THE TRAGEDY OF NANTES.
Meanwhile Gaston posted along the road to Nantes, leaving behind him all
postilions, whose place, then as now, was to hold the horses instead of
urging them on.
He had already passed Sevres and Versailles, and on arriving at
Rambouillet just at daybreak, he saw the innkeeper and some postilions
gathered round a horse which had just been bled. The horse was lying
stretched on its side, in the middle of the street, breathing with
difficulty.
Gaston at first paid no attention to all this; but as he was mounting
himself, he heard one of the by-standers say:
"If he goes on at that pace he will kill more than one between this and
Nantes."
Gaston was on the point of starting, but struck by a sudden and terrible
idea, he stopped and signed to the innkeeper to come to him.
The innkeeper approached.
"Who has passed by here?" asked Gaston, "going at such a pace as to have
put that poor animal in such a state?"
"A courier of the minister's," answered the innkeeper.
"A courier of the minister's!" exclaimed Gaston, "and coming from
Paris?"
"From Paris."
"How long has he passed, more or less?"
"About two hours."
Gaston uttered a low cry which was like a groan. He knew Dubois--Dubois,
who had tricked him under the disguise of La Jonquiere. The good will of
the minister recurred to his mind and frightened him. Why this courier
dispatched post haste just two hours before himself?
"Oh! I was too happy," thought the young man, "and Helene was right when
she told me she had a presentiment of some great misfortune. Oh, I will
overtake this courier, and learn the message that he bears, or perish in
the attempt."
And he shot off like an arrow.
But with all these doubts and interrogations he had lost ten minutes
more, so that on arriving at the first post station he was still two
hours behind. This time the courier's horse had held out, and it was
Gaston's which was ready to drop. The inn-keeper tried to make some
remarks, but Gaston dropped two or three louis and set off again at a
gallop.
At the next posting-house he had gained a few minutes, and that was all.
The courier who was before him had not slackened his pace. Gaston
increased his own; but this frightful rapidity redoubled the young man's
fever and mistrust.
"Oh!" said he, "I _will_ arrive at the same time that he does, if I am
unable to precede him." And he doubled his speed, and spurred on his
horse, which, at every station, stopped dripping with blood and sweat,
or tumbled down exhausted. At every station he learned that the courier
had passed almost as swiftly as himself, but he always gained some few
minutes, and that sustained his strength.
Those whom he passed upon the way, leaving them far behind, pitied, in
spite of themselves, the beautiful young man, pale faced and haggard,
who flew on thus, and took neither rest, nor food, dripping with sweat,
despite the bitter cold, and whose parched lips could only frame the
words: "A horse! a horse! quick, there, a horse!"
And, in fact, exhausted, with no strength but that supplied him by his
heart, and maddened more and more by the rapidity of his course and the
feeling of danger, Gaston felt his head turn, his temples throb, and the
perspiration of his limbs was tinged with blood.
Choked by the thirst and dryness of his throat, at Ancenis he drank a
glass of water: it was the first moment he had lost during sixteen
hours, and yet the accursed courier was still an hour and a half in
advance. In eighty leagues Gaston had only gained some forty or fifty
minutes.
The night was drawing in rapidly, and Gaston, ever expecting to see some
object appear on the horizon, tried to pierce the obscurity with his
bloodshot glances; on he went, as in a dream, thinking he heard the
ringing of bells, the roar of cannon, and the roll of drums. His brain
was full of mournful strains and inauspicious sounds; he lived no longer
as a man, but his fever kept him up, he flew as it were in the air.
On, and still on. About eight o'clock at night he perceived Nantes at
length upon the horizon, like a dark mass from out the midst of which
some scattered lights were shining starlike in the gloom.
He tried to breathe, and thinking his cravat was choking him, he tore it
off and threw it on the road.
Thus, mounted on his black horse, wrapped in his black cloak, and long
ago bareheaded (his hat had fallen off), Gaston was like some fiendish
cavalier bound to the witches' Sabbath.
On reaching the gates of Nantes his horse stumbled, but Gaston did not
lose his stirrups, pulled him up sharply, and driving the spurs into his
sides, he made him recover himself.
The night was dark, no one appeared upon the ramparts, the very
sentinels were hidden in the gloom, it seemed like a deserted city.
But as he passed the gate a sentinel said something which Gaston did not
even hear.
He held on his way.
At the Rue du Chateau his horse stumbled and fell, this time to rise no
more.
What mattered it to Gaston now?--he had arrived. On he went on foot--his
limbs were strained and deadened, yet he felt no fatigue, he held the
paper crumpled in his hand.
