The Steeples at Midnight.
For, in truth, the Insurrection is just about ripe. Thursday is
the ninth of the month August: if Forfeiture be not pronounced by
the Legislature that day, we must pronounce it ourselves.
Legislature? A poor waterlogged Legislature can pronounce
nothing. On Wednesday the eighth, after endless oratory once
again, they cannot even pronounce Accusation again Lafayette; but
absolve him,—hear it, Patriotism!—by a majority of two to one.
Patriotism hears it; Patriotism, hounded on by Prussian Terror,
by Preternatural Suspicion, roars tumultuous round the Salle de
Manége, all day; insults many leading Deputies, of the absolvent
Right-side; nay chases them, collars them with loud menace:
Deputy Vaublanc, and others of the like, are glad to take refuge
in Guardhouses, and escape by the back window. And so, next day,
there is infinite complaint; Letter after Letter from insulted
Deputy; mere complaint, debate and self-cancelling jargon: the
sun of Thursday sets like the others, and no Forfeiture
pronounced. Wherefore in fine, To your tents, O Israel!
The Mother-Society ceases speaking; groups cease haranguing:
Patriots, with closed lips now, “take one another’s arm;” walk
off, in rows, two and two, at a brisk business-pace; and vanish
afar in the obscure places of the East.[497] Santerre is ready;
or we will make him ready. Forty-seven of the Forty-eight
Sections are ready; nay Filles-Saint-Thomas itself turns up the
Jacobin side of it, turns down the Feuillant side of it, and is
ready too. Let the unlimited Patriot look to his weapon, be it
pike, be it firelock; and the Brest brethren, above all, the
blackbrowed Marseillese prepare themselves for the extreme hour!
Syndic Rœderer knows, and laments or not as the issue may turn,
that “five thousand ball-cartridges, within these few days, have
been distributed to Fédérés, at the Hôtel-de-Ville.”[498]
And ye likewise, gallant gentlemen, defenders of Royalty, crowd
ye on your side to the Tuileries. Not to a Levee: no, to a
Couchée: where much will be put to bed. Your Tickets of Entry are
needful; needfuller your blunderbusses!—They come and crowd, like
gallant men who also know how to die: old Maillé the Camp-Marshal
has come, his eyes gleaming once again, though dimmed by the
rheum of almost four-score years. Courage, Brothers! We have a
thousand red Swiss; men stanch of heart, steadfast as the granite
of their Alps. National Grenadiers are at least friends of Order;
Commandant Mandat breathes loyal ardour, will ‘answer for it on
his head.’ Mandat will, and his Staff; for the Staff, though
there stands a doom and Decree to that effect, is happily never
yet dissolved.
Commandant Mandat has corresponded with Mayor Pétion; carries a
written Order from him these three days, to repel force by force.
A squadron on the Pont Neuf with cannon shall turn back these
Marseillese coming across the River: a squadron at the Townhall
shall cut Saint-Antoine in two, “as it issues from the Arcade
Saint-Jean;” drive one half back to the obscure East, drive the
other half forward through “the Wickets of the Louvre.” Squadrons
not a few, and mounted squadrons; squadrons in the Palais Royal,
in the Place Vendôme: all these shall charge, at the right
moment; sweep this street, and then sweep that. Some new
Twentieth of June we shall have; only still more ineffectual? Or
probably the Insurrection will not dare to rise at all? Mandat’s
Squadrons, Horse-Gendarmerie and blue Guards march, clattering,
tramping; Mandat’s Cannoneers rumble. Under cloud of night; to
the sound of his _générale_, which begins drumming when men
should go to bed. It is the 9th night of August, 1792.
On the other hand, the Forty-eight Sections correspond by swift
messengers; are choosing each their “three Delegates with full
powers.” Syndic Rœderer, Mayor Pétion are sent for to the
Tuileries: courageous Legislators, when the drum beats danger,
should repair to their Salle. Demoiselle Théroigne has on her
grenadier-bonnet, short-skirted riding-habit; two pistols garnish
her small waist, and sabre hangs in baldric by her side.
