THE CONDEMNED
The prisons had not emptied quite as swiftly as the authorities
desired after they had been stuffed full of real and imaginary
criminals who were to people New France, with a view to proving that
the Mississippi scheme was not such a falsehood as had been stated.
The principal cause of this was that trustworthy galleys which could
cross the ocean from the western coast of France to the Gulf of Mexico
were not obtainable, while of the transports, only three, _La Duchesse
de Noailles_, _La Victoire_, and _La Duchesse de Berri_, were fit to
make the passage. The consequence was, therefore, that but one prison
emptied itself at a time, and that the month of May had come ere, for
the detained of the two remaining gaols, La Tournelle and St. Martin
des Champs, vessels had been provided for their reception, while even
these had to be hired from private owners by the Government.
On the unhappy creatures, whether actual or supposititious
malefactors, who had lain in damp and unclean dungeons during the
months which had now passed since the period of the great frost, this
fact fell with an even greater force of cruelty than anything which
the other evil-doers--incarcerated in La Pitié, La Salpêtrière,
Bicêtre or Vincennes--had had to undergo, since the incarcerated ones
of the latter places had to proceed only to La Rochelle or La Havre or
St. Malo, while those of the former had now to set out on a far more
terrible journey. They were to march, chained together, to Marseilles,
a distance, roughly, of 350 miles from Paris; to cross mountains and
vast plains beneath a sun which would be a burning one ere they had
accomplished half the distance, and to do so upon nourishment which
would scarcely suffice to keep alive those who had to make no
exertions whatsoever. The reason for this was that the private owners
of the vessels which were to be hired for the purposes of their
transport would only consent to let them be chartered for such use on
condition that Marseilles was made the port of embarkation. Their
ships belonged to, came into, that port; they would be there in the
beginning of June, and, if the Government chose to have their convicts
ready to proceed on board at that time, they were willing to undertake
their transportation to the Gulf. If not, then those vessels must be
used for the ordinary business they were employed upon, and, in no
circumstances, would they contract to proceed to any other port of
France, and certainly to none on the western coast, to await the
arrival of the convicts.
Marseilles was, therefore, decided on as the place to which the
miserable wretches still inhabiting La Tournelle and St. Martin des
Champs were to proceed. Three days after the marriages which the
chaplain of the latter place had performed (as the chaplain of the
former had also done) the chain gangs were ordered to set out. The day
was fixed--May 15--so, too, was the hour--that of eight o'clock in the
morning.
It is possible that upon this earth--beneath the eyes of God--no more
horrible nor more heart-rending sight has ever been witnessed than the
preparations for the departure, and the actual departure itself, of a
chain of galley slaves of both sexes towards the sea coast. And that
which was taking place on this 15th of May in the prison of St. Martin
des Champs might have wrung the hearts of even those persons who were
marble to the core; of even human fiends. Yet, however much the
process might be calculated to distress those who looked on, there was
a sufficiency of observers to cause the exit from the gaol to be so
surrounded that scarcely could the prisoners come forth, and the roads
and streets leading to the open country to be so stuffed and congested
with lookers-on as to be almost impassable. For to see the "strings,"
as they were called, depart was ever one of the spectacles of Paris.
Inside the prison, in its huge, vast yard, all were assembled at
daybreak--all who were to set out upon that horrible journey on foot
which was to know no end until the burning shores of the Mediterranean
were reached; the end of a journey which was then to give place to a
life of hell passed between close decks in ships none too seaworthy. A
life of weeks spent under the eyes of sentries with loaded muskets, of
overseers armed with whips coated with hardened pitch; of blasphemous
and brutal guards ready to strike with sticks, or the flats of sabres,
upon the backs of either men or women who disobeyed their orders and
injunctions; a life of horror to be endured until they were set ashore
free men and women in the New World. Perhaps the knowledge of that
impending freedom enabled some to look forward calmly to what they had
learned they would have to endure; perhaps--which was far more
probable--none among the murderers and murderesses, the thieves and
rogues and lost women, and innocent, guiltless victims, knew or dreamt
of what was before them. Far more probable!
All were in the courtyard at daybreak. And now began the ceremony of
preparing, of making the _toilette de voyage_, as it was brutally
termed, of the travellers ere they set out upon their journey. Into
the vast gaol-yard--called in bitter mockery and spite by generations
of convicts who had quitted it on their road to the galleys, the
"Court of Honour"--there came now three waggons filled with chains and
fetters; _carcans_, or iron collars, to be fitted on to the necks of
men and women alike; iron bolts to join together the chains which
attached each of those prisoners to one another. To be rivetted on
here in Paris; to be never struck off again until the journey of 350
miles was accomplished, and the human cattle stood upon the crazy
decks of the hired transports which were eventually to land them, free
at last, amidst the raging surf of the Gulf of Mexico.
