Give us Arms.
On Monday the huge City has awoke, not to its week-day industry:
to what a different one! The working man has become a fighting
man; has one want only: that of arms. The industry of all crafts
has paused;—except it be the smith’s, fiercely hammering pikes;
and, in a faint degree, the kitchener’s, cooking off-hand
victuals; for _bouche va toujours_. Women too are sewing
cockades;—not now of green, which being D’Artois colour, the
Hôtel-de-Ville has had to interfere in it; but of _red_ and
_blue_, our old Paris colours: these, once based on a ground of
constitutional _white_, are the famed TRICOLOR,—which (if
Prophecy err not) “will go round the world.”
All shops, unless it be the Bakers’ and Vintners’, are shut:
Paris is in the streets;—rushing, foaming like some Venice
wine-glass into which you had dropped poison. The tocsin, by
order, is pealing madly from all steeples. Arms, ye Elector
Municipals; thou Flesselles with thy Echevins, give us arms!
Flesselles gives what he can: fallacious, perhaps insidious
promises of arms from Charleville; order to seek arms here, order
to seek them there. The new Municipals give what they can; some
three hundred and sixty indifferent firelocks, the equipment of
the City-Watch: “a man in wooden shoes, and without coat,
directly clutches one of them, and mounts guard.” Also as hinted,
an order to all Smiths to make pikes with their whole soul.
Heads of Districts are in fervent consultation; subordinate
Patriotism roams distracted, ravenous for arms. Hitherto at the
Hôtel-de-Ville was only such modicum of indifferent firelocks as
we have seen. At the so-called Arsenal, there lies nothing but
rust, rubbish and saltpetre,—overlooked too by the guns of the
Bastille. His Majesty’s Repository, what they call
_Garde-Meuble_, is forced and ransacked: tapestries enough, and
gauderies; but of serviceable fighting-gear small stock! Two
silver-mounted cannons there are; an ancient gift from his
Majesty of Siam to Louis Fourteenth: gilt sword of the Good
Henri; antique Chivalry arms and armour. These, and such as
these, a necessitous Patriotism snatches greedily, for want of
better. The Siamese cannons go trundling, on an errand they were
not meant for. Among the indifferent firelocks are seen
tourney-lances; the princely helm and hauberk glittering amid
ill-hatted heads,—as in a time when all times and their
possessions are suddenly sent jumbling!
At the _Maison de Saint-Lazare_, Lazar-House once, now a
Correction-House with Priests, there was no trace of arms; but,
on the other hand, corn, plainly to a culpable extent. Out with
it, to market; in this scarcity of grains!—Heavens, will
“fifty-two carts,” in long row, hardly carry it to the _Halle aux
Bleds?_ Well, truly, ye reverend Fathers, was your pantry filled;
fat are your larders; over-generous your wine-bins, ye plotting
exasperators of the Poor; traitorous forestallers of bread!
Vain is protesting, entreaty on bare knees: the House of
Saint-Lazarus has that in it which comes not out by protesting.
Behold, how, from every window, it _vomits:_ mere torrents of
furniture, of bellowing and hurlyburly;—the cellars also leaking
wine. Till, as was natural, smoke rose,—kindled, some say, by the
desperate Saint-Lazaristes themselves, desperate of other
riddance; and the Establishment vanished from this world in
flame. Remark nevertheless that “a thief” (set on or not by
Aristocrats), being detected there, is “instantly hanged.”
Look also at the Châtelet Prison. The Debtors’ Prison of La Force
is broken from without; and they that sat in bondage to
Aristocrats go free: hearing of which the Felons at the Châtelet
do likewise “dig up their pavements,” and stand on the offensive;
with the best prospects,—had not Patriotism, passing that way,
“fired a volley” into the Felon world; and crushed it down again
under hatches. Patriotism consorts not with thieving and felony:
surely also Punishment, this day, hitches (if she still hitch)
after Crime, with frightful shoes-of-swiftness! “Some score or
two” of wretched persons, found prostrate with drink in the
cellars of that Saint-Lazare, are indignantly haled to prison;
the Jailor has no room; whereupon, other place of security not
suggesting itself, it is written, “_on les pendit_, they hanged
them.”[175] Brief is the word; not without significance, be it
true or untrue!
