They hung in chronological order from left to right, from top to bottom,
so that one could read the whole history of the Revolution pictorially.
The Oath in the ball-room on June 20, 1789, with Mirabeau’s portrait;
the burning of the Bastille, and the head of the commandant; the
Jacobite Club, with Marat, Saint-Just, Couthon, Robespierre; the Feast
of Brotherhood on the Champ du Mars; the King’s Flight to Varennes;
Lafayette; the Girondists; the execution of the King and Queen;
the Committee of Public Welfare, with Danton and the newly hatched
Robespierre; the Reign of Terror; Charlotte Corday stabbing Marat in the
bath; Robespierre again; Feast of the Supreme Being; Voltaire’s Funeral;
Robespierre again, this time on the 9th Thermidor. Then came Buonaparte
and the Directory, mixed with Pyramids and Alps.
In the middle of the room stood a very large table. At the one end were
the bookbinder’s tools; at the other, writing materials. The inkstand
was a skull; the ruler was a fore-arm; the paper-weight was a
guillotine, and the penholder a rib.
The bookbinder himself, a centenarian, with an apostolic beard, sat and
wrote under a lantern which hung from the roof. He was the only person
visible in the room. Outside it was stormy, and the roof-plates rattled
from time to time; it was cool in the room, but not cold, for a stove
was lit in a corner, where lay the watchman’s belongings--a great
wolfskin fur-coat, a speaking trumpet, some flags, and a lantern with
variously coloured glass sides. The old man pushed his glasses up his
forehead, looked up, and spoke, though the person with whom he talked
could not be seen.
“Are you hungry?”
A voice behind the bookcase answered: “Fairly so.”
“Are you cold?”
“No, not yet.”
“Wait a little; I must just go outside and make an observation.”
“What are you writing?”
“My reminiscences.”
“Is it quiet in the town?”
“Yes, but they have gone out to Saint Cloud.”
“Then it will soon come to shooting.”
“It won’t come to shooting, but we may expect a proclamation. Be quiet
now; I must step out, and send a message. Then you will get some food
and drink; perhaps a pipe of tobacco also.”
There was silence behind the bookcase, and the old man put on his
fur-coat, lit his many-coloured lamp, took up a speaking-trumpet, and
stepped out on the balcony.
It was very dark, but the old man was familiar with his menagerie out
there on the parapet; he loved his stone monsters--the owl, the griffin,
the gorgon, and stroked them every time that he passed them. But the
creature with a man’s body, goat’s feet and horns, inspired him with a
certain awe, as it stood there leaning on its hands like a priest, and
bending forward as if to preach to the godless city or to hurl anathemas
at it. He took his stand near it, and began to signal with the lantern.
But the wind was so violent that the old man swayed, and had to put his
arm round the creature’s body, in order to support himself.
After he had stood for a time signalling with the lantern, and gazing
out into the darkness, he suddenly raised himself upright, put down the
lantern, and raised the speaking-trumpet to his mouth. Holding on to
the stone balustrade, he turned to the southern tower, and cried “Hullo!
Francis! Hallo!”
After a while a reply came through the darkness.
“Qui vive?”
“Mont-joie--Saint-Denis.”
“Sacre!” answered the other. “Ring the great bell! Ring, for heaven’s
sake!”
The watchman remained standing for a while looking at the coloured
lights on the church tower of St. Cloud. In order to be quite certain,
he repeated his signal, and received for answer: “Right understood.”
The old man sighed “Thy will be done, O Lord!” He was on the point of
returning to the turret-chamber, when the wind blew so violently, that
he had to seize the arm of the horned monster in order to stand fast.
But the figure had got loose; it yielded, and moved a little.
“He too!” muttered the old man to himself. “Nothing stands fast,
everything slips; nothing remains on which to support oneself.” He
crouched down in order not to be blown away, and so stooping, as he
walked, reached the door of the turret-chamber, which he flung open.
“The Revolution is over,” he called out to the bookcase.
“What do you say?”
“The Revolution is over! Come out, sire.”
He laid hold of the bookcase, and opened it like a door on its hinges.
It concealed a neat little room furnished in the style of Louis XV. Out
of it stepped a man of about thirty, with pale delicate features and a
melancholy aspect.
“Sire,” said the bookbinder in a humble voice, “now your time is come,
and mine runs out. I do not exactly know what has happened on this
eighteenth of Brumaire in Saint Cloud, but one thing I know: Buonaparte
has taken the helm.”
“Jaques,” answered the nobleman, “I do not wish to hurt your feelings,
but I cannot conceal my joy.”
“Don’t conceal it, sire! You have saved me from the scaffold, and I have
saved you; let us thank each other, and be quits.”
“To think that this bloody drama is ended--that this madness....”
“Sire, don’t speak so.”
