(_From the "Quarterly" Review of Madame Junot's Memoirs_.)
About the beginning of the revolution, a working-man, by name Thirion, had
established himself in a little stall (in Paris,) where he carried on his
business as a mender of carpets. He called one morning to ask M. Permon's
(a Royalist[1]) custom, but was civilly told that the family had long
employed a tradesman of his class, and could not change for a stranger:
the man took the refusal so insolently, that he was at last turned out of
doors, vowing revenge. M. Permon, the ports being still open, makes a run
over to London to place some money in our funds. Meantime "the Sections
are organized," and Thirion becomes "Secretaire, Greffier, President, je
ne scai quoi, de la notre." The morning after his return to Paris, M.
Permon had just risen, when footsteps were heard loud on the staircase,
and in burst Citizen Thirion, two other patriots of the Sectional
Committee, and the carpetman's shopboy. (Madame Junot's Narrative
commences here.)
"My father was shaving himself. Naturally quick tempered, his impatience
was extreme when he recognised the individual, and he was imprudent enough
to make a menacing gesture the moment they broke into his dressing-room.
'I am here to see the law enforced,' cries Thirion, on seeing my father
advance with the razor in his hand. 'Well, what law is it that chooses so
worthy an organ?'--'I am here to learn your age, your pursuits, and to
interrogate you as to your journey to Coblentz.' My father, who had from
the first word felt the most violent disposition to toss the man down
stairs, shivered with rage; but, at last, he composed himself, wiped his
chin, laid down his razor, and, crossing his arms, placed himself full in
front of Thirion: then, measuring him from the utmost height of his tall
and elegant person, he said, 'You wish to know my age?'--'Yes, such are my
orders.'--Where is the order?' said my father, extending his hand. 'It is
enough for you to know that I am sent hither by the committee of my
section: my orders are sufficiently proved by my presence.'--Ah! you think
so; I am of a different opinion. Your presence here is nothing but an
insult, unless you have a judiciary order to justify it; show it me, and I
shall forget the name of the man, to see only the public functionary.'
Thirion raised his voice as my father lowered his--'What is your
age?--What was the object of your going to Coblentz?'----My father seizes
a large bamboo, and makes it whistle over Thirion's head--at that moment
my mother rushes in, and succeeds in dragging him into another room, and
restoring him to something like calmness. I remember she placed me in his
arms, whispering to me to entreat him to _think of me_. Meantime, Thirion
had drawn up his _procès verbal_, and withdrawn:--he left me weeping
without knowing why I wept, but I saw that my mother and my sister were in
tears too. My father sat pale, trembling with anger,--everything about us
had a desolate aspect."
The family escape from Paris--and it was time. Violent alternations of
fear, anger, sorrow, terror, and disgust, with frequent disguises, flights,
and all sorts of changes of residence, at length wear out the health and
spirits of M. Permon--a man, apparently, who united dull enough intellect
with all the vivacity of a Frenchman's mere temperament; and he dies in
obscurity long before anything like order is re-established. We need not
dwell on the particular fortunes of a not very interesting set of people;
but may quote one or two more specimens of the sort of scenes which fill
the greater part of the first of these volumes. Our authoress and her
sister are at one time separated from their parents, and placed in an
obscure _pension_ in the Faubourg (no longer _St._) Antoine. Their brother,
a very young man, has also remained in Paris, and frequently visits them
in their retreat.
"We could not but observe, that for some days he had been very melancholy,
and that he was getting more and more so. We asked the reason, and he told
us at last that the section had denounced my father in a very alarming
style. We fell a-crying, my sister and I. Albert consoled us as well as he
could, but it was easy to see that the denunciation was not all--that some
immediate danger fixed his fears. We knew afterwards, in effect, that a
report had been spread of the arrest of my parents at Limoges--happily a
false one. The horizon meanwhile was taking a bloody tint. Judge of my
brother's anxiety! he came every day in a cabriolet, which my father had
had built just before these late events; it was an elegant one, very lofty,
of the kind called _wiski._ Already he had been all but insulted by the
populace in driving through the faubourg; but liveries had not yet
altogether disappeared, and nothing would persuade him to listen to our
remonstrances, and make the domestic put off his. Thus it was on the 31st
of August, when he came to see us as usual."
