The Réveillon riot had caused no anxiety at Versailles; but the
Baron de Besenval and M. de Launay had seen in it the germs of a
more extended and fiercer explosion, and they determined to have the
Bastille placed in such a condition of security and defence, that it
might resist a rising in Paris, having its destruction in view. The
governor knew better than the court how deep-seated was the popular
detestation of the State prison, and he foresaw that the first act
of an aroused populace would be an assault on that monument of royal
injustice.
At the request of the Baron, M. Berthier visited the Bastille to
examine its condition, and ascertain what precautions were necessary.
It was on the occasion of this visit that Berthier was shown into the
cell of his unfortunate wife.
He had been descending the corridor with De Launay, when the governor,
pointing to No. 35, had said, 'Here is the chamber of Madame Plomb,'
whereupon the Intendant had requested to be admitted to see her.
We must say a few words about M. de Launay.
Son of an ancient governor of the Bastille, born within its walls, his
young heart hardened by the habitual sight of misery and injustice, he
was the man of all others a wise king would not have placed in the post
he was destined to occupy.
He began life in a musketeer regiment, then he became officer in the
guards, and afterwards captain of a cavalry regiment. But the Bastille
was his dream, and he was resolved at all costs to become its governor.
He had many motives for this: his father, who had held the post for
twenty-two years, had left a handsome property, which had been divided
between him and his brother, who was in the service of the Prince of
Conti. De Launay hoped to quadruple his fortune at the same source
whence his father had drawn it.
M. de Maurepas, after repeated solicitation, passed him on to the
ministry, after having sounded him and discovered in him the necessary
qualities. Then, using his influence along with that of the Prince
of Conti, gained over by his brother, he succeeded in drawing his
resignation from M. de Jumilhac, the governor at the time, on these
conditions:--De Launay paid M. de Jumilhac a hundred thousand crowns,
and married his own daughter to the son of the latter, and undertook
to make her his heiress. He also promised his brother a pension of ten
thousand livres, in consideration of his having obtained for him the
protection of the Prince of Conti. This expensive bargain placed the
new functionary under the hard necessity of recouping these enormous
sums out of the prison and the prisoners.
One of the scandals of the period was the venality of responsible
offices, even those in the Bastille. From that of the governor down to
the office of turnkey, all were articles of traffic; De Launay sold the
latter situation at an annual rent of nine hundred francs.
M. de Launay was installed in his government of the Bastille in
October, 1776. He had promised the ministers and the lieutenant of
police passive obedience to their orders, their fancies, and their
caprices, and he kept religiously to his engagement. Never was there a
more cringing, obsequious officer. But, as is always the case with such
persons, they revenge themselves for the degradation their servility
brings, by severity towards those subject to them. From the moment of
his entry into office, the most severe and tyrannical despotism was
enthroned in the Bastille; proud and rough towards the subalterns,
he was brutal, arbitrary, and odious to the prisoners; and under the
excuse of precaution for their safe durance, he surrounded their
captivity with a thousand vexations, cruelties, and privations. His
favourite virtue was parsimony. To recoup a hundredfold the price of
the charge he had bought, he himself measured out the water, the bread,
the fuel, and the clothes. When he had not enough prisoners, and the
revenues diminished, he complained, and asked for more. Those under
his care, he retained under a thousand pretexts, or made against them
reports which retarded their release.
The old bastions had been laid out in gardens full of flowers and
fruit-trees and fountains, and in these gardens the prisoners had
been allowed to take the air. But the Marquis de Launay had turned
this ground into fruit and vegetable gardens, which he let; and thus
the unhappy captives were reduced to taking the air on the top of the
towers of the fortress. This, however, was found to demand too close
a watch, and M. de Launay suppressed this privilege also, and those
in custody were reduced to the use of the great court. The court, of
which a description has been already given, was two hundred feet long
by seventy-two feet wide. The walls enclosing it on all sides were
a hundred feet high, so that it was little better than a huge well,
where in winter the cold was insupportable, and in summer the heat was
intense, and was unrelieved by a breath of air. The prisoners took
their turns to walk in this court. Whenever any one crossed the court
(and this was happening continually, as the kitchens and the lodgings
of the officers were in the new buildings erected by M. de Sartines),
a signal was made, and the prisoner was required to dive out of sight
into a cabinet, without light or air, and remain concealed till notice
was given him to come out.