Such a game is playing in this Paris Pandemonium, or City of All
the Devils!—And yet the Night, as Mayor Pétion walks here in the
Tuileries Garden, “is beautiful and calm;” Orion and the Pleiades
glitter down quite serene. Pétion has come forth, the “heat”
inside was so oppressive.[499] Indeed, his Majesty’s reception of
him was of the roughest; as it well might be. And now there is no
outgate; Mandat’s blue Squadrons turn you back at every Grate;
nay the Filles-Saint-Thomas Grenadiers give themselves liberties
of tongue, How a virtuous Mayor “shall pay for it, if there be
mischief,” and the like; though others again are full of
civility. Surely if any man in France is in straights this night,
it is Mayor Pétion: bound, under pain of death, one may say, to
smile dexterously with the one side of his face, and weep with
the other;—death if he do it not dexterously enough! Not till
four in the morning does a National Assembly, hearing of his
plight, summon him over “to give account of Paris;” of which he
knows nothing: whereby however he shall get home to bed, and only
his gilt coach be left. Scarcely less delicate is Syndic
Rœderer’s task; who must wait whether he will lament or not, till
he see the issue. Janus Bifrons, or _Mr. Facing-both-ways_, as
vernacular Bunyan has it! They walk there, in the meanwhile,
these two Januses, with others of the like double conformation;
and “talk of indifferent matters.”
Rœderer, from time to time, steps in; to listen, to speak; to
send for the Department-Directory itself, he their Procureur
Syndic not seeing how to act. The Apartments are all crowded;
some seven hundred gentlemen in black elbowing, bustling; red
Swiss standing like rocks; ghost, or partial-ghost of a Ministry,
with Rœderer and advisers, hovering round their Majesties; old
Marshall Maillé kneeling at the King’s feet, to say, He and these
gallant gentlemen are come to die for him. List! through the
placid midnight; clang of the distant stormbell! So, in very
sooth; steeple after steeple takes up the wondrous tale. Black
Courtiers listen at the windows, opened for air; discriminate the
steeple-bells:[500] this is the tocsin of Saint-Roch; that again,
is it not Saint-Jacques, named _de la Boucherie?_ Yes, Messieurs!
Or even Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, hear ye _it_ not? The same
metal that rang storm, two hundred and twenty years ago; but by a
Majesty’s order then; on Saint-Bartholomew’s Eve[501]—So go the
steeple-bells; which Courtiers can discriminate. Nay, meseems,
there is the Townhall itself; we know it by its sound! Yes,
Friends, that is the Townhall; discoursing _so_, to the Night.
Miraculously; by miraculous metal-tongue and man’s arm: Marat
himself, if you knew it, is pulling at the rope there! Marat is
pulling; Robespierre lies deep, invisible for the next forty
hours; and some men have heart, and some have as good as none,
and not even frenzy will give them any.
What struggling confusion, as the issue slowly draws on; and the
doubtful Hour, with pain and blind struggle, brings forth its
Certainty, never to be abolished!—The Full-power Delegates, three
from each Section, a Hundred and forty-four in all, got gathered
at the Townhall, about midnight. Mandat’s Squadron, stationed
there, did not hinder their entering: are they not the “Central
Committee of the Sections” who sit here usually; though in
greater number tonight? They are there: presided by Confusion,
Irresolution, and the Clack of Tongues. Swift scouts fly; Rumour
buzzes, of black Courtiers, red Swiss, of Mandat and his
Squadrons that shall charge. Better put off the Insurrection?
Yes, put it off. Ha, hark! Saint-Antoine booming out eloquent
tocsin, of its own accord!—Friends, no: ye cannot put off the
Insurrection; but must put it on, and live with it, or die with
it.
Swift now, therefore: let these actual Old Municipals, on sight
of the Full-powers, and mandate of the Sovereign elective People,
lay down their functions; and this New Hundred and forty-four
take them up! Will ye nill ye, worthy Old Municipals, go ye must.
Nay is it not a happiness for many a Municipal that he can wash
his hands of such a business; and sit there paralyzed,
unaccountable, till the Hour do bring forth; or even go home to
his night’s rest?[502] Two only of the Old, or at most three, we
retain Mayor Pétion, for the present walking in the Tuileries;
Procureur Manuel; Procureur Substitute Danton, invisible Atlas of
the whole. And so, with our Hundred and forty-four, among whom
are a Tocsin-Huguenin, a Billaud, a Chaumette; and
Editor-Talliens, and Fabre d’Eglantines, Sergents, Panises; and
in brief, either emergent, or else emerged and full-blown, the
entire Flower of unlimited Patriotism: have we not, as by magic,
made a New Municipality; ready to act in the unlimited manner;
and declare itself roundly, “in a State of Insurrection!”—First
of all, then, be Commandant Mandat sent for, with that
Mayor’s-Order of his; also let the New Municipals visit those
Squadrons that were to charge; and let the stormbell ring its
loudest;—and, on the whole, Forward, ye Hundred and forty-four;
retreat is now none for you!
