A NIGHT AT THE BASTILLE.
Pain, anguish, and suffering in human life, are always in proportion to
the strength with which a man is endowed. We will not pretend to say
that Heaven always apportions to a man's capability of endurance the
anguish with which He afflicts him; such, indeed, would not be exact,
since Heaven permits the existence of death, which is, sometimes, the
only refuge open to those who are too closely pressed--too bitterly
afflicted, as far as the body is concerned. Suffering is in proportion
to the strength which has been accorded to a person; in other words, the
weak suffer more, where the trial is the same, than the strong. And what
are the elementary principles, we may ask, which compose human strength?
Is it not--more than anything else--exercise, habit, experience? We
shall not even take the trouble to demonstrate that, for it is an axiom
in morals, as in physics. When the young king, stupefied and crushed in
every sense and feeling, found himself led to a cell in the Bastille, he
fancied that death itself is but a sleep; that it too, has its dreams as
well; that the bed had broken through the flooring of his room at Vaux;
that death had resulted from the occurrence; and that, still carrying
out his dream, as the king, Louis XIV., now no longer living, was
dreaming one of those horrors, impossible to realize in life, which is
termed dethronement, imprisonment and insult toward a sovereign who
formerly wielded unlimited power. To be present at--an actual witness,
too--of this bitterness of death; to float, undecisively, in an
incomprehensible mystery, between resemblance and reality; to hear
everything, to see everything, without interfering with a single detail
of agonizing suffering, was--so the king thought within himself--a
torture far more terrible, since it might last forever. "Is this what is
termed eternity--hell?" he murmured, at the moment the door closed upon
him, which Baisemeaux had himself shut.
He did not even look round him; and in the room, leaning with his back
against the wall, he allowed himself to be carried away by the terrible
supposition that he was already dead, as he closed his eyes, in order to
avoid looking upon something even worse still. "How can I have died?" he
said to himself, sick with terror. "The bed might have been let down by
some artificial means? But no! I do not remember to have received any
contusion, nor any shock either. Would they not rather have poisoned me
at one of my meals, or with the fumes of wax, as they did my ancestress,
Jeanne d'Albret?" Suddenly the chill of the dungeon seemed to fall like
a cloak upon Louis's shoulders. "I have seen," he said, "my father lying
dead upon his funeral couch, in his regal robes. That pale face, so calm
and worn; those hands, once so skillful, lying nerveless by his side;
those limbs stiffened by the icy grasp of death; nothing there betokened
a sleep peopled with dreams. And yet how numerous were the dreams which
Heaven might have sent that royal corpse--him, whom so many others had
preceded, hurried away by him into eternal death! No, that king was
still the king; he was enthroned still upon that funeral couch, as upon
a velvet armchair; he had not abdicated aught of his majesty. God, who
had not punished him, cannot, will not punish me, who have done
nothing."
A strange sound attracted the young man's attention. He looked round
him, and saw on the mantel-shelf, just below an enormous crucifix,
coarsely painted in fresco on the wall, a rat of enormous size engaged
in nibbling a piece of dry bread, but fixing, all the time, an
intelligent and inquiring look upon the new occupant of the cell. The
king could not resist a sudden impulse of fear and disgust; he moved
back toward the door uttering a loud cry; and, as if he but needed this
cry, which escaped from his breast almost unconsciously, to recognize
himself, Louis knew that he was alive and in full possession of his
natural senses. "A prisoner!" he cried. "I--I, a prisoner!" He looked
round him for a bell to summon some one to him. "There are no bells at
the Bastille," he said, "and it is in the Bastille I am imprisoned. In
what way can I have been made a prisoner? It must have been owing to a
conspiracy of M. Fouquet. I have been drawn to Vaux as into a snare. M.
