PITOU DISCOVERS HE IS BRAVE.
The street appeared void and lonesome to Billet and his friend because
the cavalry in chase of the Hyers, had gone through the market and
scattered after them in the side streets; but as the pair got nearer
the Palais Royale, calling out in a hoarse voice by instinct "Revenge!"
men began to appear in doorways, up cellars, out of alleys, from the
carriage gateways, mute and frightened at the first, but, when assured
that the horse-soldiers had gone on, forming the procession anew, they
repeated in a low tone, but soon in a loud one: "Revenge!"
Pitou marched behind the farmer, carrying the Savoyard's cap.
Thus the mournful and ghastly cortege arrived on Palais Royale
Place, where a concourse, drunk with wrath, were holding council and
soliciting the French troops to help them against the foreign ones.
"What are these men in uniform?" inquired Billet, in front of a
company, standing under arms, to bar the road from the Palace main
doors to Chartres Street.
"The French Guards," answered several voices.
"Oh," said the countryman, going nearer and showing the body of the
Savoyard which was lifeless now: "are you Frenchmen and let us be
murdered by foreigners?"
The guardsmen shrank back a step involuntarily.
"Dead?" uttered several.
"Dead--murdered, along with lots more by the Royal German dragoons. Did
you not hear the charging cry, the shots, the sword-slashes and the
shrieks of the defenseless?"
"Yes," shouted two or three hundred voices: "the people were cut down
on Vendome Square."
"And so are you the people," shouted Billet to the soldiers: "It is
cowardice of you to let your brothers be hacked to pieces."
"Cowardice?" muttered some of the men in the ranks, threateningly.
"Yes, I said Cowardice, and I say it again. Look here," Billet went
on, taking three steps towards the point where the protest had risen,
"perhaps you will shoot me down to prove that you are not cowards?"
"That is all very good," said a soldier; "you are a honest, blunt
fellow, my friend, but you are citizens and you do not understand that
soldiers are bound by orders."
"Do you mean to say?" said Billet, "that if you receive orders to fire
on us, unarmed men, that you, the successors of the Guards who, at
Fontenoy, bade the English shoot first,--would do that?"
"I wager I would not," said the soldier.
"Nor I, nor I," echoed several of his comrades.
"Then stop the others firing on us," continued Billet: "To let the
Royal Germans cut our throats is tantamount to doing it yourselves."
"The dragoons, here come the dragoons!" yelled many at the same time as
the gathering began to retire over the square to get away up Richelieu
Street.
At a distance but approaching, they heard the clatter of heavy cavalry.
"To arms, to arms," cried the runaways.
"Plague on you," said Billet, throwing down the dead Savoyard, "Lend us
your guns if you will not use them."
"Hold on till you see whether we won't use them," said the soldier whom
Billet had addressed, as he snatched back the musket which the farmer
had torn from his grip. "Bite your cartridges, boys--and make the
Austrians bite the dust if they interfere with these good fellows."
"Ay, they shall see," said the soldiers, carrying their hands from the
cartridge-boxes to their mouths.
"Thunder," muttered Billet, stamping his foot: "why did I not bring my
old duck-gun along? But one of these pesky Austrians may be laid out
and I can get his carbine."
"In the meantime," said a voice, "taking this gun--it is ready loaded."
A stranger slipped a handsome fowling-piece into Billet's hands.
At this very instant, the dragoons rushed into the square, upsetting
everybody they ran against.
The officer commanding the French Guards came out three steps to the
front.
"Halloa, you gentlemen of the heavy dragoons," he called out. "Halt,
please."
Whether the cavalry did not hear him, or did not want to hear him, or,
again, were carried on by the impetus of a charge too violent to check,
the Germans wheeled by a half-turn to the right and trampled down an
old man and a woman who disappeared under the hoofs.
"Fire," roared Billet, "why don't you fire?"
He was near the officer and the order might have been taken as coming
from him. Anyway, the French Guards carried their muskets to the
shoulder, and delivered a volley which stopped the dragoons short.
"Here, gentlemen of the Guards," said a German officer, coming before
the squadron thrown into disorder, "do you know you are firing on us?"
