THE SCAFFOLD.
Upon the Place de la Révolution, leaning against a lamp-post, two men
were waiting. Of those who followed with the crowd, some were carried
to the Place du Palais, others to the Place de la Révolution, while the
rest spread, impatient and tumultuous, over the whole road separating
the two places. They were waiting until the queen should reach the
instrument of punishment, which, defaced by the sun and storm, worn
by the hand of the executioner, and, most horrible! blunted by too
frequent contact with its victims, reared its head with a sinister
pride over the subjacent mass, like a queen ruling her people. The
two men, arm-in-arm, and speaking by fits and starts, with pale lips
and contracted brows, were Lorin and Maurice. Lost in the crowd, but
not in a way calculated to excite suspicion, they continued in a low
tone their conversation, which was perhaps not the least interesting
one then circulating among the various groups which, like an electric
chain, a living sea, was agitated from the Pont-au-Change to the Pont
de la Révolution.
The idea we have expressed regarding the scaffold seemed to have struck
them both.
"See," said Maurice, "how the hideous monster rears her red arms; might
it not be said that she calls us, and grins at us through her wicket as
if it was her horrid mouth?"
"I," said Lorin, "must confess I do not belong to the school of poetry
which sees everything blood-color. I see everything _couleur-de-rose_,
and even at the foot of that dreadful machine I should sing and hope
still. '_Dum spiro spero._'"
"You hope when they murder women?"
"Maurice," said Lorin, "child of the Revolution, do not deny your
mother! Ah! Maurice, remain a stanch and loyal patriot. She who is
condemned to die is unlike all other women; she is the evil genius of
France."
"Oh, it is not she that I regret; it is not for her I weep!" cried
Maurice.
"Yes; I understand, it is Geneviève."
"Ah!" said Maurice, "there is one thought that drives me mad! It is
that Geneviève is in the hands of those purveyors to the guillotine,
Hébert and Fouquier Tinville,--in the hands of the men who sent here
the poor Héloïse, and are now sending the proud Marie Antoinette."
"Well!" said Lorin, "it is this very fact that inspires me with hope.
When the rage of the people has feasted on two tyrants it will be
satiated for some time at least,--like the boa-constrictor, which
requires three months to digest what he has devoured. Then the popular
rage will swallow no more; and as is said by the prophets of the
faubourg, 'the lesser morsels will be no longer palatable.'"
"Lorin! Lorin!" said Maurice, "I am more positive than you, and I
say it in a whisper, but am ready to repeat it aloud,--Lorin, I hate
the new queen who seems destined to succeed the Austrian, whom she
destroys. It is a sad queen whose purple is daily dyed in blood, and to
whom Sanson is prime minister."
"Bah! we shall escape her."
"I do not think so," said Maurice, shaking his head; "to avoid being
arrested at your house we have no resource but to live in the street."
"Bah! we can quit Paris; there is nothing to prevent us. We need not
complain. My uncle will await us at Saint Omer; money, passport,
nothing will be wanting. There exists not the gendarme who shall arrest
us; what do you think? We remain in Paris because we choose to do so."
"No; that is not correct, excellent friend, devoted and faithful as you
are-- You remain because I wish to continue here."
"And you wish to remain to discover Geneviève. Well! nothing is more
simple, just, or natural. You think she is in prison; nothing more
probable. You wish to keep watch over her, and on that account we
cannot quit Paris."
Maurice drew a deep sigh; it was evident his thoughts were wandering.
"Do you remember the death of Louis XVI?" said he. "I can see him
yet, pale with pride and emotion. I was then one of the chiefs of
this crowd, in whose folds I conceal myself to-day. I was greater at
the foot of the scaffold than the king upon it had ever been. What a
change, Lorin! and when one thinks that nine short months have sufficed
to work this change!"
"Nine months of love, Maurice-- Love ruined Troy!"
Maurice sighed; his wandering thoughts now took another direction.
"Poor Maison-Rouge," said he; "this is a sad day for him!"
"Alas!" said Lorin, "shall I tell you what appears to me the most
melancholy thing about revolutions?"
"Yes," said Maurice.
"It is that one often has for friends those we should prefer as
enemies; and for enemies those we would wish--"
"There is one thing I can hardly believe," interrupted Maurice.
"What?"
"It is that he will not invent some project, though the most hopeless,
to save the queen."
"What! one man stronger than a hundred thousand!"
"I said, 'though the most hopeless.' I know that to save Geneviève--"
Lorin frowned.
"I again tell you, Maurice," said he, "you are wild! No; even were it
possible for you to save Geneviève, you would not become a bad citizen.
But enough of this, Maurice; they are listening to us. Look how the
heads undulate; see! there is Sanson's valet raising himself from under
his basket, and looking in the distance. The Austrian arrives."
In short, as if to accompany this undulation which Lorin had remarked,
a shuddering, prolonged and increasing, pervaded the crowd. It was one
of those hurricanes which commence with a whistle and terminate with a
bellow. Maurice raised himself by the help of the lamp-post, and looked
toward the Rue Saint Honoré.
"Yes," said he shuddering; "there she is." And another machine now made
its appearance, almost as revolting as the guillotine. It was the fatal
car.