Reader, fancy not, in thy languid way, that Insurrection is easy.
Insurrection is difficult: each individual uncertain even of his
next neighbour; totally uncertain of his distant neighbours, what
strength is with him, what strength is against him; certain only
that, in case of failure, his individual portion is the gallows!
Eight hundred thousand heads, and in each of them a separate
estimate of these uncertainties, a separate theorem of action
conformable to that: out of so many uncertainties, does the
certainty, and inevitable net-result never to be abolished, go
on, at all moments, bodying itself forth;—leading thee also
towards civic-crowns or an ignominious noose.
Could the Reader take an Asmodeus’s Flight, and waving open all
roofs and privacies, look down from the Tower of Notre Dame, what
a Paris were it! Of treble-voice whimperings or vehemence, of
bass-voice growlings, dubitations; Courage screwing itself to
desperate defiance; Cowardice trembling silent within barred
doors;—and all round, Dulness calmly snoring; for much Dulness,
flung on its mattresses, always sleeps. O, between the clangour
of these high-storming tocsins and that snore of Dulness, what a
gamut: of trepidation, excitation, desperation; and above it mere
Doubt, Danger, Atropos and Nox!
Fighters of this section draw out; hear that the next Section
does not; and thereupon draw in. Saint-Antoine, on this side the
River, is uncertain of Saint-Marceau on that. Steady only is the
snore of Dulness, are the Six Hundred Marseillese that know how
to die! Mandat, twice summoned to the Townhall, has not come.
Scouts fly incessant, in distracted haste; and the
many-whispering voices of Rumour. Théroigne and unofficial
Patriots flit, dim-visible, exploratory, far and wide; like
Night-birds on the wing. Of Nationals some Three thousand have
followed Mandat and his _générale;_ the rest follow each his own
theorem of the uncertainties: theorem, that one should march
rather with Saint-Antoine; innumerable theorems, that in such a
case the wholesomest were _sleep_. And so the drums beat, in made
fits, and the stormbells peal. Saint-Antoine itself does but draw
out and draw in; Commandant Santerre, over there, cannot believe
that the Marseillese and Saint Marceau will march. Thou laggard
sonorous Beer-vat, with the loud voice and timber head, is it
time now to palter? Alsatian Westermann clutches him by the
throat with drawn sabre: whereupon the Timber-headed believes. In
this manner wanes the slow night; amid fret, uncertainty and
tocsin; all men’s humour rising to the hysterical pitch; and
nothing done.
However, Mandat, on the third summons does come;—come, unguarded;
astonished to find the Municipality _new_. They question him
straitly on that Mayor’s-Order to resist force by force; on that
strategic scheme of cutting Saint-Antoine in two halves: he
answers what he can: they think it were right to send this
strategic National Commandant to the Abbaye Prison, and let a
Court of Law decide on him. Alas, a Court of Law, not Book-Law
but primeval Club-Law, crowds and jostles out of doors; all
fretted to the hysterical pitch; cruel as Fear, blind as the
Night: such Court of Law, and no other, clutches poor Mandat from
his constables; beats him down, massacres him, on the steps of
the Townhall. Look to it, ye new Municipals; ye People, in a
state of Insurrection! Blood is shed, blood must be answered
for;—alas, in such hysterical humour, more blood will flow: for
it is as with the Tiger in that; he has only to begin.
Seventeen Individuals have been seized in the Champs Elysées, by
exploratory Patriotism; they flitting dim-visible, by it flitting
dim-visible. Ye have pistols, rapiers, ye Seventeen? One of those
accursed “false Patrols;” that go marauding, with Anti-National
intent; seeking what they can spy, what they can spill! The
Seventeen are carried to the nearest Guard-house; eleven of them
escape by back passages. ‘How is this?’ Demoiselle Théroigne
appears at the front entrance, with sabre, pistols, and a train;
denounces treasonous connivance; demands, seizes, the remaining
six, that the justice of the People be not trifled with. Of which
six two more escape in the whirl and debate of the Club-Law
Court; the last unhappy Four are massacred, as Mandat was: Two
Ex-Bodyguards; one dissipated Abbé; one Royalist Pamphleteer,
Sulleau, known to us by name, Able Editor, and wit of all work.