We return now to the point from which we digressed, merely adding, that
Madame Berthier, not being in prison for political reasons, and being,
moreover, the wife of the Intendant of Paris, was treated in every way
better than other prisoners, conformably to her husband's orders. But
for this, Gabrielle would certainly not have obtained permission to
visit her.
M. Berthier stood mute with astonishment in the doorway, contemplating
his wife and Gabrielle André.
'See!' exclaimed madame; 'there, there, there is the Beast! Look,
Gabriel, my cat, that you may not forget him. Is he not ugly? Is he not
stout, and coarse, and bloated? Look at his hideous eyes!'
'You have got a companion!' said Berthier, at last, with his eyes fixed
on Gabrielle. 'How is that, my good friend De Launay?'
'I did not know that you would object,' said the governor. 'You will
surely remember that you allowed some of the servants to visit her
occasionally, and bring her linen and fruit, and trifles to amuse her.
If I am not mistaken, your wishes were express on that point.'
'My dear marquis, this girl is not one of our servants.'
'No,' answered the governor, 'but I understand that she was one till
quite lately. If it is your wish that she be removed, it shall be
complied with at once.'
'By no means. I do not object. Is she not a charming little creature,
my friend? Gabrielle, sweetest! step from behind the curtain. Look how
she blushes, how bewitchingly she hangs her head, what hair, what a
neck, what lovely temples! Dearest! do not be shy. My worthy De Launay
is quite a connoisseur in woman-flesh. Step out and show him your
ankles. Now, marquis, what do you think of my taste?'
Gabrielle drew up her head and glanced at him scornfully; her little
lips quivered with contempt and rage.
'She is out of humour,' said Berthier, laughing still; 'the rogue
cannot twist out of me all the money she wants. She has set her heart
on some diamonds. Now you be judge, De Launay, is she not ten thousand
times more attractive, bewitching, luscious, in her charming peasant's
dress, than in a suit of silk, and with a diamond brooch?'
'Perfectly so,' answered the governor.
'You hear that,' said Berthier, his fat sides shaking; 'you hear that,
Gabrielle. It is the verdict of a man of all men the most competent to
express an opinion on the subject.'
Madame Berthier now started forward.
'You liar, you coward!' she exclaimed, dragging in her hand the old
jacket she had torn. 'See this! I have been mangling it. I thought for
a moment it was you, and I bit it, and scratched it, and stamped on
it, and beat it. Wait till I have the chance of serving you as I have
served this dress. I pray night and morning for the chance, and I dream
that it is about to be answered. I dream--' she put one hand to her
brow, and looked frowning on the floor--'I dream that I hear voices
from all the yards and courts, from all the cells and dungeons--thin
shrill voices, all night long, crying out to Heaven;--the voices have
waxed louder of late, and deeper in tone, and mightier in number, and I
have felt the earth heave, and the walls reel, and the towers stagger.
Every night the voices are louder and more numerous, and now they roar
like thunder, and soon they will rend this prison, and fling its stones
far and wide, and then! then, Berthier, I shall come leaping out from
among the falling blocks, and run straight at you. I await my time.'
'She is raving,' said the Intendant to De Launay.
'Raving! yes, made so by you. But ah! though you have shut me in here,
I shall not be here for long. Perhaps I may be out very soon. When you
least expect me, I may come bounding in upon you, through the door or
the window, or breaking my way up through the floor, or tearing my way
through the ceiling, or burrowing through the walls to get at you.' She
stopped, raised and clasped her hands over her head, and pirouetted
round her chair two or three times; then, fronting her husband, she
continued with a scream: 'I shall be out soon, very soon, and far away
from you and my father, where you will never find me, that I am sure
of, for, though I know the place, I do not know the name of it.'
'And pray, Madame Plomb, how are you going to get out?' asked Berthier,
in a mocking tone; 'are you going to escape through that window, or dig
through six feet of stone wall with your nails and teeth?'
'No,' she answered, slyly; 'there are other ways of getting released.'
'Ah!' said the Intendant, in the same bantering manner; 'you are
depending on my well-known affection for yourself, which will not
suffer me to remain long separated from you.'
'No,' cried Madame Berthier, laughing cunningly; 'I shall not trust to
that.'
