The crowd outside the Bastille had begun to form even before the dawn
of the gloomy November day which was to witness the execution of the
four principal conspirators in the Norman plot; the four conspirators
whom alone, of many others of high and low degree, it had been thought
advisable to bring to trial. This was because, amongst those others,
were names of such importance that, coupled with the name of De
Beaurepaire, they would have revealed the existence of so deep-rooted
a conspiracy against France and the King as to absolutely threaten the
existence of France as a monarchy, as well as the existence of Le Roi
Soleil. Therefore, since justice was now to be done upon those four,
it had been deemed the highest policy to ignore all others concerned,
and thus veil in obscurity the wide-spreading roots of the wicked
scheme.
By mid-day the crowd was so augmented that one-eighth of the
population of Paris was calculated to be present; the mass of people
was so closely wedged that any movement had become impossible. If
women fainted from the pressure they were subjected to, they had to
remain standing insensible or be supported by others until they
recovered, since there was not room for them to fall to the ground. If
infants in arms--of which, as always at any public "spectacle," many
had been brought--fell or were dropped, it was in most cases
impossible to recover them: several old as well as very young persons
were trampled to death, and more than one birth took place amongst
that crowd.
And still the mob continued to swell and increase until three o'clock,
while some hundreds of persons helped to add farther to it long after
the "spectacle" was over.
In front of the great door of the prison, above which was carved a
bas-relief representing two slaves manacled together, a long scaffold
had been erected on which were placed three blocks. Some short
distance off was a small movable rostrum, or smaller scaffold, above
which was reared a gallows with the rope hanging loosely from it. On
this rostrum Van den Enden would later take his stand until, the rope
being fastened tightly round his neck, the rostrum would be pushed
from under his feet and he would be left hanging. Still a farther
distance off was a brazier, the fire in which was not yet ignited. At
three o'clock it would be lit and, into it, a huge bundle of papers
would be cast. These papers were those which had been found in La
Truaumont's possession after death, and contained not only innumerable
letters and other documents dealing with the plot, but also his birth
certificate and his parchment commissions and _brevets_. As far as was
possible his memory, as well as the records of his association with
the conspiracy, were to be effaced for ever.
Early in the morning three sides of a square had been formed round the
scaffolds and the brazier--the prison wall and the great door of the
prison making the fourth side--by a large body of troops. These troops
consisted of three lines, the innermost one, which was composed of
several companies of the Regiment de Rouen, being so placed owing
partly to the fact that the regiment happened at the moment to be
quartered in Paris, and partly because it was thought well that its
men should witness what had befallen those who had endeavoured to stir
up rebellion in the particular province to which it belonged.
Behind these soldiers were those of the Garde du Corps du Roi
under the command of De Brissac who, from dawn, had sat his horse
statue-like. Behind this were the Mousquetaires, both black and grey.
"How slowly that clock moves," a sandy-haired, good-looking girl of
the people said as, at last, the clock of the Bastille struck two and
the final hour of waiting was at hand. "Have you ever seen this
handsome Prince who is to die?" she asked, turning to a big, brawny
man who stood by her side.
"Ay, often," the man, who was totally unknown to the girl, replied,
looking down at her. "Often. I was a soldier myself until six months
ago. And in the Garde du Corps. Are you an admirer of handsome men?"
"I have heard so much of his beauty. And of his loves. They say all
the aristocratic women loved him."
"_Vertu dieu!_" the man said with a laugh; "I wonder then that he did
not disfigure himself. One can be fed too full on love as well as
other things, _ma belle_," he added with a hoarse laugh, while
recalling perhaps some of his own _galanteries de caserne_.
"There is one who dies with him to-day," a dark, pale woman struck in
now, "whom they say he loved passing well, as she him. _Dieu!_ what is
sweeter than to die with those we love!"
"To live for them, _bonne femme_," the soldier replied, still
jeeringly. Then, seeing that this woman's face had clouded with a look
of pain, he said in a gentler voice, "Ah! pardon. I have not wounded
you?"
"Nay. Not much. But I have loved and been left behind. I would I might
have gone too."
"They say he and the woman and the old Jew who is to hang," a cripple
exclaimed, "sought to kill the King. _Oh-é! Oh-é!_" the creature
grunted, "I would I were tall enough to see the Jew swinging. _Mon
brave_," looking up at the ex-soldier, "will you not lift me to your
shoulder when they come out?"
"Ay! will I, and fling you at the Jew's head afterwards. If you miss
him mayhap you will fall into the brazier. And, so, an end to you."
"Is there a brazier! And for the Jew! Oh! Oh! Oh! To burn him all up.
Oh! Oh!" and the cripple, in his efforts to caper about, trod so on
his neighbours' feet that they kicked and cuffed him till he was
almost senseless.
