My mother did not come home till the evening, when the streets had
become tolerably quiet. She had a strange account to give, for she had
been at the palace all the time in attendance on Queen Henrietta, who
tried in vain to impress her sister-in-law with a sense that the matter
was serious. Queen Anne of Austria was too proud to believe that a
parliament and a mob could do any damage to the throne of France,
whatever they might effect in England.
There she sat in her grand cabinet, and with her were the Cardinal, the
Duke of Longueville, and many other gentlemen, especially Messieurs de
Nogent and de Beautru, who were the wits, if not the buffoons of the
Court, and who turned all the reports they heard into ridicule. The
Queen-Regent smiled in her haughty way, but the Queen of England laid
her hand sadly on my mother’s arm and said, ‘Alas, my dear friend, was
it not thus that once we laughed?’
Presently in came Marshal de la Meilleraye and the Coadjutor, and their
faces and gestures showed plainly that they were seriously alarmed; but
M. de Beautru, nothing daunted, turned to the Regent, saying, ‘How ill
Her Majesty must be, since M. le Coadjutor is come to bring her extreme
unction,’ whereupon there was another great burst of applause and
laughter.
The Coadjutor pretended not to hear, and addressing the Queen told her
that he had come to offer his services to her at a moment of pressing
danger. Anne of Austria only vouchsafed a little nod with her head, by
way at once of thanks, and showing how officious and superfluous she
thought him, while Nogent and Beautru continued to mimic the dismay of
poor Broussel, seized in his dressing-gown and slippers, and the shrieks
of his old housekeeper from the window. ‘Did no one silence them for
being so unmanly?’ cried Annora, as she heard this.
‘Child, thou art foolish!’ said my mother with dignity. ‘Why should
the resistance of canaille like that be observed at all, save to make
sport?’
For my poor mother, since she had been dipped again into the Court
atmosphere, had learned to look on whatever was not noble, as not of
the same nature with herself. However, she said that Marshal de la
Meilleraye, a thorough soldier, broke in by assuring the Queen that the
populace were in arms, howling for Broussel, and the Coadjutor began to
describe the fierce tumult through which he had made his way, but
the Cardinal only gave his dainty provoking Italian smile, and the
Queen-Regent proudly affirmed that there neither was nor could be a
revolt.
‘We know,’ added Mazarin, in his blandest tone of irony, ‘that M. le
Coadjuteur is so devoted to the Court, and so solicitous for his flock,
that a little over-anxiety must be pardoned to him!’
This was while shouts of ‘BROUSSEL! BROUSSEL!’ were echoing through the
palace, and in a few moments came the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Guards
to say that the populace were threatening to overpower the soldiers at
the gates; and next came the Chancellor, nearly frightened out of his
wits, saying that he had seen the people howling like a pack of wolves,
carrying all sorts of strange weapons, and ready to force their way in.
Then old Monsieur Guitauet, the Colonel of the Guards, declared ‘that
the old rogue Broussel must be surrendered, dead or alive.’
‘The former step would not be accordant with the Queen’s piety nor her
justice,’ broke in the Coadjutor; ‘the second might stop the tumult.’
‘I understand you, M. le Coadjuteur,’ broke out the Queen. ‘You want
me to set Broussel at liberty. I would rather strangle him with my own
hands, and those who--’
And she held those plump white hands of hers almost close to the
Archbishop’s face, as if she were ready to do it, but Cardinal Mazarin
whispered something in her ear which made her less violent, and the next
moment the lieutenant of police came in, with such a terrific account
of the fury of the mob and their numbers, that there was no more
incredulity; it was plain that there was really a most frightful uproar,
and both the Regent and the Cardinal entreated the Coadjutor to go down
and pacify the people by promises. He tried to obtain from the Queen
some written promise.
‘He was right,’ said Eustace.
‘Right!’ cried my mother. ‘What! to seek to bind Her Majesty down by
written words, like a base mechanical bourgeois? I am ashamed of you, my
son! No, indeed, we all cried out upon him, Archbishop though he were,
and told him that Her Majesty’s word was worth ten thousand bonds.’
‘May it be so proved!’ muttered Eustace, while my mother went on to
describe how the Coadjutor was pressed, pushed, and almost dragged down
the great stair-case to speak to the infuriated people who were yelling
and shrieking outside the court. Monsieur de Meilleraye went before him,
backed by all the light horse drawn up in the court, and mounting his
horse, drew his sword crying, ‘Vive le Roi! Liberty for Broussel!’ he
was met by a cry of ‘To arms, to arms!’ and there was a rush against
him, some trying to pull him off his horse, and one attacking him with a
rusty old sword. The Marshal fired at him and he fell, severely wounded,
just as the Coadjutor came down, and seeing him lying in the gutter like
one dead, knelt down by him, heard his confession, and absolved him.
