V THE TAKING OF THE TUILERIES

Boom! Boom!

All at once Nicole and Geneviève found themselves on their feet in the middle of the dark room. Through the open window there fell upon their ears a wild metal shriek, hoarse, furious, angry, that spoke of fire and of the dungeon—the boom of the tocsin.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Nicole bounded to the window. Below she beheld startled heads in white night-caps scattered down the length of the walls. As one dog wakes the pack, another and another bell took up the call, till from every point of the horizon broke forth the jangle and clang of the iron throats of Paris.

Below, a few tiny cries rose through the murmur. Across the roofs came the thin shrieks of a woman. Lights began to appear, forms clad in night-dress. Suddenly across the court tore into the night Barabant's frenzied voice.

"To arms! to arms!"

As though awaiting the signal, there burst upon the ear the rumbling of drums, the scattered popping of firearms, calls and answering calls flung from roof to roof.

"To arms, citoyens, to arms!"

A frenzy passed over Nicole. She leaned far out, and gathering her voice, echoed:

"To arms!"

She bounded back into the room, knocking over the chair, snatched up her cloak, bounded to the window to cry "To arms!" crashed down the stairs, dragging Geneviève, flung out of the blind passage, bumping and bruising her shoulders, down and out into the streets.

From every doorway figures shot forth and passed, running toward the north. The two girls, at top speed, joined the crowd. They passed a woman with a torch, whose hair stood out in long streams against the racing; la Mère Corniche hobbling along as fast as her old legs would take her; families of five and six running in packs, panting and silent, while beneath, above, about, from disgorging cellars, from loud-flung open windows, from every bell the city writhed in nightmare.

Distancing their companions, they arrived among the first before the brasserie of Santerre, where the Quinze-Vingts were assembling, forming quickly into ranks. From one window Jambony, the crier, in an enormous red cap, was feeding pikes to a hundred outstretched hands. The arrival of fresh torches caused the walls to loom up like lurid cliffs, sparkling in spots where a window-pane blazed back the reflection. From the windows flattened faces with black-encircled eyes looked down,—children too young, men and women too old, to survive in the press below: unhuman faces of unhuman beings, like a multitude of rats driven to shelter by the influx of a torrent.

Below, the black mass surged in, spattered, under the glow of the torches, with the red of the liberty-caps, while two banners hung like huge blurs above the tossing surface of pikes and weapons. The noise was deafening, the confusion beyond control. Men rushed in and out, their arms flung wide and high, bellowing:

"Death to the tyrants!"

"Death to the fat Louis!"

A slip of a girl, clinging on a window-sill, harangued the mob; a fishwife, astride her husband, comic and furious, beat the air and screamed to the crowd to dye the Seine red. Hags with threatening fists shrieked themselves into a frenzy:

"To the Tuileries! To the Tuileries!"

Some, foaming, overcome with their passions, collapsed on the ground. The anger of the mob against the queen gathered at times in bursts and shouts:

"Death to Mme. Veto!"

"Death to the Austrian!"

Unthinkable obscenities were coupled with her name and tossed from eddy to eddy. The Marseillais, gathering in a body, dominated the tumult with the swelling chords of their battle hymn that on their voices became a chant of carnage and a thing of terror.

It was more than a mob: it was the populace in eruption. All the human passions and emotions were there, the basest and the noblest. There were the scum—the lepers, the beggars, and the criminals diffused among the zealots, the fanatics, and the idealists. There were the frankly curious and the adventurous, and those with hatred and vengeance in their hearts. There was youth, warm-blooded and chivalrous, stirred by visions, and old age impatient to see the dawn—all hoarse and all clamorous to march.

The order did not come. For an hour they waited, trembling for the word. The uproar subsided a little. The torches began to drop out: there were moments of darkness when one could hardly distinguish the faces about. The cries to advance changed to inquiries. Boudgoust brought back the report that Pétion, the mayor, was a captive, held as a hostage in the Tuileries.

Santerre, the Goliath, passed among them, distributing hand-shakes, reassuring them, counseling patience. The Assembly would meet and summon Pétion to its bar and the court would not dare detain him. Some listened, half satisfied; others, the Marseillais specially, cried out for action. They waited still another hour and a half. The first outburst had seemingly exhausted the populace: they remained quietly, awed at the immensity of their daring. Many, tiring of the long vigil on foot, imitated Nicole and Geneviève and stretched out upon the pavements, forming little shallows throughout the length of the street. A few melted away to seek sleep or food. No more torches were lighted. The few that spluttered on became pale and effaced before the drab of the morning. An ashen glow stole over the street. Then the army that had huddled through the night roused itself, shook itself, gathered spirit and anger and again clamored to advance.

