REVOLUTION IS HERE!
The ex-retainer nicknamed "Forget-Not" bore a baleful grudge because
of the cruelties inflicted on his own father many years before by the
Countess's father--the cruel punishment of pouring boiling lead into
the unfortunate tenant's veins: a procedure on which the boy Chevalier
had been taught to look approvingly.
In fact ever since the elder Jean Setain displeased the then Seigneur
of the de Vaudrey estate, the affairs of the tenant family had gone to
wrack and ruin until the middle-aged son was little more than a
landless beggar and an embodied voice calling for vengeance.
The original parties of the quarrel were dead. But the feud (on the
part of Jacques-Forget-Not) had taken on a more personal aspect,
because his own sufferings were involved as well as the memory of his
father's. He had determined to kill the Chevalier, the Countess and
the Count.
In normal times the monomaniac's designs would never have reached
fruition. Now the vast public discontents converted the cringing
ex-tenant or shrieking beggar into a gaunt, long-haired, ferocious
agitator--one of the outstanding crazy figures of Great Crises!
For the Storm--long brewing in seditious Palais Royal or seething
faubourg, in the heart and conscience of patriot Dantons, the cunning
of Robespierres, the wildness of Desmoulins fire-eaters, the
starvation and misery of the people--struck the doomed country with
full force.
In the outcome the fat King Louis XVI, the hapless royal family, and
the whole supporting system of parasitic aristocracy, were hurled down
into black nothingness! The upset released our characters from the
horrors of prison immurement, only to plunge them in the more awful
tyranny of the New Terror.
* * * * *
Early in midsummer the wildest rumors reached Paris that the
Versailles government intended to put down the discontents by weight
of sword. Armies were advancing on the city, 'twas averred--cannon and
arms were being parked in the commanding squares; the King's faithful
Allemands and Swiss were about to attack the representatives of the
people and mow them down.
As a beehive, stirred by over-curious bear or by an invader's stick,
seethes and swarms in milling fury before the myriads of angry
occupants attack and overwhelm the intruder with their stings, so the
seething populace mills in widening and ever widening circles, out to
destroy--burn--slay. The ominous drum murmurs to the people of their
ancient wrongs. Artisans pick up their nearest implements, the butcher
his axe, the baker his rolling pin, the joiner his saw, the iron
worker his mallet or crowbar, rushing to join the homicidal throngs.
Vengeful leaders like Forget-Not urge them on, directing the milling
masses to the central places of the city.
At the Palais Royal gardens, later from the Cafe de Foy, Camille
Desmoulins is in his glory. See him rushing out, sibylline in face;
his hair streaming, in each hand a pistol! He springs to a table: the
police satellites are eyeing him; alive they shall not take him; not
they alive, him alive.
[Illustration: DANTON WELCOMES LAFAYETTE AND JEFFERSON, THE
REPRESENTATIVES OF AMERICA'S NEW-WON FREEDOM.]
"'Friends, shall we die like hunted hares? Us, meseems, only one cry
befits: To arms! Let universal Paris, universal France, as with the
throat of the whirlwind, resound: To arms! Friends (continues Camille)
some rallying sign! Cockades, green one; the color of hope!' As with
the flight of locusts, these green leaves; green ribands from the
neighboring shops; all green things are snatched and made cockades
of.... And now to Curtius' image shop there; to the boulevards; to the
four winds, and rest not until France be on fire!"
Ancient flint-locks, pikes and lances are replevined, and dance high,
minatory, over the heads of the mob. Storerooms of powder and musketry
are broken into and swept clean. Behold, now, a still more astonishing
sight; a rushing tide of women, impetuous, all-devouring, equipped
with brooms and household tools, descending like a snowbreak from all
directions upon the Hotel de Ville. "And now doors fly under hatchets;
the Judiths have broken the armory; have seized guns and cannon, three
money-bags," and have fired the beautiful City Hall of King Henry the
Fourth's time!
... And where the Storm breaks fiercest and the cry "Down with
Tyrants!" most loudly sounds, there Danton the revolutionist, the
pock-marked Thunderer, leads the way, whipping up new fury and moulding
them to his will with his appeal 'gainst "Starvation--oppression--ages
of injustice--vile prisons where innocent ones die under autocracy!"
Danton's voice shakes the world.
Thousands upon thousands of commoners gather for the attack on the
hated symbol of royal authority, the prison fortress of Bastille.
Look! His impassioned eloquence touches the popular sympathies of the
common soldiers who constitute the royal guard. They lower their
opposing bayonets, identify their cause with the people's, the
exultant throng rushes past.
Hurrah! The Revolution shall sweep on. The King's foreign soldiery are
the only loyal ones now. At the side of the Place de Greve the
populace throw up barricades. The conflict twixt Kingship and
democracy has begun.
The people have won more cannon and more small arms. They rake the
loyalist Swiss and Germans with a murderous fire. The foreign troops
fight to the last. They are killed or overwhelmed as the victorious
commonalty take possession of the Square. Danton who has directed the
proletariat is the popular hero.
Forget-Not has his share of the triumph too. "Come, my men," he yells.
"On to the Police Prefect's palace--let us avenge the wrongs of police
tyranny!" For in this dreadful hour the baleful Jacques-Forget-Not
remembers a private vengeance--his followers need no second urging to
haste with him to sack and slaughter....
Fox-like, Maximilien Robespierre, the "people's advocate," has watched
from a safe recess the issue of the battle. Not for him, the risking
of his precious skin! Later, in the councils of the new democratic
State, he shall sway men to his purposes....
And now the mob, re-enforced by many of the popular soldiery, seeks
the Bastille. Our previous description of the system of lettres de
cachet and the wholesale imprisonments without warrant of law, will
have given readers some idea of the hate with which this fortress of
injustice was commonly regarded. Many of the attackers, no doubt, had
friends or relatives immured there. 'Twas the monstrous and visible
crime of the Kingship--the object all had immediately in view when
crying "Down with tyranny!"
In less than a day the Bastille falls. 'Tis but feebly defended by a
few aged veterans and a handful of valiant Swiss. Their first fire
kills some of the commoners and lashes the mob to fury. Up on the
walls, bastions and parapets, away from the guns at the port
holes, crawl some of the more daring attackers. Others bring
cannon, preparing to carry the siege by cannonade, investiture and
starvation.
The governor, seeing that it is a losing fight, parleys and yields.
But, instead of observing the terms of the honorable surrender and
safe-conduct, the inrushing mob slays and mutilates a number of the
officers and defenders--the first inkling of what murder and rapine
the Wild Beast of the Proletariat will commit!
"Set free the victims of the tyrants!" is the sole thought after the
lust of blood is satiated. The dungeons are opened, the prisoners
brought forth, joy of reunion or pathos of sorrow is the result of
these strange meetings, many of the victims being but the wrecks or
shadows of their old selves.
"Set free the victims of tyranny!"
After the Bastille La Salpetriere, the famous female prison, is
summoned. Already the inmates are on the qui vive of expectation. Mad
and sane are flying about from cells to courtyard, and courtyard to
barred windows, like birds in storm-flight.
Impatient, restless little Henriette, between the bars of her cage, is
looking out wonderingly on a re-made world. What does it mean?
Release? the easy path to her lost Louise?
Pray Heaven it does--