Produced by David Widger
MAURICE TIERNAY SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
By Charles James Lever
The Novels Of Charles Lever
Edited By His Daughter
Illustrations by A. D. M’Cormick
London
Downey And Co., Limited
12 York St. Covent Garden
1898
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
‘Maurice Tiernay was first published as a serial in ‘The Dublin
University Magazine,’ commencing in the issue for April 1850, and ending
in the issue for December 1851. It was first published in book form
(as a volume of The Parlour Library) with the following title-page
(undated):
Maurice Tiernay | The | Soldier of Fortune | By the Author of | ‘Sir
Jasper Carew’ | etc. etc. I London, | Thomas Hodgson, | 13 Paternoster
Bow.
The earliest edition which has Lever’s name on the title-page is one
published in Leipzig in 1861. This edition has the following title-page:
Maurice Tiernay | the | Soldier of Fortune, | by | Charles Lever, I
Author of ‘Charles O’Malley,’ etc. I Copyright Edition. | In two VOLUMES
| VOL. I. | LEIPZIG | BERNHARD TAUCH-NITZ I 1861.
NOTICE
The strangeness of some of the incidents, and the rapidity with which
events so remarkable succeeded each other, almost deterred the writer
from ever committing them to the press; nor was it till after much
consultation, and some persuasive influence on the part of friends,
that he at length yielded and decided upon so doing. Whether in that
determination his choice was a wise one, must be left to the judgment of
the reader; for himself, he has but to say that to ponder over some
of these early scenes, and turn over, in thought, some of his youthful
passages, has solaced many a weary hour of an age when men make few new
friendships, and have almost as few opportunities to cultivate old ones.
That the chief events related in these pages--such, for instance, as
every detail of the French invasion, the capture of Wolfe Tone, and
the attack on Monte di Faccio--are described with rigid exactness, the
writer is most sincere in the expression of his conviction. For the
truth of incident purely personal, it is needless to press any claim,
seeing that the hero owns no higher name than that of--A Soldier of
Fortune.
MAURICE TIERNAY
THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
CHAPTER I. ‘THE DAYS OF THE GUILLOTINE’
Neither the tastes nor the temper of the age we live in are such as
to induce any man to boast of his family nobility. We see too many
preparations around us for laying down new foundations, to think it
a suitable occasion for alluding to the ancient edifice. I will,
therefore, confine myself to saying, that I am not to be regarded as a
mere pretender because my name is not chronicled by Burke or Debrett. My
great-grandfather, after whom I am called, served on the personal staff
of King James at the Battle of the Boyne, and was one of the few who
accompanied the monarch on his flight from the field, for which act of
devotion he was created a peer of Ireland, by the style and title of
Timmahoo--Lord Tiernay, of Timmahoo the family called it--and a very
rich-sounding and pleasant designation has it always seemed to me.
The events of the time, the scanty intervals of leisure enjoyed by
the king, and other matters, prevented a due registry of my ancestors’
claims; and, in fact, when more peaceable days succeeded, it was
judged prudent to say nothing about a matter which might revive unhappy
recollections, and open old scores, seeing that there was now another
king on the throne ‘who knew not Joseph’; and so, for this reason and
many others, my greatgrandfather went back to his old appellation of
Maurice Tiernay, and was only a lord among his intimate friends and
cronies of the neighbourhood.
That I am simply recording a matter of fact, the patent of my ancestors’
nobility, now in my possession, will sufficiently attest: nor is its
existence the less conclusive, that it is inscribed on the back of his
commission as a captain in the Shanabogue Fencibles--the well-known
‘Clear-the-way-boy s’--a proud title, it is said, to which they imparted
a new reading at the memorable battle aforementioned.
The document bears the address of a small public-house called the
‘Nest,’ on the Kells road, and contains in one corner a somewhat lengthy
score for potables, suggesting the notion that his Majesty sympathised
with vulgar infirmities, and found, as the old song says, ‘that grief
and sorrow are dry.’
The prudence which for some years sealed my greatgrandfather’s lips,
lapsed, after a time, into a careless and even boastful spirit, in which
he would allude to his rank in the peerage, the place he ought to
be holding, and so on: till at last, some of the Government people,
doubtless taking a liking to the snug house and demesne of Timmahoo,
denounced him as a rebel, on which he was arrested and thrown into gaol,
where he lingered for many years, and only came out at last to find his
estate confiscated, and himself a beggar.
