THE UNINVITED VISITORS.
All day long a man in general's uniform was riding about the St.
Antoine suburb, on a large Flanders horse, shaking hands right and
left, kissing the girls and treating the men to drink. This was one of
Lafayette's half dozen heirs, the small-change of the commander of the
National Guard--Battalion Commander Santerre.
Beside him rode, on a fiery charger, like an aid next his general, a
stout man who might by his dress be taken to be a well-to-do farmer. A
scar tracked his brow, and he had as gloomy an eye and scowling a face
as the battalion commander had an open countenance and frank smile.
"Get ready, my good friends; watch over the nation, against which
traitors are plotting. But we are on guard," Santerre kept saying.
"What are we to do, friend Santerre?" asked the working-men. "You know
that we are all your own. Where are the traitors? Lead us at them!"
"Wait; the proper time has not come."
"When will it strike?"
Santerre did not know a word about it; so he replied at a hazard, "Keep
ready; we'll let you know."
But the man who rode by his knee, bending down over the horse's neck,
would make signs to some men, and whisper:
"June twenty."
Whereupon these men would call groups of twenty or so around each, and
repeat the date to them, so that it would be circulated. Nobody knew
what would be done on the twentieth of June, but all felt sure that
something would happen on that day.
By whom was this mob moved, stirred, and excited? By a man of powerful
build, leonine mane, and roaring voice, whom Santerre was to find
waiting in his brewery office--Danton.
None better than this terrible wizard of the Revolution could evoke
terror from the slums and hurl it into the old palace of Catherine di
Medicis. Danton was the gong of riots; the blow he received he imparted
vibratingly to all the multitude around him. Through Hebert he was
linked to the populace, as by the Duke of Orleans he was affixed to the
throne.
Whence came his power, doomed to be so fatal to royalty? To the queen,
the spiteful Austrian who had not liked Lafayette to be mayor of Paris,
but preferred Petion, the Republican, who had no sooner brought back
the fugitive king to the Tuileries than he set to watch him closely.
Petion had made his two friends, Manuel and Danton, the Public
Prosecutor and the Vice, respectively.
On the twentieth of June, under the pretext of presenting a petition to
the king and raising a liberty pole, the palace was to be stormed.
The adepts alone knew that France was to be saved from the Lafayettes
and the Moderates, and a warning to be given to the incorrigible
monarch that there are some political tempests in which a vessel may
be swamped with all hands aboard; that is, a king be overwhelmed with
throne and family as in the oceanic abysses.
Billet knew more than Santerre when he accompanied him on his tour,
after presenting himself as from the committee.
Danton called on the brewer to arrange for the meeting of the popular
leaders that night at Charenton for the march on the morrow, presumably
to the House, but really to the Tuileries.
The watchword was, "Have done with the palace!" but the way remained
vague.
On the evening of the nineteenth, the queen saw a woman clad in
scarlet, with a belt full of pistols, gallop, bold and terrible, along
the main streets. It was Theroigne Mericourt, the beauty of Liege, who
had gone back to her native country to help its rebellion; but the
Austrians had caught her and kept her imprisoned for eighteen months.
She returned mysteriously to be at the bloody feast of the coming day.
The courtesan of opulence, she was now the beloved of the people; from
her noble lovers had come the funds for her costly weapons, which were
not all for show. Hence the mob hailed her with cheers.
From the Tuileries garret, where the queen had climbed on hearing the
uproar, she saw tables set out in the public squares and wine broached;
patriotic songs were sung and at every toast fists were shaken at the
palace.
Who were the guests? The Federals of Marseilles, led by Barbaroux, who
brought with them the song worth an army--"the Marseillaise Hymn of
Liberty."
Day breaks early in June. At five o'clock the battalions were
marshaled, for the insurrection was regularized by this time and had a
military aspect. The mob had chiefs, submitted to discipline, and fell
into assigned places under flags.
Santerre was on horseback, with his staff of men from the working
district. Billet did not leave him, for the occult power of the
Invisibles charged him to watch over him.
