'So! Gabrielle, what do you think?' asked Corporal Deschwanden, a
couple of days after the riot at Réveillon's house.
The girl looked up wistfully at him. There was promise of good tidings
in the tone of his voice.
'You have to thank my wife and Madeleine.'
'For what?' asked Madame Deschwanden, turning sharply round.
'For having been so provident as to exert themselves to preserve some
of Réveillon's property.'
'The mother-of-pearl box!' exclaimed madame. 'Ah! I shall never forgive
you.'
'Yes, you will, when you hear all,' said the corporal, positively.
'Well, what is it, what is it?' asked the lady, stamping impatiently.
'You Germans are so slow, I have to fish for an hour before I can catch
a minnow. Take a Frenchman! he pours out everything into your lap at
the first appeal, and throws himself at your feet into the bargain.
But a German, or a German-Swiss, like you! My faith! I have to use a
screw for ever so long, and, in the end, I only extract little bits
of worthless cork. What is it? Will you tell me? Do you not see I am
dying--perishing slowly from curiosity?'
'Curiosity, yes!' said the corporal. 'That is the bane of women. Wife!
did you ever hear the story----'
'I'll have no stories. What is the news?'
'The news is for Gabrielle, not for you.'
'My faith! and are not Gabrielle and I one? Do not I enter passionately
into her projects? Do I not see clearly that if she succeeds, or even
if she fails, her self-devotion, her enthusiasm, which are charming,
will make her fortune and mine? Does she not repose her confidence in
me? Does she not make an oratory of my bosom, and find a sanctuary in
my heart?'
'My good wife and my good Gabrielle, understand now,' said the
corporal, in his broken French. 'I took the casket back to the Sieur
Réveillon. He is in the Bastille. He fears the people, so he has
procured for himself a _lettre de cachet_ confining him within the
walls of that fortress, which are quite strong enough to protect him
from the mob. And he is comfortable there, being great friends with M.
de Launay, the governor. Now that casket contained the jewels of Madame
Réveillon.'
'Mon Dieu! you do not say so!' cried Madame Deschwanden, despairingly.
'The jewels! And they might have been mine.'
'They not only might, but would have brought you to the wheel, liebe
Frau. Search was being made for them, as their value was very great.
How should you like to be broken on the wheel for robbery?'
'But, if it were not for the pain, it would be interesting,' said
madame.
'There is the pain, however, and that is terrible.'
'Yes; but the jewels--were they very beautiful?'
'I did not see them.'
'Oh, my faith! I wish I had looked at them. I have no doubt there
were amethyst earrings. I had a pair once,--they were made of glass,
you know, but they looked real, if you kept your head constantly on
the move, and were very vivacious, so that no one should examine them
closely. And they were stolen. The thief believed them to be real. They
were stolen from me at a ball, and how it was done I never could guess.
I never for a moment felt a hand near my face, or I would have slapped,
and scratched, and kicked. Mon Dieu! I would have bitten.'
'And I am positive you would have scolded.'
'Scolded! believe me! I would have stabbed the man through and through
with my sharp words, till he was little better than _veau piqué_. I
would have amputated his head with my tongue. You do not know what I
would have done!'
'I can guess.'
'Never! You do not know what I am capable of when I am roused. To you I
am an angel of peace, to those who rouse me----'
'A cat.'
'Fie! And I your wife. Well,' she seated herself on the edge of his
chair, and began to caress him. 'What have you got to tell us more?'
'The story would have been told long ago, if you had not interrupted
me. The Sieur Réveillon was amazingly glad to recover his box. I told
him that he was indebted to you.'
Madame Deschwanden caught the old soldier's face between her hands and
kissed it.
'What did you say of me?' she asked vehemently. 'He would think, from
the name, that I was a great Dutch frau.'
'I told him,' answered the corporal, 'that madame my wife, living
nearly opposite his house, had watched anxiously from the window the
destruction of his property----'
'Passionately desiring to render him assistance, but incapacitated by
her sex. Did you tell him that?'
'N-n-ot exactly.'
'Why not?'
'Because I did not think it strictly true.'
'Fie! sacrifice your wife to your conscience. Oh, I wish Bruder Klaus
had picked a pocket, or stolen a mother-of-pearl box!'
'I told him that you had preserved from destruction the casket which I
had the honour of returning to him. He was profuse in his thanks, and
he even offered me a turquoise ring for you.'
'Where is it?' asked madame, leaping from the chair; 'show it me
instantly.'
'I refused it.'
