnished with a deal
table, two chairs, a chest of drawers, and a small fireplace. The room
would have been as cheerful as it was comfortable, but that the window
was high up in the wall, and too small to admit sufficient air. It was
also protected by heavy stanchions, which obscured the light.

At the table, with her back to the door and her face to the light, her
feet on a footstool, sat Madame Berthier, dressed in black, busily
engaged in constructing cats' cradles.

As Gabrielle entered, the unfortunate lady looked hastily round, and
exclaimed:

'Wait! I must get these threads right first. In one moment! See! the
cats' net.'

At the sound of her voice, Gabrielle felt a violent agitation in her
basket; the lid was forced up, and the yellow puss thrust forth its
head, then placed its fore-paws on the edge, looked all round, saw its
mistress, uttered a faint miaw, leaped to the floor, and in another
second was upon Madame Berthier's shoulder.

The cradle was dissolved instantly; with a scream, the lady sprang to
her feet, caught her favourite in both hands, held it at arm's length
above her head, and looking up to it, whirled round the cell, singing
and laughing, and every now and then kissing the cat, and elevating it
again. Her grey hair broke from its fastenings, fell down her back, and
flew around, as she spun about the room.

'My Gabriel! my angel! Look me in the eyes and say you love me. Tell
me, are you well? Yes; I am sure you are. How beautifully you are
dressed in a new yellow coat! Let me see your teeth, are they sound?
And your paws, as soft and silky as ever? My Gabriel!' She hugged the
cat till it screeched with pain.

In one of her twirls, the unfortunate woman cast herself against
Gabrielle, and then, for the first time, she recognized her.

'It is you! Gabrielle, my cat's wife! my friend! How come you here?'

She caught the girl passionately to her heart, and covered her face
with kisses. Then, without notice, her laughter and joy were exchanged
for tears and grief.

'The Beast!' she cried. 'He has shut you up also. Oh, the Beast, the
Beast!' She ground her teeth, curled back her grey lips, her black eyes
darted lightnings, and her nostrils became rigid.

'See this!' she continued, as she opened one of her drawers, and drew
from it a brown velvet jacket, and flung it on the floor; 'this shall
be the Beast.'

She threw herself upon it; with her teeth and nails she worried it as a
dog worries a rabbit-skin; she danced on it and tore it, she bit upon
it and made her teeth meet through it, she ripped the buttons off with
her mouth and spat them about the floor, and then she kicked it round
the room and stamped on it, and beat it with her fist, kneeling upon
it, with her head forward, and her grey hairs falling over her face and
concealing it.

The sight was horrible and revolting, and Gabrielle interfered.

'Madame! dearest mistress,' she said, drawing her hands away from the
now tattered vestment, 'you are quite mistaken. Indeed you are wrong.
M. Berthier has not sent me here; he does not know that I have come
here. I have walked all the way to Paris to see you, and to bring you
your cat.'

'My cat, where is he?' the poor woman exclaimed, starting to her
knees, and looking round. Then, catching sight of the yellow creature,
she held out her hands to him, and addressed endearing terms to him.
Gabriel was frightened, and had mounted the table, where he stood with
his tail erect, staring at his excited mistress.

The peasantess took the opportunity of a change in the direction of the
thoughts of Madame Plomb to remove the garment she had misused, and to
hide it.

After the stream of passionate expressions addressed to the cat had
ceased to flow with the same copiousness and rapidity as at first,
Gabrielle knelt before madame, and laid her hands on her lap.

'Madame,' she said, 'are you tired of being here?'

'Oh, Gabrielle,' answered Madame Berthier, 'it is dreadful. Always
the same white, white walls. Always the same red, red floor. There is
positively never a bit of colour fit to be seen to refresh one's eyes,
except of a sunny evening, when a streak of fire comes slanting in at
that window, and it falls on the wall, and paints a line of orange. I
sit for hours, and wait for it. I say to myself--a few minutes longer,
and then I shall see it. First it comes down on the floor, but the
red tiles spoil it; then it begins to crawl, like a brilliant fiery
caterpillar, up the chalky wall; I laugh and sing with delight till it
reaches the roof, and then it is gone. If you sit just there, you can
see a bit of blue sky, but I take no account of that; I wait for the
streak of yellow flame. What were you saying to me just now?'

'You are very tired of being here, dear lady.'

'Weary of my life. I cannot bear it. I have no one to take the strings
off my fingers; and then, I have been deprived of Gabriel. But I have
had another pet.'

'What is it?'

'Ah! I do not see it often. Once a day. It is a toad; it lives in the
Court of the Well. I walk there for an hour every noon. I might go into
the big court, but I do not care for it; I like the grim well-yard
where my pet is. He sits near a stone trough beside the draw-well.
He has got a blistered brown back. He is such a droll fellow--but I
will tell you something, Gabrielle, between ourselves, I think he is a
devil.'

The girl, who was not without superstitious fears, shrank from Madame
Berthier, aghast.

'Indeed I do,' continued the crazy lady; 'and I will tell you why. I
have felt worse ever since I have known him. Once he looked me in the
face with a knowing expression in his handsome eyes, and he extended
his long arm and put his cold paw here,' she touched her heart. 'He
spread his long fingers over it, and I have felt from that moment
something dreadful there. I cannot tell you what, but you shall see
some day, when I get out of this place.'

'Do you think you will be released soon?'

'I expect from day to day. Every morning I pack up my clothes, and when
it comes to evening I have to unpack them again. But no! why do I hope
to get out? Who will trouble himself about me? Will my father? Not he.
He never did care for me. Will my husband--the Beast?'

With a scream she sprang into the middle of the room, and began to
dance and stamp on the floor where she had mangled the jacket, looking
for it with blazing, eager eyes all the while, in every direction.

'Dear madame, be composed!' said Gabrielle, 'I have something to speak
to you about.'

The unfortunate lady subsided into her chair, and the girl resumed her
place at her feet.

'I want your advice, madame, so much. I wish to do all I can to obtain
your liberation. You have heard how Madame Legros wrought during three
years, and how she succeeded in procuring the release of Latude.'

'Will you do the same for me?' asked Madame Plomb, her leaden face
darkening and becoming purple, as the blood rushed into it.

'Dear mistress, I will do all that I am able to do; I will spare no
trouble, no exertion. I am poor, but so was Madame Legros; I am a
nobody, but so was she. If she was successful, why should not I be so
too?'

'God bless you, dear heart!' said the poor woman, in a tender tone, the
wild light deserting her eyes, and the nervous contraction of the mouth
yielding to a natural softness. She extended her hands over the girl's
head,--Gabrielle was still kneeling before her; and said in the same
low tone, 'God bless you, dear child! And sweet Mother Mary assist you,
and your patron Gabriel protect you.'

Then she asked abruptly in her usual tone, 'Well! what are you going to
do?'

'Madame, I had formed the intention of seeking an interview with the
queen, and imploring her to use her influence with the king, to obtain
for you an order of release.'

'But I am mad.'

'No, no, dearest madame. I know you better. Ill usage has made you very
unhappy; but if you were alone,--away from M. Berthier and your father,
in some quiet place, and I were to attend on you, you would be happy
and well again.'

Joy irradiated the leaden face. The poor woman laughed and clapped her
hands.

'We shall be together in a cottage, with flowers before the door.'

'Surely, madame.'

'And away, far away from Paris and Bernay, where there are trees and
mountains. Gabrielle, my father took me once when I was a little girl
to a beautiful country where there were great mountains, and snow
covered them in the midst of summer; and there were forests there, and
people did not talk French. I ran away and hid among the rocks and
trees. I was a little girl then, quite a little girl; but they could
not find me. I was behind a mossy stone, and I saw them searching, and
they never would have found me, unless I had laughed aloud. We will go
there. I have not laughed for many years; we shall be able to hide away
there, and they would never find us. Of that I am sure. I would not
laugh and let them catch me. We shall go there.'

'Where was that?' asked Gabrielle, her mind recurring to the
Deschwandens, father and son.

'I do not know. I remember, that is all.'

'Was it,' asked Gabrielle, hesitatingly, 'was it, do you think, the
country of Bruder Klaus?'

'I do not know. We shall take Gabriel with us, shall we not?'

'Certainly.'

'And you will be with me always?'

'Yes, I will not leave you, dear, kind mistress, unless you send me
away.'

'That I will never do.'

'When shall we start?'

'Oh, madame! you are not out of this hateful place yet.'

'No,' said the poor prisoner, her face returning to its ashen greyness,
which, in the Bastille, shut out from the sun, had become more livid;
'no, and I have not said good-bye to the Beast yet.'

'Madame!'

'Ay. To the Beast! Oh for that good-bye!'

She threw up her hand, clenched her fist, and gnashed her teeth. At the
same moment voices were heard in the corridor, and the key was turned
in the lock.

Gabrielle rose to her feet, madame caught up the cat, fearing lest the
returning jailer should refuse to leave it with her, when the door
opening revealed the governor and M. Berthier.



CHAPTER XXIV.


The Réveillon riot had caused no anxiety at Versailles; but the
Baron de Besenval and M. de Launay had seen in it the germs of a
more extended and fiercer explosion, and they determined to have the
Bastille placed in such a condition of security and defence, that it
might resist a rising in Paris, having its destruction in view. The
governor knew better than the court how deep-seated was the popular
detestation of the State prison, and he foresaw that the first act
of an aroused populace would be an assault on that monument of royal
injustice.

At the request of the Baron, M. Berthier visited the Bastille to
examine its condition, and ascertain what precautions were necessary.
It was on the occasion of this visit that Berthier was shown into the
cell of his unfortunate wife.

He had been descending the corridor with De Launay, when the governor,
pointing to No. 35, had said, 'Here is the chamber of Madame Plomb,'
whereupon the Intendant had requested to be admitted to see her.

We must say a few words about M. de Launay.

Son of an ancient governor of the Bastille, born within its walls, his
young heart hardened by the habitual sight of misery and injustice, he
was the man of all others a wise king would not have placed in the post
he was destined to occupy.

He began life in a musketeer regiment, then he became officer in the
guards, and afterwards captain of a cavalry regiment. But the Bastille
was his dream, and he was resolved at all costs to become its governor.
He had many motives for this: his father, who had held the post for
twenty-two years, had left a handsome property, which had been divided
between him and his brother, who was in the service of the Prince of
Conti. De Launay hoped to quadruple his fortune at the same source
whence his father had drawn it.

M. de Maurepas, after repeated solicitation, passed him on to the
ministry, after having sounded him and discovered in him the necessary
qualities. Then, using his influence along with that of the Prince
of Conti, gained over by his brother, he succeeded in drawing his
resignation from M. de Jumilhac, the governor at the time, on these
conditions:--De Launay paid M. de Jumilhac a hundred thousand crowns,
and married his own daughter to the son of the latter, and undertook
to make her his heiress. He also promised his brother a pension of ten
thousand livres, in consideration of his having obtained for him the
protection of the Prince of Conti. This expensive bargain placed the
new functionary under the hard necessity of recouping these enormous
sums out of the prison and the prisoners.

One of the scandals of the period was the venality of responsible
offices, even those in the Bastille. From that of the governor down to
the office of turnkey, all were articles of traffic; De Launay sold the
latter situation at an annual rent of nine hundred francs.

M. de Launay was installed in his government of the Bastille in
October, 1776. He had promised the ministers and the lieutenant of
police passive obedience to their orders, their fancies, and their
caprices, and he kept religiously to his engagement. Never was there a
more cringing, obsequious officer. But, as is always the case with such
persons, they revenge themselves for the degradation their servility
brings, by severity towards those subject to them. From the moment of
his entry into office, the most severe and tyrannical despotism was
enthroned in the Bastille; proud and rough towards the subalterns,
he was brutal, arbitrary, and odious to the prisoners; and under the
excuse of precaution for their safe durance, he surrounded their
captivity with a thousand vexations, cruelties, and privations. His
favourite virtue was parsimony. To recoup a hundredfold the price of
the charge he had bought, he himself measured out the water, the bread,
the fuel, and the clothes. When he had not enough prisoners, and the
revenues diminished, he complained, and asked for more. Those under
his care, he retained under a thousand pretexts, or made against them
reports which retarded their release.

The old bastions had been laid out in gardens full of flowers and
fruit-trees and fountains, and in these gardens the prisoners had
been allowed to take the air. But the Marquis de Launay had turned
this ground into fruit and vegetable gardens, which he let; and thus
the unhappy captives were reduced to taking the air on the top of the
towers of the fortress. This, however, was found to demand too close
a watch, and M. de Launay suppressed this privilege also, and those
in custody were reduced to the use of the great court. The court, of
which a description has been already given, was two hundred feet long
by seventy-two feet wide. The walls enclosing it on all sides were
a hundred feet high, so that it was little better than a huge well,
where in winter the cold was insupportable, and in summer the heat was
intense, and was unrelieved by a breath of air. The prisoners took
their turns to walk in this court. Whenever any one crossed the court
(and this was happening continually, as the kitchens and the lodgings
of the officers were in the new buildings erected by M. de Sartines),
a signal was made, and the prisoner was required to dive out of sight
into a cabinet, without light or air, and remain concealed till notice
was given him to come out.

We return now to the point from which we digressed, merely adding, that
Madame Berthier, not being in prison for political reasons, and being,
moreover, the wife of the Intendant of Paris, was treated in every way
better than other prisoners, conformably to her husband's orders. But
for this, Gabrielle would certainly not have obtained permission to
visit her.

M. Berthier stood mute with astonishment in the doorway, contemplating
his wife and Gabrielle André.

'See!' exclaimed madame; 'there, there, there is the Beast! Look,
Gabriel, my cat, that you may not forget him. Is he not ugly? Is he not
stout, and coarse, and bloated? Look at his hideous eyes!'

'You have got a companion!' said Berthier, at last, with his eyes fixed
on Gabrielle. 'How is that, my good friend De Launay?'

'I did not know that you would object,' said the governor. 'You will
surely remember that you allowed some of the servants to visit her
occasionally, and bring her linen and fruit, and trifles to amuse her.
If I am not mistaken, your wishes were express on that point.'

'My dear marquis, this girl is not one of our servants.'

'No,' answered the governor, 'but I understand that she was one till
quite lately. If it is your wish that she be removed, it shall be
complied with at once.'

'By no means. I do not object. Is she not a charming little creature,
my friend? Gabrielle, sweetest! step from behind the curtain. Look how
she blushes, how bewitchingly she hangs her head, what hair, what a
neck, what lovely temples! Dearest! do not be shy. My worthy De Launay
is quite a connoisseur in woman-flesh. Step out and show him your
ankles. Now, marquis, what do you think of my taste?'

Gabrielle drew up her head and glanced at him scornfully; her little
lips quivered with contempt and rage.

'She is out of humour,' said Berthier, laughing still; 'the rogue
cannot twist out of me all the money she wants. She has set her heart
on some diamonds. Now you be judge, De Launay, is she not ten thousand
times more attractive, bewitching, luscious, in her charming peasant's
dress, than in a suit of silk, and with a diamond brooch?'

'Perfectly so,' answered the governor.

'You hear that,' said Berthier, his fat sides shaking; 'you hear that,
Gabrielle. It is the verdict of a man of all men the most competent to
express an opinion on the subject.'

Madame Berthier now started forward.

'You liar, you coward!' she exclaimed, dragging in her hand the old
jacket she had torn. 'See this! I have been mangling it. I thought for
a moment it was you, and I bit it, and scratched it, and stamped on
it, and beat it. Wait till I have the chance of serving you as I have
served this dress. I pray night and morning for the chance, and I dream
that it is about to be answered. I dream--' she put one hand to her
brow, and looked frowning on the floor--'I dream that I hear voices
from all the yards and courts, from all the cells and dungeons--thin
shrill voices, all night long, crying out to Heaven;--the voices have
waxed louder of late, and deeper in tone, and mightier in number, and I
have felt the earth heave, and the walls reel, and the towers stagger.
Every night the voices are louder and more numerous, and now they roar
like thunder, and soon they will rend this prison, and fling its stones
far and wide, and then! then, Berthier, I shall come leaping out from
among the falling blocks, and run straight at you. I await my time.'

'She is raving,' said the Intendant to De Launay.

'Raving! yes, made so by you. But ah! though you have shut me in here,
I shall not be here for long. Perhaps I may be out very soon. When you
least expect me, I may come bounding in upon you, through the door or
the window, or breaking my way up through the floor, or tearing my way
through the ceiling, or burrowing through the walls to get at you.' She
stopped, raised and clasped her hands over her head, and pirouetted
round her chair two or three times; then, fronting her husband, she
continued with a scream: 'I shall be out soon, very soon, and far away
from you and my father, where you will never find me, that I am sure
of, for, though I know the place, I do not know the name of it.'

'And pray, Madame Plomb, how are you going to get out?' asked Berthier,
in a mocking tone; 'are you going to escape through that window, or dig
through six feet of stone wall with your nails and teeth?'

'No,' she answered, slyly; 'there are other ways of getting released.'

'Ah!' said the Intendant, in the same bantering manner; 'you are
depending on my well-known affection for yourself, which will not
suffer me to remain long separated from you.'

'No,' cried Madame Berthier, laughing cunningly; 'I shall not trust to
that.'

'Only one way remains,' observed her husband, rubbing his hands,--'a
way as pleasant to both parties as could be desired,--a method whereby
I shall be saved anxiety on your account, and be placed at liberty to
contract a marriage, to raise, perhaps, my little pet to the position
of wife.'

'What do you mean?' asked madame, sharply, fastening her restless eyes
for the moment upon him.

Berthier tapped the walls with his knuckles.

'Ah!' said he; 'although whitened over there are hard blocks of granite
behind, hard enough to split quickly such a cracked head as yours.
Knock your own brains out against these stones, madame, and none will
be better satisfied than your obedient servant.'

The unfortunate woman set her teeth. The cat was rubbing its head
against her skirt; she stooped and picked it up and held it by the
fore-legs against her breast, with the body hanging down. The cat, not
satisfied with a position which undoubtedly distressed it, miawed; but
Madame Berthier paid no attention to its complaints.

'Indeed,' continued Berthier, 'I have heard--but my good friend will
correct me if I am wrong--that more than one captive here has so
terminated his confinement, and it was greatly to their credit, I
think; it showed a spirit, deserving admiration. Desirous of saving
the privy purse the expense of their keep, they freed the crown, by
their own act, of all anxiety about them. Certainly it cost a trifle to
whitewash over the splashes of blood, where the head had been battered
against the wall, but a few sous would cover that.'

The cat squalled, but Madame Berthier disregarded its cries. She
laughed and glared at her husband, with her head bent forward, and her
grey dishevelled hair falling over her breast and covering the cat.

'If you prefer it,' pursued Berthier, 'there is a strong stanchion in
the window, quite capable of supporting your weight, and you could with
the greatest facility extemporise a rope, surely out of a coverlet,
torn up, or even a garter.'

'No,' shouted madame; 'no, not that way.'

'Then allow me to recommend a fragment of crockery. I have known a man
hack through his windpipe with a sharp potsherd; and what man has done,
woman may do.'

'No,' screamed the leaden woman; 'not so.'

'Then in the name of wonder, how?'

'Ah-ha!' she cried, advancing towards him, and throwing up the cat
into the air and catching it, and swinging it above her head, and then
bringing it back to its former position. 'Ah! have you never heard of
pardons, of orders for release granted by the king?'

'I allow that I have; but I must assure you, dear Madame Plomb, that
there is not the remotest chance of your obtaining one.'

'Not if Gabrielle pleads on her knees with the queen? Gabrielle loves
me; she will do that, she has come to Paris on purpose to do that. She
has got friends who will help her--we shall see! The queen is good,
Gabrielle is earnest. We shall see.'

For a moment the Intendant looked disconcerted. His cheeks, lately
puckered with laughter, hung down. He turned his red eyes on Gabrielle.

'Are you really going to Versailles on such a fool's errand?' he asked.

The girl, though much grieved at the poor deranged lady having
disclosed her secret to the man of all others from whom it should have
been preserved, when thus appealed to answered resolutely, 'By God's
help, I shall!'

'In the devil's name, you shall not,' said Berthier, abruptly.

'Hark! what is that noise?' asked the governor, holding up his finger;
'I have heard it repeatedly.'

The Intendant listened; and directly heard a voice shouting in a
peculiar, unearthly tone. The voice came from without, as though from
some one floating in the air. What the words were that were spoken,
they could not catch. Along with that sound rose inarticulate murmurs,
which were wafted in through the window.

'Have you done?' asked the governor; 'I must make enquiries. Well, what
is it, Guyon?' This question was addressed to a turnkey who came up.

'Monsieur, there is a crowd in the street. There is great excitement.
They are collecting from all quarters.'

'What is bringing them together?'

'Monsieur, I do not know.'

'Curse the fellow! go and see.' The turnkey turned off; he had not
reached the end of the corridor, before another came from that
direction, met him, and ran towards M. de Launay.

'Well!'

'M. le Gouverneur!' said the jailer, 'the Marquis de Sade is
congregating a mob.'

'What is he about? Has he got out?'

'Monsieur, you know that since the cannons on the battlements have been
loaded, he has been interdicted the promenade there, and that he has
been very angry about it.'

'I know, I know, Lassimotte!'

'Sir! he threatened me, that if I did not procure from your honour a
favourable reply to his demand, that he should be allowed to resume his
walk on the towers, he would arouse all Paris.'

'You never told me of this.'

'No, sir; I knew your honour did not want to be troubled with these
messages. If I were to convey to you one-half of those given me----'

'I know; go on with the story. What has he done?'

'Why, you know, monsieur, he is allowed a long tin pipe with a funnel
at the end for emptying his slops from his window into the moat. He has
reversed the tube, and thus converted it into a speaking-trumpet.'

De Launay clapped his hands and laughed.

'Monsieur, he has been shouting for nearly half an hour to the people
in the Rue S. Antoine, entreating them to assist him, crying out that
you were assassinating him, that he was being tortured to death.'

'And the people have heard?'

'Monsieur, we did not know what it was that drew the people together.
No one suspected for a moment----'

'Has the trumpet been removed from him, Lassimotte?'

'Yes, monsieur; the instant we discovered whence the voice came, we
flew to his cell and wrested the instrument from his lips. He struggled
to retain it, but Chouard and I took it from him by force.'

'M. Berthier,' said the governor, 'you must really excuse me; this must
be looked to at once.'

'I am quite ready,' answered the Intendant; 'this girl had better be
removed, had she not? And please remember I have no objection whatever
to her revisiting my delectable wife. Madame Plomb, I bid you a
respectful farewell, and please set your mind at rest upon the little
matter we were speaking about. Gabrielle shall never procure your
release, in the way you mentioned, or in any other.'

'Come!' said the jailer to the peasant-girl, 'it is time for you to be
out of this. Come with me.'

'See her safely through the gates, Lassimotte.'

'Ay, sir!'

'Beast!' shouted Madame Berthier, before the door closed, glaring upon
her husband, and swinging the yellow cat above her head; 'did you want
me to dash my head against the walls, and spatter them with blood and
brains?'

'Certainly,' answered the Intendant, mockingly, as he bowed with his
hand on his heart.

'Or that I should strangle myself with my garters, slung to that
stanchion?'

'Let me assure you that you have quite caught my idea;' with another
bow, and a step back towards the door.

'Or you would have me hack through my throat with a broken potsherd?'

'Delighted,' exclaimed Berthier, standing on the threshold and throwing
his arms apart, and raising himself.

'Then begone,' she screamed. 'I will not see you again, I swear, till
I have your life. If you come to see me here, I will hide my face
from you. Take that to remember me by--go, Gabriel! avenging angel!'
She flung the yellow cat in his face. The beast lit upon his cheeks,
with every claw extended, screaming with fear, and clinging with all
its might, hung there one instant, then dropped, and darting to its
mistress bounded to her shoulder and set up its back and tail, hissing
and swearing.

Madame Plomb saw her husband recoil,--saw lines of crimson streak his
face, heard his yell of pain, followed by a volley of blasphemous
oaths, then the door was shut with a bang, double locked, and she was
left to silence and reflection.

Gabrielle in the meantime had been hurried by the jailer to the gates.
As she issued from them into the street, she saw that it was full of
people in a condition of intense excitement. Every eye was directed
towards the towers, with a look of threatening hate. A deep murmur rose
from the throng, not loud, but intensely earnest.

Corporal Deschwanden caught Gabrielle's arm. He had been waiting for
her.

'Is all right?' he asked, anxiously.

'I fear not,' she answered; and then told him what had occurred.

'Herr Je!' exclaimed the soldier; 'that will never do. If Berthier
knows of your plan, he will take effectual means to stop its execution.
What is to be done? You are not safe. Potts tausend! I must think of
it.'

That evening, an express was sent to Versailles, and at day-break the
Marquis de Sade was removed to Charenton. He was the last prisoner
to leave the Bastille. He had been confined for horrible crimes of
impurity. Being only a moral, not a political offender, he had been
treated with a consideration never met with by those who had roused
the suspicions of Government. He was allowed the walk on the towers
interdicted to others, was permitted to carpet and hang his room with
arras, and to have excellent meals, which he paid for out of his
well-stocked purse.

That cry of his through the extemporised speaking-trumpet echoed
from one end of Paris to the other, and, false as was the statement
he made to the crowd about himself, it was terribly true about his
fellow-prisoners. That cry roused Paris. The trumpet was but of tin,
but it pealed the death-knell of the fortress that had stood four
hundred years.



CHAPTER XXV.


When the Corporal and Gabrielle returned to the house, a council was
held. Percenez, Nicholas, and the women sat upon the information given
them by the old soldier.

Percenez was very decided in his opinion. Berthier, he was convinced,
would take immediate measures to preclude Gabrielle from visiting
Versailles.

This opinion was not shared by all the others. Madame Deschwanden
justly argued, that, unless Berthier were a fool, he would know very
well that an attempt at intervention with the queen must fail. 'But
then,' she added, shrugging her shoulders, 'he may be a fool--most men
are fools!'

Percenez with natural good taste said nothing of the Intendant's
pursuit of the girl, and the reason he had formed, on that account, of
desiring to place her in a security from further annoyance, now that
Berthier knew she was in Paris, and was aware, or could inform himself
at any moment, where she was staying.

The corporal rapped on the table.

'Meal-time!' he said. 'We are late; surely we can talk during dinner,
and thus avoid throwing the routine of the evening out of gear.'

'Oh the wooden, clock-work man!' sighed Madame Deschwanden, rising and
retiring in the direction of the kitchen.

During dinner the colporteur turned the conversation; he had formed his
resolution, and he intended to communicate it privately to the corporal.

'And pray,' said Percenez; 'Nicholas, what is that statue you are
engaged upon now? I have observed it becoming every day more distinct
and life-like.'

'It is a S. Généviève,' answered the young man, slightly colouring;
'you know who she was--a shepherd girl.'

'So I have perceived. For whom are you carving it?'

'For S. Étienne du Mont. It has been ordered long, but I felt no
inspiration till of late.'

'Do you carve the figures without copies or models?'

'I generally have a model; my father or Madeleine stands for me, but
they will not suit all subjects.'

'And this S. Généviève?'

The young man became crimson.

'I thought I traced a resemblance,' said Percenez, slyly. 'Have you
persuaded any one else to stand as a model?'

'No,' answered Klaus, looking down, and faltering; 'I am moulding this
figure from an idea in my own mind.'

'I am thankful,' put in Madame Deschwanden, 'that you are at work upon
a French saint. Those German saints are a disgrace to the Kalendar.
I would not say "Bitte für uns" to them to save my life,--fusty,
beer-drinking, tobacco-smoking fellows!'

'My good wife,' said the corporal, solemnly; 'you quite forget that for
a considerable number of years the blessed hermit Nicholas von der Flue
lived without food. The magistrates of the canton, desiring to verify
the fact of his miraculous life, sent officers, who, for the space of a
month, occupied night and day all the avenues of approach to his cell,
in order that no person might bring provisions. The suffragan bishop
of Constance subjected the brother to a similar test; he made him, on
his obedience, eat a little bread, but the food caused the holy brother
such pains that the bishop desisted. The Archduke Sigismund of Austria
sent, for the same purpose, his physician, in order that he might
attentively observe Nicholas during several days and nights. Frederick
III, Emperor of Germany, also appointed delegates to examine him; but
all these expedients served only to confirm the truth. My wife, it is a
slander on the memory of Bruder Klaus to speak of him as----but I will
not repeat the expressions you employed.'

'What does "Bitte für uns" mean?' asked Gabrielle, timidly.

'It means Pray for us,' answered Nicholas, beaming at her across the
table; 'you would not mind calling on a Swiss saint to pray for you, I
hope?'

'Certainly not,' answered Gabrielle; 'the prayers of such a holy man as
the hermit Nicholas must be of great avail.'

'Bruder Klaus was no ordinary saint,' began the corporal; 'and the most
remarkable evidences have been given of the power of his intercession.
The walls of Sachselen church are hung with votive paintings.'

'Have pity on us!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden, 'and spare us the
catalogue of the Bruder's miracles.'

'Switzerland is especially favoured,' said the soldier. 'It is dotted
all over with places of pilgrimage. Of course you have heard of S.
Meinrad. Ah! he was a great saint. One day he made a fire of icicles,
when he had consumed all his fuel. He preached on the Etzel, that is
a place of great resort, and he founded Einsiedeln. He had two tame
ravens, which fed out of his hand. One winter-day some robbers came
and fell upon the saint, intending to plunder his chapel. When he saw
they were intent on killing him, he lay down between two tapers which
stood on the altar steps, and bade the murderers finish their work. So
they killed him, and the candles lighted of their own accord, and when
people found the body, the tapers were still burning. But do you know
how it was discovered who had killed Meinrad? No! Well, I will inform
you. The ravens flew after the murderers, screaming and pecking at
them; and the folk recognised the saint's birds, and suspecting that
something wrong had taken place, they arrested the men.'

'If you are going to talk of Switzerland, will you be good enough to
let Madeleine and me go?' asked madame.

'By all means,' answered the corporal, rapping on the table.

'Ah!' he continued; 'you should see Maria Sonnenberg! It stands above
the lake Uri, on a precipice, a little white chapel with a red-tiled
roof, and a spirelet--so pretty; and within is the dear Lady who was
found in a rose-bush.'

'So was our Lady of La Couture,' exclaimed Gabrielle.

'The Blessed Virgin of Sonnenberg was discovered by a shepherd-lad. His
sheep strayed--and he followed them, and, lo! there was the beautiful
image in a bush of blushing wild-roses.'

'It was the same exactly with our holy Virgin at my home.'

'How beautiful! Maria sey gelobt!' exclaimed Nicholas, clapping his
hands, as a smile shone from his full honest face; 'you see the Holy
Virgin loves equally our Switzerland and your Normandy.'

'And then,' pursued the corporal, with his usual gravity; 'there is the
Virgin of Sarnen--of the convent there. That is a famous pilgrimage
shrine. It came to pass thus:--One Christmas Eve all the sisters had
gone to midnight mass, and they left one poor nun very sick upon her
pallet in her cell. She was sorely grieved not to be able to assist at
the holy mass, and she prayed with her face towards an image of the
Virgin and Child. And, lo! as she prayed, the Mother raised the sacred
infant, and the Divine Child smiled upon her and gave her the blessing
with his little hand. When the sisters returned from the chapel, they
found the nun in a rapture; and when she had recovered, she told all
that had befallen her. I have seen the very statue----'

'And so have I,' said Nicholas, rubbing his hands.

'Then, again, there is the little chapel of Giswyl. Ah, what a
beautiful spot!' The corporal shut his eyes and was silent for some
moments; then he proceeded:--'Where stands the church of Giswyl now,
was once an ancient castle that looked down upon a small clear lake;
but the water was drawn off by a tunnel in 1761, just about the time
my Nicholas was born, and now I suppose its site is occupied by green
pastures. To the north you see the lovely lake of Sarnen; right and
left are fearful precipices, and at their feet a pleasant meadow-land
dotted over with fruit-trees. If one climbs the rocks by a little path
that threads its way amongst pines and over great fragments of stone,
far up in a lonely spot stands a tiny chapel with a little bell-cot,
all of wood. Inside is a simple altar, and the walls are covered with
votive pictures. Descend a few steps, and under the chapel is a little
cell and a basin of crystal water. How comes the poor little shrine
in that wilderness, far away from men? I will tell you. In 1492, some
thieves broke into the church of Giswyl at night, and stole from it
the pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament. The pyx was of precious
metal, and the men carried it to the spot where the chapel now stands,
then they examined it, and threw the Host upon the grass, after which
they fled towards Pilatus. When the robbery was discovered, all the
country rose, and one of the thieves was caught. He told where the
Sacrament had been cast, and the priest of Giswyl and many of his
people ran into the forest to seek it. As they approached the spot--it
was evening--they saw a beautiful white light streaming between the
pine-boles, and heard strains of enchanting music. They drew nearer,
the music ceased, but there, on the grass, lay the Host, like a fallen
planet illumining the flowers, the fir-boughs and the rocks, with a
wondrous light.'

'Now, corporal,' said Madame Deschwanden, from the window, 'have you
done with your fusty Swiss saints? I don't believe a word about their
miracles.'

'Not believe, madame!' cried the soldier, wheeling his chair round;
'why, my wife, I have seen miracles wrought with my own eyes. When our
Kridli----'

'Kridli! there's a barbarous name!'

'Then let her name be Marguerite, but I must say our Swiss name,
Kridli, is the sweetest; so! when she was a little baby, her eyes were
sore, and inflamed. We took her to the doctor at Stanz, he could do
nothing for her; then we went by boat to Lutzern, and the doctors there
said she must lose her sight; then we took her home to Sachseln, and we
had recourse to the holy Bruder Klaus. We touched her eyes with the hem
of his garment, and on the following day she had perfectly recovered
her sight. In gratitude, we named our next child--this boy here, after
him.'

'Where is Kridli now?' asked Gabrielle. Nicholas, hearing her mention
his sister by her German name, nodded approvingly at her and smiled.

'Kridli is at Lutzern--Lucerne, the French call it,' answered the old
soldier; 'she was a good girl, a sweet, simple girl, as fresh as one
of our wild roses, as good as an angel.' He looked over at Gabrielle;
'sometimes you remind me of dearest Kridli. Poor, gentle Kridli! it
seems to me to be but yesterday that I saw her. She used to have her
hair platted and fastened up behind with broad silver spoons--that is
the fashion in Unterwalden; and with her large white straw hat, she was
enchanting. Poor Kridli!' he wiped his eye. 'Ah! she is happy. She is
in such a pretty place. She lies on the south side of the great church
of S. Leger, which rises with twin taper spires above the lake. There
is a cloister all round the grave-yard, and as you walk in it you look
through windows upon the blue expanse of water and away beyond to the
Engelberg snow-peaks, and on the right stands Pilatus, cutting sharply
against the evening sky. She is happy,' he said, in a low tone to
himself; 'she is at Home, she is in Switzerland;' and then he began to
hum sadly to himself the song, 'Herz, mein Herz.'

'Is it not time for prayers?' asked Madame Deschwanden, snappishly; 'it
is very dark.'

The soldier looked at his watch, started, rapped on the table, and led
the way into Klaus's workshop.

As soon as the ordinary devotions were over, Madame Deschwanden and her
daughter rose. The corporal and his son wheeled round towards the niche
containing the life-sized figure of the hermit of Sachseln, and began
their German orisons to the saints of Switzerland.

Gabrielle hesitated for a moment whether to rise or to remain. Her
heart had softened to the old corporal, and his legends had kindled
devotion towards the wonderful patrons of the Alpine land. She
therefore remained, and directed her eyes towards the grave, sad face
of Bruder Klaus, irradiated by the tiny lamp that hung before it.

In changing his position Nicholas observed the girl; he looked over his
shoulder and nodded, whilst a flash of pleasure lit up his large blue
eyes.

It so happened that on the change in the position of the worshippers,
the son knelt immediately in front of the image of Bruder Klaus, and
that his father was thrown into the background. During the former part
of the prayers, the corporal had occupied the most advanced post,
that nearest the window and the crucifix, but, in turning towards the
hermit, Nicholas was placed in the van. The old soldier, however, still
conducted the worship:--

'Heiliger Meinrad!'

To which, in condescension towards Gabrielle's infirmities, young
Deschwanden responded with emphasis in French:--

'Priez pour nous.'

'Heiliger Gallus!'

'Priez pour nous.'

'Heiliger Beatus!'

'Priez pour nous.'

'Heiliger Moritz und deine Gefährte!'

'Priez pour nous.'

'Heiliger Bonifacius!'

'Priez pour nous.'

'Heiliger Victor!'

'Priez pour nous.'

'Heiliger Bruder Klaus!'

'Priez pour nous.'

'Heiliger Bruder Konrad Scheuber!'

'Priez pour nous.'

'Heilige Verena!'

'Priez pour nous.'

'Heilige Odilia!'

'Priez pour nous.'

An interruption, sudden and extraordinary, broke the litany short off.
Madeleine rushed into the workshop, and whispered--'The police are at
the door; they have come for Gabrielle!'

'Herr Gott!' exclaimed the corporal, starting to his feet; 'what is to
be done?'

'Only one thing,' answered Madeleine, passing Nicholas, and darting
upon the image of Bruder Klaus. 'Remain where you are, Nicholas,
remain, for Heaven's sake.'

She swung the image from its place in the niche.

'Quick! quick, Gabrielle!' she urged; 'come here!' She caught the
frightened girl by the shoulders, and thrust her into the recess lately
occupied by the patron of the Deschwandens, made her stand upon his
pedestal, and said, 'Remain perfectly motionless. Do not move a limb.
Do not look up. Fix your eyes on the floor.' Then, turning to her
brother, she said: 'Pray, pray on in French before your patroness S.
Généviève. Everything depends on you.'

The boy looked wonderingly at her, then at Gabrielle, then upon the
ejected hermit, then at his father.

'Do as she bids you,' said the corporal; 'it is Gabrielle's only
chance.'

The sound of steps was heard on the stairs.

The corporal stalked out, and stood upon the landing. Madame
Deschwanden was before him.

'Ah! Du Pont! are you come at last?' called the little woman. 'You
bad fellow! We waited dinner a full half hour. And now! when all
is over!--But--my faith! it is not Du Pont, but strangers. I am
thunderstruck. But pray come in and take chairs.'

The gendarmes entered the sitting-room, where the relics of the dinner
remained on the table.

'You will allow me to pour you out a glass of wine each, before you
speak,' said madame, not waiting for an answer, but handing each a
tumbler. 'Now, what is it?'

'We have come, with order to bring Mademoiselle André, whom we have
reason to believe is here, before M. Berthier, the Intendant.'

'Mon Dieu!' exclaimed madame, 'how vexing! I have been persuading her
to wait on M. Berthier; she has some request to make of him, I believe,
but I do not know her concerns. Women, however, are wilful. So are men,
too--I have been married twice, and I know them. I have had my share of
experience, and I should say that obstinacy, wilfulness, pigheadedness
are the characteristics of man. But that is neither here nor there.
Take some more wine?--No! Well, the girl would not listen to me. She
has gone off on foot.'

'Gone, madame, where to?'

'Why, to Versailles, on foot, at this time of night. Did you ever hear
anything more absurd, and the country so disturbed? Said I to her, You
cannot walk it--you must know she is quite a stranger in these parts,
and knows no more the way to Versailles than she does to Strasbourg.
If you will wait till to-morrow morning, I told her, I will send Klaus
with you--Klaus is my son--you hear him in his workshop muttering his
prayers. He is a pious fool. But that, again, is neither here nor
there. Well, gentlemen, I said to the girl Gabrielle, If you will go,
stop the night at Sèvres. There is a nice little inn there, the "Golden
Goose,"--do you know it, gentlemen? It is kept by M. Touche Gripé; he
married my cousin, as pretty a girl as you ever set eyes on, but she
has grown fat--and he sells good wine, at moderate rate.'