One thing, however, astonished him, and that was meeting no one in so
populous a quarter.
As he advanced, however, he heard a sullen murmur coming from the Place
de Bouffay, as he passed before a long street which led into that
_Place_.
There was a sea of heads, lit up by flaring lights; but Gaston passed
on--his business was at the castle--and the sight disappeared.
At last he saw the castle--he saw the door gaping wide before him. The
sentinel on guard upon the drawbridge tried to stop him; but Gaston, his
order in his hand, pushed him roughly aside and entered the inner door.
Men were talking, and one of them wiping his tears off as he talked.
Gaston understood it all.
"A reprieve!" he cried, "a re--"
The word died upon his lips; but the men had done better than hear, they
had seen his despairing gesture.
"Go, go!" they cried, showing him the way, "go! and, perhaps you may yet
arrive in time."
And they themselves dispersed in all directions. Gaston pursued his way;
he traversed a corridor, then some empty rooms, then the great chamber,
and then another corridor.
Far off, through the bars, by the torchlight, he perceived the great
crowd of which he had caught a glimpse before.
He had passed right through the castle, and issued on a terrace; thence
he perceived the esplanade, a scaffold, men, and all around the crowd.
Gaston tried to cry, but no one heard him, he waved his handkerchief,
but no one saw him; another man mounts on the scaffold, and Gaston
uttered a cry and threw himself down below.
He had leaped from the top of the rampart to the bottom. A sentinel
tried to stop him, but he threw him down, and descended a sort of
staircase which led down to the square, and at the bottom was a sort of
barricade of wagons. Gaston bent down and glided between the wheels.
Beyond the barricade were all St. Simon's grenadiers--a living hedge;
Gaston, with a desperate effort, broke through the line, and found
himself inside the ring.
The soldiers, seeing a man, pale and breathless, with a paper in his
hand, allowed him to pass.
All of a sudden he stopped, as if struck by lightning. Talhouet!--he saw
him!--Talhouet kneeling on the scaffold!
"Stop! stop!" cried Gaston, with all the energy of despair.
But even as he spoke the sword of the executioner flashed like
lightning--a dull and heavy blow followed--and a terrible shudder ran
through all the crowd.
The young man's shriek was lost in the general cry arising from twenty
thousand palpitating breasts at once.
He had arrived a moment too late--Talhouet was dead: and, as he lifted
his eyes, he saw in the hand of the headsman the bleeding head of his
friend--and then, in the nobility of his heart, he felt that, one being
dead, they all should die. That not one of them would accept a pardon
which arrived a head too late. He looked around him; Du Couedic mounted
in his turn, clothed with his black mantle, bareheaded and bare-necked.
Gaston remembered that he also had a black mantle, and that his head and
neck were bare, and he laughed convulsively.
He saw what remained for him to do, as one sees some wild landscape by
the lightning's livid gleam--'tis awful, but grand.
Du Couedic bends down; but, as he bends, he cries--"See how they
recompense the services of faithful soldiers!--see how you keep your
promises, oh ye cowards of Bretagne!"
Two assistants force him on his knees; the sword of the executioner
whirls round and gleams again, and Du Couedic lies beside Talhouet.
The executioner takes up the head; shows it to the people; and then
places it at one corner of the scaffold, opposite that of Talhouet.
"Who next?" asks Waters.
"It matters little," answers a voice, "provided that Monsieur de
Pontcalec be the last, according to his sentence."
"I, then," said Montlouis, "I." And he springs upon the scaffold. But
there he stops, his hair bristling; at a window before him he has seen
his wife and his children.
"Montlouis! Montlouis!" cries his wife, with the despairing accent of a
breaking heart, "Montlouis! look at us!"
At the same moment all eyes were turned toward that window. Soldiers,
citizens, priests, and executioners look the same way. Gaston profits by
the deathlike silence which reigns around him--springs to the scaffold,
and grasps the staircase--and mounts the first steps.
"My wife! my children!" cries Montlouis, wringing his hands in despair;
"oh! go, have pity upon me!"
"Montlouis!" cries his wife, holding up afar the youngest of his sons,
"Montlouis, bless your children, and one day, perhaps, one of them will
avenge you."
"Adieu! my children, my blessing on you!" cries Montlouis, stretching
his hands toward the window.
These mournful adieux pierce the night, and reverberate like a terrible
echo in the hearts of the spectators.
"Enough," says Waters, "enough." Then turning to his assistants:
"Be quick!" says he, "or the people will not allow us to finish."