Santerre, besieged by the eager, hesitated. He sent off a band of pikemen and then the Marseillais, but the rest he held irresolutely.

Suddenly a cry started up from the outskirts of the crowd. A tall man was seen running toward them with outstretched hands, trying to pierce the crowd that closed around him. A great shout went up:

"The news! The news!"

On the outskirts a hundred hands were flung up, then a thousand. The sound of a mighty cry could be heard indistinguishable, rumbling, gathering volume, sweeping over the crowd.

"Pétion is free!"

"Pétion is at the Hôtel de Ville!"

Santerre hesitated no longer. He descended from his brasserie and gave the signal. The enormous mass started, moving swiftly, consuming its way like a glacier. A scullion, with the sudden converging impulse toward comradeship that now permeated the throng, sought anxiously for a familiar face.

A pikeman from a group, seeing his trouble, called out:

"Hé, comrade, you seek friends. We are your brothers. March with us."

In measure, as they swarmed toward the Tuileries, fresh reports came back. Mandat had been summoned. The artillery at the Pont Neuf had been withdrawn. Mandat was at the Hôtel de Ville. Mandat had fallen before the vengeance of the crowd.

They hastened forward and rolled into the Place de la Grève. It was then seven o'clock in the morning. There, where they expected the order to attack, they were compelled again to wait. When they clamored they were told that they were delaying for the Faubourg St. Marceau, which was to join them at the Pont Neuf. Then these hordes, who had passed the night in suspense, in the midst of rumors and counterrumors, sent up a great shout of anger:

"Treachery!"

The populace that could dare anything could not stand suspense. A panic was imminent; but firmer spirits began to exhort them. On all sides knots of men flung one of their number into the air, where, from the shoulders of a comrade, witty, brilliant, and magnetic, he calmed the crowd with laughter.

Nicole and Geneviève, circulating from group to group, were halted by a familiar voice, and beheld, aloft the giant shoulders of Javogues, the ardent figure of Barabant addressing the throng.

"Peace, good, kind, gentle, loyal citizens," he was saying mockingly, "you will disturb the royal slumbers. Why such impatience? The Austrian cannot see you at such an hour. You are forgetting etiquette!" A roar of laughter showed him his ground. "I assure you, aristocrats will not fight before breakfast, before they are shaved and powdered and dressed. Patience, my Sans-Culottes; we do not want to stab them in their beds; give them time to sleep and breakfast, that we may show them how Sans-Culottes can fight. They are not Sans-Culottes; only Sans-Culottes can fight with empty stomachs!

"For shame, citizens; one does not grumble in the face of danger. Look about you. The moment is sublime. You who have felled the Bastille, you who brought Capet back from Versailles—you are now to strike the great blow for freedom, and you grumble. What matters it if we have waited twenty hours or twenty days, if we may see such an event? Who would not rather die at such a moment than live in any age or in any condition the world has ever known? Citizens, the moment is sublime; be ye also sublime!"

He slid to the ground, amid uproarious approval, satisfied and elate. Javogues, the Atlas, bellowed out, "That's the way to talk; he is right! Vive la Nation!"

"Vive le Citoyen Barabant!"

Barabant, recognizing the voice of Nicole, turned, while the crowd, eagerly catching up his name, saluted it with cheers.

"Bravo the Parisian!"

The second voice was Louison's. The two girls, each armed with a cutlass, sent him their applause over the crowd. But, while the frank enthusiasm of Nicole inspired him, there was something in the tolerant smile of Louison that seemed to mock his elation. Before he could reach them, the crowd, abandoning the cries of treachery, exploded in anger at the Faubourg St. Marceau.

"Fine patriots!"

"What the devil are they doing?"

"We do not need them; to the Tuileries without them!"

"Give us news of them!"

"Citoyens, I'll bring you news," Barabant retorted. "A little patience and you shall know of the Faubourg St. Marceau."

He returned through the chafing multitude, and departed down the Rue St. Honoré as fast as his legs could carry him. At the Place du Carrousel the mob was besieging the entrance to the Tuileries, clamoring for admittance. As he hesitated, the gate was flung open and the mass, with the quickness of gunpowder seeking an outlet, crashed in. Barabant, all else forgotten, hurled himself forward in a blind endeavor to reach the court. He tripped and fell, and before he could gain his feet the mob had passed him.

