Avignon.
But quitting generalities, what strange Fact is this, in the far
South-West, towards which the eyes of all men do now, in the end
of October, bend themselves? A tragical combustion, long smoking
and smouldering unluminous, has now burst into flame there.
Hot is that Southern Provençal blood: alas, collisions, as was
once said, must occur in a career of Freedom; different
directions will produce such; nay different _velocities_ in the
same direction will! To much that went on there History, busied
elsewhere, would not specially give heed: to troubles of Uzez,
troubles of Nismes, Protestant and Catholic, Patriot and
Aristocrat; to troubles of Marseilles, Montpelier, Arles; to
Aristocrat Camp of Jalès, that wondrous real-imaginary Entity,
now fading pale-dim, then always again glowing forth deep-hued
(in the Imagination mainly);—ominous magical, “an Aristocrat
_picture_ of war done naturally!” All this was a tragical deadly
combustion, with plot and riot, tumult by night and by day; but a
_dark_ combustion, not luminous, not noticed; which now, however,
one cannot help noticing.
Above all places, the unluminous combustion in Avignon and the
Comtat Venaissin was fierce. Papal Avignon, with its Castle
rising sheer over the Rhone-stream; beautifullest Town, with its
purple vines and gold-orange groves: why must foolish old rhyming
Réné, the last Sovereign of Provence, bequeath it to the Pope and
Gold Tiara, not rather to Louis Eleventh with the Leaden Virgin
in his hatband? For good and for evil! Popes, Anti-popes, with
their pomp, have dwelt in that Castle of Avignon rising sheer
over the Rhone-stream: there Laura de Sade went to hear mass; her
Petrarch twanging and singing by the Fountain of Vaucluse hard
by, surely in a most melancholy manner. This was in the old days.
And now in these new days, such issues do come from a squirt of
the pen by some foolish rhyming Réné, after centuries, this is
what we have: Jourdan _Coupe-tête_, leading to siege and warfare
an Army, from three to fifteen thousand strong, called the
Brigands of Avignon; which title they themselves accept, with the
addition of an epithet, “The _brave_ Brigands of Avignon!” It is
even so. Jourdan the Headsman fled hither from that Chatelet
Inquest, from that Insurrection of Women; and began dealing in
madder; but the scene was rife in other than dye-stuffs; so
Jourdan shut his madder shop, and has risen, for he was the man
to do it. The tile-beard of Jourdan is shaven off; his fat visage
has got coppered and studded with black carbuncles; the Silenus
trunk is swollen with drink and high living: he wears blue
National uniform with epaulettes, “an enormous sabre, two
horse-pistols crossed in his belt, and other two smaller,
sticking from his pockets;” styles himself General, and is the
tyrant of men.[414] Consider this one fact, O Reader; and what
sort of facts must have preceded it, must accompany it! Such
things come of old Réné; and of the question which has risen,
Whether Avignon cannot now cease wholly to be Papal and become
French and free?
For some twenty-five months the confusion has lasted. Say three
months of arguing; then seven of raging; then finally some
fifteen months now of fighting, and even of hanging. For already
in February 1790, the Papal Aristocrats had set up four gibbets,
for a sign; but the People rose in June, in retributive frenzy;
and, forcing the public Hangman to act, hanged four Aristocrats,
on each Papal gibbet a Papal Haman. Then were Avignon
Emigrations, Papal Aristocrats emigrating over the Rhone River;
demission of Papal Consul, flight, victory: re-entrance of Papal
Legate, truce, and new onslaught; and the various turns of war.
Petitions there were to National Assembly; Congresses of
Townships; three-score and odd Townships voting for French
Reunion, and the blessings of Liberty; while some twelve of the
smaller, manipulated by Aristocrats, gave vote the other way:
with shrieks and discord! Township against Township, Town against
Town: Carpentras, long jealous of Avignon, is now turned out in
open war with it;—and Jourdan _Coupe-tête_, your first General
being killed in mutiny, closes his dye-shop; and does there
visibly, with siege-artillery, above all with bluster and tumult,
with the “brave Brigands of Avignon,” beleaguer the rival Town,
for two months, in the face of the world!
Feats were done, doubt it not, far-famed in Parish History; but
to Universal History unknown. Gibbets we see rise, on the one
side and on the other; and wretched carcasses swinging there, a
dozen in the row; wretched Mayor of Vaison buried before
dead.[415] The fruitful seedfield, lie unreaped, the vineyards
trampled down; there is red cruelty, madness of universal choler
and gall. Havoc and anarchy everywhere; a combustion most fierce,
but _un_lucent, not to be noticed here!—Finally, as we saw, on
the 14th of September last, the National Constituent Assembly,
having sent Commissioners and heard them;[416] having heard
Petitions, held Debates, month after month ever since August
1789; and on the whole “spent thirty sittings” on this matter,
did solemnly decree that Avignon and the Comtat were incorporated
with France, and His Holiness the Pope should have what indemnity
was reasonable.
