Александр Дюма
The Royal Life Guard; or, the flight of the royal family.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE FEUD
The two men, on facing each other, looked without the nobleman making the plebeian cower. More than that, it was the latter who spoke the first.
"The count does me the honor to say he wants to speak with me. I am waiting for him to be good enough to do so."
"Billet," began Charny, "how comes it that you are here on an errand of vengeance? I thought you were the friend of your superiors the nobles, and, besides, a faithful and sound subject of his Majesty."
"I was all that, count: I was your most humble servant – for I cannot say your friend, in as much as such an honor is not vouchsafed to a farmer like me. But you may see that I am nothing of the kind at present."
"I do not follow you, Billet."
"Why need you? am I asking you the reason for your fidelity to the King, and your standing true to the Queen? No, I presume you have your reasons for doing this, and as you are a good and wise gentleman I expect your reasons are sound or at least meet for your conscience. I am not in your high position, count, and have not your learning; but you know, or you have heard I am accounted an honest and sensible man, and you may suppose that, like yourself, I have my reasons – suiting my conscience, if not good."
"Billet, I used to know you as far different from what you are now," said Charny, totally unaware of the farmer's grounds for hatred against royalty and nobility.
"Oh, certainly I am not going to deny that you saw me unlike this," replied Billet, with a bitter smile. "I do not mind telling you, count, how this is: I was a true lover of my country, devoted to one thing and two persons: the men were the King and Dr. Gilbert – the thing, my native-land. One day the King's men – I confess that this began to set me against him," said the farmer, shaking his head, "broke into my house and stole away a casket, half by surprise, half by force, a precious trust left me by Dr. Gilbert.
"As soon as I was free I started for Paris, where I arrived on the evening of the thirteenth of July. It was right in the thick of the riot over the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans. Fellows were carrying them about the street, with cheers for those two, doing no harm to the King, when the royal soldiers charged upon us. I saw poor chaps, who had committed no offense but shouting for persons they had probably never seen, fall around me, some with their skulls laid open with sabre slashes, others with their breasts bored by bullets. I saw Prince Lambesq, a friend of the King, drive women and children inside the Tuileries gardens, who had shouted for nobody, and trample under his horse's hoofs an old man. This set me still more against the King.
"Next day I went to the boarding school where Dr. Gilbert's son Sebastian was kept, and learnt from the poor lad that his father was locked up in the Bastile on a King's order sued for by a lady of the court. So I said to myself, this King, whom they call kind, has moments when he errs, blunders or is ignorant, and I ought to amend one of the faults the King so makes – which I proposed to do by contributing all my power to destroying the Bastile. We managed that – not without its being a tough job, for the soldiers of the King fired on us, and killed some two hundred of us which gave me a fresh wrinkle on the kindness of the King. But in short, we took the Bastile. In one of its dungeons I found Dr. Gilbert, for whom I had risked death a hundred times, and the joy of finding him made me forget that and a lot more. Besides, he was the first to tell me that the King was kind, ignorant for the most part of the shameful deeds perpetrated in his name, and that one must not bear him a grudge but cast it on his ministers. Now, as all that Dr. Gilbert said at that time was Gospel, I believed Dr. Gilbert.
"The Bastile being captured, Dr. Gilbert safe and free, and Pitou and myself all well, I forgot the charges in the Tuileries garden, the shooting in the street, the two hundred men slain by Marshal Saxe's sackbut, which is or was a gun on the Bastile ramparts, and the imprisonment of my friend on the mere application of a court dame. But, pardon me, count," Billet interrupted himself, "all this is no concern of yours, and you cannot have asked to speak with me to hear the babble of a poor uneducated rustic – you who are both a high noble and learned gentleman."
He made a move to lay hold of the doorknob and re-enter the other room. But Charny stopped him for two reasons, the first that it might be important to learn why Billet acted thus, and again, to gain time.
"No; tell me the whole story, my dear Billet," he said; "you know the interest my poor brothers and I always bore you, and what you say engages me in a high degree."
Billet smiled bitterly at the words "My poor brothers."
"Well, then," he replied, "I will tell you all; with regret that your poor brothers – particularly Lord Isidore, are not here to hear me."
This was spoken with such singular intonation that the count repressed the feeling of grief the mention of Isidore's name had aroused in his soul, and he waved his hand for the farmer to continue, as Billet was evidently ignorant of what had happened the viscount whose presence he desired.
"Hence," proceeded the yeoman, "when the King returned to Paris from Versailles, I saw in it sheerly the return home of a father among his children. I walked with Dr. Gilbert beside the royal carriage, making a breastwork for those within it of my body, and shouting 'Long live the King!' to split the ear. This was the first journey of the King: blessings and flowers were all around him. On arriving at the City Hall it was noticed that he did not wear the white cockade of his fathers, but he had not yet donned the tricolored one. So I plucked mine from my hat and gave it him as they were roaring he must sport it, and therefore he thanked me, to the cheering of the crowd. I was wild with glee at the King wearing my own favor and I shouted Long Life to him louder than anybody.
"I was so enthusiastic about our good King that I wanted to stay in town. My harvest was ripe and cried for me; but pooh, what mattered a harvest? I was rich enough to lose one season and it was better for me to stay beside this good King to be useful, this Father of the People, this Restorer of French Liberty, as we dunces called him at the time. I lost pretty near all the harvest because I trusted it to Catherine, who had something else to look after than my wheat. Let us say no more on that score.
"Still, it was said that the King had not quite fairly agreed to the change in things, that he moved forced and constrained; that he might wear the tricolor cockade in his hat but the white one was in his heart. They were slanderers who said this; it was clearly proved that at the Guards' Banquet, the Queen put on neither the national nor the French cockade but the black one of her brother the Austrian Emperor. I own that this made my doubts revive; but as Dr. Gilbert pointed out, 'Billet, it is not the King who did this but the Queen; and the Queen being a woman, one must be indulgent towards a woman.' I believed this so deeply that, when the ruffians came from Paris to attack the Versailles Palace, though I did not hold them wholly in the wrong – it was I who ran to rouse General Lafayette – who was in the sleep of the blessed, poor dear man! and brought him on the field in time to save the Royal Family.
"On that night I saw Lady Elizabeth hug General Lafayette and the Queen give him her hand to kiss, while the King called him his friend, and I said to myself, says I: 'Upon my faith, I believe Dr. Gilbert is right. Surely, not from fear would such high folks make such a show of gratitude, and they would not play a lie if they did not share this hero's opinions, howsoever useful he may be at this pinch to them all.' Again I pitied the poor Queen, who had only been rash, and the poor King, only feeble; but I let them go back to Paris without me – I had better to do at Versailles. You know what, Count Charny!"
The Lifeguardsman uttered a sigh recalling the death of his brother Valence.
"I heard that this second trip to the town was not as merry as the former," continued Billet; "instead of blessings, curses were showered down; instead of shouts of Long Live! those of Death to the lot! instead of bouquets under the horses hoofs and carriage wheels, dead men's heads carried on spear-points. I don't know, not being there, as I stayed at Versailles. Still I left the farm without a master, but pshaw! I was rich enough to lose another harvest after that of '89! But, one fine morning, Pitou arrived to announce that I was on the brink of losing something dearer which no father is rich enough to lose: his daughter!"
Charny started, but the other only looked at him fixedly as he went on:
"I must tell you, lord, that a league off from us, at Boursonne, lives a noble family of mighty lords, terribly rich. Three brothers were the family. When they were boys and used to come over to Villers Cotterets, the two younger of the three were wont to stop on my place, doing me the honor to say that they never drank sweeter milk than my cows gave, or eaten finer bread than my wife made, and, from time to time they would add – I believing they just said it in payment of my good cheer – ass that I was! that they had never seen a prettier lass than my Catherine. Lord bless you, I thanked them for drinking the milk, and eating the bread, and finding my child so pretty into the bargain! What would you? as I believed in the King, though he is half a German by the mother's side, I might believe in noblemen who were wholly French.
"So, when the youngest of all, Valence, who had been away from our parts for a long time, was killed at Versailles, before the Queen's door, on the October Riot night, bravely doing his duty as a nobleman, what a blow that was to me! His brother saw me on my knees before the body, shedding almost as many tears as he shed blood – his eldest brother, I mean, who never came to my house, not because he was too proud, I will do him that fair play, but because he was sent to foreign parts while young. I think I can still see him in the damp courtyard, where I carried the poor young fellow in my arms so that he should not be hacked to pieces, like his comrades, whose blood so dyed me that I was almost as reddened as yourself, Lord Charny. He was a pretty boy, whom I still see riding to school on his little dappled pony, with a basket on his arm – and thinking of him thus, I think I can mourn him like yourself, my lord. But I think of the other, and I weep no more," said Billet.
"The other? what do you mean." cried the count.
"Wait, we are coming to it," was the reply. "Pitou had come to Paris, and let a couple of words drop to show that it was not my crops so much in danger as my child – not my fortune but my happiness. So I left the King to shift for himself in the city. Since he meant the right thing, as Dr. Gilbert assured me, all would go for the best, whether I was at hand or not, and I returned on my farm.
"I believed that Catherine had brain fever or something I would not understand, but was only in danger of death. The condition in which I found her made me uneasy, all the more as the doctor forbade me the room till she was cured. The poor father in despair, not allowed to go into the sickroom, could not help hanging round the door. Yes, I listened. Then I learnt that she was at death's point almost out of her senses with fever, mad because her lover – her gallant, not her sweetheart, see! had gone away. A year before, I had gone away, but she had smiled on my going instead of grieving. My going left her free to meet her gallant!
"Catherine returned to health but not to gladness! a month, two, three, six months passed without a single beam of joy kissing the face which my eyes never quitted. One morning I saw her smile and shuddered. Was not her lover coming back that she should smile? Indeed a shepherd who had seen him prowling about, a year before, told me that he had arrived that morning. I did not doubt that he would come over on my ground that evening or rather on the land where Catherine was mistress. I loaded up my gun at dark and laid in wait – "
"You did this, Billet?" queried Charny.
"Why not?" retorted the farmer. "I lay in wait right enough for the wild boar coming to make mush of my potatoes, the wolf to tear my lambs' throats, the fox to throttle my fowls, and am I not to lay in wait for the villain who comes to disgrace my daughter?"
"But your heart failed you at the test, Billet, I hope," said the count.
"No, not the heart, but the eye and the hand," said the other: "A track of blood showed me that I had not wholly missed, only you may understand that a defamed maid had not wavered between father and scoundrel – when I entered the house, Catherine had disappeared."
"And you have not seen her since?"
"No. Why should I see her? she knows right well that I should kill her on sight."
Charny shrank back in terror mingled with admiration for the massive character confronting him.
"I retook the work on the farm," proceeded the farmer. "What concern of mine was my misfortune if France were only happy? Was not the King marching steadily in the road of Revolution? was he not to take his part in the Federation? might I not see him again whom I had saved in October and sheltered with my own cockade? what a pleasure it must be for him to see all France gathered on the parade-ground at Paris, swearing like one man the Unity of the country!
"So, for a space, while I saw him, I forgot all, even to Catherine – no, I lie – no father forgets his child! He also took the oath. It seemed to me that he swore clumsily, evasively, from his seat, instead of at the Altar of the Country, but what did that matter? the main thing was that he did swear. An oath is an oath. It is not the place where he takes it that makes it holy, and when an honest man takes an oath, he keeps it. So the King should keep his word. But it is true that when I got home to Villers Cotterets, – having no child now, I attended to politics – I heard say that the King was willing to have Marquis Favras carry him off but the scheme had fallen through; that the King had tried to flee with his aunts, but that had failed; that he wanted to go out to St. Cloud, whence he would have hurried off to Rouen, but that the people prevented him leaving town. I heard all this but I did not believe it. Had I not with my own eyes seen the King hold up his hand to high heaven on the Paris Parade-ground and swear to maintain the nation? How could I believe that a king, having sworn in the presence of three hundred thousand citizens, would not hold his pledge to be as sacred as that of other men? It was not likely!
"Hence, as I was at Meaux Market yesterday, – I may as well say I was sleeping at the postmaster's house, with whom I had made a grain deal – I was astonished to see in a carriage changing horses at my friend's door, the King, the Queen and the Dauphin! There was no mistaking them; I was in the habit of seeing them in a coach; on the sixteenth of July, I accompanied them from Versailles to Paris. I heard one of the party say: 'The Chalons Road!' This man in a buff waistcoat had a voice I knew; I turned and recognized – who but the gentleman who had stolen away my daughter! This noble was doing his duty by playing the flunky before his master's coach."
At this, he looked hard at Charny to see if he understood that his brother Isidore was the subject; but the hearer was silent as he wiped his face with his handkerchief.
"I wanted to fly at him, but he was already at a distance. He was on a good horse and had weapons – I, none. I ground my teeth at the idea that the King was escaping out of France and this ravisher escaping me, but suddenly another thought struck me. Why, look ye; I took an oath to the Nation, and while the King breaks his, I shall keep mine. I am only ten leagues from Paris which I can reach in two hours on a good nag; it is but three in the morning. I will talk this matter over with Mayor Bailly, an honest man who appears to be one of the kind who stick to the promises they make. This point settled I wasted no time, but begged my friend the postinghouse keeper to lend me his national Guards uniform, his sword and pistols and I took the best horse in his stables – all without letting him know what was in the wind, of course. Instead, therefore, of trotting home, I galloped hellity-split to Paris.
"Thank God, I got there on time! the flight of the King was known but not the direction. Lafayette had sent his aid Romeuf on the Valenciennes Road! But mark what a thing chance is! they had stopped him at the bars, and he was brought back to the Assembly, where he walked in at the very nick when Mayor Bailly, informed by me, was furnishing the most precise particulars about the runaways. There was nothing but the proper warrant to write and the road to state. The thing was done in a flash. Romeuf was dispatched on the Chalons Road and my order was to stick to him, which I am going to do. Now," concluded Billet, with a gloomy air, "I have overtaken the King, who deceived me as a Frenchman, and I am easy about his escaping me! I can go and attend to the man who deceived me as a father; and I swear to you, Lord Charny, that he shall not escape me either."
"You are wrong, my dear Billet – woeful to say," responded the count.
"How so?"
"The unfortunate young man you speak of has escaped."
"Fled?" cried Billet with indescribable rage.
"No, he is dead," replied the other.
"Dead?" exclaimed Billet, shivering in spite of himself, and sponging his forehead on which the sweat had started out.
"Dead," repeated Charny, "for this is his blood which you see on me and which you were right just now in likening to that from his brother slain at Versailles. If you doubt, go down into the street where you will find his body laid out in a little yard, like that of Versailles, struck down for the same cause for which his brother fell."
Billet looked at the speaker, who spoke in a gentle voice, but with haggard eyes and a frightened face; then suddenly he cried:
"Of a truth, there is justice in heaven!" He darted out of the room, saying: "I do not doubt your word, lord, but I must assure my sight that justice is done."
Charny stifled a sigh as he watched him go, and dashed away a tear. Aware that there was not an instant to lose, he hurried to the Queen's room, and as soon as he walked directly up to her, he asked how she had got on with Romeuf.
"He is on our side," responded the lady.
"So much the better," said Charny, "for there is nothing to hope in that quarter."
"What are we to do then?"
"Gain time for Bouille to come up."
"But will he come?"
"Yes, for I am going to fetch him."
"But the streets swarm with murderers," cried the Queen. "You are known, you will never pass, you will be hewn to pieces: George, George!"
But smiling without replying, Charny opened the window on the back garden, waved his hand to the King and the Queen, and jumped out over fifteen feet. The Queen sent up a shriek of terror and hid her face in her hands; but the man ran to the wind and by a cheer allayed her fears.
Charny had scaled the garden wall and was disappearing on the other side.
It was high time, for Billet was entering.
CHAPTER XVIII.
ON THE BACK TRACK
Billet's countenance was dark; thoughtfulness lowered the brows over eyes deeply investigating; he reviewed all the prisoners and over the circle he made two remarks.
Charny's flight was patent; the window was being closed by the Colonel after him; by bending forward Billet could see the count vaulting over the garden wall. It followed that the agreement made between Captain Romeuf and the Queen was for him to stand neutral.
