The Night of Spurs.
This comes of mysterious Escorts, and a new Berline with eleven
horses: “he that has a secret should not only hide it, but hide
that he has it to hide.” Your first Military Escort has exploded
self-destructive; and all Military Escorts, and a suspicious
Country will now be up, explosive; comparable _not_ to victorious
thunder. Comparable, say rather, to the first stirring of an
Alpine Avalanche; which, once stir it, as here at
Sainte-Menehould, will spread,—all round, and on and on, as far
as Stenai; thundering with wild ruin, till Patriot Villagers,
Peasantry, Military Escorts, new Berline and Royalty are
down,—jumbling in the Abyss!
The thick shades of Night are falling. Postillions crack the
whip: the Royal Berline is through Clermont, where Colonel Comte
de Damas got a word whispered to it; is safe through, towards
Varennes; rushing at the rate of double drink-money: an Unknown
“_Inconnu_ on horseback” shrieks earnestly some hoarse whisper,
not audible, into the rushing Carriage-window, and vanishes, left
in the night.[387] August Travellers palpitate; nevertheless
overwearied Nature sinks every one of them into a kind of sleep.
Alas, and Drouet and Clerk Guillaume spur; taking side-roads, for
shortness, for safety; scattering abroad that moral-certainty of
theirs; which flies, a bird of the air carrying it!
And your rigorous Quartermaster spurs; awakening hoarse
trumpet-tone, as here at Clermont, calling out Dragoons gone to
bed. Brave Colonel de Damas has them mounted, in part, these
Clermont men; young Cornet Remy dashes off with a few. But the
Patriot Magistracy is out here at Clermont too; National Guards
shrieking for ball-cartridges; and the Village “illuminates
itself;”—deft Patriots springing out of bed; alertly, in shirt or
shift, striking a light; sticking up each his farthing candle, or
penurious oil-cruise, till all glitters and glimmers; so deft are
they! A _camisado_, or shirt-tumult, every where: stormbell set
a-ringing; village-drum beating furious _générale_, as here at
Clermont, under illumination; distracted Patriots pleading and
menacing! Brave young Colonel de Damas, in that uproar of
distracted Patriotism, speaks some fire-sentences to what
Troopers he has: ‘Comrades insulted at Sainte-Menehould; King and
Country calling on the brave;’ then gives the fire-word, _Draw
swords_. Whereupon, alas, the Troopers only _smite_ their
sword-handles, driving them further home! ‘To me, whoever is for
the King!’ cries Damas in despair; and gallops, he with some poor
loyal Two, of the subaltern sort, into the bosom of the
Night.[388]
Night unexampled in the Clermontais; shortest of the year;
remarkablest of the century: Night deserving to be named of
Spurs! Cornet Remy, and those Few he dashed off with, has missed
his road; is galloping for hours towards Verdun; then, for hours,
across hedged country, through roused hamlets, towards Varennes.
Unlucky Cornet Remy; unluckier Colonel Damas, with whom there
ride desperate only some loyal Two! More ride not of that
Clermont Escort: of other Escorts, in other Villages, not even
Two may ride; but only all curvet and prance,—impeded by
stormbell and your Village illuminating itself.
And Drouet rides and Clerk Guillaume; and the Country
runs.—Goguelat and Duke Choiseul are plunging through morasses,
over cliffs, over stock and stone, in the shaggy woods of the
Clermontais; by tracks; or trackless, with guides; Hussars
tumbling into pitfalls, and lying “swooned three quarters of an
hour,” the rest refusing to march without them. What an
evening-ride from Pont-de-Sommerville; what a thirty hours, since
Choiseul quitted Paris, with Queen’s-valet Leonard in the chaise
by him! Black Care sits behind the rider. Thus go they plunging;
rustle the owlet from his branchy nest; champ the sweet-scented
forest-herb, queen-of-the-meadows _spilling_ her spikenard; and
frighten the ear of Night. But hark! towards twelve o’clock, as
one guesses, for the very stars are gone out: sound of the tocsin
from Varennes? Checking bridle, the Hussar Officer listens: ‘Some
fire undoubtedly!’—yet rides on, with double breathlessness, to
verify.