And so hereby all is amnestied and finished? Alas, when madness
of choler has gone through the blood of men, and gibbets have
swung on this side and on that, what will a parchment Decree and
Lafayette Amnesty do? Oblivious Lethe flows not _above_ ground!
Papal Aristocrats and Patriot Brigands are still an eye-sorrow to
each other; suspected, suspicious, in what they do and forbear.
The august Constituent Assembly is gone but a fortnight, when, on
Sunday the Sixteenth morning of October 1791, the unquenched
combustion suddenly becomes luminous! For Anti-constitutional
Placards are up, and the Statue of the Virgin is said to have
shed tears, and grown red.[417] Wherefore, on that morning,
Patriot l’Escuyer, one of our “six leading Patriots,” having
taken counsel with his brethren and General Jourdan, determines
on going to Church, in company with a friend or two: not to hear
mass, which he values little; but to meet all the Papalists there
in a body, nay to meet that same weeping Virgin, for it is the
Cordeliers Church; and give them a word of admonition.
Adventurous errand; which has the fatallest issue! What
L’Escuyer’s word of admonition might be no History records; but
the answer to it was a shrieking howl from the Aristocrat Papal
worshippers, many of them women. A thousand-voiced shriek and
menace; which as L’Escuyer did not fly, became a thousand-handed
hustle and jostle; a thousand-footed kick, with tumblings and
tramplings, with the pricking of semstresses stilettos, scissors,
and female pointed instruments. Horrible to behold; the ancient
Dead, and Petrarchan Laura, sleeping round it there;[418] high
Altar and burning tapers looking down on it; the Virgin quite
tearless, and of the natural stone-colour!—L’Escuyer’s friend or
two rush off, like Job’s Messengers, for Jourdan and the National
Force. But heavy Jourdan will seize the Town-Gates first; does
not run treble-fast, as he might: on arriving at the Cordeliers
Church, the Church is silent, vacant; L’Escuyer, all alone, lies
there, swimming in his blood, at the foot of the high Altar;
pricked with scissors; trodden, massacred;—gives one dumb sob,
and gasps out his miserable life for evermore.
Sight to stir the heart of any man; much more of many men,
self-styled Brigands of Avignon! The corpse of L’Escuyer,
stretched on a bier, the ghastly head girt with laurel, is borne
through the streets; with many-voiced unmelodious _Nenia;_
funeral-wail still deeper than it is loud! The copper-face of
Jourdan, of bereft Patriotism, has grown black. Patriot
Municipality despatches official Narrative and tidings to Paris;
orders numerous or innumerable arrestments for inquest and
perquisition. Aristocrats male and female are haled to the
Castle; lie crowded in subterranean dungeons there, bemoaned by
the hoarse rushing of the Rhone; cut out from help.
So lie they; waiting inquest and perquisition. Alas! with a
Jourdan Headsman for Generalissimo, with his copper-face grown
black, and armed Brigand Patriots chanting their _Nenia_, the
inquest is likely to be brief. On the next day and the next, let
Municipality consent or not, a Brigand Court-Martial establishes
itself in the subterranean stories of the Castle of Avignon;
Brigand Executioners, with naked sabre, waiting at the door, for
a Brigand verdict. Short judgment, no appeal! There is Brigand
wrath and vengeance; not unrefreshed by brandy. Close by is the
Dungeon of the _Glacière_, or Ice-Tower: there may be deeds
done—? For which language has no name!—Darkness and the shadow of
horrid cruelty envelopes these Castle Dungeons, that _Glacière_
Tower: clear only that many have entered, that few have returned.
Jourdan and the Brigands, supreme now over Municipals, over all
Authorities Patriot or Papal, reign in Avignon, waited on by
Terror and Silence.
The result of all which is that, on the 15th of November 1791, we
behold Friend Dampmartin, and subalterns beneath him, and General
Choisi above him, with Infantry and Cavalry, and proper
cannon-carriages rattling in front, with spread banners, to the
sound of fife and drum, wend, in a deliberate formidable manner,
towards that sheer Castle Rock, towards those broad Gates of
Avignon; three new National-Assembly Commissioners following at
safe distance in the rear.[419] Avignon, summoned in the name of
Assembly and Law, flings its Gates wide open; Choisi with the
rest, Dampmartin and the _Bons Enfans_, “Good Boys of
_Baufremont_,” so they name these brave Constitutional Dragoons,
known to them of old,—do enter, amid shouts and scattered
flowers. To the joy of all honest persons; to the terror only of
Jourdan Headsman and the Brigands. Nay next we behold carbuncled
swollen Jourdan himself shew copper-face, with sabre and four
pistols; affecting to talk high: engaging, meanwhile, to
surrender the Castle that instant. So the Choisi Grenadiers enter
with him there. They start and stop, passing that _Glacière_,
snuffing its horrible breath; with wild yell, with cries of ‘Cut
the Butcher down!’—and Jourdan has to whisk himself through
secret passages, and instantaneously vanish.