Of the three corps into which the forces were divided, Santerre
commanded the first, St. Huruge the second, and Theroigne the last.
About eleven, on an order brought by an unknown man, the immense mass
started out. It numbered some twenty thousand when it left the Bastile
Square.
It had a wild, odd, and horrible look.
Santerre's battalion was the most regular, having many in uniform, and
muskets and bayonets among the weapons. But the other two were armed
mobs, haggard, thin, and in rags from three years of revolutions and
four of famine.
Neither had uniforms nor muskets, but tattered coats and smocks; quaint
arms snatched up in the first impulse of self-defense and anger: pikes,
cooking-spits, jagged spears, hiltless swords, knives lashed to long
poles, broad-axes, stone-masons' hammers and curriers' knives.
For standards, a gallows with a dangling doll, meant for the queen; a
bull's head, with an obscene card stuck on the horns; a calf's heart
on a spit, with the motto: "An Aristocrat's;" while flags showed the
legends: "Sanction the decrees, or death!"--"Recall the patriotic
ministers!"--"Tremble, tyrant; your hour has come!"
At every crossing and from each by-way the army was swollen.
The mass was silent, save now and then when a cheer burst from the
midst, or a snatch of the "It shall go on" was sung, or cries went up
of "The nation forever!"--"Long live the Breechless!"--"Down with Old
Veto and Madame Veto!"
They came out for sport--to frighten the king and queen, and did not
mean murdering. They demanded to march past the Assembly through
the Hall, and for three hours they defiled under the eyes of their
representatives.
It was three o'clock. The mob had obtained half their programme, the
placing of their petition before the Assembly. The next thing was to
call on the king for his sanction to the decree.
As the Assembly had received them, how could the king refuse? Surely he
was not a greater potentate than the Speaker of the House, whose chair
was like his and in the grander place?
In fact, the king assented to receiving their deputation of twenty.
As the common people had never entered the palace, they merely expected
their representatives would be received while they marched by under the
windows. They would show the king their banners with the odd devices
and the gory standards.
All the palace garden gates were closed; in the yards and gardens
were soldiers with four field-pieces. Seeing this apparently ample
protection, the royal family might be tranquil.
Still without any evil idea, the crowd asked for the gates to be opened
which allowed entrance on the Feuillants Terrace.
Three municipal officers went in and got leave from the king for
passage to be given over the terrace and out by the stable doors.
Everybody wanted to go in as soon as the gates were open, and the
throng spread over the lawn; it was forgotten to open the outlet by the
stables, and the crush began to be severe. They streamed before the
National Guards in a row along the palace wall to the Carrousel gates,
by which they might have resumed the homeward route. They were locked
and guarded.
Sweltering, crushed, and turned about, the mob began to be irritated.
Before its growls the gates were opened and the men spread over the
capacious square.
There they remembered what the main affair was--to petition the king
to revoke his veto. Instead of continuing the road, they waited in the
square for an hour, when they grew impatient.
They might have gone away, but that was not the aim of the agitators,
who went from group to group, saying:
"Stay; what do you want to sneak away for? The king is going to give
his sanction; if we were to go home without that, we should have all
our work to do over again."
The level-headed thought this sensible advice, but at the same time
that the sanction was a long time coming. They were getting hungry, and
that was the general cry.
Bread was not so dear as it had been, but there was no work going on,
and however cheap bread may be, it is not made for nothing.
Everybody had risen at five, workmen and their wives, with their
children, and come to the palace with the idea that they had but to get
the royal sanction to have hard times end. But the king did not seem to
be at all eager to give his sanction.
It was hot, and thirst began to be felt. Hunger, thirst, and heat drive
dogs mad; yet the poor people waited and kept patient. But those next
to the railings set to shaking them. A municipal officer made a speech
to them:
"Citizens, this is the king's residence, and to enter with arms is to
violate it. The king is quite ready to receive your petition, but only
from twenty deputies bearing it."
What! had not their deputation, sent in an hour ago, been attended to
yet?
