LOUISON BRISOT IN THE RUINS.
Louison Brisot had been foremost among the women who brought the king
and the queen almost prisoners from Versailles to the Tuileries. Flushed
with her triumph, weary with excitement, a few nights after this outrage
she found herself in the street, doubtful whether to make her way to the
Cordelier Club, or find some church in which she might listen to
vespers, and, perhaps, seek other religious help; for this woman, who
was devoid of the first principles of morality, gave herself up at
intervals to superstitions, which she absolutely believed to be
religious. She did not turn toward the club, but walked on at random,
threading one street after another until she reached the Bastille, which
lay under the pale moonlight, heaped in ruins. The moat, half choked up
with fragments of the broken walls, still coiled around the old
foundations, lapping the huge stones, and seeming to writhe under them
like a wounded serpent, with a slimy, green back, on which the calm moon
was shining in fitful glimpses.
It was a scene of wild devastation. Here and there patches of white
plaster gleamed against the blackness of the broken stones like ghosts
crouching in the shadows, and a part of the draw-bridge loomed up, as
yet unbroken, from which huge chains were dangling like fetters from a
gibbet.
Weird and terrible as the scene really was, Louison regarded it with
feelings of wild satisfaction. She had helped to tear down those mighty
walls with her own hands. Her voice had led a phalanx of women on to
that awful attack, when despotism received its first fatal blow. She
felt keen delight in roaming about this ghostly ruin, which was so
fearfully typical of the fate which impended over the nation. In those
disjointed stones she saw the real power which lay in the people, and
the weakness of kings when that power chose to exert itself. If the
people of France were strong enough to wrest this stronghold from the
crown, what could prevent them from tearing away the very foundations of
the throne itself?
Louison asked these questions of herself as she wandered among the black
masses of rock that had once been a prison, so grim and awful, that the
very children had run away terrified by a sight of its walls. A wild
craving for liberty had hitherto filled her being; a blind ambition to
be the leading spirit of any tumult that might spring out of the
starvation and discontent which filled all France with tears and
menaces. But now another and more bitter feeling possessed her; personal
hate mingled itself with the fanaticism which had lifted liberty into
the semblance of a god, at whose feet both religion and common sense
must be hurled. She longed to crush the beautiful queen as she had
helped to cast those stones down from their ponderous hold in the prison
towers. She had no object in coming there but that of feasting her eyes
on the ruin, which was a proof and a pledge of the greater overthrow yet
to come. The time was near when crowns should be trodden under foot, and
thrones hurled from their base as those rocks had been.
In this place the demons of envy and hate entered that woman’s soul, and
she called them patriotism. Among the gaunt shadows that filled the
ruins of the Bastille, there was one spot more dreary than the rest,
hollowed out like an exhausted volcano, and partly choked up with rocks,
black and rugged as consolidated lava. The moonbeams penetrated into
this abyss, and played whitely around its jagged edges. Louison could
hear the trickle of water, as it filtered from the moat, and crept
downward among the stones. This sight more weird and dismal than
anything she had seen, fascinated the woman, and she paused to look upon
it. Above the slow trickle of waters she heard a human voice, utterly at
variance with the place, for its tones were low and sweet as the murmur
of a south wind when the flowers are budding, but plaintive as that same
wind when it sighs among autumn leaves.
What could this sound mean? Had some prisoner been left among the
subterranean dungeons, unable to make himself heard when that multitude
of spoilers swept over the prison?
Louison was fearless; and this thought stirred all the humanity in her
bosom. She sprung from the fragment of rock on which she stood, and
leaped from point to point down into the chasm. She came at last to a
platform, which had once been a corridor far beneath the level of the
moat. This was partly filled with the rubbish of broken doors and rusted
iron, rent from the walls when the mob were raging like wild beasts
through the foundations of the prison, making impossible efforts to
annihilate the space which could only be filled up by the ruin going on
above. More than one black hole in the wall revealed to her where a cell
had been; and her progress was again and again impeded by the links of
some broken chain, coiling like a serpent in her path.
At last she came to an open cell, into which the moonlight penetrated
dimly; for the rubbish directly before it had been cleared away, and
some yards along the corridor were open to the sky. From this cell she
heard murmurs; a soft voice, tremulous with the tender weakness of old
age, was talking there, expostulating, caressing, murmuring fondly, as
aged women caress their children’s children.
Louison held her breath and listened, stricken with wonder and vague
compassion.