'Will you be so good, madame, as to let me know when the girl left
here?'

'At five. Curiously enough, I know the time to the minute, for I was
so provoked with her for her obstinacy, that I accompanied her to the
Celestins, scolding and entreating alternately; and when I turned back,
there was a clock in a watchmaker's shop window at the corner struck
the hour. You may have noticed the clock; it is ingenious, there is a
door above it, and a cuckoo comes out and sings. I stood and listened
to the bird. It was droll. The cuckoo threw open its little door, and
walked out, opened its yellow beak, bowed and said, "Cuckoo!" Mon Dieu!
I laughed. It went just so--' she bent her body, opened her mouth, and
called 'Cuckoo!'

It was impossible for the officers to restrain their laughter.

'Well!' continued madame, 'five times did that absurd creature bow and
call. Once more, and I should have died, positively died of laughter.'

'Excuse me, madame,' said one of the gendarmes, 'how was the girl
dressed?'

'She wanted to see the queen,' answered the little lady, 'and nothing
would do for her but to borrow some of Madeleine's smart clothes. She
has dressed herself in a faded rose-coloured silk, and wears a tiny
cap with blue ribands on her head. You cannot mistake the dress. It
was mine in the dear old times when I was a young bride. Ah! those
were times. I made my good man,--I can tell you, he was flesh and
blood, and not wood and clock-work,--I made him buy it for me. Oh!
how I have danced in that pink silk. It is looped at the sides with
rose-coloured bows and some gold thread. When Madeleine,--that is my
daughter,--became old enough to wear it, I made it over to her. And now
that rogue of a Gabrielle André has wheedled her out of it, that she
may appear grand before the queen. My idea is that she will not get
into her majesty's presence. What is your opinion, gentlemen?'

'You must allow us to search the house,' said one of the gendarmes,
looking first at madame, and then at the corporal.

'By all means,' answered the little woman; 'let me show you the way.
Corporal! you need not follow; you can go back to your prayers; I know
that your heart is far away, saying "Bitte für uns" to old fusty,
beer-drinking, snuff-taking, tobacco-smoking, hawking, spitting Bruder
Klaus.' Then, drawing up close to the officers, she said: 'You don't
know what it is to be married to a man who is a Jacquemart. Listen! do
you hear his son? My husband, as you see by his uniform, is a Swiss,
but mind! I am a French woman. Come along, you shall see all!' Then,
throwing open the door of the work-room, she said: 'Pray look in at
that precious boy Klaus at his prayers. He is a carver of saints; and
he is not a poor hand. Some of his images are quite life-like. There
is a S. Christopher; there, in the niche, his patroness, S. Généviève;
there, a snuffy old hermit, Bruder Klaus. But come along, there is
nothing there.'

One of the men, however, remained behind, and looked in every corner,
especially behind the S. Christopher. It never occurred to him to
direct his attention to the S. Généviève, to whom Klaus was addressing
an impassioned prayer:--

'Oh, blessed one! my heart addresses thee; thou alone canst make a poor
disconsolate lad happy. Thou, who hast taken possession of the heart
of thy suppliant, hearken to my prayer. Turn a gracious ear to my
request, heavenly being whom I adore; Angel of Paradise, before whom
I bow, obtain for thy servant that happiness which thou alone canst
grant.'

The search was hurried and superficial, for the man heard madame
ascending the stairs with his companion, rattling away, and making him
burst into a peal of laughter, in which her shrill voice chimed.

The men were shown all over the house, and left it, after renewed
assurances that Gabrielle had taken the road to Versailles, that she
was sure to put up at the 'Golden Goose,' at Sèvres, and that she was
equipped in pink silk, somewhat faded, and a hat with blue ribands.

'Now, then,' said Madame Deschwanden, when she had seen the backs of
the gendarmes, 'I have sent them to the sign of the Goose, indeed.
Nice-looking fellow the taller one, was he not, Madeleine? What superb
moustaches! I could scarce keep my fingers off them. And his eyes!
They were the eyes of a seraph. They were men, too--men of courtesy
and breeding; they saluted me before they left the house, first on one
cheek and then on the other, in the most accomplished manner, and not
on the mouth, as does a German clown. But go! Madeleine, release S.
Généviève, and replace the Bruder. Mon Dieu! I could hardly refrain
my laughter, when I saw our good owl Klaus at his devotions, and
the Bruder standing on one side and staring in his stolid German
fuddle-headedness, unable to make out how he had tumbled out of his
niche, and a woman had got into it.'

'What is to be done?' asked the corporal, running his fingers through
his hair.

'You need not be anxious,' said Percenez; 'I have already resolved to
take Gabrielle to Versailles.'

'But I have told the men--men, indeed! they were angels--that they were
to look for the girl on her way there.'

'We can go in a hackney coach. They will not suspect her of being in
that. To Versailles we must go, and Gabrielle must see the queen at
once, and then return to Bernay.'

'The king and queen are at Marly,' said Madeleine; 'I have ascertained
that to-day. To-morrow is my day for taking bouquets to the royal
family; I shall go to Marly, and Gabrielle can accompany me.'

'To Marly!' exclaimed Percenez; 'that is better still.'

'Well,' exclaimed madame, suddenly turning upon Klaus, 'has S.
Généviève answered your prayers? They were impassioned enough,
especially for a German-Swiss.'



CHAPTER XXVI.


The palace of Marly is no more. It was built by Mansard for Louis XIV,
and was architecturally a little pretentious, and very ugly. Louis,
finding the great Versailles he had created too splendid a world, built
Trianon as a refuge from it; but the world flowed towards Trianon,
and then he fled to Marly; not that he hated the world and its pomp,
but that every man, even a Grand Monarque, loves to snatch a moment
or two of tranquillity, and shake off his starched ruffles and stiff
court-dress, that he may stretch his limbs at ease, forget politics,
even forget pleasure, and do nothing and think of nothing. Marly was
to be the sans souci of French royalty; but care was not to be evaded,
it pursued the great Monarch there, and there also it fastened on the
little king.

St. Simon relates that in the construction of Marly, whole forests
of full-grown trees were brought from Compiègne, and that as they
died, they were replaced by others; extensive tracts of copse were
converted into lakes and ponds, and then, at the caprice of the king,
were reconverted into shady groves, and all to adorn a small villa in
a contracted valley, in which Louis might pass a week or fortnight in
the course of the year.

To Marly, Louis XVI had been hurried by the queen, that, in its
comparative quiet and retirement, she might be able to mould him to her
will, or rather to the will of that party whose interests she had at
heart.

Much cruel slander has been cast upon the memory of the unfortunate
queen; her moral character has been defamed, her virtues called in
question. This has been as unjust as it is untrue. Marie Antoinette
was a good wife and a good mother. Her fidelity to her husband and
her affection for her children should never have been doubted. The
hatred which she inspired caused every evil to be believed of her, and
those, whose interest it was to stir up disaffection, were not slack in
spreading calumnious reports, which everyone retailed and some believed.

Louis, amiable, simple and weak, mistrusting his own opinion, was a
puppet in her hands. He loved his wife passionately, and trusted her
implicitly.

She, loving pleasure above all things, cared only to be the most
brilliant centre of a brilliant circle. She wanted the treasury
to be full, that she might lavish gifts on her friends, and live
extravagantly herself.

Sometimes she acquiesced in reforms, when they appeared inevitable;
more often, when she thought the royal authority was menaced, she
restrained the king, and drove away the popular ministers.

The queen was walking on the terrace at Marly, with her inseparable
friend, the Princess de Lamballe, a little fair-haired, soft-eyed,
pretty creature, and Madame Elizabeth, the sister of the king, who had
left her charming villa at Montreuil to assist the queen in turning
Louis from the Liberal party towards that of the Court.

Madame Elizabeth was a noble woman, with a firm lip and eye, very like
her brother, but with a refinement and a determination foreign to his
face. None doubted the purity of her intentions, and her devotion to
what she believed to be the right cause, though, unfortunately, she was
mistaken in her appreciation of events.

Afterwards, when the king and queen were in peril, and all their
friends took refuge in voluntary exile from probable death, she
hesitated for a moment whether to follow her aunts or to remain with
the prisoners.

'What! will you desert us?' asked the queen. Elizabeth instantly
resolved on sharing their fate; and on the 9th May, 1794, her head fell
on the scaffold.

'There is my little flower-girl,' said the queen, as Madeleine Chabry
appeared with her basket of roses, and Gabrielle near her; 'but do
look, sister, at the funny little peasantess at her side!'

'She is a Normande, your majesty,' said Mademoiselle de Lamballe; 'I
know the cap well enough.'

'It is picturesque,' observed the queen; 'I should like to examine it
closer. Suppose I were to adopt it, and set the fashion?'

The hint was sufficient. Marie Thérèse de Lamballe ran towards the
girls, and bade them approach the queen.

Poor little Gabrielle was bewildered by what she saw. On entering
the park, her eyes had wandered down the alleys to the fountains
and statues terminating them; but when she stood on the terrace and
looked down the twelve avenues, each leading to a temple of one of the
zodiacal signs, which Mansard had designed in compliment to Louis XIV,
who was the central sun in his shrine of Marly, she held up her hands
and laughed with delight.

'Hush!' said Madeleine; 'there is the queen.'

'But where is her crown?'

'Oh! she forgot it and left it under her pillow, when she woke this
morning.'

Gabrielle folded her hands and stood still, with her large eyes staring.

'See!' exclaimed Madeleine; 'she is sending for us.'

'Her majesty desires you to wait on her,' said the Princess de
Lamballe; 'bring your flowers, Madeleine, and let the little Norman
girl accompany you. What is her name?'

'Mademoiselle,' said the girl Chabry; 'my cousin is called Françoise
Rolin.'

Gabrielle looked round at Madeleine with surprise, but the queen's
flower-girl repeated, fixing her eye steadily on her, 'Françoise Rolin.'

'Well, follow me, my girls,' said the princess.

When they stood before the queen, Madeleine bent, as she was
accustomed; but Gabrielle, unacquainted with etiquette, looked
earnestly in the face of Marie Antoinette.

The queen smiled. The expression of the young countenance was one of
simple admiration.

'Oh! how beautiful you are, madame!' escaped involuntarily from the
lips of the peasantess.

The queen was pleased; a little colour rose to her cheek, and she held
out her hand, which Gabrielle kissed reverently.

'It is not polite to flatter any person to her face,' said Marie
Antoinette; 'but, as you have broken rule, I must follow suit, and
assure you that you have a charming little face. What is your name,
mignonne?'

'Her name, if it please your majesty, is Françoise Rolin,' answered
Madeleine.

The queen turned to her and said, sharply, 'When I speak to you, answer
me. I addressed my question to this child. Is she any relation of
yours?'

'Your majesty, she is my cousin.'

'And where do you live, mignonne?' she asked of Gabrielle.

'Madame, at Bernay.'

'Bernay,' echoed the queen; 'where is that?'

'Madame, it is in Normandy.'

'Ah! you are a brave Norman, then?'

'Yes, madame.'

'How long have you been in Paris?'

'Madame, ever since the end of April.'

'Alas!' said Marie Antoinette, with a sigh; 'you little bird of
ill-omen, you came fluttering towards the capital to announce the
coming on of care and worry. Who knows but you may have come here
to Marly to give omen of more care and more worry, and perhaps of
disaster?'

'No, dear, beautiful queen!' cried Gabrielle, looking full in her eyes;
'I should cry my eyes out if I thought so.'

'Why do you call me "dear?"' asked Marie Antoinette, with an accent of
sadness; 'your people do not generally express much affection for me.'

'My people!'

'Well, well; I mean the people,--the mob, the lower orders.'

Gabrielle remained silent.

'What brought you to Paris?' again asked the queen; 'have you come like
little David, in the naughtiness of your heart, to see the battle?'

'Madame!'

'I asked you a simple question,' said the queen, petulantly.

'Her majesty asked you why you left Normandy and came to Paris,' said
Marie Thérèse de Lamballe.

Gabrielle fell at the queen's feet.

'Dear, beautiful madame!' she cried, raising her hands and her eyes,
which filled instantly with tears; 'I came to see you.'

The queen surprised, and by no means offended, looked at her with
benevolence; this encouraged Gabrielle, who pursued,--'Madame! I had a
dear mistress, one so kind, so good, and so gentle; she loved me, and I
loved her. I was not long with her, but that was quite long enough for
her to have gained my heart; and then, madame, she had no one else to
love, except yellow Gabriel.'

'Yellow what!' exclaimed the queen.

'Her cat, madame,--she had dyed it saffron; and she was passionately
attached to it. Then, poor thing, she had nothing else to love,--no
little child to hug, no sisters to confide to, her mother dead, and her
father so cold and hard and dreadful.'

'Why, what was there dreadful about him? Jump up, don't kneel there.'

'Please let me remain here, dear, good queen; I used to kneel before
my dear mistress and talk to her, and she would console me in my
dreadful troubles.'

'Were your troubles very bad?'

'Oh, madame!' she said, wringing her hands; 'my poor father!'

'What of him?'

'Madame, he hung himself.'

The queen recoiled, shocked and pained. With tenderness, she stooped
over the girl, and said, 'I am sorry to have distressed you by asking
that question; go on with your story about the mistress. What was she
like?'

'Madame, do you mean in disposition or in appearance?'

'You have told me that she was good and kind; was she old or young,
handsome or plain?'

'Oh, madame, she was like lead.'

'What do you mean, Françoise, my girl?'

'Her face was like lead,--the colour of lead, blue-grey.'

'My God! how dreadful.'

'And that was why her husband hated her, and teased her beyond
endurance. Besides, he was a bad,--oh! such a wicked man.'

'Where is the poor lady now?' asked the queen.

'In the Bastille.'

The queen started, and Madame Elizabeth and the Princess de Lamballe
looked at one another. A cold shadow passed over the queen's face.

'Well,' she said, in an altered voice; 'what do you want now?'

'I want to get her out of that horrible prison.'

'Indeed!'

'Yes, madame, with your kind help.'

'Do not count on that.'

'But, madame, when you know all the circumstances.'

'Tell me the lady's name.'

'She is Madame Berthier de Sauvigny, wife of the Intendant of Paris.'

'Oh, indeed!'

'Come here, little girl,' said Madame Elizabeth, stepping forward;
'come with me apart and tell me the whole story, and I will talk to her
majesty about it.'

'Do go, Elizabeth,' the queen said; 'but give her no hopes. Now,
Madeleine, let me see your bouquets.'

Whilst the queen was selecting a bunch of flowers which pleased her,
Monseigneur de Narbonne approached from the house, and stood at a
little distance, after having made a formal bow.

'Ah, monseigneur,' said the queen; 'do come here and choose me a
bouquet. We want your opinion on their respective merits. I like this
one, and Mademoiselle de Lamballe prefers that.'

'Whichever your majesty prefers is sure to be the most beautiful,' said
the bishop, placing his hand on his breast and bending.

'No compliments!' exclaimed Marie Antoinette; 'I have had several paid
me already by an untutored mouth,' and she nodded towards Gabrielle.

'I have a few remarks I desire to make to your majesty,' said the
bishop, with another bow; 'if your majesty will allow me to make them
in private?'

'Mademoiselle de Lamballe can be no hindrance to your speaking, my
lord,' said the queen; 'you have some news from Versailles.'

'I have,' answered the bishop.

'Good or bad? but,' added Marie Antoinette, shaking her beautiful head,
'of course bad.'

'Very bad; indeed, most serious,' said the prelate.

'And my influence with the king is wanted?'

'My royal mistress, unless that influence which your virtue and your
charms unite to make irresistible, be exerted to the uttermost,
everything will be lost.'

'What is the news, then?' she asked, somewhat impatiently, for the
fulsome flattery of the bishop was too much even for her to endure.

'I have just received news by special messenger from the cardinal, that
the clergy are resolved on uniting with the Commons. He says----'
the bishop drew a letter from his pocket; 'he says:--"I will do the
best I can to protract the business, so as to postpone the vote till
to-morrow, but I have no hope of putting it off later. The Abbé Maury
is speaking against time, and that demagogue Lindet, your Évreux man,
is branching off into all kinds of irrelevant subjects; but I insist,
the union will be voted by a majority; I leave it to you to communicate
with her majesty and consider whether a bold stroke of policy is not
the only resource left us. The Archbishop of Paris and I shall post to
Marly the moment we are released." Such is his message; and I venture
to express my humble opinion that it contains a warning of the most
serious description.'

'And if the union does take place?' said the queen, stamping her foot
on the gravel, and plucking at a rose in the bouquet she had selected.

'If the union takes place, everything goes. Remember, M. Necker
persuaded his majesty to consent to the doubling of the Third Estate.
Therefore, the Commons will have a majority over the two other orders;
and remember that, once united with the Commons, more than half the
clergy will oppose all privileges and break down all rights, so that
the last check is removed from the Assembly, which seems to me to be
whirling down-hill into sheer democracy as fast as it can go.'

'Go on,' said the queen, pouting.

'The fault lay with M. Necker at the first, in giving to the Commons a
double representation.'

'I always thought so,' exclaimed Marie Antoinette.

'An immense importance and preponderance was given to the lowest house,
to those who had nothing to lose and much to gain by a revolution.
The popular will, which first insisted on a convocation of the
States-General, which then demanded a doubling of the representation
of the mob,--the nobodies, clamours now for the union of the orders.
The largest body always attracts the smaller ones to it. Now that the
equipoise is disturbed, there is of necessity a gravitation towards the
compact mass of the Tiers. That house which feels it most is the house
of the Clergy, the majority of the members of which are bound up in
interest rather with the people than with the aristocracy. The wound
opened on the first day of session, and the cardinal had much ado to
hold the lips together. Now, healing it is impossible. What course lies
open? One only, if the crown and the coronet are not to be trampled
under foot by the Assembly.'

'You exaggerate, monseigneur.'

'I hope sincerely that I do, your majesty; but believe me, I am
sincere. Judge, I pray you, for yourself. At present, the king is
supported by the great body of the nobles, and by the heads of the
Church, who are ready to resist any encroachment on his prerogative;
but if you allow this breakwater to be blown into the air, the waves of
popular opinion will be allowed to burst over the throne with nothing
to protect it from violence and to preserve it from wreck. Excuse my
vehemence, I speak strongly because I feel strongly. The bough on which
you are seated is being sawn through. Necker supplied the saw when he
called together the States. Does your majesty ask what is to be done?
One thing alone can be done,--insist on the separation of the orders.'

The queen looked down on the gravel and mused. The bishop continued:
'War has now been declared. M. Necker has allowed the orders to try
their arms, and now they have proclaimed war and no quarter. He has
temporised, he has left the orders to themselves, and by so doing, he
has assured the victory to the strongest. I believe he has, throughout,
determined that the Third Estate should conquer the others. How else
explain his silence on the subject of the separation or union of the
houses? His attitude has been one of indecision, and that indecision
has been taken advantage of as, I think, he intended. The nobility have
declared in their house that the separation of orders is a fundamental
principle of the constitution. They have refused to give their pure
and simple adhesion to the conciliatory plan proposed by his majesty.
On the other hand, the Third Estate has taken a decisive line; it
has constituted itself a National Assembly, has summoned the other
orders to attend, and has proclaimed itself the sole representative
of the French nation. It is a double declaration of war. Each party
has taken up a position. The time for arbitration is past, utterly and
irrevocably past.'

'I see,' said the queen, sharply, raising her head, and showing a face
crimson with anger. 'You would have the king not arbitrate, but give in
his adhesion to one side or the other.'

'Your majesty has understood me. He _must_ do that; he cannot hesitate;
he must choose his side, with the people or with the nobles. He must
yield at once and become nothing, or he must strike a _coup d'état_ and
make himself master of the field.'

'Yes,' said the queen, vehemently; 'I am satisfied, it must be so.'

'It is probable that a bold stroke may establish the position of the
throne, which has been somewhat shaken.'

'It shall be done,' the queen said, passionately; 'never, never
shall it be said of Louis XVI that he flung his crown into the dirt.
In a weak moment he yielded to that banking fellow Necker, and he
surrendered a part of his supreme, absolute authority to a convocation
of the people, and already has he learned to rue it. Well says the
Gospel, "give not that which is holy to the dogs;" and what more holy
than the royal prerogative,--"lest they trample them under their feet
and turn again and rend you."' Marie Antoinette was thoroughly roused,
her pride was stung; she walked up and down the terrace with heaving
bosom, flushed face, and sparkling eye, turning every moment to the
bishop to utter some caustic remark.

'When Mob is king, my Lord, what will become of us, the anointed of
God? We shall have to fly the country, and who will take us in?'

'If such a dire event were to happen,' answered the prelate,
obsequiously, 'our ancestral castle of Lara should be at your majesty's
disposal.'

If the bishop had seen the expression of contempt which came over the
queen's face at his absurd remark, he would have instantly withdrawn.
He saw her turn abruptly from him and converse with her friend, but he
was too self-sufficient to suppose for a moment that he had offended
her.

Madame Elizabeth came up, leading Gabrielle by the hand.

'I cannot attend to her story now,' said the queen.

'But it really is touching, and it may interest you,' said the sister
of Louis; 'do let her tell it to you in full,--it is quite a romance.'

The queen tossed her head. Madame Elizabeth saw that something was
wrong, but what it was she did not know.

'Berthier!' said the queen; 'the wife of Berthier in the Bastille,
that is it. Monseigneur,' her lips curled; 'this little idiot has come
from--what was the name of the place?'

'Bernay,' answered Elizabeth.

'Has come all the way from Bernay; and what do you think is her object?
She has read the fable of the mouse and the netted lion, and she thinks
she can get the wife of the Intendant of Paris out of the Bastille.'

'I venture to suggest that she should be driven out of your majesty's
presence,' said the bishop; 'this is too audacious, too insolent to be
tolerated. We are beginning to discover that the people are utterly
lost to the sense of decency and modesty. Let her be turned out.'

'Not if I choose to listen to her history,' answered the queen,
sharply, glad to cross her chaplain, whom she despised, whilst she
sought to retain him about her.

'By all means,' said De Narbonne; 'but if your majesty will condescend
to allow me to make a remark,--I am well, I may say very well,
acquainted with M. Berthier, and his most amiable father M. Foulon,
Bernay being in my diocese, and my desire ever being to make myself
acquainted with all the influential laity in it. I have seen much of
those two most estimable gentlemen, and I appreciate their urbanity of
manner equally with their moral excellence.'

'That is rather a different account from what we have received from
this girl,' said the queen; 'perhaps you are inclined to take too
favourable a view of their conduct. What about Madame Berthier? Do you
know her?'

'I cannot say that I know more of her than this, that she is a maniac,
and as such is obliged to be kept in custody. Berthier himself told me
once that she assaulted him with a knife.'

'Madame and Monsieur!' exclaimed Gabrielle; 'you do not know the reason
of that. I was there when that took place; she defended me.'

'Defended you!' echoed the queen; 'who did she defend you from?'

Gabrielle became crimson; she hung her head and whispered, 'from her
husband.'

'This is insufferable,' said the bishop; 'Berthier is my friend, and
I will answer for his conduct. If your majesty were to listen to all
the slanders that are cast against their betters and superiors by the
rag-tag of the lower orders, you would become a revolutionist.'

'Monsieur! Madame!' pleaded Gabrielle; 'ask Madame Berthier herself if
it be not true; ask M. le Curé Lindet!'

'What!' the bishop turned upon her savagely, whilst his red face became
purple,--'what about _him_?'

'Monsieur le Curé received me into his house when I ran away; he knows
all about me, and about the truth of what I say.'

'Enough, amply enough to satisfy me,' said the prelate, in a loud
voice, as he scowled upon the frightened girl; 'I know you now. Go
from this terrace instantly!' He turned towards the queen, composed
his face, and said, as calmly as he could, 'Your majesty must really
not see any more of that unfortunate girl. On her account, I have had
to inhibit one of the priests in my diocese,--the very priest, by the
way, of whom the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld speaks in his letter as
a demagogue,--a priest elected by the malcontents to represent them in
the States-General,--a man without principle and without morals,--a
turbulent leveller, and a violent democrat.'

'Good, dear queen!' cried Gabrielle, casting herself once more at the
feet of the royal lady; 'do not believe him, listen to me! Pray obtain
the release of my dear mistress from the Bastille!'

Marie Antoinette looked at her for one moment with coldness and with
disgust, then turned her back upon her and walked away.

Madeleine waited till the queen and her party had passed to the farther
end of the terrace, and then running to Gabrielle, she caught her up
in her arms, kissed her, and drew her away. 'You have tried your best
in one quarter,' she said; 'do not despair, if that be closed to you.
Another may open ere long. You have appealed in vain to the majesty
of royalty; let your next appeal be to the majesty of the people, and
that, I promise you, shall not be in vain.'



CHAPTER XXVII.


That evening a cabinet council was held at Marly. There were present M.
Necker, Minister of Finance; M. de Barentin, Keeper of the Seals; M.
de Puységur, Minister of War; MM. De Montmorin, De Saint-Priest, De la
Luzerne, and De Villedeuil.

It was obvious to everyone that affairs had reached a critical point,
and that the decision of the king must now turn the scale.

The Minister Necker, seeing that the royal intervention was necessary,
had formed a project of sufficient boldness to arrest the development
of that Revolution which some began to fear was on the eve of breaking
out. He proposed that the king should, in a royal session, order the
reunion of the three houses for the purpose of discussing measures of
common interest; but privileges, rights attached to fiefs, &c., were to
be discussed separately. However, the king was to promise the abolition
of all feudal privileges, such as the _corvée_, mortmain, &c., equal
admission of all Frenchmen to civil and military offices by merit, and
not by private patronage; also equality of taxation; he was to assure
to the States-General a share in the legislation, especially in the
measures calculated to touch individual liberty, the liberty of the
press, the reform of civil and criminal codes, and in the levying of
taxes.

If Necker's project had been accepted frankly, there is no reason to
doubt that the establishment of a constitutional monarchy upon the
English model would have been the extreme result of the convocation of
the States-General; but it was not accepted.

In the cabinet council of the 19th, there was apparent a general
disposition to accept the proposal of the Minister of Finance, with
slight modifications. The king appeared to be liberally inclined.
Necker urged the importance of coming to an immediate decision, as time
was of value. A majority of the ministers strongly favoured the scheme,
and Necker hoped to see it approved and adopted that night; but at
the last moment, whilst the portfolios were being closed, one of the
royal servants entered and whispered to the king, who rose instantly,
commanding his ministers to remain in their places.

M. de Montmorin, who was sitting by the side of Necker, said to him,
'We have effected nothing; the queen alone could have ventured to
interrupt a Council of State; she has been circumvented by the princes.'

When the king returned, after a delay of some minutes, it was to
suspend the council, leaving everything undecided, and postpone a final
settlement till the morrow.

When the council met again, it was weighted with the Count d'Artois and
the Count of Provence.

The conservative party triumphed, and thus deliberately rejected the
plank Necker offered them.

To return to Versailles. On the night of the 19th, the king had
resolved on closing the States-General till he summoned it on the 22nd
to a royal sitting.

At six o'clock in the morning of Saturday, the 20th, M. Bailly,
President of the National Assembly, received a letter from the Marquis
de Brezé, Grand-Master of the Ceremonies, of which this is a copy:--

 'Versailles, 20th June, 1789.

 'The king having ordered me, monsieur, to publish by heralds his
 majesty's intention of holding, on the 22nd of this month, a royal
 sitting, and in the interim, a suspension of the Assemblies, that the
 preparations necessary for the halls of the three orders may be put in
 hand, I have the honour of announcing the same to you.

 'I remain, with respect, sir,

 'Your very humble and obedient servant,

 'The Marquis de Brezé.

 'P.S.--I think it would be as well that you should kindly charge the
 secretaries to look after the papers, lest they should get scattered.
 Will you also kindly give me the names of the secretaries, that I may
 ensure their admission? the necessity of not interrupting the workmen
 requiring me to forbid permission to every one to enter.'

To this the president replied:--

 'I have received, as yet, no order from the king concerning a royal
 sitting, or concerning the suspension of the Assemblies, and my duty
 is to betake myself to that Assembly, which I have summoned for eight
 o'clock this morning.

 'I am, sir, &c.'

In reply to this letter, the Marquis de Brezé repeated that he had
received orders from the king to have the hall prepared for a royal
session, and to close it against everyone.

In the meantime, an immense crowd had assembled in the Avenue de Paris
and the Rue des Chantiers to see and cheer the clergy as they entered
the hall to unite with the Third Estate. The delegates began to arrive
at half-past seven, and at a quarter to eight Bailly appeared with an
agitated face in time to see a detachment of French guards march into
the hôtel of the States-General and take possession of it. Bailly went
off to consult some friends, and did not return till nearly nine, when
he presented himself at the door of the hall and demanded admittance.

The officer in charge, the Count de Vertan, courteously declined to
admit him and the rest of the deputies, having received strict orders
from head quarters.

M. Bailly, with difficulty, obtained permission to enter a cabinet
adjoining the entrance, to draw up a protest against the exclusion of
the Assembly. The Count de Vertan then admitted the secretaries to
remove the papers. They found the major portion of the seats removed,
and all the avenues of the hall guarded by soldiers.

The excitement without became intense, and the streets rung with
remonstrances and protests against an arbitrary authority which
had thus insulted the representatives of the people. Bailly, with
difficulty, by standing on a flight of steps and shouting, collected
the delegates together; he then urged on them to remain till some place
suitable for continuing their meeting should present itself.

'To Marly!' shouted some. 'Let us go beneath the walls of the château,
and hold our session there. Let us show the proud Court that the Third
Estate is not to be humbled with impunity.'

'To Marly!' called others. 'Yes, we will march there at once, and make
the king hold his royal sitting amongst us, assembled in the open air.'

'Live the king!' was shouted; 'he is managed by our enemies. The queen
poisons his mind, but his heart is with the people.'

'Let us go to the Place d'Armes!' cried others.

'To the great Gallery!' was another suggestion; 'to the gallery where
the execution of him who pronounced the sacred word LIBERTY was so
lately signed.'

The mass of people began to roll towards the palace of Versailles. 'In
another twenty-four hours,' says Grégoire in his Mémoires, 'bullets
would have been flying against the old Court den.'

At this moment Bailly reappeared. He had secured the Tennis Court
in the Rue S. François of old Versailles; it was Dr. Guillotin's
suggestion.

Of all the monuments in Versailles, that old, plain, unfurnished Tennis
Court is the most interesting. The Englishman visiting Versailles
should not forget that the immense palace is but a monument of
despotism;--that its grandeur, such as it is, cries aloud of a pride
and selfishness so alarming, that Louis XIV burnt the bills for its
erection, not venturing to allow them to be seen, whilst France was
starving and sinking under a load of debt; while the Jeu de Paume, as
the birthplace of the nascent liberties of France, humble and unadorned
as it remains, is worthy of his most reverent regard.

It was a spacious room, without true windows, but with large openings
netted over, which admit light, air, and rain. The walls, covered with
yellow wash, were festooned with cobwebs, the roof was unceiled; the
floor rudely laid with common pavement, and unprovided with seats.

A chair was borrowed from the owner of the Tennis Court for the
president, but Bailly declined it. A table was brought in; the
secretaries seated themselves at it, and the president stood on a
bench. Two deputies stationed themselves at the door to keep it,
but were speedily relieved by the keeper of the Tennis Court, who
offered his services. Couthon was brought in on his crutches, and
to him the seat of the president was given, in consideration of his
infirmities. Grégoire, with his beautiful eyes alight with animation,
entered, followed by four other curés, Besse, Ballard, Jallet, and
Lecesve, in their black cassocks and cloaks. Rabaud-Saint-Étienne,
the Calvinist minister, was there, dressed in the uniform of the lay
delegates,--black coat, black waistcoat, black knee-breeches, and black
stockings. Dom Gerle, the Carthusian, was also there, with shaven
head, and white serge habit. Robespierre with his needle eyes, and
retreating forehead--Mirabeau shaking his Medusa-like head and locks,
and stamping with indignation--Mounier, prim and composed--Buzot, his
long face composed into a contemptuous smile, wearing his natural dark
hair divided over his brow, his heavy lids lifted a little to dart a
scornful glance around--Sieyez frozen as ever.

Bailly, rising, said, in a voice faltering with agitation,--'Gentlemen,
there is no need for me to give expression to the feeling dominant in
every breast. I propose that we deliberate on the part we should take
in a time so beset with storms.'

Mounier, standing on a form, said:--'It seems to me most strange that
we, the representatives of France, should find our hall occupied
by armed men, that we should be cast adrift in the streets without
shelter, that no official notice should have been sent to our
president, for I cannot regard the communication of the master of the
ceremonies as a notice;--that we should be obliged to take refuge in
this old tennis-court for want of a better room, in order that we may
continue our labours. I think all this is more than strange: it is a
proof to us that the Court party are resolved on wounding us in our
rights and our dignities, that they are determined by their intrigues
to exasperate the king against us, that they are bent on trampling the
liberties of the people under their feet. I propose, in the face of so
compact and resolute an opposition, that the representatives of the
nation should take a solemn oath to cling together till they have given
to France a constitution.'

This proposition was warmly received. An oath was drawn up, and Bailly,
mounting on the table, read it aloud:--'We swear never to separate from
the National Assembly, and to meet wherever circumstances shall permit,
till the constitution of this realm has been established and affirmed
on solid foundations.'

Instantly every arm was raised towards Bailly, and every mouth took
up the formula; and the mob without burst forth into shouts of 'Vive
l'Assemblée! Vive le Roi!'

On the morrow, the road to Marly was thronged with nobles and bishops
on their way to the king to beseech him to restrain the audacity of
the commons. A small minority protested against royal intervention; it
was composed of forty-seven members, the Dukes of Liancourt and of La
Rochefoucauld, Lally-Tolendal, the two Lameths, Duport, and La Fayette.

The royal sitting fixed for Monday, the 22nd, was postponed to the
23rd. All kinds of mean intrigue were had recourse to to prevent a
meeting of the Third Estate and the union with it of the house of the
Clergy on the Monday. The Count d'Artois sent to the owner of the
tennis-court and engaged it for the day, so that the Assembly was again
turned adrift in the streets of Versailles.

Lindet, mounting a cart which was passing, but which had been arrested
by the crowd that encumbered the street before the tennis-court, cried
aloud:--

'To the church of S. Louis! Where more suitable to see the reunion of
the orders?'

The cry was caught up and flung down the street,--

'To S. Louis!' and directly the mass of human beings began to move in
that direction.

It was eleven o'clock before the Assembly was seated in the vast nave
and choir of the cathedral church. The court had forgotten to close the
churches, and thus the magnificent scheme of the Count of Artois and
the Princes of Condé and Conté was defeated.

As soon as a table had been brought in from the sacristy, and the
secretaries had taken their places, the minutes of the meeting in
the tennis-court were read, and the president read a letter he had
received from the king, at two o'clock in the morning, announcing the
postponement of the royal session till the following day, and his
determination that the great hall of the Menus should remain closed
till then.

Several members who had been absent from the gathering at the
tennis-court then took the oath and attached to it their signatures.

These preliminaries over, Bailly announced that the Clergy were about
to arrive in a body at one o'clock, and formally unite with the Third
Estate, and he requested those ecclesiastics who were then in the
church to withdraw to the lodgings of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, where
the majority of the house of the Clergy were to assemble.

Immediately all those delegates who had taken possession of the seats
near the choir vacated them, to leave the place of honour free for the
bishops and clergy.

The shouts and applause roaring in the square before the cathedral,
like the advancing bore of the Ganges, announced to those within the
sacred building the approach of the ecclesiastics. All rose to receive
them as they entered and took their places in the choir, when with
loud voice each of the one hundred and forty-nine who had signed the
declaration of Friday, the 19th, answered to their roll-call, and
verified their names. The names of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the
Bishop of Chartres, the Archbishop of Vienne, the Bishop of Rhodez,
of Grégoire, and of Lindet, who were known to be strenuous adherents
to the cause of liberty and justice, were received with thunders of
applause.

Then the choir gates were thrown open, and the Archbishop of Vienne,
followed by the clergy, descended to the nave to take their places in
the National Assembly.

'Gentlemen,' said the archbishop, 'we come with joy to execute the
decision of the majority of the deputies of the order of the clergy
to the States-General. This reunion is the signal and the prelude to
the constant and permanent union which they desire to cement with all
orders, and especially with the deputies of the Commons.'

'My lord and gentlemen,' answered the president; 'you see the joy in
our faces, you hear by our applause how great is the satisfaction in
our hearts, which your presence inspires. That presence here is due to
a pure sentiment,--the love of union and of the public weal. France
will bless this auspicious day, and will never forget those worthy
pastors who have thus announced before their country that they desire
above all things--Peace on earth to men of good-will.'

Lindet touched Grégoire's arm.

'We have saved the country.'

'All depends now on the king,' answered the curé of Emberménil. 'We
have acted right, as Christians and as patriots. If the king accepts
what is inevitable, all will go well; if he allows himself to be
forced into war, why then!----'

'Then what?'

'A Revolution is inevitable.'



CHAPTER XXVIII.


After the interview with the queen, Madeleine reconducted Gabrielle out
of the park to the tavern where they had left Percenez.

The little man sat at the door on a bench, smoking, his leathery face
void of expression. Behind his back was a pack slung by a thong to his
shoulders.

'Eh, well!' said he, as the girls approached; 'since you have been
away, I have been doing a stroke of work. I have sold a dozen copies
of the _Moniteur_, eighteen copies of Mirabeau's Lettres à mes
Commettants, several of the _Journal de Paris_, and of the _Mercure_,
besides some little pamphlets which I won't name, and which nobody sees
but those who are intended to read them. Well! and what has been the
result? Ah! David says, _Nolite confidere in principibus in quibus non
est salus_. You have found out what it has taken France many centuries
to discover. Better late than never.'

'She has failed,' said Madeleine; 'and I have told her to look
elsewhere for help.'

'Ah!' said the colporteur; 'we shall see. Events march like the
seasons. Ça ira, ça ira! But till the time comes, what is to be done
with our little peasantess? She must return to Bernay.'

'But how is she to return?' asked Madeleine; 'you cannot accompany her.'

'No,' answered the little man; 'I do not think I can. But go she must.'

'And where am I to go to if I do return?' inquired Gabrielle; 'I have
no home at Bernay now.'

'Ah!' said Percenez; 'that is awkward.'

'The roads are crowded with brigands,' said Madeleine; 'we hear of them
trooping into Paris from all the country round, and it is not safe for
Gabrielle to encounter them alone.'

'That again is awkward,' said Percenez.

'Then what is to be done?' asked Madeleine.

'Under the circumstances,' spoke the little brown man, 'I see nothing
else to be done than for me to find a lodging elsewhere, and to take my
ward with me. She must put off her country dress, and you, Madeleine,
can dress her in your Parisian style, and then she can assist me in
selling pamphlets and papers.'

'So it must be,' Madeleine said; 'but I am sorry to lose her. We have
already become friends, though so unlike in character and disposition.'

'Please, M. Étienne,' said Gabrielle, gently; 'do you not think we
might remain with Madame Deschwanden? Perhaps the police will not
return to make search for me again; and even if they do, what can they
say to me? I have done what M. Berthier desired to prevent.'

'That is true,' observed Percenez.

'And again,' pursued Gabrielle; 'I shall be near the Bastille and my
dear mistress. I cannot, I will not, go far from her.'

'It is too dangerous,' said the colporteur.

