"TO THE BASTILE!"
Once on the river edge, the two countrymen, spying arms glitter on the
Tuileries Bridge, in all probability, not in friendly hands, lay down
in the grass beneath the trees, and held a council.
The question was, as laid down by the elder, whether they ought to stay
where they were, in comparative safety, or return into the action. He
waited for Pitou's opinion.
Pitou had grown in the farmer's estimation, from the learning he had
shown down in the country and the bravery he showed this evening. Pitou
instinctively felt this, but he was naturally so humble that he was
only the more grateful to his friend.
"Master," he said, "it is clear that you are braver and I less of
a coward than was supposed by ourselves. Horace the poet, a very
different character from you, flung down his weapons and took to his
heels at the first conflict he was in. This proves that I am more
courageous than Horace, with my musket, cartridge-box and sword to
show for it. My conclusion is that the bravest man in the world may be
killed by a bullet. Ergo, as your design in quitting the farm was to
come to Paris on an important errand----"
"By all that is blue, the casket!"
"You have hit it; and for nothing else."
"Then, if you are killed, the business will not come off."
"Quite so. When we shall have seen the doctor, we will return to
politics as a sacred duty."
"Come on then, to the college where is Sebastian Gilbert," said Billet,
rising.
"Let us go," added Pitou, rising but reluctantly so soft was the grass.
Besides good Pitou was sleepy.
"If anything happens me, you must know what to say to Dr. Gilbert in my
stead. But be mute."
Ange was not saying anything, for he was dozing.
"If I should be mortally wounded you must go to the doctor and
say--Bless me, the boy's asleep----"
Indeed, Pitou was snoring where he had sunk down again.
"After all, the college will be shut at this hour," thought Billet; "we
had better take a rest."
Dawn appeared when they had slept three hours; but the day did not
bring any change in the warlike aspect of Paris.
Only, there were no soldiers to be seen. The populace were everywhere.
They were armed with quickly made pikes, guns of which most knew
not the use, and old time weapons of which the bearers admired the
ornamentation. After the military had been withdrawn they had pillaged
the Royal Storage Magazines. Towards the City Hall a crowd rolled a
couple of small cannon. At the Cathedral and other places the general
alarm was rung on the big bells. Out from between the flagstones, so to
say, oozed the lowest of the low, legions of men and women, if human
they were, pale, haggard, and ill-clad, who had been yelling "Bread!"
the night before, but howled for "Weapons!" now.
Nothing was more sinister than these spectres who had been stealing
into the capital from all the country round during the last few months.
They slipped silently through the bars and installed themselves in the
town like ghouls in a cemetery.
On this day all France, represented in the capital by these
starvelings, called out to the King: "Make us free!" while howling to
heaven: "Feed us."
Meanwhile Billet and his pupil were proceeding to the college. On the
way they saw the barricades growing up, with even children lending
a hand and the richest like the poorest contributing some object
that would build the wall. Among the crowds Billet recognized one or
two French Guardsmen by their uniform, who were drilling squads and
teaching the use of firearms, with the women and boys looking on.
The college was insurrection also. The boys had driven out the masters
and were attacking the gates to get out with threats which terrified
the tearful principal.
"Who of you is Sebastian Gilbert?" demanded Billet in his stentor's
voice after regarding the intestine war.
"I am he," replied a boy of fifteen, of almost girlish beauty, who was
helping three or four schoolfellows to bring up a ladder with which to
scale the wall as they could not force the lock. "What do you want of
me?"
"Are you going to take him away?" asked the head teacher, alarmed by
the sight of two armed men one of whom, the speaker, was covered with
blood.
The boy was also looking at them without recognizing his foster-brother
who had grown out of all reason since he left him and was farther
disguised by the martial harness.
"Take away Dr. Gilbert's son into that infernal rumpus?" said the
yeoman: "Expose him to some ugly blow? oh, dear, no."
