Père Lachaise.
It was not difficult to guess which way the crowd had gone; yells,
hoots, and hoarse cries could be heard from the farther side of the
river.
Citizen Santerne had been unable to keep the mob back until the arrival
of the cavalry reinforcements. Within five minutes of the abduction of
Déroulède and Juliette the crowd had broken through the line of
soldiers, and had stormed the cart, only to find it empty, and the prey
disappeared.
"They are safe in the Temple by now!" shouted Santerne hoarsely, in
savage triumph at seeing them all baffled.
At first it seemed as if the wrath of the infuriated populace, fooled in
its lust for vengeance, would vent itself against the commandant of
Paris and his soldiers; for a moment even Santerre's ruddy cheeks had
paled at the sudden vision of this unlooked for danger.
Then just as suddenly the cry was raised.
"To the Temple!"
"To the Temple! To the Temple!" came in ready response.
The cry was soon taken up by the entire crowd, and in less than two
minutes the purlieus of the Hall of Justice were deserted, and the Pont
St Michel, then the Cité and the Pont au Change, swarmed with the
rioters. Thence along the north bank of the river, and up the Rue du
Temple, the people still yelling, muttering, singing the "_Ça ira,_" and
shouting: "_A la lanterne! A la lanterne!_"
Sir Percy Blakeney and his little band of followers had found the Pont
Neuf and the adjoining streets practically deserted. A few stragglers
from the crowd, soaked through with the rain, their enthusiasm damped,
and their throats choked with the mist, were sulkily returning to their
homes.
The desultory group of six _sansculottes_ attracted little or no
attention, and Sir Percy boldly challenged every passer-by.
"The way to the Rue du Temple, citizen?" he asked once or twice, or:
"Have they hung the traitor yet? Can you tell me, citizeness?"
A grunt or an oath were the usual replies, but no one took any further
notice of the gigantic coal-heaver and his ragged friends.
At the corner of one of the cross streets, between the Rue du Temple and
the Rue des Archives, Sir Percy Blakeney suddenly turned to his
followers:
"We are close to the rabble now," he said in a whisper, and speaking in
English; "do you all follow the nearest stragglers, and get as soon as
possible into the thickest of the crowd. We'll meet again outside the
prison--and remember the sea-gull's cry."
He did not wait for an answer, and presently disappeared in the mist.
Already a few stragglers, hangers-on of the multitude, were gradually
coming into view, and the yells could be distinctly heard. The mob had
evidently assembled in the great square outside the prison, and was
loudly demanding the object of its wrath.
The moment for cool-headed action was at hand. The Scarlet Pimpernel had
planned the whole thing, but it was for his followers and for those,
whom he was endeavouring to rescue from certain death, to help him heart
and soul.
Déroulède's grasp tightened on Juliette's little hand.
"Are you frightened, my beloved?" he whispered.
"Not whilst you are near me," she murmured in reply.
A few more minutes' walk up the Rue des Archives and they were in the
thick of the crowd. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, Lord Anthony Dewhurst, and Lord
Hastings, the three Englishmen, were in front; Déroulède and Juliette
immediately behind them.
The mob itself now carried them along. A motley throng they were, soaked
through with the rain, drunk with their own baffled rage, and with the
brandy which they had imbibed.
Everyone was shouting; the women louder than the rest; one of them was
dragging the length of rope, which might still be useful.
"_Ça ira! ça ira! A la lanterne! A la lanterne! les traîtres!_"
And Déroulède, holding Juliette by the hand, shouted lustily with them:
"_Ça ira!_"
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes turned, and laughed. It was rare sport for these
young bucks, and they all entered into the spirit of the situation. They
all shouted "_A la lanterne!_" egging and encouraging those around them.
Déroulède and Juliette felt the intoxication of the adventure. They were
drunk with the joy of their reunion, and seized with the wild, mad,
passionate desire for freedom and for life ... Life and love!
So they pushed and jostled on in the mud, followed the crowd, sang and
yelled louder than any of them. Was not that very crowd the great
bulwark of their safety?
As well have sought for the proverbial needle in the haystack, as for
two escaped prisoners in this mad, heaving throng.
The large open space in front of the Temple Prison looked like one
great, seething, black mass.
The darkness was almost thick here, the ground like a morass, with
inches of clayey mud, which stuck to everything, whilst the sparse
lanterns, hung to the prison walls and beneath the portico, threw
practically no light into the square.