(It was afterwards said that the man was a pick-lock, but we always
suspected that the Coadjutor had made the worst of him by way of
enhancing a good story.)
Just as the absolution was finished, some more of the mob came up, and
one threw a stone which hit the Archbishop on the cheek, and another
pointed a musket at him. ‘Unhappy man,’ he cried, ‘if your father saw
you!’ This seemed to touch the man; he cried: ‘Vive le Coadjuteur!’ And
so easily were the people swayed, that they all began to applaud him to
the skies, and he led them off to the market-place.
‘We thought ourselves rid of them,’ said my mother, ‘we began to breathe
again, and I was coming home, but, bah! No such thing! They are all
coming back, thirty or forty thousand of them, only without their
weapons. At least the gentlemen said so, but I am sure they had them
hidden. Up comes M. Le Coadjuteur again, the Marshal de Meileraye
leading him by the hand up the Queen, and saying: ‘Here, Madame, is one
to whom I owe my life, but to whom your Majesty owes the safety of the
State, nay, perhaps of the palace.’’
The Queen smiled, seeing through it all, said my mother, and the
Coadjutor broke in: ‘The matter is not myself, Madame, it is Paris, now
disarmed and submissive, at your Majesty’s feet.’
‘It is very guilty, and far from submissive,’ said the Queen angrily;
‘pray, if it were so furious, how can it have been so rapidly tamed?’
And then M. de Meilleraye must needs break in furiously: ‘Madame, an
honest man cannot dissemble the state of things. If Broussel is not set
at liberty, tomorrow there will not be one stone upon another at Paris.’
But the Queen was firm, and put them both down, only saying: ‘Go and
rest, Monsieur, you have worked hard.’
‘Was that all the thanks he had?’ exclaimed Annora.
‘Of course it was, child. The Queen and Cardinal knew very well that the
tumult was his work; or at least immensely exaggerated by him, just to
terrify her into releasing that factious old mischief-maker! Why,
he went off I know not where, haranguing them from the top of his
carriage!’
‘Ah! that was where we saw him,’ said Nan. ‘Madame, indeed there was
nothing exaggerated in the tumult. It was frightful. They made ten times
the noise our honest folk do in England, and did ten times less. If they
had been English, M. Broussel would be safe at home now!’
‘No the tumult was not over-painted, that I can testify,’ said my
brother.
But when my mother came to hear how he and Annora had witnessed the
scene from the windows of M. Darpent’s house, her indignation knew no
bounds. I never saw her so angry with Eustace as she now was, that he
should have taken his sister into the house of one of these councillors;
a bourgeois house was bad enough, but that it should have been actually
one of the disaffected, and that the Darpent carriage should have been
seen at our door, filled her with horror. It was enough to ruin us all
for ever with the Court.
‘What have we to do with the Court?’ cried my sister, and this, of
course, only added fuel to the flame, till at last my mother came to
declaring that she should never trust her daughter with my brother
again, for he was not fit to take care of her.
But we were all surprised by Eustace, when he bade my mother good-night,
quietly bending his dark curled head, ad saying: ‘My mother, I ask your
pardon, I am sorry I offended you.’
‘My son, my dear son,’ she cried, embracing him. ‘Never think of it
more, only if we never go home, I cannot have your sister made a mere
bourgeoise.’
‘How could you, brother!’ cried Annora, waiting outside the door. ‘Now
you have owned yourself in the wrong!’
‘I have not said so, Nan,’ he answered. ‘I have simply said I was sorry
to have offended my mother, and that is true; I could not sleep under
her displeasure.’
‘But you do not care about ruining yourself with this perfidious foreign
Court.’
‘Not a rush, so long as I do not bring Meg and her son into danger.’
Things were quiet that night, but every one knew that it was only a lull
in the storm.
I set off to morning mass with my son and little Armantine as usual,
thinking all would be quiet so early in our part of the city, but before
the service was over there was the dull roar of the populace in a
fury to be heard in the distance, and Nicole met me at the church door
entreating me to get home as quickly as possible.
To my dismay there was a large heavy chain across the end of the
street, not such as to stop foot passengers, but barring the way
against carriages, and the street was fast filling with shopkeepers,
apprentices, market-women, and all sorts of people. The children clung
to my hands, half frightened and half eager. Suddenly we saw a carriage
stopped by the chain, and the people crowding round it. Out of it sprang
two gentlemen and a lady, and began hurrying forward like people hunted.
