Александр Дюма
Taking the Bastile
An officer of the National Guard had been badly beaten in the scuffle to uphold the honor of the latter, but it was not known that Charny, the Queen's favorite, had taken all the blame of the outrages on himself.
The Queen had returned to her rooms, dazed by the scene. A swarm of flatterers and adulators assailed her.
"See the true spirit of your troops," they said. "When the fury of the mob is bragged of, think how it would melt away in the blast of this wild ardor of the military for monarchical ideas."
She was still under the illusion that this fire would spread over the kingdom from the palace, at her will, when, next day, receiving the National Guard to whom she had promised to distribute their new flags, she made this address:
"I am happy to make this presentation. The Nation and the army ought to love the King, as we love them both. I was delighted with the rejoicing yesterday!"
At these words, emphasized by her glittering glance and sweetest voice, the crowd grumbled while the soldiers applauded noisily.
"She upheld us," said one party while the other muttered: "We are betrayed!"
"Am I not brave?" she asked of Charny who looked on with sorrow and listened with terror.
"To the point of folly," he replied with a deeply clouded face.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ARMY OF WOMEN
The Queen was reposing after the day of felicitation. She had her janissaries around her, her cohort of young bravoes, and having reckoned up her foes, she was wishful for the onslaught.
Had she not the defeat of the Fourteenth of July, the Loss of the Bastile, to avenge?
She treated Andrea with the former friendship for a time deadened in her bosom. But Charny? she only looked where he was when she was forced to give him an order. But this was no spite against the family, for it was noticed that she paid special attention to young Valence Charny, the hussar who had been given her Austrian rosette at the officers' dinner.
Indeed, as he was crossing the gallery to announce to the Master of the Buckhound's that the King would go hunting that day, Marie Antoinette who came out of the chapel, perceived him and greeted him.
"The King goes hunting?" she repeated; "what a mistake when the weather is threatening – is it not, Andrea?"
"Yes," answered the lady of honor absently.
"Where will the chase be?"
"In Meudon Wood, my lady."
"Well, accompany him and watch over him."
At this moment the head of the Charnys appeared. He smiled to Andrea and remarked:
"That is advice which my brother will bear in mind during the dangers to the King as well as during his pleasures."
At the sound of the voice, for she had not seen him coming, Marie Antoinette started and rejoined with studied rudeness:
"I should have been astonished if that speech had come from any but your lordship, for it contains a foreboding."
Andrea saw her husband blanch, but he bowed without retort. He noticed her surprise that he bore it so patiently, for he quickly said:
"I am most unhappy that I can no longer speak to the Queen without offense."
"The 'No longer' was spoken with a fine actor's due stress on the important words in a line.
"Speech is only bad when the intention is so," snapped the Queen, through her teeth, locked with anger.
"The ear hears hostilely when the mind is hostile," was the repartie of Charny, more aptly than politely.
"I shall wait to reply till the Count of Charny is happier in his attacks," went on the Queen.
"And I shall wait to attack till the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty is more happy in servitors than lately."
Andrea grasped her husband's hand hastily and prepared to go out of the gallery with him, when a glance from her mistress retained her.
"In short, what does your husband have to say to me?" she inquired.
"Sent to Paris yesterday by the King, I found it in great turmoil."
"Yes, the Parisians are going to pull down the Bastile! The Dutch have taken Holland! Anything fresher, my lord?"
"It is true that they are pulling down the prison, but that affords them nothing but stones and they want for bread."
"Let them be hungry," said the Queen. "What are we to do in the matter since others rule the roost?"
"There was a day when the Queen was the first to be compassionate in times of general distress," said the count; "when she went up into the garrets and the prayers of those she helped rose from the garrets unto God."
"Yes, and I have been nicely repaid for this pity for others," returned the lady bitterly. "One of my worst miseries came from my going into a garret."
She alluded, of course, to the incident of the "Queen's Necklace," already described in this series.
"Because your Majesty was once deceived, is all humanity to be measured by that bushel? Oh, how our gracious lady was loved at that period!"
