Vive Colbert!
The spectacle which the Greve now presented was a frightful one. The
heads, leveled by the perspective, extended afar, thick and agitated as
the ears of corn in a vast plain. From time to time a fresh report, or
a distant rumor, made the heads oscillate and thousands of eyes flash.
Now and then there were great movements. All those ears of corn bent,
and became waves more agitated than those of the ocean, which rolled
from the extremities to the center, and beat, like the tides, against
the hedge of archers who surrounded the gibbets. Then the handles of
the halberds were let fall upon the heads and shoulders of the rash
invaders; at times, also, it was the steel as well as the wood, and, in
that case, a large empty circle was formed around the guard; a space
conquered upon the extremities, which underwent, in their turn the
oppression of the sudden movement, which drove them against the
parapets of the Seine. From the window, that commanded a view of the
whole Place, D’Artagnan saw, with interior satisfaction, that such of
the musketeers and guards as found themselves involved in the crowd,
were able, with blows of their fists and the hilts of their swords, to
keep room. He even remarked that they had succeeded, by that esprit de
corps which doubles the strength of the soldier, in getting together in
one group to the amount of about fifty men; and that, with the
exception of a dozen stragglers whom he still saw rolling here and
there, the nucleus was complete, and within reach of his voice. But it
was not the musketeers and guards only that drew the attention of
D’Artagnan. Around the gibbets, and particularly at the entrances to
the arcade of Saint Jean, moved a noisy mass, a busy mass; daring
faces, resolute demeanors were to be seen here and there, mingled with
silly faces and indifferent demeanors; signals were exchanged, hands
given and taken. D’Artagnan remarked among the groups, and those groups
the most animated, the face of the cavalier whom he had seen enter by
the door of communication from his garden, and who had gone upstairs to
harangue the drinkers. That man was organizing troops and giving
orders.
“Mordioux!” said D’Artagnan to himself, “I was not deceived; I know
that man,—it is Menneville. What the devil is he doing here?”
A distant murmur, which became more distinct by degrees, stopped this
reflection, and drew his attention another way. This murmur was
occasioned by the arrival of the culprits; a strong picket of archers
preceded them, and appeared at the angle of the arcade. The entire
crowd now joined as if in one cry; all the cries united formed one
immense howl. D’Artagnan saw Raoul was becoming pale, and he slapped
him roughly on the shoulder. The fire-keepers turned round on hearing
the great cry, and asked what was going on. “The condemned are
arrived,” said D’Artagnan. “That’s well,” replied they, again
replenishing the fire. D’Artagnan looked at them with much uneasiness;
it was evident that these men who were making such a fire for no
apparent purpose had some strange intentions. The condemned appeared
upon the Place. They were walking, the executioner before them, whilst
fifty archers formed a hedge on their right and their left. Both were
dressed in black; they appeared pale, but firm. They looked impatiently
over the people’s heads, standing on tip-toe at every step. D’Artagnan
remarked this. “Mordioux!” cried he, “they are in a great hurry to get
a sight of the gibbet!” Raoul drew back, without, however, having the
power to leave the window. Terror even has its attractions.
“To the death! to the death!” cried fifty thousand voices.
“Yes; to the death!” howled a hundred frantic others, as if the great
mass had given them the reply.
“To the halter! to the halter!” cried the great whole; “Vive le roi!”
“Well,” said D’Artagnan, “this is droll; I should have thought it was
M. Colbert who had caused them to be hung.”
There was, at this moment, a great rolling movement in the crowd, which
stopped for a moment the march of the condemned. The people of a bold
and resolute mien, whom D’Artagnan had observed, by dint of pressing,
pushing, and lifting themselves up, had succeeded in almost touching
the hedge of archers. The cortege resumed its march. All at once, to
cries of “Vive Colbert!” those men, of whom D’Artagnan never lost
sight, fell upon the escort, which in vain endeavored to stand against
them. Behind these men was the crowd. Then commenced, amidst a
frightful tumult, as frightful a confusion. This time there was
something more than cries of expectation or cries of joy, there were
cries of pain. Halberds struck men down, swords ran them through,
muskets were discharged at them. The confusion became then so great
that D’Artagnan could no longer distinguish anything. Then, from this
chaos, suddenly surged something like a visible intention, like a will
pronounced. The condemned had been torn from the hands of the guards,
and were being dragged towards the house of L’Image-de-Notre-Dame.