"Be easy," says Montlouis; "if the people should rescue me, I would not
survive them."
And he pointed with his finger to the heads of his companions.
"Ah, I had estimated them rightly, then," cried Gaston, who heard these
words, "Montlouis, martyr, pray for me."
Montlouis turned round, he seemed to have heard a well-known voice; but
at the very moment the executioner seized him, and almost instantly a
loud cry told Gaston that Montlouis was like the others, and that _his_
turn was come.
He leaped up; in a moment he was on the top of the ladder, and he in his
turn looked down from the abominable platform upon all that crowd. At
three corners of the scaffold were the heads of Talhouet, Du Couedic,
and Montlouis.
But there arose then a strange emotion in the people. The execution of
Montlouis, attended by the circumstances we have narrated, had upset the
crowd. All the square, heaving and uttering murmurs and imprecations,
seemed to Gaston some vast sea with life in every wave. At this moment
the idea flashed across him that he might be recognized, and that his
name uttered by a single mouth might prevent his carrying out his
intention. He fell on his knees, and laid his head himself upon the
block.
"Adieu!" he murmured, "adieu, my friends, my tender, dear Helene; thy
nuptial kiss has cost me my life, indeed, but not mine honor. Alas!
those fifteen minutes wasted in thine arms will have struck down five
heads. Adieu! Helene, adieu!"
The sword of the executioner gleamed.
"--And you, my friends, pardon me," added the young man.
The steel fell; the head rolled one way, and the body fell the other.
Then Waters raised the head and showed it to the people.
But then a mighty murmur rose from the crowd; no one had recognized
Pontcalec.
The executioner mistook the meaning of this murmur; he placed Gaston's
head at the empty corner, and with his foot pushing the body into the
tumbril where those of his three companions awaited it, he leaned upon
his sword, and cried aloud:
"Justice is done."
"And I, then," cried a voice of thunder, "am I to be forgotten?"
And Pontcalec, in his turn, leaped upon the scaffold.
"You!" cried Waters, recoiling as if he had seen a ghost. "You! who are
you?"
"I," said Pontcalec; "come, I am ready."
"But," said the executioner trembling, and looking one after the other
at the four corners of the scaffold--"but there are four heads already."
"I am the Baron de Pontcalec, do you hear; I am to die the last--and
here I am."
"Count," said Waters, as pale as the baron, pointing with his sword to
the four corners.
"Four heads!" exclaimed Pontcalec; "impossible." At this moment he
recognized in one of the heads the pale and noble face of Gaston, which
seemed to smile upon him even in death.
And he in his turn started back in terror.
"Oh, kill me then quickly!" he cried, groaning with impatience; "would
you make me die a thousand times?"
During this interval, one of the commissioners had mounted the ladder,
called by the chief executioner. He cast a glance upon Pontcalec.
"It is indeed the Baron de Pontcalec," said the commissioner; "perform
your office."
"But," cried the executioner, "there are four heads there already."
"Well, then, his will make five; better too many than too few."
And the commissioner descended the steps, signing to the drums to beat.
Waters reeled upon the boards of his scaffold. The tumult increased. The
horror was more than the crowd could bear. A long murmur ran along the
square; the lights were put out; the soldiers, driven back, cried "To
arms!" there was a moment of noise and confusion, and several voices
exclaimed:
"Death to the commissioners! death to the executioners!" Then the guns
of the fort, loaded with grape, were pointed toward the people.
"What shall I do?" asked Waters.
"Strike," answered the same voice which had always spoken.
Pontcalec threw himself on his knees; the assistants placed his head
upon the block. Then the priests fled in horror, the soldiers trembled
in the gloom, and Waters, as he struck, turned away his head lest he
should see his victim. Ten minutes afterward the square was empty--the
windows closed and dark. The artillery and the fusiliers, encamped
around the demolished scaffold, looked in silence on the spots of blood
that incarnadined the pavement.
The priests to whom the bodies were delivered recognized that there were
indeed, as Waters had said, five bodies instead of four. One of the
corpses still held a crumpled paper in his hand.
This paper was the pardon of the other four. Then only was all
explained--and the devotion of Gaston, which he had confided to no one,
was divined.
The priests wished to perform a mass, but the president, Chateauneuf,
fearing some disturbance at Nantes, ordered it to be performed without
pomp or ceremony.
The bodies were buried on the Wednesday before Easter. The people were
not permitted to enter the chapel where the mutilated bodies reposed,
the greater part of which, report says, the quick lime refused to
destroy.
And this finished the tragedy of Nantes.