'Now, uncle!' exclaimed Madeleine; 'take my advice. Return for this
night to our house. I believe there is far too much subject for anxiety
to Berthier and all his crew to make them trouble themselves much more
about an inoffensive peasantess. If the times were quiet, it would be
different; but with Paris in a ferment, it is most unlikely that any
further measures will be taken to secure Gabrielle.'

'That is very true,' said Percenez; 'I have begun to think so myself.'

'Besides,' continued Madeleine, 'my mother is dreadfully put out at the
prospect of losing you both.'

'I did not know that my sister was so anxious to retain us.'

'Oh yes, she is. She is enthusiastic about it. She vows that she will
die of chagrin if you go. Return to the Rue S. Antoine this night,
and talk to her about what is to be done. My mother is a woman of
resources. I never saw my mother nonplused yet. When she heard that
you were afraid of remaining in her house, she said, "Afraid of what?"
I answered, "Of the gendarmes." On which she exclaimed, "My faith!
as if I were not a match for a whole regiment of them!" And,' added
Madeleine, with an air of conviction so ludicrous that it made Percenez
laugh, 'she is so, I assure you.'

'I do not know about gendarmes,' said the little man, slyly; 'but I
know that the very mention of a Swiss patriot, or of a Swiss saint,
routs her immediately.'

'Mon Dieu! who could help it?' exclaimed Madeleine, seriously; 'we are
pestered every day with Werner Stauffacher, Erni of Melchthal, and
Walter Fürst; and, worst of all, with Bruder Klaus. I have actually
seen my mother, in her exasperation, when the corporal and his son were
out, wring the nose of the illustrious Bruder in his niche; but the
corporal does not know it, or I believe he would separate from his wife
in horror at the sacrilege. The corporal is especially enthusiastic
just now, for he has served his time, and he expects his discharge
shortly.'

'What does he propose to do then?'

'What but to return to father-land; and my mother is perfectly frantic
at the idea. To leave Paris for Switzerland, is to quit civilisation
for barbarism.'

It is needful for us to return to Madame Deschwanden, who was in
despair at the prospect of losing her lodgers. She had less to do
in millinery, at a time of great popular agitation, than suited her
wishes, and the chance of making a little money by her brother and
Gabrielle was too good an opportunity to be thrown away; and she
therefore resolved to retain them, if she could.

To effect her purpose, she dressed herself in her most bewitching
out-of-door costume, and sallied forth into the streets, leaving
Nicholas at home to attend to the house. She took her way towards
Berthier's mansion, bowing and smiling to acquaintances whom she met at
almost every step, and stopping occasionally to exchange greetings with
her most intimate and cherished friends, who numbered about two hundred
and fifty.

Madame was dressed with the utmost care; a little powder and rouge had
improved her complexion. Her hair was heaped up into a magnificent
pile, from which depended two ringlets that rested à la Marie
Antoinette on her shoulders; a lace handkerchief covered her bosom, was
crossed over her breast, and tied behind. Her gown was looped up so as
to expose a pair of very active, neat little feet in high-heeled boots,
which threw madame forward, and made the use of a cane necessary.

On reaching the door of Berthier's house she rung, and asked to see
Monsieur the Intendant.

She was admitted immediately to the yard in the middle of the house,
where she saw Berthier seated in an easy chair, armed with a long
carter's whip, lashing his bloodhounds, which bayed and barked,
producing such a deafening noise that he could scarcely hear what
Gustave said to him, when he approached to announce Madame Deschwanden.

'Down, you rascally Pigeon!' shouted Berthier; 'will you now venture
to touch the meat, Poulet? Very well,' and he drew the whip across
the hound's nose. 'So!' as Pigeon sprang forward; 'so, and so, and
so!' slashing at it over the breast and belly as the beast sprang into
the air, yelling with pain. 'What is it, Gustave? Ha there! Back, you
devil!' and he cut the dog Poulet, so that the blood started. 'Well,
Gustave! speak higher. You would like your dinner, eh! Pigeon, creep up
to it, a little closer; closer still--so--so--and _so_;' he caught the
lash of the whip in his hand, whirled the handle round above his head
and brought the end of it, which was weighted, down on the brute's head
so as for the moment to stun it. 'Now, Gustave, what do you want? A
lady, eh! young and pretty is she, eh? Pardon;' he rose to his feet and
saluted Madame Deschwanden, whom he saw at that moment. The corporal's
wife smiled, threw a coquettish glance into her eyes, and brushed her
ringlets from her shoulders.

'Really,' said the lady, 'those dogs make so much noise, that it is
quite impossible for me to speak here without elevating my voice; and,'
she added, 'what I have come to talk to monsieur about is not for all
the world to hear.'

'What is it, madame?'

'Would you allow me a few moments in private?' asked the little woman;
'there are secrets, you know, which must not be blazed abroad. Perhaps
it would not be too great a liberty if I were to whisper a name into
your ear. So--' said she, playfully, as he bent towards her, and she
raised her lips to his ear; 'Gabrielle! There, you know the name.
Well, now a word in privacy. I thought as much. What alacrity, what
energy; ah! the master passion, the beautiful passion; it is superb! it
elevates man, and it deifies woman!'

Berthier at once conducted the corporal's wife into a small boudoir,
and requested her to take a seat. She dropped into a fauteuil, and
began to fan herself. The Intendant stood, leaning his arm upon a
cabinet, and crossed his legs.

'You may be a diplomatist, you may be a politician of the first
ability, you may be a capitalist with the largest income,' said madame,
'but,' and she waved her fan, 'if you do not love, you are nothing.'

'Madame,' asked the Intendant, 'I shall be glad to learn what you know
about Gabrielle André.'

'About Gabrielle André,' repeated the little woman; 'quite so; in due
time, we are coming to her. Now, what do you take me for?'

'Madame, for the most fascinating specimen of your sex.'

'Quite so. Well, would you believe it, I have a barbarous name, a
German-Swiss name, which is a mouthful--a name to tremble at, a name
for a horse to shy at, for a dog to bark at, for a cat to set up its
back at. And yet I am French at heart. From the tip of my hair to the
soles of my feet I am French, French--always French. Hold! There is
always something dapper, comely, sweet about a Frenchwoman which you
cannot find in the great German frau, who is all fat and lymph, and
languor. And the Frenchman, too. He is an object to adore; he is a man
sensitive, courteous, gallant; a being to excite the heart, to inspire
enthusiasm, to claim devotion; but a German! My faith! I am married,
I am sacrificed to a German-Swiss. Do not ask me to describe him; I
should expire in making the attempt. The Frenchman is all vehemence,
go, fire, and the German is all conscience. But you will tell me that
the German has sentiment. I grant you it. But of what nature? It is
all of the past, and ours is of the present. We live and palpitate for
to-day, the Herr for five hundred years ago. Yesterday is nothing to
me; to him yesterday is everything, and to-day is nothing. A German
child is to me a wonder; it is not like any French child I ever met.
It lives in dreamland, a dreamland peopled with fairies; now a French
child cares for no fairies which are not made of chocolate, which it
cannot suck.'

'What about Gabrielle?' asked Berthier, impatiently.

'There, now,' said Madame Deschwanden, 'I quite understand about your
interest in her. I could not get the same idea into the corporal's head
if I were to use a gimlet. But I--I am French, I delight in sentiment,
I love intrigue, I worship the noble passion. I can throw myself
entirely into your position, and I can feel with you and for you. That
is splendid--that is French! Well, then, I say to you, monsieur, you
have gone the wrong way to work; you have used wrong methods, you have
exhibited barbarous ignorance, you have acted altogether like a German.
Where is the delicacy of touch, the subtlety of intrigue, the _finesse_
of action that belongs to one of your nation? I look for it, and I find
it not. I repeat it, you have gone the wrong way to work. You have
used coarse methods, and you have shown your utter ignorance of the
female character. You should not have employed force, that is certain
to revolt; you should not have offered a bribe openly, you should have
vaguely suggested advantages; you should not have exhibited yourself
as a tyrant, you should have acted the martyr. Why!' cried Madame
Deschwanden, 'I--_I_ would have rebelled, and spoken, and scratched,
and bitten, if I had been blockaded in the brutal, clumsy manner you
have adopted in laying siege to Gabrielle. You know absolutely nothing
of the art of conducting these little affairs of the heart. Mon Dieu!
I--_I_ could have accomplished a triumph in half the time without a
quarter of the material.'

'What am I to understand from all this?' asked Berthier, wiping his
eyes.

'Understand!' echoed Madame Deschwanden; 'there, again, you exhibit
a density of perception perfectly shocking. Allow me to ask you
seriously, monsieur, are you a German, or a Swiss? Have you one drop of
the tar they call blood crawling through your veins; for if so I give
you up, I abandon you, I turn my back on you.'

'Be content,' said Berthier sulkily, 'I am French.'

'And your blood is brandy, volatile, combustible, intoxicating. So be
it. I am on your side. Place the matter in my hands, and it is done. I
guarantee a surrender in one month.'

'In a month.'

'In a month and a day. Take out your watch, note the time. In one
month, one day, and one hour to a minute. See there!' She rapped her
fan against her hand triumphantly, and surveyed the Intendant with an
air of patronage. 'Never attempt what you don't understand. My faith!
you might as well meddle in my millinery affairs as in an affair of
the heart, unless you have skill, and that is a gift of nature; it is
not every one who is an adept in the science of intrigue. Mon Dieu!
I should think not. It requires a delicacy of perception, a fineness
of touch, in short, a sensibility which is born with one. You cannot
make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, a poet is not to be manufactured
or made as Nicholas chips and chops his saints. My faith! I should
hope not. A successful intriguer is so perfectly constituted that I
believe he is the most successful of the works of creation. You could
not make a triumph of a cap, try as hard as you might, you would botch
it. Mon Dieu! Some lovely construction which consumed me with care and
enthusiasm, if you put your clumsy hand to it, would be wrecked. So
with an affair of the heart. You cannot do it; you are not equal to it;
you were not born to it with that delicacy of perception, that subtlety
in feeling, that tenderness in touch, in fine, that sensibility
which----'

'Will you come to the point?' said the Intendant, angrily.

'Will I come to the point?' echoed madame. 'Look at him, asking such
a question. Behold him, ye gods, and stare. Did you ever see such a
man? But one has his gift in this way, and another in that. I have no
doubt you are the best of sheriffs, but you are absolutely a neophyte
in the art of love-making. Ah--bah! no one could make anything of you.
I do not say in ordinary matters of business, in cutting off heads,
or breaking on the wheel, or consigning to the Bastille, or marching
soldiers here, and ordering gendarmes there, in all _that_, I grant
you; but affairs of the heart are quite different from affairs of state
and of commerce. You want, to be successful in them, a delicacy of
perception----'

'Enough of that,' said Berthier. 'Come, madame. My time is precious.'

'I will not detain you from the dogs one moment longer,' quoth Madame
Deschwanden, pouring a little water from a decanter on the table into
a tumbler; 'oblige me with a lump of sugar and a drop of orange-flower
water. Thank you. It makes one thirsty to listen to another person
talking. Well, as I was saying, you cannot manage this affair yourself,
you want my help. You must have my help. And, monsieur, I proffer it
with enthusiasm. I cast myself zealously into your cause. I lend my
assistance to one who is certain to fail abjectly, to one lacking
all the requisites essential to success; for I flatter myself that I
possess the qualifications in which he is deficient. I make no boast of
it, not I. But if Providence has endowed one person with a delicacy,
a _finesse_, a sensibility, and all that constitute a successful
intriguer, it is not boasting if she acknowledges thankfully that she
possesses these talents. She cannot be blind to them. If she were
blind, she would not use them.'

'In short, you will help me?'

'I will do my best. With me to say that, is to say it is done. I do
not boast, but I cannot shut my eyes to facts. If I were to do so, you
would call me a fool, and justly. I should be a fool. But I make one
stipulation,--no, I make two.'

'What are they?'

'Tell me,' entreated madame, throwing passionate earnestness into
her voice and gesture, 'tell me, you have no conscience. I am tired
of conscience. My faith! what is conscience? It is a kind of flea;
you never know where it is. Now it is here, now it is there. You come
down with your finger on the spot, and it is gone. And then there
is irritation everywhere, and no rest. My husband is a martyr to
conscience, so is Nicholas, but Nicholas is the corporal repeated in
miniature. Have morals, I say, have philosophy, but crush conscience;
it is a pest. And then, I insist, you leave Gabrielle to me. Do not
interfere. Let me manage her. I know the ins and outs of a woman's
mind; I will so manage the affair for you that you will be full of
gratitude to me, that you will overwhelm me with testimonials of your
indebtedness. If you interfere, and send your gendarmes to the house
again, then I throw it up. I will have no more to say to it, and you
may botch your work again. Will you promise me solemnly to let me
conduct operations in my own way? Will you promise me not to interfere
by so much as lifting a finger?'

'Wait a bit,' said Berthier; 'before I promise anything, tell me where
Gabrielle is now.'

'With the greatest pleasure. You know that she has seen the queen?'

'No!' he started.

'Yes, she has. She has seen her and has been refused.'

Berthier drew a long breath.

'She has been refused, and now she is at Versailles.'

'At Versailles!'

'Yes, monsieur. It seems that she has a friend there, one of the
delegates to the National Assembly.'

'To the States-General,' corrected the Intendant.

'To be sure, you are right. Well, she has taken up her abode with him.
He was an old friend.'

'What is his name?'

'You will probably know him. He is from Bernay, a curé there. His name
is Lindet.'

Berthier nodded, and an angry flush over-spread his brow.

'Now you know very well that you cannot, and dare not, attempt to
remove the girl from the house of a delegate at Versailles; so I shall
do that myself. I shall draw her to my house; but that will take time,
as you have scared her with your gendarmes. My faith! if you want to
snare pigeons, do you set up scarecrows near your nets?--but let that
pass. I shall do my best to bring her to my house, and whilst she is
there, entrust her to me; do not show your face in the neighbourhood,
do not let a gendarme be seen within my door, and in one month, one
day, and one hour, the girl will rush of her own accord into your arms.'

'I see,' said Berthier. 'Yes, I will trust you, and give you the
promise you require.'

'That is your only chance,' pursued Madame Deschwanden. 'And
then remember, I have cast myself zealously into your cause, I am
enthusiastic on your behalf. But why? True, I am always eager to
help forward an affair of the heart. But interest, enthusiasm, zeal,
sometimes grow cold; they want hope to keep them alive, and they want
something also to kindle them. Will you believe it? I have even been
accused of being avaricious. _I_ avaricious,--I who lavish money on my
friends and expend it profusely on myself! They say I like money. Mon
Dieu! who does not? I do not like it for itself; I hate, I abhor the
dirty pelf--but, _voilà_--one must live.'

'Yes,' said Berthier, 'no one serves another without pay, that is
reasonable.'

'Pay, ah bah! never mention such a thing!' exclaimed the lady; 'but
among friends there is always an interchange of civilities, you well
understand. Ah! fie!' he pressed a few gold pieces into her hand; 'what
a rude, rough man you are! In these amiabilities there should be a
delicacy, a refinement, an----'

'Never mind,' said Berthier, wiping his eyes; 'remember that you are
salaried by me for a certain purpose. Wash that fact in rose-water,
dress it up, and present it to your mind in whatever costume pleases
you best.'

'You are a shocking creature,' said madame, waving her fan at him; 'I
am more than half inclined to play you a trick.'

'Take care how you do so!'

'Do not fear me. Intrigue is a passion with me. I revel in affairs of
the heart. Ah, my faith! when you come to deal in concerns of the grand
passion! then you rise from being human to being angelic; you soar from
pots and gridirons, at which you may be cooking; you tower above caps
and bonnets, which you may be constructing; you become a giant. Love is
woman's world; she exists in this commonplace earth, she lives in the
world of passion. Leave me alone, I know what I am about. But what am I
to expect?'

'I promise you a hundred louis.'

'I do not touch money,' said madame, with dignity; 'but anything in the
way of jewellery--ah! there you have me.'

'Well, then, you shall have jewels to that value.'

'You are very amiable. You enchant me. Come on, then, to your dogs! I
know you desire to return to them, and I--I shall be wanted at home. I
wish you a very good morning!'

Madame Deschwanden sailed down the streets with the air of an empress.
She held up her head, and her smile and bows were tinged with urbanity,
the urbanity of some one who having reached a lofty station condescends
to notice her old friends and to shed on them some of the bounties it
is now in her power to bestow.

When, in the evening, Percenez returned with Madeleine and Gabrielle,
madame overflowed. She listened with impatience to the story of
Gabrielle's failure, only interrupting it to inquire how the queen
and the princesses were dressed, how they wore their hair, and what
ornaments they bore.

Percenez told his sister the difficulty about Gabrielle, and said that
he hesitated about sending her alone to Bernay, and that he wished to
take a lodging in some other part of Paris, where Gabrielle might be
secure from pursuit.

Whilst he spoke, the triumphant expression in his sister's face excited
his curiosity. At last he inquired, 'What is it, Louise? I am sure you
have some news to communicate.'

'Now see!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden. 'Am not I a woman? was not I
born with tact, with a delicacy, a refinement, a power of intrigue, in
a word, a sensibility of the most elevated description? I have this day
accomplished a great work. I have secured Gabrielle from all pursuit.'

'You have!'

'Yes, brother Stephen, you may stare. You men know nothing of a
woman's resources. I have done single-handed what you and the corporal
and Nicholas would not have effected. I have secured for Gabrielle
tranquillity in this house. I have paid the Intendant Berthier a visit.'

'Josephine, what madness!'

'I am a woman, Stephen, and a woman has resources. Ah! see what I have
done.'

Then she related with infinite zest her interview with Berthier. She
concluded her account with the jubilant remark, 'To think that I have
utterly deceived him! Superb! The way in which I have twisted him round
my little finger! Majestic!'

'But what do you mean, Josephine?' asked Stephen, much perplexed.

'What do I mean?' echoed madame, raising her eyes and hands. 'Oh these
men! Well, I will tell you what I mean. I wish I had a hammer to knock
it into your head. I have utterly deceived M. Berthier. He confides in
me, he believes that he has secured my services. He has given me money,
and promised me more, to persuade Gabrielle to cast herself into his
arms. Trusting that I am busy undermining the girl's resolution and
morals, he will abstain from attempting violence for one month and one
day. At the end of that time, trust me, I shall creep round him again,
and, when I have exhausted my resources, then I shall give you the
signal to decamp.'

'But, my dear sister, what did you mean by telling Berthier that
Gabrielle was at Versailles with Lindet?'

'Mon Dieu! it came into my head. It seemed so probable. It entirely
deceived the Intendant.'

'And you received money from M. Berthier!'

'If I had not done so, he would have mistrusted me. Now that I have
taken his gold, he believes implicitly in me.'

'I do not like this,' said the colporteur; 'my dear sister, you have
not acted rightly; you have told falsehoods, and----'

'My faith!' exclaimed madame, with a scream, as she backed her chair
across the room; 'you have a conscience, and you my brother! Oh, mon
Dieu! that I should have lived to discover it. Étienne, it will never
do; catch it, kill it.'



CHAPTER XXIX.


The Court party had concerted a scheme of revenge upon the Commons for
their act of the 23rd June. The queen sent for her favourite minister,
the Baron de Breteuil. He had been minister of state in 1783, and had
had charge of the king's house, an important post, for the _lettres
de cachet_ fell to this department. The baron had quarrelled with
Calonne, whom the queen detested. That was one reason why she confided
in his judgment. Troops were massed about Versailles and Paris;
fifteen regiments, for the most part composed of foreign mercenaries,
were encamped around the capital. The Royal Cravate was at Charenton,
Reinach and Diesbach at Sèvres, Nassau at Versailles, Salis-Samode
at Issy, the hussars of Berchenay at the Military School; at other
stations were the regiments of Esterhazy, Roemer, &c. There were as
many as 30,000 men in and around Paris. Sentinels occupied every
bridge, every avenue.

The old Marshal de Broglie received the command in chief, the Baron de
Besenval received that of the troops surrounding the capital.

Mirabeau thought that the only sure means of intimidating the court was
to discuss publicly the measures which it was adopting. He interrupted
the business of the constitution by a proposal that the king should
send away the troops.

'Sire,' said Mirabeau, 'in the midst of your subjects, be guarded only
by their love.'

He pointed out that every day fresh bodies of soldiers were arriving,
that the bridges and promenades were changed into military posts, that
the sight of adjutants dashing about with orders and counter-orders
despatched from the palace or from the house of the Marshal de Broglie
at all moments of the day, gave to the town the appearance of being the
seat of war.

'More soldiers are shown us menacing the nation,' said he, 'than would
be marched against an invading foe, and a thousand times more than
would be assembled to succour friends martyred for their fidelity.'

The address to the king, proposed by Mirabeau, was carried all but
unanimously, four voices alone being found to oppose it. The answer of
the king was equivocal.

He said that the soldiers were there to preserve tranquillity, and not
to intimidate the Assembly, and that if the army caused alarm, he was
ready to transfer the States to Soisson or Noyon. With this answer the
Assembly was forced to remain content, unsatisfactory as it seemed.

The plans of the queen, the Count d'Artois, the Princes of Condé and
Conti, and the Dukes of Polignac and d'Enghien, were now complete. The
capital and Versailles were invested, and at a signal the army would
fall upon them, and trample under foot all opposition. The last blow
had to be struck, and Marie Antoinette was the person to strike it.
It was to fall on Necker, the prime minister, whom the Court party
detested, and whom it could never forgive for having persuaded the king
to summon the States-General, and thus to imperil their supremacy over
king and country.

On Saturday evening, July 11th, Lindet was walking with the Abbé
Grégoire along the Paris road, beyond the barrier at the end of the
Avenue.

'What will happen next?' asked the Curé of Bernay. 'It appears evident
that the queen intends a _coup d'état_, but what it will be no one
knows exactly.'

'The time for a _coup d'état_ is passed,' said Grégoire; 'on the
twenty-third of last month the decisive blow was struck, and it was
struck by the Assembly. Consider, my friend, what can the Court do
now? The Assembly represents twenty-five millions of men, the court
represents a few thousands. The prestige of royalty burst like a bubble
on that day in May. The king is the head of a party, a little miserable
party, ranged against the vast bulk of the French people.'

'You forget the army,' said Lindet; 'the court can always summon to
its aid brute force to crush right and reason, as it has crushed it for
centuries with the same means.'

'I question whether it can now rely implicitly on the army. Remember,
the army reflects the condition of France; it has its officers and its
privates; the former, the privileged, all nobles; and for the rest,
the army is a _cul-de-sac_, there is no possibility of advance, of
promotion. And as we groan under feudalism, so does the soldier cry
out under the oppression of his officers, who have cheated him of his
pay, have cut short his rations, have bullied and insulted him. If the
commoners rise against the nobles, and the curés against the bishops,
depend upon it the privates will rebel against their officers. We curés
have joined cause with the commons, the soldiers will make common cause
with us. And then, where are the privileged with the crown, whose cause
they defend?'

'And what do you suppose will be the end?'

'If the king listen to Necker, Mounier, and his followers, they will
give to France a constitution on the Anglican model; the movement will
stop short at that point. If violence be attempted, we shall rush
into pure democracy. I am content either way. Possibly we are not yet
prepared for republicanism, and a constitutional monarchy will prove a
stepping-stone and halting-place before the final plunge.'

'You desire a pure democracy.'

'I desire to see a constitution in which every officer is responsible
to the nation, and every individual member of the nation has an
interest in the government. What interest have you or I in the king?
Absolutely none. He derives his title to the throne through his blood.
Of all farces, an hereditary monarchy is the most absurd. An elective
monarchy is different. I should not object to a king, if he were chosen
by vote of the people; for authority must be conferred by the nation,
and must be removable by the nation, so that no man may be made an
irresponsible autocrat. Till the nation and its government are so
interwoven in interests and responsibilities, that its organization
rests on no fictitious basis, but on the common weal, there must be
injustice, and there will be rebellion.'

'Stand back,' said Lindet.

The two priests drew back, as they heard the sound of wheels. The night
was dark,--so dark that they stepped into the hedge before they were
aware.

Two brilliant lights approached at a rapid rate from Versailles, and
the tinkle of the collars of post-horses proclaimed a travelling
carriage. The crack of a postilion's whip, the rumble of wheels, and
the jingle of bells, drowned the noise of an approaching carriage from
the direction of Paris. Almost as soon as the curés were aware that
they heard the roll of two vehicles, they met, and their wheels were
locked. The shock brought both carriages to a stand-still.

The post-boys of the travelling coach and the driver of the small Paris
hackney-carriage dismounted, and abused each other with many oaths and
threatening gestures.

'Why, in the devil's name, have you not got lamps?' asked one of the
postilions. 'And pray, why did you not steer out of the way of our
lights, hey!'

'Was I going to drive into the hedge to please you?' retorted the
coachman; 'was I going to upset monsieur to gratify you? Was I going to
run the chance of upsetting the barouche to oblige you? hey!'

'Are you going to back your horses, hey?'

'Will you do the same with yours, hey?'

'Not till you do so, hey!'

'Nor I till yours move, hey!'

'I will whip you----'

'You will dare, hey!'

'Hey! but I will.'

'Sacré au nom de Dieu!'

'Mille diables!'

'What are you fellows about?' asked a gentleman, thrusting his head out
of the travelling carriage; 'cease quarrelling, and unlock the wheels.'

'Bah! what fellows!' exclaimed a head thrust out of the window of the
smaller carriage; 'please to inform me when you are ready to start
again. I shall put on my nightcap, and take a nap till you have done.'

The postilion removed the lamp from its place in the carriage, and
proceeded to examine the wheels. Lindet stepped forward and volunteered
his assistance. The wheels were faster than was anticipated.

'Back the horse, and be damned to you!' said the postilion to the
coachman.

'I am backing, you pert jackanapes,' answered the other.

'You are not backing sufficiently,' said the postboy.

'Will you make my mare back till she is black in the face, hey?'

'Yes, I will, hey!'

'Then you won't, hey!'

'I dare you to touch her, hey!'

'You dare! hey!'

'Yes, I do! hey!'

'Now then,' exclaimed the gentleman from the travelling coach; 'I
insist on a cessation of this wrangling. Loose the wheels at once.'

'Allow me,' said the gentleman from the Parisian barouche. He leaped
out of his conveyance, caught the lantern from the postboy, and
suddenly, with such abruptness as not to give the other traveller time
to withdraw his head, he turned the full blaze of the lamp upon his
face.

His hat was off immediately, and he bowed low.

Grégoire touched Lindet on the arm, and pointed to the illumined face.
It was that of Necker.

'Look at the top of the coach,' whispered the abbé; 'it is laden with
boxes. He is dismissed.'

Lindet looked. The light was immediately averted.

'You are on your way to the place I have left,' said Necker, in a low
voice to the other.

'I have been summoned. But whether to replace you or not I cannot tell
yet. Bah! what strange meetings there are in the world!'

'I wish you success where I have failed,' said Necker, still in a voice
scarcely above a whisper.

'We shall try different means,' replied the other; 'but----take a
pinch!' he extended his box, it was of gold.

Necker declined. 'Well,' said the speaker, emptying some into his palm
and applying it thus to his nose; 'we must do our best.'

At that moment another head appeared at the window of the little
carriage.

'There's my son-in-law,' said Foulon, for it was he; 'just awake. He
has been snoring all the way from Paris. Berthier, my boy, brisk up.
Here is----'

'Hush, hush! for Heaven's sake,' exclaimed the ex-minister; 'it is most
important that nothing should be known of my departure.'

'All right, sir!' said the coachman, approaching Foulon.

'All right at last, is it? Very well. Good evening, monsieur.' He
returned to his carriage.

'Will you drive against me again, hey!' shouted the coachman, when he
had mounted the box.

'I would do so a thousand times, hey!' yelled the postboy, leaping on
his horse.

'You lie, you gherkin!' called the coachman, gathering the reins into
his hand.

'You are drunk, you pumpkin!' cried the postboy, cracking his whip.

'A thousand devils! say that again, hey!' roared the driver as the
vehicles passed.

'Till death's day. I repeat it. Hey!'

'Shrimp!' bellowed the coachman, turning in his seat and shouting over
the back of the carriage.

'Flounder!' called the postilion over his shoulder.

When the two carriages were out of sight, Grégoire turned to Lindet,
and said, 'the court has committed suicide. The queen has prevailed
upon the king to dismiss Necker, and now she is about to form a
ministry after her own heart. _Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat_.'

Lindet was too much overwhelmed with amazement and dismay to answer.

'In twenty-four hours,' continued Grégoire, 'Paris will explode, and
blood will flow. The result of this stroke of policy is certain. Paris
will be in arms to-morrow, and the court will take the opportunity
of pouring upon the city in revolt its troops of mercenaries. It may
succeed; the nascent revolution may be strangled by the iron grasp
of the military, and then recommences the reign of tyranny. It may
fail, and then the people are lashed into fury, and will not spare the
conquered. The stroke is bold.'

'What is to be done?'

'Do not breathe a word of what you have seen. It is just possible
that the king may be turned again. I shall go to the Duke de la
Rochefoucauld. Ah! how different he is from the cardinal! he has
influence with his majesty. Merciful God! we shall have blood flowing
in streams in a few hours.'

Lindet thought for a moment. Then he said, hesitatingly, 'it is one's
duty to use every possible means of preventing bloodshed. Shall I seek
out my bishop? He is the queen's chaplain, a proud, worldly man, but no
fool. He might persuade her to recall this precipitate step, if he were
to see the case in the true light.'

'By all means visit him,' said Grégoire; 'no time is to be lost. We
are both weak vessels, but God may enable us to stave off a terrible
disaster. I desire a republic with all my heart, but, in God's name,
let it not be brought about by bloodshed and anarchy.'

They separated at the foot of the steps leading to the palace gates.

Numerous oil-lamps illumined the court of the ministers, and into this
Lindet penetrated without difficulty. Having inquired his way to the
apartments of the prelate, he mounted the stairs to the corridor in
which they were situated, and was shown by a valet into the bishop's
sitting-room.

De Narbonne-Lara was not then in his chamber, but the priest was told
that he would return to it directly; his wax candles were burning on
the table, and his pen was laid upon the paper, still wet with ink, on
which he had been writing.

Lindet stood and waited patiently for him. He had not spoken to him
since he had been inhibited,--he had scarcely seen him since he had
been elected deputy in the place of the bishop and the bishop's
candidate. A meeting must prove disagreeable to himself and to the
prelate, but it was worth while to undergo it, for De Narbonne, from
his acquaintance with German, was believed to stand high in the queen's
favour, and to influence her conduct. That violent measures must
produce a popular rising was so evident, that he hoped the prospect of
the terrible misery which must ensue, when placed clearly before the
bishop, would induce him to bend the queen to moderation.

Presently Lindet heard voices in the corridor; and next moment the door
opened, and a lacquey ushered in the bishop, Foulon, and Berthier.

Monseigneur stared in mute astonishment at the curé.

Foulon recognised him at once, and addressed him--'Ah, ha! our clerical
friend from Bernay. How is the little charmer? I hear she is with you
now. Oh that I could buy of you the secret of making love-phylters!
Actually, my Lord, the curé exerts such a charm over the bewitching
little peasantess, that she has been unable to endure Bernay without
him, and has followed him to Versailles.'

'Monsieur,' said Lindet, indignantly, 'a gentleman should not lend his
tongue to lie.'

'Excuse me, my good curé; we quite know that you do not wish it to be
generally known, and you may rely on my keeping my counsel, but that
the girl is with you in your lodgings here, you will hardly have the
audacity to deny.'

'I deny it most solemnly.'

'What brings you here?' asked the bishop. 'This is a great
impertinence.'

'I particularly desire to speak privately with your lordship.'

'I do not choose to waste my time on you.'

'Monseigneur, I beseech you hear me. You have treated me with great
injustice and severity, and I will not deny that I have harboured
bitter feelings against you. You must know that it is no pleasure to me
to find myself in a presence which has never proved agreeable to me. It
is only by an effort that I have overcome my repugnance, and have come
here to speak to you.'

'What do you want?' asked the bishop; 'your presence is quite as
distasteful to me as mine can be to you.'

'I wish to speak in private.'

'I will not listen to you in private; say what you have to say here.'

'I adjure you, my Lord, give me ten minutes in private.'

'On what subject have you come to visit me? Is it of a private nature?'

'No, my Lord.'

The bishop requested Foulon and Berthier to be seated.

'If not of a private nature, I suppose you to mean to intimate that
you desire to talk politics with me?' He threw up his head and spoke
contemptuously, as he settled himself into an arm-chair.

'I desire, my Lord, to speak to you in private, and shall not leave
this room till you have granted me the interview that I request.'

'That you demand,' said the bishop. 'Well, I have suffered so much from
your insolence, that a grain more will not crush me. Follow me.' He
rose and led the way haughtily into a cabinet; bowing first to Foulon
and Berthier, and requesting them to excuse his absence for a moment.

'I will trouble you to bring a candle,' said De Narbonne; 'I have no
desire to be closeted with you in the dark.'

Lindet returned to the table, and, taking up one of the wax lights,
followed the bishop with it into the apartment.

'Now, sir,' said the prelate, throwing himself into a fauteuil, 'tell
me at once your business, and then begone!'

'Monseigneur,' Lindet said, earnestly, 'I am ready to submit to you in
anything without a murmur. I am ready to make to you an apology for
having irritated and annoyed you. I will readily and on my knee ask
your pardon for any pain I may have caused you, if you will only listen
to me with patience for a few moments.'

'I am ready,' answered the prelate, the severe, sullen look fading from
his brow; 'submission comes late, but better late than never.'

'Monseigneur,' continued Lindet, 'the subject on which I have come to
speak is of public importance. I know that you, my Lord, have the ear
of her majesty the queen.'

'Well,' said the bishop, 'I will not deny it; her most gracious majesty
_is_ pleased to listen to and to act upon the advice I, her most
unworthy servant, tender to her.'

'I know well, also, my Lord, that the influence exercised by the queen
upon the king is paramount, and consequently you have in your power the
welfare of the nation.'

'Well,' said De Narbonne, every cloud disappearing from his face,
'perhaps you exaggerate a little; but let that pass, we will for the
moment suppose it so. Proceed, my good sir.'

'My Lord, at the present instant the fate of France hangs on the turn
of the scale; a feather may incline the balance one way or the other.'

'Possibly you are right,' said the bishop.

'M. Necker has been dismissed.'

'Indeed! how do you know that?'

'Never mind how, my Lord, but I do know it. As soon as the news of the
change of ministry reaches Paris, the city will be in arms, and not
Paris only, but every large town in France will rise. You cannot rely
upon the French guard, they are certain to fraternize with the people;
the events of the last few days must convince you of that. You know how
that only ten days ago the people broke into the prison of the Abbaye,
and liberated some dozen soldiers who had been thrown there for having
sworn to obey no orders contrary to those of the Assembly. You know
that a body of hussars and dragoons was sent against the people, and
that they refused to draw their swords upon them, but drank with the
mob the health of the nation. Perhaps you may not know, monseigneur,
that privates and officers of the French guard are heart and soul with
the people, that secret societies have been formed amongst them long
ago, and that disaffection has spread also to the regulars. You can
only rely on the Swiss and German mercenaries. Monseigneur, if Necker
be not immediately recalled, there will be civil war in France,--a
civil war between the French people and their brothers the French
soldiery on one side, and the Court and its hired foreigners on the
other. Are you prepared for this?'

The Bishop of Évreux was uneasy. He knew that what the curé said was
true, but the prospect was one he did not like to contemplate in all
its nakedness.

'You overrate my influence,' he said.

'At a moment like the present, every one should use what little
influence he has to avert a terrible disaster. Pray, my Lord, face the
consequences of this mad action for one moment, and consider whether it
is not worth your while at all hazards to strain every nerve to undo
it before it has produced its effects,--to stamp out the match before
it has exploded the barrel of gunpowder into which it has been cast.
My Lord, you, if you withhold your voice, will be responsible for the
blood which will flow in torrents.'

'Monsieur Lindet,' said the bishop, gravely, but with his hands
twitching, for he was frightened, 'sometimes the surgeon has to cut
deep to heal a deadly disease. Even supposing the worst were to come to
pass which you anticipate, and which God avert! it may be the means of
restoring tranquillity to France.'

'My Lord, place the consequences before your eye in every light. A
rebellion in Paris is inevitable. The union of the French guard with
the insurgents is also inevitable. What is the next step? The military
will be ordered to fall on Paris, and drive the people and the guard
before them, perhaps bombard the city, certainly cut down and trample
under their horses' feet the innocent as well as the guilty. You know,
my Lord, that this could not be done without the king's consent. Now,
can you calculate _with certainty_ on his majesty giving orders for the
massacre of his subjects? If you can, then well and good, the plan will
succeed, at all events for a time. But if the king hesitate for only a
few days,--if he refuse to permit the exercise of coercive measures on
so terrible a scale, then the game is lost, you have roused the whole
of France to madness, have forced the whole of the French people to
take up arms, you will probably find that the French soldiers will side
with them, and the whole of the old framework of the constitution will
go down with a crash, and bring crown, coronet, and mitre under its
ruins.'

The bishop turned a little pale, and his hands trembled.

'You exaggerate the consequences,' he faltered out.

'Monseigneur, your own common sense, your clear perception of the
state of public feeling at the time, must convince you that I do not
exaggerate. You,--no, I will not say that,--the Court is resolved on
using force to cut the Revolution short.'

The bishop would not speak.

'Yes, my Lord, it is so. Remember, the success of your venture entirely
depends on the king permitting the exercise of force. Can you calculate
on that?'

De Narbonne started up. His haughty manner had disappeared before the
prospect opening upon him. He had been one of the most urgent in his
advice to try the appeal to arms. He had never considered the chance
of the king refusing to permit their being turned against the people.
Knowing, as he well did, the kindness of the heart of Louis XVI;
knowing that with all his feebleness of purpose, and readiness to yield
to the opinion of the last speaker, he was conscientiously stubborn
against violence; knowing that even that very day he had refused to
allow the ex-minister to be arrested and sent to the Bastille, though
this had been urged by the queen herself, the bishop saw now for the
first time that the rock on which the Court scheme was in danger of
being wrecked, was the goodness of the king's heart.

The bishop looked at the curé and mused. Lindet said no more.

After a protracted silence, De Narbonne said, in a low voice: 'It is
too late; the die is cast.'

He led the way into the other room.

As Lindet bowed his farewell, the bishop held out his hand to him, and
said, 'Thank you.'

When the door closed upon the curé, he returned to the table at which
Foulon and Berthier were seated, and said:--'The new ministry will have
to be composed without me; I am resolved not to serve.'



CHAPTER XXX.


On Sunday morning, July 12th, Nicholas persuaded Madeleine and
Gabrielle to attend high mass at the church of S. Eustache, for the
altar of which he had carved a figure of the Blessed Virgin and
Child; and, as he considered this his masterpiece, he was exceedingly
anxious that the little Normandy girl should see it. He had thrown out
vague hints on several previous occasions, but Madeleine had put them
aside at once; on this occasion she yielded, to the great delight of
Nicholas, whose round face beamed with satisfaction, which he also
expressed to Gabrielle by sundry friendly nods behind his sister's back.

Gabrielle had completely won the young man's heart by her delicacy
in refraining from joining the two other women in their chorus of
disparagement of Werner Stauffacher, Erni of Melchthal, Walter Fürst,
the great Tell, and, above all, of the illustrious Bruder Klaus.
Nay, further, she had actually listened to the story of Arnold von
Winkelried, without remonstrance, and she apparently derived real
pleasure from hearing the old corporal prose over his reminiscences of
Switzerland.

'What a magnificent country it must be!' said the girl once to Nicholas.