Those who dragged them shouted, “Vive Colbert!” The people hesitated,
not knowing which they ought to fall upon, the archers or the
aggressors. What stopped the people was, that those who cried “Vive
Colbert!” began to cry, at the same time, “No halter! no halter! to the
fire! to the fire! burn the thieves! burn the extortioners!” This cry,
shouted with an ensemble, obtained enthusiastic success. The populace
had come to witness an execution, and here was an opportunity offered
them of performing one themselves. It was this that must be most
agreeable to the populace: therefore, they ranged, themselves
immediately on the party of the aggressors against the archers, crying
with the minority, which had become, thanks to them, the most compact
majority: “Yes, yes: to the fire with the thieves! Vive Colbert!”
“Mordioux!” exclaimed D’Artagnan, “this begins to look serious.”
One of the men who remained near the chimney approached the window, a
firebrand in his hand. “Ah, ah!” said he, “it gets warm.” Then, turning
to his companion: “There is the signal,” added he; and he immediately
applied the burning brand to the wainscoting. Now, this cabaret of the
Image-de-Notre-Dame was not a very newly-built house, and therefore did
not require much entreating to take fire. In a second the boards began
to crackle, and the flames arose sparkling to the ceiling. A howling
from without replied to the shouts of the incendiaries. D’Artagnan, who
had not seen what passed, from being engaged at the window, felt, at
the same time, the smoke which choked him and the fire that scorched
him. “Hola!” cried he, turning round, “is the fire here? Are you drunk
or mad, my masters?”
The two men looked at each other with an air of astonishment. “In
what?” asked they of D’Artagnan; “was it not a thing agreed upon?”
“A thing agreed upon that you should burn my house!” vociferated
D’Artagnan, snatching the brand from the hand of the incendiary, and
striking him with it across the face. The second wanted to assist his
comrade, but Raoul, seizing him by the middle, threw him out of the
window, whilst D’Artagnan pushed his man down the stairs. Raoul, first
disengaged, tore the burning wainscoting down, and threw it flaming
into the chamber. At a glance D’Artagnan saw there was nothing to be
feared from the fire, and sprang to the window. The disorder was at its
height. The air was filled with simultaneous cries of “To the fire!”
“To the death!” “To the halter!” “To the stake!” “Vive Colbert!” “Vive
le roi!” The group which had forced the culprits from the hands of the
archers had drawn close to the house, which appeared to be the goal
towards which they dragged them. Menneville was at the head of this
group, shouting louder than all the others, “To the fire! to the fire!
Vive Colbert!” D’Artagnan began to comprehend what was meant. They
wanted to burn the condemned, and his house was to serve as a funeral
pile.
“Halt, there!” cried he, sword in hand, and one foot upon the window.
“Menneville, what do you want to do?”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” cried the latter; “give way, give way!”
“To the fire! to the fire with the thieves! Vive Colbert!”
These cries exasperated D’Artagnan. “Mordioux!” said he. “What! burn
the poor devils who are only condemned to be hung? that is infamous!”
Before the door, however, the mass of anxious spectators, rolled back
against the walls, had become more thick, and closed up the way.
Menneville and his men, who were dragging along the culprits, were
within ten paces of the door.
Menneville made a last effort. “Passage! passage!” cried he, pistol in
hand.
“Burn them! burn them!” repeated the crowd. “The Image-de-Notre-Dame is
on fire! Burn the thieves! burn the monopolists in the
Image-de-Notre-Dame!”