'Refused it!' echoed the little woman. Then, throwing up her hands,
she cried, 'Mon Dieu! what a thing it is to be married to the Ten
Commandments!'
'The Sieur Réveillon has promised to call on you and thank you in
person for having saved so valuable a portion of his property.'
'Then I shall get the ring, you shall see!'
'And in the meantime he proposes to render me a service.'
'What?'
'He asked me if there was anything he could do for me. I then mentioned
to him that Gabrielle, who had been servant to Madame Berthier, now
in the Bastille, was desirous of seeing her mistress again, and I
requested him to use his influence with the governor to obtain her
admission to the prisoner. He replied that leave could be obtained
without difficulty, as the lady in question was not a political
offender, but was confined on account of her derangement. It is the
custom at the Bastille for those who are incarcerated to have their
names changed, to facilitate their being forgotten. Thus Madame
Berthier's name has been changed to Plomb. M. Réveillon went at once to
the governor and procured the order for admission, and here it is.'
Gabrielle caught his hand and kissed it gratefully.
'I am ready to take you to the Bastille at once, if you are willing,'
said the corporal. 'Admission is only granted within certain hours.'
Gabrielle, without another word, made ready. She took her basket
with the cat in it, which Madeleine had amused herself with re-dying
saffron, so that the cat was now brilliantly yellow, and taking the
corporal's arm, issued with him into the street.
Madame Deschwanden was in raptures at the idea of hearing from the
girl, on her return, an account of her visit. Her husband, on leaving
the door, beat his forehead with his palm, and said:
'I was a fool to mention the turquoise ring to her. I have not heard
the last of it yet. Whenever she has her tantrums, that ring will be
brought up. Alas! would that I had more discretion, I should not have
mentioned the ring. I was not in conscience bound to do so.'
Deschwanden led Gabrielle out of the street into the court before
the entrance to the prison, occupied by the soldiers. She presented
her order, which had been countersigned by a magistrate, and parted
with the Swiss corporal at the second gate. She was told to cross a
second court, on one side of which stood the governor's house, to the
iron grating which closed the huge gate of the Bastille itself. At
this entrance she was taken in charge by a turnkey, who conducted her
through the long dark vault piercing the block of buildings to the
great quadrangle in the centre of the fortress. This court was formerly
much larger, but it had been cut in two by Sartines, lieutenant of
police in the reign of Louis XV, and a range of offices and prisons, in
a style destitute of architectural pretensions, was drawn across the
court from the Tour de la Chapelle to the Tour de la Liberté. The front
of this new building was decorated with a clock-face, fringed with
sculptured chains, and supported by two figures chained together by the
neck, the feet, and the waist. These two figures at the extremities of
these ingenious garlands, after having moved round the dial, met in
front of it, and formed a knot with their chains and limbs, and their
parting, recommenced their automatonic movements. The artist, guided by
the genius of the spot, had made one of these figures resemble a man
in the bloom of his youth, and the other an aged, decrepit man, with
blanched hair and bent back.
Around this large court rose six towers, each five storeys high. In the
well-court were two more, the tops of which appeared above the roof of
the new buildings. Between the towers of Liberty and la Bertaudière was
the new chapel, and between the latter and the Tour de la Basinière
was the gallery of archives. The ancient gate into the town, now walled
up, stood on the opposite side of the quadrangle, between the Tour de
la Chapelle, where was the oratory, used by the prisoners till the new
chapel was built, and the Tour du Trésor. The guard-house adjoined the
Tour de la Comté.
When the famous provost, Stephen Marcel, in 1377, fortified the old
enclosure of Paris with new walls and double fosses, to protect it
from the Free Companions, who were devastating France, he built a
gate at the east side of the town, which was called the Bastillon
Saint-Antoine. Under Charles VI, towers were added to this gate, and
a fortress was erected on the spot, and called the Royal Castle of
the Bastille. It played a great part in the intestine wars of the
Bourguignons and Armagnacs, each party attaching equal importance to
the possession of the fortress, as it was the key of the city.
The Bastille was not, like the Louvre, and most castles of the Middle
Ages, a square, or a parallelogram of crenelated ramparts, with towers
at intervals, capped with conical roofs and steeples, gay with blazoned
weathercocks, and crested with elegant metal work, but it was an oblong
irregular mass of thick double walls, containing rooms, halls, passages
throughout their length, flanked by eight towers scarcely detaching
themselves from the surface of the curtain, projecting slightly only
from the bed of masonry connecting them, and not surpassing the walls
in height,--a monument black and sinister, whose appearance and history
were alike gloomy.