I drew the children back into the church porch, and was shocked to
see that those who were then fleeing in haste and terror were the
Chancellor, M. Seguier, with his brother, the Bishop of Meaux, and his
daughter the beautiful young Duchess de Sully. I tried to attract their
attention and draw them into the church as a place of safety, but
they were in too much haste and terror to perceive me, and a man began
shouting after them:
‘To arms, friends, to arms! There’s the enemy. Kill him! and we shall
have vengeance for all we suffer!’
The mob rushed after, shouting horribly. Armantine began to cry, and I
took her in my arms, while Nicole held my son.
The whole crowd rushed past us, never heeding us, as we stood above
them, and as we were only thirty yards from home I hoped soon to reach
it, though I hesitated, as the screeches, yells, and howls were still
to be heard lower down the street, and fresh parties of men, women, and
children kept rushing down to join the throng. If it should surge back
again before we could get home, what would become of us?
Suddenly Gaspard cried out: ‘My uncle!’ And there was indeed my brother.
‘Good heavens!’ he cried, ‘you there, sister! They told me you were gone
to church, but I could hardly believe it! Come home before the mob comes
back.’
I asked anxiously for the Chancellor, and heard he had escaped into the
Hotel de Luynes, which was three doors beyond ours. He had set out at
six in the morning for the palace, it was believed to take orders
for breaking up the Parliament. His daughter, thinking there might be
danger, chose to go with him, and so did his brother the Bishop; but
the instant he was known to be entangled in the streets, the mob rose
on him, the chains were put up, he had to leave his carriage and flee on
foot to the Hotel de Luynes, where his brother-in-law lived. There the
door was open, but no one was up but an old servant, and, in the utmost
terror, the unhappy Chancellor rushed into a little wainscoted closet,
where he shut himself up, confessing his sins to the Bishop, believing
his last moments were come. In fact, the mob did search all over the
hotel, some meaning to make him a hostage for Broussel, and others
shouting that they would cut him to pieces to show what fate awaited the
instruments of tyranny. They did actually beat against the wainscot
of his secret chamber, but hearing nothing, they left the spot, but
continued to keep guard round the house, shouting out execrations
against him.
Meantime Eustace had brought us safely home, where the first thing we
did was to hurry up to the balcony, where Annora was already watching
anxiously.
Presently, Marshal de Meilleraye and his light horse came galloping
and clattering down the street, while the mob fled headlong, hither and
thither, before them. A carriage was brought out, and the Chancellor
with his brother and daughter was put into it, but as they were driving
off the mob rallied again and began to pursue them. A shot was fired,
and a poor woman, under a heavy basket, fell. There was another outburst
of curses, screams, howls, yells, shots; and carriage, guards, people,
all rushed past us, the coach going at the full speed of its six horses,
amid a shower of stones, and even bullets, the guards galloping after,
sometimes firing or cutting with their swords, the people keeping up
with them at a headlong pace, pelting them with stones and dirt, and
often firing at them, for, indeed, the poor young Duchess received a
wound before they could reach the palace. Meanwhile others of the mob
began ransacking the Hotel de Luynes in their rage at the Chancellor’s
escape, and they made dreadful havoc of the furniture, although they did
not pillage it.
My mother wept bitterly, declaring that the evil days she had seen in
England were pursuing her to France; and we could not persuade her that
we were in no danger, until the populace, having done their worst at
the Hotel de Luynes, drifted away from our street. Eustace could not
of course bear to stay shut up and knowing nothing, and he and the Abbe
both went out different ways, leaving us to devour our anxiety as best
we could, knowing nothing but that there was a chain across each end of
our street, with a double row of stakes on either side, banked up with
earth, stones, straw, all sorts of things, and guarded by men with all
manner of queer old weapons that had come down from the wars of the
League. Eustace even came upon one of the old-fashioned arquebuses
standing on three legs to be fired; and, what was worse, there was a
gorget with the portrait of the murderer of Henri III. enameled on it,
and the inscription ‘S. Jacques Clement,’ but the Coadjutor had the
horrible thing broken up publicly. My brother said things did indeed
remind him of the rusty old weapons that were taken down at the
beginning of the Rebellion. He had been to M. Darpent’s, and found him
exceedingly busy, and had learned from him that the Coadjutor was at the
bottom of all this day’s disturbance. Yes, Archbishop de Gondi himself.
He had been bitterly offended at the mocking, mistrustful way in which
his services had been treated, and besides, reports came to him that
Cardinal talked of sending him of Quimper Corentin, and Broussel to
Havre, and the Chancellor to dismiss the Parliament! He had taken
counsel with his friends, and determined to put himself and the head
of the popular movement and be revenged upon the Court, and one of his
familiar associates, M. d’Argenteuil, had disguised himself as a
mason, and led the attack with a rule in his hand, while a lady, Madame
Martineau, had beaten the drum and collected the throng to guard the
gates and attack the Chancellor. There were, it was computed, no less
than 1260 barricades all over Paris, and the Parliament was perfectly
amazed at the excitement produced by the capture of Broussel. Finding
that they had such supporters, the Parliament was more than ever
determined to make a stand for its rights--whatever they might be.