'Magnificent!' echoed the young man, throwing up his hands; 'oh,
mademoiselle, you really must see it some day.'

After mass, and after that Nicholas had pointed out all the principal
excellencies of his statue to Gabrielle, who tried hard to see them, in
order to please him, they left the church.

'And now,' said Madeleine, 'we have come this long trudge to gratify
you, let us go to the Palais Royal and visit my aunt Louison for my
pleasure. Gabrielle has never seen the gardens, and, now that we are
so close to the palace, we may just as well go on there. I propose we
have some refreshment at one of her tables, and then saunter into the
gardens of the Tuileries.'

'Very well,' said Nicholas, joyously; 'the day is so beautiful, I shall
be delighted. Ah! it will be only too charming.'

'You have become all at once very obliging,' said Madeleine, bluntly.

They made their way to the Palais Royal, where Madame Louison,
Madeleine's aunt, kept a restaurant. M. Louison, in a white apron,
white jacket and white cap, stood at the head of the staircase, which
descended to the kitchen, before which was a bar, with liqueurs and
syrups, presided over by madame.

'Well,' said the lady to Madeleine, 'I am ravished to see you;' then,
revolving on her heel, she abruptly charged on her husband,--'Coco!
what are you idling there for? Down with you into the depths at once.'

'But, mamma!'

'No "buts" and no "mammas" to me!' cried the lady; 'down, Coco, down.'

Immediately the white man vanished into the abyss.

'And how is that angel your mother?' asked Madame Louison. 'Some
one said she had suffered greatly from headache, and I have been
overwhelmed with distress. I am sure I quite soaked my pillow with
tears. Ah! what it is to have a sympathising heart, to feel more for
others than for one's self. I have not slept for three nights, thinking
of that angel Josephine, and her racked head. Well! what now, Coco?'
she twirled round again, as a vision of a white cap and shoulders
appeared behind her. 'Ah! you need not come slinking up without shoes,
thinking I should not hear you. Down, Coco, down to your duties.' And
the white cap and jacket dived once more into the depths. 'And the
corporal,' continued the lady; 'that magnificent man, that warrior,
that hero, the father of this young man, need I say more?'

'Aunt, his head and heart are in Switzerland still; need I say more?'

'Ah, in Switzerland, that magnificent, that superb country, that land
of resources, of wealth, of commerce. Mon Dieu! it is a country!' She
said this bowing to Nicholas.

'Aunt,' said Madeleine, 'I must introduce to you a friend, Mademoiselle
André.'

'Ah! André,' repeated Madame Louison; 'a name, historical and
illustrious; I have known Andrés,--three, four, five, many an André,
but all were excellent people. And whence does Mademoiselle André come?'

'From Normandy,' answered Madeleine.

'Don't tell me she comes from Normandy,' said madame; 'of all the
provinces of France, the finest, the most superb, the most unfailing in
resources, the most wealthy, the most commercial, the most affluent in
men of money and talent, and in women,' she curtsied to Gabrielle, 'in
women of beauty.' Then sharply, 'Well, Coco!'

'I thought you called me, mamma!'

'No, Coco, you did not think so; down into your hole again, instantly,
Coco!' Then turning again to her visitors she proceeded, 'and what may
have brought Mademoiselle André to Paris? to Paris of all cities after
the charming Norman towns Rouen, and Caen, and Évreux! Ah! I blush for
the capital when I think of what the Norman cities must be, abodes of
industry and of virtue. Ah! I blush for the capital when I contrast the
morals of its citizens with those of Normandy, where all are good, all
are virtuous, all,' she curtsied to Gabrielle, 'all are angels.' Then,
glancing at Nicholas, she continued, 'and the Swiss, I should say that
none of our countrymen were their equals except the Normans, that race
of hardy, daring, enterprising incomparables! What will it please you
to order, Monsieur Nicholas?'

The young man gave his orders, and madame shouted down the chasm to
Coco, who, however, did not appear.

'Ah!' said the lady; 'that is the way with my good man. When he is
wanted, he is not within call; when not wanted, he is here.' She
caught up a broom and plunged down the stair or ladder or whatever it
was which descended to the kitchen, and presently, with a bound, up
the white man rose to the surface, followed more slowly and in more
dignified manner by his portly spouse.

'Mamma! no mamma! in pity!' he exclaimed, dancing to the other side of
the counter in white stockings and slippers down at the heel.

'Will you attend to business?' asked Madame Louison; 'will you at
once produce a little breakfast for these customers, will you conduct
yourself with propriety?'

'Oh, mamma! I assure you, I was only----'

'No excuse; down, down, Coco, and bring potage à la vermicelle--quick,
Coco, quick!'

'Oh stay! in pity!' he pleaded; 'let me look out of the doors for one
minute. Oh, what have we here! oh, mamma, you must come and see; there
is such excitement, such running to and fro. Come, come, come!'

'This instant, Coco; down, sir, down to your hole!'

But the scene without, in the gardens, was of sufficient attraction to
hold Coco immovable at the door, and make him deaf to the orders of his
spouse.

'What is the matter?' asked Madeleine.

'Mademoiselle, everything is the matter!' replied M. Louison; 'there is
a firework of excitement without. Oh! Camille the good, the facetious
Camille is on the table. Mamma, it is too much, I must go.'

And the white cap, white jacket, white apron, and white stockings
flitted like a pigeon past the window.

There was so much noise, such a rush of people, that it became apparent
to Madeleine, Nicholas, and Gabrielle, that some unusual cause of
excitement had occurred; they therefore ran outside, followed by Madame
Louison, whose interest, however, was entirely concentrated on her
run-away husband.

'Ah! there he is!' she exclaimed, pointing to a white speck in the
crowd, 'sapristi! but he shall catch it. Ah, ha! Coco!' she said in a
low tone, with a chuckle to herself; 'ah, ha! my Coco! will you do it
again, will you, will you?'

At the farther end of the gardens the crowd was densest. Thither
Madeleine hurried, drawing Gabrielle after her; Nicholas looked
hesitatingly about him and then followed. On a table, at which shortly
before some pleasure-takers had been sipping sugar and water, indeed,
standing among the tumblers, some of which were half empty, was
a tall slender young man, with long flowing hair reaching to his
shoulders, very abundant, glossy, and curled. His face was smooth and
clear-complexioned, his nose was straight and well shaped, his mouth
small and curled with a smile, and at every smile a dimple formed in
his girlish cheek. His large clear eye beamed with light. His brow
white and polished, without a furrow, was marked with prominent bumps
where phrenologists assert lie the organs of satire. He had falling
collars over a thick crimson handkerchief folded twice round his neck,
tied in a loose bow, and falling to his waist. His coat of sere-green
cloth was adorned with huge lappets which folded to his shoulders; his
waistcoat was white, and had also lappets.

'It is Camille, the brave Camille Desmoulins!' said Madeleine; 'what is
the matter with him?'

The young man was violently agitated. He spoke with vehemence, and the
tears flowed from his brilliant eyes. 'My friends! my friends!' he
cried, in a clear, bell-like voice; 'Necker is dismissed; Necker, the
friend of the people, Necker, the friend of justice and liberty, has
been driven away, his ministry dissolved, and who do you think have
been appointed in their place? De Breteuil, De Broglie, Foulon, De la
Vauguyon, Berthier--men who hate you, men who detest liberty, men of
war; De Breteuil the great Blunderer, De Broglie the old Mars; Foulon,
who would make men eat hay because his horses eat it; Berthier, who
has sold his heart to the devil, who weeps blood. The dismissal of
Necker is the tocsin of a S. Bartholomew of patriots. The Swiss and
German battalions are ready to fall on us, and to massacre us. For your
wives, for your children! To arms, to arms!'

Every sentence had elicited cries and groans.

'To arms!' yelled Monsieur Louison. Immediately behind him was his
spouse, broom in hand. 'To arms!' he cried, snatching the weapon
from her grasp and brandishing it above his head,--you may see him
immortalised in Duplessi-Bertaux' sketch published a few days after.

'My friends!' cried Camille; 'I see there--and there, facing me, with
their eyes watching me, the tame tigers of the court, the spies and
satellites of the police. Never will I fall alive into their hands;' he
suddenly drew a pair of pistols from his pocket and cocked them; 'let
all the friends of liberty follow my example and protect themselves, or
the prisons will be gorged with the best patriots.'

He was interrupted by cries of enthusiasm; 'we will protect you, we
will kill the tigers.' Some men sprang upon the table and embraced him,
the tumblers were thrown down and broken, and the sugar and water was
poured over the gravel.

'What is to be done?' was shouted; 'how shall we know the friends of
liberty?'

'Let us adopt a cockade,' cried Camille; 'then we shall know those who
are on our side from our foes.'

'A cockade, a cockade!' was shouted.

'Ah! Camille, dear, brave Camille!' shrieked Monsieur Louison; 'I will
protect you. They shall pass over my body before they touch you.' And
he beat his way with the broom-handle through the crowd towards the
table.

'Coco!' screamed his wife; 'you fool, you ape! The potage à la
vermicelle will be burnt.'

'Damn the vermicelle!' exclaimed the white man, stationing himself like
a sentinel before the table; 'I tell you, woman, I will shed the last
drop of my potage--I mean my blood.'

'Never mind what you mean,' called his incensed wife; 'I will have
you down into your hole again.' She struggled after him, but found it
impossible to force her way through the crowd, being unprovided with a
weapon, and being corpulent, whilst Coco was lean.

'What colour will you have for your cockade?' asked Desmoulins, his
clear voice pealing above the hoarse mutterings of the excited people.
'Will you have green, the colour of hope, or the blue of Cincinnatus,
the colour of American liberty and of democracy?'

Some shouted, 'Do you choose, Camille!' Others cried 'blue,' but the
call of the majority was for green; 'green, green, the hue of Hope!'

The young man waited, the cries for blue ceased, and presently as with
one voice the whole heaving mass of people roared 'Green!'

'Very well, my friends, let green be the colour. Who will provide me
with ribbon?'

A few moments after a number of rolls of silk ribbon of various shades
of green were handed to him. A mercer's shop in the Palais Royal had
yielded up its stock, and, when money had been offered in payment, the
mercer had refused it.

Camille adorned his own cap with a rosette, placed it on his head, and
then proceeded to attach scraps of green ribbon to the hats which were
passed to him, and which M. Louison presented to him in order at the
end of his broom.

'The ribbon is expended, my friends,' called Camille; 'fetch me some
more.'

'There is no more to be got,' shouted some one in the crowd.

'No more ribbon!' exclaimed Camille; 'well, let us take leaves from the
trees and pin them to our caps.'

Instantly lads and men began to climb the young trees and tear down
the branches. Each bough was seized upon before it touched the ground,
and the foliage was torn off by eager hands. Some of the leaves were
trampled under foot, and more were clamoured for. The crowd had been
gathering thicker every moment, pouring in from the streets, and the
whole garden was densely packed with men and women. The words of the
orator were flung along the mob, from voice to voice; the mob swayed
and roared, and cheered, like one living body, not as an assemblage of
individuals each with a will and thoughts of his own.

In half an hour the trees of the Palais Royal were stripped of their
leaves and looked bare and wintry.

From a modeller's shop opening on the gardens, a wax bust of the
popular ex-minister was produced, and was passed along above the heads
of the crowd. Some one flung a black crape veil over it.

'Forth into the streets,' was called. And the multitude rolled out
into the Rue de Richelieu. Suddenly, with a cry of exultation, Madame
Louison pounced upon her spouse, and carried him off to her shop.
Nicholas caught a glimpse of him ineffectually struggling, like a white
moth in a spider's clutches, as the lady drew him down into the hole he
usually inhabited. Nicholas drew Gabrielle's arm through his, and she
clung to him, otherwise she would have been swept away.

'We must escape as soon as possible,' said the young man; 'do not let
go your hold, Gabrielle--I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle André. You
must excuse me if I squeeze your arm, but I am so afraid of losing
you.'

'Where is Madeleine?'

'Madeleine can take care of herself.'

'But where is she?'

'There--a little ahead of us; she has been drifted forward, we must try
to reach her and link her on to us; it will not do to separate.'

'Can we not escape yet?'

'No. Impossible; I wish we could, but the crowd is too dense. We must
rejoin Madeleine first, or she will not know what has become of us.'

The sun glared down on the moving torrent of angry life. It was like
a viscous stream of lava poured from a volcano; the sun flashed on
bayonets, axes, large knives which had been attached to poles and made
into rude pikes.

The flashes from the weapons, as the sun lit them, resembled leaping
flames above the lava flood. The heat began to dissolve the wax bust,
the black crape attracted the heat unnecessarily, and it slowly
dissolved into a shapeless mass. Nevertheless it was borne along, its
bearers being unconscious of the transformation that was being effected
in their idol.

The stream pursued its course along the streets of S. Martin, S. Denis,
and S. Honoré, and spread out into a tossing lake in the Place Vendôme,
where lived several of the revenue-farmers, but not Foulon, whose house
was in the Rue du Temple.

Here was drawn up a detachment of dragoons, which charged the people,
and drove them back into the streets that opened on the square. A
French guardsman was trampled under the feet of the horses and killed.

Nicholas took the opportunity of the dissolution of the compact mass to
disengage himself and Gabrielle from the mob, and to escape with her
down the street before the Convent of the Feuillants.

'Where is Madeleine?' asked Gabrielle.

'Madeleine!' exclaimed Nicholas, standing still and looking round; 'I
really do not know where she is. But it does not matter; let us go into
the gardens of the Tuileries. It was her wish, you may remember, that
we should go there after our visit to the Palais Royal, and doubtless
she will make the best of her way there in the expectation of meeting
with us.'

They entered the beautiful gardens before the palace, and Gabrielle
would have admired the flowers at any other time, but her nerves had
been somewhat shaken by the excitement she had gone through, and she
asked Nicholas to let her sit down on the first seat they came to.

'I am so frightened, Monsieur Nicholas,' said she; 'I fear something
must have happened to Madeleine; I heard the people crying out that
some one was killed.'

'That was a man,' said the young man. 'I saw the horses tread him down,
it made me turn sick and giddy. The hoof of one horse cut open his head
just behind the ear, and the skull must have been crushed, for the
brain burst out as the horse trod his head down. Did you see nothing of
that?'

'No, no; I am thankful I did not.'

'I am rather taller than most of these French fellows; and as the man
fell there was a lane formed between the heads, and I saw it all.'

'When do you think Madeleine will be here?'

'I really cannot guess, but I hope before long.'

'And you are certain no harm has befallen her?'

'Harm befall Madeleine!' exclaimed Nicholas; 'that is an impossibility.
You never saw such a girl as that is for keeping out of danger herself,
though she will go into the midst of what is perilous to other people.'

'Oh,' sighed Gabrielle, 'how I wish that I were out of Paris, and back
in peaceful Bernay. And yet that cannot be.'

'I cannot say that I wish it,' said Nicholas, simply.

'But why not?' asked Gabrielle with equal simplicity.

Nicholas looked at her, with his great blue eyes wide open, and nodded.

'There!' said he, pointing to one of the flowers in a garden-bed before
them, 'that plant grows wild in my country.'

'Is your country very quiet; or have you such troubles as we have here?'

'Oh no! Switzerland is perfectly peaceful; ever since the great Werner
Stauffacher, Erni of Melchthal, and Walter Fürst, formed their league
against the tyrants who held the people in chains, we have been free,
and happy, and tranquil.'

'Then you had great troubles once?'

'Yes, there was the terrible struggle for freedom.'

'Perhaps the troubles here are part of our struggle.'

'No doubt; and then, when the bonds are burst, and despotism is at an
end, you will have peace.'

'Oh, Monsieur Nicholas! how I wish that time had come!'

'No doubt.'

'And is your country more beautiful than my Normandy?'

'Oh, ten thousand times more beautiful.'

'But you have not seen Normandy.'

'No, but I know enough,' he nodded towards her, 'to be well assured
that if you were given the choice between Switzerland and Normandy you
would say, Switzerland for ever! You have no lakes.'

'But there are ponds.'

'Ponds!' exclaimed Nicholas, 'what are ponds?'

'And we have forests.'

'Ah! plantations.'

'And we have beautiful hills. Above Bernay there is Mont Bouffey--'

'Mole-hills,' said Nicholas.

'No, indeed,' urged Gabrielle; 'there is a windmill on top of it.'

'A windmill!' echoed Nicholas; 'and you call that a hill, a "mont."
Heaven bless you, my dear Gabrielle, a "mont" with a windmill on the
top of it! Lord enlighten you! a "mont," indeed! a windmill on top of
it. Just heavens! how unequal are men's lots! here am I, who have seen
real mountains, and there is Gabrielle, who has never seen anything but
a little lump of earth with a windmill on the top of it. I dare say
that Mont Bouffey has no rocks.'

'N-n-o,' answered Gabrielle, her childish opinion of Mont Bouffey
greatly dashed by the contempt poured over it by the young Swiss.

'A "mont" without rocks, an earthy pimple! To think that you and ten
thousands, thousands of other living persons, and persons with souls,
too, should never have seen real mountains soaring into the clouds and
glittering with eternal snows. It is a thought to make me serious,'
said Nicholas, shaking his head. 'It is something to make one feel very
grateful to Heaven, that out of millions of poor benighted French, only
perhaps the corporal and I have seen snowy mountains.'

He was silent; and Gabrielle, looking furtively into his face, saw that
he was making an act of thanksgiving to the Almighty for having given
him a privilege which had been denied to so many.

'Wonderful,' mused Nicholas; 'wonderful indeed!'

Then he asked, 'And can you reconcile yourself to die without having
seen anything more like a mountain than that pimple with a windmill on
the top?'

'Please, kind Monsieur Nicholas, do not tease me about the Mont
Bouffey, or I shall joke you about the Bruder----'

'No, no, no,' he interrupted with earnestness, catching her hand,
and staring into her eyes with an appealing expression of distress.
'Whatever you do, my dearest Gabrielle, do not joke about Bruder Klaus.
That man lived a miraculous life; for years he ate no food, and lived
in incessant prayer----'

'Tell me about the beauties of Switzerland,' said the girl, smiling;
for she had heard all about the hermit's marvellous life several times
already.

'Ah, Gabrielle!' exclaimed Nicholas, enthusiastically, 'you really must
see Switzerland, you must indeed. I should be miserable to think that
your beautiful eyes should never rest on its glories.'

'But how can I ever see it, M. Nicholas?'

'Oh, you can go there.'

'Indeed I cannot.'

'But you must. Look here,' and the lad turned round, and, still holding
the hand he had seized at the alarm about Bruder Klaus, he began to
explain a scheme, and indicate it with the finger of his disengaged
hand on the back of Gabrielle's. 'You see my father's time of service
is over in August; and then we are going to return to Switzerland.'

'Ah, but Madeleine declares that Madame Deschwanden is quite resolved
not to go there. And Madeleine is of the same mind.'

'Then,' said Nicholas, 'my father and I shall return.'

'And then I could not go with you two men,' said the girl, laughing
gaily.

'Oh!' exclaimed the young man, opening his great eyes very wide, 'that
is awkward, I never thought of that.'

'And do you not think it a little awkward sitting here waiting for
Madeleine?' asked Gabrielle.

'No,' answered Nicholas, promptly; 'certainly not, why should it be so?'

'The gardens are very full,' said Gabrielle; 'had we not better walk
about now, and look for Madeleine, instead of sitting here any longer
hand in hand?'

'Very well,' answered Nicholas, rising, but not relinquishing the hand.
Gabrielle, however, snatched it from him, and then rested it on his arm.

'Look,' said Nicholas, 'the soldiers are yonder, drawn up at the
entrance of the Champs Elysées.'

'I have heard the discharge of fire-arms,' said Gabrielle, 'but not in
that direction.'

'Alphonse!' exclaimed Nicholas to a friend who was passing, 'can you
tell me what is going on? I was with the mob that marched from the
Palais Royal to the Place Vendôme, and was there dispersed, which gave
me the opportunity of escaping; it was no fault of mine that I was in
the riot.'

'Nicholas, my brave!' said the young man accosted, 'you want zeal. But,
to be sure, you are a foreigner. In your own country you would be a
patriot.'

'To be sure,' answered Nicholas; 'mine is the land of patriots; have we
not Werner Stauffacher, Erni of Melchthal, Walter Fürst, and the great
and glorious Tell?'

'I have heard,' said Alphonse, 'that Tell is a myth--a fable.'

'A myth--a fable!' exclaimed Nicholas, dropping Gabrielle's arm in
the extremity of his dismay. 'Wilhelm Tell!' he raised his cap at the
name. 'I have seen the place where he shot the arrow; I have seen the
spot where his son stood with the apple on his head; I have worshipped
before the chapel where he leaped ashore from Gessler's boat.'

'Never mind him now,' said Alphonse, laughing; 'come along with me to
the Place Louis XV[1].'

'And tell me what has been going on. Hush! there is the rattle of guns
again.'

'Nicholas!' whispered Gabrielle. 'There! look there!'

She pointed to a shutter which was being carried on men's shoulders
through the gardens; over it was cast a sheet spotted with blood; the
sheet by its folds indicated the outline of a corpse beneath it.

Immediately after, the Royal German dragoons, who had been employed
in dispersing the mob, arrived in the Place Louis XV. As they passed
the barrack of the French guard, a volley of musketry was discharged
upon them from the windows, and several of the soldiers were unhorsed
and wounded. At the same moment, a crowd which had filled the Champs
Elysées, and some of the promenaders in the Tuileries gardens, rushed
upon the dragoons with bottles and stones, which they flung at them
with cries of anger and hatred.

'Nicholas, do let us escape,' said Gabrielle.

'Let us work our way back,' he answered. But this was not so easily
effected; the firing in the Place Louis XV had attracted towards the
end of the garden opening on it all who had been strolling among the
flower-beds, and fresh arrivals every moment made the barrier behind
them more and more impassable.

'We must wait our opportunity,' said Nicholas; 'hold tight to me. Do
not let go, on any consideration.'

'Where can Madeleine be?' asked the girl.

'Madeleine is there!' suddenly exclaimed the lad, pointing towards the
statue of Louis XV, which occupied the centre of the great octagonal
place. This open piece of ground had been adorned in the centre with
an equestrian statue of the king in bronze in 1763, by the provost of
Paris. At the angles of the pedestal were four figures of the cardinal
virtues, Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude, and Justice, 'over whose
heads,' said the wags, 'the king is trampling.' Among other sarcastic
epigrams the group had given rise to was this:--

 'O la belle statue, O le beau piédestal!
 Les Vertues sont à pied, le Vice est à cheval!'

Standing on this pedestal, with one arm around the leg of the bronze
horse, was Madeleine Chabry, her black hair flowing wildly over her
shoulders from beneath a peasant's scarlet cap, which had been handed
to her when in the scuffle in the Place Vendôme she had lost her
head-dress. Her gown was torn; one of the sleeves, that on the right
arm, had been ripped off, how and when Madeleine knew not. She held a
staff in her hand, headed with a knife and a bunch of green leaves.

Nicholas and Gabrielle could not hear her words, but they saw her
gesticulate violently and point to the gates of the Tuileries, and then
towards the soldiers. Those near her, however, caught up her cry, and
shouted to the crowd to back into the gardens, for the soldiers were
coming that way.

'Barricade them out!' was called from one to another; 'shut the gates!'
Then the answer came, 'We cannot; they will not stand back.'

'Ho, there! chairs, stalls, anything!'

'Chairs, benches, there,' was repeated; and instantly garden-seats,
benches, and tables, were passed over the heads of the crowd towards
the front.

'The soldiers are coming!' was cried again.

Madeleine disappeared from her perch. Next moment she reappeared at the
gates, assisting in barricading them with chairs and benches.

The people began rapidly to thin out and disperse in the gardens, as
the cry of the approach of the soldiers reached them.

'Now,' said Nicholas, 'back, Gabrielle, we must escape at once.' He
forced his way through the mob, dived under seats which were being
carried forward to form a barrier, and drew the girl out of the grounds
into the streets.

He was not a moment too soon. The sharp rattle of musketry and the
shrieks of the wounded reached them as they escaped.

By order of Besenval, the Prince de Lambesc, colonel of the dragoons,
had charged the people and driven them behind their barrier. This was
speedily demolished; over the broken fragments the German mercenaries
advanced with sabres drawn, and the people rolled back before them,
falling beneath the horses' feet, discharging stones, stocks, anything
that was ready at hand at the advancing line, cursing the prince and
the soldiers, but retreating rapidly before them. The line broke into a
trot and cleared the garden, leaving behind them trampled flower-beds,
fragments of benches, and prostrate men, women, and children, with
limbs broken and bleeding wounds.

As Nicholas and Gabrielle fled along the street towards the Rue S.
Antoine, they saw that the whole city was in commotion. All shops
were being shut except those of the armourers, where a busy trade was
carried on. Men and women went about bearing weapons and adorned with
the green cockade. Flying past them, not noticing them, with her hair
streaming behind her, and the red bonnet on one side, darted Madeleine,
crying to all,--'The Hôtel de Ville! To arms, to arms!' A few moments
later the great alarm-bell of the Hôtel de Ville pealed over the city
its sonorous threatening cry from brazen mouth and brazen tongue:--'To
arms, to arms!'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The present Place de la Concorde.]



CHAPTER XXXI.


That night few persons in Paris closed their eyes. The sky was red
with fires made at all the barriers. In 1784 the octroi wall had been
built round Paris, with gates called barrières, at which taxes were
levied on eatables and wines brought into the capital. The people, who
regarded this tax as an imposition, unjust and intolerable, attacked
the gates during the day and again during the night, and destroyed
them. The armourers' shops were pillaged, and the streets were paraded
by bands of men armed with such weapons as they could get. The Baron de
Besenval, finding that resistance was impossible, withdrew his troops
from the town, and sent to Versailles for orders.

On Monday morning the electors assembled at the Hôtel de Ville, and
thinking it necessary to give their authority a more legal form, they
appointed M. de Flesselles administrator of the city. He refused to
act without a formal requisition. This was given him, and a number
of electors were associated with him to form a municipality invested
with full powers. This municipality summoned before it the lieutenant
of police, and in a few hours drew up a plan for the formation of a
militia corps, to be composed of forty-eight thousand men, who were to
wear instead of the green cockade another composed of blue and red, the
Parisian colours. Every one with this cockade bearing arms, who was not
enrolled in the corps of his district, was to be disarmed and punished.

The provost Flesselles by no means sympathised with this movement,
and used every opportunity that presented itself of retarding the
enrolment, and the subsequent armament of the body of militia
so rapidly formed. He had been that day summoned by the king to
Versailles, yet he dared not go there.

The people clamoured for guns. The Garde-Meuble had been broken open
in the morning, and its rusty swords and antique armour had been
distributed among the mob. But that was nothing. Flesselles promised
twelve thousand guns the same day; before the night fell, surely the
Marshal de Broglie would pour his troops upon Paris--so thought the
provost. Berthier, it was well known, had caused thirty thousand
muskets to be imported, and had commanded two hundred thousand
cartridges to be made. The people grew impatient. Valuable time was
being lost; the mercenaries might be upon them at any moment. The
provost then declared that the guns he had promised were on their way
to the Hôtel de Ville from the manufactory at Charleville, and waggons
were shortly after seen to traverse La Grève, inscribed with the word
_Artillerie_. These waggons drew up at the entrance of the Hôtel, and
the cases were borne into the magazines.

The provost then refused to unpack the weapons, without French
guardsmen to attend to their orderly distribution. The officers
declined to send soldiers for the purpose; consequently, the people
insisted on the electors opening the cases. They did so, and found them
to contain old linen.

At this sight the people became furious, and threatened the provost, so
that to appease them he was obliged to give orders for the immediate
manufacture of fifty thousand pikes. As the people could see the fires
roar, the bellows go, and hear the clink of the hammer, and see the
flash of the sparks, they were satisfied, at least for a while.

In the meantime, the arsenal was besieged by a crowd, desiring
gunpowder. They were solemnly assured that it was empty. An invalid and
a wig-maker were stationed near it to keep watch. Presently they saw
a number of barrels brought out and rolled on board some boats in the
Seine. They gave the alarm; the boats were seized, and the gunpowder
transported to the Hôtel de Ville, and distributed among the people by
the Abbé Lefebvre.

The report spread that five regiments at S. Denis were on the move with
forty pieces of artillery; that at Gonesse there were fifty cannons,
and at Bourget sixty, and that the troops were advancing.

The terror of the people became excessive. Drums rattled in every
street, the bells of all the churches pealed the alarm. Two cannons,
one ornamented with silver, which had been found in the Garde-Meuble,
were drawn in front of the Hôtel de Ville and loaded. The prison of La
Force was burst into, and all the debtors were released. The soldiers
of the French guard refused to obey their officers, and deserted their
barrack to fling themselves into the arms of the people. Old men,
women, and children carried paving-stones up into the attics of the
houses, to hurl down on the troops that were momentarily expected to
enter Paris; and those able-bodied men who were without arms threw up
barricades at the ends of the streets. Others tore the lead off the
roofs of their houses and melted it up into bullets.

As the darkness descended over the city, the fear of the people
redoubled. All at once it was reported that there was a store of guns
at the Invalides. The deputies of one district went immediately to
Besenval, the commandant, and Sombreuil, the governor of the Hôtel.

Besenval answered that he must write for orders from Versailles before
he could deliver them up. He accordingly wrote to Marshal de Broglie to
hasten down upon Paris. The deputies returned with his answer, and it
was decided that if, on the morrow, the arms were not given up, they
should be seized by force.

M. de Sombreuil had taken precautions some days previously. He had
caused to be transported into the vaults beneath the dome of the
Invalides all the stands of arms, and these to be covered with straw.
As soon as the demand for them was made, he gave orders that the guns
should be dismounted, and the locks unscrewed and removed. But the
invalids, who sympathised with the popular movement, did their work
so slowly, that during the night they had only pulled twenty guns to
pieces.

Early in the morning of the 15th, before the day began to dawn,
shots were fired against the walls of the Bastille, and De Launay,
the governor, mounted to the summit of the towers and listened. He
heard the distant murmuring of the city, and the rumble of vehicles
in the streets; he saw the red glow of the burning barriers, and the
countless lines of light in the black city. There was no mob around
the gates into the Rue S. Antoine, so he returned below. He had taken
precautions. His cannons were loaded with grape-shot. Six cart-loads
of paving-stones, old iron and cannon-balls, had been carried to the
top of the towers to crush his assailants. In the bottom loop-holes he
had placed twelve large rampart-guns, each of which carried a pound and
a half of bullets. His trustiest soldiers, the Swiss, thirty-two in
number, he kept below, and distributed his eighty-two invalids about
the towers.

From dawn the committee of electors or extemporised municipality had
been sitting in the town-hall.

Messengers came from the Faubourg S. Antoine to announce that the guns
of the Bastille had been run out and threatened the town.

The committee resolved on sending a deputation to request the
withdrawal of the cannons, and that the governor would promise to
refrain from hostilities, assuring him on their side that the people
of Paris would respect the fortress if he would accede to their
request. The three deputies were courteously received by the governor;
he conducted them into his house, and regaled them with a sumptuous
breakfast. He undertook to remove the cannons turned against the town,
and gave orders in their hearing to that effect. Shortly after it
was announced that his orders had been executed. The deputation then
took their leave, and were crossing the drawbridge lowered to give
them passage, when three other deputies, MM. Thuriot de la Rozière,
Bourlier, and Toulouse, despatched by the district of La Culture,
demanded admittance. It was refused. Nevertheless, Thuriot forced his
way into the Bastille, and summoned the garrison to surrender in the
name of the country. The French soldiers hung their heads, but the
Swiss remained unmoved. De Launay saw by the action and expression of
the invalids that his garrison was divided.

When M. Thuriot returned to the people, and they learned from his
lips that the governor refused to admit the city militia, shouts of
rage arose, and some, thinking the delegate was to blame, attacked him
with blows. Forcing his way through the mob, he made for the Hôtel de
Ville. The Place la Grève then presented a strange spectacle. It had
become the central point to which everything converged. Waggons, carts,
cattle, corn, money, weapons,--everything, in short, was brought there.
The pikes ordered by Flesselles had all been manufactured in the night,
and were being distributed to the new militia. The place was inundated
with people rolling in waves from side to side, and running up the
stairs of the Hôtel de Ville, and pouring even into the hall of the
committee.

M. Thuriot had to beat his way with his fists to the stairs, and then,
when he had reached the ante-chamber, he stuck there unable to advance
or retire, wedged immovably into the compact mass of human beings who
filled it. With his loud, husky voice he bellowed out his mission, and
continued roaring till some of the citizen guard forced a way for him
through the throng. Thus he arrived, thrust on by those who closed
in behind him, in the saloon where sat the municipality then engaged
in hearing the case of a lad of fourteen, who was accused of having
sold for a crown apiece several national cockades worth a few sous.
The excitement of the populace was at its height, so clearly did it
perceive the meanness of this speculation. The committee ordered the
seizure of the cockades, and the money to be distributed among the
poor.

'That is not sufficient,' shouted one of the audience; 'we are not
brigands, like those who sacked the house of Réveillon,--we don't
choose to be taken for brigands, or thieves, or pickpockets. The
cockade is an honourable badge. He who uses it for fraudulent purposes
outrages the national honour. Let him be tried and sentenced for
treason.'

The motion was applauded, and the young man was ordered to prison.

M. Thuriot then reported what had occurred in the Bastille; but the
people listened with mistrust, and continued to cry out for arms.

Flesselles, the president of the committee, tried in vain to silence
the multitude; he rang his bell and gesticulated vehemently, but they
redoubled their demands.

At that moment, the deputation previously sent by the committee
arrived and gave an account of their mission. This second report
calmed the tumult, and Flesselles, profiting by the occasion, drew up
a proclamation to the people informing them of the good intentions of
the governor of the Bastille. MM. Boucher and Thuriot were passed out
upon the balcony to read it to the mob, preceded by the trumpets of the
town-hall. The trumpets pealed forth the summons, and the noise in the
Place de Grève ceased instantly, dying into a breathless calm.

M. Thuriot de la Rozière began to read the proclamation, but he had
hardly uttered the opening sentences, before the boom of cannon made
the wall vibrate behind him. He stopped and lowered the paper.

A rattling explosion of artillery followed; then a cry rose from a band
of people who poured up from the narrow streets to the east,--'Treason!
it is the cannon of the Bastille!'

The ranks opened before a messenger, wounded in the arm and bleeding,
who fled to the gates of the Hôtel de Ville with the news that the
Governor de Launay was massacring the people.

Thuriot tore the paper in his hand into shreds and cast it into the air.

Cries of rage rose from the vast multitude surging in the Place around
the statue of Louis XIV. Then from those far in the rear burst a roar
like that of a wild beast lashed into fury by its keeper, and a compact
body rushed through the general crowd laden with arms, which they
distributed to all who wore the patriotic cockade. The arms of the
Invalids had fallen into the hands of the people.

Then from all quarters rose the cry,--'To the Bastille!'



CHAPTER XXXII.


When M. Thuriot de la Rozière left the Bastille with the refusal of the
governor to receive into it a detachment of city guards, the people
drew off from the gate to consult. The answer of De Launay was not of a
nature to satisfy them. But what step it was advisable to take was by
no means clear. During this moment of hesitation a blacksmith, Tournay
by name, leaped from the roof of a perfumer's shop upon the battlement
of the wall surrounding the gardens, and which enclosed the whole area
of the fortress. Thence he descended to the guard-house, and thence
into the first court. He entered the lodge in quest of the keys of the
gate, but they were not there; then he demanded a hatchet.

Aubin Bonnemère, an old soldier, flung him one, and Tournay cut,
hacked, and broke through the chains, and let fall the first
drawbridge. The crowd rushed in and filled the court. The firing began
at once from the towers and the loop-holes below.

Bonnemère heading the people ran to the second drawbridge, hoping
to succeed with it as they had with the first; but a discharge of
musketry drove them back. Some sheltered themselves under the grating,
some in the elm-court, leaving several writhing in the agonies of death
on the pavement.

At the same time, the fire-brigade arrived with their engines, and
began to jerk a stream of water against the towers of the Bastille
with the intention of deluging the cannons and spoiling their priming.
But the jets would not reach so far, and the garrison laughed at the
attempt. The sound of fire-arms had attracted an immense crowd with
incredible rapidity, and along with the people arrived numbers of the
city militia, wearing their old uniform of the French guard. The mob
instantly placed themselves under their orders, elected their officers,
and swore obedience to their commands.

It was at this moment that Élie, an officer belonging to the Queen's
regiment, knowing the importance of an uniform, quickly changed his
private dress for the brilliant livery of his corps, and was at once
elected commander of the French guards. Hullin, a gamekeeper of the
Marquis de Conflans, mistaken for a soldier, because he wore his
master's livery, was elected captain of the workmen.

Several times did the people fling themselves upon the second gate, but
each time the discharge of a rampart-gun loaded with bullets drove them
back with terrible slaughter.

This was the moment when a deputation from the Hôtel de Ville arrived
and sought admission to the fortress. They approached slowly, waving
their white handkerchiefs, but in the fire and smoke they were not
seen, and the defenders of the Bastille continued to pour from the
towers a shower of lead.

The deputies determined to traverse the first court and knock at the
gate; but as they prepared to pass under the vault of the portal from
the Rue S. Antoine, the people beneath it, armed and firing upon the
garrison, signed to them not to approach. The deputies then turned into
the Rue de la Cerisaye, hoping to find admission by that entrance to
the castle. But there the fight was raging with even greater fury. The
besiegers were commanded by La Reynie. The embassy advanced, explained
their mission, and implored the people to suspend hostilities.
Immediately, at La Reynie's command, the firing ceased, and the
deputies renewed their signals and slowly neared the citadel, followed
by the people with their arms reversed.

But scarcely had they approached near the gate, when a volley of
musketry struck down half a dozen men around the messengers, and the
people enraged at this action, which they regarded as perfidy, whereas
in all probability it arose from a mistake, recommenced their firing.
Finding it impossible to execute their mission, the delegates returned
to the town-hall.

In the meantime, reinforcements had arrived. Peillon and the architect,
Palloy, marched to the attack at the head of a company of citizens.
They were followed by the brothers Kabers, chemists, conducting the
corps of their trade; then came Turpin, fusilier of the company of
Brache, and Maillard alone, but huge, with a solemn face and black
dress,--a gloomy giant. From the direction of the arsenal came up
another troop, headed by Geudin, a lad of seventeen. His father was a
workman engaged in the citadel; he wished to save his life at the risk
of his own.

Shortly after, a second deputation from the Hôtel de Ville arrived,
headed by the flag with the city arms, and a drummer. The drum rattled
a recall, and the crowd, believing that the signal announced the
arrival of the troops, fell back. But when they found that it announced
another embassy, they testified their impatience, and assured the
deputies that it was impossible for them to cross the court. The
deputies persisted, and entered the open space strewn with corpses.
The insurgents ceased firing, and the signal of the embassy was
acknowledged from the towers by the hoisting of a white flag. But,
unfortunately, the towers were manned by French soldiers, and the
gates by Swiss; and the latter, unaware of what the invalids had done,
discharged the rampart-gun upon the deputies.

At that moment the rumble of the cannon was heard advancing along the
Port au Blé.

'The cannon, my friends, the cannon!' bellowed Élie, and the
silver-mounted gun from the Garde-Meuble was run into the court and
pointed at the gate.

A man named Cholat had brought the guns to the assistance of the
besiegers. He had previously visited the powder magazine, and had
provided himself by force with sufficient ammunition. These guns were
followed soon after by the cannon from the Invalides. Georget, a
marine, whose thigh was broken by a ball, seated himself on a heap of
stones and directed some novices in the use of cannon how to load and
to discharge the piece under his charge.