There was a small gathering of Jacobites in one of the towns of
Flanders, and thither he repaired; but how he lived, or how he died,
I never learned. I only know that his son wandered away to the east of
Europe, and took service in what was called Trenck’s Pandours--as jolly
a set of robbers as ever stalked the map of Europe, from one side to
the other. This was my grandfather, whose name is mentioned in various
chronicles of that estimable corps, and who was hanged at Prague
afterwards, for an attempt to carry off an archduchess of the empire,
to whom, by the way, there is good reason to believe he was privately
married. This suspicion was strengthened by the fact that his infant
child, Joseph, was at once adopted by the imperial family, and placed as
a pupil in the great military school of Vienna. From thence he obtained
a commission in the Maria Theresa Hussars, and subsequently, being sent
on a private mission to France, entered the service of Louis xvi.,
where he married a lady of the Queen’s household--a Mademoiselle de la
Lasterie--of high rank and some fortune; and with whom he lived happily
till the dreadful events of 17--, when she lost her life, beside
my father, then fighting as a Garde du Corps, on the staircase at
Versailles. How he himself escaped on that day, and what were the next
features in his history, I never knew; but when again we heard of him,
he was married to the widow of a celebrated orator of the Mountain, and
he himself an intimate friend of St. Just and Marat, and all the most
violent of the Republicans.
My father’s history about this period is involved in such obscurity, and
his second marriage followed so rapidly on the death of his first wife,
that, strange as it may seem, I never knew which of the two was my
mother--the lineal descendant of a house, noble before the Crusades,
or--the humble _bourgeoise_ of the Quartier St. Denis. What peculiar
line of political action my father followed I am unable to say, nor
whether he was suspected with or without due cause; but suspected he
certainly was, and at a time when suspicion was all-sufficient for
conviction. He was arrested, and thrown into the Temple, where I
remember I used to visit him every week; and whence I accompanied him
one morning, as he was led forth with a string of others to the Place
de Grève, to be guillotined. I believe he was accused of royalism; and
I know that a white cockade was found among his effects, and in mockery
was fastened on his shoulder on the day of his execution. This emblem,
deep dyed with blood, and still dripping, was taken up by a bystander,
and pinned on my cap, with the savage observation, ‘Voilà, it is the
proper colour; see that you profit by the way it became so.’ As, with
a bursting heart, and a head wild with terror, I turned to find my way
homeward, I felt my hand grasped by another--I looked up, and saw an old
man, whose threadbare black clothes and emaciated appearance bespoke the
priest in the times of the Convention.
‘You have no home now, my poor boy,’ said he to me; ‘come and share
mine.’
I did not ask him why. I seemed to have suddenly become reckless as to
everything present or future. The terrible scene I had witnessed had
dried up all the springs of my youthful heart; and, infant as I was, I
was already a sceptic as to everything good or generous in human nature.
I followed him, therefore, without a word, and we walked on, leaving the
thoroughfares and seeking the less frequented streets, till we arrived
in what seemed a suburban part of Paris--at least the houses were
surrounded with trees and shrubs; and at a distance I could see the
hill of Montmartre and its windmills--objects well known to me by many a
Sunday visit.
Even after my own home, the poverty of the Père Michel’s household
was most remarkable: he had but one small room, of which a miserable
settle-bed, two chairs, and a table constituted all the furniture; there
was no fireplace, a little pan for charcoal supplying the only means
for warmth or cookery; a crucifix and a few coloured prints of saints
decorated the whitewashed walls; and, with a string of wooden beads,
a cloth skull-cap, and a bracket with two or three books, made up the
whole inventory of his possessions; and yet, as he closed the door
behind him, and drew me towards him to kiss my cheek, the tears
glistened in his eyes with gratitude as he said--
‘Now, my dear Maurice, you are at home.’
‘How do you know that I am called Maurice?’ said I, in astonishment.
‘Because I was an old friend of your poor father, my child; we came from
the same country--we held the same faith, had the same hopes, and may
one day yet, perhaps, have the same fate.’
He told me that the closest friendship had bound them together for years
past, and in proof of it showed me a variety of papers which my father
had intrusted to his keeping, well aware, as it would seem, of the
insecurity of his own life.
‘He charged me to take you home with me, Maurice, should the day come
when this might come to pass. You will now live with me, and I will be
your father, so far, at least, as humble means will suffer me.’
I was too young to know how deep my debt of gratitude ought to be. I had
not tasted the sorrows of utter desertion; nor did I know from what a
hurricane of blood and anarchy Fortune had rescued me; still I accepted
the père’s benevolent offer with a thankful heart, and turned to him at
once as to all that was left to me in the world.
All this time, it may be wondered how I neither spoke nor thought of
my mother, if she were indeed such; but for several weeks before my
father’s death I had never seen her, nor did he ever once allude to her.
The reserve thus imposed upon me remained still, and I felt as though
it would have been like a treachery to his memory were I now to speak of
her whom, in his lifetime, I had not dared to mention.
The père lost no time in diverting my mind from the dreadful events I
had so lately witnessed. The next morning, soon after daybreak, I was
summoned to attend him to the little church of St. Blois, where he
said mass. It was a very humble little edifice, which once had been
the private chapel of a château, and stood in a weed-grown, neglected
garden, where broken statues and smashed fountains bore evidence of
the visits of the destroyer. A rude effigy of St. Blois, upon whom some
profane hand had stuck a Phrygian cap of liberty, and which none were
bold enough to displace, stood over the doorway; except this, not a
vestige of ornament or decoration existed. The altar, covered with
a white cloth, displayed none of the accustomed emblems; and a rude
crucifix of oak was the only symbol of the faith remaining. Small as was
the building, it was even too spacious for the few who came to worship.