"You see, you mad fellow, Sebastian, that your friends do not approve
of your attempt," said the principal. "For these gentlemen do appear to
be your friends. Aid me, gentlemen, and ye, my children, obey me, when
I command, and entreat."
"Keep my mates if you will," replied young Gilbert with a firmness
marvellous at his age: "but I must go forth. I am not in the position
of these; my father has been arrested and is imprisoned--he is in the
tyrant's power."
"Yes, yes," shouted the boys; "Sebastian is right; they have locked up
his father, and as the people are opening the prisons, they must set
his father free."
"Eh? have they arrested Dr. Gilbert?" roared the farmer, shaking the
gates: "Death of my life! little Catherine was right."
"Yes, they have taken away my father," continued little Gilbert, "and
that is why I want to get a gun and fight till I deliver my father."
This plan was hailed by a hundred shrill voices: "Yes, give us
weapons--let us fight."
At this, the mob outside the gates ran at them to give the scholars
passage. The principal threw himself on his knees to supplicate both
parties, crying:
"Friends, friends, spare tender youth!"
"Spare them? of course we will," said an old soldier: "they will be
just the chaps to form a cadet corps with."
"But they are a sacred deposit entrusted to me by their parents,"
continued the head teacher; "I owe my life to them, so, in heaven's
name, do not take away my lambs."
Hooting from both sides of the wall killed his doleful entreaties.
Billet stepped forward, and interposed between the soldiers and the mob
and the schoolboys.
"The old gentleman is right," he said. "The youngsters are a sacred
trust. Let men go and fight and get knocked over, that is their duty,
but children are the seed for the future."
A disapproving murmur was heard.
"Who grumbles?" demanded the farmer; "I am sure it is not a father.
Now, I am a father; I have had two men killed in my arms this last
night; it is their blood on my breast--see!"
He showed the stains to the assemblage with a grand gesture
electrifying all.
"Yesterday, I was fighting at the Palais Royale and in the Tuileries
Garden," resumed the farmer; "and this lad fought by my side; but then
he has no father or mother: and besides he is almost a man grown."
Pitou looked proud.
"I shall be fighting again to-day; but I do not want anybody to say the
Parisians could not thrash the enemy until they brought the children to
help them."
"The man's right," chorussed the soldiers and women. "No children in
the fighting. Keep them in."
"Oh, thank you, sir," said the head master to Billet, trying to shake
hands with him through the bars.
"And above all take good care of Gilbert," said the latter.
"Keep me in? I tell you they shall not," cried the boy, livid with
anger as he struggled in the grasp of the school servants.
"Let me go in, and I undertake to quiet him."
The crowd divided and let the farmer and Pitou go into the schoolyard.
Already three or four French Guards and a dozen other soldiers
instinctively stood sentry at the gates and prevented the young
insurgents from bolting out.
Billet went straight up to Sebastian and taking his fine white hands in
his large, horny ones, said:
"Sebastian, do you not know Farmer Billet, who farms your father's own
land?"
"Yes, sir, I know you now."
"And this lad with me?"
"It must be Ange Pitou."
Pitou threw himself on the other's neck, blubbering with joy.
"If they have taken away your father, I will bring him back. I, and the
rest of us. Why not? yesterday we had a turn-up with the Austrians and
we saw the flat of their backs."
"In token of which here is a cartridge-box one of them has no farther
use for," added Ange.
"Will we not liberate his father?" cried Billet to the mob, who shouted
an assent.
"But my father is in the Bastile," said Sebastian, shaking his head in
melancholy. "None can take the Bastile."
"What were you going to do then, had you got out?"
"I should have gone under the Bastile walls and when my father was out
walking on the ramparts, where they tell me the prisoners come for an
airing, I should have shown myself to him."
"But if the sentinels shot you when they caught you making signs to a
prisoner?"
"I should have died under my father's eyes."
"Death of all the devils, you are a bad boy. To want to get killed
under your father's eyes! To make him die of grief in his cell when he
has nobody but you to live for, and one he loves so well. Plainly you
have no good heart, Sebastian."