As the little band, composed of the three Englishmen, and of Déroulède,
holding Juliette by the hand, emerged into the open space, they heard a
strident cry, like that of a sea-mew thrice repeated, and a hoarse voice
shouting from out the darkness:
"_Ma foi!_ I'll not believe that the prisoners are in the Temple now! It
is my belief, friends, citizens, that we have been fooled once more!"
The voice, with its strange, unaccountable accent, which seemed to
belong to no province of France, dominated the almost deafening noise;
it penetrated through, even into the brandy-soddened minds of the
multitude, for the suggestion was received with renewed shouts of the
wildest wrath.
Like one great, living, seething mass the crowd literally bore down upon
the huge and frowning prison. Pushing, jostling, yelling, the women
screaming, the men cursing, it seemed as if that awesome day--the 14th
of July--was to have its sanguinary counterpart to-night, as if the
Temple were destined to share the fate of the Bastille.
Obedient to their leader's orders the three young Englishmen remained in
the thick of the crowd: together with Déroulède they contrived to form a
sturdy rampart round Juliette, effectually protecting her against rough
buffetings.
On their right, towards the direction of Ménilmontant, the sea-mew's cry
at intervals gave the strength and courage.
The foremost rank of the crowd had reached the portico of the building,
and, with howls and snatches of their gutter song, were loudly
clamouring for the guardian of the grim prison.
No one appeared; the great gates with their massive bars and hinges
remained silent and defiant.
The crowd was becoming dangerous: whispers of the victory of the
Bastille, five years ago, engendered thoughts of pillage and of arson.
Then the strident voice was heard again:
"_Pardi!_ the prisoners are not in the Temple! The dolts have allowed
them to escape, and now are afraid of the wrath of the people!"
It was strange how easily the mob assimilated this new idea. Perhaps the
dark, frowning block of massive buildings had overawed them with its
peaceful strength, perhaps the dripping rain and oozing clay had damped
their desire for an immediate storming of the grim citadel; perhaps it
was merely the human characteristic of a wish for something new,
something unexpected.
Be that as it may, the cry was certainly taken up with marvellous,
quick-change rapidity.
"The prisoners have escaped! The prisoners have escaped!"
Some were for proceeding with the storming of the Temple, but they were
in the minority. All along, the crowd had been more inclined for private
revenge than for martial deeds of valour; the Bastille had been taken by
daylight; the effort might not have been so successful on a pitch-black
night such as this, when one could not see one's hand before one's eyes,
and the drizzling rain went through to the marrow.
"They've got through one of the barriers by now!" suggested the same
voice from out the darkness.
"The barriers--the barriers!" came in sheeplike echo from the crowd.
The little group of fugitives and their friends tightened their hold on
one another.
They had understood at last.
"It is for us to see that the crowd does what we want," the Scarlet
Pimpernel had said.
He wanted it to take him and his friends out of Paris, and, by God! he
was like to succeed.
Juliette's heart within her beat almost to choking; her strong little
hand gripped Déroulède's fingers with the wild strength of a mad
exultation.
Next to the man to whom she had given her love and her very soul she
admired and looked up to the remarkable and noble adventurer, the
high-born and exquisite dandy, who with grime-covered face, and strong
limbs encased in filthy clothes, was playing the most glorious part ever
enacted upon the stage.
"To the barriers--to the barriers!"
Like a herd of wild horses, driven by the whip of the herdsmen, the mob
began to scatter in all directions. Not knowing what it wanted, not
knowing what it would find, half forgetting the very cause and object of
its wrath, it made one gigantic rush for the gates of the great city
through which the prisoners were supposed to have escaped.
The three Englishmen and Déroulède, with Juliette well protected in
their midst, had not joined the general onrush as yet. The crowd in the
open place was still very thick, the outward-branching streets were very
narrow: through these the multitude, scampering, hurrying, scurrying,
like a human torrent let out of a whirlpool, rushed down headlong
towards the barriers.
Up the Rue Turbigo to the Belleville gate, the Rue des Filles, and the
Rue du Chemin Vert, towards Popincourt, they ran, knocking each other
down, jostling the weaker ones on one side, trampling others underfoot.
They were all rough, coarse creatures, accustomed to these wild
bousculades, ready to pick themselves up, again after any number of
falls; whilst the mud was slimy and soft to tumble on, and those who did
the trampling had no shoes on their feet.