The terror which prevailed on every side--the dread that devotion to
religion should be construed into an adherence to the monarchy, that
submission to God should be interpreted as an act of rebellion against
the sovereignty of human will--had gradually thinned the numbers, till
at last the few who came were only those whose afflictions had steeled
them against any reverses, and who were ready martyrs to whatever might
betide them. These were almost exclusively women--the mothers and wives
of those who had sealed their faith with their blood in the terrible
Place de Grève. Among them was one whose dress and appearance, although
not different from the rest, always created a movement of respect as she
passed in or out of the chapel. She was a very old lady, with hair white
as snow, and who led by the hand a little girl of about my own age; her
large dark eyes and brilliant complexion giving her a look of unearthly
beauty in that assemblage of furrowed cheeks, and eyes long dimmed by
weeping. It was not alone that her features were beautifully regular, or
that their lines were fashioned in the very perfection of symmetry, but
there was a certain character in the expression of the face so different
from all around it, as to be almost electrical in effect. Untouched by
the terrible calamities that weighed on every heart, she seemed, in
the glad buoyancy of her youth, to be at once above the very reach of
sorrow, like one who bore a charmed fate, and whom Fortune had exempted
from all the trials of this life. So at least did I read those features,
as they beamed upon me in such a contrast to the almost stern character
of the sad and sorrow-struck faces of the rest.
It was a part of my duty to place a footstool each morning for the
‘Marquise,’ as she was distinctively called, and on these occasions
it was that I used to gaze upon that little girl’s face with a kind of
admiring wonder that lingered in my heart for hours after. The bold
look with which she met mine, if it at first half abashed, at length
encouraged me; and as I stole noiselessly away, I used to feel as though
I carried with me some portion of that high hope which bounded within
her own heart. Strange magnetism! it seemed as though her spirit
whispered to me not to be downhearted or depressed--that the sorrows of
life came and went as shadows pass over the earth--that the season
of mourning was fast passing, and that for us the world would wear a
brighter and more glorious aspect.
Such were the thoughts her dark eyes revealed to me, and such the hopes
I caught up from her proud features.
It is easy to colour a life of monotony; any hue may soon tinge the
outer surface, and thus mine speedily assumed a hopeful cast; not the
less decided, that the distance was lost in vague uncertainty. The
nature of my studies--and the père kept me rigidly to the desk--offered
little to the discursiveness of fancy. The rudiments of Greek and
Latin, the lives of saints and martyrs, the litanies of the Church, the
invocations peculiar to certain holy-days, chiefly filled up my time,
when not sharing those menial offices which our poverty exacted from our
own hands.
Our life was of the very simplest; except a cup of coffee each morning
at daybreak, we took but one meal; our drink was always water. By what
means even the humble fare we enjoyed was procured I never knew, for I
never saw money in the père’s possession, nor did he ever appear to buy
anything.
For about two hours in the week I used to enjoy entire liberty, as the
père was accustomed every Saturday to visit certain persons of his flock
who were too infirm to go abroad. On these occasions he would leave me
with some thoughtful injunction about reflection or pious meditation,
perhaps suggesting, for my amusement, the life of St. Vincent de Paul,
or some other of those adventurous spirits whose missions among the
Indians are so replete with heroic struggles; but still with free
permission for me to walk out at large and enjoy myself as I liked best.
We lived so near the outer boulevard that I could already see the open
country from our windows; but fair and enticing as seemed the sunny
slopes of Montmartre--bright as glanced the young leaves of spring in
the gardens at its foot--I ever turned my steps into the crowded city,
and sought the thoroughfares where the great human tide rolled fullest.
There were certain spots which held a kind of supernatural influence
over me--one of these was the Temple, another was the Place de Grève.
The window at which my father used to sit, from which, as a kind of
signal, I have so often seen his red kerchief floating, I never could
pass now, without stopping to gaze at--now, thinking of him who had been
its inmate; now, wondering who might be its present occupant. It needed
not the onward current of population that each Saturday bore along, to
carry me to the Place de Grève. It was the great day of the guillotine,
and as many as two hundred were often led out to execution. Although the
spectacle had now lost every charm of excitement to the population, from
its frequency, it had become a kind of necessity to their existence,
and the sight of blood alone seemed to slake that feverish thirst for
vengeance which no sufferings appeared capable of satiating. It was
rare, however, when some great and distinguished criminal did not absorb
all the interest of the scene. It was at that period when the fierce
tyrants of the Convention had turned upon each other, and sought, by
denouncing those who had been their bosom friends, to seal their new
allegiance to the people. There was something demoniacal in the
exultation with which the mob witnessed the fate of those whom, but a
few weeks back, they had acknowledged as their guides and teachers. The
uncertainty of human greatness appeared the most glorious recompense to
those whose station debarred them from all the enjoyments of power, and
they stood by the death-agonies of their former friends with a fiendish
joy that all the sufferings of their enemies had never yielded.