The Queen had sent to command the Coadjutor to appease the sedition, but
he had answered that he had made himself so odious by his exertions of
the previous day that he could not undertake what was desired of him.
The next thing we heard was that the First President, Mathieu Mole,
one of the very best men then living, had gone at the head of sixty-six
Counsellors of Parliament, two and two, to seek an audience of the
Queen. They were followed by a huge multitude, who supposed Broussel to
be still at the Palais Royal.
The Counsellors were admitted, but the Queen was as obdurate as ever.
She told them that they, their wives and children, should answer for
this day’s work, and that a hundred thousand armed men should not force
her to give up her will. Then she got up from her chair, went out of the
room, and slammed the door! It is even said that she talked of hanging
a few of the Counsellors from the windows to intimidate the mob; but
Mademoiselle assured me that this was not true; though M. de Meilleraye
actually proposed cutting off Broussel’s head and throwing it out into
the street.
The Counsellors were kept waiting two hours in the Great Gallery, while
the mob roared outside, and the Cardinal, the Dukes of Orleans and
Longueville, and other great nobles, argued the matter with the Queen.
The Cardinal was, it seems, in a terrible fright. The Queen, full of
Spanish pride and high courage, would really have rather perished than
yielded to the populace; but Mazarin was more and more terrified, and
at last she yielded, and consented to his going to the Counsellors to
promise the release of the prisoners. He was trembling all over, and
made quite an absurd appearance, and presently the Parliament men
appeared again, carrying huge sealed letters; Broussel’s was borne by
his nephew in triumph. We could hear the Vivas! With which the people
greeted them, as the promise of restoration was made known. At eleven at
night there was a fresh outcry, but this was of joy, for M. Blancmesnil
had actually come back from Vincennes; but the barricades were not taken
down. There was to be no laying down of arms till Broussel appeared, and
there were strange noises all night, preventing sleep.
At eight o’clock the next morning Broussel had not appeared; the people
were walking about in a sullen rage, and this was made worse by a
report that there were 10,000 soldiers in the Bois de Boulogne ready
to chastise the people. We could see from our house-top the glancing or
arms at every barricade where the sun could penetrate, and in the midst
came one of the servants announcing Monsieur Clement Darpent.
He had a sword by his side, and pistols at his belt, and he said that he
was come to assure the ladies that there would be no danger for them. If
any one tried to meddle with the house, we might say we were friends
of M. Darpent, and we should be secure. If the account of the soldiers
outside were true, the people were determined not to yield to such
perfidy; but he did not greatly credit it, only it was well to be
prepared.
‘Alas! my friend,’ said Eustace, ‘this has all too much the air of
rebellion.’
‘We stand on our rights and privileges,’ said Darpent. ‘We uphold them
in the King’s name against the treachery of a Spanish woman and an
Italian priest.’
‘You have been sorely tried,’ said Eustace; ‘but I doubt me whether
anything justifies taking arms against the Crown.’
‘Ah! I am talking to a Cavalier,’ said Clement. ‘But I must not argue
the point. I must to my barricade.’
Nan here came forward, and desired him to carry her commendations and
thanks to Madame sa mere, and he bowed, evidently much gratified. She
durst not go the length of offering her good wishes, and she told me I
ought to have been thankful to her for the forbearance, when, under a
strong sense of duty, I reproved her. Technically he was only Maitre
Darpent, and his mother only would have been called Mademoiselle.
Monsieur and Madame were much more jealously limited to nobility than
they are now becoming, and the Darpents would not purchase a patent of
nobility to shelter themselves from taxation. For, as Eustace said, the
bourgeoisie had its own chivalry of ideas.
There was no more fighting. By ten o’clock Broussel was in the city, the
chains were torn down, the barricades leveled, and he made a triumphal
progress. He was taken first to Notre Dame, and as he left the carriage
his old dressing-gown was almost torn to pieces, every one crowding
to kiss it, or his feet, calling him their father and protector, and
anxiously inquiring for his health. A Te Deum was sung--if not so
splendid, much more full of the ring of joy than the grand one two days
before! Engravings of his portrait were sold about the streets, bearing
the inscription ‘Pierre Broussel, father of his country;’ and the
good-natured old man seemed quite bewildered at the honours that had
befallen him.
There were a few more alarms that night and the next day, but at last
they subsided, the barricades were taken down, and things returned to
their usual state, at least to all outward appearance.