There now remained no doubt, it was plainly D’Artagnan’s house that was
their object. D’Artagnan remembered the old cry, always so effective
from his mouth:
“A moi! mousquetaires!” shouted he, with the voice of a giant, with one
of those voices which dominate over cannon, the sea, the tempest. “A
moi! mousquetaires!” And suspending himself by the arm from the
balcony, he allowed himself to drop amidst the crowd, which began to
draw back from a house that rained men. Raoul was on the ground as soon
as he, both sword in hand. All the musketeers on the Place heard that
challenging cry—all turned round at that cry, and recognized
D’Artagnan. “To the captain, to the captain!” cried they, in their
turn. And the crowd opened before them as though before the prow of a
vessel. At that moment D’Artagnan and Menneville found themselves face
to face. “Passage, passage!” cried Menneville, seeing that he was
within an arm’s length of the door.
“No one passes here,” said D’Artagnan.
“Take that, then!” said Menneville, firing his pistol, almost within
arm’s length. But before the cock fell, D’Artagnan had struck up
Menneville’s arm with the hilt of his sword and passed the blade
through his body.
“I told you plainly to keep yourself quiet,” said D’Artagnan to
Menneville, who rolled at his feet.
“Passage! passage!” cried the companions of Menneville, at first
terrified, but soon recovering, when they found they had only to do
with two men. But those two men were hundred-armed giants, the swords
flew about in their hands like the burning glaive of the archangel.
They pierce with its point, strike with the flat, cut with the edge,
every stroke brings down a man. “For the king!” cried D’Artagnan, to
every man he struck at, that is to say, to every man that fell. This
cry became the charging word for the musketeers, who guided by it,
joined D’Artagnan. During this time the archers, recovering from the
panic they had undergone, charge the aggressors in the rear, and
regular as mill strokes, overturn or knock down all that oppose them.
The crowd, which sees swords gleaming, and drops of blood flying in the
air—the crowd falls back and crushes itself. At length cries for mercy
and of despair resound; that is, the farewell of the vanquished. The
two condemned are again in the hands of the archers. D’Artagnan
approaches them, seeing them pale and sinking: “Console yourselves,
poor men,” said he, “you will not undergo the frightful torture with
which these wretches threatened you. The king has condemned you to be
hung: you shall only be hung. Go on, hang them, and it will be over.”
There is no longer anything going on at the Image-de-Notre-Dame. The
fire has been extinguished with two tuns of wine in default of water.
The conspirators have fled by the garden. The archers were dragging the
culprits to the gibbets. From this moment the affair did not occupy
much time. The executioner, heedless about operating according to the
rules of art, made such haste that he dispatched the condemned in a
couple of minutes. In the meantime the people gathered around
D’Artagnan,—they felicitated, they cheered him. He wiped his brow,
streaming with sweat, and his sword, streaming with blood. He shrugged
his shoulders at seeing Menneville writhing at his feet in the last
convulsions. And, while Raoul turned away his eyes in compassion, he
pointed to the musketeers the gibbets laden with their melancholy
fruit. “Poor devils!” said he, “I hope they died blessing me, for I
saved them with great difficulty.” These words caught the ear of
Menneville at the moment when he himself was breathing his last sigh. A
dark, ironical smile flitted across his lips, he wished to reply, but
the effort hastened the snapping of the chord of life—he expired.
“Oh! all this is very frightful!” murmured Raoul: “let us begone,
monsieur le chevalier.”
“You are not wounded?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Not at all, thank you.”
“That’s well! Thou art a brave fellow, mordioux! The head of the
father, and the arm of Porthos. Ah! if he had been here, good Porthos,
you would have seen something worth looking at.” Then as if by way of
remembrance—
“But where the devil can that brave Porthos be?” murmured D’Artagnan.
“Come, chevalier, pray come away,” urged Raoul.
“One minute, my friend, let me take my thirty-seven and a half pistoles
and I am at your service. The house is a good property,” added
D’Artagnan, as he entered the Image-de-Notre-Dame, “but decidedly, even
if it were less profitable, I should prefer its being in another
quarter.”