Fouquet cannot be acting alone in this affair. His agent--. That voice I
but just now heard was M. d'Herblay's; I recognized it. Colbert was
right, then. But what is Fouquet's object? To reign in my place and
stead?--Impossible! Yet, who knows!" thought the king, relapsing into
gloom again. "Perhaps, my brother, the Duc d'Orleans, is doing that
which my uncle wished to do during the whole of his life against my
father. But the queen?--My mother, too? And La Valliere? Oh! La
Valliere, she will have been abandoned to Madame. Dear, dear girl! Yes,
it is--it must be so. They must have shut her up, as they have me. We
are separated forever!" And at this idea of separation, the poor lover
burst into a flood of tears, and sobs and groans.
"There is a governor in this place," the king continued, in a fury of
passion; "I will speak to him, I will summon him to me."
He called, but no voice replied to his. He seized hold of his chair, and
hurled it against the massive oaken door. The wood resounded against the
door, and awakened many a mournful echo in the profound depths of the
staircase; but from a human creature, not one.
This was a fresh proof for the king of the slight regard in which he was
held at the Bastille. Therefore, when his first fit of anger had passed
away, having remarked a barred window, through which there passed a
stream of light, lozenge-shaped, which must be, he knew, the bright orb
of approaching day, Louis began to call out, at first gently enough,
then louder and louder still; but no one replied to him. Twenty other
attempts which he made, one after another, obtained no other or better
success. His blood began to boil within him, and mount to his head. His
nature was such, that, accustomed to command, he trembled at the idea of
disobedience. By degrees, his anger increased more and more. The
prisoner broke the chair, which was too heavy for him to lift, and made
use of it as a battering-ram to strike against the door. He struck so
loudly, and so repeatedly, that the perspiration soon began to pour down
his face. The sound became tremendous and continuous; some stifled,
smothered cries replied in different directions. This sound produced a
strange effect upon the king. He paused to listen to it; it was the
voices of the prisoners, formerly his victims, now his companions. The
voices ascended like vapors through the thick ceilings and the massive
walls, and rose in accusation against the author of this noise, as
doubtless their sighs and tears accused, in whispered tones, the author
of their captivity. After having deprived so many people of their
liberty, the king came among them to rob them of their rest. This idea
almost drove him mad; it redoubled his strength, or rather his will,
bent upon obtaining some information, or a conclusion to the affair.
With a portion of the broken chair he recommenced the noise. At the end
of an hour, Louis heard something in the corridor, behind the door of
his cell, and a violent blow, which was returned upon the door itself,
made him cease his own.
"Are you mad?" said a rude brutal voice. "What is the matter with you
this morning?"
"This morning!" thought the king; but he said aloud, politely,
"Monsieur, are you the governor of the Bastille?"
"My good fellow, your head is out of sorts," replied the voice; "but
that is no reason why you should make such a terrible disturbance. Be
quiet, mordioux!"
"Are you the governor?" the king inquired again.
He heard a door on the corridor close; the jailer had just left, not
even condescending to reply a single word. When the king had assured
himself of his departure, his fury knew no longer any bounds. As agile
as a tiger, he leaped from the table to the window, and struck the iron
bars with all his might. He broke a pane of glass, the pieces of which
fell clanking into the courtyard below. He shouted with increasing
hoarseness, "The governor, the governor!" This access lasted fully an
hour, during which time he was in a burning fever. With his hair in
disorder and matted on his forehead, his dress torn and whitened, his
linen in shreds, the king never rested until his strength was utterly
exhausted, and it was not until then that he clearly understood the
pitiless thickness of the walls, the impenetrable nature of the cement,
invincible to all other influence but that of time, and possessed of no
other weapon but despair. He leaned his forehead against the door, and
let the feverish throbbings of his heart calm by degrees; it had seemed
as if one single additional pulsation would have made it burst.
"A moment will come when the food which is given to the prisoners will
be brought to me. I shall then see some one, I shall speak to him, and
get an answer."
