Death.
In the early days of November, there is one transient glimpse of
things that is to be noted: the last transit to his long home of
Philippe d’Orléans Egalité. Philippe was “decreed accused,” along
with the Girondins, much to his and their surprise; but not tried
along with them. They are doomed and dead, some three days, when
Philippe, after his long half-year of durance at Marseilles,
arrives in Paris. It is, as we calculate, the third of November
1793.
On which same day, two notable Female Prisoners are also put in
ward there: Dame Dubarry and Josephine Beauharnais! Dame whilom
Countess Dubarry, Unfortunate-female, had returned from London;
they snatched her, not only as Ex-harlot of a whilom Majesty, and
therefore suspect; but as having “furnished the Emigrants with
money.” Contemporaneously with whom, there comes the wife of
Beauharnais, soon to be the widow: she that is Josephine Tascher
Beauharnais; that shall be Josephine Empress Buonaparte, for a
black Divineress of the Tropics prophesied long since that she
should be a Queen and more. Likewise, in the same hours, poor
Adam Lux, nigh turned in the head, who, according to Foster, “has
taken no food these three weeks,” marches to the Guillotine for
his Pamphlet on Charlotte Corday: he “sprang to the scaffold;”
said he “died for her with great joy.” Amid such
fellow-travellers does Philippe arrive. For, be the month named
Brumaire year 2 of Liberty, or November year 1793 of Slavery, the
Guillotine goes always, _Guillotine va toujours_.
Enough, Philippe’s indictment is soon drawn, his jury soon
convinced. He finds himself made guilty of Royalism, Conspiracy
and much else; nay, it is a guilt in him that he voted Louis’s
Death, though he answers, ‘I voted in my soul and conscience.’
The doom he finds is death forthwith; this present sixth dim day
of November is the last day that Philippe is to see. Philippe,
says Montgaillard, thereupon called for breakfast: sufficiency of
“oysters, two cutlets, best part of an excellent bottle of
claret;” and consumed the same with apparent relish. A
Revolutionary Judge, or some official Convention Emissary, then
arrived, to signify that he might still do the State some service
by revealing the truth about a plot or two. Philippe answered
that, on him, in the pass things had come to, the State had, he
thought, small claim; that nevertheless, in the interest of
Liberty, he, having still some leisure on his hands, was willing,
were a reasonable question asked him, to give reasonable answer.
And so, says Montgaillard, he lent his elbow on the mantel-piece,
and conversed in an under-tone, with great seeming composure;
till the leisure was done, or the Emissary went his ways.
At the door of the Conciergerie, Philippe’s attitude was erect
and easy, almost commanding. It is five years, all but a few
days, since Philippe, within these same stone walls, stood up
with an air of graciosity, and asked King Louis, ‘Whether it was
a Royal Session, then, or a Bed of Justice?’ O Heaven!—Three poor
blackguards were to ride and die with him: some say, they
objected to such company, and had to be flung in, neck and
heels;[695] but it seems not true. Objecting or not objecting,
the gallows-vehicle gets under way. Philippe’s dress is remarked
for its elegance; greenfrock, waistcoat of white _piqué_, yellow
buckskins, boots clear as Warren: his air, as before, entirely
composed, impassive, not to say easy and Brummellean-polite.
Through street after street; slowly, amid execrations;—past the
Palais Egalité whilom Palais-Royal! The cruel Populace stopped
him there, some minutes: Dame de Buffon, it is said, looked out
on him, in Jezebel head-tire; along the ashlar Wall, there ran
these words in huge tricolor print, REPUBLIC ONE AND INDIVISIBLE;
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY OR DEATH: _National Property_.
Philippe’s eyes flashed hellfire, one instant; but the next
instant it was gone, and he sat impassive, Brummellean-polite. On
the scaffold, Samson was for drawing of his boots: ‘tush,’ said
Philippe, ‘they will come better off _after;_ let us have done,
_dépêchons-nous!_’
So Philippe was not without virtue, then? God forbid that there
should be any living man without it! He had the virtue to keep
living for five-and-forty years;—other virtues perhaps more than
we know of. Probably no mortal ever had such things recorded of
him: such facts, and also such lies. For he was a _Jacobin Prince
of the Blood;_ consider what a combination! Also, unlike any
Nero, any Borgia, he lived in the Age of Pamphlets. Enough for
us: Chaos _has_ reabsorbed him; may it late or never bear his
like again!—Brave young Orleans Egalité, deprived of all, only
not deprived of himself, is gone to Coire in the Grisons, under
the name of Corby, to teach Mathematics. The Egalité Family is at
the darkest depths of the Nadir.