In such circumstances, the Aristocrat, the unpatriotic rich man
is packing-up for departure. But he shall not get departed. A
wooden-shod force has seized all Barriers, burnt or not: all that
enters, all that seeks to issue, is stopped there, and dragged to
the Hôtel-de-Ville: coaches, tumbrils, plate, furniture, “many
meal-sacks,” in time even “flocks and herds” encumber the Place
de Grève.[176]
And so it roars, and rages, and brays; drums beating, steeples
pealing; criers rushing with hand-bells: ‘Oyez, oyez. All men to
their Districts to be enrolled!’ The Districts have met in
gardens, open squares; are getting marshalled into volunteer
troops. No redhot ball has yet fallen from Besenval’s Camp; on
the contrary, Deserters with their arms are continually dropping
in: nay now, joy of joys, at two in the afternoon, the Gardes
Françaises, being ordered to Saint-Denis, and flatly declining,
have come over in a body! It is a fact worth many. Three thousand
six hundred of the best fighting men, with complete accoutrement;
with cannoneers even, and cannon! Their officers are left
standing alone; could not so much as succeed in “spiking the
guns.” The very Swiss, it may now be hoped, Château-Vieux and the
others, will have doubts about fighting.
Our Parisian Militia,—which some think it were better to name
National Guard,—is prospering as heart could wish. It promised to
be forty-eight thousand; but will in few hours double and
quadruple that number: invincible, if we had only arms!
But see, the promised Charleville Boxes, marked _Artillerie!_
Here, then, are arms enough?—Conceive the blank face of
Patriotism, when it found them filled with rags, foul linen,
candle-ends, and bits of wood! Provost of the Merchants, how is
this? Neither at the Chartreux Convent, whither we were sent with
signed order, is there or ever was there any weapon of war. Nay
here, in this Seine Boat, safe under tarpaulings (had not the
nose of Patriotism been of the finest), are “five thousand-weight
of gunpowder;” not coming _in_, but surreptitiously going out!
What meanest thou, Flesselles? ’Tis a ticklish game, that of
“amusing” us. Cat plays with captive mouse: but mouse with
enraged cat, with enraged National Tiger?
Meanwhile, the faster, O ye black-aproned Smiths, smite; with
strong arm and willing heart. This man and that, all stroke from
head to heel, shall thunder alternating, and ply the great
forge-hammer, till stithy reel and ring again; while ever and
anon, overhead, booms the alarm-cannon,—for the City has now got
gunpowder. Pikes are fabricated; fifty thousand of them, in
six-and-thirty hours: judge whether the Black-aproned have been
idle. Dig trenches, unpave the streets, ye others, assiduous, man
and maid; cram the earth in barrel-barricades, at each of them a
volunteer sentry; pile the whinstones in window-sills and upper
rooms. Have scalding pitch, at least boiling water ready, ye weak
old women, to pour it and dash it on Royal-Allemand, with your
old skinny arms: your shrill curses along with it will not be
wanting!—Patrols of the newborn National Guard, bearing torches,
scour the streets, all that night; which otherwise are vacant,
yet illuminated in every window by order. Strange-looking; like
some naphtha-lighted City of the Dead, with here and there a
flight of perturbed Ghosts.
O poor mortals, how ye make this Earth bitter for each other;
this fearful and wonderful Life fearful and horrible; and Satan
has his place in all hearts! Such agonies and ragings and
wailings ye have, and have had, in all times:—to be buried all,
in so deep silence; and the salt sea is not swoln with your
tears.
Great meanwhile is the moment, when tidings of Freedom reach us;
when the long-enthralled soul, from amid its chains and squalid
stagnancy, arises, were it still only in blindness and
bewilderment, and swears by Him that made it, that it will be
_free!_ Free? Understand that well, it is the deep commandment,
dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to be _free_. Freedom is
the one purport, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man’s
struggles, toilings and sufferings, in this Earth. Yes, supreme
is such a moment (if thou have known it): first vision as of a
flame-girt Sinai, in this our waste Pilgrimage,—which thenceforth
wants not its pillar of cloud by day, and pillar of fire by
night! Something it is even,—nay, something considerable, when
the chains have grown _corrosive_, poisonous, to be free “from
oppression by our fellow-man.” Forward, ye maddened sons of
France; be it towards this destiny or towards that! Around you is
but starvation, falsehood, corruption and the clam of death.