On the right and left glittered the arms of the escort; while in front
marched Grammont, replying with flashes of his sabre to the shouts
and cries of some fanatics. But ever as the cart advanced these cries
subsided under the haughty courage of the condemned.
Never had a countenance commanded more respect; never had Marie
Antoinette looked more the queen. Her proud courage struck terror into
those around her.
Indifferent to the exhortations of the Abbé Girard, who despite of her
opposition accompanied her, her face moved neither to the right nor
left; her deep thought was as immutable as her look; even the jolting
motion of the cart upon the uneven pavement did not by its violence
disturb the rigidity of her demeanor. She might have been taken for a
marble statue conveyed in the car, had it not been for her brilliant
eyes, and her hair waving in the wind.
A silence equal to that of the desert fell suddenly upon the three
hundred thousand spectators of this scene, witnessed by the heavens for
the first time by the light of the sun.
In the place where Maurice and Lorin were standing they heard the
creaking of the axles and the snorting of the horses.
The car stopped at the foot of the scaffold.
The queen, who doubtless was not thinking of this moment, recalled
herself, and understood it all; she threw a haughty glance upon the
crowd, and again beheld the pale young man she had previously seen
standing on the cannon. He was now mounted on a wall, and repeated
the respectful salutation he had before offered her as she left the
Conciergerie. He then disappeared. Many persons seeing him, it was
soon reported, from his being dressed in black, that a priest was in
attendance on Marie Antoinette, to give her absolution ere she ascended
the scaffold.
Further than that no one disturbed the Chevalier. In moments of highest
concern, certain things are treated with marked deference.
The queen cautiously descended the steps from the car, supported by
Sanson, who to the last moment, in accomplishing the task to which he
himself appeared to be condemned, treated her with the greatest respect.
As the queen walked toward the steps of the scaffold some of the
horses reared, and several of the foot-guards and soldiers appeared
to oscillate and lose their equilibrium; then a shadow was seen to
glide under the scaffold; but tranquillity was almost instantaneously
re-established, since no one was willing to quit his place at this
solemn moment,--no one was willing to lose the minutest detail of the
dreadful tragedy about to be accomplished. All eyes were directed
toward the condemned.
The queen was already on the platform of the scaffold. The priest still
continued to address her; an assistant moved her gently forward, while
another removed the scarf from her shoulders.
Marie Antoinette felt the touch of the infamous hand upon her neck,
and making a sudden movement trod upon Sanson's foot, who, without her
having seen him, was engaged in fixing her to the fatal plank. Sanson
drew back his foot.
"Excuse me, sir," said the queen; "I did not do it intentionally."
These were the last words pronounced by the daughter of the Cæsars, the
queen of France, the widow of Louis XVI.
As the clock of the Tuileries struck a quarter after twelve, the queen
was launched into eternity.
A terrible cry--a cry comprising at once joy, terror, sorrow, triumph,
expiation--rose like a storm, drowning a feeble burst of lamentation
which at the same moment issued from beneath the scaffold.
The gendarmes heard it notwithstanding, feeble as it was, and advanced
some steps in front. The crowd, now less compact, expanded like a
river whose dike has been enlarged, threw down the fence, dispersed
the guards, and rushed like the returning tide to beat the foot of the
scaffold, which was already shaking.
All wished for a nearer view of the remains of that royalty which they
believed, root and branch, forever exterminated in France.
But the gendarmes had another object in view,--they sought the shadow
which had repassed their lines, and glided beneath the scaffold.
Two of them returned leading between them by the collar a pale young
man, whose hand held a blood-stained handkerchief, which he pressed to
his heart; he was followed by a little spaniel howling piteously.
"Death to the aristocrat! death to the noble!" cried some men of the
people; "he has dipped his handkerchief in the Austrian's blood,--to
death with him!"
"Good Heavens!" said Maurice to Lorin, "do you recognize him? Do you
recognize him?"
"Death to the royalist!" repeated the madmen; "take away the
handkerchief he wishes to preserve as a relic! wrest it from him! tear
it from him!"
A haughty smile flitted across the young man's lips, he tore open his
shirt, bared his breast, and dropped the handkerchief.
"Gentlemen," said he, "this blood is not the queen's, but my own. Let
me die in peace;" and a deep, gushing wound appeared widely gaping
under the left breast. The crowd uttered one cry and retired. The young
man sank slowly upon his knees, and gazed upon the scaffold as a martyr
looks upon the altar.
"Maison-Rouge!" whispered Lorin to Maurice.
"Adieu!" murmured the young man, bowing his head with an angelic
smile,--"adieu! or rather, _au revoir_!" and he expired in the midst of
the stupefied guards.
"There is still this expedient, Lorin," said Maurice, "before becoming
an unworthy citizen."
The little spaniel turned toward the corpse, terrified and howling
lamentably.
"Why, there is Jet," said a man, holding a large club in his
hand,--"why, there is Jet; come here, old fellow."
The dog advanced toward him, but was scarcely within arm's length of
the man who had called him, when the brutal wretch raised his club and
dashed out his brains, at the same time bursting into a hoarse laugh.
"Cowardly wretch!" cried Maurice.
"Silence!" whispered Lorin, "or we are lost. It is Simon."