Poor Sulleau: his _Acts of the Apostles_, and brisk
Placard-Journals (for he was an able man) come to _Finis_, in
this manner; and questionable jesting issues suddenly in horrid
earnest! Such doings usher in the dawn of the Tenth of August,
1792.
Or think what a night the poor National Assembly has had: sitting
there, “in great paucity,” attempting to debate;—quivering and
shivering; pointing towards all the thirty-two azimuths at once,
as the magnet-needle does when thunderstorm is in the air! If the
Insurrection come? If it come, and fail? Alas, in that case, may
not black Courtiers, with blunderbusses, red Swiss with bayonets
rush over, flushed with victory, and ask us: Thou undefinable,
waterlogged, self-distractive, self-destructive Legislative, what
dost thou here _unsunk?_—Or figure the poor National Guards,
bivouacking “in temporary tents” there; or standing ranked,
shifting from leg to leg, all through the weary night; New
tricolor Municipals ordering one thing, old Mandat Captains
ordering another! Procureur Manuel has ordered the cannons to be
withdrawn from the Pont Neuf; none ventured to disobey him. It
seemed certain, then, the old Staff so long doomed has finally
been dissolved, in these hours; and Mandat is not our Commandant
now, but Santerre? Yes, friends: Santerre henceforth,—surely
Mandat no more! The Squadrons that were to charge see nothing
certain, except that they are cold, hungry, worn down with
watching; that it were sad to slay French brothers; sadder to be
slain by them. Without the Tuileries Circuit, and within it, sour
uncertain humour sways these men: only the red Swiss stand
steadfast. Them their officers refresh now with a slight wetting
of brandy; wherein the Nationals, too far gone for brandy, refuse
to participate.
King Louis meanwhile had laid him down for a little sleep: his
wig when he reappeared had lost the powder on one side.[503] Old
Marshal Maillé and the gentlemen in black rise always in spirits,
as the Insurrection does not rise: there goes a witty saying now,
‘_Le tocsin ne rend pas_.’ The tocsin, like a dry milk-cow, does
not yield. For the rest, could one not proclaim Martial Law? Not
easily; for now, it seems, Mayor Pétion is gone. On the other
hand, our Interim Commandant, poor Mandat being off, “to the
Hôtel-de-Ville,” complains that so many Courtiers in black
encumber the service, are an eyesorrow to the National Guards. To
which her Majesty answers with emphasis, That they will obey all,
will suffer all, that they are sure men these.
And so the yellow lamplight dies out in the gray of morning, in
the King’s Palace, over such a scene. Scene of jostling,
elbowing, of confusion, and indeed conclusion, for the thing is
about to end. Rœderer and spectral Ministers jostle in the press;
consult, in side cabinets, with one or with both Majesties.
Sister Elizabeth takes the Queen to the window: ‘Sister, see what
a beautiful sunrise,’ right over the Jacobins church and that
quarter! How happy if the tocsin did not yield! But Mandat
returns not; Pétion is gone: much hangs wavering in the invisible
Balance. About five o’clock, there rises from the Garden a kind
of sound; as of a shout to which had become a howl, and instead
of _Vive le Roi_ were ending in _Vive la Nation_. ‘_Mon Dieu!_’
ejaculates a spectral Minister, ‘what is he doing down there?’
For it is his Majesty, gone down with old Marshal Maillé to
review the troops; and the nearest companies of them answer _so_.
Her Majesty bursts into a stream of tears. Yet on stepping from
the cabinet her eyes are dry and calm, her look is even cheerful.
“The Austrian lip, and the aquiline nose, fuller than usual, gave
to her countenance,” says Peltier,[504] “something of Majesty,
which they that did not see her in these moments cannot well have
an idea of.” O thou Theresa’s Daughter!
King Louis enters, much blown with the fatigue; but for the rest
with his old air of indifference. Of all hopes now surely the
joyfullest were, that the tocsin did not yield.