“My pet, my little friend! and did you wait for me? Did you know my
voice when I called out? Were you glad when I caught so many flies for
your breakfast? Yes, yes! I found you waiting for me in the corner,
wondering at the light, I dare say; but neither that, or the awful
thunder of falling rocks could drive you from the old place. Did you
hear me at work, day after day? Could you understand that I was in
search of you, and that every stone I lifted took a load from my heart?
They would not listen to me, our wild, fierce friends, and shouted with
laughter when I told them I had a friend that must not be left, if I
went. How could they understand that it was tearing my heart to leave
you? But their kindness frightened me, and by force I was carried up, up
into the sunlight, that struck me blind; into a home that was strange as
a grave; and into a bed that tortured me with its softness. It was not
home—that was with you, my darling. You shall have the sunlight as I do,
and look out with me on the calm, white moon. It will seem strange at
first, as it did to me; but you will not feel more afraid of it than I
was.”
Louison listened to the plaintive fondness of these rambling words, till
they died away in soft cooing murmurs. Then she stooped a little, and
passed into the cell, where, by a few faint gleams of the moon that
trembled downward even to that depth, she saw a man sitting on the
dungeon floor, his black garments trailing around him, and a beard,
white as silver and soft as snow, sweeping down to his waist; his head
was bent, and he was looking at some dark object in his hand.
When this man saw Louison, he laid his right hand over this object,
lifted it to his bosom, sheltering it under his flowing beard, and
turned his bright eyes angrily on the woman.
“Have you come again?” he said, querulously. “I know you. It was you,
and the like of you, that dragged me into the hot sunlight. Have you
come again?”
“Who are you, and how came you here?” demanded the woman, struck with
wonder and something like dread.
“I was a man they called Dr. Gosner once, years and years ago; but they
give me no name since then. Here it was No.—oh, I forget!—out yonder,
where the sun shines, they call me ‘_The Prisoner of the Bastille_.’”
“Ah! Are you that man? But I thought you were cared for, that you had a
comfortable home with your own family. How came you here?”
“This is my home; it is shady and quiet. I have a friend here.”
“What friend? Your wife? Surely she does not come here.”
“I had a wife once, bright as a flower, and they told me I was going to
her; but when I cried out for her, a woman of the people came,—proud,
grand, noisy. It troubled me, it troubled me!”
Here the man pressed both hands to his bosom, and his beard shook
passionately.
“But your wife is still living? I know the whole sad story,” said
Louison.
“My wife! She called herself that. I saw her carrying a flag in her
hand, and wearing a cockade on her bosom. There was fire in her eyes,
and specks of foam on her lips. She looked straight at the sun, and
cried out, with a host of fierce, angry women, ‘Bread or blood! Bread or
blood!’ Then I knew this woman was _not_ my wife.”
“Ah! I know well who it is—you speak of Madame Gosner. There is no voice
at the clubs more powerful than hers. She leads the women and half the
men of Paris with her enthusiasm and her force of will; Theroigne, of
Liege, is not more powerful.”
“My wife was young, sweet, gentle. She desired no power; but only asked
for the pleasure of leading our child.”
“But your wrongs have made her a patriot—a leader among downtrodden
women and great men.”
The old man shook his head sadly.
“The greatest wrong that can be done to any man is to deprive him of a
wife he loves.”
“But you are not deprived of this great woman. She is still your wife.”
“Then let her go back to the vineyards which grew around our home, out
of this turmoil, where human happiness has no root.”
“But that would be to cast away her power, and darken her own glory.”
“Power over the vile passions of madmen; the glory which bathes itself
crimson in blood! What has any man’s wife in common with such things as
these?”
“Then you scoff at a revolution in which women go breast to breast with
brave men?”
“Scoff? No; it is long since I have forgotten how to scoff. We learn
more humility in prison.”
“But who sent you there? The king! Who was it that promised freedom, as
a return for her own vile life, and then gave forth that you were dead?
Marie Antoinette, the Austrian!”
“The king who buried me is dead. God has long since judged him for the
crime!”
“But the woman who ruled that weak, wicked man is still living.”
“Let her live.”
“But your wrongs belong to the people. They speak louder than the clamor
of a thousand tongues against the man and woman who call themselves
merciful, yet kept you a prisoner in this horrid place years and years
after the original oppressor was dead.”
“Hush! Speak lower, you disturb my little friend. It is always so quiet
here.”
Louison shook her head.
“Poor man, his mind is disturbed.”
“No; it is my heart which shrinks from the strife going on up yonder.
