A LA LANTERNE.
For, of all the things that had happened since I left the Committee
Room, the Captain's death remained the one most real and most deeply
bitten into my mind. He had shared with me the walk from the inn to
the garden, and the petty annoyances that had then filled my thoughts.
He had faced them with me, and bravely; and this late association, and
the picture of him as he walked beside me, full of life and coarse
wrath, rose up now and cried out against his death; cried out that it
was impossible. So that it seemed horrible to me, and I shook with
fear, and loathed the man whose hand had done it.
Nor was that all. I had known Hugues barely forty-eight hours, my
liking for him was only an hour born; but I had his story. I could
follow him going about to borrow the small sum of money he had
possessed. I could trace the hopes he had built on it. I could see him
coming here full of honest courage, believing that he had found an
opening; a man strong, confident, looking forward, full of plans. And
then of all, this was the end! He had hoped, he had purposed; and on
the other side of the Cathedral, he lay stark--stark and dead on the
grass.
It seemed so sad and pitiful, I had the man so vividly in my mind,
that I scarcely gave a thought to the St. Alais' danger and escape;
that, and our hasty flight, had passed like a dream. I was content to
listen a moment beside the church door; and then satisfied that the
murmur of the crowd was dying in the distance, and that the city was
quiet, I thanked the Vicar again, and warmly, and, taking leave of
him, in my turn walked up the passage.
It was so still that it echoed my footsteps; and presently I began to
think the silence odd. I began to wonder why the mob, which a few
minutes before had shown itself so vindictive, had not found its way
round; why the neighbourhood had become on a sudden so quiet. A few
paces would show, however; I hastened on, and in a moment stood in the
market-place.
To my astonishment it lay sunny, tranquil, utterly deserted; a dog ran
here and there with tail high, nosing among the garbage; a few old
women were at the stalls on the farther side; about as many people
were busy, putting up shutters and closing shops. But the crowd which
had filled the place so short a time before, the _queue_ about the
corn measures, the white cockades, all were gone; I stood astonished.
For a moment only, however. Then, in place of the silence which had
prevailed between the high walls of the passage, a dull sound, distant
and heavy, began to speak to me; a sullen roar, as of breakers falling
on the beach. I started and listened. A moment more, and I was across
the Square, and at the door of the inn. I darted into the passage, and
up the stairs, my heart beating fast.
Here, too, I had left a crowd in the passages, and on the stairs. Not
a man remained. The house seemed to be dead; at noon-day with the sun
shining outside. I saw no one, heard no one, until I reached the door
of the room in which I had left the Committee and entered. Here, at
last, I found life; but the same silence.
Round the table were seated some dozen of the members of the
Committee. On seeing me they started, like men detected in an act of
which they were ashamed, some continuing to sit, sullen and scowling,
with their elbows on the table, others stooping to their neighbours'
ears to whisper, or listen. I noticed that many were pale and all
gloomy; and though the room was light, and hot noon poured in through
three windows, a something grim in the silence, and the air of
expectation which prevailed, struck a chill to my heart.
Father Benoit was not of them, but Baton was, and the lawyer, and the
grocer, and the two gentlemen, and one of the Cures, and Doury--the
last-named pale and cringing, with fear sitting heavily on him. I
might have thought, at a first glance round, that nothing which had
happened outside was known to them; that they were ignorant alike of
the duel and the riot; but a second glance assured me that they knew
all, and more than I did; so many of them, when they had once met my
eyes, looked away.
"What has happened?" I asked, standing half-way between the door and
the long table.
"Don't you know, Monsieur?"
"No," I muttered, staring at them. Even here that distant murmur
filled the air.
"But you were at the duel, M. le Vicomte?" The speaker was Buton.
"Yes," I said nervously. "But what of that? I saw M. le Marquis safe
on his way home, and I thought that the crowd had separated. Now--"
and I paused, listening.
"You fancy that you still hear them?" he said, eying me closely and
smiling.