Under Louis XIV, the Bastille attained its exclusive destination as a
State prison. Cardinal Richelieu did not suffer the rust to gather on
the hinges of its gates; but it was not till the second period of the
reign of the Great Monarch, that this royal château became an awful
gulf swallowing up, year after year, multitudes of unfortunates, of
every rank and station, persecuted and oppressed at the caprice of the
monarch, his ministers, his confessors, and his favourites.
In feudal times, only prisoners of a high rank had been consigned to
the Bastille; but, under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV and Louis
XVI, no citizen, however obscure he might be, could consider himself
safe from these _oubliettes_ incessantly gaping for victims. The action
of the regular tribunals and of the municipal authorities was null in
the presence of the Bastille, which was filled and emptied by order
of the king, without trial. _Lettres de cachet_ given, not only by
his majesty and the ministers, but also by the lieutenant-general of
police, consigned often innocent persons to an unlimited imprisonment,
without a form of trial; so that often a prisoner was ignorant of the
reason of his incarceration.
On the death of Louis XIV, thirty thousand unfortunates were found in
the State prisons; their only crime in the majority of cases was a
suspicion of heresy.
The _lettres de cachet_ did not fall with as great profusion under
Louis XV; but they were given and traded with in the most shameless
manner. The minister La Vrillière, the lieutenants of police Sartines
and Lenoir, placed them at the disposal of any great personage who had
some personal resentment to satisfy, and they were often sold blank, at
high prices, to be filled in by the purchaser with the name of a rival,
or a relation, and Sartines would send blank orders as a New Year's
gift to friends, or to nobles whose protection he solicited. Latude,
of whom mention has already been made, was dragged for thirty-five
years from prison to prison, to satisfy the resentment of a harlot.
Leprevôt de Beaumont was in the Bastille now; he had been there already
twenty-two years,--his crime, having undertaken to denounce before
the parliament of Rouen that iniquitous speculation in grain, known
popularly as the Compact of Famine, by which the corn-factors, men
like Foulon, favoured by government, bought up all the corn in the
land, and retailed it at their own price, so as to keep up the high
rate. Louis XV, interested to the amount of ten millions in the success
of this cruel scheme, shared the profit with the monopolists; Louis
XVI, too honest to participate in this, but too feeble to prevent
its continuance, did not repair the iniquities of his predecessors.
The Compact of Famine still continued; by that means, Foulon had
accumulated an enormous fortune.
The Bastille still received prisoners without trial. The annual
emoluments of the governor amounted to sixty thousand livres. He
had, however, but limited authority. Without an order signed by a
magistrate, he could not permit a prisoner to shave himself, to hear
Mass, to receive visits, to write letters, even to change his linen.
Those incarcerated were usually entered under other names. Their
relations were never informed of their captivity, nor of their death.
If they died, they were buried at midnight, two turnkeys assisting as
witnesses. The dying could not receive spiritual consolations, nor be
attended by a physician, without a superior order.
Whilst we have been describing the Bastille, the turnkey has been
conducting Gabrielle André across the court, then through a door in the
new buildings to a corridor, opening on one side into the dismal yard
at the back, called the Well Court, from a draw-well in the centre,
surmounted by a roof, and decorated with a scutcheon bearing the lilies
of France. On account of the height of the walls, the sun seldom
lighted the soil of this quadrangle, there was not space for a draught,
and consequently the walls were covered with mould and lichens. Fungi
sprang up between the interstices of the stones, a forest of little
toadstools encumbered the ground at the foot of the posts supporting
the roof over the well, and one of these beams was adorned with a huge
yellowish-white fungus, somewhat resembling, in shape and size, an
elephant's ear, which the warders respected as a natural curiosity.
On the opposite side of the corridor to that opening on this cheerless
court, was a range of small doors, numbered with cyphers in white.
The jailer stopped at 35, unlocked the door, threw it open, and
introduced Gabrielle; then said shortly,--'It is permitted you to be
with Madame 35 for one hour;' then he shut and double-locked the door,
and Gabrielle heard his retreating steps and the jingle of keys at his
girdle become gradually less audible.
The cell into which she was ushered was about twenty feet long by
fifteen broad. It was whitewashed, and floored with red-glazed tiles,
over which a piece of carpet had been laid near the bed; a curtain
suspended from a rod by brass rings screened the couch and the
wash-hand stand, and shut off the portion of the room near the door
from that lighted by the window. This lower part of the cell, which by
the curtain was made into a square apartment, was furnished with a deal
table, two chairs, a chest of drawers, and a small fireplace. The room
would have been as cheerful as it was comfortable, but that the window
was high up in the wall, and too small to admit sufficient air. It was
also protected by heavy stanchions, which obscured the light.