Yes, gallant friends that do your utmost, it is a certain sort of
fire: difficult to quench.—The Korff Berline, fairly ahead of all
this riding Avalanche, reached the little paltry Village of
Varennes about eleven o’clock; hopeful, in spite of that
horse-whispering Unknown. Do not all towns now lie behind us;
Verdun avoided, on our right? Within wind of Bouillé himself, in
a manner; and the darkest of midsummer nights favouring us! And
so we halt on the hill-top at the South end of the Village;
expecting our relay; which young Bouillé, Bouillé’s own son, with
his Escort of Hussars, was to have ready; for in this Village is
no Post. Distracting to think of: neither horse nor Hussar is
here! Ah, and stout horses, a proper relay belonging to Duke
Choiseul, do stand at hay, but in the Upper Village over the
Bridge; and we know not of them. Hussars likewise do wait, but
drinking in the taverns. For indeed it is six hours beyond the
time; young Bouillé, silly stripling, thinking the matter over
for this night, has retired to bed. And so our yellow Couriers,
inexperienced, must rove, groping, bungling, through a Village
mostly asleep: Postillions will not, for any money, go on with
the tired horses; not at least without refreshment; not they, let
the Valet in round hat argue as he likes.
Miserable! “For five-and-thirty minutes” by the King’s watch, the
Berline is at a dead stand; Round-hat arguing with Churnboots;
tired horses slobbering their meal-and-water; yellow Couriers
groping, bungling;—young Bouillé asleep, all the while, in the
Upper Village, and Choiseul’s fine team standing there at hay. No
help for it; not with a King’s ransom: the horses deliberately
slobber, Round-hat argues, Bouillé sleeps. And mark now, in the
thick night, do not two Horsemen, with jaded trot, come
clank-clanking; and start with half-pause, if one noticed them,
at sight of this dim mass of a Berline, and its dull slobbering
and arguing; then prick off faster, into the Village? It is
Drouet, he and Clerk Guillaume! Still ahead, they two, of the
whole riding hurlyburly; unshot, though some brag of having
chased them. Perilous is Drouet’s errand also; but he is an
Old-Dragoon, with his wits shaken thoroughly awake.
The Village of Varennes lies dark and slumberous; a most unlevel
Village, of inverse saddle-shape, as men write. It sleeps; the
rushing of the River Aire singing lullaby to it. Nevertheless
from the Golden Arms, _Bras d’Or_ Tavern, across that sloping
marketplace, there still comes shine of social light; comes voice
of rude drovers, or the like, who have not yet taken the
stirrup-cup; Boniface Le Blanc, in white apron, serving them:
cheerful to behold. To this _Bras d’Or_, Drouet enters, alacrity
looking through his eyes: he nudges Boniface, in all privacy,
‘_Camarade, es-tu bon Patriote_, Art thou a good Patriot?’—‘_Si
je suis!_’ answers Boniface.—‘In that case,’ eagerly whispers
Drouet—what whisper is needful, heard of Boniface alone.[389]
And now see Boniface Le Blanc bustling, as he never did for the
jolliest toper. See Drouet and Guillaume, dexterous Old-Dragoons,
instantly down blocking the Bridge, with a “furniture waggon they
find there,” with whatever waggons, tumbrils, barrels, barrows
their hands can lay hold of;—till no carriage can pass. Then
swiftly, the Bridge once blocked, see them take station hard by,
under Varennes Archway: joined by Le Blanc, Le Blanc’s Brother,
and one or two alert Patriots he has roused. Some half-dozen in
all, with National Muskets, they stand close, waiting under the
Archway, till that same Korff Berline rumble up.
It rumbles up: _Alte là!_ lanterns flash out from under
coat-skirts, bridles chuck in strong fists, two National Muskets
level themselves fore and aft through the two Coach-doors:
‘Mesdames, your Passports?’—Alas! Alas! Sieur Sausse, Procureur
of the Township, Tallow-chandler also and Grocer is there, with
official grocer-politeness; Drouet with fierce logic and ready
wit:—The respected Travelling Party, be it Baroness de Korff’s,
or persons of still higher consequence, will perhaps please to
rest itself in M. Sausse’s till the dawn strike up!
O Louis; O hapless Marie-Antoinette, fated to pass thy life with
such men! Phlegmatic Louis, art thou but lazy semi-animate phlegm
then, to the centre of thee? King, Captain-General, Sovereign
Frank! If thy heart ever formed, since it began beating under the
name of heart, any resolution at all, be it now then, or never in
this world: ‘Violent nocturnal individuals, and if it were
persons of high consequence? And if it were the King himself? Has
the King not the power, which all beggars have, of travelling
unmolested on his own Highway? Yes: it is the King; and tremble
ye to know it! The King has said, in this one small matter; and
in France, or under God’s Throne, is no power that shall gainsay.