She darted a flaming look at him.
"To be brief," she said, "what is happening in the capital? Only tell me what you have actually seen, for I want to depend on the accuracy of your words."
"I saw people packed on the waterside waiting for the flour boats; others crowding the bakers' doors, waiting for bread. A famishing people – husbands watching their wives sadly, mothers mourning over their babes. Their fists were clenched and shaken in the direction of Versailles. Alas, I fear that the dangers which my brothers and I are ready to brave, and under which we may die, will not long be forthcoming – "
The Queen had leaned on a window sill and with a view of expressing unconcern, she looked out instead of towards the count. They saw her start, and she exclaimed:
"Andrea, who is this rider? – he seems by his speed to bear news in hot haste."
Andrea went up, but almost instantly retreated, turning pale, and gasped in reproach:
"To call me to see him?"
Charny had looked also, and he said:
"It is Dr. Gilbert."
"So it is," said Marie Antoinette in such a tone that it was not possible to tell whether she had or had not visited on Andrea her personal spite.
Gilbert arrived with the sequel to the ominous scenes which Charny described. The famished women had started for Versailles; they were escorted by ragamuffins willing to be shielded by their petticoats and ripe for any deeds.
"Seven or eight thousand women," repeated the Queen when Gilbert had delivered his message of coming woe. She spoke with scorn.
"But they have been reinforced to double that number on the way. They are hungry and come to ask bread of the King."
"Just what I feared," said Charny.
"What is to be done?"
"Prepare the King to receive them," suggested Gilbert.
"Why expose him?" she expostulated, with that bravery and personal consciousness of her traits and of her husband's weakness which ought not to be exhibited before strangers.
But were Charny and Gilbert strangers – one destined to guard the King, the other the Queen?
The count replied for both, having resumed all his command, for he had sacrificed his pride.
"Madam, Dr. Gilbert is right; the King is still loved, he will make a speech and disarm these furies."
"But who will apprise the King? he is in Meudon Woods and the ways may be blocked."
"Will your Majesty see in me not the courtier but the man of war?" returned the Count, simply. "A soldier is made to be slain."
He did not wait for an answer or to hear the sigh, but rapidly went out and, mounting a guardman's horse, sped away for Meudon.
The sky was menacing and rain began to dot the dust, but Versailles was filling with people who had heard a noise like approaching thunder.
The soldiers took up their muskets slowly and the horseguards got into the saddle with the hesitation of the soldier when his adversaries are beneath his notice.
What could be done against women who had thrown down their weapons on the road and had scarce the power to drag themselves into the town? Half way they had divided eight loaves found at Sevres – thirty-two pounds of bread among seven thousand!
Maillard had accompanied them and induced the last who were armed to lay aside their weapons at the first houses of the place. He suggested that they should sing "Long live Henry Fourth!" to show that they had no ill feelings against royalty. They sang in a feeble whine.
Great was the amazement at the palace, where the harpies and Furies were expected, to see the tottering singers, hunger giving the giddiness of intoxication, pressing their haggard, thinned, livid, blotched and dusty faces against the gilded bars of the gates, and hanging on by their bony hands. From the weird groups came wails and howls while the dull eyes emitted sparks.
Now and again the hands let go the bars to be brandished in threat or held out imploringly.
It was a gloomy sight.
"What do you want?" challenged St. Priest, Minister of Paris.
"Bread," was the cry.
"When you had but one master you were never hungry," he replied testily; "you see how you stand since you have twelve hundred."
He came away, yelled at while he ordered the gates to be kept closed. But they had soon to be opened to a deputation from Parliament which Maillard had obtained. Unfortunately, Valence Charny with the guards had ridden against the mob. Two women of the twelve with the deputation were wounded, to whom Charny who had returned to announce the arrival of the King, and Gilbert rushed to assist.
"Open the doors," called out the King. "A palace is a sanctuary – it must receive all callers."
"An asylum for all but the kings and queens," muttered Marie Antoinette.