To me the spectacle had all the fascination that scenes of horror
exercise over the mind of youth. I knew nothing of the terrible
conflict, nothing of the fierce passions enlisted in the struggle,
nothing of the sacred names so basely polluted, nothing of that
remorseless vengeance with which the low born and degraded were still
hounded on to slaughter. It was a solemn and a fearful sight, but it
was no more; and I gazed upon every detail of the scene with an interest
that never wandered from the spot whereon it was enacted. If the
parade of soldiers, of horse, foot, and artillery, gave these scenes
a character of public justice, the horrible mobs, who chanted ribald
songs, and danced around the guillotine, suggested the notion of popular
vengeance; so that I was lost in all my attempts to reconcile the
reasons of these executions with the circumstances that accompanied
them.
Not daring to inform the Père Michel of where I had been, I could not
ask him for any explanation; and thus was I left to pick up from the
scattered phrases of the crowd what was the guilt alleged against the
criminals. In many cases the simple word ‘Chouan,’ of which I knew not
the import, was all I heard; in others, jeering allusions to former rank
and station would be uttered; while against some the taunt would imply
that they had shed tears over others who fell as enemies of the people,
and that such sympathy was a costly pleasure to be paid for but with a
life’s-blood. Such entire possession of me had these awful sights taken,
that I lived in a continual dream of them. The sound of every cart-wheel
recalled the dull rumble of the hurdle--every distant sound seemed like
the far-off hum of the coming multitude--every sudden noise suggested
the clanking drop of the guillotine! My sleep had no other images, and
I wandered about my little round of duties pondering over this terrible
theme.
Had I been less occupied with my own thoughts, I must have seen that
the Père Michel was suffering under some great calamity. The poor
priest became wasted to a shadow; for entire days long he would taste
of nothing; sometimes he would be absent from early morning to late at
night, and when he did return, instead of betaking himself to rest,
he would drop down before the crucifix in an agony of prayer, and thus
spend more than half the night. Often and often have I, when feigning
sleep, followed him as he recited the litanies of the breviary, adding
my own muttered prayers to his, and beseeching for a mercy whose object
I knew not.
For some time his little chapel had been closed by the authorities; a
heavy padlock and two massive seals being placed upon the door, and a
notice, in a vulgar handwriting, appended, to the effect that it was by
the order of the Commissary of the Department. Could this be the source
of the père’s sorrow? or did not his affliction seem too great for such
a cause? were questions I asked myself again and again.
In this state were matters, when one morning--it was a Saturday--the
priest enjoined me to spend the day in prayer, reciting particularly the
liturgies for the dead, and all those sacred offices for those who have
just departed this life.
‘Pray unceasingly, my dear child--pray with your whole heart, as
though it were for one you loved best in the world. I shall not return,
perhaps, till late to-night; but I will kiss you then, and to-morrow we
shall go into the woods together.’
The tears fell from his cheek to mine as he said this, and his damp hand
trembled as he pressed my fingers. My heart was full to bursting at his
emotion, and I resolved faithfully to do his bidding. To watch him as he
went, I opened the sash, and as I did so, the sound of a distant drum,
the well-known muffled roll, floated on the air, and I remembered it was
the day of the guillotine--that day in which my feverish spirit turned,
as it were in relief, to the reality of blood. Remote as was the part
of the city we lived in, I could still mark the hastening steps of the
foot-passengers, as they listened to the far-off summons, and see the
tide was setting towards the fatal Place de Grève. It was a lowering,
heavy morning, overcast with clouds, and on its loaded atmosphere sounds
moved slowly and indistinctly; yet I could trace through all the din
of the great city, the incessant roll of the drums, and the loud shouts
that burst forth, from time to time, from some great multitude.
Forgetting everything save my intense passion for scenes of terror, I
hastened down the stairs into the street, and at the top of my speed
hurried to the place of execution. As I went along, the crowded streets
and thronged avenues told of some event of more than common interest;
and in the words which fell from those around me, I could trace
that some deep Royalist plot had just been discovered, and that the
conspirators would all on that day be executed. Whether it was that the
frequent sight of blood was beginning to pall upon the popular appetite,
or that these wholesale massacres interested less than the sight of
individual suffering, I know not; but certainly there was less of
exultation, less of triumphant scorn in the tone of the speakers. They
talked of the coming event as of a common occurrence, which, from mere
repetition, was gradually losing interest.
‘I thought we had done with these Chouans,’ said a man in a blouse, with
a paper cap on his head. ‘_Pardie!_ they must have been more numerous
than we ever suspected.’
‘That they were, citizen,’ said a haggard-looking fellow, whose features
showed the signs of recent strife; ‘they were the millions who gorged
and fed upon us for centuries--who sipped the red grape of Bordeaux,
while you and I drank the water of the Seine.’