There had been not a moment of hesitation. They rushed into the trap, heeding neither the windows, bristling with muskets, that confronted them nor the walls that hemmed them in. Leaping and shouting, they ran to the vestibule at the end. There they saw a mass of red that colored it from top to bottom—a mass perfectly ordered. It was the Swiss, drawn up line by line on every step, their muskets at aim, awaiting the word.

The first assailants stopped irresolutely, but the impetus of those behind swept them on, until the vestibule was consumed and the first ranks looked into the threatening barrels. Still no sound. The two forces, the machine and the monster, looked into each other's eyes, noting little details. The populace, gaining confidence, began to jest, saluting the soldiers with friendly greetings, inviting them to join them.

Some one in the mob, extending a long crook, hooked a Swiss and drew him into the vortex, amid shouts of laughter. They clapped their hands, laughing like children, and set to work at this new game. A second, a third, five Swiss, were thus fished out of the ranks without resisting.

All at once, from the balcony above, a voice cried:

"Fire!"

As the sea with an immense impulse recoils from an earthquake, there was a vast recoil in the mob, an exact explosion from the machine. The smoke, rushing down the vestibule, swirled into the air and lifted. The officer leaned curiously over the balcony and gave the order to advance. The red ranks moved down and over the inanimate mound; of all those who a moment before had laughed incredulously not one survived.

Outside, the mob broke and fled up the Place du Carrousel, recoiling from the horrid vestibule, where suddenly there formed a bubble of red, that grew larger and trickled over the garden, widening and assuming mass and shape. At times across the red, like a diamond meeting the sun, there ran a brilliant flash. At every flash men stumbled in their flight and pitched forward. Pell-mell into the Rue St. Honoré they ran, routed, but full of anger and enthusiasm.

At this moment the sections of the Marais swept in, gathered them up, and, burning with vengeance at the sight of their wounds, rushed on to the attack. Barabant, who had received a flesh-wound in the hand, had barely time to bind it up before he was swept again into the Carrousel.

Then a vast hurrah burst from them, a shout of relief and of battle. From the quais the guerrilla band of the Marseillais were rolling forward, formidable, grim, and unleashed. Suddenly their ranks parted and two tongues of fire lashed out; in the solid bank of the Swiss two gaps appeared. A frenzy possessed the assaulting mass. It flung itself forward, without method, attacking only with its anger. The Swiss reëntered the vestibule, issuing forth from time to time to deliver a volley.

Barabant, in the midst of the swirl, lost consciousness of his acts, swayed by sudden, unreasoning passion. He fired fast and faster, caught by the infection of his comrades, cursing, exhorting wildly, laughing; but his bullets, without objective, flattened themselves against the death-dealing walls. At times he saw, through the thick smoke, Javogues and his comrades dragging a cannon forward toward the barracks. At another moment there suddenly emerged out of the mêlée the figure of the two bouquetières.

Amid the swirl of smoke, Nicole appeared to Barabant's excited senses as a goddess exhorting them to battle. Her hair had tumbled, rioting, her dress was torn open at the throat, her bare arms were stained with powder and red with the contact of the wounded; and yet, as she loaded a musket, or presented it to a volunteer, or showed him the flashing walls, she laughed one of those laughs sublime with the indifference to danger and the joy of heroism that inflame the souls of those who hear it, and transform the wavering with the frenzy of sacrifice.

On the contrary, Louison, among all the confusion and the tumult, moved quietly, gathering the bullets from the fallen and returning them to her friend. Her face was calm, cold; her eyes sought everything and showed nothing; and though she moved incessantly on her quests, she was apart from all—a spectator.

Barabant, unable to join them, was carried step by step toward the barracks. Once he slipped in a pool of blood and went down, his companion falling across him. He called to him to rise, but the man was dead. A woman of the halles freed him.

A series of explosions almost hurled him back; the next moment the barracks, rent in gaps, were swept with a sheet of flame. The assailants, with a cry of triumph, hurled themselves into the palace, while the Swiss, forced up the staircase, broke and fled, pursued and shot down by the victors.

Through the apartments, shattering doors, overturning furniture, howling along the empty corridors, the mob crashed in, as the first victorious blast of a tempest, shrieking:

"À la mort! À la mort!"