Deputy Mounier spoke for the deputation while a flowergirl who had started this woman's war by beating the "fall in" on a drum, undertook to address the King. Unfortunately she was so weak that she fainted after gasping:
"Bread, my lord!"
"Help," cried the King.
Andrea ran up with her smelling bottle and Charny gave the Queen a reproachful glance for not having thought of this act.
Turning pale, she retired to her own rooms.
"Get the coaches ready," she said: "the King and I are going to Rambouillet."
Meanwhile the flowergirl, finding herself in the King's arms on coming to her senses, screamed with bashfulness and tried to kiss his hand.
"I will give you a kiss, my pretty one," he said; "you are well worth it."
"Oh, how good you are! so you will give the order that the grain shall come into Paris to stop the famine?"
"I will sign the order, my child," the King said, "though I am afraid it will do no good."
Sitting at a table he was about to write when a discharge of fire arms followed a solitary shot.
A second charge of cavalry had been made on the women and a man of their supporters had fired a gun to break the arm of Lieutenant Savonnieres of the Guards. He was going to strike a young soldier who was defending with naked hands a woman who had dropped behind him for protection. The bullets from the Lifeguards' carbines had killed one woman; the mob replied and two soldiers were knocked off their horses.
At the same time shouts of "Make room for the Guns!" were heard as the Men of St. Antoine's Ward dragged up three field-pieces which they levelled at the palace gates. Luckily the rain had damped the priming powder and the match.
Suddenly a whisper came to Gilbert without his knowing who spoke.
"General Lafayette is half an hour's march away and coming."
It was a valuable hint.
Gilbert ran and caught one of the horses of the dismounted guards, and as he dashed off the other followed his stable-companion. Hearing the hoofs, Gilbert thought he was pursued and looked back over his shoulder. He saw the animal caught by the reins and his throat cut; then the people fell on the carcase with knives and cut it up.
While Gilbert was racing to meet Lafayette, who arrived with the National Guards, the King was signing the acceptation of "the Resolution of the Rights of Man," for Mounier, and the older to let grain pass into Paris for Louison Champry the flowergirl.
As the first drum beats were heard of the National Guards entering Versailles, the King felt his arm respectfully touched: it was by Andrea.
"Sire, the Queen supplicates your Majesty not to wait for the Parisians, but take the head of your Lifeguards and the Flanders Regiment which will cut their way through."
"Is this your advice, Count Charny?"
"Yes, Sire, if without stopping, you cross the frontier; otherwise, you should stay."
The King shook his head; he stayed, not from having courage but because he had not strength to go.
"A runaway King," he muttered. "Tell the Queen to depart alone," he said to Andrea who went on her errand.
Five minutes afterwards the Queen came and stood by her husband's side.
"I have come to die with you," she said unaffectedly.
"How handsome she is now;" muttered Charny, but she heard him for she started.
"I believe, in all truth, that it is better to die than live!"
"Sire," said Dr. Gilbert, running in, "fear nothing now – General Lafayette is here."
The King did not like Lafayette, but there his feelings stopped, while the Queen hated him and let her hate be seen. She took three steps back, but the King stayed her with an imperative gesture.
The courtiers formed two groups; Charny and Gilbert stood next the King. Steps were heard up to the door of many persons, but all alone General Lafayette entered. As he did so, some voice exclaimed:
"Here comes Cromwell."
"No, sir," said the marquis smiling, "Cromwell would not have walked unguarded into the presence of Charles First!"
Louis XVI. turned to those imprudent friends who had made an enemy of the man hurrying to his relief.
"Count," he said to Charny, "I remain. Now that General Lafayette is here, there is nothing to fear. Retire the troops on Rambouillet. The National Guards will take the outposts and the Lifeguards the palace. Come, general, he said to Lafayette, "I have to confer with you. Come with us, Doctor." he added to Gilbert.
"We must get away to-day," thought the Queen, "to-morrow it will be too late."