Three cart-loads of straw had been pushed forward against the
imperishable second gate and set on fire. Immediately the rampart-gun,
which had already done such havoc, blew a storm of grape among those
who crept up under cover of the straw, and dispersed them. The flame
and smoke rose high into the air, and concealed the movements of the
garrison; the cannon of the insurgents thundered incessantly, and
volleys of bullets pattered innocuously against the hard walls of the
fortress. One ball from a gun pointed by Élie carried away the cap
of one of the pepper-boxes on the nearest tower, and struck down an
invalid named Fortuné, the first of the garrison who perished in the
action. The crash of the falling roof alarmed the invalids, who fought
without heart and with reluctance.

In the meantime, the guard-houses opening on the court had caught fire,
and were in a blaze. In one of them was a young and beautiful girl, who
had secreted herself in her chamber at the beginning of the fight. The
flames drove her from her shelter, and she fled across the yard with
dishevelled hair and with face pale with fear.

The people, supposing her to be the governor's daughter, uttered loud
cries of 'Seize her! and threaten De Launay with her death, unless he
surrender.'

At these words, a score of men fell upon her. In vain did she assure
them that she was no relation of the governor; the madmen, drunk with
excitement, would have massacred her, had not Aubin Bonnemère forced
his way through them and protected her against their blows, exclaiming,
'Cowards! by striking a woman, you disgrace a sacred cause!'

But he was unable to allay the general intoxication of rage. Another
discharge of grape strewed the ground with corpses.

'We will not kill her,' shouted a demoniac; 'the fire shall devour the
girl. If De Launay will not surrender, he shall see his child expire in
the flames;' and laying hold on the young lady, he flung her on a straw
bed, and set fire to it. The terrified girl uttered a piercing scream
and fainted.

That cry drew M. de Monsigny, commandant of the gunners in the citadel,
to the parapet. He looked through an embrasure, and recognised his
daughter. The assailants saw him lift his hands in the agony of his
fear, and at the same moment a bullet entered his breast, and he fell
back into the arms of the invalids.

But Bonnemère had not abandoned the unfortunate girl; regardless of the
blows showered upon him, and the opposition he met with, the brave man
plunged through the ferocious band that surrounded her, he trod out the
flames, and raising her insensible form in his nervous arms, bore her
away to a house in the Rue S. Antoine, where she could be in safety,
and then returned to his place at the head of the besiegers. Maillard,
Élie, and Hullin, finding that the burning straw obscured the view of
the drawbridge, and prevented them from taking accurate aim, displaced
the carts, and by means of poles strewed the flaming straw about the
yard, where it was stamped out by the militia, who now filled it.

They then advanced to the edge of the moat and shouted to the governor
to lower the bridge. M. de Flue, the officer commanding the Swiss,
replied through the battlements that the garrison would yield if they
were allowed to march forth with all the honours of war.

'No,' was the answer; 'no more arms for those who have butchered the
people.'

To account for this readiness to entertain the idea of capitulation, we
must visit the interior of the citadel.

Upon the death of Monsigny, the invalids had refused to continue the
defence. They could not forget that they were Frenchmen, and that those
whose blood they were shedding were their countrymen.

De Launay, finding it impossible to hold out, when the majority of his
garrison were mutinous, in the insanity of rage and fear, rushed to the
powder magazine with a lighted match to blow up the castle and destroy
with it the assailants and the besieged. A soldier, Ferrand by name,
was sentinel at the door. Divining the purpose of the governor, he
refused to give him admission to the magazine, snatched the match from
his hand, and extinguished it with his foot.

When the terms of surrender proposed by M. de Flue had been refused,
the officer consented to lay down his arms on condition that no harm
should be offered to the garrison. A tumult of contradictory answers
arose. Some promised what was demanded, others required unconditional
surrender. At last, after several minutes of uproar, a scrap of paper
was passed though an embrasure in the wall. A plank was run across
the moat, but, as there was no resting-place for the end on the
farther side, a number of men jumped upon that portion which rested
on the pavement of the yard and sustained the plank in its horizontal
position, whilst one of the crowd ran along it and reached his hand
towards the paper. But whether his situation rendered him giddy, or
whether the counterpoise was not effectually maintained, is uncertain;
he reeled and fell over into the fosse and perished. The huge Maillard
sprang upon the plank in his place, and succeeded in possessing himself
of the note which he remitted to Élie. It contained these words:--

 'We have twenty thousand charges of gunpowder. Unless you accept our
 terms of capitulation, we will blow up the garrison and the whole
 quarter of the town.'

'I accept, on the word of honour of an officer,' called Élie; 'lower
the drawbridge.'

But the crowd protested against this capitulation, being exasperated
against the garrison for having thinned their numbers with their
bullets; and running the cannon forward to the brink of the fosse, they
pointed it, and prepared to fire, when a young and beautiful girl,
wearing a peasant's scarlet cap, to which was pinned the national
rosette, and holding a musket in one hand, and a blue cloak over her
other arm, suddenly cast her bonnet upon the touch-hole, and held it
resolutely there.

At the same moment the lesser drawbridge was lowered, and Élie, Hullin,
Maillard, and Cholat leaped upon it and prevented others from crossing
till they had attached it to the ground with cramps and nails; then,
flying to the other side, they let the great bridge fall with a crash.

Immediately the French guard marched across, and with great forethought
ranged themselves on either side of the bridge, to prevent the crowd,
which prepared to rush over it, from forcing one another over the edge
into the moat.

The tunnel that opened before them through the massive walls of the
fortress was illumined by the ruddy glare of the governor's house and
guard-houses, which were in flames, and a streak of fire shone even
into the well-like quadrangle in the centre.

A light dusty rain had been falling, so light as not to wet any one,
but to draw a silvery haze over the scene. As the insurgents rushed
through the portal, the sun pierced this veil and painted upon it a
portion of a rainbow above the huge black towers.

One of the first to enter the court of the Bastille was the girl who
had prevented the gun from being discharged. It was Madeleine.

In the quadrangle were drawn up the garrison, on the right the
invalids, on the left the Swiss.

Some of the people, in their fury, rushed upon them. Élie drew his
sword, and stood before the French veterans.

'I have given my word of honour that they shall be untouched,' he
cried; 'they are our brothers. Respect your victory.'

But the authority which had been acknowledged in battle was little
regarded in the moment of triumph, and the insurgents fell upon the
Swiss, against whom they were especially exasperated.

Hullin and Élie continued to cry, 'Spare them. Respect your victory;
let no blood be shed by us within these accursed walls!' but the rage
of the assailants rendered them deaf to the appeals of their officers.

'Turn their coats!' cried Madeleine.

'Turn their coats; yes, let them be turned,' repeated the brave Élie;
and in an instant the uniform of the Swiss was torn off by ready hands
and reversed.

'Nicholas, help!' called Madeleine, as she rushed upon the corporal,
and rent his uniform from his back.

In the scuffle, one of the guard fled,--the man who stood next to
Deschwanden.

A shout of rage burst from the victors, and they turned in pursuit. The
man ran towards the great entrance, but it was blocked by an advancing
crowd of people; he turned and fled round the quadrangle, with a score
of pursuers at his heels. He tried the chapel door, but it was locked,
then he doubled and fled towards the new buildings. As he ran up the
steps, a dozen hands seized him. With a scream, so piercing that the
walls of the great square echoed it again and again, he went down, and
was literally hacked to pieces. This man was Beckhard, the gunner, who
had produced the greatest havoc among the people by the discharges of
the rampart gun near the gate.

The excitement of the chase and the murder had arrested the attention
of the mob.

Madeleine and Nicholas had taken advantage of the incident to equip the
corporal in the blue cloak and red cap of the girl, and to arm him with
her rifle.

'Join us, quick!' she whispered; then aloud in her shrill tones: 'My
friends! our brothers are languishing in these dungeons. Let our first
act be their release!'

'To the dungeons!' was answered by the people.

'Lead off the prisoners,' ordered Élie; and the Swiss guard, minus
their corporal and their gunner, were marched out of the citadel,
which they had defended with so much gallantry. As they appeared in
the streets, their turned coats saved them from being massacred by
the people, for they were mistaken for prisoners who had just been
liberated.

Floods of excited besiegers continued to pour into the great court, and
the invalids were exposed to imminent danger. Those who had brothers
and fathers killed in the siege demanded their blood. They fell upon
one of them,--the man Ferrand, who had prevented the governor from
blowing up the citadel,--and killed him; then cut off his hands and
carried them about on the end of pikes. The butchery of the rest would
inevitably have followed, had not the Sieur Marqué, sergeant of the
French guard, forced his way, followed by his company, through the mob
into the quadrangle, and surrounded the invalids, shouting: 'Pardon,
pardon for your comrades, your brothers!'

These words met with an instant response, so versatile is a mob, and
a lane was opened through the crowd to allow the twenty-two invalids,
and eleven little Swiss children belonging to the foreign detachment,
to leave the castle, escorted by the French guard, who continued to cry
out as they advanced, 'The people have pardoned; open your ranks.'

In the meantime, Cholat had hunted out De Launay, who stoutly denied
that he was the governor. But Cholat knew him, and dragging him along,
he called to Hullin and a couple of grenadiers to assist him in
conveying him to the tribunal of the electors, to be by them judged.

As De Launay was brought into the quadrangle, a thousand voices cried
for his blood. He quaked with fear, and drawing a dagger, attempted
to stab himself, but Cholat knocked the weapon from his grasp, not,
however, before De Launay had wounded himself in the hand.

Hullin and Cholat attempted to force their way through the crowd with
their prisoner between them. Hullin, an immense man, covered him with
his person. One of the crowd struck at the governor with a sabre, but
only cut his clothes. His captors, redoubling their efforts, succeeded
in forcing their way through the gates and reaching the street. In
the outer court they were joined by some others, animated by the same
desire of saving the governor from the rabble, and bringing him to
justice.

But the rush of the tide was against them; they were breasting waves of
life rolled towards the Bastille from every quarter of Paris, to which
the news spread like lightning that the citadel had fallen. Cholat was
torn from the side of De Launay. The great Hullin held his prisoner
as long as he could; finding that he could no longer protect him, he
put his own hat on the governor's head, and then the blows aimed at
the latter fell on his shoulders. But he wriggled his way through the
crowd, grasping the prisoner, till he had reached the arcade S. Jean.
There the mass of people swayed like a sea in a storm. Twice Hullin
fell, and twice he regained his feet. Cholat had fallen. He had eaten
nothing all day, and this last desperate effort to save a life had
been too much for him. He fainted, and was well-nigh trodden to death
beneath the feet of the crowd. Arné, who had taken his place beside the
governor, was swallowed up in a whirlpool of people.

In another moment, the head of De Launay was cut off and held up on a
pike, amidst the cheers of a brutal mob.

Madeleine, the corporal, thoroughly disguised, and by all supposed to
be a leader of the insurgents, Nicholas, and Gabrielle, whom Madeleine
had drawn with her, rushed to the steps of the new buildings. They
were splashed with blood, where the gunner had fallen. A man had run a
ladder against the clock-face, adorned with the chained automata, and
was up at it, hacking them and their fetters to pieces.

A tumultuous rabble besieged the door of the new chapel, supposing it
to be an entrance to the prisons, and would have burst it open, when
it was unlocked from within, and the old chaplain appeared, saying,
'The spot is sacred.' The mob fell back out of reverence; but presently
they observed the painting over the altar, which, by a refinement of
cruelty, represented S. Peter in chains between his keepers.

'Look,' roared one of the crowd; 'in the house of God, despotism
preaches to the captives that nothing but a miracle can deliver them
from their bonds.'

'Follow me,' cried another, armed with a hatchet, leaping in. Directly
the sanctuary was invaded, and the objectionable painting was removed;
but no other injury was done.

In the meantime, the corporal, Nicholas, and the two women, followed by
a number of men, armed with guns, hatchets, and pikes, rushed along the
passage in the new buildings. Gabrielle conducted them. They reached
the corridor in the well-court, between the towers Du Pont and De la
Liberté.

'Thirty-five,' said Gabrielle, arresting them at the door where Madame
Berthier was confined.

Hatchets, bars, and hammers were at once applied, and the door was
forced in.

Before them stood the lady, with the yellow cat on her shoulder,
hissing with fright, with erect back and tail.

Gabrielle fell into her arms, without speaking.

'I thought so,' said Madame Plomb; 'we have been expecting the towers
to fall every minute. Now come away from here; they have been tottering
for days--for years, I believe; come quickly away, or they will bury
you under the ruins. I am going, and Gabriel is going, so none of you
remain behind.'

Then striding over the shattered door with her cat still perched beside
her head, holding Gabrielle's arm, she led the way into the corridor.

'Where is the Beast?' she asked suddenly, turning round on her
deliverers. 'Ah! he is hidden. Wait a bit, I must go after him myself.'



CHAPTER XXXIII.


The day of the 14th had been spent at Versailles by the Assembly, in
sending deputations to the king which were answered evasively, and by
the queen and Madame de Polignac in encouraging the officers, to whom
was committed the task of restoring the ancient régime. The queen had
walked in the orange-garden within sight of the soldiers, had spoken to
and flattered their officers, and had ordered the distribution of wine
among the troops.

In the meantime, messages were being transmitted to the Assembly from
the Committee of Electors at the Hôtel de Ville of Paris, informing
them of the state of the capital, and of the siege of the Bastille. The
news of the progress of the insurrection spread through Versailles,
and excited various emotions. That which predominated in the Hall of
the States-General was vexation, because the work of the Assembly was
interrupted by the popular agitation. The courtiers swaggered and
laughed over it. That the people should be able to dint the walls of
a fortress which had repulsed the Great Condé, was a supposition too
absurd to be entertained with gravity.

The king retired early to bed. About midnight, the Duke de Liancourt
entered his chamber to announce the capture of the Bastille, and, at
his instance, he resolved to visit the Assembly next morning.

The Assembly had reassembled, ignorant of the dispositions of the
king, and it resolved to send him another deputation; but when he
arrived, without guards, and advancing into the hall spoke frankly and
naturally, he was interrupted by bursts of applause.

But the Court had no intention of capitulating to the Assembly.
Berthier and Foulon were at Versailles with De Broglie, Breteuil, and
the rest of the new ministry. They saw that the crisis had arrived.
Force must be employed, or all was lost.

A cabinet council was summoned; Monsieur and the Count d'Artois formed
part of it. Every member composing it was anxious, those who least
expressed it in their countenances were the old Marshal and Foulon. The
Count d'Artois was in a condition of nervous trepidation; he had heard
that his name had been denounced at the Palais Royal, along with those
of Flesselles and De Launay. The Marshal de Broglie was indifferent, at
least in appearance; if the king gave the command, he was ready to blow
Paris into the Seine; he was a soldier, and his chief virtue lay in
obedience to his superior. Foulon, calm and imperturbable, took snuff,
and then dusted his face with his handkerchief; he extended his box
to Berthier, who took a pinch with shaking fingers. His father-in-law
raised his eyebrows, and a slight curl appeared on his lip.

Berthier wiped his eyes repeatedly, and dropped his handkerchief,
picked it up and dropped it again.

The stout, amiable king had a weary, worried expression; his
lock-making and hunting had been sadly interfered with by the business
of state.

The ministers were singularly agreed. Their plans had been concerted to
the smallest detail at De Broglie's lodgings. When each spoke, it was
to address the king, and to urge him to adopt decisive measures.

'Sire,' said De Broglie, 'I have the troops massed about Paris. Two
fresh regiments have to-day arrived. In my opinion, the people have
been allowed to make head against authority too long. They must be
restrained. If I may march my battalions upon Paris, I promise your
majesty, in twelve hours the rebellion will be at an end.'

'But blood will be shed,' said the king, thoughtfully.

'A little, no doubt, will be spilt,' answered the marshal; 'but what of
that?'

'No blood shall flow by my orders,' said Louis, decidedly.

'You are wrong, De Broglie,' observed Foulon; 'the chances are that no
lives will be lost; when your thousands appear, bah! who will there
be in the streets? The rats will have fled into the sewers, and in
good time we shall send the cats after them. Bah! talk of bloodshed!
there is not the possibility of that. What is the civilian before
the soldier? Nothing. The soldier is trained to cut this way, and to
thrust that way, to bang off his gun so, and to charge with his lance
so. He has acquired the art of killing a man in some thirty different
ways. The civilian knows that; he looks up at the man of war and says
to himself, "I am a mere tyro at this art. Whilst I am making up my
mind how to begin, whisk, whisk, whack, whack, I am a dead man in four
slices. I had better run." And, sire! he runs.'

'You think there will be no loss of life?' asked the king, hesitatingly.

'Think, sire,' repeated Foulon, with admirable confidence; 'I am
absolutely sure of it. Consider, there are some hundred cannon and
bombs ready at a moment's notice to knock the house of our Parisian
rebel into fine dust about his ears. In that house are the beloved
wife, and the darling children. A bomb falling through the ceiling may
reduce the beloved wife to pulp, and mash the darling children. And
worse still, the furniture will all be destroyed, and the linen torn to
shreds, and the strong box containing ten years' savings exploded high
into the air to fall down the chimney of neighbour B., his implacable
enemy. But worse still is the prospect of himself being maimed in a
finger, a toe, an eye, or a nose, or of being blown bodily into that
most objectionable of places--eternity.'

'But,' hesitated the king, 'if the good people were to oppose the
troops----'

'Then,' said De Broglie, 'we must pour a volley among them and send
them flying.'

'I cannot make up my mind to it,' said Louis, despairingly. 'Am not I
the father of my people? How, then, can I consent to their being mown
down by your bullets?'

'Sire,' observed Foulon; 'allow me to remark, without the least
intention of presumption, that it is very necessary for a father
sometimes to whip his little boys; that, unless he wishes his home to
become a bear-garden, he must use the rod pretty freely and pretty
resolutely.'

'Sire,' said Berthier, 'I know these ruffians. Assume the upper hand,
and they will cringe to you. We must punish them for their audacity.
Sire! there is no knowing to what extremities they may proceed unless
they are reined up at once.'

'That is quite possible. I dare say you are right, gentlemen,' said the
king; 'but yet----' and he shook his head.

'Your majesty must remember that the dignity of the throne has to be
maintained,' said the Count d'Artois.

'I will not maintain it by steeping my royal purple in the blood of my
subjects,' answered Louis.

'Then, in Heaven's name, sire!' exclaimed the prince, losing all
patience, 'throw open the jails and let no murderer, coiner, or robber
be broken henceforth on the wheel. Our great ancestor, S. Louis, when
trying a criminal, was much inclined by his natural tenderness of
disposition to pardon the man; but, happening to open his Psalter at
the words, "Feci judicium et justitiam," he resolved to let Justice
take her course. Mercy that is not tempered with justice degenerates
into weakness.'

'I know,' said Louis, simply--so simply as to raise a smile on several
lips--'I know that I am weak.'

'Yes, sire! you are naturally prone to humanity and kindness. But at
a moment like this, to yield to the tenderer feelings, when a decided
line of action is imperatively demanded, is indeed weakness.'

'Enough,' said Louis; 'you are rather hard on me, Charles.'

'For my part,' muttered Berthier, 'I don't care how many of those
Parisian blackguards are despatched. They richly deserve breaking on
the wheel, and, to my thinking, a sabre-cut, a bayonet-thrust, or a
bullet, is too merciful treatment.'

'You are not their father, M. Berthier,' said the king.

'Sire,' began De Breteuil, in his loud, inflexible voice, 'it is not
a question of blood or no blood, but a question of the blood of the
rabble or of the court and the ministry. If the measure we suggest,
namely, the reduction of the rebellion by fire and steel, be rejected,
then nothing remains for us but to tender our resignations, and to
provide for our own safety, as best we can. That the brutal mob which
has massacred your majesty's servants, Governor De Launay and Provost
Flesselles, will hunt us down and butcher us, I have no manner of
doubt; your majesty, by condoning those murders, assures to the rabble
impunity if they assail us.'

'No, no, De Breteuil, you are wrong there.'

'Pardon me, sire,' he answered stiffly.

'What am I to do?' exclaimed the unfortunate king; 'I wish one of my
brothers had been born before me.'

The door half opened, and the queen appeared. She beckoned to the king,
and he followed her, closing the door behind him.

'Supposing we fail,' said Vaudreuil; 'I believe that our only chance of
safety is to fly the country.'

'If his majesty reject our proposal,' said Artois, 'I fly to-morrow. I
have no desire to have my head carried about on the end of a pike.'

'What shall you do?' asked Berthier of his father-in-law.

'I!' answered Foulon, taking snuff; 'I shall die.'

'I shall be off,' said Berthier, roughly; 'I'm not likely to run the
risk of being murdered like Flesselles, without the satisfaction of
knowing that my death will be avenged.'

'I suppose if we retire, Necker will return,' said De Broglie. 'Well,
let his majesty try peace; it has failed once, and it will fail again.'

'Are you aware, marshal,' said Foulon, 'that Mirabeau has been crying
out for your head?'

'Let him come and try to take it,' answered De Broglie; 'he will find
me his match, old as I am.'

The king returned, his brow wet with perspiration, and his whole
countenance wrung with distress.

'Gentlemen,' he spoke; 'I will do what I can. I will do anything you
desire of me--except give orders for the attack upon Paris. Happily,
no blood has flowed yet by my orders. I swear that none _shall_ flow
by my command. My reflections are made; I am ready to follow your
advice and that of her majesty in every particular except that which
is against my conscience. I have tried to stifle its voice, I have
tried to see the force of your arguments, but ever the horror starts up
before me of the possibility, nay, I fear the probability of carnage,
and of bearing to my grave a brand worse than that of Cain; he was his
brother's murderer, how much worse for a father to give up his children
to slaughter! I cannot--indeed I cannot--consent.'

'Sire,' said De Breteuil, 'if your majesty has taken that resolution,
we have but one course open to us.'

'The queen has been urging me,' said the king; 'and, if it were not
against my conscience, I would yield to her.'

'Then your majesty must allow us to tender our resignation,' said De
Breteuil.

'This is really very hard,' the king exclaimed. 'Have you only one
scheme, and that a bloody one? Why not try conciliation?'

'Sire, we have judged what is the only course open to us to propose; if
your majesty rejects that, it is our duty to withdraw.'

'I am very sorry,' muttered the king; 'but it cannot be helped, I fear.
Oh that we had come to an end of these troubles!'

When the ministers retired they shook hands. The three days' ministry
was at an end.

'I am off,' said De Broglie; 'I shall not jeopardise my neck in France
any longer.'

'And I follow you,' said the Count d'Artois.

'I shall take refuge in Belgium,' said Berthier.

'And I--' observed Foulon; 'I shall prepare to die--take a pinch of
snuff.'



CHAPTER XXXIV.


Madame Plomb returned to her husband's house, and was greeted by the
hounds with exultant barks and gambols.

Her confinement had made her more crazy than ever, and Gabrielle had
insisted on attending her to the door, and would have remained with
her, in spite of her own fears, had not Madame Berthier refused to
permit it.

'No, my dear,' said the poor lady; 'suppose the wolf be here in bed
with a great frilled nightcap on; and when you go up to him, mistaking
him for me, and say, "Oh, what great eyes you have!" he answers, "To
see you the better, my dear;" and when you say, "Oh, what white teeth
you have!" he rushes out upon you roaring, "To eat you the better, my
dear--" That will never do; we must kill the wolf first, then you shall
stay with me.'

'Madame,' said Gustave, 'your honoured husband is at Versailles.'

'At Versailles, is he? Pray, what is he doing there?'

'Madame,' answered the porter, 'he is one of his gracious majesty's new
ministers.'

'Then his gracious majesty is going to eat up the people,' said the
poor lady. 'Gustave, have the dogs been good?'

'They have been devils, madame,' exclaimed the porter, shaking his fist
at them. 'They have leaped and barked all day long, and all night long
as well. How is a person to sleep, if at his ear are chained fiends
whose throats are never tired of emitting frightful howls? Ah, you
ruffians!' he cried, again shaking his fist; 'I will scoop out your
eyes, and pour boiling lead down your throats. I will heat the poker
red hot and make you swallow it; I will take the skin off you with a
file, that I will, sacr-rr-rr-rr-rr-rr-é.'

'Where is Adolphe?' asked madame.

'Alas! the good Adolphe is at the point of death.'

'What! here?'

'No, madame, he is no longer in M. Berthier's service.'

'In whose service is he, then?'

'In that of your most illustrious father.'

'Pray, when did he change his place?'

'About a month ago, madame.'

'And what is the matter with him now?'

'Alas! he is dying of a fever. I am desolated with grief; but what
can one do? He is young; he is ten years younger than myself. I am
tough, and strong, and wiry, and leathery. Ah! let a fever dare attack
me. I will not yield to it. Madame, it is my belief that people die
of diseases because they have not the pluck to fight against them.
As I said to Adolphe, "Resist, man, resist; don't yield to the nasty
insidious complaint; refuse to admit that you are ill; say to yourself,
I never was better in my life. Shower contempt on the fever, spit upon
it--and it will flee from you." But Adolphe is a poor fellow, he has
no spirit; I could not stimulate his resolution, he yielded at once;
and then, of course, the disorder obtained the mastery. Why, madame,
suppose I were to succumb to these hounds; suppose I were to run away
the moment they leap against me; suppose I were to scream out when
they bark; they would fall on me and mangle me, and tear my throat and
suck my blood. But I resist them, I threaten them, I cast ferocious
glances at them, I swell with wrath against them; I arm myself with a
redoubtable whip, and they slink before me into the kennels. See!'

Gustave dived into his lodge and rushed from it in another moment armed
with a whip like a Russian knout.

Charging with blazing eyes, whirling his scourge above his head, and
thundering forth exclamations of rage, and threats of horrible tortures
in store for the hounds, he sent them flying to their holes with their
tails between their legs.

'See, madame!' he exclaimed; 'that is the way to treat disease. Rush
out upon it, throw yourself into a paroxysm of rage; curse, swear
and blaspheme! It is better than ten thousand pills, powders, and
draughts, provided by twenty millions of doctors.'

'When was M. Berthier here last?' asked madame.

'On Sunday, he has not returned since; and indeed,' he added, with
some hesitation, 'I fear that it would hardly be safe for him to show
himself in Paris at present. You will excuse me, madame, for hinting
this.'

'Why not safe?' asked the poor woman; 'do others hate him as much as I
do?'

'I fear that monsieur is not popular with the Parisians. They are
flushed with victory, and incensed against my master. The mob has
already assembled once or twice before the house, but I have assured
them that he is at Versailles, and they have retired. But their
attitude was threatening. I only wish I had had a few soldiers here,
and we should have bayoneted them all the way up the street, and fed
the dogs for weeks afterwards on their carcases. Ah, ha! Pigeon,
Poulet! how you would have danced to taste man-meat, to lick up human
blood! You would want some taking down afterwards to bring you to
proper obedience! Sapristi! that you would!'

'Madame,' said Gabrielle, 'if Monsieur Berthier is unlikely to return
here, let me remain with you for a few days.'

'Are you sure he will not venture here?' asked the lady of Gustave.

'See, my good mistress,' replied the man, drawing her into his lodge,
and leading her to the window; 'will you do me the favour of looking
out, and turning your head a little to the left?'

'Well,' answered she, when she had complied with his request; 'I see
nothing remarkable.'

'No, madame; but you see a plaster-cast dealer at the corner?'

'Yes, I do; but what of that?'

'In half an hour his place will be taken by a seller of quack
medicines, and that man will remain there till dusk. As soon as the
bell goes at six, a man in a white blouse with his hands in his pockets
will take the doctor's place, and will pace up and down till midnight,
when he will disappear, and another man will occupy the same post. At
day-break there will be a colporteur selling pamphlets.'

'And what does that mean?'

'It means, madame, that a strict watch is kept upon the house; and
that, if monsieur were to return, it would be reported all over
the town. I think I know the faces of some of these sentinels. The
plaster-cast dealer lost his betrothed some few years ago. I need not
tell you, madame, what had become of her, and the man found out and
vowed vengeance on the Intendant, for which threat he was imprisoned.
The quack doctor's little daughter was supposed by many to have been
decoyed into this house. Anyhow she disappeared, and the father came
here to make inquiries. I had orders to turn the dogs loose upon him.
I do not know the other men. The colporteur's face I think I have seen
at Bernay, but I cannot be sure.'

Madame Berthier laughed and danced round the yard.

'This is charming!' she cried; 'others are after the Beast. We will
hunt him down, shall we not, Pigeon, dearest; shall we not, my treasure
of a Poulet?' Then whirling up to Gabrielle, she caught her in her arms
and said, 'Yes, stay here now with me; he dare not come to the house,
or, if he does, I will deliver him over to the dogs and the men, and
they will tear him in pieces.'

'Will you allow me, dear mistress, to run home to Madame Deschwanden's,
and bring a few of my things?'

'Certainly,' answered the crazy lady; 'but be quick, for I have many
things to show you and my seraph Gabriel. And I will keep his curiosity
on the stretch till you return.'

Events of importance had followed the capture of the Bastille. The
National Assembly sent a deputation, consisting of Bailly, Lafayette,
the Archbishop of Paris, and the stout half-Irish Lally-Tolendal,
to the Hôtel de Ville to announce the reconciliation effected with
the king. Their presence caused the liveliest joy; and the electors
proceeded to confer on Lafayette the command of the national guard, as
they now called the newly-organized militia, and to choose Bailly to be
Mayor of Paris in the place of the unfortunate Flesselles.

Whereupon a Te Deum was voted; and the multitude of French guards,
soldiers of the line, and militia, together with a crowd of citizens,
marched to Notre-Dame, where the ceremony was performed with due
splendour.

The city had settled down into something like calm. The barricades were
not removed, nor did the sentries cease to pace their distance. The
feverish excitement had subsided, but anxiety still remained dominant.
Would the king suffer the forty thousand men round Paris to remain
inactive, and make no attempt to punish those who had broken open his
fortress? In spite of the royal promise that the troops should be
withdrawn, they remained at their posts.

The court, which had at first refused to believe in the fall of the
Bastille, when all doubt of the fact disappeared, made light of
the circumstance, for they trusted in a few hours to recapture the
citadel. But when the king, obstinate for once in his life, refused all
solicitations to employ force, then they felt that their hopes were at
an end, and the Count d'Artois, the Condés, the Contis, the Polignacs,
Vaudreuil, De Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc and others, absconded from
France. Necker had left the Polignacs in power at Versailles; they were
the first to announce to him at Basle the ruin and dispersion of the
three days' ministry. De Breteuil hung on a few days longer, and then
emigrated, to act as Louis XVIth's secret minister at foreign courts.
Berthier was nowhere to be found, and with him had disappeared all
the officers charged with the administration of provisions. Foulon was
reported to be sick to death, poisoned by his own hand, in his stately
mansion in the Rue du Temple.

Gabrielle was sitting one morning with Madame Plomb in the window, and
the poor woman had recurred to her dream of a flight to the land of
rocks and mountains.

'You know that it is a promise,' said she; 'you assured me that when I
escaped from that hateful prison, I should go to the place where I was
when a child.'

'But where was it?' asked Gabrielle.

'That I cannot say distinctly. I remember the mountains glittering
with snow, and the roar of the falling torrents. I remember the blue
lakes----'

'Dear madame,' said Gabrielle, interrupting her, 'your words remind me
of what Nicholas and the corporal are continually repeating. You must
mean Switzerland.'

'I am not certain,' answered Madame Berthier. 'There are so many
mountains in the world. We have ranges of snowy peaks in the south
and in the east, and there are the mountains of Auvergne. How can I
say that it was not the Pyrenees or the mountains of Dauphiné that
I remember?--Why are you blushing, child?' This was asked abruptly
as Gabrielle drew her face from the window, and looked down at the
needlework on which she was engaged.

Directly after a servant announced that there was some one at the door
who wanted to speak to Mademoiselle André.

'Show him up here,' said madame. 'Do not stir from your seat,
Gabrielle. I must see what it was that made you blush.'

The door immediately opened to admit Nicholas, who on entering stood
shyly, hat in one hand, and a little statuette in the other.

He looked first at Gabrielle and then at Madame Plomb, with his large
eyes full of bewilderment.

The leaden lady smiled.

'Is this the M. Nicholas of whom you so often speak?' she asked.

Gabrielle became crimson. Nicholas at the same moment radiated joy and
nodded to the girl.

'This is the M. Nicholas Deschwanden who can tell you all about his
land of mountains and lakes,' she said.

'That is capital,' exclaimed the lady. 'Sit down, young man, and tell
me all about Switzerland.'

'Ah! good madame, how could I tell you all in one breath? Switzerland
would take a lifetime to describe. And again, what description can
adequately express its glories?'

'You have snowy mountains there,' said madame.

'Snowy mountains!' echoed Nicholas, his eyes lighting up. 'Oh! if you
could but see them, standing half way up the sky, with their bases
lost in blue shadows, and the evening glow--the Alpenglüth, we call
it--upon their heads. Madame, since I have been in Paris, I have met
some philosophers who deny all those things which I have been taught to
believe. I have heard them pronounce Heaven and Paradise to be a fable;
but no one looking at our Alps of an evening could doubt in Heaven and
Paradise; they are a Revelation,--a witness of a better life and a
better country. I am clumsy to express myself, but I feel it there,'
and he laid his hand on his heart. 'Ah! good madame, it is a wonderful
sight to behold the golden crimson light fade off the snow, and then
there steals over the icy peaks a greyness like death, a ghastly chill
that lasts for a few moments, as though they knew that they were not
eternal.'

'And the lakes,' said Madame Berthier. 'I remember one as blue as
heaven, with white water-lilies on it.'

'Was it a pond in France?' asked Nicholas, looking at Gabrielle.

'No. I have been among mountains and lakes.'

'Have you been in Switzerland?' asked Nicholas, eagerly.

'I do not know. I remember when I was a little child that I was in a
beautiful land; but whether it was Switzerland or not I cannot tell.'

'We have such lakes,' said Nicholas; 'little heavens lying among the
rough mountains, like still souls, such as that of Gabrielle, amongst
the wild spirits surrounding them. There are water-lilies on our
Sarnen See. But that is not equal to the lake of the Four Cantons,
shaped like a cross, and the Catholic cantons cling around it lovingly.'

'Are you not all Catholics in Switzerland?' asked Madame Berthier.

'No,' answered the young man, sadly. 'Some of the cantons are
Protestant. Oh, madame, is not that sad? and in those parts you cannot
travel without tears. Love, faith, religion, are dead. Above the Lake
of Thun, on the edge of a precipice, is a little cave in which lived a
thousand years ago a blessed hermit.'

'Not Bruder Klaus, surely,' said Gabrielle.

'Bruder Klaus! no. It was the blessed Beatus. He was a British
missionary, and he converted all that portion of Switzerland. I have
visited his cave. From the mouth you can look over the beautiful lake
to the snowy heads of the Jung-Frau, the Mönch, and the Eiger. Oh! the
scene is so lovely. But no pilgrims visit the cave; the people around
have forgotten their benefactor along with the faith he taught them. It
is sad. I wept in that cave, and prayed for the re-conversion of those
cantons which had fallen into heresy.'

His bright, honest face became clouded with sorrow.

Madame Berthier looked at it, smiled, and changed the subject.

'What is that little statuette in your hand?'

The lad coloured, and extended it to her.

'If you please, madame, I bought it for Mademoiselle André. It seemed
to me so long since she left our house, and yet it is only three days,
and I was sure that she wanted something, but I could not exactly
tell what. I thought about it all day. I felt a voice within me say,
"Gabrielle has need of something, you must take it to her." I felt
impelled to come here, but I did not know for what purpose. At last
it flashed across my mind that she must desire a little image of the
Blessed Virgin for her devotions.'

'In other words,' said the lady, 'you felt miserable without Gabrielle,
and hunted about for an excuse to come here?'

Nicholas stared at her. This was a new light in which to view his
sensations. There might be some truth in it, he admitted to himself,
and then his eyes fell.

'Oh, madame,' said he, 'you should see our beautiful lake of the Four
Cantons. There is not a promontory that does not end in a little white
chapel with a red roof, containing a sacred figure; there is not a rock
jutting out of the water which has not its tiny shrine upon it. Oh!
it is so pretty, so religious, so happy! I remember one just opposite
the arm of the lake that points towards the south, it stands almost
on the blue water, a white sunny speck, and when you row up to it you
find it to be an arcaded niche, enshrining a statue of S. Nicolas von
der Flue, the hermit, in his brown serge habit, staff in hand, with
his sad, pale, earnest face looking out towards the hazy ridge, on the
flank of which he dwelt so many years in prayer and fasting. And as you
near the next prong of rock thrust out of the waves, you see a bower of
hazels, in which snuggles another tiny chapel, open only to the water,
overhung by a bush of flowering elder, with braids of crimson wild rose
wavering against the white walls, and blue salvia and pink willow-herb
clustering about the sides; whilst before the statue of the Blessed
Virgin bearing her Child, that it contains, the sparkling ripples
incessantly bow and whisper their litanies.'

'How beautiful!' exclaimed Madame Berthier; 'I must ask my father
whether it was Switzerland that I remember.'

'Your father!' repeated Nicholas, looking blank; 'what can you mean,
madame? do you not know----?'

'Know what?'

Nicholas looked at Gabrielle, and signed that he wished to say
something to her in private.

'What do you mean?' again asked Madame Berthier.

'May I say a few words to Gabrielle first, outside the door?'

'By all means,' answered the poor lady, laughing.

The girl hesitated, but Nicholas winked and nodded to her, and
contrived to express by cabalistic signs the importance of the
communication he desired to make.

This did not reassure Gabrielle, who hung back more reluctantly than
before; but her mistress insisted on her following Nicholas, and the
young man, taking her arm, drew her into the passage.

'What is it, Nicholas?' she asked; 'I wish you would not be so
mysterious. You quite frighten me.'

'Do not be angry, my dear friend,' he replied, 'it is about that poor
unhappy lady I want to speak to you. I expected to find you alone here.'

'Then why did you come?' asked Gabrielle.

'I did not know that there was a prospect of finding you alone when
I started,' pursued Nicholas; 'but I heard that M. Foulon was dead.
Dreadful! it is reported that he poisoned himself, but that may be
only a report and worthless. As I came here, I passed the funeral
procession.'

'But, Nicholas, my mistress knows nothing of this.'

'How strange! She is his daughter. Has she not been told that her
father is dead?'

'No. She did not know of his illness.'

'That is wonderful,' said the young man. 'But possibly the family were
not aware that she had left the Bastille.'

'They must surely have known that.'

'Anyhow,' continued Nicholas, 'I saw the funeral on its way through the
Rue S. Honoré to the church of S. Rocque. The cortège is splendid, and
is passing through all the most important streets. Several carriages
follow the hearse. No expense seems to have been spared.'

'Are you sure of this, Nicholas?'

'Perfectly,' answered the young man; 'I went myself to the mansion
in the Rue du Temple, where the entrance-doorway was converted into
a _chapelle ardente_, hung with black and adorned with the armorial
bearings of the deceased.'

'What is to be done?' exclaimed Gabrielle.

'I think you ought to tell madame. I was dismayed when I entered and
found her here. I cannot understand it. I will wait whilst you inform
her. I will remain outside. Go in, Gabrielle.'

'I dare not.'

'Why not?' asked madame from within. 'I have heard all. You foolish
children; you should speak lower. I am quick of hearing. My father
dead! My father being buried! Well! I will attend his funeral, though
not invited. Perhaps Berthier is there, and has kept the secret from
me. Alas! I do not love my father, but I am sorry that he is dead.
Come, my children, let us go to the church; I must see him once more.'
She threw her bonnet and veil upon her head and prepared to sally forth.