They rushed out from the dark, open place, these creatures of the night,
into streets darker still.
On they ran--on! on!--now in thick, heaving masses, anon in loose,
straggling groups--some north, some south, some east, some west.
But it was from the east that came the seagull's cry.
The little band ran boldly towards the east. Down the Rue de la
République they followed their leader's call. The crowd was very thick
here; the Barrière Ménilmontant was close by, and beyond it there was
the cemetery of Père Lachaise. It was the nearest gate to the Temple
Prison, and the mob wanted to be up and doing, not to spend too much
time running along the muddy streets and getting wet and cold, but to
repeat the glorious exploits of the 14th of July, and capture the
barriers of Paris by force of will rather than force of arms.
In this rushing mob the four men, with Juliette in their midst, remained
quite unchallenged, mere units in an unruly crowd.
In a quarter of an hour Ménilmontant was reached.
The great gates of the city were well guarded by detachments of the
National Guard, each under command of an officer. Twenty strong at
most--what was that against such a throng?
Who had ever dreamed of Paris being stormed from within?
At every gate to the north and east of the city there was now a rabble
some four or five thousand strong, wanting it knew not what. Everyone
had forgotten what it was that caused him or her to rush on so blindly,
so madly, towards the nearest barrier.
But everyone knew that he or she wanted to get through that barrier, to
attack the soldiery, to knock down the captain of the Guard.
And with a wild cry every city gate was stormed.
Like one huge wind-tossed wave, the populace on that memorable night of
Fructidor, broke against the cordon of soldiery, that vainly tried to
keep it back. Men and women, drunk with brandy and exultation, shouted
"_Quatorze Juillet!_" and amidst curses and threats demanded the opening
of the gates.
The people of France _would_ have its will.
Was it not the supreme lord and ruler of the land, the arbiter of the
Fate of this great, beautiful, and maddened country?
The National Guard was powerless; the officers in command could offer
but feeble resistance.
The desultory fire, which in the darkness and the pouring rain did very
little harm, had the effect of further infuriating the mob.
The drizzle had turned to a deluge, a veritable heavy summer downpour,
with occasional distant claps of thunder and incessant sheet-lightning,
which ever and anon illumined with its weird, fantastic flash this
heaving throng, these begrimed faces, crowned with red caps of Liberty,
these witchlike female creatures with wet, straggly hair and gaunt,
menacing arms.
Within half-an-hour the people of Paris was outside its own gates.
Victory was complete. The Guard did not resist; the officers had
surrendered; the great and mighty rabble had had its way.
Exultant, it swarmed around the fortifications and along the _terrains
vagues_ which it had conquered by its will.
But the downpour was continuous, and with victory came satiety--satiety
coupled with wet skins, muddy feet, tired, wearied bodies, and throats
parched with continual shouting.
At Ménilmontant, where the crowd had been thickest, the tempers highest,
and the yells most strident, there now stretched before this tired,
excited throng, the peaceful vastness of the cemetery of Père Lachaise.
The great alleys of sombre monuments, the weird cedars with their
fantastic branches, like arms of a hundred ghosts, quelled and awed
these hooting masses of degraded humanity.
The silent majesty of this city of the dead seemed to frown with
withering scorn on the passions of the sister city.
Instinctively the rabble was cowed. The cemetery looked dark, dismal,
and deserted. The flashes of lightning seemed to reveal ghostlike
processions of the departed heroes of France, wandering silently amidst
the tombs.
And the populace turned with a shudder away from this vast place of
eternal peace.
From within the cemetery gates, there was suddenly heard the sound of a
sea-mew calling thrice to its mate. And five dark figures, wrapped in
cloaks, gradually detached themselves from the throng, and one by one
slipped into the grounds of Père Lachaise through that break in the
wall, which is quite close to the main entrance.
Once more the sea-gull's cry.
Those in the crowd who heard it, shivered beneath their dripping
clothes. They thought it was a soul in pain risen from one of the
graves, and some of the women, forgetting the last few years of
godlessness, hastily crossed themselves, and muttered an invocation to
the Virgin Mary.
Within the gates all was silent and at peace. The sodden earth gave
forth no echo of the muffled footsteps, which slowly crept towards the
massive block of stone, which covers the graves of the immortal lovers
--Abélard and Heloïse.