As she was going to her own rooms, she was lighted by a red glare outside the palace; the mob had made a barbecue of the soldiers horses.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE NIGHT OF HORRORS
The night went by quietly. At midnight the Queen had tried to go out to the Trianon Palace but the National Guards had refused to let her pass. When she spoke of feeling fear, they answered that she was safer here than any other place.
She felt encouraged indeed on her return home by having her most faithful guards around her. At the door was Valence Charny, leaning on the carbine used by the Lifeguards as well as the dragoons in those days. It was not the habit of the indoor guards to carry swords on duty. "Oh, it is you, Viscount, always faithful?" she said.
"Am I not at my post, where my brother set me, while he is by the King. He is the head of our family, and his place is to die before the head of the kingdom."
"Yes,"said the royal lady with marked bitterness, "you only have the right to die for the Queen."
"It will be a great honor for me if God permits me to accomplish that duty," said the young man bowing.
"What has become of the countess?" she asked, returning after making a step to go, for a suspicion had stung her in the heart.
"She came past, ten minutes ago, and is having her bed made in your Majesty's ante-chamber."
The Queen bit her lip: it was impossible to surprise the Charnys in default in matters of duty: "Thank you, sir," she said with a winning nod and wave of the hand, "for so well guarding the Queen. Thank your brother from me for so well guarding the King."
In the ante-room Andrea was respectfully awaiting her.
"I thank you as I have thanked the viscount, and your husband through him."
Andrea made a courtesy and moved aside for her to go by. The Queen did not ask her to follow, for this cold devotion which lasted unto death put her ill at ease.
Gilbert had gone away with General Lafayette who had been twelve hours on horseback and was ready to drop. At the gates they saw Billet, who had come with the National Guards, ready to follow Gilbert like a dog, to the end of the world.
All was quiet, we repeat, up to three in the morning.
Then arrived a second army from town. The other was composed of women and came for bread; this one came for vengeance and was composed of friends. The leaders were Marat, a hideous, long-legged hunchbacked dwarf named Verriere, who came to the surface from the mud when society was stirred, and the Duke of Aiguillon, disguised as a fishfog.
They came like camp-followers after a battle to fire and pillage.
There had been plenty of killing to do at the Bastile but no plunder, and they reckoned to make up for that at Versailles.
At half-past five in the morning, five or six hundred of this riff-raff forced or scaled the great gate: a sentinel had fired an alarm shot, which slew one of the assailants.
Divided as by a giant swordstroke, the plunderers broke into two gangs, one aiming at the royal plate; the other at the crown jewels. One stormed the Queen's apartments, the other made for the chapel where the King's were.
The sea rose like a high tide.
The guards of the King at that hour were the regular sentry watching at the door, and an officer who rushed out of the ante-chamber with a halberd snatched from the hands of the frightened Swiss porter.
"Who goes there?" challenged the sentinel three times, while leveling his carbine.
The officer knew what excitement would result from firearms being shot off there in the private apartments, so he beat up the gun with his halberd and barred the stairs with it clear across as he faced the intruders.
"What do you want?" he challenged them.
"Oh, dear, nothing of course," jeered several voices. "We are old friends of her Majesty, so let us pass."
"You are pretty friends to bring war here!"
There was no reply but an ominous laugh. A man seized the ax-headed spear and tried to wrest it from the officer and as he would not let go, he bit his hand. The officer tore the weapon away, shortened it so as to use it as an ax and split the cannibal's skull with one chop. But the violence of the blow broke the staff in two, made for ornament rather than use as it was.
The officer remained armed with two weapons in one, the ax and the spear. While he used both effectively, the sentinel opened the ante-chamber door and called for help. Half-a-dozen guardsmen ran out.
"To the rescue of Lord Charny, gentlemen," shouted the sentry.
Swords flashed in the light of a lamp in the lobby, and the assailants were given some work to do on either side of Charny. Cries of pain were heard and the blood spirted, while the ruffians rolled down the marble steps which they streaked with gore.
The ante-room door opened and the sentry called out:
"By order of the King, gentlemen, return."