One by one the flying Swiss were overtaken. Packs of the invaders leaped upon them, burying them from view, until, stabbed with a dozen useless thrusts, their bodies were flung with exulting cries from the windows; while as the foremost stopped to enjoy their prey, the herd swept to the front with hungry arms and the ever-rising shout:

"Death to all! Death to all!"

Barabant, racing ahead to save the women, soon found himself in front, running beside a Marseillais, who cried to him with the voice of Javogues:

"Keep with me, citoyen, keep with me! Leave the curs to the others!"

A Swiss, hearing them at his back, fell on his knees, shrieking for mercy.

"Leave him. Don't stop!" Javogues panted. Seizing Barabant's arm, he bore him down a side gallery, shouting:

"There he is! There he is!"

At the end of the corridor Barabant beheld a tall form disappearing at the head of a narrow stairway.

Up this they rushed, into the single outlet, a guard-room, only to find it empty. Javogues threw himself furiously against the walls.

"I saw him, I saw him; he is here somewhere!"

"Who?"

"Dossonville! He was among the Swiss. I saw him." He ran around the room, assailing it with his huge fists. All at once he gave a cry, and lifting the hatchet he bore, he sent a secret door crashing in.

"He is here!"

He hacked his way through and disappeared, thundering down the passage. Barabant, only half comprehending what had happened, remained a moment in perplexity. But the sound of women's cries startled him again to activity. He darted back into the current of the mob and gained the women's apartments. At the foot of the staircase an officer of the National Guard was crying:

"We don't kill women!"

"Spare the women!" Barabant echoed.

A dozen others took up the cry.

"The Republic does not make war on women!"

The mob, balked of half its vengeance by the firmness of a dozen officers, turned to desecration and pillage. Troops of women, like furies, swarmed through the royal apartments, tearing the beds to pieces, exulting, foul and crazed.

Barabant, sickening at the sight of unnamable excesses, retraced his way down the strewn galleries, heaped with overturned furniture, and tapestries pulled from the wall, spattered with blood and dirt. Heedless of the shouts above him, he passed down the vestibule and over the mountain of slain, suffocated by the stench and the horror of wide-mouthed corpses. Now that the crisis was over, his inflammable nature recoiled before the ugliness of the triumph.

While Louison and Geneviève had been drawn into the frantic mob which swept the palace, Nicole had remained outside, joining the hundreds of women who visited the wounded or sought, in agony, among the dead. She also, with a new anxiety, sped among the slain with a sinking dread before each upturned face.

All at once a familiar voice cried at her side:

"Help! help!"

The cry came from beneath the body of a Marseillais. With the aid of a fishwife she pulled away the corpse, discovering the shaken, limp form of the mountebank Cramoisin.

"Ah, mon Dieu," she cried, forgetting the rancor of the woman in the patriot, "are you wounded?"

"I—I think so."

"Where?"

"I don't know," he stammered, rising weakly to his feet. "Is it ended?"

"In thy stomach, I guess, my brave fellow!" the fishwife cried with rough scorn. "It seems to have failed thee!"

"You do not know him: he is a hero!" Nicole cried, ironically. "Wait a moment; we'll find the wound!"

With a laugh, the two sought to seize him; but Cramoisin, having recovered the use of his legs, escaped in a ludicrous, snarling flight.

Suddenly Nicole beheld Barabant stumbling forth from the vestibule. All coquetry forgot, she sprang to him with the cry:

"Barabant, you are wounded!"

He looked at his arm and saw it was covered with blood. He passed his hand over his face; a scalp-wound trickled a red stream down his forehead. He sat down while she hurriedly washed the wounds and bandaged them. When he essayed to rise, a dizziness made his step so unsteady that Nicole drew his arm over her shoulder, laughing at his feeble resistance.

"Allons, this is the hour of the women. I'll bring you back. Don't be afraid to lean on me!"

She put her arm about his waist and impelled him gently. He resisted no longer, and together slowly they moved homeward over the stricken field, amid the groaning and the silent.

He had a misty recollection of a phantasmagoric passage, of rapidly moving figures hideous with blood, of heads dancing on pikes above him, of stretchers bearing inanimate things, of rushing, floating women, of the sudden rumbling of drums, of companies swinging past him, of interminable streets, and of cliffs, mountains high, that gave forth shrieks of triumph. Then in the city, delirious with joy and sorrow, delirium, too, rushed through his brain, his head fell heavily upon Nicole's bare shoulder, and the will deserting his limbs, he slipped from her arms heavily to the ground.