'Only one way remains,' observed her husband, rubbing his hands,--'a
way as pleasant to both parties as could be desired,--a method whereby
I shall be saved anxiety on your account, and be placed at liberty to
contract a marriage, to raise, perhaps, my little pet to the position
of wife.'
'What do you mean?' asked madame, sharply, fastening her restless eyes
for the moment upon him.
Berthier tapped the walls with his knuckles.
'Ah!' said he; 'although whitened over there are hard blocks of granite
behind, hard enough to split quickly such a cracked head as yours.
Knock your own brains out against these stones, madame, and none will
be better satisfied than your obedient servant.'
The unfortunate woman set her teeth. The cat was rubbing its head
against her skirt; she stooped and picked it up and held it by the
fore-legs against her breast, with the body hanging down. The cat, not
satisfied with a position which undoubtedly distressed it, miawed; but
Madame Berthier paid no attention to its complaints.
'Indeed,' continued Berthier, 'I have heard--but my good friend will
correct me if I am wrong--that more than one captive here has so
terminated his confinement, and it was greatly to their credit, I
think; it showed a spirit, deserving admiration. Desirous of saving
the privy purse the expense of their keep, they freed the crown, by
their own act, of all anxiety about them. Certainly it cost a trifle to
whitewash over the splashes of blood, where the head had been battered
against the wall, but a few sous would cover that.'
The cat squalled, but Madame Berthier disregarded its cries. She
laughed and glared at her husband, with her head bent forward, and her
grey dishevelled hair falling over her breast and covering the cat.
'If you prefer it,' pursued Berthier, 'there is a strong stanchion in
the window, quite capable of supporting your weight, and you could with
the greatest facility extemporise a rope, surely out of a coverlet,
torn up, or even a garter.'
'No,' shouted madame; 'no, not that way.'
'Then allow me to recommend a fragment of crockery. I have known a man
hack through his windpipe with a sharp potsherd; and what man has done,
woman may do.'
'No,' screamed the leaden woman; 'not so.'
'Then in the name of wonder, how?'
'Ah-ha!' she cried, advancing towards him, and throwing up the cat
into the air and catching it, and swinging it above her head, and then
bringing it back to its former position. 'Ah! have you never heard of
pardons, of orders for release granted by the king?'
'I allow that I have; but I must assure you, dear Madame Plomb, that
there is not the remotest chance of your obtaining one.'
'Not if Gabrielle pleads on her knees with the queen? Gabrielle loves
me; she will do that, she has come to Paris on purpose to do that. She
has got friends who will help her--we shall see! The queen is good,
Gabrielle is earnest. We shall see.'
For a moment the Intendant looked disconcerted. His cheeks, lately
puckered with laughter, hung down. He turned his red eyes on Gabrielle.
'Are you really going to Versailles on such a fool's errand?' he asked.
The girl, though much grieved at the poor deranged lady having
disclosed her secret to the man of all others from whom it should have
been preserved, when thus appealed to answered resolutely, 'By God's
help, I shall!'
'In the devil's name, you shall not,' said Berthier, abruptly.
'Hark! what is that noise?' asked the governor, holding up his finger;
'I have heard it repeatedly.'
The Intendant listened; and directly heard a voice shouting in a
peculiar, unearthly tone. The voice came from without, as though from
some one floating in the air. What the words were that were spoken,
they could not catch. Along with that sound rose inarticulate murmurs,
which were wafted in through the window.
'Have you done?' asked the governor; 'I must make enquiries. Well, what
is it, Guyon?' This question was addressed to a turnkey who came up.
'Monsieur, there is a crowd in the street. There is great excitement.
They are collecting from all quarters.'
'What is bringing them together?'
'Monsieur, I do not know.'
'Curse the fellow! go and see.' The turnkey turned off; he had not
reached the end of the corridor, before another came from that
direction, met him, and ran towards M. de Launay.
'Well!'
'M. le Gouverneur!' said the jailer, 'the Marquis de Sade is
congregating a mob.'
'What is he about? Has he got out?'
'Monsieur, you know that since the cannons on the battlements have been
loaded, he has been interdicted the promenade there, and that he has
been very angry about it.'
'I know, I know, Lassimotte!'
'Sir! he threatened me, that if I did not procure from your honour a
favourable reply to his demand, that he should be allowed to resume his
walk on the towers, he would arouse all Paris.'