‘Well, their time is come now,’ cried a third.
‘And when will ours come?’ asked a fresh-looking, dark-eyed girl, whose
dress bespoke her trade as a flower-girl, ‘or do you call this our time,
my masters, when Paris has no more pleasant sight than blood, nor any
music save the “Ça ira” that drowns the cries of the guillotine? Is this
our time, when we have lost those who gave us bread, and got in their
place only those who would feed us with carnage?’
‘Down with her! down with the Chouane! _à bas la Royaliste!_’ cried the
pale-faced fellow; and he struck the girl with his fist upon her face,
and left it covered with blood.
‘To the Lantern with her--to the Seine!’ shouted several voices; and
now, rudely seizing her by the shoulders, the mob seemed bent upon
sudden vengeance; while the poor girl, letting fall her basket, begged
with clasped hands for mercy.
‘See here, see here, comrades,’ cried a fellow, stooping down among the
flowers, ‘she is a Royalist: here are lilies hid beneath the rest.’
What sad consequences this discovery might have led to, there is no
knowing; when, suddenly, a violent rush of the crowd turned every
thought into a different direction. It was caused by a movement of the
_Gendarmerie à cheval_, who were clearing the way for the approaching
procession. I had just time to place the poor girl’s basket in her
hands, as the onward impulse of the dense mob carried me forward. I saw
her no more. A flower--I know not how it came there--was in my
bosom, and seeing that it was a lily, I placed it within my cap for
concealment.
The hoarse clangour of the bassoons--the only instruments which played
during the march--now told that the procession was approaching; and then
I could see, above the heads of the multitude, the leopard-skin helmets
of the dragoons, who led the way. Save this I could see nothing, as
I was borne along in the vast torrent towards the place of execution.
Slowly as we moved, our progress was far more rapid than that of the
procession, which was often obliged to halt from the density of the mob
in front. We arrived, therefore, at the Place a considerable time before
it; and now I found myself beside the massive wooden railing placed to
keep off the crowd from the space around the guillotine.
It was the first time I had ever stood so close to the fatal spot, and
my eyes devoured every detail with the most searching intensity. The
colossal guillotine itself, painted red, and with its massive axe
suspended aloft--the terrible basket, half filled with sawdust,
beneath--the coarse table, on which a rude jar and a cup were
placed--and, more disgusting than all, the lounging group, who, with
their newspapers in hand, seemed from time to time to watch if the
procession were approaching. They sat beneath a misshapen statue of
wood, painted red like the guillotine. This was the goddess of Liberty.
I climbed one of the pillars of the paling, and could now see the great
cart, which, like a boat upon wheels, came slowly along, dragged by six
horses. It was crowded with people, so closely packed that they could
not move their bodies, and only waved their hands, which they did
incessantly. They seemed, too, as if they were singing; but the deep
growl of the bassoons, and the fierce howlings of the mob, drowned all
other sounds. As the cart came nearer, I could distinguish the faces,
amid which were those of age and youth, men and women, bold-visaged boys
and fair girls--some, whose air bespoke the very highest station, and
beside them, the hardy peasant, apparently more amazed than terrified
at all he saw around him. On they came, the great cart surging heavily,
like a bark in a stormy sea; and now it cleft the dense ocean that
filled the Place, and I could descry the lineaments wherein the
stiffened lines of death were already marked. Had any touch of pity
still lingered in that dense crowd, there might well have been some show
of compassion for the sad convoy, whose faces grew ghastly with terror
as they drew near the horrible engine.
Down the furrowed cheek of age the heavy tears coursed freely, and sobs
and broken prayers burst forth from hearts that until now had beat high
and proudly.
‘There is the Due d’Angeac,’ cried a fellow, pointing to a venerable
old man, who was seated at the corner of the cart with an air of calm
dignity; ‘I know him well, for I was his perruquier.’
‘His hair must be content with sawdust this morning, instead of powder,’
said another; and a rude laugh followed the ruffian jest.
‘See! mark that woman with the long dark hair--that is La Bretonville,
the actress of the St. Martin.’
‘I have often seen her represent terror far more naturally,’ cried
a fashionably dressed man, as he stared at the victim through his
opera-glass.
‘Bah!’ replied his friend, ‘she despises her audience, _voilà tout_.
Look, Henri, if that little girl beside her be not Lucille, of the
Pantheon.’
‘_Parbleu!_ so it is. Why, they’ll not leave a pirouette in the Grand
Opera. _Pauvre petite_, what had you to do with politics?’
‘Her little feet ought to have saved her head any day.’
‘See how grim that old lady beside her looks; I’d swear she is more
shocked at the company she’s thrown into than the fate that awaits her.
I never saw a glance of prouder disdain than she has just bestowed on
poor Lucille.’