"There was about the boarding-house a man charged with all the rough work,
by name Jaquemart, a fellow that could do everything--but the most
atrocious of countenances. 'The sight of that man makes me sick,' said
Albert; 'I am sure he will end in something tragic.'"
"One day, shortly after we went to the _pension_, Jaquemart was bringing
in a load of wood, when my brother drove at the speed of his horse into
the entrance. He saw the man had a burden that would hardly allow him to
get out of the way in time--cried _'Gare!'_--perceived that his efforts
were in vain--and pulled back his horse so sharply as to run much risk of
wounding the animal, and, indeed, of being thrown out himself, owing to
the extraordinary elevation of the _wiski_. Jaquemart, however, escaped by
this means with a scratch on his leg; his eyes were good, he saw what
Albert had done to master his horse, and vowed gratitude."
"The 31st of August the man had nothing to do about the house, yet he kept
lounging at the gate, or in the court, all day long. It was late ere
Albert came--he had been waiting for him, and whispered, as he alighted,
'Stay here to-night to take care of your sisters--don't go home.' Albert
looked at him with astonishment; he had, indeed, perceived symptoms of
some commotion, but fancied, as most of Paris did, that it would be
directed against the Temple. 'What is your meaning?' said he. 'I entreat
you to stay here--you will be near your sisters; and if there be need for
another hand, mine shall not be far off--very well!--we shall be there.'
Albert pressed him with questions, but could extract nothing; and after
giving the man some money, persisted; in returning home as usual."
"All know the frightful story of the day after this. Albert's anxiety for
us makes him brave every danger, and he comes to us again. The first
person he sees at our door is Jaquemart, in the costume of the most
atrocious of bandits; our ladies had not dared to bid him go away, but his
appearance made them tremble. 'I did not desire you to come hither, but to
stay here,' he said; 'why have I not been obeyed?' 'Why do you speak
so--was this house particularly menaced?' 'I know nothing of that--at such
a moment one should fear everything.'"
"We heard groans, weeping, all Paris had not been at _the massacre_. It
was late. They pressed Albert to stay, but he would not. He promised,
however, to come back next morning.----That day he was obliged to stay
at home till about three o'clock, arranging and burning papers. He then
came out to visit us, and found himself in the midst of crowds of men,
drunken and bloody; many were naked to the waist, their breasts covered
with blood. They carried fragments of clothing on their pikes and
sabres--their faces were inflamed, their eyes haggard, the whole scene
hideous. These groups became more and more frequent and numerous as he
advanced. In mortal anxiety for us, he determined to push through
everything, and, urging his horse to its speed, reached at length the
front of the Hôtel Beaumarchais. There he was stopped by an immense
crowd--always the same figures naked and bloodstained, but here their
looks were those of enraged fiends. They shout, they scream, they sing,
they dance--the saturnalia of hell. On seeing Albert's cabriolet, they
redoubled their cries--'An aristocrat! give it him, give it him!' In a
moment the cabriolet is surrounded, and from the midst of the crowd an
object rises and moves towards him. His agitation perplexes his view--he
perceives long fair tresses dabbled with blood--a countenance beautiful
even yet. It approaches--it is thrust upon his face; he recognises the
features--it is the head of Madame de Lamballe!"
"The servant whips the horse with all the strength of his arm. The
generous animal, with the instinctive horror of his race for dead bodies,
springs with redoubled speed from the spectacle of horror. The frightful
trophy, and the cannibals that bore it, had been overturned in the
mud--screams and imprecations pursued Albert, stretched senseless at the
bottom of the cabriolet. The servant had kept the reins, and whipped the
more fiercely, because he could perceive, from the motion of the carriage,
that some one had got up behind it, and hoped that the rapidity of its
progress would shake him off."
"In a few minutes Albert reached our door--judge of our alarm!--pale,
still quite senseless, not breathing. The moment the cabriolet stopped,
the man behind jumped down, took my brother in his arms, as if he had been
a child, and carried him into the house. It was Jaquemart. 'The monsters,'
said he, 'the monsters! the poor young man, they have killed him too.'
What could Jaquemart have been doing in such a garb, and among such a
troop o' ruffians?"
[1] And father of Madame Junot.
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