"Yes, by heaven we know it, and you shall know it, too." So Billet
retorted, taking aim at the speaker and dropping him with the shot.
Thereupon the reserve rank of the Guards made a discharge and the
Germans, seeing that they had trained soldiery to deal with and not
citizens who broke and fled at the first shot, pulled round and made
off for Vendome Square in the midst of a formidable outburst of hoots
and cheers of triumph so that some horses broke loose and smashed their
heads against the store shutters.
"Hurrah for the French Guards!" shouted the multitude.
"Hurrah for the Guards of the Country!" said Billet.
"Thank you," said a soldier, "we are given the right name and
christened with fire."
"I have been under fire, too," said Pitou, "and it is not as dreadful
as I imagined it."
"Now, who owns this gun?" queried Billet, examining the rifle which was
a costly one.
"My master," answered the man who had lent him it, and who wore the
Orleans livery. "He thinks you use it too handsomely to have to return
it."
"Where is your master?" demanded the farmer.
The servant pointed to a half-open blind behind which the prince was
watching what happened.
"Is he with us, then?"
"With heart and soul for the people," replied the domestic.
"In that case, three cheers again for the Duke of Orleans!" said the
farmer. "Friends the Duke of Orleans is on our side--three cheers for
the duke!"
He pointed upwards and the prince showed himself for an instant while
he bowed three times to the shouting; short as was the appearance it
lifted enthusiasm to the utmost.
"Break open the gunsmith's," shouted a voice in the turbulence.
"Let us go to the Invalid Soldiers Hospital," added some old veterans.
"General Sombreuil has twenty thousand muskets there."
"And to the City Hall!" exclaimed others: "Flesselles, Provost of the
Traders, has the keys for the town guards' armory and he must give them
up."
"To the Hall!" bellowed a fraction of the assemblage.
All flowed away in one or the other of the three directions called out.
During this time the dragoons had rallied around Baron Bezenval and
Prince Lambesq on Louis XV. Square.
Billet and Pitou were unaware of this as they followed none of the
parties and were left pretty well alone on Palais Royale Square.
"Well, where are we off to, dear Master Billet?" inquired Ange Pitou.
"I should like to follow the crowd," replied the other: "not to the
gunmakers', as I have a first-rate gun, but to the City Hall or the
military Asylum. Still, as we came to town not to fight, but to learn
Doctor Gilbert's address. I think we ought to go to Louis-the-Great's
College, where his son is. When I shall have got through with the
doctor, we can jump back into the chafing-dish."
His eyes flashed lightnings.
"This course seems logical to me," observed the young peasant.
"So take some weapon, gun or sword, from those beer drinkers lying
there," said the farmer, pointing to half-a-dozen dragoons on the pave,
"and let us go to the college."
"But these weapons are not mine, but the King's," objected Pitou.
"They are the people's," corrected Billet, whereupon the other who
knew the speaker was incapable of wronging a man to the extent of a
mustard-seed, went up to the nearest corpse with multiplied caution,
and making sure he was lifeless, he took his musket, cartridge-box and
sabre.
He wanted to take his hamlet but had his doubts about the defensive
armor being "confisticatable" like the offensive arms; while
deliberating he listened towards Vendome Square.
"It seems to me that the Royal Germans are coming back again," he said.
Indeed a troop of horse was heard coming at the walking gait.
"Quick, quick, they are returning," said Pitou.
"Billet looked around to see what means of resistance were offered, but
the place was almost deserted.
"Let us be off," said he.
He went down Chartres Street, followed by Pitou who dragged the sabre
after him by the scabbard-straps, not knowing how it ought to be hooked
up till Billet showed him.
"You looked like a traveling-tinker," he said.
On Louis XV. Square they met the column, started off to go over the
river to the Invalides but stopped short. The bridges and the Champs
Elysées were blocked.
"Try the Tuileries Garden bridge," suggested Billet.
It was quite a simple proposition; the mob accepted it and followed
Billet: but swords shining half way to the Gardens indicated that
cavalry intercepted the march to that bridge.
"These confounded dragoons are everywhere," grumbled the farmer.