"The Dutch fleet was off Havre a week ago," one old man remarked to
another in solemn, almost awestruck, whispers. "Ah! if the Normans had
been ready. If the enemy had landed. If France had been invaded. Oh,
_mon Dieu!_"
"_Pschut!_" exclaimed the other old man, one of different mettle from
his companion. "The Normans ready! _Fichtre pour les Normans!_ There
were none who had the power to cause a single village to rise. France
might have slept in peace."
"_Attention!_" rang out the voice of the officer in command of the
Mousquetaires a little while later, and, as it did so, the crowd
roared like so many beasts of prey; then, gradually, yet quickly, too,
the roar subsided into a deep, hoarse murmur, and an indescribable
tremor, or movement, passed through the thousands present.
For, now, the great bell of the Bastille that had, in days past, so
often sounded the tocsin over St. Antoine--and was so often to sound
it again in days to come--was tolling slowly: the huge doors were
open, they were coming forth.
Ahead of all walked some bareheaded and barefooted Carmelites
chanting the _Salve Regina_: following them, the Governor of the
Bastille and the Lieutenant du Roi marched side by side. Next, came
the headsman and his assistants, masked, the former carrying his axe
over his shoulder.
Behind them the condemned ones came forth. First, with the Père
Bourdaloue by his side, appeared De Beaurepaire, superb and stately,
his head bare. He was dressed all in black velvet but, underneath his
outer coat might be caught the gleam of his handsome _justaucorps_.
Yet, noble as his presence was, there was missing from his face to-day
the look of arrogance and haughty contempt that had hitherto been the
one disfigurement of his manly beauty. Now, he walked calmly and
solemnly and resigned, as one might walk who followed another to his
grave instead of as one who, with every step he took, drew nearer to
his own.
Behind him came the woman he loved, the woman who loved him so, the
woman whose eyes were fixed upon him as he preceded her and who, it
seemed to those who were in a position to observe her, would have
drawn closer to him had it been possible.
But still there were the others. Fleur de Mai, big, stalwart, burly,
marching with a firm, well-assured step; with an eye that seemed to
roam in pride and satisfaction over the vast crowd that was assembled
there to see them die; with lips pursed out as though in contempt of
what he was about to suffer.
Last of all came Van den Enden, supported, almost dragged along,
between two jailers, and muttering as he went: "An old man. So old. So
old and feeble!"
That the crowd should make its comments even at such a moment of
supreme solemnity was not to be doubted, and that those comments
should come principally from the female portion of it was equally
certain. The men, excepting only those of the more base and
contemptible kind, were mostly silent while, perhaps, feeling within
their hearts some satisfaction that the two principal sufferers of
their own sex were representing that sex so fearlessly.
From the women there issued, however, almost universal sobbing and
weeping, coupled with many exclamations on the splendid bearing of De
Beaurepaire as well as the resignation and calm, placid beauty of his
companion. "How pale yet brave she is," some said. "How happy she
should be to die with him--by his side," said others.
All were now at the foot of the scaffold, Van den Enden going on to
the gallows waiting for him, where, when the heads of the others were
struck off, he would be hanged. Already the executioner's chief
assistant had commenced to cut off the hair from the back of the head
and neck of Emérance; another was tucking the long locks of Fleur de
Mai up above his neck and tying it with a piece of cord, while the
headsman, observing that De Beaurepaire's wavy hair was cut quite
short behind, muttered that "it would not interfere."
"Has monseigneur a piece of this to spare?" he asked, pointing to the
dark ribbon with which De Beaurepaire's jacket was tied in front.
"Nay," the doomed man said quietly, while uttering the words which
were long afterwards remembered and, when repeated to his mother,
brought some solace to her bruised heart. "Nay. Bind me with cord. He
Who never sinned was thus bound; shall I go to my death better than
He?" Then, putting his purse into the man's hand, he said: "Strike
quick and hard. Also be merciful to her," turning his eyes towards
Emérance as he spoke.
"Never fear," the man said under his breath.
By this time the others were ready. _La toilette des morts_ was made
for all. The hair was now all cut away from the neck of Emérance; the
executioner had gently turned down the collar of her white robe so
that her neck was bare to her shoulders, her wrists were tied together
behind. As regards Fleur de Mai, he also was prepared and stood calmly
regarding the enormous concourse of people, as though endeavouring to
discover among it some friends or acquaintances who might be able to
testify how he had died. Later, when the executioner was interrogated
by La Reynie as to the events of that day, the man stated that Fleur
de Mai hummed a tune as he was being made ready.
It had been ordained that De Beaurepaire's head was to fall first,
Fleur de Mai's the second, and that of Emérance the third, and, though
the latter had pleaded against this refinement of cruelty to a woman,
she was told that her prayer to be executed first could not be
granted.
And now the time had come.
With a touch of his hand, a glance of his eyes through the hideous
mask he wore, the executioner motioned each to their respective
blocks. Fleur de Mai was placed before the outer block on the right of
the scaffold, Emérance before the extreme one on the left, De
Beaurepaire between them.