At the table, with her back to the door and her face to the light, her
feet on a footstool, sat Madame Berthier, dressed in black, busily
engaged in constructing cats' cradles.
As Gabrielle entered, the unfortunate lady looked hastily round, and
exclaimed:
'Wait! I must get these threads right first. In one moment! See! the
cats' net.'
At the sound of her voice, Gabrielle felt a violent agitation in her
basket; the lid was forced up, and the yellow puss thrust forth its
head, then placed its fore-paws on the edge, looked all round, saw its
mistress, uttered a faint miaw, leaped to the floor, and in another
second was upon Madame Berthier's shoulder.
The cradle was dissolved instantly; with a scream, the lady sprang to
her feet, caught her favourite in both hands, held it at arm's length
above her head, and looking up to it, whirled round the cell, singing
and laughing, and every now and then kissing the cat, and elevating it
again. Her grey hair broke from its fastenings, fell down her back, and
flew around, as she spun about the room.
'My Gabriel! my angel! Look me in the eyes and say you love me. Tell
me, are you well? Yes; I am sure you are. How beautifully you are
dressed in a new yellow coat! Let me see your teeth, are they sound?
And your paws, as soft and silky as ever? My Gabriel!' She hugged the
cat till it screeched with pain.
In one of her twirls, the unfortunate woman cast herself against
Gabrielle, and then, for the first time, she recognized her.
'It is you! Gabrielle, my cat's wife! my friend! How come you here?'
She caught the girl passionately to her heart, and covered her face
with kisses. Then, without notice, her laughter and joy were exchanged
for tears and grief.
'The Beast!' she cried. 'He has shut you up also. Oh, the Beast, the
Beast!' She ground her teeth, curled back her grey lips, her black eyes
darted lightnings, and her nostrils became rigid.
'See this!' she continued, as she opened one of her drawers, and drew
from it a brown velvet jacket, and flung it on the floor; 'this shall
be the Beast.'
She threw herself upon it; with her teeth and nails she worried it as a
dog worries a rabbit-skin; she danced on it and tore it, she bit upon
it and made her teeth meet through it, she ripped the buttons off with
her mouth and spat them about the floor, and then she kicked it round
the room and stamped on it, and beat it with her fist, kneeling upon
it, with her head forward, and her grey hairs falling over her face and
concealing it.
The sight was horrible and revolting, and Gabrielle interfered.
'Madame! dearest mistress,' she said, drawing her hands away from the
now tattered vestment, 'you are quite mistaken. Indeed you are wrong.
M. Berthier has not sent me here; he does not know that I have come
here. I have walked all the way to Paris to see you, and to bring you
your cat.'
'My cat, where is he?' the poor woman exclaimed, starting to her
knees, and looking round. Then, catching sight of the yellow creature,
she held out her hands to him, and addressed endearing terms to him.
Gabriel was frightened, and had mounted the table, where he stood with
his tail erect, staring at his excited mistress.
The peasantess took the opportunity of a change in the direction of the
thoughts of Madame Plomb to remove the garment she had misused, and to
hide it.
After the stream of passionate expressions addressed to the cat had
ceased to flow with the same copiousness and rapidity as at first,
Gabrielle knelt before madame, and laid her hands on her lap.
'Madame,' she said, 'are you tired of being here?'
'Oh, Gabrielle,' answered Madame Berthier, 'it is dreadful. Always
the same white, white walls. Always the same red, red floor. There is
positively never a bit of colour fit to be seen to refresh one's eyes,
except of a sunny evening, when a streak of fire comes slanting in at
that window, and it falls on the wall, and paints a line of orange. I
sit for hours, and wait for it. I say to myself--a few minutes longer,
and then I shall see it. First it comes down on the floor, but the
red tiles spoil it; then it begins to crawl, like a brilliant fiery
caterpillar, up the chalky wall; I laugh and sing with delight till it
reaches the roof, and then it is gone. If you sit just there, you can
see a bit of blue sky, but I take no account of that; I wait for the
streak of yellow flame. What were you saying to me just now?'
'You are very tired of being here, dear lady.'
'Weary of my life. I cannot bear it. I have no one to take the strings
off my fingers; and then, I have been deprived of Gabriel. But I have
had another pet.'
'What is it?'
