THE REPULSE.
At this point, Captain Durler, of the Switzers, went up to the king to
get orders from him or the major-general. The latter perceived the good
captain as he was looking for some usher to introduce him.
"What do you want, captain?" he inquired.
"You, my Lord Charny, as you are the garrison commander. I want the
final orders, as the head of the insurrectionary column appears on the
Carrousel."
"You are not to let them force their way through, the king having
decided to die in the midst of us."
"Rely on us, major-general," briefly replied Captain Durler, going back
to his men with this order, which was their death-sentence.
As he said, the van of the rebels was in sight. It was the thousand
pikemen, at the head of whom marched some twenty Marseilles men and
fifteen French Guardsmen; in the ranks of the latter gleamed the
bullion epaulets of a National Guards captain. This young officer was
Ange Pitou, who had been recommended by Billet, and was charged with a
mission of which we shall hear more.
Behind these, at a quarter-mile distance, came a considerable body of
National Guards and Federals, preceded by a twelve-gun battery.
When the garrison commandant's order was transmitted to them, the Swiss
fell silently into line and resolutely stood, with cold and gloomy
firmness.
Less severely disciplined, the National Guards took up their post more
disorderly and noisily, but with equal resolution.
The nobles, badly marshaled, and armed with striking weapons only, as
swords or short-range pistols, and aware that the combat would be to
the death, saw the moment approach with feverish glee when they could
grapple with their ancient adversary, the people, the eternal athlete
always thrown, but growing the stronger during eight centuries.
While the besieged were taking places, knocking was heard at the royal
court-yard gate, and many voices shouting: "A flag of truce!" Over the
wall at this spot was seen a white handkerchief tied to the tip of a
pike-staff.
Roederer was on his way to the king when he saw this at the gate and
ordered it to be opened. The janitor did so, and then ran off as fast
as he could. Roederer confronted the foremost of the revolutionists.
"My friends," said he, "you wanted the gates open to a flag of truce,
and not to an army. Who wants to hold the parley?"
"I am your man," said Pitou, with his sweet voice and bland smile.
"Who are you?"
"Captain Ange Pitou, of the Haramont Federal Volunteers."
Roederer did not know who the Haramont Federals were, but he judged it
not worth while to inquire when time was so precious.
"What are you wanting?"
"I want way through for myself and my friends."
Pitou's friends, who were in rags, brandished their pikes, and looked
with their savage eyes like dangerous enemies indeed.
"What do you want to go through here for?"
"To go and surround the Assembly. We have twelve guns, but shall not
use e'er a one if you do as we wish."
"What do you wish?"
"The dethronement of the king."
"This is a grave question, sir," observed Roederer.
"Very grave," replied Pitou, with his customary politeness.
"It calls for some debate."
"That is only fair," returned Ange. "It is going on ten o'clock, less
the quarter," said he; "if we do not have an answer by ten as it
strikes, we shall begin our striking, too."
"Meanwhile, I suppose you will let us shut the door?"
Pitou ordered his crowd back; and the door was closed; but through
the momentarily open door the besiegers had caught a glimpse of the
formidable preparations made to receive them.
As soon as the door was closed, Pitou's followers had a keen desire to
keep on parleying.
Some were hoisted upon their comrades' shoulders, so that they could
bestride the wall, where they began to chat with the National Guardsmen
inside. These shook hands with them, and they were merry together as
the quarter of an hour passed.
Then a man came from the palace with the word that they were to be let
in.
The invaders believed that they had their request granted, and they
flocked in as soon as the doors were opened, like men who had been
kept waiting--all in a heap. They stuck their caps on their pikes and
whooped "Hurrah for the nation!"--"Long live the National Guard!"--"The
Swiss forever!"
The National Guard echoed the shout of the nation, but the Swiss kept a
gloomy and sinister muteness.
The inrush only ceased when the intruders were up to the cannon
muzzles, where they stopped to look around.
The main vestibule was crammed with Swiss, three deep; on each step was
a rank, so that six could fire at once.
Some of the invaders, including Pitou, began to consider, although it
was rather late to reflect.
But though seeing the danger, the mob did not think of running away;
it tried to turn it by jesting with the soldiers. The Guards took the
joking as it was made, but the Swiss looked glum, for something had
happened five minutes before the insurrectionary column marched up.
In the quarrel between the Guards and the grenadiers over the insult
to Mandat, the former had parted from the Royalist guards, and as they
went off they said good-bye to the Swiss, whom they wanted to go away
with them.
They said that they would receive in their own homes as brothers any of
the Swiss who would come with them.
Two from the Waldenses--that is, French Swiss--replied to the appeal
made in their own tongue, and took the French by the hand. At the same
instant two shots were fired up at the palace windows, and bullets
struck the deserters in the very arms of those who decoyed them away.