Suddenly loud shouts were heard on the streets. It was Santerre,
Billet, and Huruge on their horses, and Theroigne riding on her cannon.
"What are you fellows hanging round this gate for?" queried Huruge.
"Why do you not go right in?"
"Just so; why haven't we?" said the thousands.
"Can't you see it is fast?" cried several voices.
Theroigne jumped off her cannon, saying:
"The barker is full to the muzzle; let's blow the old gate open."
"Wait! wait!" shouted two municipal officers; "no roughness. It shall
be opened to you."
Indeed, by pressing on the spring-catch they released the two gates,
which drew aside, and the mass rushed through.
Along with them came the cannon, which crossed the yard with them,
mounted the steps, and reached the head of the stairs in their company.
Here stood the city officials in their scarfs of office.
"What do you intend doing with a piece of artillery?" they challenged.
"Great guns in the royal apartments! Do you believe anything is to be
gained by such violence?"
"Quite right," said the ringleaders, astonished themselves to see the
gun there; and they turned it round to get it down-stairs. The hub
caught on the jamb, and the muzzle gaped on the crowd.
"Why, hang them all, they have got cannon all over the palace!"
commented the new-comers, not knowing their own artillery.
Police-Magistrate Mouchet, a deformed dwarf, ordered the men to chop
the wheel clear, and they managed to hack the door-jamb away so as
to free the piece, which was taken down to the yard. This led to the
report that the mob were smashing all the doors in.
Some two hundred noblemen ran to the palace, not with the hope of
defending it, but to die with the king, whose life they deemed menaced.
Prominent among these was a man in black, who had previously offered
his breast to the assassin's bullet, and who always leaped like a last
Life-Guard between danger and the king, from whom he had tried to
conjure it. This was Gilbert.
After being excited by the frightful tumult, the king and queen became
used to it.
It was half past three, and it was hoped that the day would close with
no more harm done.
Suddenly, the sound of the ax blows was heard above the noise of
clamor, like the howling of a coming tempest. A man darted into the
king's sleeping-room and called out:
"Sire, let me stand by you, and I will answer for all."
It was Dr. Gilbert, seen at almost periodical intervals, and in all the
"striking situations" of the tragedy in play.
"Oh, doctor, is this you? What is it?" King and queen spoke together.
"The palace is surrounded, and the people are making this uproar in
wanting to see you."
"We shall not leave you, sire," said the queen and Princess Elizabeth.
"Will the king kindly allow me for an hour such power as a captain has
over his ship?" asked Gilbert.
"I grant it," replied the monarch. "Madame, hearken to Doctor Gilbert's
advice, and obey his orders, if needs must." He turned to the doctor:
"Will you answer to me for the queen and the dauphin?"
"I do, or I shall die with them; it is all a pilot can say in the
tempest!"
The queen wished to make a last effort, but Gilbert barred the way with
his arms.
"Madame," he said, "it is you and not the king who run the real
danger. Rightly or wrongly, they accuse you of the king's resistance,
so that your presence will expose him without defending him. Be the
lightning-conductor--divert the bolt, if you can!"
"Then let it fall on me, but save my children!"
"I have answered for you and them to the king. Follow me."
He said the same to Princess Lamballe, who had returned lately from
London, and the other ladies, and guided them to the Council Hall,
where he placed them in a window recess, with the heavy table before
them.
The queen stood behind her children--Innocence protecting Unpopularity,
although she wished it to be the other way.
"All is well thus," said Gilbert, in the tone of a general commanding a
decisive operation; "do not stir."
There came a pounding at the door, which he threw open with both folds,
and as he knew there were many women in the crowd, he cried:
"Walk in, citizenesses; the queen and her children await you."
The crowd burst in as through a broken dam.
"Where is the Austrian? where is the Lady Veto?" demanded five hundred
voices.
It was the critical moment.
"Be calm," said Gilbert to the queen, knowing that all was in Heaven's
hand, and man was as nothing. "I need not recommend you to be kind."