‘That is the old Marquise d’Estelles, the very essence of our old
nobility. They used to talk of their _mésalliance_ with the Bourbons as
the first misfortune of their house.’ ‘_Pardi!_ they have lived to learn
deeper sorrows.’ I had by this time discovered her they were speaking
of, whom I recognised at once as the old marquise of the chapel of St.
Blois. My hands nearly gave up their grasp as I gazed on those features,
which so often I had seen fixed in prayer, and which now--a thought
paler, perhaps--wore the self-same calm expression. With what
intense agony I peered into the mass, to see if the little girl, her
granddaughter, were with her; and, oh! the deep relief I felt as I saw
nothing but strange faces on every side. It was terrible to feel, as
my eyes ranged over that vast mass, where grief, and despair, and
heart-sinking terror were depicted, that I should experience a spirit
of joy and thankfulness; and yet I did so, and with my lips I uttered my
gratitude that she was spared! But I had not time for many reflections
like this; already the terrible business of the day had begun, and the
prisoners were now descending from the cart, ranging themselves, as
their names were called, in a line below the scaffold. With a
few exceptions, they took their places in all the calm of seeming
indifference. Death had long familiarised itself to their minds in a
thousand shapes. Day by day they had seen the vacant places left
by those led out to die, and if their sorrows had not rendered them
careless of life, the world itself had grown distasteful to them. In
some cases a spirit of proud scorn was manifested to the very last; and,
strange inconsistency of human nature! the very men whose licentiousness
and frivolity first evoked the terrible storm of popular fury, were the
first to display the most chivalrous courage in the terrible face of the
guillotine. Beautiful women, too, in all the pride of their loveliness,
met the inhuman stare of that mob undismayed. Nor were these traits
without their fruits. This noble spirit--this triumphant victory of the
well born and the great--was a continual insult to the populace, who saw
themselves defrauded of half their promised vengeance, and they learned
that they might kill, but they could never humiliate them. In vain they
dipped their hands in the red life-blood, and, holding up their dripping
fingers, asked--‘How did it differ from that of the people?’ Their
hearts gave the lie to the taunt; for they witnessed instances of
heroism, from grey hairs and tender womanhood, that would have shamed
the proudest deeds of their new-born chivalry!
‘Charles Grégoire Courcelles!’ shouted out a deep voice from the
scaffold.
‘That is my name,’ said a venerable-looking old gentleman, as he arose
from his seat, adding, with a placid smile, ‘but for half a century my
friends have called me the Duc de Riancourt.’
‘We have no dukes nor marquises; we know of no titles in France,’
replied the functionary. ‘All men are equal before the law.’
‘If it were so, my friend, you and I might change places; for you were
my steward, and plundered my château.’
‘Down with the Royalist--away with the aristocrat!’ shouted a number of
voices from the crowd.
‘Be a little patient, good people,’ said the old man, as he ascended the
steps with some difficulty; ‘I was wounded in Canada, and have never yet
recovered. I shall probably be better a few minutes hence.’
There was something of half simplicity in the careless way the words
were uttered that hushed the multitude, and already some expressions
of sympathy were heard; but as quickly the ribald insults of the hired
ruffians of the Convention drowned these sounds, and ‘Down with the
Royalist’ resounded on every side, while two officials assisted him to
remove his stock and bare his throat. The commissary, advancing to the
edge of the platform, and, as it were, addressing the people, read in
a hurried, slurring kind of voice, something that purported to be the
ground of the condemnation. But of this not a word could be heard. None
cared to hear the ten-thousand-time told tale of suspected Royalism,
nor would listen to the high-sounding declamation that proclaimed the
virtuous zeal of the Government--their untiring energy--their glorious
persistence in the cause of the people. The last words were as usual
responded to with an echoing shout, and the cry of ‘_Vive la République!_
rose from the great multitude.
‘_Vive le Roi!_ cried the old man, with a voice heard high above the
clamour; but the words were scarce out when the lips that uttered them
were closed in death; so sudden was the act, that a cry burst forth from
the mob, but whether in reprobation or in ecstasy I know not.
I will not follow the sad catalogue, wherein nobles, and peasants,
priests, soldiers, actors, men of obscure fortune, and women of lofty
station, succeeded each other, occupying for a brief minute every eye,
and passing away for ever. Many ascended the platform without a word;
some waved a farewell towards a distant quarter, where they suspected a
friend to be; others spent their last moments in prayer, and died in
the very act of supplication. All bore themselves with a noble and proud
courage; and now some five or six alone remained of whose fate none
seemed to guess the issue, since they had been taken from the Temple by
some mistake, and were not included in the list of the commissary. There
they sat, at the foot of the scaffold, speechless and stupefied--they
looked as though it were matter of indifference to which side their
steps should turn--to the gaol or the guillotine. Among these was the
marquise, who alone preserved her proud self-possession, and sat in all
her accustomed dignity; while close beside her an angry controversy was
maintained as to their future destiny--the commissary firmly refusing
to receive them for execution, and the delegate of the Temple, as he was
styled, as flatly asserting that he would not reconduct them to prison.