"Yes; I fear that they are at mischief."
"We are afraid of that, too," the smith answered drily, setting his
elbows on the table, and looking at me anew. "It is not impossible."
Then I understood. I caught Doury's eye--which would fain have escaped
mine--and read it there. The hooting of the distant crowd rose more
loudly on the summer stillness; as it did so, faces round the table
grew graver, lips grew longer, some trembled and looked down; and I
understood. "My God!" I cried in excitement, trembling myself. "Is no
one going to do anything, then? Are you going to sit here, while these
demons work their will? While houses are sacked and women and
children----"
"Why not?" Buton said curtly.
"Why not?" I cried.
"Ay, why not?" he answered sternly--and I began to see that he
dominated the others; that he would not and they dared not. "We went
about to keep the peace, and see that others kept it. But your white
cockades, your gentlemen bullies, your soldierless officers, M. le
Vicomte--I speak without offence--would not have it. They undertook to
bully us; and unless they learn a lesson now, they will bully us
again. No, Monsieur," he continued, looking round with a hard
smile--already power had changed him wondrously--"let the people have
their way for half an hour, and----"
"The people?" I cried. "Are the rascals and sweepings of the streets,
the gaol-birds, the beggars and _forcats_ of the town--are they the
people?"
"No matter," he said frowning.
"But this is murder!"
Two or three shivered, and some looked sullenly from me, but the
blacksmith only shrugged his shoulders. Still I did not despair, I was
going to say more--to try threats, even prayers; but before I could
speak, the man nearest to the windows raised his hand for silence, and
we heard the distant riot sink, and in the momentary quiet which
followed the sharp report of a gun ring out, succeeded by another and
another. Then a roar of rage--distinct, articulate, full of menace.
"Oh, _mon Dieu!_" I cried, looking round, while I trembled with
indignation, "I cannot stand this! Will no one act? Will no one do
anything? There must be some authority. There must be some one to curb
this _canaille_; or presently, I warn you, I warn you all, that they
will cut your throats also; yours, M. l'Avoue, and yours, Doury!"
"There was some one; and he is dead," Buton answered. The rest of the
Committee fidgeted gloomily.
"And was he the only one?"
"They've killed him," the smith said bluntly. "They must take the
consequences."
"They?" I cried, in a passion of wrath and pity. "Ay, and you! And
you! I tell you that you are using this scum of the people to crush
your enemies! But presently they will crush you too!"
Still no one spoke, no one answered me; no eyes met mine; then I saw
how it was; that nothing I could say would move them; and I turned
without another word, and I ran downstairs. I knew already, or could
guess, whither the crowd had gone, and whence came the shouting and
the shots; and the moment I reached the Square I turned in the
direction of the St. Alais' house, and ran through the streets;
through quiet streets under windows from which women looked down white
and curious, past neat green blinds of modern houses, past a few
staring groups; ran on, with all about me smiling, but always with
that murmur in my ears, and at my heart grim fear.
They were sacking the St. Alais' house! And Mademoiselle! And Madame!
The thought of them came to me late; but having come it was not to be
displaced. It gripped my heart and seemed to stop it. Had I saved
Mademoiselle only for this? Had I risked all to save her from the
frenzied peasants, only that she might fall into the more cruel hands
of these maddened wretches, these sweepings of the city?
It was a dreadful thought; for I loved her, and knew, as I ran, that I
loved her. Had I not known it I must have known it now, by the very
measure of agony which the thought of that horror caused me. The
distance from the Trois Rois to the house was barely four hundred
yards, but it seemed infinite to me. It seemed an age before I stopped
breathless and panting on the verge of the crowd, and strove to see,
across the plain of heads, what was happening in front.