Preceding the others was a woman with her hair down, who brandished a
saber; she was flushed with rage--perhaps from hunger.
"Where is the Austrian cat? She shall die by no hand but mine!" she
screamed.
"This is she," said Gilbert, taking her by the hand and leading her up
to the queen.
"Have I ever done you a personal wrong?" demanded the latter, in her
sweetest voice.
"I can not say you have," faltered the woman of the people, amazed at
the majesty and gentleness of Marie Antoinette.
"Then why should you wish to kill me?"
"Folks told me that you were the ruin of the nation," faltered the
abashed young woman, lowering the point of her saber to the floor.
"Then you were told wrong. I married your King of France, and am
mother of the prince whom you see here. I am a French woman, one who
will nevermore see the land where she was born; in France alone I must
dwell, happy or unhappy. Alas! I was happy when you loved me." And she
sighed.
The girl dropped the sword, and wept.
"Beg your pardon, madame, but I did not know what you were like. I see
you are a good sort, after all."
"Keep on like that," prompted Gilbert, "and not only will you be saved,
but all these people will be at your feet in an hour."
Intrusting her to some National Guardsmen and the War Minister, who
came in with the mob, he ran to the king.
Louis had gone through a similar experience. On hastening toward the
crowd, as he opened the Bull's-eye Room, the door panels were dashed
in, and pikes, bayonets, and axes showed their points and edges.
"Open the doors!" cried the king.
Servants heaped up chairs before him, and four grenadiers stood in
front, but he made them put up their swords, as the flash of steel
might seem a provocation.
A ragged fellow, with a knife-blade set in a pole, darted at the king,
yelling:
"Take that for your veto!"
One grenadier, who had not yet sheathed his sword, struck down the
stick with the blade. But it was the king who, entirely recovering
self-command, put the soldier aside with his hand, and said:
"Let me stand forward, sir. What have I to fear amid my people?"
Taking a forward step, Louis XVI., with a majesty not expected in him,
and a courage strange heretofore in him, offered his breast to the
weapons of all sorts directed against him.
"Hold your noise!" thundered a stentorian voice in the midst of the
awful din. "I want a word in here."
A cannon might have vainly sought to be heard in this clamor, but at
this voice all the vociferation ceased. This was the butcher Legendre.
He went up almost to touching the king, while they formed a ring round
the two.
Just then, on the outer edge of the circle, a man made his appearance,
and behind the dread double of Danton, the king recognized Gilbert,
pale and serene of face. The questioning glance implying: "What have
you done with the queen?" was answered by the doctor's smile to the
effect that she was in safety. He thanked him with a nod.
"Sirrah," began Legendre.
This expression, which seemed to indicate that the sovereign was
already deposed, made the latter turn as if a snake had stung him.
"Yes, sir, I am talking to you, Veto," went on Legendre. "Just listen
to us, for it is our turn to have you hear us. You are a double-dealer,
who have always cheated us, and would try it again, so look out for
yourself. The measure is full, and the people are tired of being your
plaything and victim."
"Well, I am listening to you, sir," rejoined the king.
"And a good thing, too. Do you know what we have come here for? To ask
the sanction of the decrees and the recall of the ministers. Here is
our petition--see!"
Taking a paper from his pocket, he unfolded it, and read the same
menacing lines which had been heard in the House. With his eyes fixed
on the speaker, the king listened, and said, when it was ended, without
the least apparent emotion:
"Sir, I shall do what the laws and the Constitution order me to do!"
"Gammon!" broke in a voice; "the Constitution is your high horse, which
lets you block the road of the whole country, to keep France in-doors,
for fear of being trampled on, and wait till the Austrians come up to
cut her throat."
The king turned toward this fresh voice, comprehending that it was a
worse danger. Gilbert also made a movement and laid his hand on the
speaker's shoulder.
"I have seen you somewhere before, friend," remarked the king. "Who are
you?"
He looked with more curiosity than fear, though this man wore a front
of terrible resolution.