A far nobler Victim follows; one who will claim remembrance from
several centuries: Jeanne-Marie Phlipon, the Wife of Roland.
Queenly, sublime in her uncomplaining sorrow, seemed she to
Riouffe in her Prison. “Something more than is usually found in
the looks of women painted itself,” says Riouffe,[696] “in those
large black eyes of hers, full of expression and sweetness. She
spoke to me often, at the Grate: we were all attentive round her,
in a sort of admiration and astonishment; she expressed herself
with a purity, with a harmony and prosody that made her language
like music, of which the ear could never have enough. Her
conversation was serious, not cold; coming from the mouth of a
beautiful woman, it was frank and courageous as that of a great
men.” “And yet her maid said: ‘Before you, she collects her
strength; but in her own room, she will sit three hours
sometimes, leaning on the window, and weeping.’” She had been in
Prison, liberated once, but recaptured the same hour, ever since
the first of June: in agitation and uncertainty; which has
gradually settled down into the last stern certainty, that of
death. In the Abbaye Prison, she occupied Charlotte Corday’s
apartment. Here in the Conciergerie, she speaks with Riouffe,
with Ex-Minister Clavière; calls the beheaded Twenty-two ‘_Nos
amis_, our Friends,’—whom we are soon to follow. During these
five months, those _Memoirs_ of hers were written, which all the
world still reads.
But now, on the 8th of November, “clad in white,” says Riouffe,
“with her long black hair hanging down to her girdle,” she is
gone to the Judgment Bar. She returned with a quick step; lifted
her finger, to signify to us that she was doomed: her eyes seemed
to have been wet. Fouquier-Tinville’s questions had been
“brutal;” offended female honour flung them back on him, with
scorn, not without tears. And now, short preparation soon done,
she shall go her last road. There went with her a certain
Lamarche, “Director of Assignat printing;” whose dejection she
endeavoured to cheer. Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, she
asked for pen and paper, ‘to write the strange thoughts that were
rising in her;’[697] a remarkable request; which was refused.
Looking at the Statue of Liberty which stands there, she says
bitterly: ‘O Liberty, what things are done in thy name!’ For
Lamarche’s sake, she will die first; shew him how easy it is to
die: ‘Contrary to the order’ said Samson.—‘Pshaw, you cannot
refuse the last request of a Lady;’ and Samson yielded.
Noble white Vision, with its high queenly face, its soft proud
eyes, long black hair flowing down to the girdle; and as brave a
heart as ever beat in woman’s bosom! Like a white Grecian Statue,
serenely complete, she shines in that black wreck of things;—long
memorable. Honour to great Nature who, in Paris City, in the Era
of Noble-Sentiment and Pompadourism, can make a Jeanne Phlipon,
and nourish her to clear perennial Womanhood, though but on
Logics, _Encyclopédies_, and the Gospel according to
Jean-Jacques! Biography will long remember that trait of asking
for a pen ‘to write the strange thoughts that were rising in
her.’ It is as a little light-beam, shedding softness, and a kind
of sacredness, over all that preceded: so in her too there was an
Unnameable; she too was a Daughter of the Infinite; there were
mysteries which Philosophism had not dreamt of!—She left long
written counsels to her little Girl; she said her Husband would
not survive her.
Still crueller was the fate of poor Bailly, First National
President, First Mayor of Paris: doomed now for Royalism,
Fayettism; for that Red-Flag Business of the Champ-de-Mars;—one
may say in general, for leaving his Astronomy to meddle with
Revolution. It is the 10th of November 1793, a cold bitter
drizzling rain, as poor Bailly is led through the streets;
howling Populace covering him with curses, with mud; waving over
his face a burning or smoking mockery of a Red Flag. Silent,
unpitied, sits the innocent old man. Slow faring through the
sleety drizzle, they have got to the Champ-de-Mars: Not there!