'You never told me of this.'
'No, sir; I knew your honour did not want to be troubled with these
messages. If I were to convey to you one-half of those given me----'
'I know; go on with the story. What has he done?'
'Why, you know, monsieur, he is allowed a long tin pipe with a funnel
at the end for emptying his slops from his window into the moat. He has
reversed the tube, and thus converted it into a speaking-trumpet.'
De Launay clapped his hands and laughed.
'Monsieur, he has been shouting for nearly half an hour to the people
in the Rue S. Antoine, entreating them to assist him, crying out that
you were assassinating him, that he was being tortured to death.'
'And the people have heard?'
'Monsieur, we did not know what it was that drew the people together.
No one suspected for a moment----'
'Has the trumpet been removed from him, Lassimotte?'
'Yes, monsieur; the instant we discovered whence the voice came, we
flew to his cell and wrested the instrument from his lips. He struggled
to retain it, but Chouard and I took it from him by force.'
'M. Berthier,' said the governor, 'you must really excuse me; this must
be looked to at once.'
'I am quite ready,' answered the Intendant; 'this girl had better be
removed, had she not? And please remember I have no objection whatever
to her revisiting my delectable wife. Madame Plomb, I bid you a
respectful farewell, and please set your mind at rest upon the little
matter we were speaking about. Gabrielle shall never procure your
release, in the way you mentioned, or in any other.'
'Come!' said the jailer to the peasant-girl, 'it is time for you to be
out of this. Come with me.'
'See her safely through the gates, Lassimotte.'
'Ay, sir!'
'Beast!' shouted Madame Berthier, before the door closed, glaring upon
her husband, and swinging the yellow cat above her head; 'did you want
me to dash my head against the walls, and spatter them with blood and
brains?'
'Certainly,' answered the Intendant, mockingly, as he bowed with his
hand on his heart.
'Or that I should strangle myself with my garters, slung to that
stanchion?'
'Let me assure you that you have quite caught my idea;' with another
bow, and a step back towards the door.
'Or you would have me hack through my throat with a broken potsherd?'
'Delighted,' exclaimed Berthier, standing on the threshold and throwing
his arms apart, and raising himself.
'Then begone,' she screamed. 'I will not see you again, I swear, till
I have your life. If you come to see me here, I will hide my face
from you. Take that to remember me by--go, Gabriel! avenging angel!'
She flung the yellow cat in his face. The beast lit upon his cheeks,
with every claw extended, screaming with fear, and clinging with all
its might, hung there one instant, then dropped, and darting to its
mistress bounded to her shoulder and set up its back and tail, hissing
and swearing.
Madame Plomb saw her husband recoil,--saw lines of crimson streak his
face, heard his yell of pain, followed by a volley of blasphemous
oaths, then the door was shut with a bang, double locked, and she was
left to silence and reflection.
Gabrielle in the meantime had been hurried by the jailer to the gates.
As she issued from them into the street, she saw that it was full of
people in a condition of intense excitement. Every eye was directed
towards the towers, with a look of threatening hate. A deep murmur rose
from the throng, not loud, but intensely earnest.
Corporal Deschwanden caught Gabrielle's arm. He had been waiting for
her.
'Is all right?' he asked, anxiously.
'I fear not,' she answered; and then told him what had occurred.
'Herr Je!' exclaimed the soldier; 'that will never do. If Berthier
knows of your plan, he will take effectual means to stop its execution.
What is to be done? You are not safe. Potts tausend! I must think of
it.'
That evening, an express was sent to Versailles, and at day-break the
Marquis de Sade was removed to Charenton. He was the last prisoner
to leave the Bastille. He had been confined for horrible crimes of
impurity. Being only a moral, not a political offender, he had been
treated with a consideration never met with by those who had roused
the suspicions of Government. He was allowed the walk on the towers
interdicted to others, was permitted to carpet and hang his room with
arras, and to have excellent meals, which he paid for out of his
well-stocked purse.
That cry of his through the extemporised speaking-trumpet echoed
from one end of Paris to the other, and, false as was the statement
he made to the crowd about himself, it was terribly true about his
fellow-prisoners. That cry roused Paris. The trumpet was but of tin,
but it pealed the death-knell of the fortress that had stood four
hundred years.