A moment, and I made out enough to relieve me; and I breathed more
freely. The crowd had not yet won its will. It filled the street on
either side of the St. Alais' house from wall to wall; but in front of
the house itself, a space was still kept clear by the fire of those
within. Now and again, a man or a knot of men would spring out of the
ranks of the mob, and darting across this open space to the door,
would strive to beat it in with axes and bars, and even with naked
hands; but always there came a puff of smoke from the shuttered and
loop-holed windows, and a second and a third, and the men fell back,
or sank down on the stones, and lay bleeding in the sunshine.
It was a terrible sight. The wild beast rage of the mob, as they
watched their leaders fall, yet dared not make the rush _en masse_
which must carry the place, was enough, of itself, to appal the
stoutest. But when to this and their fiendish cries were added other
sounds as horrid--the screams of the wounded and the rattle of
musketry--for some of the mob had arms, and were firing from
neighbouring houses at the St. Alais' windows--the effect was
appalling. I do not know why, but the sunshine, and the tall white
houses which formed the street, and the very neatness of the
surroundings, seemed to aggravate the bloodshed; so that for a while
the whole, the writhing crowd, the open space with its wounded, the
ugly cries and curses and shots, seemed unreal. I, who had come
hot-foot to risk all, hesitated; if this was Cahors, if this was the
quiet town I had known all my life, things had come to a pass indeed.
If not, I was dreaming.
But this last was a thought too wild to be entertained for more than a
few seconds; and with a groan I thrust myself into the press, bent
desperately on getting through and reaching the open space; though
what I should do when I got there, or how I could help, I had not
considered. I had scarcely moved, however, when I felt my arm gripped,
and some one clinging obstinately to me, held me back. I turned to
resent the action with a blow,--I was beside myself; but the man was
Father Benoit, and my hand fell. I caught hold of him with a cry of
joy, and he drew me out of the press.
His face was pale and full of grief and consternation; yet by a
wonderful chance I had found him, and I hoped. "You can do something!"
I cried in his ear, gripping his hand hard. "The Committee will not
act, and this is murder! Murder, man! Do you see?"
"What can I do?" he wailed; and he threw up his other hand with a
gesture of despair.
"Speak to them."
"Speak to them?" he answered. "Will mad dogs stand when you speak to
them? Or will mad dogs listen? How can you get to them? Where can you
speak to them? It is impossible. It is impossible, Monsieur. They
would kill their fathers to-day, if they stood between them and
vengeance."
"Then, what will you do?" I cried passionately. "What will you do?"
He shook his head; and I saw that he meant nothing, that he could do
nothing. And then my soul revolted. "You must! You shall!" I cried
fiercely. "You have raised this devil, and you must lay him! Are these
the liberties about which you have talked to us? Are these the people
for whom you have pleaded? Answer, answer me, what you will do!" I
cried. And I shook him furiously.
He covered his face with his hand. "God forgive us!" he said. "God
help us!"
I looked at him for the first and only time in my life with
contempt--with rage. "God help you?" I cried--I was beside myself.
"God helps those who help themselves! You have brought this about!
You! You! You have preached this! Now mend it!"
He trembled, and was silent. Unsupported by the passion which animated
me, in face of the brute rage of the people, his courage sank.
"Now mend it!" I repeated furiously.
"I cannot get to them," he muttered.
"Then I will make a way for you!" I answered madly, recklessly.
"Follow me! Do you hear that noise? Well, we will play a part in it!"
A dozen guns had gone off, almost in a volley. We could not see the
result, nor what was passing; but the hoarse roar of the mob
intoxicated me. I cried to him to follow, and rushed into the press.
Again he caught and stayed me, clinging to me with a stubbornness
which would not be denied. "If you will go, go through the houses! Go
through the opposite houses!" he muttered in my ear.