'Ah! I do not see it often. Once a day. It is a toad; it lives in the
Court of the Well. I walk there for an hour every noon. I might go into
the big court, but I do not care for it; I like the grim well-yard
where my pet is. He sits near a stone trough beside the draw-well.
He has got a blistered brown back. He is such a droll fellow--but I
will tell you something, Gabrielle, between ourselves, I think he is a
devil.'
The girl, who was not without superstitious fears, shrank from Madame
Berthier, aghast.
'Indeed I do,' continued the crazy lady; 'and I will tell you why. I
have felt worse ever since I have known him. Once he looked me in the
face with a knowing expression in his handsome eyes, and he extended
his long arm and put his cold paw here,' she touched her heart. 'He
spread his long fingers over it, and I have felt from that moment
something dreadful there. I cannot tell you what, but you shall see
some day, when I get out of this place.'
'Do you think you will be released soon?'
'I expect from day to day. Every morning I pack up my clothes, and when
it comes to evening I have to unpack them again. But no! why do I hope
to get out? Who will trouble himself about me? Will my father? Not he.
He never did care for me. Will my husband--the Beast?'
With a scream she sprang into the middle of the room, and began to
dance and stamp on the floor where she had mangled the jacket, looking
for it with blazing, eager eyes all the while, in every direction.
'Dear madame, be composed!' said Gabrielle, 'I have something to speak
to you about.'
The unfortunate lady subsided into her chair, and the girl resumed her
place at her feet.
'I want your advice, madame, so much. I wish to do all I can to obtain
your liberation. You have heard how Madame Legros wrought during three
years, and how she succeeded in procuring the release of Latude.'
'Will you do the same for me?' asked Madame Plomb, her leaden face
darkening and becoming purple, as the blood rushed into it.
'Dear mistress, I will do all that I am able to do; I will spare no
trouble, no exertion. I am poor, but so was Madame Legros; I am a
nobody, but so was she. If she was successful, why should not I be so
too?'
'God bless you, dear heart!' said the poor woman, in a tender tone, the
wild light deserting her eyes, and the nervous contraction of the mouth
yielding to a natural softness. She extended her hands over the girl's
head,--Gabrielle was still kneeling before her; and said in the same
low tone, 'God bless you, dear child! And sweet Mother Mary assist you,
and your patron Gabriel protect you.'
Then she asked abruptly in her usual tone, 'Well! what are you going to
do?'
'Madame, I had formed the intention of seeking an interview with the
queen, and imploring her to use her influence with the king, to obtain
for you an order of release.'
'But I am mad.'
'No, no, dearest madame. I know you better. Ill usage has made you very
unhappy; but if you were alone,--away from M. Berthier and your father,
in some quiet place, and I were to attend on you, you would be happy
and well again.'
Joy irradiated the leaden face. The poor woman laughed and clapped her
hands.
'We shall be together in a cottage, with flowers before the door.'
'Surely, madame.'
'And away, far away from Paris and Bernay, where there are trees and
mountains. Gabrielle, my father took me once when I was a little girl
to a beautiful country where there were great mountains, and snow
covered them in the midst of summer; and there were forests there, and
people did not talk French. I ran away and hid among the rocks and
trees. I was a little girl then, quite a little girl; but they could
not find me. I was behind a mossy stone, and I saw them searching, and
they never would have found me, unless I had laughed aloud. We will go
there. I have not laughed for many years; we shall be able to hide away
there, and they would never find us. Of that I am sure. I would not
laugh and let them catch me. We shall go there.'
'Where was that?' asked Gabrielle, her mind recurring to the
Deschwandens, father and son.
'I do not know. I remember, that is all.'
'Was it,' asked Gabrielle, hesitatingly, 'was it, do you think, the
country of Bruder Klaus?'
'I do not know. We shall take Gabriel with us, shall we not?'
'Certainly.'
'And you will be with me always?'
'Yes, I will not leave you, dear, kind mistress, unless you send me
away.'
'That I will never do.'
'When shall we start?'
'Oh, madame! you are not out of this hateful place yet.'
'No,' said the poor prisoner, her face returning to its ashen greyness,
which, in the Bastille, shut out from the sun, had become more livid;
'no, and I have not said good-bye to the Beast yet.'
'Madame!'
'Ay. To the Beast! Oh for that good-bye!'
She threw up her hand, clenched her fist, and gnashed her teeth. At the
same moment voices were heard in the corridor, and the key was turned
in the lock.
Gabrielle rose to her feet, madame caught up the cat, fearing lest the
returning jailer should refuse to leave it with her, when the door
opening revealed the governor and M. Berthier.