Not the King shall ye stop here under this your miserable
Archway; but his dead body only, and answer it to Heaven and
Earth. To me, Bodyguards: Postillions, _en avant!_’—One fancies
in that case the pale paralysis of these two Le Blanc musketeers;
the drooping of Drouet’s under-jaw; and how Procureur Sausse had
melted like tallow in furnace-heat: Louis faring on; in some few
steps awakening Young Bouillé, awakening relays and hussars:
triumphant entry, with cavalcading high-brandishing Escort, and
Escorts, into Montmédi; and the whole course of French History
different!
Alas, it was not _in_ the poor phlegmatic man. Had it been in
him, French History had never come under this Varennes Archway to
decide itself.—He steps out; all step out. Procureur Sausse gives
his grocer-arms to the Queen and Sister Elizabeth; Majesty taking
the two children by the hand. And thus they walk, coolly back,
over the Marketplace, to Procureur Sausse’s; mount into his small
upper story; where straightway his Majesty “demands
refreshments.” Demands refreshments, as is written; gets
bread-and-cheese with a bottle of Burgundy; and remarks, that it
is the best Burgundy he ever drank!
Meanwhile, the Varennes Notables, and all men, official, and
non-official, are hastily drawing on their breeches; getting
their fighting-gear. Mortals half-dressed tumble out barrels, lay
felled trees; scouts dart off to all the four winds,—the tocsin
begins clanging, “the Village illuminates itself.” Very singular:
how these little Villages do manage, so adroit are they, when
startled in midnight alarm of war. Like little adroit municipal
rattle-snakes, suddenly awakened: for their stormbell rattles and
rings; their eyes glisten luminous (with tallow-light), as in
rattle-snake ire; and the Village will _sting!_ Old-Dragoon
Drouet is our engineer and generalissimo; valiant as a Ruy
Diaz:—Now or never, ye Patriots, for the Soldiery is coming;
massacre by Austrians, by Aristocrats, wars more than civil, it
all depends on you and the hour!—National Guards rank themselves,
half-buttoned: mortals, we say, still only in breeches, in
under-petticoat, tumble out barrels and lumber, lay felled trees
for barricades: the Village will _sting_. Rabid Democracy, it
would seem, is _not_ confined to Paris, then? Ah no, whatsoever
Courtiers might talk; too clearly no. This of dying for one’s
King is grown into a dying for one’s self, _against_ the King, if
need be.
And so our riding and running Avalanche and Hurlyburly has
_reached_ the Abyss, Korff Berline foremost; and may pour itself
thither, and jumble: endless! For the next six hours, need we ask
if there was a clattering far and wide? Clattering and tocsining
and hot tumult, over all the Clermontais, spreading through the
Three Bishopricks: Dragoon and Hussar Troops galloping on roads
and no-roads; National Guards arming and starting in the dead of
night; tocsin after tocsin transmitting the alarm. In some forty
minutes, Goguelat and Choiseul, with their wearied Hussars, reach
Varennes. Ah, it is no fire then; or a fire difficult to quench!
They leap the tree-barricades, in spite of National serjeant;
they enter the village, Choiseul instructing his Troopers how the
matter really is; who respond interjectionally, in their guttural
dialect, ‘_Der König; die Königinn!_’ and seem stanch. These now,
in their stanch humour, will, for one thing, beset Procureur
Sausse’s house. Most beneficial: had not Drouet stormfully
ordered otherwise; and even bellowed, in his extremity,
‘Cannoneers to your guns!’—two old honey-combed Field-pieces,
empty of all but cobwebs; the rattle whereof, as the Cannoneers
with assured countenance trundled them up, did nevertheless abate
the Hussar ardour, and produce a respectfuller ranking further
back. Jugs of wine, handed over the ranks, for the German throat
too has sensibility, will complete the business. When Engineer
Goguelat, some hour or so afterwards, steps forth, the response
to him is—a hiccuping _Vive la Nation!_
What boots it? Goguelat, Choiseul, now also Count Damas, and all
the Varennes Officiality are with the King; and the King can give
no order, form no opinion; but sits there, as he has ever done,
like clay on potter’s wheel; perhaps the absurdest of all
pitiable and pardonable clay-figures that now circle under the
Moon. He will go on, next morning, and take the National Guard
_with_ him; Sausse permitting! Hapless Queen: with her two
children laid there on the mean bed, old Mother Sausse kneeling
to Heaven, with tears and an audible prayer, to bless them;
imperial Marie-Antoinette near kneeling to Son Sausse and Wife
Sausse, amid candle-boxes and treacle-barrels,—in vain! There are
Three-thousand National Guards got in; before long they will
count Ten-thousand; tocsins spreading like fire on dry heath, or
far faster.