I had sense enough, when he had spoken twice, to understand him and
comply. I let him lead me aside, and in a moment we were out of the
press, and hurrying through an alley at the back of the houses that
faced the St. Alais' mansion. We were not the first to go that way;
some of the more active of the rioters had caught the idea before us,
and gone by this path to the windows, whence they were firing. We
found two or three of the doors open, therefore, and heard the excited
cries and curses of the men who had taken possession. However, we did
not go far. I chose the first door, and, passing quickly by a huddled,
panic-stricken group of women and children--probably the occupants of
the house--who were clustered about it, I went straight through to the
street door.
Two or three ruffianly men with smoke-grimed faces were firing through
a window on the ground floor, and one of these, looking behind him as
I passed, saw me. He called to me to stop, adding with an oath that if
I went into the street I should be shot by the aristocrats. But in my
excitement I took no heed; in a second I had the door open, and was
standing in the street--alone in the sunny, cleared space. On either
side of me, fifty paces distant, were the close ranks of the mob; in
front of me rose the white blind face of the St. Alais' house, from
which, even as I appeared, there came a little spit of smoke and the
bang of a musket.
The crowd, astonished to see me there alone and standing still, fell
silent, and I held up my hand. A gun went off above my head, and
another; and a splinter flew from one of the green shutters opposite.
Then a voice from the crowd cried out to cease firing; and for a
moment all was still. I stood in the midst of a hot breathless hush,
my hand raised. It was my opportunity--I had got it by a miracle; but
for a moment I was silent, I could find no words.
At last, as a low murmur began to make itself heard, I spoke.
"Men of Cahors!" I cried. "In the name of the Tricolour, stand!" And
trembling with agitation, acting on the impulse of the instant, I
walked slowly across the street to the door of the besieged house, and
under the eyes of all I took the Tricolour from my bosom, and hung it
on the knocker of the door. Then I turned. "I take possession," I
cried hoarsely, at the top of my voice, that all might hear, "I take
possession of this house and all that are in it in the name of the
Tricolour, and the Nation, and the Committee of Cahors. Those within
shall be tried, and justice done upon them. But for you, I call upon
you to depart, and go to your homes in peace, and the Committee----"
I got no farther. With the word a shot whizzed by my ear, and struck
the plaster from the wall; and then, as if the sound released all the
passions of the people, a roar of indignation shook the air. They
hissed and swore at me, yelled "_A la lanterne!_" and "_A bas le
traitre!_" and in an instant burst their bounds. As if invisible
floodgates gave way, the mob on either side rushed suddenly forward,
and, rolling towards the door in a solid mass, were in an instant upon
me.
I expected that I should be torn to pieces, but instead I was only
buffeted and flung aside and forgotten, and in a moment was lost in
the struggling, writhing mass of men, who flung themselves pell-mell
upon the door, and fell over one another, and wounded one another in
the fury with which they attacked it. Men, injured earlier, were
trodden under foot now; but no one stayed for their cries. Twice a gun
was fired from the house, and each shot took effect; but the press was
so great, and the fury of the assailants, as they swarmed about the
door, so blind, that those who were hit sank down unobserved, and
perished under their comrades' feet.
Thrust against the iron railings that flanked the door, I clung to
them, and protected from the pressure by a pillar of the porch,
managed with some difficulty to keep my place. I could not move,
however; I had to stand there while the crowd swayed round me, and I
waited in dizzy, sickening horror for the crisis. It came at last. The
panels of the door, riven and shattered, gave way; the foremost
assailants sprang at the gap. Yet still the frame, held by one hinge,
stood, and kept them out. As that yielded at length under their blows,
and the door fell inward with a crash, I flung myself into the stream,
and was carried into the house among the foremost, fortunately--for
several fell--on my feet.
I had the thought that I might outpace the others, and, getting first
to the rooms upstairs, might at least fight for Mademoiselle if I
could not save her. For I had caught the infection of the mob, my
blood was on fire. There was no one in all the crowd more set to kill
than I was. I raced in, therefore, with the rest; but when I reached
the foot of the stairs I saw, and they saw, that which stopped us all.