Where ye are is no abiding.
Imagination may, imperfectly, figure how Commandant Besenval, in
the Champ-de-Mars, has worn out these sorrowful hours
Insurrection all round; his men melting away! From Versailles, to
the most pressing messages, comes no answer; or once only some
vague word of answer which is worse than none. A Council of
Officers can decide merely that there is no decision: Colonels
inform him, “weeping,” that they do not think their men will
fight. Cruel uncertainty is here: war-god Broglie sits yonder,
inaccessible in his Olympus; does not descend terror-clad, does
not produce his whiff of grapeshot; sends no orders.
Truly, in the Château of Versailles all seems mystery: in the
Town of Versailles, were we there, all is rumour, alarm and
indignation. An august National Assembly sits, to appearance,
menaced with death; endeavouring to defy death. It has resolved
“that Necker carries with him the regrets of the Nation.” It has
sent solemn Deputation over to the Château, with entreaty to have
these troops withdrawn. In vain: his Majesty, with a singular
composure, invites us to be busy rather with our own duty, making
the Constitution! Foreign Pandours, and suchlike, go pricking and
prancing, with a swashbuckler air; with an eye too probably to
the _Salle des Menus_,—were it not for the “grim-looking
countenances” that crowd all avenues there.[177] Be firm, ye
National Senators; the cynosure of a firm, grim-looking people!
The august National Senators determine that there shall, at
least, be Permanent Session till this thing end. Wherein,
however, consider that worthy Lafranc de Pompignan, our new
President, whom we have named Bailly’s successor, is an old man,
wearied with many things. He is the Brother of that Pompignan who
meditated lamentably on the Book of _Lamentations:_
Saves-voux pourquoi Jérémie
Se lamentait toute sa vie?
C’est qu’il prévoyait
Que Pompignan le traduirait!
Poor Bishop Pompignan withdraws; having got Lafayette for helper
or substitute: this latter, as nocturnal Vice-President, with a
thin house in disconsolate humour, sits sleepless, with lights
unsnuffed;—waiting what the hours will bring.
So at Versailles. But at Paris, agitated Besenval, before
retiring for the night, has stept over to old M. de Sombreuil, of
the _Hôtel des Invalides_ hard by. M. de Sombreuil has, what is a
great secret, some eight-and-twenty thousand stand of muskets
deposited in his cellars there; but no trust in the temper of his
Invalides. This day, for example, he sent twenty of the fellows
down to unscrew those muskets; lest Sedition might snatch at
them; but scarcely, in six hours, had the twenty unscrewed twenty
gun-locks, or dogsheads (_chiens_) of locks,—each Invalide his
dogshead! If ordered to fire, they would, he imagines, turn their
cannon against himself.
Unfortunate old military gentlemen, it is your hour, not of
glory! Old Marquis de Launay too, of the Bastille, has pulled up
his drawbridges long since, “and retired into his interior;” with
sentries walking on his battlements, under the midnight sky,
aloft over the glare of illuminated Paris;—whom a National
Patrol, passing that way, takes the liberty of firing at; “seven
shots towards twelve at night,” which do not take effect.[178]
This was the 13th day of July, 1789; a worse day, many said, than
the last 13th was, when only hail fell out of Heaven, not madness
rose out of Tophet, ruining worse than crops!
In these same days, as Chronology will teach us, hot old Marquis
Mirabeau lies stricken down, at Argenteuil,—_not_ within sound of
these alarm-guns; for _he_ properly is not there, and only the
body of him now lies, deaf and cold forever. It was on Saturday
night that he, drawing his last life-breaths, gave up the ghost
there;—leaving a world, which would never go to his mind, now
broken out, seemingly, into deliration and the _culbute
générale_. What is it to him, departing elsewhither, on his long
journey? The old Château Mirabeau stands silent, far off, on its
scarped rock, in that “gorge of two windy valleys;” the
pale-fading spectre now of a Château: this huge World-riot, and
France, and the World itself, fades also, like a shadow on the
great still mirror-sea; and all shall be as God wills.
Young Mirabeau, sad of heart, for he loved this crabbed brave old
Father, sad of heart, and occupied with sad cares,—is withdrawn
from Public History. The great crisis transacts itself without
him.[179]