Excellent marksmen as chamois-hunters, the Swiss officers had nipped
the mutiny thus in the bud. It is plain now why the other Swiss were
mute.
The men who had rushed into the yard were such as always oddly
run before all outbreaks. They were armed with new pikes and old
fire-arms--that is, worse than unarmed.
The cannoniers had come over to their side, as well as the National
Guards, and they wanted to induce the Switzers to do the same.
They did not notice that time was passing and that the quarter of an
hour Pitou had given Roederer had doubled; it was now a quarter past
ten. They were having a good time; why should they worry?
One tatterdemalion had not a sword or a pike, but a pruning-hook, and
he said to his next neighbor:
"Suppose I were to fish for a Swiss?"
"Good idea! Try your luck," said the other.
So he hooked a Swiss by the belt and drew him toward him, the soldier
resisting just enough to make out that he was dragged.
"I have got a bite," said the fisher for men.
"Then, haul him in, but go gently," said his mate.
The man with the hook drew softly indeed, and the guardsman was drawn
out of the entrance into the yard, like a fish from the pond onto the
bank. Up rose loud whoops and roars of laughter.
"Try for another," said the crowd.
The fisherman hooked another, and jerked him out like the first. And so
it went on to the fourth and the fifth, and the whole regiment might
have melted away but for the order, "Make ready--take aim!"
On seeing the muskets leveled with the regular sound and precise
movement marking evolutions of regular troops, one of the
assailants--there is always some crazy-head to give the signal for
slaughter under such circumstances--fired a pistol at the palace
windows.
During the short space separating "Make ready" and "Fire" in the
command, Pitou guessed what was going to happen.
"Flat on your faces!" he shouted to his men; "down flat, or you are all
dead men!"
Suiting the action to the word, he flung himself on the ground.
Before there was time for his advice to be generally followed, the word
"Fire!" rang in the entrance-way, which was filled with a crashing
noise and smoke, while a hail of lead was spit forth as from one huge
blunderbuss.
The compact mass--for perhaps half the column had entered the
yard--swayed like the wheat-field before the gust, then like the same
cropped by the scythe, reeled and fell down. Hardly a third was left
alive.
These few fled, passing under the fire from two lines of guns and the
barracks firing at close range. The musketeers would have killed each
other but for the thick screen of fugitives between.
This curtain was ripped in wide places; four hundred men were stretched
on the ground pavement, three hundred slain outright.
The hundred, more or less badly injured, groaned and tried to rise, but
falling, gave part of the field of corpses a movement like the ocean
swell, frightful to behold.
But gradually all died out, and apart from a few obstinate fellows who
persisted in living, all fell into immobility.
The fugitives scattered over the Carrousel Square, and flowed out on
the water-side on one hand and on the street by the other, yelling,
"Murder--help! we were drawn into a death-trap."
On the New Bridge, they fell in with the main body. The bulk was
commanded by two men on horseback, closely attended by one on foot, who
seemed to have a share in the command.
"Help, Citizen Santerre!" shouted the flyers, recognizing in one of
the riders the big brewer of St. Antoine, by his colossal stature, for
which his huge Flemish horse was but a pedestal in keeping; "help! they
are slaughtering our brothers."
"Who are?" demanded the brewer-general.
"The Swiss--they shot us down while we were cheek by jowl with them,
a-kissing them."
"What do you think of this?" asked Santerre of the second horseman.
"Vaith, me dink of dot milidary broverb which it say: 'De soldier ought
to march to where he hear dot gun-firing going on,'" replied the other
rider, who was a small, fair man, with his hair cropped short, speaking
with a strong German accent. "Zubbose we go where de goons go off, eh?"
"Hi! you had a young officer with you," called out the leader on foot
to one of the runaways; "I don't see anything of him."
"He was the first to be dropped, citizen representative; and the more's
the pity, for he was a brave young chap."
"Yes, he was a brave young man," replied, with a slight loss of color,
the man addressed as a member of the House, "and he shall be bravely
avenged. On you go, Citizen Santerre!"
"I believe, my dear Billet," said the brewer, "that in such a pinch we
must call experience into play as well as courage."
"As you like."
"In consequence, I propose to place the command in the hands of Citizen
Westerman--a real general and a friend of Danton--offering to obey him
like a common soldier."
"I do not care what you do if you will only march right straight
ahead," said the farmer.
"Do you accept the command, Citizen Westerman?" asked Santerre.
"I do," said the Russian, laconically.
"In that case give your orders."
"Vorwarts!" shouted Westerman, and the immense column, only halted for
a breathing-spell, resumed the route.
As its pioneers entered at the same time the Carrousel by all gates,
eleven struck on the Tuileries clocks.