"_Altesse_," the headsman whispered. "It is the moment."
Amidst a silence such as perhaps no crowd--perhaps no French
crowd!--had ever before maintained, De Beaurepaire turned towards the
woman he had learnt to love so fondly.
"Adieu," he whispered, bending down to her so that, for the last time
in life, their lips met--embrace they could not, since their hands
were tied behind their backs. "Adieu for ever, _ma adorée_."
But from her lips as they met his, the word "Adieu" did not proceed,
but, instead, the word "Wedded." As she spoke he saw that she smiled
at him.
Advancing now towards the block, he was about to kneel by it; with a
sign from his eyes he signalled to the executioner's assistant to give
him his hand to assist him in doing so, when, to his astonishment, as
well as to that of all in the vast concourse, De Brissac's powerful
voice rang out on the dense silence. From his lips were heard to issue
the order: "Stop. Defer your task. Proceed no farther in it as yet."
As he thus commanded, his eyes, glancing over the head of the crowd
from where he sat above them on his horse, were directed towards a man
clad in the _soutane_ of a priest, one who was frantically waving a
paper in the air. A priest who was seated by the side of the coachman
on the box of one of the royal carriages.
"What does this mean?" De Beaurepaire asked in a hoarse tone, while,
as he did so, his eyes were directed towards Emérance who had reeled
back as she heard De Brissac's stern command and was now supported by
one of the monks who had followed the condemned on to the scaffold. In
that look he saw that she was white as marble, that her eyes had in
them a strange unnatural glance, a glance perceptible even through
their half-closed lids.
"Has the King relented at the last moment?" De Brissac muttered to
himself. After which he cried to his men: "Make way through your ranks
for the Reverend Father. Let him approach at once. It is," he
whispered to the officer nearest to him, "the King's Confessor."
This order was easily to be obeyed in so far as the troops were
concerned, but more difficult of accomplishment as regarded the crowd
behind them. Nor--since it must be told!--was the majority of that
crowd very willing to see any interruption of _le spectacle_ take
place. They had stood here since the November dawn had broken, wet,
cold and foggy to observe three men and a woman die, and now, it would
appear, they were to be baulked of their sport.
Moreover, there was happening to them that which has always been, and
still is, obnoxious to a large multitude of Parisians gathered
together, either for their amusement or for the gratification of a
sickly, a neurotic curiosity. The troops were dominating them; they
were being dispersed, pushed away at the very moment when the great
tableau was to have been presented to their gaze. Slowly backing their
horses, the troopers of the Garde du Roi and of the two corps of
Mousquetaires were driving back, and, above all, parting the mass of
spectators; in a few moments the closely serried gathering was split
apart--the priest escorted by some of the men of the Regiment de Rouen
was nearing the steps of the scaffold.
"It is an infamy," many in the great gathering muttered. "Has the
Splendid one become a Nero?" exclaimed others. "It is torture to them
and an insult to us," said still more. "In what days are we living?"
While one or two exclaimed, "It has never been done before."
"You are wrong, my son," the priest said, overhearing this last remark
and turning round to look at one of the speakers. "I myself have stood
on the scaffold and seen a man reprieved, set free; a man to whom I
had already given the last absolution. And your mother could not have
paid for you to learn the history of your own country. Did you never
hear of Saint Vallier, father of Diane de Poitiers, who was spared as
he stood on the scaffold through her prayers to the King, even as this
man is saved from death--but death alone--through the prayers of his
mother to our King?"
"His mother!" many of the dispersed assembly muttered now, a different
chord struck by that word so sacred to all French. "His mother. Ah!
_Grand Dieu, c'est autre chose_. His mother has saved him! The King
has a heart within his bosom. _Vive le Roi!_"
By now the priest was upon the scaffold, the paper he had waved in the
air was in the hands of the Lieutenant du Roi, who was scanning it
hurriedly, A moment later he turned round to some of his warders and
said: "Remove the Prince de Beaurepaire. His life is spared. To-morrow
he goes to----"
"Spared!" De Beaurepaire exclaimed. "Spared, to go where? To
imprisonment for life, doubtless. I will not have it so, not unless
her life is spared too," and, as he spoke, he turned to where he knew
Emérance was.
As he did so a hoarse cry broke from his lips, and, all bound as he
was, he struggled towards her. What he saw had struck a more icy chill
to his heart than the approach of his now avoided death. Upon his
knees was the monk, on one arm he supported the form of Emérance; with
the hand that was free he held the Cross above her.
"Emérance, Emérance. My love, my love," De Beaurepaire cried.
"Emérance. Ah! speak to me."
But the woman's lips did not move. They would never move again.
"She is dead," the monk said, looking up. "She died but a moment ago.
As the holy father mounted the steps."
"Dead," De Beaurepaire wailed. "Dead! Gone--and I am here. Emérance is
dead! