FOOTNOTES:

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?'