Be the mystery of iniquity laid bare then! A Hundred and Thirty
Corpses, of men, nay of women and even children (for the
trembling mother, hastily seized, could not leave her infant),
lie heaped in that _Glacière;_ putrid, under putridities: the
horror of the world. For three days there is mournful lifting
out, and recognition; amid the cries and movements of a
passionate Southern people, now kneeling in prayer, now storming
in wild pity and rage: lastly there is solemn sepulture, with
muffled drums, religious requiem, and all the people’s wail and
tears. Their Massacred rest now in holy ground; buried in one
grave.
And Jourdan _Coupe-tête?_ Him also we behold again, after a day
or two: in flight, through the most romantic Petrarchan
hill-country; vehemently spurring his nag; young Ligonnet, a
brisk youth of Avignon, with Choisi Dragoons, close in his rear!
With such swollen mass of a rider no nag can run to advantage.
The tired nag, spur-driven, does take the River Sorgue; but
sticks in the middle of it; firm on that _chiaro fondo di Sorga;_
and will proceed no further for spurring! Young Ligonnet dashes
up; the Copper-face menaces and bellows, draws pistol, perhaps
even snaps it; is nevertheless seized by the collar; is tied
firm, ancles under horse’s belly, and ridden back to Avignon,
hardly to be saved from massacre on the streets there.[420]
Such is the combustion of Avignon and the South-West, when it
becomes luminous! Long loud debate is in the august Legislative,
in the Mother-Society as to what now shall be done with it.
Amnesty, cry eloquent Vergniaud and all Patriots: let there be
mutual pardon and repentance, restoration, pacification, and if
so might any how be, an end! Which vote ultimately prevails. So
the South-West smoulders and welters again in an “Amnesty,” or
Non-remembrance, which alas cannot but remember, no Lethe flowing
above ground! Jourdan himself remains unchanged; gets loose again
as one not yet gallows-ripe; nay, as we transciently discern from
the distance, is “carried in triumph through the cities of the
South.”[421] What things men carry!
With which transient glimpse, of a Copper-faced Portent faring in
this manner through the cities of the South, we must quit these
regions;—and let them smoulder. They want not their Aristocrats;
proud old Nobles, not yet emigrated. Arles has its “_Chiffonne_,”
so, in symbolical cant, they name that Aristocrat
Secret-Association; Arles has its pavements piled up, by and by,
into Aristocrat barricades. Against which Rebecqui, the hot-clear
Patriot, must lead Marseilles with cannon. The Bar of Iron has
not yet risen to the top in the Bay of Marseilles; neither have
these hot Sons of the Phoceans submitted to be slaves. By clear
management and hot instance, Rebecqui dissipates that
_Chiffonne_, without bloodshed; restores the pavement of Arles.
He sails in Coast-barks, this Rebecqui, scrutinising suspicious
Martello-towers, with the keen eye of Patriotism; marches
overland with despatch, singly, or in force; to City after City;
dim scouring far and wide;[422]—argues, and if it must be,
fights. For there is much to do; Jalès itself is looking
suspicious. So that Legislator Fauchet, after debate on it, has
to propose Commissioners and a Camp on the Plain of Beaucaire:
with or without result.
Of all which, and much else, let us note only this small
consequence, that young Barbaroux, Advocate, Town-Clerk of
Marseilles, being charged to have these things remedied, arrived
at Paris in the month of February 1792. The beautiful and brave:
young Spartan, ripe in energy, not ripe in wisdom; over whose
black doom there shall flit nevertheless a certain ruddy fervour,
streaks of bright Southern tint, not wholly swallowed of Death!
Note also that the Rolands of Lyons are again in Paris; for the
second and final time. King’s Inspectorship is abrogated at
Lyons, as elsewhere: Roland has his retiring-pension to claim, if
attainable; has Patriot friends to commune with; at lowest, has a
book to publish. That young Barbaroux and the Rolands came
together; that elderly Spartan Roland liked, or even loved the
young Spartan, and was loved by him, one can fancy: and Madame—?
Breathe not, thou poison-breath, Evil-speech! That soul is
taintless, clear, as the mirror-sea. And yet if they too did look
into each other’s eyes, and each, in silence, in tragical
renunciance, did find that the other was all too lovely? _Honi
soit!_ She calls him “beautiful as Antinous:” he “will speak
elsewhere of that astonishing woman.”—A Madame d’Udon (or some
such name, for Dumont does not recollect quite clearly) gives
copious Breakfast to the Brissotin Deputies and us Friends of
Freedom, at her house in the Place Vendôme; with temporary
celebrity, with graces and wreathed smiles; not without cost.
There, amid wide babble and jingle, our plan of Legislative
Debate is settled for the day, and much counselling held. Strict
Roland is seen there, but does not go often.[423]