Young Bouillé, roused by this Varennes tocsin, has taken horse,
and—fled towards his Father. Thitherward also rides, in an almost
hysterically desperate manner, a certain Sieur Aubriot,
Choiseul’s Orderly; swimming dark rivers, our Bridge being
blocked; spurring as if the Hell-hunt were at his heels.[390]
Through the village of Dun, he, galloping still on, scatters the
alarm; at Dun, brave Captain Deslons and _his_ Escort of a
Hundred, saddle and ride. Deslons too gets into Varennes; leaving
his Hundred outside, at the tree-barricade; offers to cut King
Louis out, if he will order it: but unfortunately ‘the work
_will_ prove hot;’ whereupon King Louis has ‘no orders to
give.’[391]
And so the tocsin clangs, and Dragoons gallop; and can do
nothing, having gallopped: National Guards stream in like the
gathering of ravens: your exploding Thunder-chain, falling
Avalanche, or what else we liken it to, does play, with a
vengeance,—up now as far as Stenai and Bouillé himself.[392]
Brave Bouillé, son of the whirlwind, he saddles Royal Allemand;
speaks fire-words, kindling heart and eyes; distributes
twenty-five gold-louis a company:—Ride, Royal-Allemand,
long-famed: no Tuileries Charge and Necker-Orleans
Bust-Procession; a very King made captive, and world all to
win!—Such is the Night deserving to be named of Spurs.
At six o’clock two things have happened. Lafayette’s
Aide-de-camp, Romœuf, riding _à franc étrier_, on that old
Herb-merchant’s route, quickened during the last stages, has got
to Varennes; where the Ten thousand now furiously demand, with
fury of panic terror, that Royalty shall forthwith return
Paris-ward, that there be not infinite bloodshed. Also, on the
other side, “English Tom,” Choiseul’s _jokei_, flying with that
Choiseul relay, has met Bouillé on the heights of Dun; the
adamantine brow flushed with dark thunder; thunderous rattle of
Royal Allemand at his heels. English Tom answers as he can the
brief question, How it is at Varennes?—then asks in turn what he,
English Tom, with M. de Choiseul’s horses, is to do, and whither
to ride?—To the Bottomless Pool! answers a thunder-voice; then
again speaking and spurring, orders Royal Allemand to the gallop;
and vanishes, swearing (_en jurant_).[393] ’Tis the last of our
brave Bouillé. Within sight of Varennes, he having drawn bridle,
calls a council of officers; finds that it is in vain. King Louis
has departed, consenting: amid the clangour of universal
stormbell; amid the tramp of Ten thousand armed men, already
arrived; and say, of Sixty thousand flocking thither. Brave
Deslons, even without “orders,” darted at the River Aire with his
Hundred![394] swam one branch of it, could not the other; and
stood there, dripping and panting, with inflated nostril; the Ten
thousand answering him with a shout of mockery, the new Berline
lumbering Paris-ward its weary inevitable way. No help, then in
Earth; nor in an age, not of miracles, in Heaven!
That night, “Marquis de Bouillé and twenty-one more of us rode
over the Frontiers; the Bernardine monks at Orval in Luxemburg
gave us supper and lodging.”[395] With little of speech, Bouillé
rides; with thoughts that do not brook speech. Northward, towards
uncertainty, and the Cimmerian Night: towards West-Indian Isles,
for with thin Emigrant delirium the son of the whirlwind cannot
act; towards England, towards premature Stoical death; not
towards France any more. Honour to the Brave; who, be it in this
quarrel or in that, _is_ a substance and articulate-speaking
piece of Human Valour, not a fanfaronading hollow Spectrum and
squeaking and gibbering Shadow! One of the few Royalist
Chief-actors this Bouillé, of whom so much can be said.
The brave Bouillé too, then, vanishes from the tissue of our
Story. Story and tissue, faint ineffectual Emblem of that grand
Miraculous Tissue, and Living Tapestry named _French Revolution_,
which did weave itself then in very fact, “on the loud-sounding
“LOOM OF TIME!” The old Brave drop out from it, with their
strivings; and new acrid Drouets, of new strivings and colour,
come in:—as is the manner of that weaving.