Behind Billet the outer room was filled as before with the scythe-bearers, musketeers and swordsmen whom his gesture had dismissed.
These men seemed to obey this chief to whom they were attracted by magnetic influence, because they divined in one a plebeian like themselves patriotism or hatred equal to their own.
His glance behind himself meeting theirs told him that he might rely on them, even in case he had to proceed to violence.
"Well, have they decided to go?" he asked Romeuf.
The Queen threw on him one of those side looks which would have blasted him if they had the power of lightning, which they resemble. Without replying, she clutched the arm of her chair as though to clamp herself to it.
"The King begs a little more time as they have not slept in the night and their Majesties are dying of fatigue?" said Romeuf.
"Captain," returned Billet bluntly, "you know very well that it is not because their Majesties are fatigued that they sue for time, but because they hope in a few instants that Lord Bouille will arrive. But it will be well for their Majesties not to dally," added Billet with emphasis, "for if they refuse to come out willingly, they will be lugged by the heels."
"Scoundrel!" cried Damas, darting at the speaker with his sword up.
Billet turned to face him, but with folded arms. He had in truth no need to defend himself, for eight or ten men sprang into the room, and the colonel was threatened by ten different weapons. The King saw that the least word or move would lead to all his supporters being shot or chopped to rags, and he said,
"It is well: let the horses be put to. We are going."
One of the Queen's women who travelled in a cab with her companion after the royal coach, screamed and swooned; this awakened the boy prince and his sister, who wept.
"Fie, sir, you cannot have a child that you are so cruel to a mother," said the Queen to the farmer.
"No, madam," replied he, repressing a start, and with a bitter smile, "I have no child now. There is to be no delay about the horses," he went on, to the King, "the horses are harnessed, and the carriage at the door."
Approaching the window the King saw that all was ready; in the immense din he had not heard the horses brought up. Seeing him through the window the mob burst into a shout which was a threat. He turned pale.
"What does your Majesty order?" inquired Choiseul of the Queen: "we had rather die than witness this outrage."
"Do you believe Lord Charny has got away?" she asked quickly in an undertone.
"I can answer for that."
"Then let us go; but in heaven's name, for your own sake as well as ours, do not quit us."
The King understood her fear.
"I do not see any horses for Lord Choiseul and Damas," observed he.
"They can follow as they like," said Billet; "my orders are to bring the King and the Queen, and do not speak of them."
"But I declare that I will not go without them having their horses," broke forth the monarch with more firmness than was expected from him.
"What do you say to that?" cried Billet to his men swarming into the room. "Here is the King not going because these gentlemen have no horses!"
The mob roared with laughter.
"I will find them," said Romeuf.
"Do not quit their Majesties," interposed Choiseul: "your office gives you some power over the people, and it depends on your honor that not a hair of their head should fall."
Romeuf stopped, while Billet snapped his fingers.
"I will attend to this," said he, leading the way; but stopping on the threshold he said, frowning: "But you will fetch them along, eh, lads?"
"Oh, never fear," replied the men, with a peal of laughter evidencing that no pity was to be expected in case of resistance.
At such a point of irritation, they would certainly have used roughness and shot down any one resisting. Billet had no need to come upstairs again. One of them by the window watched what happened in the street.
"The horses are ready," he said: "out you get!"
"Out, and be off!" said his companions with a tone admitting no discussion.
The King took the lead. Romeuf was supposed to look particularly after the family, but the fact is he had need to take care of himself. The rumor had spread that he was not only carrying out the Assembly's orders with mildness but by his inertia, if not actively, favored the flight of one of the most devoted upholders of the Royals, who had only quitted them in order to hurry up Marquis Bouille to their rescue.
The result was that on the sill, while Billet's conduct was glorified by the gathering, Romeuf heard himself qualified as a traitor and an aristocrat.
The party stepped into the carriage and the cab, with the two Lifeguards on the box.
Valory had asked as a favor that the King would let him and his comrade be considered as domestics since they were no longer allowed to act as his soldiers.
"As things stand," he pleaded, "princes of the blood royal might be glad to be here; the more honor for simple gentlemen like us."
"Have it so," said the sovereign tearfully, "you shall not quit me ever."