'You see I am always in mourning,--always ready for a death. The cat
cannot come. He is in too gay a costume. He must be put in trappings of
woe when we return.'

On her way to S. Rocque, the poor woman became very excited, having
convinced herself that Berthier had purposely kept her in ignorance
of her father's death, and she turned first to Gabrielle and then to
Nicholas to denounce him. By the time she had reached the railing
before the flight of steps leading to the church, she had worked
herself into a fit of madness.

The street was packed with spectators, who observed a sullen silence.
Foulon was intensely and implacably hated, and he had been given over
at the Palais Royal, by the popular orators, to the vengeance of the
Parisians. The starving people, who during the last few days had
suffered severely owing to an increasing deficiency of supplies, could
not forget that this man had been one of the greatest farmers of the
revenue, had made an enormous fortune out of the compact of famine, and
had throughout his life been callous to the distress of the poor. His
speech at Bernay, 'Wait till I am minister, then the people shall eat
hay, my horses eat it,' had been repeated in the capital.

If Foulon had appeared in the streets alive, surrounded by a troop of
soldiers, the exasperated mob would have burst through the iron ring
and have strangled the life out of him. Now he was dead, they respected
his body.

Madame Berthier, observing the crowd outside of the church, turned to
those nearest her, and asked,--

'Have you come to see my father buried? I am his daughter, and they
never told me of his death. But that was Berthier's doing.'

No one answered her except with scowls.

'Let me pass,' said she to the Suisse at the gate; 'do you know that my
father is being buried, and I was not told that he was ill or dead? Was
not that cruel? Not that I loved him much. How could I? He never loved
me. But I want to see him. Let me pass, good man.'

She was admitted, and mounted some of the steps. At that moment the
coffin was borne out of the door, over which black drapery strewn with
little silver flames had been suspended.

Her position in comparative isolation before the gloomy trappings and
the coffin and mutes on one side, and the mob of spectators on the
other, excited Madame Berthier's brain, and springing to the platform
on which the body of her father rested, she turned to the people and
addressed them, throwing up her veil at the same moment, and displaying
her hideous leaden face.

The vision produced a murmur of horror and disgust.

'Ah ha! good souls,' she screamed; 'pray for the unfortunate. Did you
love the dead? Answer me.'

There was no response for some moments. She repeated her question, and
then one man shouted: 'Does the corn love the wheel which turns on it
and crushes it? No, we hate him.'

A groan of rage and detestation was then the general reply.

'Well,' said Madame Berthier, 'I do not care for him. I did not love
him, and I do not love him now. He treated me very badly; he mocked me
for my leaden looks, and bade me buy love, as I could not win it with
my beauty. Will such jests make a child love her parents? Yet I do not
hate him; I keep all my hate for my husband. Do you know Berthier de
Sauvigny?'

The answer was a roar.

'He is my husband. Ah ha! you hate him, do you?'

'Hate him as we hate hell,' was bellowed.

'Do you hate him more than I do?'

'Ten times more.'

'No, that is impossible. You may kill him, you may bury him, and I will
dance over his grave. He shut me into the Bastille, and kept me there
a prisoner. Ah! poor father,' she cried, reverting to the coffin; 'ah!
you shall be prayed for after death, for you have much to answer for
that you committed in life.' She wheeled round to the mob, extended
her arms, and cried: 'You are good, you Parisians. When my father and
my husband shut me up in that terrible dungeon, you came and tore it
down and liberated me. Foulon has wronged you. But he has gone to his
account. Pray for the unfortunate!'

She raised her hands above her head, and began to dance with small
steps on the pavement-stone on which she stood, without leaving it. All
at once she burst into a peal of laughter and exclaimed: 'Do you know,
good Parisians, what I did to Berthier?'

Some of the officials of the church and those belonging to the
undertaker, advanced to remove her. But the crowd were in the humour to
listen to her and to observe her, and they shouted to them to touch the
lady at their peril.

'Do you know, good people, what I did?' she asked again. 'No, you
cannot guess. He came to visit me in my cell, and I cast my yellow
angel--my cat, into his face, and it tore him. I saw the streaks of
blood. Ah ha! I hate him.' She knit her hands; her eyes glared like
those of a tigress, she became rigid in every limb. 'Promise me, good
people, if you find him, you will kill him. Hang him to the lantern,
and make him blue like me. I have seen a dead man dangling from a
beam--and his face was like mine. Let Berthier become M. Plomb. Promise
me not to spare him--swear to me.'

The answer was thundered by several thousand voices--'We swear.'

'Will you curse him? See!' she ran to the church door and tore down
a long strip of crape powdered with silver flames, and threw it over
her like a cope--'See!' she cried, 'I will be your priestess, leading
your curses and your prayers. Curse for me, Berthier de Sauvigny!' She
lifted one arm. Her bonnet had fallen, and her ash-grey hair fell
wildly about her flame-strewn vestment, which she held about her with
her other hand. 'Curse him wherever he be. Cry out anathema!' She
mounted the bier, and stood before the coffin. 'Curse him waking, and
curse him sleeping.'

The people, falling in with her mad humour, or carried away by the
wildness of the scene and her actions, responded,--

'Anathema!'

'Curse him eating, and curse him drinking.'

'Anathema!'

'Curse him in his moments of laughter and mirth, and in his times of
sorrow and fears.'

'Anathema!'

'Curse him when he is flying from his enemies. Shut the way about him
with curses, that he cannot escape.'

'Anathema!'

'Blind his eyes, that he may not see clearly whither to flee.'

'Anathema!'

'Stop his ears to good advice, and open them only to that which is
evil, to the counsel of Ahitophel.'

'Anathema!'

'Curse his hands, that they may fail him in the last struggle for life.'

And the people roared 'Anathema!'

'Curse his feet, that they may fail him when he turns to fly.'

'Anathema!'

'And now,' she continued, lowering her arm and descending from the
bier, 'you are good, pray for the unfortunate.' She placed herself
before the coffin, faced it, and extending both her arms like a priest
at the beginning of the Credo, she cried, 'Pray for the dead, that his
sins may be blotted out, and his iniquities be forgiven, Miserere!' The
versatile crowd responded, falling on their knees:--

'Miserere!'

'Eternal rest give to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon
him!'

'Miserere!'

'I must see his face,' said Madame Berthier, casting aside the black
crape and throwing the pall from the coffin. 'I must see my father once
more; and I must give him his last kiss. Open the coffin.'

Again the officers interposed; but the poor woman would listen to no
reason. 'Berthier in his malice would not tell me that my father was
dying, he did not announce to me his death, lest I should kiss him. Let
me take my last look, my last kiss. I insist. Have I not a right, do I
not draw my blood from his veins? Why am I not to see him?'

She was thrust aside by some of the undertaker's officials with some
violence; but the mad creature was as resolute as were they. She turned
to the people and appealed to them for help. 'They will not let me see
my father. They kept me from his bedside when he was ill; they held
from me the news that he was dead; and now they refuse me a last look,
and a last kiss. Help, good people! you, who set me at liberty when I
was locked up in the Bastille; you will not suffer these hirelings to
stand between a daughter and her father!'

The appeal was not made in vain; the Suisse at the gate was thrown
down, and the mob poured up the steps to the assistance of the poor
lady. In the meantime, an attempt was made to remove the coffin into
the church, but a sturdy butcher intercepted his body between it and
the door, and frustrated the attempt.

A ring was formed around Madame Berthier and the coffin, and it was
observed that several of the mourners immediately decamped with
precipitation.

On the coffin was a silver plate, inscribed with the name of Foulon,
and a list of the offices he had held, that of minister during the
eventful three days, not being omitted.

'Open the coffin for me, good people. You shall see my father. He is
not very terrible now.'

'A turnscrew,' was called from man to man; and presently one was
produced, and the coffin-lid was slowly and laboriously removed.

'Now,' said Madame Berthier, taking hold of the napkin spread over the
face of the deceased, 'I bid you all look with me on the countenance
of my poor father. He was a bad man, I allow, and a hard man upon the
poor, but then, he is dead now, and has gone to his account. You have
prayed God to have mercy on his soul; I am sure when you see his dead
face that you will be prepared to bury your resentment in his grave.
Behold!' she drew the napkin aside, looked on the face of the corpse,
started back, uttering a cry of dismay:--

'This is not my father! This is poor Adolphe!'

The crowd pressed forward and stared long at the dead man, satisfying
themselves of the deception. Not a word was spoken, not a murmur arose.
All pushed up to the corpse, gazed on it, and then looked into the eyes
of those around them.

'My father is still alive!' exclaimed madame. 'Praised be God.'

'Madame,' said a man into her ear, 'before the week is out he will be
dead.'



CHAPTER XXXV.


Berthier had fled in the direction of Belgium, on foot; travelling by
night, hiding in barns or in clumps of trees by day. He had passed two
nights without sleeping. At Senlis he was recognised by a baker from
whom he bought a loaf; but, by the time the news had become public,
he had disappeared. A courier was immediately despatched to Paris
with the announcement that Berthier was in the neighbourhood; and
the magistrates asked instructions as to their conduct, should he be
brought before them. The following evening after dusk, the fugitive
entered a small tavern by the road-side, near Compiègne, and asked for
supper. He was much altered since he had left Paris. Sleepless nights
and anxious days had deprived his complexion of colour, and had reduced
it to a pasty hue. His large cheeks hung limp, his red lips had turned
purple. His hair, undressed and disordered, held particles of hay and
straw entangled in it. A large, broad-brimmed hat covered his brow, and
was drawn over his eyes, which troubled him more than heretofore. He
held his stained handkerchief between his fingers, he had washed it in
a stream by the road-side; it was not thoroughly dry.

The tavern was lighted by a resin candle in a holdfast attached to the
jamb of the fireplace, it spluttered and guttered upon the hearth and
yielded an uncertain light.

The proprietor of this house of refreshment sat upon a bench outside
his door, conversing with a couple of peasants, and smoking a pipe;
whilst the wife, a little shrivelled-up old woman, with a handkerchief
tied round her head and knotted behind, bustled about the kitchen
preparing soup and stew with the assistance of a flat-faced, radiant
girl, who tumbled about as though walking on skates, and never stood
upright.

M. Berthier requested to have his food served separately at the end of
the long table. He did not remove his hat, but sat with his hand to his
brow and his elbow on the table.

Presently the flat-faced girl rolled and staggered in with a bowl of
potage for each of the guests,--the usual very thin broth in which
float scraps of untoasted bread, and the surface dotted with globules
of oil, with which foot travellers in France must be familiar. Then the
little dried-up woman ran to the door and called imperiously to the
three men outside, 'Come on, come on, the potage is served;' whereupon
they clattered in, in their sabots, and fell like sacks into their
places.

'There you are, sir,' said the wizen hostess, thrusting a bowl of
potage before the ex-intendant; 'you will find it superb.'

'The day has been hot and the sun scorching; I have walked far,' said
Berthier, wearily.

'From what place does monsieur come?'

'Never mind,' answered Berthier angrily, 'I am too hungry to answer
questions; if you answer one that a woman makes, you must answer a
thousand.'

The old woman retired muttering.

The peasants, between their spoonfuls of soup, continued the
conversation in which they had been engaged outside the door.

'He has not been captured yet?' asked one of the men.

'No, Pierre; but he was seen at Senlis. Do you know that baker, named
Michaud, in the square before Notre Dame, at the corner? Well, he went
in there to buy a brioche, and the good man knew him; he had seen him
when he superintended the buying of the corn in Artois. He did not say
much then; he just mentioned it to some of his acquaintances, and they
spread the news through the city. But the magistrates do nothing.'

'Why should they, Jean?' asked the other; 'hawks do not prey on hawks,
and you will not find magistrates over-zealous in bringing other
magistrates to book.'

'And which direction do you think he has taken now?'

'I expect he is on his way to Clermont, and so by Amiens to Lille.'

'Who will arrest him, Pierre?'

'Who but the people?'

'And is he so very bad?'

'He is one of the famine-mongers,' answered Pierre; 'he has made a vast
fortune out of speculations in corn. He is a man who has fattened on
our misery. He was one who sought to drive the king to massacre his
people. He supplied the troops with an incredible number of cartridges,
with which he designed that the canaille of Paris should be swept away.'

'And if they catch him, Pierre, what will they do with him?'

The other shrugged his shoulders.

'For my part,' said the innkeeper, 'I don't like popular judgments. Let
us have criminals tried by the proper courts.'

'But how so, when the judges are the culprits?'

'I don't like it,' repeated the host.

'Suppose the innkeepers all sold bad wine, and the wine-drinkers rose
in a body and produced a notorious adulterator of grape-juice, would
they be satisfied with the judgment upon him pronounced by a committee
of peculating taverners, eh?'

'You won't make me like it,' said the host, slapping the table.

'He might get to Lille this way, might he not?' asked Jean.

'Ay, he might. And he could hide about in the forest, waiting his
opportunity to escape with facility.'

'I doubt if he could be caught if he hid away in the forest.'

'No, they could not catch him, unless they had dogs.'

'What, hunt him with dogs, like a deer!'

'Ay, with bloodhounds.'

Berthier rose from his seat, and laid a piece of silver on the table.

'Where are you going?' asked the little hostess.

'I cannot eat any more,' answered he; 'the soup is thin, the cooking is
execrable. Here, take this, I must be off.'

He drew the hat farther over his eyes, and made towards the door. The
old woman caught the resin flambeau from its holdfast, and running
before him, threw the light into his face.

'Do you say my potage is thin,--is execrable? You did not see the
_beaux yeux_ (the oily globules), you did not taste them--no!
execrable!'

Berthier brushed past her and went out, muttering a curse.

'Ah!' shrieked the indignant lady after him, 'you despise my potage,
you do not admire the beautiful eyes of fat floating on its superb
surface. I don't admire your eyes, neither, I tell you. I don't admire
eyes set in red-hot sockets. Eyes, indeed! you're a nice choice
personage to pour contempt on the magnificent eyes in my potage.'
Then, turning to the peasants, she appealed to them. 'I will ask you,
gentlemen, to observe your soup. Are there eyes on it; in abundance,
eh? or are they scarce, eh? Does the potage taste execrable? does it
look execrable? does it smell execrable?'

'Who is that fellow?' asked Pierre.

'Who is he?' repeated the hostess; 'Mon Dieu, how do I know? Do you
think I care? do you think I shall concern myself for one instant about
a ragamuffin who is so ill bred as to despise my potage; who sees no
eyes in my soup; who tastes none; who nevertheless--' she looked into
Berthier's bowl; 'who nevertheless has eaten it all up, and not left a
sippet of bread behind for the cat?'

'What did you say about his eyes, madame?' asked Pierre.

'What did I say?' repeated the old woman; 'I said that he was not the
man to criticise my eyes.'

'But what of his own?'

'What of his own!' echoed the hostess; 'if they were half as superb as
those in my potage, he might be thankful, and offer votive wax ones at
Notre Dame de Bon-secours. Ah! I have known sore eyes healed there.
There was little Babelou, Pernette's daughter. The lids were closed
about them like those of a young puppy, and so inflamed. It pierced
the heart to see them, and they vowed to Notre Dame and took the child
there, and she came back healed.'

'But what about the stranger's eyes? Were they sore?'

'Were they sore?' retorted the old woman. 'Do you call that sore when
the eyeball is set in a ring of red? Is one with eyes such as that
a fit person to talk of thin soup, of deficient eyes in the potage,
of----'

Pierre sprang up with a howl like that wherewith the dog greets the
moon.

'It is Berthier,' he yelled; 'follow me, Jean. Leave your clogs here;'
and he kicked his wooden shoes under the table.

'Give us a glass to stimulate us for the run, host! Now, Jean, come
along. Sapristi! if we catch him, it will be better than a thousand
suppers.'

In the meantime, the unfortunate Berthier was running along the road.
He was weary, and faint from want of food, and could not run fast, or
for long.

The night had set in; along the west lay a belt of light, white and
ghastly, where the sun had gone down; and over head a few stars looked
out. To his right lay a mass of blackness, which he supposed to be the
forest of Compiègne. He passed a solitary church surrounded by the
dead, and a light burning in the grave-yard to scare away witches and
fiends. He seated himself on the steps before the cross at the gate of
the cemetery, and felt for his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration
from his brow. But it was not in his pocket. He remembered to have
placed it on his knee when he sat at supper. Doubtless he had dropped
it under the table in the tavern.

The tramp of running feet approached, and in fear he sprang up and
recommenced his flight.

Pierre and Jean shouted, but he did not answer. His face swam with
perspiration, and he smeared it over his cheeks with his cuff, as
he tried to wipe them. He strained every nerve to run, setting his
teeth; the wind whistled through them as he drew his breath. He stood
still, unable to continue his flight, without a break for recovering
his wind. His breast laboured. His brain was on fire, and his heart
beat violently. The temples throbbed as though a hammer were striking
on them. The measured tread of the runners drew nearer; and for a
minute Berthier could not run. But just as they hove in sight through
the darkness, he bounded forward, and attempted to leap a gate at the
road-side opening into a field, but which was fastened. He fell, unable
to clear it, and in falling sprained his foot. In another moment the
peasants would be upon him. His only resource was to roll into the
ditch, half full of water, and overhung with briars at the side.

'He has made for the wood!' shouted Jean.

'Sacré! we must be quick, or we shall miss him!'

Berthier heard both the men climb the gate.

'I know he has gone this way,' said Jean; 'I heard the rattle of the
bar as he touched it.'

'Over with you,' shouted Pierre; and both jumped into the field and ran
across it.

Berthier heard their calls becoming more distant. He remained immersed
in mire, shivering with fear, till they returned, cursing their ill
luck.

'Once in the woods he may elude a thousand,' said Pierre, as he climbed
the gate on his way back.

'What is to be done now?'

'We must on to Compiègne, and announce to the people there that he is
in the forest.'

'Sapristi! I wish I had my wooden shoes.'

'I wish we had not missed him; and all through old mother Picou's
gossiping magpie tongue.'

Berthier listened as the two men retired, and then he slowly raised
himself from the ditch into which he had rolled. Fagged, with his ankle
strained, he felt unequal to a long flight; his only chance lay in
being able to escape the vigilance of an aroused peasantry in some nook
of the forest.

He therefore pursued the road till it entered the gloom of the trees,
when he made for the first gap in the hedge, and dived into the pitch
blackness beneath the foliage.

He groped his way along, resting occasionally, and then starting up and
pushing forward in his fear. Sometimes the rush of birds rising from
their perches among the boughs startled him, and sent the blood to his
heart. A wild cat hissed and a night-hawk screamed. Some animal stole
past him through the underwood; what it was, Berthier could not guess,
but the rustle in the leaves produced by its movements filled him with
fear.

He came out upon a path, and was frightened to see a phosphorescent
line drawn along it. Wood-cutters had been removing old decayed timber
during the day, and the traces were luminous at night.

Hearing a dog begin to bark furiously, he conjectured that he was
approaching a farm, so he turned into the woods again. Taking the
pole-star as his guide,--he could distinguish it occasionally through
the branches overhead, he struck due east, wading through fern.
Sometimes he caught his feet in the brambles, sometimes he stumbled
over tree-roots or fallen boughs, and fell upon his face.

The ground rose and he mounted a hill, then descended into a valley,
mounted another rise and went down into a hollow, where a sheet of
water reflected the sky and the trees. In the surface he saw the
lightening of the dawn reflected. He bathed his face and hands, and
then crept under an oak with his eyes towards the east, waiting for
morning to break and the sun to return.

At last the day awoke, and with it the birds, the insects, and the
church bell.

The wretched man fell asleep, and did not open his eyes again till past
nine. He was refreshed, but stiff and hungry. The place where he was
seemed to him too exposed, and he crawled away into the dell under a
mat of bracken.

Towards noon his hunger became intolerable, and he deserted his place
of concealment, and crept cautiously through the wood, looking for--he
knew not what. Presently he came upon a broad path, and in it he saw a
priest pacing slowly along reading his breviary.

Berthier hesitated whether to show himself, but a cracking branch
against which he leaned attracted the curé's attention, and he directed
his eyes towards the point where the fugitive stood. Seeing that he was
discovered, the intendant came forward, and presented himself before
the priest.

'Who are you?' asked the curé with some surprise.

'Never mind who I am,' answered the unfortunate man; 'I am pursued by
bloodthirsty ruffians, my life is sought, and I am obliged to hide.
That is enough for you to know. Take my purse, and, for the love of
Heaven, bring me some food.'

The priest looked at him with interest and compassion.

'I will assist you,' he said; 'keep your money, you may want it. Who
you are I can guess. I will bring you a loaf and leave it behind that
sycamore, but do not show yourself again. You must remain concealed in
the forest for a few days, and each day you shall find food at the foot
of the tree I indicated. When it is safe for you to fly, I will give
you notice. Hist!'

Berthier heard shouts; he turned and escaped into his former
hiding-place.

The priest resumed his recitation of Sext with the utmost composure,
and continued his walk.

Shortly after a troop of peasants, armed with scythes and pitchforks,
rushed down the road, chattering, and fired with excitement.

They touched their caps to the curé, who removed his shovel hat and
bowed low, without, however, withdrawing his eyes from the book.

'Eh, well! Michel,' said one of the peasants; 'what will you do tearing
on in that style? Let me ask Monsieur le Curé if he has seen the
fellow.'

The priest continued murmuring his psalms:--

'Fac cum servo tuo secundum misericordiam tuam: et justificationes tuas
doce me. Eh! what now, Vacherot?'

'Has Monsieur le Curé seen a man about here?'

'What sort of a man?'

'The fellow is M. Berthier, the ex-intendant of Paris, and he is flying
the country.'

'What do you want with him? let him fly.'

'It will not do to suffer him to escape, Monsieur le Curé. Have you
seen him?'

'All I can answer you is, that he has not gone this way;' and the
curé's forefinger pointed up his sleeve.

'We will hunt elsewhere,' said the peasant. 'Come along, Michel.' And
in another moment the rustics were out of sight.

For two days the search was maintained; but Berthier succeeded in
eluding his pursuers. He found bread and meat and wine every morning at
the place indicated. On the third morning a scrap of paper was attached
to the loaf, with the inscription traced on it in pencil, 'Fly east,
the pursuit has abated.'

In fact, the country people, tired of wasting their time without a
prospect of remuneration, and beginning to disbelieve the report given
by Pierre and Jean, returned to their agricultural labours. But Nemesis
was at hand.

Directly it was known in Paris that Berthier had been seen at Senlis,
his wife started in her light carriage, taking with her the two hounds,
Pigeon and Poulet, and accompanied by one of the electors, M. de la
Rivière.

At Senlis it was reported that Berthier had been seen in the
neighbourhood of Compiègne. At the tavern where he supped, Pierre and
Jean and the hostess described his person to the elector.

'It is he,' cried madame; 'we are on the track. You saw his eyes, then,
good woman?'

'I saw them plain enough,' she answered; 'I don't want to see them
again.'

'And do you know what I want to do?' asked the crazy lady; 'I want to
shut them for ever.'

'Which direction did he take?' asked M. de la Rivière.

'He fled into the forest.'

'How long ago?'

'Three nights.'

'Has the forest been searched?'

'We have done our best; but how can fifty thousand acres be thoroughly
searched? We want dogs.'

'Here they are,' exclaimed madame, joyously. 'Now, Poulet, and you,
Pigeon, you shall have a glorious chase after the wild beast. You
shall go straight as arrows after him; you shall track him in all his
wanderings, and you shall fall on him and pin him to the ground. Ah!
I wish I had brought something of the Beast's here for the hounds to
sniff at, to let them know what they are to chase.'

'Madame,' said the little hostess, 'the fellow dropped his handkerchief
under my table, when he called my cooking execrable.'

'Bring it here,' ordered the mad woman.

'Yes, that is his!' she cried, when the discoloured kerchief was shown
her. 'It is his blood,--faugh! I know its look, I know its colour, I
know its scent. Give it to me.'

'Hold, madame,' interposed Pierre; 'let us conduct the dogs to the
entrance of the forest.'

We must go back to Berthier, who seated himself in his thicket when
he had read the note, and consumed the food provided for him by the
priest. The wretched man felt, for the first time since he left
Versailles, relief from the agony of suspense. In a few days, if he
could only reach the frontier, he would be safe; and every day that
took him farther from the capital diminished the probability of his
capture.

'Here, then,' said Berthier, tossing off the last drop of the wine,
'here's to my safe escape into Belgium. That priest has been a good
fellow; I have a mind to leave some gold in his bottle, as a return for
his kindness.' He looked into his well-furnished purse. 'No,' he said;
'I shall want all myself, if I have to remain long in a foreign land.
The curé must do without.' Then rising, he threw the poor priest's
bottle away, stretched himself, and began stealthily to advance
eastward.

He had not taken a step forward, before he heard the baying of some
hounds. The note was peculiar, and was familiar to Berthier. His pale
face became white as clay.

'My God!' he groaned; 'can it be!'

He began to run, tearing the branches apart, and crashing through the
fern.

The baying approached. He uttered a cry of terror, and throwing aside
his cloak ran at his utmost speed. Breaking into a forest path, he
raced along that. His hat came off, but he disregarded it in the
delirium of terror. The scent of burning wood entered his nostrils
without being observed; he sped past a charcoal-burner's heap without
noticing it. The man attending the fire sprang up and shouted. Berthier
turned his head, and saw two hounds leap out of the wood and bound
along the path with even gallop, easily, gracefully, at arrowy speed.

His foot catching in a rut, he stumbled; picked himself up again and
ran on. Everything swam before his eyes. A roaring as of the sea
sounded in his ears.

The hounds drew nearer, nearer, nearer, lessening the distance between
them at every bound.

Then Berthier saw it was in vain for him to fly. He caught at the
branch of a tree, and endeavoured to lift himself upon it and scramble
beyond their reach. The bough bent with his weight. He threw up his
feet, to clasp the branch, clinging with his arms, but could not catch
the wood. The hounds were beneath him, leaping at him. His arms had
not the strength to lift him. The teeth of Poulet entered his calf. He
fell to his feet, and ran on, but Pigeon was before him bounding at
his throat. He broke off a portion of a bush, a hazel-branch covered
with leaves, and thrashed at the dogs with it, but could not hurt them.
He backed to an oak and defended himself with his branch and feet,
shrieking for fear.

Then Poulet flew at his throat, and he fell; Pigeon danced over and
round him, yelping.

The charcoal-burner, begrimed with coal-dust, came up, brandishing a
cudgel, and beat off the hounds, standing astride over the prostrate
man.

'A thousand livres if you save me!' groaned Berthier.

'A thousand devils!' roared the peasant. 'I will but save you from
being torn to bits by these brutes, that I may deliver you over to
justice.'

The hounds were furious; they rushed and snapped at Berthier's limbs,
at his hands, his feet, at his head, just as they had been wont to rush
and snap at their food whilst he beat them off with his whip.

The pain of their bites, the horror of his position, the fear of what
was in store for him overcame him, and he lost consciousness.



CHAPTER XXXVI.


In the afternoon of July 23, Berthier was brought into Paris through
the Porte S. Martin, attended by a mob, many of whom had followed for
twenty leagues.

He was in his own private carriage, with M. de la Rivière at his side.
Madame, in one of her fancies, had chosen to sit outside.

The mob danced before him and raged behind him. A hideous procession
was formed. A brass band led the way, followed by national guards, and
soldiers from all corps which they had deserted, marching arm-in-arm,
chanting with full lungs:--

 'Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!
 Les aristocrats à la lanterne!
 Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!
 Les aristocrats on les pendra
   La liberté triomphera
 Malgré les tyrans, tout réussira.'

The top of the carriage had been broken in by the people, that they
might see the hated Berthier better. He sat, white, quivering, in a
dream; seeing faces peering at him from above as men climbed behind
the cabriolet and looked down on him, from each side, as they thrust
their heads in at the windows to stare at him. He heard them hoot and
curse, but he scarcely heeded them. Sometimes blows were aimed at him,
but Étienne de la Rivière protected him. A fiddler mad with the general
excitement climbed up behind the vehicle and beat at Berthier with
his violin. The elector broke the instrument on his arm, and then the
musician struck with the handle. M. de la Rivière stood up and thrust
the fiddler from his perch, and he fell back and disappeared among the
crowd that followed.

Madame Berthier, on the box, had adorned her head with a yellow turban,
and bore a pole, to which was fastened an orange streamer; this she
waved, and at the same time shouted joyously, 'We have him here caged!
It was all my doing; I hunted him down with my dogs.'

Banners, rudely extemporised, were fluttered before the carriage,
bearing inscriptions such as these:--'He has devoured the poor.' 'He
has drunk the blood of the widow and the orphan.' 'He has cheated the
king.' 'He has betrayed his country.'

As the broken vehicle passed through the streets, pieces of sour black
bread rained in at the top and at the windows, whilst the people
howled, 'Take that and eat it, it is what you have given us to eat.'

At the fountain Maubuée the procession was arrested by a tide of people
rolled out of La Grève, whither the news had reached that Berthier was
entering Paris.

That morning, at nine o'clock, Foulon had been brought to the capital.
Some of his servants probably had let the secret escape that he was
staying in the château of M. de Sartines, late lieutenant of police, at
Viry, near Fontainebleau. Thither, accordingly, some of the electors,
followed by a troop of people, had hastened. They found the old man
walking in the park. On being arrested, he entreated the electors who
seized him to do him the honour of taking a pinch of snuff.

The people, in spite of the remonstrances of his conductors, fell upon
him, put a truss of hay on his back, adorned him with a nosegay of
nettles, and a collar of thistles. 'You wanted to give us hay,' they
said; 'you shall eat some yourself.'

Thus equipped he was led to Paris, and brought before the committee in
the Hôtel de Ville.

It was decided that he should be imprisoned in the Abbaye. But La
Grève was full of people, and it was questionable whether he could be
conducted thither in safety.

If Lafayette had been there, it was thought that the people might
have been calmed; but he was absent, and the municipality were in
uncertainty what to do. The crowd became more excited, and clamoured
for Foulon.

Bailly, gentle, and unfit for such a position, descended to the square
to entreat the mob to respect the Hôtel de Ville and the accused;
but his voice was scarcely heard, and no attention was paid to his
remonstrances.

The crowd forced the few guards before the door from their places,
and followed the mayor up the stairs into the great hall, where they
bellowed incessantly for Foulon.

After some hesitation, the electors produced him. The old gentleman
was perfectly composed. Observing a female in the crowd before him, he
detached one of the nettles from his bouquet; and, with a courteous
bow, offered it her, saying, 'I am sorry to be unable to offer you a
choicer flower, mademoiselle, but pray accept the wish, and overlook
the insignificance of the herb; and I will thank you to remind those
around you that certain plants cannot be touched with impunity.'

'You are very calm, monsieur,' said one of the guards.

'Sir,' replied Foulon at once, 'crime alone can be disconcerted. Take a
pinch of snuff.'

'Why did you want us to eat hay?' shouted some of the crowd.

'Because I eat it myself,' replied Foulon, 'in the shape of beef. Cows
eat hay--and I eat cows. Can I wish you anything better?'

M. de Poizc, one of the electors, then addressed the people, urging
upon them the illegality of precipitately condemning the accused,
without giving him an opportunity of summoning witnesses to prove his
innocence.

'Let everything be done in order.'

'Yes, in order,' the mob shouted.

'Every culprit must be first judged,' continued the elector.

'Yes, judged first and hung after,' was answered.

'That comes in order, does it not?' some one cried, and there rose a
laugh.

'Gentlemen,' said a M. Osselin, 'in order that a man should be judged,
he must have judges. Let us send M. Foulon before the proper tribunal.'

This proposal was met with cries of dissatisfaction.

'We will have him judged at once.'

'We will not let him go before tribunals which are sure to acquit him.'

'The judges are his friends.'

Such were some of the cries that rose upon the proposition of M.
Osselin. That gentleman, without losing his presence of mind, replied,
'Well, if you do not like the ordinary judges, it is indispensable that
you should nominate others.'

This suggestion did not meet the end proposed by its author.

The mass of the people called repeatedly, 'Do you judge him, you
electors!'

'No,' answered M. Osselin; 'we have no authority either to judge or to
make judges. Name them yourselves.'

Again M. Osselin was mistaken. He had calculated on the people
hesitating to form a criminal tribunal; but with one voice they
proposed the curés of S. Étienne du Mont and of S. André des Arcs.

'Two judges are insufficient!' cried M. Osselin; 'there must be seven.'

Then, after a little difficulty, the people agreed upon five more.

'Very well; now you have seven judges,' said M. Osselin, who laboured
to save Foulon, and for that purpose raised difficulties; 'you must
have also a secretary.'

'You shall be secretary.'

'And a procureur du roi.'

'We name M. Duveyrier.'

That gentleman, forced against his will to act as prosecutor, asked
what charges were brought against the accused.

The people shouted in reply that the prisoner impoverished the land to
enrich himself, that he wanted to make the peasants eat hay, that he
had counselled the king to bombard Paris.

'We bring a capital accusation against him,--of treason towards the
nation.'

'If the accusation be capital,' said the two curés, rising, 'we refuse
to act as judges.'

'It is capital,' the people shouted.

'We are forbidden by the canons of the Church to shed blood,' said the
curé of S. Étienne du Mont, 'therefore my brother priest and I refuse
to act as judges.'

A storm burst forth. Some cried, 'The priests are right;' others
thundered, 'We are being hoodwinked; they want to save the prisoner.'

The clamour for judgment on the unfortunate Foulon became deafening.
The electors began to fear for themselves.

'Gentlemen, we want two judges in the place of the priests,' said one
of them.

'We name MM. Bailly and Lafayette.'

'But M. de Lafayette is absent. What is to be done? shall we wait for
him, or will you name some one as a substitute?'

'You judges name your coadjutor.'

But at that moment Lafayette came in and seated himself at the bureau
of the electors.

With some difficulty silence was impressed on the crowd in the hall,
and then Lafayette addressed them.

'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I cannot blame your anger and your indignation
against this man. I myself have never esteemed him; I have always
regarded him as a rogue, and I believe in my heart that no punishment
can exceed his deserts. You wish him to be sentenced; we have the same
wish, he shall be sentenced and punished; but he has accomplices,
and it is important that we should know their names. I am going to
order him to be conducted to the Abbaye; there he shall be tried and
condemned to the infamous death he has so richly deserved.'

'Yes, yes!' was the unanimous response; 'send him away to prison. Bring
him out.'

Foulon looked round, opened his snuff-box, poured the rest of its
contents into his palm, and applied it to his nose.

'This may be my last snuff,' said he collectedly to those who stood by
him. 'I have now none to offer you, I grieve to state.'

A man at that instant forced his way before the bureau, and exclaimed,
'You electors are mocking us. What need is there of judging a man who
has been judged these thirty years?'

Instantly a rush was made at Foulon, and he was dragged by a multitude
of hands along the hall. In vain he struggled; in vain did Lafayette
cry to the people to hearken to reason, in vain did Bailly ring his
bell and address the mob. Their enemy was within their grasp, and he
was swept away from the tribunal.

'Bah!' said Foulon; 'you will sting your hands with the nettles.'

He was drawn through the door; it was like the vortex of a whirlpool,
and in this portal the life was almost crushed out of him by the
press. As he was thrust into the open air and sunlight, he looked up at
the sky, then cloudless and of the deepest azure.

'Stand back!' said he; and disengaging his arm, he flung his bunch of
nettles in the faces of those before him. 'Eat them, you rascals,' he
said, and laughed bitterly.

His appearance was hailed with repeated thunders of--'To the lantern!'

'Make him ask pardon of the nation,' was shouted.

'Give me space to make my bow,' said Foulon, calm as ever, though a
rope was being attached to his neck.

'Ask pardon of the nation!' was repeated.

'I exceedingly regret, great nation of French,' said the old man,
bending ironically, and laying his hand on his heart, 'I deplore, with
all my heart, that Providence and the stupidity of your king prevented
me from having literally made you munch thistles like an ass.'

A scream of rage from those around him was the response.

Instantly he was seen, high above the people's heads, dangling to the
lantern, but only for an instant. The rope broke and he fell. He was
again run up, and again the cord gave way. Then his head was hacked off
and elevated on a pike.

At that same moment the news flew through La Grève that Berthier was
entering Paris by the Porte S. Martin, and the crowd, to a man, rushed
in that direction.

At the Fontaine Maubuée, the two crowds clashed. He who bore the head
of Foulon ran forward amidst the cheers of the mob that accompanied
Berthier. In the madness of her own excitement, Madame Plomb did not
observe him, and he passed her when her head was turned in the opposite
direction. Her yellow flag engrossed her attention; it was a streamer a
couple of yards long, and as she brandished it the silk twisted itself
around the horses, for sometimes she used it as a whip. Every time the
mob shouted, she stood up, whirled her flag, and shouted also.

The people were unable to make her out, with her long black gown, her
ash-grey face, blazing eyes, and saffron turban. They supposed she was
masked, and represented the genius of Death, and some applauded her:
'Behold Berthier conducted to judgment by Death.'

At the moment that the procession began to move on, a man hastily
dressed in a black ox-hide, his face covered with lamp-black, and the
horns of the ox on his head, holding a pitchfork, leaped upon the box,
and forced the driver to yield his place to him.

Instantly vociferous cheers greeted this new adjunct to the spectacle.

'He is driven to destruction by Death and the Devil!' was cried; and
the mob danced and screamed around the coach.

It was then that he who bore Foulon's head on a pike had the brutality
to thrust the ghastly object--the dead mouth of which was filled with
hay--into the carriage for Berthier to look at.

The miserable man's eyes glazed at the sight, and he smiled a ghastly
smile.

Then the bearer of the trophy sprang up behind the carriage, holding
his pike aloft.

The band recommenced their martial strain. The soldiers took up the
chant, the banners fluttered forward; the devil blew a hideous blast
on a cow's horn, and Madame Plomb waved her flag: thus the procession
advanced.

Arrived before the Hôtel de Ville, M. de la Rivière with difficulty
drew Berthier out of the vehicle. The unfortunate man was sick, faint,
and dizzy, and he probably would have been unable to walk, had it been
required of him, but a compact body of guards surrounding him bore him
forward into the great hall of S. John.

Without being conscious of where he was, or what was being done, he
felt himself forced before the bar.

Silence was enforced, and then the procureur, recently appointed by the
people, began to speak.

Berthier raised his hand, and all noticed how it shook.

'I am tired,' he said; 'I have not shut my eyes for two or three
nights. Let me have a little repose, I pray you.'

'No; no repose for you, till you have been sentenced,' cried the
assistants.

'At least give me a chair.'

One was handed to him, and he fell into it, the picture of
wretchedness. His eyes were lustreless, his complexion dull and dingy,
and his hair limp. His great cheeks hung down like the dewlaps of a
cow. He had not shaved for a week, and his mouth and chin were covered
with a coarse growth of short hair. When he put up his shaking hand
to wipe his eyes, he exposed a dirty hand, and ruffles at his wrist
draggled and soiled.

'What is the charge you bring against him?' asked M. Duveyrier.

'He supplied the army with ammunition to butcher us.'

'He has made his fortune by the compact of famine.'

'He has kept back provisions from the city, when the poor were
perishing for want of bread.'

'He stole from me my betrothed,' said a young man in a white smock, and
with the marks of plaster on his hands and in his hair. 'He destroyed
her fair fame, and she drowned herself in the Seine.'

'He robbed me of my little daughter,' cried a quack doctor, stepping
forward, 'and I have never seen her since.'

'Monster!' yelled an old woman, shaking her fist in his face, 'where is
my little Antoinette?'

'We will only hear crimes against the nation,' said Bailly, the mayor.
'Confine yourselves to these.'