And the king tried to remember at what hour the first repast of the
prisoners was served at the Bastille; he was ignorant even of this
detail. The feeling of remorse at this remembrance smote him like the
keen thrust of a dagger, that he should have lived for five-and-twenty
years a king, and in the enjoyment of every happiness, without having
bestowed a moment's thought on the misery of those who had been unjustly
deprived of their liberty. The king blushed from very shame. He felt
that Heaven, in permitting this fearful humiliation, did no more than
render to the man the same torture as was inflicted by that man upon so
many others. Nothing could be more efficacious for re-awakening his
mind to religious influences, than the prostration of his heart, and
mind, and soul beneath the feeling of such acute wretchedness. But Louis
dared not even kneel in prayer to God to entreat him to terminate his
bitter trial.
"Heaven is right," he said; "Heaven acts wisely. It would be cowardly to
pray to Heaven for that which I have so often refused to my own
fellow-creatures."
He had reached this stage of his reflections, that is, of his agony of
mind, when a similar noise was again heard behind his door, followed
this time by the sound of the key in the lock, and of the bolts being
withdrawn from their staples. The king bounded forward to be nearer to
the person who was about to enter, but, suddenly reflecting that it was
a movement unworthy of a sovereign, he paused, assumed a noble and calm
expression, which for him was easy enough, and waited with his back
turned toward the window, in order, to some extent, to conceal his
agitation from the eyes of the person who was about entering. It was
only a jailer with a basket of provisions. The king looked at the man
with restless anxiety, and waited until he spoke.
"Ah!" said the latter, "you have broken your chair. I said you had done
so! Why, you must have become quite mad."
"Monsieur," said the king, "be careful what you say; it will be a very
serious affair for you."
The jailer placed the basket on the table, and looked at his prisoner
steadily.
"What do you say?" he said.
"Desire the governor to come to me," added the king, in accents full of
calm dignity.
"Come, my boy," said the turnkey, "you have always been very quiet and
reasonable, but you are getting vicious, it seems, and I wish you to
know it in time. You have broken your chair, and made a great
disturbance; that is an offense punishable by imprisonment in one of the
lower dungeons. Promise me not to begin over again, and I will not say a
word about it to the governor."
"I wish to see the governor," replied the king, still controlling his
passion.
"He will send you off to one of the dungeons, I tell you: so take care."
"I insist upon it, do you hear?"
"Ah! ah! your eyes are becoming wild again. Very good! I shall take away
your knife."
And the jailer did what he said, quitted the prisoner, and closed the
door, leaving the king more astounded, more wretched, and more isolated
than ever. It was useless, though he tried it, to make the same noise
again on his door, and equally useless that he threw the plates and
dishes out of the window; not a single sound was heard in answer. Two
hours afterward he could not be recognized as a king, a gentleman, a
man, a human being; he might rather be called a madman, tearing the door
with his nails, trying to tear up the flooring of his cell, and uttering
such wild and fearful cries that the old Bastille seemed to tremble to
its very foundations for having revolted against its master.
As for the governor, the jailer did not even think of disturbing him;
the turnkeys and the sentinels had reported the occurrence to him, but
what was the good of it? were not these madmen common enough in the
fortress? and were not the walls still stronger than they? M. de
Baisemeaux, thoroughly impressed with what Aramis had told him, and in
perfect conformity with the king's order, hoped only that one thing
might happen; namely, that the madman Marchiali might be mad enough to
hang himself to the canopy of his bed, or to one of the bars of the
window. In fact, the prisoner was anything but a profitable investment
for M. Baisemeaux, and became more annoying than agreeable to him. These
complications of Seldon and Marchiali--the complications, first, of
setting at liberty and then imprisoning again, the complications arising
from the strong likeness in question--had at last found a very proper
_dénouement_. Baisemeaux even thought he had remarked that D'Herblay
himself was not altogether dissatisfied at it.
"And then, really," said Baisemeaux to his next in command, "an
ordinary prisoner is already unhappy enough in being a prisoner; he
suffers quite enough indeed to induce one to hope charitably enough that
his death may not be far distant. With still greater reason, then, when
the prisoner has gone mad, and might bite and make a terrible
disturbance in the Bastille; why, in that case, it is not simply an act
of mere charity to wish him dead; it would be almost a good and even
commendable action, quietly to put him out of his misery."
And the good-natured governor thereupon sat down to his late breakfast.