Thus they took in reality the place of couriers. Choiseul closed the door.
"Gentlemen," said the King, "I positively give the order that you shall drive me to Montmedy. Postillions, to Montmedy!"
But one voice, that of the united populations of more than this town, replied:
"To Paris!"
In the lull, Billet pointed with his sword and said:
"Postboys, take the Clermont Road."
The vehicle whirled round to obey this order.
"I take you all for witness that I am overpowered by violence," said Louis XVI.
Exhausted by the effort he had made, the unfortunate King, who had never shown so much will before, fell back on the rear seat, between the Queen and his sister.
In five minutes, after going a couple of hundred paces, a great clamor was heard behind. As they were placed, the Queen was the passenger who could first get her head out of the window.
She drew in almost instantly, covering her eyes with both hands, and muttering:
"Oh, woe to us! they are murdering Choiseul."
The King tried to rise, but the two ladies pulled him down; anyhow the carriage turned the road and they could not see what passed at twenty paces that way.
Choiseul and Damas had mounted their horses at Sausse's door but Romeuf's had been taken away from the post-house. He and two cavalrymen followed on foot, hoping to find a horse or two, either of the hussars and dragoons who had been led off by the people, or abandoned by their masters. But they had not gone fifteen steps before Choiseul perceived that the three were in danger of being smothered, pressed down and scattered in the multitude. He stopped, letting the carriage go on, and judging that Romeuf was of the most value to the Royal Family in this strait, called to his servant, James Brisack, who was mixed up with the press.
"Give my spare horse to Captain Romeuf."
Scarce had he spoken the words than the exasperated crowd enveloped him, yelling:
"This is the Count of Choiseul, one who wanted to take away the King! Down with the aristocrat – death to the traitor!"
All know with what rapidity the effect follows the threat in popular commotions.
Torn from his saddle, Count Choiseul was hurled back and was swallowed up in that horrible gulf of the multitude, from which in that epoch of deadly passions one emerged only in fragments.
But at the same time as he fell five persons rushed to his rescue. These were Damas, Romeuf, Brisack and two others, the last having lost the led horse so that his hands were free for his master's service.
Such a conflict arose as the Indians wage around the body of a fallen warrior whom they do not wish scalped.
Contrary to all probability, Choiseul was not hurt, or at least slightly, despite the ugly weapons used against him. A soldier parried with his musket a scythe thrust aimed at him, and Brisack warded off another with a stick he had snatched from a hand in the medley. This stick was cleft like a reed, but the cut was so turned as to wound only the count's horse.
"This way the dragoons!" it came into Adjutant Foucq's head to halloa.
Some soldiers rushed up at the call and cleared a space in their shame at the officer being murdered among them. Romeuf sprang into the open space.
"In the name of the National Assembly, and of General Lafayette, whose deputy I am, lead these gentleman to the town-hall!" he vociferated.
Both names of the Assembly and the general enjoyed full popularity at this period and exerted their usual effect.
"To the town-hall," roared the concourse.
Willing hands made a united effort and Choiseul and his companions were dragged towards the council rooms. It took well over an hour to get there; each minute had its threat and attempt to murder, and every opening the protectors left was used to thrust with a pike or pitchfork or sabre.
However, the municipal building was reached at last, where only one towns officer remained, frightened extremely at the responsibility devolving on him. To relieve him of this charge, he ordered that Choiseul, Damas and Floirac should be put in the cells and watched by the National Guards.
Romeuf thereupon declared that he would not quit Choiseul, who had shielded him and so brought on himself what happened. So the town official ordered that he should be put in the cell along with him.
Choiseul made a sign for his groom Brisack to get away and see to the horses. Not much pulled about, they were in an inn, guarded by the volunteers.
Romeuf stayed till the Verdun National Guard came in, when he entrusted the prisoners to them, and went his way with the officers' pledge that they would keep them well.
Isidore Charny's remains were dragged into a weaver's house, where pious but alien hands prepared them for the grave – less fortunate he than his brother Valence, who, at least, was mourned over by his brother and Billet, and Gilbert. But at that time, Billet was a devoted and respectful friend. We know how these feelings changed into hate: as implacable as the better sentiments had been deep.