"A bad heart," whimpered Pitou as Billet repulsed the boy.
While the boy was musing sadly, the farmer admired the noble face,
white and pearly; the fiery eye, fine and ironical mouth, eagle nose
and vigorous chin, revealing nobility of race and of spirit.
"You say your father has been put in the Bastile? why?" he inquired.
"Because he is a friend of Washington and Lafayette; has fought with
the sword for the Independence of America; and with the pen for France;
is known in the Two Worlds as a hater of tyranny: because he has cursed
this Bastile where others were suffering--and now he is there himself."
"How long since?"
"He was arrested the moment he landed at Havre; at least at Lillebonne,
for he wrote me a letter from the port."
"Don't be cross, my boy: but let me have the points. I swear to deliver
your father from the Bastile or leave my bones at the foot of its
walls."
Sebastian saw that the former spoke from the bottom of his heart and he
replied:
"He had time at Lillebonne to scribble these words in pencil in a book:
"'SEBASTIAN: I am taken to the Bastile. Patience, Hope and Labor. 7th
July, 1789. P. S.--I am arrested for Liberty's cause. I have a son
at Louis-the-Great College, Paris. The finder of this book is begged
to bear this note on to my son Sebastian Gilbert, in the name of
humanity.'"
"And the book?" inquired Billet, breathless with emotion.
"He put a gold piece in the book, tied a string round it, and threw it
out of the window. The Parish Priest found it and picked out a sturdy
fellow among his flock, to whom he said:
"'Leave twelve francs with your family who are without bread. With the
other twelve go carry this book to Paris, to a poor boy whose father
has been taken away from him because he loves the people too well.' The
young man got in yesterday at noon: he handed me the book and thus I
knew of the arrest."
"Good, this makes me friends with the priests again!" exclaimed Billet.
"A pity they are not all built on this pattern. What about the peasant?"
"He went back last evening, hoping to carry his family the five francs
he had saved on the journey."
"How handsome of him," said Billet. "Oh, the people are good for
something, boy."
"Now, you know all: you promised if I told you, to restore me my
father."
"I said I should or get killed. Now show me that book."
The boy drew from his pocket a copy of Rousseau's "Social Contract."
Billet kissed where the doctor's hand had traced the appeal.
"Now, be calm," he said: "I am going to fetch your father from the
Bastile."
"Madman," said the principal, grasping his hands; "how will you get at
a prisoner of state?"
"By taking the Bastile," replied the farmer.
Some guardsmen laughed and the merriment became general.
"Hold on," said Billet, casting his blazing glance around him. "What is
this Bogey's Castle, anyhow?"
"Only stones," said a soldier.
"And iron," said another.
"And fire," concluded a third. "Mind you do not burn your fingers, my
hero."
"Yes, he'll get burnt," cried the crowd.
"What," roared the peasant, "have you got no pickaxes, you Parisians,
that you are afraid of stone walls? no bullets for you to shrink from
steel? no powder when they fire on you? You must be cowards, then,
dastards; machines fit for slavery. A thousand demons! Is there no
man with a heart who will come with me and Pitou to have a go at this
Bastile of the King? I am Billet, farmer in the Ile-de-France section,
and I am going to knock at that door. Come on!"
Billet had risen to the summit of sublime audacity. The enflamed and
quivering multitude around him shouted:
"Down with the Bastile!"
Sebastian wished to cling to Billet, but he gently put him aside.
"Your father bade you hope and have patience while you worked. Well, we
are going to work, too--only the other name for our work is slaying and
destroying."
The youth did not say a word, but hiding his face in his hands he went
off into spasms which compelled them to take him into the sick ward.
"On, to the Bastile!" called out Billet.
"To the Bastile," echoed Pitou.
"To the Bastile," thundered three thousand persons, a cry which was to
become that of the entire population of Paris.