The populace soon grew interested in the dispute, and the most violent
altercations arose among the partisans of each side of the question.
Meanwhile the commissary and his assistants prepared to depart. Already
the massive drapery of red cloth was drawn over the guillotine,
and every preparation made for withdrawing, when the mob, doubtless
dissatisfied that they should be defrauded of any portion of the
entertainment, began to climb over the wooden barricades, and, with
furious cries and shouts, threaten vengeance upon any who would screen
the enemies of the people.
The troops resisted the movement, but rather with the air of men
entreating calmness than with the spirit of soldiery. It was plain to
see on which side the true force lay.
‘If you will not do it, the people will do it for you,’ whispered the
delegate to the commissary; ‘and who is to say where they will stop when
their hands once learn the trick!’
The commissary grew lividly pale, and made no reply.
‘See there!’ rejoined the other--‘they are carrying a fellow on their
shoulders yonder--they mean him to be the executioner.’
‘But I dare not--I cannot--without my orders.’
‘Are not the people sovereign?--whose will have we sworn to obey but
theirs?’
‘My own head would be the penalty if I yielded.’
‘It will be, if you resist--even now it is too late.’
And as he spoke he sprang from the scaffold, and disappeared in the
dense crowd that already thronged the space within the rails.
By this time the populace were not only masters of the area around,
but had also gained the scaffold itself, from which many of them seemed
endeavouring to harangue the mob--others contenting themselves with
imitating the gestures of the commissary and his functionaries. It was
a scene of the wildest uproar and confusion--frantic cries and screams,
ribald songs and fiendish yellings on every side. The guillotine was
again uncovered, and the great crimson drapery, torn into fragments,
was waved about like flags, or twisted into uncouth head-dresses. The
commissary, failing in every attempt to restore order peaceably, and
either not possessing a sufficient force, or distrusting the temper of
the soldiers, descended from the scaffold, and gave the order to march.
This act of submission was hailed by the mob with the most furious yell
of triumph. Up to that very moment they had never credited the bare
possibility of a victory; and now they saw themselves suddenly masters
of the field--the troops, in all the array of horse and foot, retiring
in discomfiture. The exultation knew no bounds; and, doubtless, had
there been amongst them those with skill and daring to profit by the
enthusiasm, the torrent had rushed a longer and more terrific course
than through the blood-steeped clay of the Place de Grève.
‘Here is the man we want,’ shouted a deep voice. ‘St. Just told us
t’ other day that the occasion never failed to produce one; and see,
here is “Jean Gougon”; and though he’s but two feet high, his fingers
can reach the pin of the guillotine.’
And he held aloft on his shoulders a misshapen dwarf, who was well known
on the Pont Neuf, where he gained his living by singing infamous songs,
and performing mockeries of the service of the mass. A cheer of welcome
acknowledged this speech, to which the dwarf responded by a mock
benediction, which he bestowed with all the ceremonious observance of an
archbishop. Shouts of the wildest laughter followed this ribaldry, and
in a kind of triumph they carried him up the steps, and deposited him on
the scaffold.
Ascending one of the chairs, the little wretch proceeded to address the
mob, which he did with all the ease and composure of a practised public
speaker. Not a murmur was heard in that tumultuous assemblage, as
he, with a most admirable imitation of Hébert, then the popular idol,
assured them that France was, at that instant, the envy of surrounding
nations; and that, bating certain little weaknesses on the score of
humanity--certain traits of softness and over-mercy--her citizens
realised all that ever had been said of angels. From thence he passed
on to a mimicry of Marat, of Danton, and of Robespierre--tearing off his
cravat, baring his breast, and performing all the oft-exhibited antics
of the latter, as he vociferated, in a wild scream, the well-known
peroration of a speech he had lately made--‘If we look for a glorious
morrow of freedom, the sun of our slavery must set in blood!’
However amused by the dwarfs exhibition, a feeling of impatience began
to manifest itself among the mob, who felt that, by any longer delay,
it was possible time would be given for fresh troops to arrive, and the
glorious opportunity of popular sovereignty be lost in the very hour of
victory.
‘To work--to work, Master Gougon!’ shouted hundreds of rude voices; ‘we
cannot spend our day in listening to oratory.’
‘You forget, my dear friends,’ said he blandly, ‘that this is to me a
new walk in life. I have much to learn, ere I can acquit myself worthily
to the Republic.’
‘We have no leisure for preparatory studies, Gougon,’ cried a fellow
below the scaffold.
‘Let me, then, just begin with monsieur,’ said the dwarf, pointing to
the last speaker, and a shout of laughter closed the sentence.
A brief and angry dispute now arose as to what was to be done; and it is
more than doubtful how the debate might have ended, when Gougon, with a
readiness all his own, concluded the discussion by saying--
‘I have it, citizens, I have it! There is a lady here, who, however
respectable her family and connections, will leave few to mourn her
loss. She is, in a manner, public property, and if not born on the soil,
at least a naturalised Frenchwoman. We have done a great deal for her,
and in her name, for some time back, and I am not aware of any singular
benefit she has rendered us. With your permission, then, I ‘ll begin
with her.*
‘Name, name--name her!’ was cried by thousands.