"Ay, you have seen me before, sire. Three times: once, when you were
brought back from Versailles; next at Varennes; and the last time,
here. Sire, bear my name in mind, for it is of ill omen. It is Billet."
At this the shouting was renewed, and a man with a lance tried to stab
the king; but Billet seized the weapon, tore it from the wielder's
grip, and snapped it across his knee.
"No foul play," he said; "only one kind of steel has the right to touch
this man: the ax of the executioner! I hear that a King of England had
his head cut off by the people whom he betrayed--you ought to know his
name, Louis. Don't you forget it."
"'Sh, Billet!" muttered Gilbert.
"Oh, you may say what you like," returned Billet, shaking his head;
"this man is going to be tried and doomed as a traitor."
"Yes, a traitor!" yelled a hundred voices; "traitor, traitor!"
Gilbert threw himself in between.
"Fear nothing, sire, and try by some material token to give
satisfaction to these mad men."
Taking the physician's hand, the king laid it on his heart.
"You see that I fear nothing," he said; "I received the sacraments this
morning. Let them do what they like with me. As for the material sign
which you suggest I should display--are you satisfied?"
Taking the red cap from a by-stander, he set it on his own head. The
multitude burst into applause.
"Hurrah for the king!" shouted all the voices.
A fellow broke through the crowd and held up a bottle.
"If fat old Veto loves the people as much as he says, prove it by
drinking our health."
"Do not drink," whispered a voice. "It may be poisoned."
"Drink, sire, I answer for the honesty," said Gilbert.
The king took the bottle, and saying, "To the health of the people," he
drank. Fresh cheers for the king resounded.
"Sire, you have nothing to fear," said Gilbert; "allow me to return to
the queen."
"Go," said the other, gripping his hand.
More tranquil, the doctor hastened to the Council Hall, where he
breathed still easier after one glance. The queen stood in the same
spot; the little prince, like his father, was wearing the red cap.
In the next room was a great hubbub; it was the reception of Santerre,
who rolled into the hall.
"Where is this Austrian wench?" demanded he.
Gilbert cut slanting across the hall to intercept him.
"Halloo, Doctor Gilbert!" said he, quite joyfully.
"Who has not forgotten that you were one of those who opened the
Bastile doors to me," replied the doctor. "Let me present you to the
queen."
"Present me to the queen?" growled the brewer.
"You will not refuse, will you?"
"Faith, I'll not. I was going to introduce myself; but as you are in
the way--"
"Monsieur Santerre needs no introduction," interposed the queen. "I
know how at the famine time he fed at his sole expense half the St.
Antoine suburb."
Santerre stopped, astonished; then, his glance happening to fall,
embarrassed, on the dauphin, whose perspiration was running down his
cheeks, he roared:
"Here, take that sweater off the boy--don't you see he is smothering?"
The queen thanked him with a look. He leaned on the table, and bending
toward her, he said in an under-tone:
"You have a lot of clumsy friends, madame. I could tell you of some who
would serve you better."
An hour afterward all the mob had flowed away, and the king,
accompanied by his sister, entered the room where the queen and his
children awaited him.
She ran to him and threw herself at his feet, while the children
seized his hands, and all acted as though they had been saved from a
shipwreck. It was only then that the king noticed that he was wearing
the red cap.
"Faugh!" he said; "I had forgotten!"
Snatching it off with both hands, he flung it far from him with disgust.
The evacuation of the palace was as dull and dumb as the taking had
been gleeful and noisy. Astonished at the little result, the mob said:
"We have not made anything; we shall have to come again."
In fact, it was too much for a threat, and not enough for an attempt on
the king's life.
Louis had been judged on his reputation, and recalling his flight to
Varennes, disguised as a serving-man, they had thought that he would
hide under a table at the first noise, and might be done to death in
the scuffle, like Polonius behind the arras.
Things had happened otherwise; never had the monarch been calmer, never
so grand. In the height of the threats and the insults he had not
ceased to say: "Behold your king!"
The Royalists were delighted, for, to tell the truth, they had carried
the day.