They dragged me into it; _she_ did, the woman who calls herself my wife.
She dragged me to her side on the cannon that day, where hordes of
frantic women might whet their rage over my broken life. Had that woman
been on the guillotine, they would have found me by her side; but not
there—not there. France has better uses for her women.”
“Then you denounce the women who are ready to die for liberty; you side
with royal tyrants?” said Louison, fiercely.
“Woman, if you are one of them, go away and leave me in peace.”
“No, old man, I will not leave you. In these times the life and peace of
every man and woman in France belongs to the nation. It is given some to
fight, some to speak, and others to plan—you shall not sit here musing
in silence. There is eloquence in your wrongs, power in your white
hair—glory to crown it when this government is overthrown. You are
needed to inspire the people who have given you freedom. Old man, I
charge you to join those who will have ‘Liberty or death! Liberty or
death!’ These were the words of a great American patriot, who did more
by that one outburst to win the freedom he pined for, than the swords of
fifty common warriors. Your words may be equally powerful.”
The old man shook his head, but made no answer. Louison grew fierce, for
his meek opposition excited her to rage. She moved a little on one side,
and the motion let in a gleam of moonlight, which fell on the old man’s
face. She spoke again with bitterness.
“Old man, you are dreaming.”
“Dreaming? Yes! One learns to dream when light and speech are forgotten;
but this dream brings tears to my eyes—and they come with such pain now!
Would it offend you, madame, if I ask to be alone with my friend?”
“With your friend? What friend? I see no one here.”
“No matter; but I am used to being alone. Would it please you to leave
me? In this place, company seems strange.”
“Yes, old man, I will go, but on one condition. When the patriots want
you, in order to deal out vengeance where it has been so foully earned,
there must be no faltering—your wrongs belong to the nation. You were
dragged forth from this dungeon that the people might learn something of
the tyranny that oppresses them. All the remnant of your life belongs to
them, and they will not be defrauded of it.”
Again the old man shook his head with pathetic mournfulness; but Louison
grew implacable and stamped her foot on the broken stones of the floor.
“Are you thus ungrateful to the patriots who saved you?” she exclaimed,
so fiercely that the prisoner shrunk within himself, and looked up
frightened. His hands trembled so violently that the object they held
fell down upon the folds of his black cloak with a tiny shriek, as if
its gentle life were also disturbed by the presence of that angry woman.
“What is that thing you are caressing?” demanded the woman, as Gosner
laid his hand tenderly over a bright-eyed mouse that was trying to hide
itself in the folds of his cloak.
“Oh! do not hurt it! Do not hurt it!” cried the old man, reading danger
in her fierce glance.
The woman interrupted him with unutterable scorn in her face and voice.
“And it is for a reptile like this you creep away, and refuse to show
your wrongs to the people, when every white hair on your head would
pierce the tyrants of France like a sword? Old man, I despise you!”
As she spoke, Louison gave a vicious snatch at the old prisoner’s
mantle, shook the frightened little creature that sought covert there to
the floor, and dashed it against the wall with her foot.
With a cry of mingled rage and pain the old man leaped to his feet,
seized the woman by the throat, and held her till she grew crimson in
the face. Then he cast her suddenly away, fell upon the floor, and
taking up the wounded animal in his hands, bent over it in pitiful
misery, while tears ran down his cheeks in great, heavy drops. Not a
murmur left his lips; but you might have seen by the faint shiver of his
beard that his mouth was trembling violently.
A thrill of human pity seized upon Louison when she saw this anguish.
Forgetting her own injuries, she bent down and reached forth her hand to
make sure if the old man’s pet were living or dead; but that sharp cry
again drove her back, and she retreated from the ruined dungeon grieved
for the misery she had wrought.
When the old prisoner knew that he was alone, he gathered up the folds
of his mantle, and laid his little favorite down with such tender
handling as a mother gives to her only child when she puts its little
shroud on. He touched its silken sides with his fingers; breathed upon
its eyes and sobbed aloud when all his plaintive efforts failed to lift
those tiny lids, or stir one of those slender limbs.
That which all his wrongs, and an imprisonment of years had failed to
accomplish, the heartless woman who had just left him found the power to
do. The old man stood up in his cell, and lifting his clasped hands to
heaven, called for vengeance on his enemy, and besought God to check the
evil spirit which was filling France with demons in the form of women.
After this outburst, he sat down in a corner of the dungeon, and
shrouding his face, moaned over the little animal which had been his
sole companion, year after year, in that dismal place.