His eyes began to sparkle, but he quickly changed his tone. “Let us eat
our last meal together, but in love like fellow-men; let us talk of the
past, and then part in peace. This evening we are still brothers, but
to-morrow you are the lord and I am the servant.”
“You are right. To-day I am an emigrant, tomorrow I am a count.”
The old man brought out a cold fowl, a cheese, and a bottle of wine, and
both took their places at the table.
“This wine, sire, was bottled in ‘89. It has a history, and
therefore....”
“Have you no white wine? I do not like red.”
“Is it the colour you dislike?”
“Yes, it looks like blood! You have lost a wife and four sons.”
“Why should I weep for them? They fell on the field of honour.”
“The scaffold!”
“I call the scaffold the field of honour! But you want white wine! Good!
You shall have it. You prefer the colour of tears; I prefer that of
blood!”
He opened a bottle of white wine: “_Suum cuique!_ Tastes differ. We
can now breathe again, and sleep quietly at night. That was the hardest
thing to bear during this last decade--the loss of sleep at night. The
fear of death was worse than death itself.”
“The worst for us--pardon the expression--was to see the State and
society turned topsyturvy, and brutality enthroned.”
“Wait a little! Louis XIV paid two gentlemen of the chamber twenty
thousand livres yearly to examine and carry away his night stool
every morning. The Sansculottes could not be coarser than that.
Marie Antoinette used to go and spend the night drinking with her
boon-companions, so that she returned home about eleven o’clock the next
morning exhausted; that was coarse conduct for such a fine lady.”
“You may draw the long bow to-night, Jaques; but to-morrow take care of
your head! You ought not to speak so of these high personages who have
suffered a martyr’s death.”
“Stop! stop! The King was what they call ‘a fine fellow,’ but the Queen
was a wretch. But both were justly condemned to death--both! Look you!
if Turgot could have remained at his post, the Revolution would not have
broken out. All the reforms in the State, Church, and Society, which
we--pardon the expression--have carried through could have been
carried through then, if Turgot had been allowed to put his plans into
operation. The Queen would not endure the Minister’s retrenchment of her
revenue, and plotted for his removal, and the King supported her. That
was a great crime. The second was the overthrow of Necker. Then the
Queen and her Court minxes ruled. Both King and Queen sought to stir up
foreign countries against their own; their correspondence relating
to this was discovered, and then the betrayers of their country were
condemned to death. Don’t talk of Martyrs, or I shall be angry. For I am
angry when I hear lies, and cannot control myself.”
The Count laid his hand on his sword.
“Put your sword in its sheath, young man, or otherwise....”
They sat down on opposite sides of the table, and darted angry glances
at each other.
“The ultimate causes,” continued the old man, “may be sought in heaven,
but we have here only to do with secondary causes, and those we know.
The Revolution was a Last Judgment which had to come, just as it came in
England exactly a hundred years before, in 1689.”
“But Cromwell’s republic did not last.”
“Nor does this; but it comes again! But let us rather talk of something
cheerful on this last evening. I have been present at everything; I have
a strong memory, and can forget nothing. But what shines most brightly
through all the dark days is the recollection of the day on the Champs
du Mars, the Feast of Brotherhood of July 14, ‘90. Twenty thousand
workmen were employed to clear it, but, as they could not finish the
work by the appointed day, all Paris went out. There I saw bishops,
court marshals, generals, monks, nuns, society ladies, workmen, sailors,
dustmen, and street-girls levelling the ground with hoes and spades.
Finally the King himself made up his mind to join in the work. That was
the greatest feat of equalisation which mankind have carried out; the
hills were made low, and the valleys filled. At last the great theatre
of liberty was ready. At the altar of the Fatherland a fire of perfumed
wood was kindled, and Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, with a retinue of
four hundred white-robed priests consecrated the flags. The King in
civil dress and the Queen sat on the platform, and, as the ‘first
citizens of the State,’ took the constitutional oath. All was forgotten;
all was forgiven. Half a million people, collected in one place,
animated by one spirit, felt themselves that day to be brothers and
sisters. We wept, we fell in each other’s arms, we kissed each other.
We wept to think what wretches we had been, and how good and amiable we
were now. We wept perhaps, also, because we guessed how fragile all this
was.
“And afterwards, in the evening, when Paris turned out in the streets
and market-places. Families ate their mid-day meal on the pavement;
the old and sick were carried into the open air; food and wine were
distributed at the public expense. That was the Feast of Tabernacles,
the recollection of the Exodus from Egyptian bondage; it was the
Saturnalia, the return of the Golden Age! And then....”
“Then came Marat, Danton, and Robespierre.”
“Yes! Robespierre, the most hated of all, was not worse than Louis XI
and Henry VIII.”
“A murderer.”
“The judge is not a murderer, nor is the executioner.”
“But the Golden Age passed--as it came.”
“Yet it comes again.”
“Not with Buonaparte!”