The guards profited by the momentary confusion of these foes to execute the retreat, with Charny the last to enter the haven. The door was hardly closed behind him and the two large bolts shot into the sockets before a hundred blows sounded on it. But they piled up the furniture against it so that it would hold out for ten minutes.
During that time reinforcements might arrive.
Meanwhile the second gang had darted towards the Queen's apartments; but the stairs were narrow and only two can go up abreast. It was in the corridor that Valence Charny watched.
He fired when his challenge was not replied to.
The door opened and Andrea appeared, having heard the shot.
"Save her Majesty," cried the young man, "they are after her life. I am alone against fifty, but never mind, I shall hold the door as long as I can. Make haste!"
The assailants stole upon him and he banged the door to, shouting:
"Fasten the bolts! I shall live long enough to give the Queen time to flee."
Turning around he ran two wretches through with his bayonet.
The Queen had heard all this, and Andrea found her afoot when she entered her bedroom. Two of her ladies hastily dressed her, and urged her into the private way, while Andrea, always calm and indifferent to danger for herself, bolted each door by which they passed.
At the junction of the communication of the two royal apartments, a man was waiting. It was Charny, covered with blood.
"The King?" cried Marie Antoinette, on seeing this. "You promised to save him."
"He is saved," replied the count.
Looking through the doorways and not seeing among the members of the Royal Family and others, his wife, he was going to ask about her when a glance from the Queen stopped him. He had no need to speak for her gaze plunging into his heart had read his wish.
"Rest easy – she is coming," she said.
She ran to the little prince whom she took in her arms.
Closing the last door, Andrea came into the Bulls-eye Hall like the rest. She and her husband exchanged no word, their smiles were ample. Strange! those long parted hearts began to yearn for one another since danger surrounded them.
"The King is looking for you, madam," replied Charny to the Queen's inquiries: "he was going to your rooms by one corridor while you came to his by another."
They heard the assassins yelling: "Down with the Austrians! Death to Messalina! no more of Lady Veto! let us throttle her – let her hang!"
A couple of pistol-shots were heard at the same time and two holes were bored in the door. One bullet whizzed close to the young prince's head and buried itself in the hangings.
"Oh, heavens, we shall all die," screamed the Queen falling on her knees.
At a sign from Charny, the Lifeguardsmen formed a shelter for her and the royal children.
The King now joined them, pale of face and his eyes full of tears: he was calling for the Queen as she had for him. On seeing her, he ran into her arms.
"Saved," exclaimed she.
"By the count," replied the monarch, indicating Charny: "And has he saved you, too?"
"It was his brother," said she.
"My lord, we owe more to your family than we can ever repay," observed the sovereign.
The Queen blushed as she met Andrea's glance and turned her head aside. The blows on the door resounded.
"Gentlemen, we must hold the post for an hour," said the count. "It will take that time to kill us seven if we hold out stoutly. It is not likely that help will not have come for their Majesties."
With these words he caught hold of an immense sideboard and, his example being followed, a head of shattered furniture formed a wall in which the guards cut loopholes to shoot through. The Queen prayed over her children, stifled their wailing and tears.
The King retired into a closet adjoining, to burn papers which ought not to fall into strange hands. The door was chopped at till pieces fell off every instant, and through the gaps blood pikes were thrust and jagged bayonets which tried to dart death. At the same time, bullets found holes in the breastwork and furrowed the plaster on the gilded ceiling.
At length a bench on top of the sideboard fell down; the buffet lost one panel and bloody arms were plunged in through the orifice to make the crevice larger. The guards had burnt the last cartridge, though not vainly, for through the channel dead bodies were seen strewing the lobby. At the shrieks of the ladies who supposed death was to leap in at the breach, the King returned.
"Sire," said Charny, "shut yourself up with the Queen in the most remote room. Fasten all the doors after you. At each door let two of us stand. I ask to be the last and guard the last. I warrant we shall keep them off for two hours: they take forty minutes full to get through this."