'Why did you bring the troops round Paris? Why did you keep back the
corn?' the people cried.

'I have obeyed superior orders,' answered Berthier, huskily. 'You have
my papers; examine them.'

'I accuse him,' cried a shrill voice, and Madame Plomb tore her way
towards the front,--'I accuse him,--I, his wife!' she said. 'He has
been unfaithful to me. He has filled his house with profligates, he has
kicked my cat, he has called me the leaden woman, he has shut me up in
the Bastille--me, his wife, in the Bastille!'

The crowd groaned, and then hooted.

'Look here, Beast,' she said, letting her streamer hang down above his
head; 'is not this like a scythe? am not I Death? The people call me
so! See! I suspend the scythe above your head; come on! the devil is
waiting for you without; come on!'

'Come on, come on!' roared the mob.

'Were you able to escape in the forest?' she asked.

He did not answer, but looked at her with filmy eyes.

'No,' she replied to herself, 'no, you were not able. I shut the way
with a curse. Did your eyes help you? No; I blinded them with a curse.
Did your ears assist you? No; I stopped them with a curse. Did your
hands do you good service? No; I paralysed them with a curse. Did your
feet bear you swiftly along? No; I lamed them with a curse. Come with
me; I must hand you over to my friend the devil.'

Bailly sprang to his feet, rang his bell repeatedly, cried to the
people to listen to him, but could only obtain a half audience. He
laboured to calm this unbridled multitude possessed by rage; he exposed
with eloquence that prudence, necessity, reason demand that the life of
the accused should be spared till he had been given every opportunity
of exculpating himself from the charges laid against him. He showed
that before he could be convicted every attempt should be made to
discover his accomplices. But his eloquence was in vain. The people
were starving, and one of the causes of their hunger was in their
power. Some of these people had not eaten for two days, and hunger
makes all animals, man included, ferocious.

'I commit him to the prison of the Abbaye Saint-Germain,' said Bailly,
in despair. 'Guards, you are responsible for his safety. Guards, attend
to me; let him be injured at your peril. Close your ranks about him,
and keep off the mob. You are responsible,' he again cried, trembling
in his alarm; 'remember!'

With Berthier and the national guard the rest of those in the hall
poured out, leaving the electors alone, listening to the hideous rout
outside.

On the steps the crowd grappled with the soldiers for the victim; they
were thrust this way and that way; they were tripped up; they were
blinded by their hats being drawn over their eyes.

Foremost was the plaster-cast maker. He gave a great shout,--his hand
was on Berthier's collar.

The next to seize him was the doctor.

'Where is my daughter?' asked the old man, in a scream.

The prisoner did not answer.

'Don't kill him!' shrieked the doctor, as the young man smote at him.
'Spare him till he has told me where my little daughter is. My darling
Veronique, where is she? Tell me, Berthier, tell me.' He shook him
violently.

'Give me back my Antoinette!' screamed the hag who had accused him in
the hall.

'Sacré, let me go!' cried Berthier, struggling with the plaster-cast
dealer.

'Answer me, man, for the death of my friend Matthias André!' exclaimed
Étienne Percenez, leaping at his throat.

They stumbled down one of the steps, and the doctor fell; Berthier
recovered himself, and wrenched a musket from one of the guard, and
with it defended himself, madly striking right and left.

The plaster-cast dealer seized a pike, and smote at him with it; the
blow fell on Berthier's fingers, and he dropped the gun, screaming
with pain. Knives were unsheathed, and the infuriated people rushed in
upon him.

'Stay, stay!' cried Madame Plomb, uncoiling the long yellow strip of
silk from her head. 'Strangle him; I have promised him this.' She threw
the coil about his throat, his hands went up into the air; his feet
were tripped up, and he fell.

'Stand off, stand off!' yelled his wife; 'let me kiss him.' She stooped
over the suffocating man, whose eyes were shot from their sockets, and
whose face was dark with congested blood.

'He is like Gabrielle's father,' exclaimed madame, laughing.

'How his feet spurn, and his hands clutch at the steps! Ah, ah,
Berthier! I salute you. You are purple,--leaden like me.'

Then the mob fell upon him with knives and bayonets, and the
unfortunate woman saw nothing but a writhing knot of people, splashing
in blood, that spouted between their trampling feet, and poured down
the steps.

'Ah, ha! madame,' roared a butcher, catching the poor lady by the arm,
'see, see! you have your vengeance on them both now.' He pointed to
Berthier's head, at that moment elevated on the end of the pitchfork
belonging to the man masked in the black ox-hide.

'Yes,' said madame, 'the devil possesses him now.'

'And your father, madame?'

'What of him? He is not dead, you know. That was poor Adolphe they
buried.'

'Pooh!'

Dancing above the sea of heads was a face stiffened in death, with the
mouth crammed full of blood-sodden hay.

Madame Berthier gazed wildly at it for a full minute, following it with
her eyes.

Then she uttered a scream, so piercing that it was heard in the hall by
Bailly and the electors.

'Who have killed him? Show me the murderers!'

'Madame,' said the butcher, 'you have been his murderer. You have
killed them both.'

She turned with another cry, thrust her hands into her dishevelled
grey hair, and starting forwards, fell down the steps, struck her head
against the stones in falling, and would have been trodden to death
by the raging crowd, in their eagerness to approach the corpse of
Berthier, had not Percenez sprung to her assistance, stooped and raised
her in his arms.

'Help me, friend,' he said to a guard, 'let us place her in safety.'

So they bore her, stunned, and with her temple bleeding, to the home of
Madame Deschwanden.



CHAPTER XXXVII.


For a fortnight Madame Berthier remained delirious with brain fever. At
the end of that time she began to recover, but her memory was impaired.
She remembered nothing of her confinement in the Bastille, nothing of
her pursuit of Berthier and of the subsequent events. Only hazily did
the form of her husband present itself to her mind; it was a note which
cyphered, and therefore disturbed, the harmony of memory.

Her former freakish predilections for the colour yellow had suddenly
changed into aversion. It was somehow connected with an event which had
disappeared from the range of her thoughts; and, as a thread leading
nowhere, it irritated her without her being able to account for it.

The cat also was forgotten. She did not allude to him once. But she
distinctly knew Gabrielle. Perhaps if the yellow Gabriel had been
brought to her she would have recognised him. She did not know when she
had made the girl's acquaintance, or where she had first met her; but
she knew her face and her name.

Her great delight, on her recovery, was to listen to the corporal and
Nicholas conversing about their native land. She paid the greatest
attention to their words, laughed childishly, and smiled at Gabrielle.

But especially was she gratified with the song, 'Heart, my heart, why
art thou weary?' Nicholas played it to her on his flageolet, and the
corporal sang it, till the poor woman knew it by heart.

One day she was sitting in the window, propped up with pillows, looking
out at the roof-tops, and the blue sky over them. No one was in the
room; but Gabrielle, who had left it for a few minutes, on returning
found her singing in a plaintive voice, and crying softly,--

 'Heart, my heart, why art thou weary,
   Why to grief and tears a prey?
 Foreign lands are bright and cheery;
   Heart, my heart, what ails thee, say?

 That which ails me past appeasing,
   I am lost, a stranger here;
 What, though foreign lands be pleasing,
   Home, sweet home, alone is dear.'

Then, turning to Gabrielle, she asked when they were going.

'Where would you go, dear mistress?' asked the girl.

'Home, to native rocks and sky,' she answered; and then sang,--

 'Through the fragrant pine-boughs bending,
   I should see the glacier shine;
 See the nimble goats ascending
   Gentian-dappled slopes in line.

 See the cattle, hear the tinkle
   Of the merry-clashing bells;
 See white sheep the pastures sprinkle
   In the verdant dewy dells.'

'Do you know, Gabrielle,' said the lady, interrupting her song, 'the
cow-bells are the most beautiful music in the world? Call Nicholas
here. He will tell you the same.' As she insisted, Gabrielle was
obliged to go to the young man's workshop, and summon him.

'I am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Nicholas, but madame is resolved to
hear from you that cow-bells make beautiful music.'

'There is no music like them!' exclaimed the youth, becoming at once
enthusiastic; 'you should hear them of a summer evening, when the
cattle are being driven home to be milked. It is the maddest, merriest
clatter in the world. You really must hear them. It is worth going all
the way to Switzerland to hear them. I will go to madame instantly.'
Rushing into the room to her, he began at once,--'Madame! there is
nothing like them. To hear them at a distance, a tinkle here and a
tinkle there, as the cattle are being driven from the pastures,--it
is like silver music rippling down the sward in countless rills;
then the cows unite in the path, and you have fifty twinkling,
tinkling notes rushing together; and when they come close to you it is
overwhelming,--it is like children's thoughts in play set to music.'

Madame Berthier clapped her hands.

'Gabrielle, when shall we hear the cow-bells? I am dying of impatience.'

'In October, madame, my father and the rest of us return home. Oh,
what happiness! The corporal and I have been studying a map, and my
father is bent on going by the Jura, and Pontarlier. Then you come
winding through the mountains among rocks and pines; that is a sort
of first taste, to give one zest, to prepare you for what is to come,
lest you should die of over-happiness. And then, then, then,' the lad's
great eyes grew bigger, and light danced in the blue irises,--'Then
all at once, at a turn of the road, just when least expecting it, or
trying not to expect it, for you are hungering all the while--what is
that--that ragged line, half way up the sky, so faint, and blue, and
silvery? Is it a bank of clouds? No, it is too still for that. It is
the Alps, the Alps, the Alps!' He clasped his hands to his eyes, which
began to fill. 'And down below your feet lies the lake of Neufchatel, a
broad mirror, still and blue, like the sky; and you see the vineyards
sweeping down to the very edge of the water, and the old brown towers
and steeples of the city against the glistening water. But above them
all--there, whither your heart and soul stretch away, there they are,
the dear, dear Alps!'

Madame Berthier was nearly as excited as Nicholas.

'And then,' he continued, 'to see again our mountain-flowers. The
gentian, we call it himmels-blau, that is, heaven's-blue,--to see the
slopes of short grass sprinkled with them, the little azure one and
the large dark one, as thick as stars in the sky. And close to the
snow you will find the little crocus, myriads white and violet, where
the thawed ice has burnt up the grass. And the meadows full of white
anemones and golden balls; and the buttercups white and purple, and the
primulas in marshy land. Oh, madame! do you know the Alpine rose? Dear
Gabrielle, you must come with me, if only to see that! Think, up among
the mountains a patch of grey rock, and above it a bush blazing with
crimson flowers, and they are sometimes red as blood, and sometimes
pale pink like your own sweet cheek--but not as it is now, it has grown
red. Then the leaves are glossy green, like the myrtle, and underneath
a russet-brown, the colour of the shaggy goats. You have tracts of
these glorious flowers, and beside the silver-grey old rock they are so
lovely. You would say the mountain blushed to think how beautiful it
was.'

'Gabrielle!' cried madame, in ecstasy, 'I shall die, unless I go
quickly to see the Alpine roses.'

'And the pinks,' continued Nicholas; 'lovely little red pinks in
tufts, and sometimes their leaves are snipped, just as mother cuts the
paper for the candlesticks, and of a tender lake tint.'

'When are we going, Gabrielle?' asked madame.

'We start in October, I hope,' said Nicholas; 'my father's time is up
then.'

'Yes,' said the convalescent, 'we will all go then, Gabrielle and I.'

'That will be charming,' exclaimed the young man, 'will it not,
mademoiselle?'

The girl did not answer.

'Yes,' continued the lady; 'we shall all go together, and then you,
Nicholas, and Gabrielle can live with me; you know I have money.'

'My dear madame,' said the girl, becoming scarlet, 'let us talk of
something else.'

'But I cannot, dear Gabrielle; I can think of nothing else, and it is
such surpassing delight to me to hear the corporal and Nicholas talk.
It will be so nice, too, for you and Nicholas.'

'The corporal, and Madame Deschwanden, and Madeleine will all be
there,' said the girl, hiding her face that she might not encounter the
nods and smiles of Nicholas.

'Don't be so sure of that,' said the little lady of the house, bustling
into the room. 'Switzerland again, of course. I go there! not a bit,
and get lost down a chasm in a glacier. Mon Dieu! fancy that, and I
might at the moment have on my best gown and best bonnet. Climb your
mountain peaks, indeed! you will see me put my head out of the top of
one of these chimneys first, and cry "sweep, sweep!" Deschwanden may
go, and you may go, Nicholas, if you like, but I remain at Paris. Would
you have me migrate to the land of barbarism, at my time of life, and
at a time, too, when the metropolis is a scene of the most charming
incidents? My faith! It is as good as a play to see what is going on
here--and you would tear me away between the acts, make me shut up the
novel at the first volume! You are much mistaken if you think you will
get me to Switzerland.'

'But what is to be done, mother?' asked Nicholas; 'my father has set
his heart on returning to his father-land, and I verily believe it
would be his death to have to forego what has been his desire for many
years.'

'Let him go.'

'But he cannot leave you behind.'

'Why not? Let him imagine I am dead. Let him say to himself, "I am a
widower once again; I am free as a bird, I will spread my wings, and
seek a distant clime." Pretty bird he'd make, though! You Germans
have no neatness, no delicacy and buoyancy of construction. You are
great hawks--penguins, who never rise. But we French are ever on
tiptoe, ready to soar; we only want a breath of gas in our bones, a
few feathers on our backs, and you would find the sky swarm with us,
laughing, chattering, wheeling here and there, coquetting, always
polite, always graceful, and never flying beyond sight of la belle
France.'

'But my father cannot in conscience----'

'Stay! never mention that word in my hearing. There it is, that is
the mischief of it. Conscience is the lead that keeps you always in
one position. I thought to have died of laughing. I saw in a shop
window a range of dolls,--fat things rounded off below, without
perceptible legs. You knocked them about, and they rocked to and fro,
and always righted in the same position. I rushed into the shop, and
I said--"Oblige me, those are German toys, are they not?" "Madame,
you are right," was the answer I received. Well, Nicholas! I thought
at once of you and your father, leaded with your dreadful dumpy
conscience. My faith! why does not this precious conscience keep the
corporal from going to Versailles?'

'What do you mean, mother? he is not going there.'

'Yes, he is. He has received orders transferring him there; he has to
attend in the palace, as one of the guard. If he is so fond of me, let
him refuse. You say he can't,--he is ordered there. Well, there is no
help for it, he leaves me. Now let him suppose he is ordered off to
Switzerland; there he goes. I will order him off. Right about face,
quick, march!'

'Surely, mother, you will not be so heartless?'

'Ah bah! I shall do well enough here. I can't go to Versailles after
him, can I? Well, and I won't go to Switzerland with him. That is
my mind. I have my business and my pleasure here in Paris; I could
not live away from either. Ask a nightingale to visit and admire the
beauties of the bottom of the sea! invite a minnow to soar to the
stars! expect a rose to throw its roots into the air and thrust its
blossoms under the soil! Pshaw! This is just as sensible as asking me
to plunge into your lakes, ascend your Alps, and bury myself in your
mountain gorges under avalanches and glaciers and Heaven knows what
besides.'

'Where is my father now?'

'He is out. He has to remove at once to the Swiss battalion at Rueil,
and thence he will be sent with a new company to attend on the
royal family and guard the palace. You see the French guard have at
Versailles, as here, merged themselves in a national guard, so I fancy
the Court prefers to be defended by foreign troops. Here he comes!'

The corporal entered and saluted Madame Berthier and his wife, then
he went up to Gabrielle and patted her gently on the cheek. Nicholas
gave her a knowing nod, as much as to say, 'you are a great pet of my
father's.'

'Are you transferred to Versailles?' asked Nicholas; 'mother has just
disconcerted us with that announcement.'

'Yes,' answered the corporal; 'I have been ordered to the barracks at
Rueil for a week, and after that we are to be sent to Versailles; the
Swiss guard at the palace is about to be reinforced.'

'It will not be for long,' said Nicholas.

'No, only till October,' answered the corporal, brushing up the hair on
either side of his head; 'and then--' he rubbed his hand; 'then we set
our faces homewards. I shall be free.'

'And I daresay you will not be sorry for it,' said Gabrielle, gently,
lifting her eyes to his face.

'No, my dear, I shall be rejoiced. It does not please me to have to
range myself against your countrymen. A civil war is a terrible thing,
and I am half French myself.'

'_You_ half French!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden, with a shrug of the
shoulders and a curl of the lip.

'Yes, wife, I am; not only because of my union with you, but also
because I have spent many of my best years in this land, chiefly,
however, because I entirely sympathise with the struggle that is
begun. Had not we the same sort of thing in our land? There was Werner
Stauffacher, Erni of Melchthal, and Walter Fürst----'

'Enough of them,' said madame, with an impatient stamp.

'Corporal,' asked the convalescent lady, 'are you going to return to
where the cow-bells ring, and where there are Alps half way up to the
sky?'

'Yes, madame, please God, and with the help of blessed Klaus!'

'And you will see the pinks, and the gentians, and the roses of the
Alps?'

'I must, indeed I must,' exclaimed the corporal. 'Ah, ha! Nicholas, in
October, three months more!'

'We are all going together,' said the poor lady; 'we all want to hear
the cow-bells, and see the Alpine roses.'

'That will be perfect,' answered Corporal Deschwanden.

'Then Nicholas and Gabrielle can keep house for me.'

'That will crown all,' said the corporal, brushing up his hair over the
right ear, then over the left, then above his brow.

'Gabrielle!' cried madame; but the girl darted out of the room.

'Nicholas,' said the invalid; 'I want Gabrielle, will you kindly fetch
her for me?'



CHAPTER XXXVIII.


A last arrow remained in the quiver of the Court party.

The course pursued by the National Assembly after the reunion of
the orders, proved to the aristocracy that a revolution could
alone reinstate them in their ancient prerogatives and save them
from disappearing as a class in the rising tide. They meditated a
revolution accordingly, to be thus executed: the king and queen were to
escape from Versailles and take refuge in the fortress of Metz, then
powerfully garrisoned, and the head quarters of the army; when there,
they could dissolve the Assembly, reduce Paris, and re-establish the
ancient régime.

With their usual recklessness and folly, the members of this party
allowed their plot to become public; they boasted and threatened, and
enrolled members in the conspiracy, exasperating and alarming the
popular party to such an extent that it became apparent to every one
that a few days must decide whether the revolution was to be begun by
the nobles or by the people.

The king and his family must not remain at Versailles, that was the
conclusion of each party. Was he to be taken to Metz or to Paris? In
the first case, the country would be plunged in civil war; the other
alternative made the extinction of the aristocracy, as a class, certain.

In the meantime, the French guard had been dismissed from their
attendance on the royal family, and the palace was placed under the
protection of the Swiss and the body-guard alone.

A Flanders regiment was introduced into Versailles, and two hundred
chasseurs of the Trois-Évêchés, from their barracks at Rambouillet, and
the same number of the dragoons of Lorraine.

On the 2nd of October a dinner was given by the body-guard to the
newly-arrived Flemish regiment, in the theatre of the palace. The stage
was occupied by the officers, seated at a horse-shoe table; in the
orchestra were the bands of the corps, and in the pit the tables of the
soldiers of the Flemish regiment, the chasseurs, and the dragoons of
Lorraine.

After the feast had lasted some hours, the king and the queen appeared
in the royal box. Instantly an unanimous cry of 'Long live the king!
long live the queen!' arose from the hall. All the banqueters rose,
and the soldiers of Flanders and Lorraine, delighted to see the royal
family, whom they hardly knew, overleaped the balustrade of the
amphitheatre to approach and cheer them.

The king, moved by these tokens of affection, left his box and went
round the table on the stage followed by the queen, who held her
daughter by the hand, whilst the dauphin was carried by an officer of
the guards.

In the midst of the general enthusiasm, the band struck up the air of
Grétry,--'O Richard, O mon roi! l'univers t'abandonne!'

When the royal family retired, they were followed by the officers
and soldiers drunk with enthusiasm and wine, and assembling in the
marble court under the king's windows, they repeated their cheers, and
promises to die in his defence. White cockades were distributed by the
ladies of the court, and a national badge having been shown to the
excited soldiers was greeted with scorn and was trampled under foot.

Next day followed another feast, and a similar display of zeal for the
cause of the queen against that of the nation.

On the 4th, as might have been anticipated, Paris was in an uproar.
The people felt instinctively that not a day was to be lost. The
aristocracy might at any moment snatch the king from Versailles, carry
him to a fortress, surround him with troops, and from thence make him
dictate laws and destroy the scaffolding of the new constitution, in
the erection of which the National Assembly was laboriously engaged. If
the Court party were allowed to steal a march on the people, all was
lost.

The most inflammatory harangues in the Palais Royal assisted in
exciting the general conflagration. The scenes preceding the seizure
of the Bastille were renewed; but there was no fortress to be captured
on this occasion,--it was the person of the king must be secured, that
the democracy might place him in the revolutionary vortex, might keep
watch over him, and disperse the clique which dragged him into schemes
antagonistic to the wishes and welfare of the nation.

On the morning of the 5th, all Paris was in movement; but that which
determined its march on Versailles, was the famine.

In spite of the efforts of the committee of subsistence established by
Bailly, corn, and flour especially, arrived in small quantities.

At four o'clock in the morning a crowd besieged the shops of the
bakers. For hours the people remained patiently _en queue_; then they
began to fight to obtain for money a loaf often insufficient to fill
the mouths that clamoured for it at home. The wretched quality of the
bread added to the fury of the populace. Little more was needed to
produce an explosion. The account of the scenes which had been enacted
at Versailles fell like a spark upon these inflammable tempers, and the
fire blazed forth in an instant.

'Let us bring the baker among us!' cried Madeleine, who, like the
rest, had been waiting for the morning's provision of bread.

'Yes, we must have the chief baker here,' shouted several others.

Madeleine, without another word, seized on a drum, and rattled it
vigorously. The women trooped round her, and in a moment she was at
the head of a legion of famished, furious women, some of whom had not
tasted food for thirty hours.

'Let us march to Versailles,' cried several; 'let us besiege the great
bakehouse.'

'Lead on, you girl with the drum!' cried others.

'Whither shall I lead?' asked Madeleine.

'To Versailles!' was the general shout.

'We will tell the Assembly that we starve,'--'we will bring the king to
Paris, and he shall see how hungry we are,'--'we will surround him, and
protect the good papa from our enemies and his.' Such were some of the
cries that arose.

'Let us go to the Hôtel de Ville!' called another.

'Yes, yes, to the Hôtel de Ville first,' the mob clamoured.

It happened just then that Madame Deschwanden and Gabrielle were
passing. The little lady saw Madeleine at once, and she ran to her,
arrested her in her drumming, and asked, 'My dear! for pity's sake,
what is the matter?'

'Mother, the poor things are starving; and the great nobles at
Versailles are going to carry our king off to Metz and make war on the
people; then we shall have famine and war together.'

'That will never do,' said madame; 'no one will want new caps, and I
shall be out of work. But why are you drumming?'

'Mother! we are going to the Hôtel de Ville first, and then on to
Versailles to bring the king to Paris.'

'Nonsense, Madeleine.'

'We are going to do it,' said the girl bluntly; 'the men are
cowards,--see what the women will do.'

'Oh ecstasy! oh raptures!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden; 'what sport!
it is as good as a play. I shall accompany you, and Gabrielle shall
come too.'

'What, to Versailles?' asked the little peasantess in dismay; 'I pray
you let me remain behind.'

'No, come with me, I will protect you; the day is fine, and we shall
have a charming expedition, and shall see such dresses. Ecstasy!
raptures!'

In vain did Gabrielle plead; Madame Deschwanden linked her arm within
her own and drew her along.

Onward drave the concourse of women--shop-girls, milliners, portresses,
servants, market-women--till they reached the Place de Grève. The
cavalry of the national guard were drawn up there; the women charged
them, and with a volley of stones drove them back, for the soldiers
could not make up their minds to fire upon them.

They would have burnt the Hôtel de Ville, in their ravenous wildness,
because it contained no bread, had not the solemn, gigantic Stanislas
Maillard, one of the conquerors of the Bastille, arrested them. He
beat a drum and obtained a hearing. He offered to conduct the crowd
to Versailles, and the women, liking his appearance and knowing his
name, put themselves under his order. In half an hour the army of women
was in marching order; they drew with them the cannon of the Place de
Grève, and were armed with sticks, cutlasses, and a few guns.

Whilst this troop of women marched to Versailles, Paris was in
ebullition.

Early in the morning, the alarm-bell had been rung by the fellow now in
command of the men who marched after the women. He had been caught in
the act and hung, but his bull-neck had saved him, and the women had
cut him down. The national guard, assembling first in their districts,
betook themselves in a mass to the Hôtel de Ville and filled La
Grève, crying, 'To Versailles!' A deputation of grenadiers sought out
Lafayette, who, along with the municipality, used his utmost endeavours
to arrest the movement. One of these men addressed the general, told
him he was being deceived, that it was time that things should be
brought to a climax, that the people were wretched, that the source of
the evil was at Versailles, and that they were resolved on bringing the
king to Paris.

Lafayette resisted, descended to the square, harangued the grenadiers,
but his voice was drowned by cries of 'To Versailles! to Versailles!'

For several hours he attempted by speeches and by signs to control
the military mob. Then he turned to re-enter the town-hall, but his
grenadiers barred the passage. 'Morbleu! general,' they said, 'you
shall stop with us; you shall not abandon us.'

At length an order was transmitted to him from the municipality
requiring him, 'on account of the urgency of the circumstances and the
desire of the people,' to transport himself to Versailles. The general
mounted his white horse, put himself at the head of his battalions, and
gave the command to march, which was received with acclamations.

It was then six o'clock in the evening, and the rain had begun to fall.

We must return to Versailles.

The ministers had been informed of the march of the women of Paris,
and M. de Saint-Priest wrote a letter to the king, who was out hunting
in the wood of Meudon, urging him to return immediately; and M. de
Cubières, their esquire, was despatched with it, whilst detachments of
the body-guard were sent in different directions to protect the king's
return. At three o'clock M. de Cubières found the king and gave him the
note. 'What!' exclaimed Louis, 'the women of Paris are coming to ask
me for bread. Poor creatures, I would supply them without giving them
the trouble to come for it, if I had it.'

A few minutes after the return of the king, the women arrived at the
barrier.

In the meantime, the regiment of Flanders armed, and the body-guard
mounted their horses; the latter took up their position in the Place
d'Armes before the grating that enclosed the court of the ministers,
whilst some invalids, the Swiss corps, together with the Flemish
regiment, formed a line of battle on the left, and the chasseurs and
the national guard occupied the right. A body of dragoons was sent
down the avenue of Paris to take up a position before the hall of the
Menus-Plaisirs.

These dispositions were no sooner taken than the women entered
Versailles.

The Count of Luxembourg asked the king for orders to give the
body-guard. 'Nonsense,' replied Louis XVI, 'orders against a band of
women! you are joking.'

The women were no sooner in the town than they invaded the court of
Menus-Plaisirs, and demanded to be admitted to the Assembly.

Maillard and half-a-dozen women were alone admitted, after some
difficulties had been made; one of these was Madeleine with her drum,
and another was Gabrielle, who clung to her. A third bore a tambourine
at the end of a long pole.

'We come,' said Maillard, sword in hand, his black suit splashed with
mud and tattered, 'we come to demand bread, and the punishment of
the body-guard who have insulted the national cockade. We are good
patriots; on our road we have torn down the black cockades, and I will
have the pleasure of tearing one before the Assembly.'

Whereupon another man, he with the bull-neck, told his story, how he
had been nearly hung that morning for having rung the alarm-bell. 'We
will force every one to wear the patriotic badge,' he said. Thereupon
murmurs arose; turning towards those who uttered these sounds of
dissatisfaction, he asked, 'What! are we not all brothers?'

Mounier, the president, replied calmly, 'No one in this Assembly will
deny that all men are to be considered as brothers; the indignation you
resent was aroused by your menace of using force. Speak with respect
where you are.'

Thereupon the women began to cry out for bread. The president assured
them that the Assembly was distressed to learn the state of famine
in which the capital was plunged, and that it would use its utmost
endeavours to obtain a free circulation of corn, and provide for the
regular supply of grain. He told them that their presence at Versailles
was of no earthly use, that it impeded the debates, and could not
relieve the scarcity of provisions.

'That is not enough,' said the great Maillard; and the women exclaimed
again, 'Bread, bread!'

A member then proposed that a deputation should be sent to the king to
inform him of the starving condition of the capital. This proposition
was accepted. The Bishop of Langres took the president's chair, and
Mounier set out, moodily, at the head of a deputation, followed by the
women in a crowd.

The rain fell in torrents, and the avenue of Paris was a lake of mud.
Followed by the wild band of females fantastically dressed, some in
rags, some armed, shouting, singing, cursing, Mounier and the deputies
made their way towards the palace. Body-guards were patrolling and
galloping about, and mistaking the president for a leader of the
insurrection, and wanting to disperse the multitude, they galloped
through the deputation and their suite, scattering them and splashing
them from head to foot with mire.

By this time the ragged army of men which followed that of the women
had entered the Place d'Armes by the avenues of Saint Cloud and Paris,
armed with sticks, pitchforks, and a few muskets. The women, rolling
into the _place_ in floods, were mingled with the crowd of men,
and vented their rage against the body-guard in invectives. As the
different detachments of these guards, which had been sent in quest of
the king, arrived and joined those before the court of the ministers,
they were attacked and insulted. A pike flung against a guard galloping
to rejoin his squadron, fell between the legs of his horse and threw
it down. The soldier fell, and the populace crowded round him to seize
him, when he was rescued by M. Desroches, captain of the national
guard, arriving at the moment with his company. He attempted to capture
the young man who had flung the pike, but the people rushed between him
and the youth and facilitated his escape.

Whilst this was taking place, the regiment of Flanders was the object
of the caresses of the women. Théroigne de Méricourt, covered with a
scarlet cloak, penetrated the ranks of the soldiers, flattered them,
and entreated them not to oppose the people. A great many women,
plucking up courage at the immobility of the guards, who had orders not
to use their arms, advanced to the very feet of the horses and tried to
creep between them into the court before the palace.

All of a sudden, a party of women, headed by a man named Burnout, in
the uniform of the national Parisian guard, rushed upon the mounted
body-guards. The horses, frightened at the noise, and the charge
of Burnout, sabre in hand, swerved, and allowed him to pass. But,
separated from the women who were unable to follow him, he found
himself alone between the railing and the soldiers. He was immediately
pursued; but he escaped in the direction of the national guard, who, it
will be remembered, were drawn up on the right of the body-guard, with
whom they were on the worst possible terms. Burnout received several
blows with the flat of the sabre, and fell over a bucket; this caused
the French guard to raise the cry that the body-guard were massacring
one of their men; whereupon a musket was fired by one of the national
guard, and the arm of an officer in pursuit of Burnout was broken.
The commander of the national guard, Lecointre, a violent partisan
of extreme revolutionary measures, at once sought the officers of
the body-guard, to learn from them what were their intentions. They
replied that they had no wish to fall out with the national guard.
Then he hurried to the regiment of Flanders, which had been already
tampered with by the women, and asked them how they purposed to conduct
themselves towards the people. The soldiers replied that they would not
fire upon them, and they gave Lecointre and his guards some of their
cartouches.

During this time Mounier and his deputation passed through the lines of
the guard before the grating, were received with honour, and admitted
to the court along with twelve women, of whom were Madeleine and
Gabrielle. Five women were alone permitted to see the king. Madeleine
thrust herself forward--Gabrielle remained behind, in the ante-chamber.
She was weary, faint, and hungry. Madeleine had drawn her along with
her against her wishes, and the poor girl had been frightened and
miserable all day.

She took the opportunity of sinking into a chair; and then, overcome
by her weariness, her tears began to flow. M. d'Estaing happening to
pass through the ante-room at the moment, saw that she was crying, and
coming towards her said kindly, 'My child, you are weeping because
you have not seen the king.' Then he took her by the hand and led her
into the royal apartment, where were the king, his ministers, and the
deputation.

'Why did you come to Versailles?' asked M. de Saint-Priest of Gabrielle.

'Sir,' she answered, 'I was forced into the troop;' and she looked
reproachfully at Madeleine.

'We have come to Versailles,' said Madeleine, 'to inform the king that
his good town of Paris wants him. We are afraid that some people will
take him from this place and carry him to Metz, and we have come to
bring him home with us.'

'They are hungry,' cried Mounier; 'the women clamour for bread.'

'But you should have asked bread of the municipality,' said
Saint-Priest, addressing Madeleine.

'We went to the Hôtel de Ville,' she replied, 'and we found no one
there.'

The king, whose eye had rested on Gabrielle, saw that she was deadly
pale. He asked her if she were ill.

'Sire,' she answered, 'I am tired and faint.'

The king filled a goblet with wine, and took it to her and made her
drink. She thanked him with a speaking look, and tasted it; but at the
same moment every object swam before her eyes, and she fainted away.
When she returned to herself, the king was stooping over her. He gave
her smelling-salts, and sprinkled water on her brow. Madeleine fanned
her and she recovered.

Louis gave a written order for the immediate supply of food to Paris,
and handed a copy to Madeleine, who rushed down the court, shouting
'Long live the king!' She held Gabrielle's arm in hers, and passed
outside the railing, and between the soldiers to the crowd, to show
them the order.

Instantly it was discovered that the copy was not signed, and they were
constrained to return to the king and request his signature.

When they reappeared, the women outside were in a state of violent
exasperation; they had taken it into their heads that Madeleine had
been bribed; and they cried out that the king had given her twenty-five
louis-d'or. In vain did the girl empty her pockets to show there was no
money there; they then assaulted Gabrielle. A great commotion arose.
Some cried out, 'These girls have betrayed us. They have sold us to the
queen!' and a thousand voices screamed, 'Hang the traitors!'

What caused this sudden transition of feeling,--whether it arose from
the jealousy of those who had failed to obtain admission, whether
it was that Madeleine appeared too enthusiastic in her praise of
his majesty, or whether the tumult had been excited by a malicious
slander,--it is impossible to say. Certain it is, however, that a crowd
of wild, ravenous amazons attacked the two girls with their fists; a
garter was knotted round Madeleine's neck, and she was dragged off
towards the nearest lamp, and would infallibly have been strung up to
it, had not the guards interfered and rescued her. Gabrielle in the
meanwhile was in the grasp of a furious termagant, who fastened her
hands round her throat and attempted to strangle her. Frantic women
around shrieked to her to deliver up the money which she had received
from the king; her dress was torn, and her hands were wounded in
struggling with the infuriated savages; her consciousness was beginning
to leave her again, as the pressure on her throat tightened, when a
stout arm swept her assailants to right and left, a hand seized her,
and she was rapidly drawn away from the place of danger. The crowd was
closely wedged together, and she and her deliverer disappeared from
those who were incensed against her, amongst a throng who knew nothing
of what was being enacted a few ranks beyond them. Her conductor worked
his way through the people, and in another moment, with an air of
relief, he exclaimed, 'Praised be God and Bruder Klaus, we are safe
now!'

'Nicholas!' exclaimed Gabrielle, 'how came you here?'

'When I heard you were with Madeleine, I followed. I have kept as close
to you as possible since I saw you leave the hall of the Assembly. It
was well that I did so.'

Gabrielle was sinking from fatigue and fear.

'Oh, Nicholas, I cannot endure any more. I shall die here.'

'No, no,' exclaimed he; 'lean against that wall.'

'Here!' he cried to a priest who was passing, 'M. le Curé, help!'

'What is the matter?' asked the priest, stopping.

Gabrielle suddenly revived, and exclaimed with an accent of appealing
distress,--'M. Lindet, help me!'

'Who are you?' asked the deputy for the clergy of Évreux.

'She is called Gabrielle André,' answered Nicholas; 'can you do
anything for her? She is worn out, faint, and ill.'

'Follow me,' said the curé; 'she shall have rest and refreshment in my
lodgings; I know little Gabrielle well.'

Nicholas lifted the girl in his arms, held her very tight to his breast
as he carried her, and did not deposit her till he had reached the
priest's door.



CHAPTER XXXIX.


By the fire-side, after having partaken of some food, Gabrielle
recovered.

Lindet insisted on giving up to her his room and bed, and on sitting
through the night in the kitchen with Nicholas.

The darkness had set in, and the rain continued to fall. The streets
were still in commotion, and the young man who was anxious to know
what had become of Madeleine, sallied forth in quest of her. He found
the whole town in disorder. Women and men, armed with pikes, hatchets
and cudgels, pursued and insulted the body-guard, which had received
orders not to retaliate. The drum rattling in every street summoned the
national guard to the Place d'Armes. But many of the guards, unable to
sympathise with the exasperation against the body-guard, fomented by
Lecointre, withdrew to their homes.

After the departure of the women, Mounier had remained at the Château.
He firmly declared to the ministers, that the National Assembly
required of the king his frank acceptation of the articles of the
constitution and of the rights of men. He pointed out to them that at
such a time of popular effervescence, it was most important that there
should be no hesitation or prevarication; and that a refusal would
drive the Parisians to measures of the utmost violence. He promised, if
the king would sign the Declaration, to announce the fact to the people
as a singular benefit, and he was convinced that it would greatly tend
to diminish the popular excitement.

The king thereupon reassembled a cabinet council, and Mounier awaited
the issue.

In the other parts of the palace the liveliest anxiety prevailed.
The cries of rage vomited by the populace against the queen made
it necessary to provide for her safety, and orders were given for
preparations to be made for her departure, along with the dauphin, to
Rambouillet. Five carriages issued from the royal stables, and drew up
at the iron gates before the Orangery, and those of the Dragon. The
Swiss opened the former gates, but the national guardsmen of Versailles
rushed to them and shut them again, and refused to permit the Dragon
gates to be opened at all.

The order to retire had been given at night-fall to all the troops
drawn up in the Place d'Armes. The regiment of Flanders quitted
its position and withdrew to the court of the Grandes-Ecuries. The
body-guard defiled in turn; one detachment followed the avenue of S.
Cloud, to betake itself to the Hôtel de Charrost, but the largest
portion directed its course down the avenue de Sceaux, towards their
own hôtel. Mud and stones were cast at them, and they were saluted
with yells of hatred. Some of the guard losing control over themselves
fired their pistols, hit three men, and tore the clothes of two others
with their bullets. The national guard instantly discharged a volley,
wounded one horse and killed another. The soldier mounted on the latter
fell, and the women precipitated themselves upon him and would have
killed him, had not two officers of the national guard come to his
rescue.

Those who had fired on the body-guard returned to their barrack on the
Place d'Armes, and demanded ammunition. It was refused. A lieutenant of
Versailles threatened to blow out the brains of those who kept watch
over it, unless it were given up. Thereupon a barrel of gunpowder was
produced, and Lecointre loaded two cannons and ran them out opposite
the balustrade, so as to command the flank of the troops which still
covered the castle, and the body-guard who were returning to the
square. The commandant of the body-guard, the Duke de Guiche, finding
that the mob were resolved on attacking them in their hôtel, and that
the national guard were making common cause with the people, deemed
it advisable to return to the palace; but finding the grand entrance
closed and cannon directed against them, they galloped down the Rue
de Satory, and making a circuit entered the court of the Ministers by
the Rue de la Surintendance. The mob, furious at their escape, flung
themselves against the railing, vociferating loudly, and they would
have forced the gates, had not a detachment of Swiss been marched to
the reinforcement of the sentinels.

The town then presented a sinister appearance. The rain continued
to fall, and the night was very dark. The shops were closed, with
the exception of the bakers' and the vintners'. All the inhabitants
of Versailles had fastened their doors and put shutters over their
windows. The lamps at wide distances cast a lugubrious light on the
patrols of the national guard, and the crowd of men and women in rags,
covered with mud and dripping, who battered at every door, and demanded
food and shelter.