Free then, but, until then, condemned convicts in actual fact as much
as if, instead of being on their way to the New World, there to begin
a new life, they were to step on board the galleys themselves and
there begin the hideous existence which France enforced on all those
who offended against her laws.
Before, however, these fetters and those chains were rivetted upon
their necks and wrists and ankles--rivetted cold, and thereby causing
awful agony to all the culprits--one thing had to be done. Those women
who, in the course of the months in which they had lain in prison, had
given birth to children, were now to be separated from them; separated
from them for ever in all likelihood, since it was certain that the
mothers would never return to France, and almost equally certain that
the children would never be likely to make their way to New France
when they grew up. Separated also--since the lawgivers of France
boasted that they punished but never persecuted--because these babes
had committed no crime; because, too, the Government paid no passage
money for children, nor arranged for their sustenance.
Three women had given birth thus to children during the time they lay
in the vaults of St. Martin des Champs, which was one of the places of
reception for these galley slaves who now figured under the name of
colonists; and, not knowing that their babes would ever be torn from
them, had rejoiced exceedingly over their birth. For they had hugged
the little creatures to their bosoms to keep them warm and to warm
themselves; they had kissed and fondled them and crooned strange
phrases of maternal love over them; had even looked forward with joy
unspeakable to the extra burden which they would have to carry on the
long march that they suspected, truly enough, lay before them. And
they had passed the helpless things round at night to other women who
had been torn, shrieking, from their own offspring, or had been
spirited off to gaol ere they could utter one last farewell to them,
or give them one last mad embrace; they had passed these newborn
babes round surreptitiously in the dark, and when the warders
slumbered, to these poor bereft mothers, so that they might pet them a
little, call them by the names of their own deserted and lost
children, and bring, thereby, some sort of comfort to their aching
hearts in doing so. While the women, these other women who had been
wrenched away from their offspring, had arranged with those happier
ones to assist in the carrying of the infants on the weary march and
to help those who owned them, their reward to be that they should hold
the little mites within their arms sometimes and, thereby, delude
themselves into the belief that it was their own flesh and blood which
they were clasping to their aching breasts.
Yet now--now!--those mothers who had been made happy by the coming of
the children were to be parted from them for ever. There strode
towards one of these mothers who was seated on the stone bench which
ran all round the Court of Honour, the Governor of St. Martin des
Champs (a stern man who had never possessed either wife or child, nor
anything of a home but tents and barracks, during a long life of
soldiering) accompanied by a woman from the Hospital of Charity--which
preceded by some years the Hospital for Foundlings--a nurse. And she,
that mother smiling there, had no idea, no suspicion, of aught that
was about to befall her. If any other of the convicts knew--which was
doubtful, since few had ever travelled the road before that all were
now to set out upon--not one spoke a word or gave a hint of the sorrow
that was to light upon the unhappy woman.
"Say farewell to your child," the governor exclaimed. "Quick! there is
no time to lose. Bid it adieu; then give it to this good nurse," and
he indicated that other woman who accompanied him.
The mother looked up at him with staring eyes. There was, in truth, a
half smile upon her face, as though she doubted if she heard aright
and was almost amused--if one so wretched as she could ever be amused
again!--at the strange, impossible form which the words he must
actually have uttered had taken to her ears. Then she said, quietly,
"What did monsieur say?"
"Bid your child adieu. Quick!" the governor repeated impatiently; "or
it will be taken without your farewells. Quick! I say. There are two
others to be dealt with."
"Bid my child--farewell!" she murmured, understanding his words at
last. "Bid it farewell. You mean that?" And, now, her eyes stared with
a horror that was awful to see. A horror that appalled even this man,
whose life had been passed amidst, first, the turbulence of years of
rough campaigning, and, next, amidst all the most depraved and savage
wild beasts of Paris humanity.
Above the roar of clanking cold iron being fastened upon the chains of
men and women, the rivetting and fitting of _carcans_ upon different
throats--the white throats of erring women, the knotted, corded
throats of men who had worn them before and slaved out portions of
their evil lives with those cursed iron bands swathed fast about
them--amidst, too, the cheers of the populace outside, through whose
ranks, by now, the first chain--that of some men--was passing, that
woman's shriek was heard. It rose above all; above hoarse curses from
the male savages at the pain caused by the hammer as it struck the
edges of their collars together; above yells from the female savages
as the same process went on; above, too, the trumpets of the
gendarmerie, which, a merciful Government allowed to bray outside the
prison gates as an encouragement to the unhappy wretches setting out
upon that journey; above everything else that shriek arose.
For she understood now! She knew that the little helpless mass of
human life which had lain so warm and snug within her arms for two or
three months was to be torn away from her for ever.