The King hesitated; it seemed so shameful to step from room to room, closing doors on brave men left to die for him. He would not have drawn back but for the Queen. If she had not had her children with her she would have stayed beside him.
But, alas! king or subject, all have a flaw in the iron heart, through which pierces terror when boldness elopes.
The King was about to give the order to retreat when the arms were suddenly retracted, the spears and bayonets disappeared and the shouts and thwarts were silenced. In the instant of stillness all waited with parted lips, listening ears and held breath.
The tramp of regular troops was heard.
"The National Guard!" shouted Charny.
"My Lord Charny!" bellowed a hearty voice on the other side of the door.
"Farmer Billet," cried Charny as a well-known face showed itself. "Is it you, my friend?"
"Yes; my lord. Where is the King, and the Queen?"
"Here, safe and sound."
"God be thanked! This way, Dr. Gilbert!"
Two woman's hearts thrilled variously at this name: Andrea's and the Queen's. Charny, turning instinctively, saw both turn pale; he sighed as he shook his head.
"Open the doors, gentlemen," cried the King. "Here are friends."
The Lifeguardsmen hurried to tear down the remains of the barrier. During their work the voice of Marquis Lafayette was heard:
"Gentlemen of the National Guard, I pledged my word last night to the King that nothing appertaining to his Majesty should incur harm. If you allow his Lifeguards to be hurt, you break my word of honor, and I shall no longer be worthy of being your chief."
When the obstacles were removed, the two first persons seen were General Lafayette and Gilbert: a little to their left was Billet, delighted at having had a part in the King's deliverance. It was he who had gone and roused up the general for this deed.
"Long live the King – long live the Queen!" roared Billet. "Ah, if you had stayed in Paris this would not have happened."
"General, what do you advise?" asked the King of the marquis.
"I think you should show yourself at the window."
Gilbert nodded, and Louis walked straight to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony.
"Long live the King!" was the universal shout. "Come to Paris: " added others. While a few, but the most dreadful ones: "Let us have the Queen out here!"
All shivered; the King lost color as did Gilbert and Charny.
She looked at Lafayette, who said:
"Fear nothing!"
"All alone?" she questioned.
With the charming manners he preserved to old age, Marquis Lafayette gently detached the clinging children from their mother and urged them out upon the balcony. He offered his hand to Marie Antoinette, adding:
"If your Majesty will rely on me, all will go well."
He led her out on the balcony above the Marble Courtyard, a sea of enflamed human heads. The yell that burst forth at sight of the Queen was immense but none could say whether it was threat or joy. Lafayette bent and kissed her hand. This time, applause rent the air, for the meanest there did homage to beauty and womanhood.
"Strange people: " muttered the Austrian: "but what about my Lifeguards – can you do nothing for them?"
"Let me have one of them."
Charny drew back, for he had offered himself as the scapecat for the officers' revelry of the First October and he did not want amnesty. Andrea took his hand and also stood back. Again those two had understood each other; and the Queen flashed her eye. With panting bosom she gasped in a broken voice:
"Another."
A guardsman obeyed who had not his captain's reasons. Lafayette led him out on the balcony, put his own tricolored cockade in his hat and shook his hand.
"Bravo, Lafayette! the Lifeguards are not a bad sort."
A few voices remonstrated, but they were drowned by the cheers.
"All is over and the fine weather sets in," said the general. "For the calm not to be broken again, one final sacrifice is necessary. Come to Paris."
"General, you may announce that I shall depart for the capital in an hour, with the Queen and the rest of the Royal Family."
This order seemed to remind Charny of something he had forgotten and he sprang away with alacrity. The Queen followed him, both guided by tracks of blood. The Queen shut her eyes and groping for support met the hand of Charny, which led her on. Suddenly she felt him shudder.
"A dead man," she shrieked, opening her eyes.
"Will your Majesty excuse me taking away my arm? I find what I sought: the remains of my brother Valence."
Here lay the unfortunate young man whom the head of the Charnys had ordered to let himself be slain for the Queen's sake. He had punctiliously obeyed.