Some of the crowd burst open the gates of the great stables, where the
regiment of Flanders was stationed, and took refuge among the soldiers;
others invaded the barrack of the French guard, and crowded into it out
of the rain and cold. Four thousand, mostly women, occupied the hall of
the Assembly, shouting, swearing, and making an uproar. Maillard alone
could keep them quiet by continual haranguing. Some of the body-guard,
those who had been to the Hôtel de Charrost, finding their position
full of danger, resolved on joining their comrades. On issuing from
their barrack they were pelted with stones; but they spurred their
horses into a gallop and reached the court of the Ministers, though not
without wounds.

Mounier waited on at the door of the council chamber to know the
result of the deliberations within. It was nine o'clock, and nothing
was decided. Then the young Duke of Richelieu arrived disguised like
one of the mob, ragged, muddy, wet through, panting for breath, to
announce to the king that a fresh swarm of people was on its way from
Paris; he had mingled with them, had heard their threats against the
queen, their vows of vengeance against the court. Shortly after the
news reached the palace, that Lafayette was marching upon Versailles at
the head of the Parisian militia or national guard.

The king's heart failed him, and at ten o'clock at night he signed the
Declaration of Rights.

Mounier at once returned to the hall of the Assembly, expecting to find
the delegates there, but they had been so incommoded by the women, who
had intruded everywhere, that the Assembly had been adjourned, and
the mob of women had been left in possession of the hall; one female
occupied the president's chair, but she surrendered it to Mounier on
his appearing. He sent immediately to the municipal officers to request
them to summon the delegates by roll of drum.

Whilst this was being executed, he announced to the people that the
king had accepted the articles of the constitution. The announcement
elicited applause, and then the women asked, simply enough, if this
acceptation would make bread more plentiful and cheaper. The president,
ascertaining that many of these poor creatures had eaten nothing all
day, sent round to the bakers' shops, and all the food that he could
collect, wine, brandy, sausages, bread, was collected at the table, and
was by him distributed among the famished multitude.

The great hall then presented the appearance of a huge eating-house.
During this feast a message was transmitted to Mounier, announcing the
approach of Lafayette and his army of Parisian guards. Mounier at once
commissioned M. Goui-d'Arci to hasten to meet the general, and report
to him the acceptation by the king of the Declaration of Rights.

As soon as it was known at the Château that the Parisian militia were
on their way, orders were issued that the body-guard should quit the
court of the Ministers and betake themselves to the terrace before
the queen's apartments; by this means it was hoped that a collision
would be avoided. During the absence of the Duke de Guiche, who had
gone to the royal apartment for orders, but could get none, though he
waited till two o'clock in the morning, the Marquis de Vilaines took
the command. He transferred the squadron to the Tapis-Vert, leaving
some videttes on the terraces. The Count d'Estaing came to him there,
and assured him that it would be quite impossible for the guards to
re-enter their hôtel before day-break, as the streets were in a tumult
of excitement on the approach of Lafayette's soldiers. Acting on this
advice, he withdrew his guards to Trianon for the rest of the night.

Lafayette, immediately on his arrival, which took place at midnight,
went to the hall of the National Assembly, but finding it crowded with
women, and the Assembly not sitting, he betook himself to the palace,
which he found full of people waiting his arrival with anxiety, and
endeavouring to read on his countenance whether his dispositions were
hostile or pacific.

In the Œil-de-Bœuf, one of the courtiers said, 'There goes Cromwell;'
to which Lafayette replied aptly, 'Sir, Cromwell would not have entered
alone.'

He was perfectly calm, his cheeks fresh through encountering the
wind, and his fair hair wet with rain. He entered the royal cabinet
accompanied only by two commissioners of the Paris municipality. He
informed the king of all that had taken place, and of the arrival of
his army, and received the order for the national guard under him to
occupy the posts which had formerly been held by the French guard; the
body-guard and the Swiss were to retain the posts usually confided
to them. He returned to the head of his column, to provide for the
execution of this order, and the national guards thereupon took
possession of the posts confided to them; the rest dispersed over the
town in search of shelter. The men were worn out with their long and
toilsome march, drenched with rain, and soiled with mud. They found
an asylum in the churches of S. Louis, Notre-Dame, and the convent of
the Recollects. One battalion invaded the deserted barracks of the
body-guard, and quartered themselves comfortably therein.

It was three o'clock in the morning before every arrangement was
complete. The Parisian national guardsmen were at their posts, and
patrolled the streets, or reposed. The rabble of men and women had
fallen asleep in the hall of the Assembly, in the barrack of the
French guard, and in the taverns. Calm seemed to have been restored,
and Lafayette then visited the Count of Luxembourg and the Marquis
d'Aguesseau, to warn them that a battalion of his militia having taken
possession of the hôtel of the body-guard, it would be impossible for
the latter to return to it without running the risk of a fight.

The count at once sent a messenger in disguise to Trianon, with a
recommendation to the Marquis de Vilaines to leave Versailles; he
accordingly mounted his soldiers, and they retreated to S. Leger.

Lafayette, having again made the circuit of the town, and finding all
quiet, went to the Hôtel de Noailles, and flung himself on a bed to
snatch a few hours of rest, after having spent seventeen consecutive
hours with every faculty strained to its utmost.

But what had Nicholas done? We left him sallying forth at night-fall
into the streets in quest of his half-sister and stepmother.

Nicholas went direct to the Swiss guard-house, on the right side of the
court of the Ministers, but found it impossible to enter the grating
before the court. There was, however, a door opening into the building
from the back street, and at this he applied, and asked to see his
father. He was immediately admitted, and found, to his surprise, Madame
Deschwanden and Madeleine sitting beside the fire drying their clothes.
The former was talking in the most animated manner to a score of Swiss
guardsmen, who laughed and joked with her, whilst the corporal looked
on, and listened good-humouredly.

'But I won't go,' said madame, stamping on the ground; 'no human power
shall persuade me to leave France for your detestable land of lakes and
perpetual snows.'

'Now, wife,' said the corporal, 'what has been your object in coming
here to Versailles?'

'To carry off the king to Paris,' answered she, sharply.

'What! whether he like it or not?'

'To be sure. We know best what is to his interest.'

'Very well, madame,' said the corporal, roguishly. 'Do to others as
you would be done by. I am going to treat you precisely as you want to
treat the king. To-morrow is my last day of service. To-morrow I reckon
on obtaining my discharge. After to-morrow, as soon as possible, I
intend to transport you from Paris to Lucerne, whether you approve or
not; for I know best what is to _your_ interest.'

This sally was greeted by the soldiers with applause.

'My faith!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden, not at all taken aback,
'the cases are totally different; but that is what you Alpine bears
can never perceive. In the case of his majesty, it is the ladies
who insist, and he is too gallant to refuse our wishes. Whoever
heard--unless he were a German--of a man dragging a woman after him
into a wilderness against her will? Hah! Nicholas, my boy, what brings
you here?'

'I have come in search of you and Gabrielle,--Madeleine, I mean?'

'Where is Gabrielle?' asked his sister, looking up.

'She is in safe keeping,' answered the lad; 'and, if you and my mother
wish for shelter, you can have it in the same house.'

'That entirely depends,' said madame; 'we are exceedingly comfortable
here.'

'But the house is that of a curé, and when I told him that you and
Madeleine were out, he insisted on my inviting you to partake of his
hospitality.'

'A curé, did you say, Nicholas?'

'Yes, mother.'

'Mon Dieu! To think of my leaving the society of soldiers for that
of priests! I am much obliged to him, but scarlet coats are a more
cheerful sight than black cassocks. Do you think I am going to put my
head into the lion's mouth? I have plenty of naughty little things
on my conscience, but I don't want to precipitate myself into a
confessional to-night. Thank you, Nicholas; I prefer to remain here,
where I can have a good laugh, I am too wet and cold to endure the
cold water and freezing to which a curé would subject me. In Lent,
yes--not now.'

Madame's determination was received by the soldiers with satisfaction.

'You are all priest-bitten,' said madame; 'that is the mischief of you
Swiss. There was once a spider called the Tarantula, and there was at
the same time another spider called Curatus, and these two went forth
a scamper one day, and the former entered France and bit the people
here, and set them all dancing; and the other spider crawled over the
Alps, and spun his web in Switzerland, and nibbled at the good folk
there, and made them all conscientious. Mon Dieu! what it is to be
conscientious!'

The soldiers laughed heartily.

'Madeleine,' said Nicholas, 'will you come to Gabrielle?'

'No,' said the girl, 'I shall remain with my mother; at any rate, at
present. What street are you in?'

'We are immediately opposite the opening into the Rue des Recollets,
in the Rue du Vieux Versailles, with M. le Curé Lindet lodging in the
house of the widow Maupied.'

'I shall see you to-morrow, Nicholas,' said the corporal. 'I will take
good care of these two madcaps. You know that to-morrow my time of
service is out. I shall be on duty early in the morning at the grand
staircase, and that is the last office I shall perform for his gracious
majesty. Then, huzza! we shall be off to the brave Switzerland, to
the mountains and lakes! to the land of Werner Stauffacher, Erni of
Melchthal, and Walter Fürst.'

'Never!' cried madame.

'We shall see,' said the corporal.

'We shall see,' said madame; 'a woman has a will of her own, and it is
a stubborn one.'

'Good night!' said Nicholas.

At five in the morning, before daylight, a crowd was already prowling
about the streets, and crossing the Place d'Armes, armed with pikes,
spits, and scythes. Seeing some of the obnoxious body-guard as
sentinels at the iron gates, they forced the national guards to fire on
them; the latter obeyed, taking care not to hit them.

Fires were burning in the open square, and men and women were treading
on one another to warm their hands and dry their clothes at the blaze.
A hunchback on a tall horse was trotting up and down and haranguing the
people. A very handsome man, with long black hair and beard, dressed
in the costume of a Greek slave, with bare arms and legs and throat,
gesticulated, put himself into postures, and recited scraps of poetry.

To understand what followed, certain particulars must be explained.
The guard of the castle had been refused to Lafayette, and he had been
given only the outer posts. Those of greater importance were confided
to the Swiss and to the body-guard. These latter had received an order
to retire, but they had been recalled when it was ascertained that
their squadron had left Versailles, and were retained in the posts they
had occupied the day before. During the 5th, all the iron gates of the
Château had been shut and guarded by sentinels, so that the people had
been unable to penetrate within the walls. It was otherwise on the
morning of the 6th.

When the French guard had attended on the king, they had been charged
with the custody of the railing in face of the grand court of entrance,
and of the gates opening into the gardens. To facilitate their service,
the gates of the Princes' court had been wont to be left open, so that
they might pass through into the park to relieve the sentinels. When it
was decided that the national guard should resume the posts formerly
occupied by the French guard, the gates of the courts of the Ministers
and of the Princes were opened as of old.

About half-past five the women, who had been sleeping in the barrack
adjoining the Place d'Armes, woke up and issued forth into the square.
Finding the gate into the grand court of entrance open, they passed
through it, without the sentry of the national guard refusing them
admission. On the left was the gate into the court of the Princes,
guarded by two soldiers of the same militia corps; the women, probably
more from curiosity than any other reason, penetrated into this court,
and finding that it gave access to the park, ran out upon the terrace
to admire the gardens and the ponds full of statuary.

These explorers were speedily followed by other women, and by the
rabble of armed men; and the terrace was soon crowded with them,
talking noisily beneath the queen's windows.

Their voices awoke the queen, who rang the bell for her
lady-in-waiting, Madame Thibault. This woman looked out of the window,
and told her majesty that the noise arose from a number of women who,
having been unable to find shelter during the night, were walking
about. This reply satisfied the queen, and Madame Thibault returned to
her bed.

By this time the grand court was full of the rabble which began
to arrive from all sides, and poured through the gates armed with
cutlasses, pistols, guns, and pikes, vowing vengeance against the
body-guard and the queen.

Major d'Aguesseau at once sent guards into the passage opening out
of the court of the Princes into the Cour Royale. But, too few to
withstand such a mass of people, they were driven back, and a horde
of ruffians precipitated themselves into the Cour Royale, uttering
horrible threats and cries of rage. One detachment rushed towards the
vestibule leading to the apartments of the queen and the princesses;
another flung itself upon the sentinel at the gate of the court,
disarmed him, threw him down, and stabbed him with their pikes and
sabres. The fellow in the costume of a Greek slave--his name was
Jourdain, and he was an artist's model--rushed upon the guard, armed
with a hatchet, and, jumping on his breast, chopped at his neck till
the head came off and rolled among the feet of the by-standers.

Whilst this horrible scene was being transacted in the court, the band
of ruffians who had run to the vestibule, found the door shut in their
faces by the sentinels. They then directed their attack upon the marble
staircase, which was defended by Corporal Deschwanden and another
Swiss. Foremost among them was a militiaman of the guard of Versailles,
a diminutive locksmith, bald-headed, with small sunken eyes, and his
hands chapped and begrimed. The rioters assailed the Swiss, and by dint
of numbers forced them up several steps. The corporal was disarmed
and maltreated. The little locksmith, seeing him deprived of his gun
and sword, sprang vindictively at him and struck him in the breast
with a long knife he held in his hand; then leaving him, hanging over
the balustrade bleeding and faint, he ran up the steps screaming and
flourishing his knife, and the crowd poured after him to the landing,
where several guards were prepared to defend the door into the hall
of the king. One of the guards, Miomandre, descended a few steps, and
asked the rabble, 'What, my friends! do you love the king, and seek to
disturb him in his palace?'

Without answering him, the locksmith seized him by the belt, others
caught him by the hair, and they would have flung him down the stairs
to the ruffians below, had not his companions rescued him. Too few in
number to oppose the crowd, the guard retired into the hall and shut
and locked the door. Then the rioters endeavoured to break it open, and
succeeded in staving in one of the panels. The soldiers blocked the
hole with a wooden chest and kept them out.

Others attacked the door of the hall of the queen's guard, and,
bursting it open, precipitated themselves into the room, and catching
one of the guard who was unable to escape, cut him down with their
swords, and Jourdain, leaping upon him, as he had on the other guard,
hacked off his head, tossed it into the air, and caught it again with a
shout of laughter. Another guardsman was dragged down by his belt, and
drawn along the polished oak floor, through the blood of his comrade,
to the head of the grand staircase, where Jourdain clamoured to get at
him with his axe. A man struck at him with his pike, but the soldier
caught the weapon, and drawing it towards him, by means of it regained
his feet; then, with the energy of despair, he disarmed his adversary,
and defended himself with the pike against the blows that were rained
upon him, till he reached the door of the king's hall, which his
comrades opened to receive him; and he was drawn in by one of the
guard, whilst another fired in the face of the crowd and shot one man.

Another guardsman, Miomandre, was struck down with the handle of a
pike, and one of the assailants, a man in the uniform of a soldier,
wrenched from him his gun, and with the butt end struck him a blow
which cut his head open and stunned him. Thinking him dead, the ruffian
robbed him of his watch, and then deserted him. On his recovery,
finding none of the mob near him, he crawled to the door and obtained
admission.

The rioters were at that moment engaged in forcing an entrance into
the ante-chamber of the queen's apartments. The sister of the queen's
chambermaid, Madame Angué, hearing a rapping at the door, half opened
it, and seeing four guardsmen covered with blood, shut and locked it
again. They continued to rap, and she admitted them. They stationed
themselves before the door of the queen's bedroom, and bade Madame
Thibault and Madame Angué take their mistress to the king's apartment.

The rest of the guard, driven from the king's hall, betook themselves
to the Œil-de-Bœuf, a gallery opening into the private apartments of
the king, lighted by an oval window at one end, and having an oval
mirror at the other. In this they took up their position, determined
that the mob should only enter the cabinet of their sovereign over
their bodies.

But by this time the news of the invasion of the palace had reached
Lafayette, who sprang from his bed, and, without waiting for his horse,
ran into the Place d'Armes to collect his militia. The first to arrive
was the detachment of the Parisian militia, who had slept in the church
of the Recollects. It came up under the conduct of its commandant,
Doctor Gondran, and ranged itself in the marble court, under the
windows of the king's apartments. At that moment, the fellow who had
been shot by the guards was brought down and placed in a slanting
position on the stairs, so that all might see the corpse. Next moment,
one of the body-guard was dragged by his collar down the steps, and the
mob were about to butcher him with their knives and swords beside the
body of the labourer whose head had been split by a bullet, when Dr.
Gondran appealed to his soldiers: 'Will you suffer an assassination to
take place under your eyes?'

They replied at once that they would not permit it, and, running to the
foot of the marble stairs, they rescued the guardsman from the hands of
the populace.

The doctor then advanced his troop up the staircase, which was
encumbered with ruffians carrying off chairs, mirrors, pictures, and
any object worth securing that they had found in the rooms they had
forced open. He made them lay down their spoil, and traversing the
rooms, he knocked at the door of the Œil-de-Bœuf.

As the guard within did not obey, he exclaimed, 'Come, open to us,
body-guard; we have not forgotten that you saved us French guards at
Fontenoy.'

The door was thrown open. The king and his brave defenders were saved.

Nicholas had slept soundly on a mat before the fire, and Lindet had
made himself a bed on a settle.

In the morning the two men rose refreshed, and the widow Maupied came
in to make up the fire, and prepare breakfast.

Gabrielle appeared shortly after, quite recovered from her fright and
exhaustion, her cheeks brilliant with colour, and her dress cleansed
from the stains of the dirty road.

'So the whole family are here,' said Lindet, good-humouredly, to
Nicholas; 'your father, mother, sister, and--Gabrielle.'

'Yes,' answered Nicholas; 'we have got a story in Switzerland of a
young man who carried a goose with golden feathers through a town, and
a woman ran behind to pluck one of the plumes; but, lo! her fingers
stuck to the goose, and she could not detach them; then her mother,
indignant at seeing her daughter run through the streets after a
young man, rushed up to her, and caught her by the arms to arrest
her; but, lo! the mother stuck fast. Then the husband, who was parish
clerk, amazed at such an exhibition, ran after his wife and was fast
directly. He was followed by the priest; and so they ran, a train of
persons after the golden goose, unable to disengage themselves. I think
Madeleine started the wild-goose chase in this instance, and my mother
ran after her, dragging Gabrielle along with her, and----' he suddenly
paused and reddened.

'And you ran after Gabrielle and caught her,' said the curé, laughing.

'You see, monsieur,' said Nicholas, still very red, 'it would not have
done for me to have let those three women go into danger without me.
What might have happened? Madeleine was nearly hung, and Gabrielle
well-nigh strangled, and I dare say my mother was all but trampled
upon by the crowd. It was a foolish thing for them to come--it was not
Gabrielle's fault; but, as they came, I could not in conscience leave
them unprotected. Madame Deschwanden generally knows how to take care
of herself, and so, for the matter of that, does Madeleine; but what
if they should be separated by the crowd from poor little Gabrielle?
The thought frightened me. And very lucky--no! providential, I will
say--was it that I did follow. When I saw her--' he nodded to the
girl--'in the hands of those frenzied mad women, I vowed a mass to the
honour of Bruder Klaus if he would obtain her release, and extend to
her his protection.'

'Bruder Klaus,' repeated Lindet, with a puzzled look; 'who was he? or
what was he?'

'Bruder Klaus was a hermit, a patriot, and a saint,' began Nicholas,
delighted to find a hearer to whom he could recount the history of his
patron. 'The holy brother lived a miraculous life without food----'

'Bruder Klaus must wait a moment,' interrupted Lindet; 'here is some
one coming for you.'

In fact, Madeleine rushed in, her eyes full of tears, out of breath;
she could only articulate, 'Nicholas! quick, your father is dying;' and
then, leaning her head on the back of a chair, gasp for air and sob.
When she had recovered sufficiently she added, 'The corporal wants to
see a priest. M. le Curé, will you follow me?'

'I am ready,' answered Lindet, catching up his hat.

'Come, Gabrielle, come too,' said Madeleine; 'he asked after you.'

'Where is he?' asked Nicholas, his breast heaving convulsedly.

'He is in the gardens,--the park,' answered the girl. 'I found him--he
had dragged himself out upon the terrace, and he made me take him out
of the way of the crowd to the side of one of the sheets of water, and
lay him on the grass.'

She could speak no more, for her tears burst forth anew. 'Dear old
corporal!' she said between her sobs, 'he never knew how I reverenced
and loved him. I would have followed him over the world.'

She drew Gabrielle after her, the priest followed. Nicholas ran forward
in the direction indicated by the girl,--to the large pond or lake
called the Pièce aux Suisses, and when Madeleine came up she found
Nicholas supporting his head.

'My boy,' said the old corporal, faintly, lying with his head propped
against his son's shoulder, 'whilst I have been alone I have had such a
beautiful vision. Look yonder!' He pointed to a mass of cloud lit with
the brilliant beams of the morning sun, standing crisply against a blue
sky. 'It is changed,' continued the Swiss soldier, 'but you may see
what has been. There was the Jungfrau, as truly as I have seen it from
Interlaken. A little to the right, where you can still distinguish an
elevation in the cloud, was the dazzling Silber-horn, with its glacier
flashing in the sun. There was the Mönch, and there the precipice of
the Eiger. Is it not beautiful still? but the outline is not what it
was. God be praised that I have been shown my dear Alps once more. God
be praised!'

He folded his hands, and his eyes still watched the cloud mountains
gradually changing their forms in the roseate morning light.

'Shall I fetch you a doctor, father?' asked Nicholas, bending over him.

'It is of no use, my boy,' answered the old man; 'I have received my
death-wound. I bear no resentment against him who dealt it. God willed
that I should obtain my discharge from service this way, with a stroke
of the knife instead of with that of a pen. Klaus! have you your
flageolet with you?'

'Yes, father,' sobbed the boy.

'Then play me "Herz, mein Herz."'

The young man obeyed, but sadly and imperfectly, for his fingers
refused to move correctly. However, the corporal sang to himself,
disregardful of the false notes:

 'Heart, my heart, why art thou weary,
   Why to grief and tears a prey?
 Foreign lands are bright and cheery;
   Heart, my heart, what ails thee, say?'

And then he went abruptly to the verse--

 'I should climb the rugged gorges
   To the azure Alpine lake,
 Where the snowy peak discharges
   Torrents, that the silence break.

 'I should see the old brown houses;
   At the doors in every place,
 Neighbours sitting, children playing,
   Greetings in each honest face.'

'Here is the priest, father,' said Nicholas, interrupting the tune, and
laying aside his flageolet.

The corporal instinctively put his hand to his brow, as a salute.

Gabrielle burst into tears and threw herself at his side, and put her
arms around him. The old man patted her affectionately on the head and
kissed her brow; then, raising his eyes to Madeleine, he asked her to
take the place of Nicholas, who supported him. The girl readily obeyed,
and pressed her stepfather's head to her bosom, whilst she endeavoured
to stanch the blood that flowed from his wound with a handkerchief.

'Come here, Nicholas,' said the corporal; 'here, Gabrielle, dear child,
look up. I want you to grant me a very great favour, little friend.'

Gabrielle looked earnestly in the weatherbeaten face of the dying man,
endeavouring to read his meaning. He smiled at her, and took her hand
in his.

'I have often longed, of late, to see the day when my Klaus should lead
you to the altar; and I have loved to think how good a little wife
you would be to him, and how dear a daughter you would prove to me.
Gabrielle, will you allow me the satisfaction of joining your hands
before I die?'

She did not answer, but trembled violently, and the tears rolled down
her cheeks. The old man, without waiting for a formal reply, took the
right hand of Nicholas, and placing it in that of Gabrielle, held them
together, saying to the priest, with a grave smile,--'I call you to
witness, Father, that I have betrothed these children. May God bless
them both! And now leave me alone with the curé for a few moments.'

The young people withdrew, and sat down at the water's edge sorrowfully
and silently.

When the priest made them a sign to approach, they returned to take the
last kiss. The sun was shining down on the old man and glorifying his
face; he held the crucifix between his hands clasped to his breast, and
his eyes looked across the water, beyond the wooded hill that formed
the horizon to the golden clouds floating in the blue sky, and his lips
murmured:

 'Heart, my heart, in weary sadness
   Breaking far from Fatherland,
 Restless, yearning, void of gladness,
   Till once more at home I stand.'

Madeleine gently closed his eyes, as his spirit fled.

A few hours later, the king and queen bade farewell to Versailles,
which they were destined never to see again, and were escorted by the
crowd and by the national guard to Paris, destined to be their prison
and their grave.



CHAPTER XL.


In June, 1790, the constitution of the Church of France was re-cast.
Its revenues had been seized to pay the debts incurred by Louis XIV and
his successors. The cahiers of the third order had asked with unanimity
for this. Thus the endowments of the Church saved the country from
bankruptcy. But though the third estate had expressed their desires for
the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, they had protested their
profound attachment for the religion in which they had been brought up.
Consequently, the National Assembly undertook the maintenance of the
Clergy by the State on certain conditions perfectly just and reasonable.

That those who had fattened on the 'patrimony of the poor' under the
old system should revolt against a constitution which cut down their
revenues, destroyed their privileges, and restrained their arbitrary
exertion of authority, is not surprising.

Monseigneur de Narbonne, whose revenues and benefices had exceeded
80,000 francs, found himself suddenly reduced to live on 30,000
francs, and the bills for the re-furnishing of the palace for the
reception of the prince were not yet paid.

The 16th of January, 1791, had been fixed by the municipality of
Évreux for receiving the constitutional adhesion of the clergy. The
bishop had addressed an epistle to the curés of his diocese, in which
he resumed all the arguments directed against the civil constitution,
and quoted the saying of Esprémesnil: 'It is a constitution unheard-of
in the Church, which annihilates all jurisdiction, all ecclesiastical
authority, and the Assembly, whence it emanates, can only be compared
to the sovereign council of the Jews which crucified Jesus Christ.' He
concluded by declaring that, for his part, he would never submit to it,
and he bade all his clergy reject it as impious.

Monseigneur de la Ferronnais, Bishop of Lisieux, protested against the
execution of the decree, till the opinion of Rome had been taken. He
summoned an assembly to concert plans of resistance, and presided over
it himself. It was, however, but thinly attended.

These examples and exhortations only touched the minority.

At Évreux, only one incumbent and three young curates refused the oath.
The other seven incumbents and all the ecclesiastics exercising public
functions, each in his parish, after the high mass, descended to the
choir gates, and in a distinct voice pronounced their adhesion, in the
presence of the people and the municipal authorities.

At Bernay, all the clergy, even those who, through not exercising
ministries salaried by the State, were not required to give in their
adhesion, took the oath, and a sermon was preached on the occasion
by Lebertre, curé of La Couture. Some days after, the Abbé Deshayes
preached to a crowded congregation in favour of the constitution,
taking for his text the words of the Gospel, 'Peace be unto you;' and
the municipality were so pleased with the discourse that they ordered
it to be inscribed in the parish register.

At Andelys, the four perpetual curates took the oath. At Brionne, M.
Bordeaux the priest, who had followed the same course, in a sermon
defended the new constitution as being, if not faultless, at least an
honest attempt to rectify old abuses. At Breteuil, on the contrary, M.
Parizot de Durand refused his adhesion, and his two curates followed
his example; but two other priests in the same place signed the
protestation.

Monseigneur de Narbonne persisting angrily in his refusal, the
episcopal seat of the department of Eure became vacant. The election
of a fresh bishop was therefore necessary, and, for this purpose, a
convocation of the electors was made.

The election was not direct, but in two degrees. The grand electoral
college was composed of about six hundred members. Their number, the
variety of their social situations, were conditions proper for assuring
an independent and intelligent vote. The principle admitted, the
election of a bishop,--who, it was required, had served in the diocese
for fifteen years,--could be confided with some security to such a
reunion of men. It was, however, vitiated by the fact that those most
immediately under the authority of the bishop, viz. the clergy, had but
a fractional influence in the election. This must be borne in mind when
we read of the resignation and apostasy of some of the constitutional
bishops during the reign of Terror.

Those who had most power in the electoral college were the men of
advanced philosophic opinions, whereas those with deep religious
sentiment were nowhere. Consequently, in some instances, those were
elected bishops whose attachment to the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity had been sapped by the dissolvent philosophy of the 18th
century.

The electoral Assembly was convoked for Sunday, Feb. 13. High mass was
celebrated in the cathedral by M. de Corval, curé of Petit-Andely,
assisted by M. Rever, curé of Couteville. The service concluded, the
procureur-général of the department opened the session, and said to
the electors:--'We dispense with recalling to you your duties and
obligations. We count on your patriotic zeal, and we are assured that
in your selection you will be determined by your judgment as to whom
is most worthy of confidence and of the esteem of the public.'

The votes were taken, and Thomas Lindet was proclaimed the bishop
elect; 238 suffrages were given to him, and 180 to M. Rever.

A courier was immediately despatched to Paris to announce the result
to Lindet, who at once posted to Évreux, and arrived there before the
Assembly dispersed.

'Sir,' said the mayor to him, 'if the department of Eure had known an
ecclesiastic more virtuous than you, it would have preferred him to
you.'

On the 15th of February, the roar of cannons, the ringing of the
cathedral and the parish-church bells, announced to the people that
they had a new bishop,--a representative of the new law, of liberty,
justice, and equality. The arrival at the highest ecclesiastical
function of a congruist curé who had not been preceptor or confessor to
princes, a man without noble birth or fortune to recommend him, was a
spectacle proper to excite the enthusiasm of the nascent democracy.

The bishop elect was, however, as yet without canonical confirmation
and episcopal consecration.

His institution ought to have been asked of the Archbishop of Rouen,
his metropolitan, but the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld was out of his
see, having refused the oath, and was not yet replaced.

This situation could not be prolonged. The presence of the
constitutional bishop in Évreux became daily more necessary. The
directory of the department of Eure addressed to Lindet an invitation
to come and take possession of his diocese as soon as possible, and
requested him to demand institution at the hands of any bishops of his
choice.

Thomas Lindet hastened to obey. He was consecrated on the 6th of
March, 1791, in the chapel of the Oratoire, at Paris, along with the
Bishops of Beauvais, Châteauroux, and Moulins, by Gobel, Bishop of
Lydda, and the Bishops of Quimper and Dax, who had subscribed to the
constitution. A few days after he joined in consecrating the Bishop
of the Seine-Inférieure, in the cathedral of Rouen, and was himself
afterwards confirmed by the new metropolitan.

On Sunday, March 27, Thomas Lindet was solemnly installed in the
beautiful cathedral of Évreux, before a vast congregation. After
vespers a Te Deum was sung as an act of thanksgiving for the
convalescence of the king, and the same day he despatched a circular
round the diocese, to announce his intention of making a pastoral
visitation.

He left the cathedral, when the service was concluded, by the private
door into the palace gardens. It was the same door through which he
had passed the night that he had been locked in the minster.

But his mind did not revert to the past: it was occupied with the
future. He had taken his place at the helm of the vessel, and he
foresaw breakers ahead, and felt that the gale was rising from every
point of the compass. He was not sanguine. On the contrary, he was
dispirited; his elevation to the episcopal throne did not jump with his
wishes, for Lindet was not personally ambitious.

He was resolved to do his best, to work the diocese thoroughly, and to
set an example of simplicity of life and devotion to the causes nearest
his heart--Liberty and Catholicism. But, at the same time, he owned
to himself, that if he found resistance among the clergy and laity,
his heart might fail him. He was impetuous, but he had not the gift of
patient endurance. That he would find some opposition to his claims
was certain, but it could be overcome by conciliatory conduct and by
diligent discharge of his duties, unless--and there rose before him a
prospect which made him quake--unless the pope should pronounce against
the Constitutional Church.

As this prospect arose to dismay him, he encountered the ex-bishop, De
Narbonne-Lara. Both were in episcopal purple, with pectoral cross and
cape; Lindet wore as well a lace surplice.

'I have expected to meet you,' said the ex-bishop. 'Indeed, I have
waited here on purpose.'

'Monseigneur,' said Lindet, 'I am glad of the opportunity of speaking
to you, that I may give expression to my regret that you should have
felt yourself unable to take the constitutional oath, and thus have
forced me into incurring responsibilities which I tremble to feel upon
my shoulders.'

'This is nonsense,' said De Narbonne; 'you have courted it. You curés
have been driving matters on to this point for the purpose of stepping
on our necks into our thrones.'

'I beg your pardon,' answered Lindet; 'you are altogether mistaken;
we had no ambition except for the Church, for ourselves individually
none,--none whatever. For myself, I may assure you, my Lord, I had
neither the wish nor the expectation of being a bishop, least of all of
taking your place.'

'You a bishop!' exclaimed De Narbonne, his red face flaming with
passion. 'Do you call yourself a bishop? Pshaw! who will accept you as
their prelate?'

Lindet, determined not to resent the insolence of the ex-bishop,
replied with moderation: 'You cannot be unaware, Monseigneur, that
the vast majority of the clergy in this diocese have signed the
Constitution.'

'Wait a bit,' said De Narbonne, threateningly; 'when his holiness
speaks, they will be of another mind.'

'Are you sure that the holy father will refuse to recognise the
Constitutional Church? Why should he? We hold the Catholic faith; we
have the same orders, sacraments, and ritual. There is absolutely no
divergence on any religious point between the Church of the old régime
and the Church now. The only point on which a difference has arisen has
been a political question,--a political one only.'

'Be the point what it may, he will anathematise you.'

'Then,' answered Lindet, 'alas for religion! At present, the Church
has advanced, haltingly, I admit; for _that_, the like of you are
responsible; but it has advanced with the tide that is setting in,
and, what is more, it can control and direct that tide, and no other
power but the Church can, at the present time, do that. Everything
is in flux except the faith, and that will be the rallying-point. We
shall, may be, have a republic, but it will be a Christian republic.
If the holy father were to throw the apple of discord among us now, if
he were to break into two factions the Church of France, by forbidding
the faithful to accept our ministrations, then he will unchain the
hell-dogs, and roll France in blood. My Lord! it is your own doing that
this see has become vacant; it is through no influence exerted by me,
that I have been elected your successor. The times are threatening.
I shall have to bear on my shoulders the burden of this diocese in a
period of extraordinary excitement. I pray you give me your episcopal
blessing for the work. If ever you see your way towards accepting the
Constitution, I will vacate the see at once. I pray your fatherly
blessing.' He bent on one knee.

'No,' said De Narbonne, sulkily; 'my blessing you shall never have. My
advice I give you, as you once gave me yours. I warn you that shortly
all you constitutional bishops will be anathematised by Rome, all the
priests will be ordered, on pain of excommunication, to abstain from
acknowledging you, and the faithful will be forbidden to accept the
ministrations of bishops and priests who have taken this accursed oath,
at the risk of damning their souls eternally.'

'My God!' exclaimed Lindet.

'Yes, such will be the action of the holy see.'

'Then,' said Lindet, vehemently, 'if that be the conduct of the
successor of S. Peter, it is high time that his supremacy should be
modified into a primacy; lest at some future occasion, relying on
powers he has assumed, he use them to wreck the Church. We have just
upset the principle of absolute monarchy in the field of politics, we
must overthrow the same principle in the domain of religion.'

He turned from the ex-bishop, and entering the palace, shut himself
into the library and wrote a letter to the pope, imploring him to use
caution, and not, on a point of trifling consequence--the disendowment
of the Church--to wreck Christianity in the whirlpool of the Revolution.

It need hardly be said that his letter remained unanswered, and that
the prognostications of the ex-bishop were verified.



CHAPTER XLI.


In 1816, just twenty-seven years after Corporal Deschwanden's death,
as related in the last chapter but one, on a still summer evening,
a little party sat in the veranda of a brown timber-built house at
Kreutzmatt above Lucerne. The veranda was simply one of three open
galleries overgrown with vine-branches, common to Swiss houses in
the Four Cantons. Against this gallery, over the door, leading into
the house from the garden, was a painting, of no high type of art,
representing a tall man with dark hair, and a face of deadly pallor,
the eyes sunk and red with weeping; habited in a snuff-coloured garb,
with loose sleeves and no collar, holding in one hand a staff. Under
this painting was written in German characters, 'Heiliger Bruder Klaus,
bitte für uns.' Looking from the veranda, the eye swept across the
goodly city of Lucerne, its quaint watchtowers capped with red tiles,
and the twin taper spires of S. Leger; across the still blue lake,
unruffled, like a gigantic mirror, to Pilatus, its serrated crest
flushed with red evening light, crisply cutting the evening sky. To the
right was the rolling green country stretching towards the setting sun;
but to the left, above the water, towered the glistening peaks of the
Engelberg Alps, their glaciers blazing in the last fires of day.

In the gallery are five persons: one an aged woman with white hair,
and a grey countenance. Her face is expressive only of childish
good-humour. It is Madame Berthier; she sits in this gallery every
fine day, and looks at the lake and the mountains and laughs. She has
lost her memory almost completely, every trace of her old bitterness
is gone. On her lap is a little girl of three years old, dark-haired,
black-eyed, the image of Gabrielle; and madame fondles her, plays with
her, calls her Mädel, which is the short, we suppose, for Madeleine,
and kisses her oftener than the child altogether likes.

Gabrielle is there, a middle-aged woman, with a plain gold ring on the
third finger of the left hand, spinning diligently. She is dressed like
a Swiss peasantess, with white sleeves and a black bodice, her hair
elaborately plaited behind and fastened with a silver spoon.

Leaning against the balcony is Nicholas, grown rather stout, playing a
flageolet to a little boy in a brown suit of very stiff cloth, jacket,
waistcoat, breeches, all one colour, and all old-mannish, wearing a
brown knitted cap on his head;--a little boy with very large dreamy
blue eyes and a shock of light flaxen hair, his head thrust through a
large rosary, like a necklace, holding his hands behind his back, and
singing lustily with a clear sweet voice--

 'Heart, my heart, why art thou weary,
   Why to grief and tears a prey?
 Foreign lands are bright and cheery;
   Heart, my heart, what ails thee, say?'

Coming along the path from Lucerne, with his long black shadow going
before him, is an old man, very thin, wearing a long grey coat, with
snow-white hair.

He comes to the gate of the garden, halts there, looks up inquiringly
at the gallery, sees the painting of Bruder Klaus, nods his head, as if
acknowledging that this accords with directions that have been given
him, opens the wicket and enters the garden.

Nicholas at once, turning to his wife, says, 'Gabrielle, here comes a
stranger. Who can he be?'

Directly they hear the tap of the old man at their door, and both
Nicholas and his wife run down stairs to answer it. The door is at
once opened, and their eyes rest on the thin stranger. His face is
wrinkled and worn, the cheeks sunk, the complexion pale, the eyes
bright, restless, and intelligent. He raises his right hand, and Madame
Nicholas at once observes its delicacy and the beauty of the fingers.

The stranger does not speak, but looks attentively at Gabrielle, whilst
a sad smile flickers about his thin lips. She raises her eyes to his,
and all at once recognition flashes into them, her countenance lights
up, and she falls into his arms with the cry of--'It is M. Lindet!'

When the first greetings were over, Gabrielle's question was: 'How is
everything now at Bernay, at dear old Bernay, which I shall never see
again?'

'Do you want to see it?'

'I do not know; perhaps it would be too painful, and I am _so_ happy
here.'

'I have come,' said Lindet, 'to ask you, Gabrielle, to shelter me for a
while under your roof, in my time of need, as once I sheltered you. I
am exiled from France, now that the royal family has been restored.'

'Shelter you!' exclaimed Gabrielle; 'of course I will, with joy and
love, and Nicholas will never weary of serving you to the best of his
abilities; I have told him what you did for me, and he has learned to
love your name.'


THE END.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "In Exitu Israel, Volume 2 (of 2) : An Historic Novel" ***


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