"No! No! No!" she moaned, ceasing at last to shriek. "No! No! No. Ah,
monsieur, see how small, how helpless it is. My child! My child! My
little child! And--monsieur--it is not well--it--it--oh--oh! God, how
I have watched over it; cared for it. I have prayed to Him--I, who
never prayed before; I, who scarce knew how to form a prayer.
It is not well. It cannot live without me. It cannot; it
cannot. It is death to part us; death to it and me. And it is
so--so helpless--and--so--innocent."
The governor had turned his back upon her. Perhaps her pleading had
wrung even his heart! Then the nurse spoke. The nurse, who, because
she was a gentle woman, wept.
"Fear not, poor girl," she whispered, even as she strove to take the
child from the arms which clasped it so tightly. "Fear not. It shall
be well attended to. And, see, here is a number," whereon she gave the
unhappy mother a piece of paper, on which she hastily scrawled some
figures. "If you ever return you may find it thus--when it grows
up--it--what is your name?"
"Le Blanc. I shall never return. Never." Then she moaned again. "My
child! My little child! And," she sobbed forth, "see, I had made a
sling wherewith to carry it--so--that--it should lie more easily upon
my breast. Oh! God--that I--that it--were dead."
Many women had watched this scene, amongst them the two other
newly-made mothers, who saw in it what was to be their own fate and
the fate of their babes. So, too, had Laure Vauxcelles, herself
bearing a collar now around her beautiful neck--a light one, it is
true, since the warder whose duty it was to attend to these matters,
among other things, had observed that she was young and handsome,
and, being himself young, or, at least, not old, had spared her as
much as possible. On her left wrist there was fastened a great iron
loop--great for so small a wrist!--through which was to run the chain
that would attach her to those before and those behind her. To her
right wrist was an iron bracelet with a short chain hanging to it,
which, a few moments later, would couple her to the woman who would
march by her side from Paris to Marseilles--if she ever reached the
latter place, which she prayed fervently she might never do.
The chain composed of men was already gone by now; out into the
street, beyond the prison gate, it had already passed; out into the
bright, warm sun, so cheering to those who had lain in that prison for
months--cheering now, but, ere long, to become an awful torture as the
days grew hotter and the south was neared. The chain composed of women
was about to follow. Of women, amongst whom, perhaps, were others as
innocent of guilt as Laure herself; women whom a relentless rival, a
rejected lover possessed of power, a suspicious, jealous husband also
possessed of power or--which was the same thing--of money, may have
consigned to this hellish doom. Women, too, who, although they were
the guilty things that Roger, the chaplain, had described them as
being, had possibly never walked three consecutive leagues in their
lives. Women who, instead, had in many cases ridden in carriages and
sedan chairs and coaches provided by their admirers. Yet now--now they
set forth to march to Marseilles, nearly 350 miles away by road; to
Marseilles, where, in the summer, the sun burned like a flaming
furnace, and to which the breeze of the southern sea came hot and
sultry as the breath from out of the mouth of a panting dog.
The trumpets of the gendarmerie pealed louder, the mob outside was
screaming frantically, people were hanging half-way out of the
windows; some boys who had climbed a tree which grew in the dusty
place beyond the prison gates, were waving their ragged caps and
chattering and grimacing. "The female cord" was passing forth. Ahead,
went four mounted gendarmes, then, next, four waggons, destined to
occasionally give a lift to those women who fell by the wayside, yet
did not die at once. They who did so were left behind for the Communes
to bury! Now, in the waggons, were seated the galley sergeants. There
was no reason why they should walk; they were neither criminals nor
women.
Then _la Châim_ issued from the gates, the two leading couples of the
double string, as the mob and the boys in the trees called them,
passed out. Amidst further roars, hurrahs, encouragements, low jeers
and fingerpointings, they came forth; amidst, too, exclamations from
some who recognised them. With, also, a woman's shriek issuing now and
again from out the mob's tight-packed density--a mother's heartbroken
cry perhaps, perhaps a sister's, perhaps a daughter's. Yet, with no
sign of sympathy from one set of beings who were witnessing the
spectacle; who had paid, and paid well, to thus witness it.
Beings--fashionable, well-dressed men and women, who had hired windows
at which to sit and see the chains go by, and who drank chocolate and
ate chipped bread and cakes and dainty butter brought from the cool
north; and laughed and chatted, and made appointments for the Gardens
of the Tuileries that night, or for boating parties on the Seine when
the evening air was cooling the atmosphere.
Laure passed out, too, at last, manacled, shackled to the dark
southern woman who had married the literary man. Passed out with her
head bent down, her feet dragging like lead beneath her, her heart
beating as though it must burst.
Passed out to what she knew and felt would be her death. To what she
prayed might be her death.