It was M. de Gontaut, lifted, in that moment of extreme danger, above
himself. He stood alone on the stairs, looking down on the invaders,
and smiling--smiling, with everything of senility and frivolity gone
from his face, and only the courage of his caste left. He saw his
world tottering, the scum and rabble overwhelming it, everything which
he had loved, and in which he had lived, passing; he saw death waiting
for him seven steps below, and he smiled. With his slender sword
hanging at his wrist, he tapped his snuff-box and looked down at us;
no longer garrulous, feeble, almost--with his stories of stale
intrigues and his pagan creed--contemptible; but steady and proud,
with eyes that gleamed with defiance.
"Well, dogs," he said, "will you earn the gallows?"
For a second no one moved. For a second the old noble's presence and
fearlessness imposed on the vilest; and they stared at him, cowed by
his eye. Then he stirred. With a quiet gesture, as of a man saluting
before a duel, he caught up the hilt of his sword, and presented the
lower point. "Well," he said with bitter scorn in his tone, "you have
come to do it. Which of you will go to hell for the rest? For I shall
take one."
That broke the spell. With a howl, a dozen ruffians sprang up the
stairs. I saw the bright steel flash once, twice; and one reeled back,
and rolled down under his fellows' feet. Then a great bar swept up and
fell on the smiling face, and the old noble dropped without a cry or a
groan, under a storm of blows that in a moment beat the life out of
his body.
It was over in a moment, and before I could interfere. The next, a
score of men leaped over the corpse and up the stairs, with horrid
cries--I after them. To the right and left were locked doors, with
panels Waetteau-painted; they dashed these in with brutal shouts, and,
in a twinkling, flooded the splendid rooms, sweeping away, and
breaking, and flinging down in wanton mischief, everything that came
to hand--vases, statues, glasses, miniatures. With shrieks of triumph,
they filled the _salon_ that had known for generations only the graces
and beauty of life; and clattered over the shining parquets that had
been swept so long by the skirts of fair women. Everything they could
not understand was snatched up and dashed down; in a moment the great
Venetian mirrors were shattered, the pictures pierced and torn, the
books flung through the windows into the street.
I had a glimpse of the scene as I paused on the landing. But a glance
sufficed to convince me that the fugitives were not in these rooms,
and I sprang on, and up the next flight. Here, short as had been my
delay, I found others before me. As I turned the corner of the stairs
I came on three men, listening at a door; before I could reach them
one rose. "Here they are!" he cried. "That is a woman's voice! Stand
back!" And he lifted a crowbar to beat in the door.
"Hold!" I cried in a voice that shook him, and made him lower his
weapon. "Hold! In the name of the Committee, I command you to leave
that door. The rest of the house is yours. Go and plunder it."
The men glared at me. "_Sacre ventre!_" one of them hissed. "Who are
you?"
"The Committee!" I answered.
He cursed me, and raised his hand. "Stand back!" I cried furiously,
"or you shall hang!"
"Ho! ho! An aristocrat!" he retorted; and he raised his voice. "This
way, friends--this way! An aristocrat! An aristocrat!" he cried.
At the word a score of his fellows came swarming up the stairs. I saw
myself in an instant surrounded by grimy, pocked faces and scowling
eyes,--by haggard creatures sprung from the sewers of the town.
Another second and they would have laid hands on me; but desperate and
full of rage I rushed instead on the man with the bar, and, snatching
it from him before he guessed my intention, in a twinkling laid him at
my feet.
In the act, however, I lost my balance, and stumbled. Before I could
recover myself one of his comrades struck me on the head with his
wooden shoe. The blow partially stunned me; still I got to my feet
again and hit out wildly, and drove them back, and for a moment
cleared the landing round me. But I was dizzy; I saw all now through a
red haze, the figures danced before me; I could no longer think or
aim, but only hear taunts and jeers on every side. Some one plucked my
coat. I turned blindly. In a moment another struck me a crushing
blow--how, or with what, I never knew--and I fell senseless and as
good as dead.