"I believe we are caught," said his friend.
"Nonsense, five or six thousand men are to be caught, and we are that
strong."
The dragoons came forward, slowly, but it was an advance.
"The Royale Street is left us," said Billet; "come this way, Ange."
But a line of soldiers shut this street up.
"It looks as though you were right," said the countryman.
"Alas!" sighed Ange, who had followed him like his shadow.
All his regret at not being wrong was shown in the single word by the
tone it was spoken in.
By its clamor and motion the mob showed that it was no less sensible
than he about the quandary all were in.
Indeed, by a skillful manoeuvre, Prince Lambesq had encircled the
rioters in a bow of iron, the cord being represented by the Tuileries
garden-wall, hard to climb over, and the drawbridge railing, almost
impossible to force. Billet judged that the position was bad. Still,
being a cool fellow, full of resources when the emergency rose, he
looked round him. Seeing a pile of lumber by the riverside, he said:
"I have a notion, Pitou; come along."
Billet went up to a beam and took up one end, making a nod to his
followers as much as to say, "Take your end of it."
Pitou was bent on helping his leader without questioning: he had such
trust in him that he would have gone down into sheol without grumbling
on the length of the road or how the heat increased as they got on. The
pair returned to the waterside walk, carrying a burden which half a
dozen ordinary men would have sunk under.
Strength is always an object of admiration to the crowd. Although very
closely packed, way was made for the peasants. Catching an idea of the
work ahead, some men walked before the joist-carriers, calling out:
"Clear the way, there!"
"I say, Father Billet, are we to make a long job of this?" asked Pitou
when they had gone some thirty strides.
"Up to that gateway."
"I can go it," replied the young man laconically, as he saw it was
about as much farther and the crowd, having an inkling of the plan,
cheered them.
Besides, some helped to carry and the beam went on much more rapidly.
In five minutes they stood before the gates.
"Now, then, heave and all together," said Billet.
"I understand," said Pitou. "This is what the ancient Romans called a
battering-ram."
The piece of timber set going, was banged with a terrible blow against
the gate lock.
The military on guard within the gardens, ran to check this inroad. But
at the third swing the gates yielded, and the multitude flowed into the
dark gap.
By the movement, Prince Lambesq perceived that the netted rioters had
found an outlet. Rage mastered him to see his prisoners escape. He
started his horse forward to learn what was the matter, when his men,
thinking he was leading a charge, followed him closely. The horses were
heated with their recent work, and could not be restrained. Thirsting
for retaliation for their check on Palais Royale Square, the men did
not probably try hard to restrain them.
The prince, seeing that it was impossible to stop the movement, let
himself be carried away, and a shriek of frightful intensity from women
and children rose to heaven as a claim for its vengeance.
A dreadful scene took place in the gloom. The victims went mad with
pain while they who charged were mad with fury.
A kind of defense was organized and chairs were flung at the cavalry.
Struck on the head, Prince Lambesq replied with a sword cut, without
thinking that he was striking the innocent for the guilty. An old man
was sent to the ground. Billet saw this and he uttered a shout. At the
same time he took aim with his rifle and the prince would have been
killed but for his horse having reared at the very instant. It received
the bullet in the neck and died instantly.
The fallen Prince was believed slain, and the dragoons rushed into the
Tuileries Gardens, firing their pistols at the fugitives.
But they, having plenty of room, dodged behind the trees.
Billet tranquilly reloaded his fowling-piece.
"You are right, Pitou, we have come to town on time," he said.
"And I think I am becoming brave," remarked Pitou, standing the
pistol fire of a horseman and spilling him out of the saddle with his
musketoon; "it is not so hard as I thought."
"That's so," replied the other, "but useless bravery is bravado. Come
along, and don't let your sword trip you up."
"Wait for me, Father Billet, for I do not know Paris like you do; and
without you, I shall go astray."
"Come, come," said the farmer, leading him along the river terrace
until they had distanced the troops advancing by the quays as rapidly
as they could to help the Lambesq Dragoons, if needed.
At the end of the terrace, he sat on the parapet and jumped down on the
embankment running along the river. Pitou did the same.