“No, not with him, but through him.”
“Who is he?”
“A Corsican, born in the same year in which France annexed his country.
He will avenge it, and, since he can never feel himself a Frenchman, he
will exploit our country only for his own purposes. But nevertheless,
in spite of his unparalleled selfishness, his wickedness and crimes, he
will serve humanity--for everything serves.”
“And afterwards?”
“Who can say? Probably things will go on as they have done hitherto;
sometimes advancing, then a halt; then again advance.”
“And then the obsolete turns up again.”
“Yes, like a drowning man. Three times he comes to the surface to
breathe, but the fourth time he remains below. Or, like an animal
chewing the cud; for some time there are small eructations,
re-mastications, and then everything is ejected through the gullet,
after going through the circle.”
“Do you believe in the return of the Golden Age?”
“Yes I believe like Thomas, when I have seen. And I have seen. At the
moment, which I now recall, on the Champs du Mars,--then I saw! We had a
forefeeling of the future, we were sure that we had had a vision of some
new order of things, but were uncertain when it would be established.”
“How long are we to wait?”
“We should not sit still and wait, but work! That makes the time pass.
The learned say that it took a million years for the Hill of Montmartre
to be deposited from the water. Now history is only three thousand years
old; for three thousand years more, men can reflect over their past,
and perhaps in six thousand an improvement may be noticeable! We are
too proud and impatient, sire. And yet things move quickly. America
was discovered only three hundred years ago, and now it is an European
republic. Africa, India, China, Japan are opened, and soon the whole
world will belong to Europe. Do you see the promise to Abraham, ‘In thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,’ is on the way to
fulfilment--on the way, I say.”
“The promise to Abraham?”
“Yes! Have not Christians, Jews, and Muhammedans a share in the
promise?”
“Christians of Abraham’s seed?”
“Through Christ, who was of Judah, we are spiritually Abraham’s seed.
One faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all!”
“I have listened to you, and must say that your faith is great, and has
delivered you.”
“As it will deliver mankind.”
The conversation now ceased, for the alarm-bell began to ring in the
south tower. The sound of it overpowered the din of the storm, and
filled the room with its vibrations, made the table and chairs shake,
and both men tremble. The old man tried to speak, but his guest heard
nothing, and only saw his lips move. Then the old man rose and pointed
to one of the many engravings.
It represented Anacharsis Clootz, the philanthropist and philosopher, in
a convent, with a crowd of people from all corners of the earth--black,
yellow, white, copper-coloured--seeking to have them admitted
as citizens into the world-republic. The Count smiled in answer
half-distrustfully, half-tolerantly. The old man tried to speak, but
could not be heard. The boom of the bell seemed to come from the depths
of ages, ringing out the past century and ringing in the new, which
would commence in a few weeks--the nineteenth century since the birth of
the Redeemer, who has promised to return, and perhaps will do so in one
way or another.
The Count sat there fingering the letter-weight in the shape of a
guillotine. Suddenly he seized it, and looked questioningly at the old
man, who nodded in the affirmative. The letter-weight was thrown into
the paper-basket.
The great bell ceased ringing, the room was quiet, and the old man, his
arms folded over his breast, spoke as though with a sigh of gratitude.
“The Revolution is over.”
“_This_ Revolution!”
“‘Tribulation worketh patience; patience, experience; experience, hope;
and hope maketh not ashamed!’”
STRINDBERG’S DEATH-BED
(From the _Aftonbladet_, Stockholm, May 15, 1912) The last time that
Strindberg was in full possession of his senses was late on Monday
afternoon (May 13th). He recognised his daughter Greta, who sat by his
bed, and her husband, Dr. Philp. He was fully aware that the end was
near. He made a sign that he wished to have his Bible, which lay on the
table by the bed. They gave it him; he took it in his hand and said:
“All that is personal is now obliterated. I have done with life and
closed the account. This is the only truth.”
He kissed his daughter, but only said, “Dear Greta.” Then he said to
Dr. Philp, “Are you still here, Henry?” After talking a little more, his
last utterance was, “Now I have said my last word. Now I talk no more.”
He kept his Bible so closely clasped to his breast as though that were
the only thing he had to hold fast before the end.
So Stromboli retreated in the gloom,
Flinging red flame and molten lava high,
A flaring portent: We, who passed it by,
Carry that lurid memory to the tomb;
Yet round its crater living flowers bloom,
The vine, fig, olive grow and fructify,
Over it laughs the blue Sicilian sky,
A paradise upon the verge of doom.
As fiery as that red volcanic blast,
Through years he wrestled with his unseen Foe,
Wailing in pain “I will not let Thee go
Unless Thou bless me who have held Thee fast,”--
And thus, like Jacob, from his overthrow,
He rose a cripple, but a prince at last.
End of Project Gutenberg’s Historical Miniatures, by August Strindberg