‘_La voilà_,’ said he archly, as he pointed with his thumb to the wooden
effigy of Liberty above his head.
The absurdity of the suggestion was more than enough for its success. A
dozen hands were speedily at work, and down came the goddess of Liberty!
The other details of an execution were hurried over with all the speed
of practised address, and the figure was placed beneath the drop. Down
fell the axe, and Gougon, lifting up the wooden head, paraded it about
the scaffold, crying--
‘Behold! an enemy of France. Long live the Republic, one and
indivisible!’
Loud and wild were the shouts of laughter from this brutal mockery; and
for a time it almost seemed as if the ribaldry had turned the mob from
the sterner passions of their vengeance. This hope, if one there ever
cherished it, was short-lived, and again the cry arose for blood. It
was too plain that no momentary diversion, no passing distraction,
could withdraw them from that lust for cruelty that had now grown into a
passion.
And now a bustle and movement of those around the stairs showed that
something was in preparation; and in the next moment the old marquise
was led forward between two men.
‘Where is the order for this woman’s execution?’ asked the dwarf,
mimicking the style and air of the commissary.
‘We give it--it is from us!’ shouted the mob, with one savage roar.
Gougon removed his cap, and bowed in token of obedience.
‘Let us proceed in order, citizens,’ said he gravely; ‘I see no priest
here.’
‘Shrive her yourself, Gougon; few know the mummeries better!’ cried a
voice.
‘Is there not one here can remember a prayer, or even a verse of the
offices,’ said Gougon, with a well-affected horror in his voice.
‘Yes, yes, I do,’ cried I, my zeal overcoming all sense of the mockery
in which the words were spoken; ‘I know them all by heart, and can
repeat them from “lux beatissima” down to “hora mortis”’; and as if to
gain credence for my self-laudation, I began at once to recite, in the
sing-song tone of the seminary--
‘Salve, mater salvatoris,
Fons salutis, vas honoris;
Scala coli, porta et via,
Salve semper, O Maria!’
It is possible I should have gone on to the very end, if the uproarious
laughter which rung around had not stopped me.
‘There’s a brave youth!’ cried Gougon, pointing towards me, with mock
admiration. ‘If it ever come to pass--as what may not in these strange
times?--that we turn to priestcraft again, thou shalt be the first
archbishop of Paris. Who taught thee that famous canticle?’
‘The Père Michel,’ replied I, in no way conscious of the ridicule
bestowed upon me; ‘the Père Michel of St. Blois.’
The old lady lifted up her head at these words, and her dark eyes rested
steadily upon me; and then, with a sign of her hand, she motioned to me
to come over to her.
‘Yes; let him come,’ said Gougon, as if answering the half-reluctant
glances of the crowd. And now I was assisted to descend, and passed
along over the heads of the people, till I was placed upon the scaffold.
Never can I forget the terror of that moment, as I stood within a few
feet of the terrible guillotine, and saw beside me the horrid basket
splashed with recent blood.
‘Look not at these things, child,’ said the old lady, as she took my
hand and drew me towards her, ‘but listen to me, and mark my words
well.’
‘I will, I will,’ cried I, as the hot tears rolled down my cheeks.
‘Tell the père--you will see him to-night--tell him that I have changed
my mind, and resolved upon another course, and that he is not to leave
Paris. Let them remain. The torrent runs too rapidly to last. This
cannot endure much longer. We shall be among the last victims. You hear
me, child?’
‘I do, I do,’ cried I, sobbing. ‘Why is not the Père Michel with you
now?’
‘Because he is suing for my pardon--asking for mercy where its very name
is a derision. Kneel down beside me, and repeat the “Angelus.”’
I took off my cap, and knelt down at her feet, reciting, in a voice
broken by emotion, the words of the prayer. She repeated each syllable
after me, in a tone full and unshaken, and then stooping, she took up
the lily which lay in my cap. She pressed it to her lips two or three
times passionately. ‘Give it to _her_; tell her I kissed it at my last
moment. Tell her----’
‘This “shrift” is beyond endurance. Away, holy father!’ cried Gougon, as
he pushed me rudely back, and seized the marquise by the wrist. A faint
cry escaped her. I heard no more; for, jostled and pushed about by the
crowd, I was driven to the very rails of the scaffold. Stepping beneath
these, I mingled with the mob beneath; and burning with eagerness to
escape a scene, to have witnessed which would almost have made my
heart break, I forced my way into the dense mass, and, by squeezing and
creeping, succeeded at last in penetrating to the verge of the Place. A
terrible shout, and a rocking motion of the mob, like the heavy surging
of the sea, told me that all was over; but I never looked back to the
fatal spot, but, having gained the open streets, ran at the top of my
speed towards home.