vociferates the cursing Populace; Such blood ought not to stain
an Altar of the Fatherland; not there; but on that dungheap by
the River-side! So vociferates the cursing Populace; Officiality
gives ear to them. The Guillotine is taken down, though with
hands numbed by the sleety drizzle; is carried to the River-side,
is there set up again, with slow numbness; pulse after pulse
still counting itself out in the old man’s weary heart. For hours
long; amid curses and bitter frost-rain! ‘Bailly, thou
tremblest,’ said one. ‘_Mon ami_, it is for cold,’ said Bailly,
‘_c’est de froid_.’ Crueller end had no mortal.[698]
Some days afterwards, Roland hearing the news of what happened on
the 8th, embraces his kind Friends at Rouen, leaves their kind
house which had given him refuge; goes forth, with farewell too
sad for tears. On the morrow morning, 16th of the month, “some
four leagues from Rouen, Paris-ward, near Bourg-Baudoin, in M.
Normand’s Avenue,” there is seen sitting leant against a tree,
the figure of rigorous wrinkled man; stiff now in the rigour of
death; a cane-sword run through his heart; and at his feet this
writing: “Whoever thou art that findest me lying, respect my
remains: they are those of a man who consecrated all his life to
being useful; and who has died as he lived, virtuous and honest.”
“Not fear, but indignation, made me quit my retreat, on learning
that my Wife had been murdered. I wished not to remain longer on
an Earth polluted with crimes.”[699]
Barnave’s appearance at the Revolutionary Tribunal was of the
bravest; but it could not stead him. They have sent for him from
Grenoble; to pay the common smart, Vain is eloquence, forensic or
other, against the dumb Clotho-shears of Tinville. He is still
but two-and-thirty, this Barnave, and has known such changes.
Short while ago, we saw him at the top of Fortune’s Wheel, his
word a law to all Patriots: and now surely he is at the _bottom_
of the Wheel; in stormful altercation with a Tinville Tribunal,
which is dooming him to die![700] And Pétion, once also of the
Extreme Left, and named _Pétion Virtue_, where is he? Civilly
dead; in the Caves of Saint-Emilion; to be devoured of dogs. And
Robespierre, who rode along with him on the shoulders of the
people, is in Committee of _Salut;_ civilly alive: not to live
always. So giddy-swift whirls and spins this immeasurable
_tormentum_ of a Revolution; wild-booming; not to be followed by
the eye. Barnave, on the Scaffold, stamped his foot; and looking
upwards was heard to ejaculate, ‘This then is my reward?’
Deputy Ex-Procureur Manuel is already gone; and Deputy Osselin,
famed also in August and September, is about to go: and Rabaut,
discovered treacherously between his two walls, and the Brother
of Rabaut. National Deputies not a few! And Generals: the memory
of General Custine cannot be defended by his Son; his Son is
already guillotined. Custine the Ex-Noble was replaced by
Houchard the Plebeian: he too could not prosper in the North; for
him too there was no mercy; he has perished in the Place de la
Revolution, after attempting suicide in Prison. And Generals
Biron, Beauharnais, Brunet, whatsoever General prospers not;
tough old Lückner, with his eyes grown rheumy; Alsatian
Westermann, valiant and diligent in La Vendée: _none of them
can_, as the Psalmist sings, _his soul from death deliver_.
How busy are the Revolutionary Committees; Sections with their
Forty Halfpence a-day! Arrestment on arrestment falls quick,
continual; followed by death. Ex-Minister Clavière has killed
himself in Prison. Ex-Minister Lebrun, seized in a hayloft, under
the disguise of a working man, is instantly conducted to
death.[701] Nay, withal, is it not what Barrère calls “coining
money on the Place de la Révolution?” For always the “property of
the guilty, if property he have,” is confiscated. To avoid
accidents, we even make a Law that suicide shall not defraud us;
that a criminal who kills himself does not the less incur
forfeiture of goods. Let the guilty tremble, therefore, and the
suspect, and the rich, and in a word all manner of culottic men!
Luxembourg Palace, once Monsieur’s, has become a huge loathsome
Prison; Chantilly Palace too, once Condé’s:—and their Landlords
are at Blankenberg, on the wrong side of the Rhine. In Paris are
now some Twelve Prisons; in France some Forty-four Thousand:
thitherward, thick as brown leaves in Autumn, rustle and travel
the suspect; shaken down by Revolutionary Committees, they are
swept thitherward, as into their storehouse,—to be consumed by
Samson and Tinville. “The Guillotine goes not ill, _ La
Guillotine ne va pas mal_.”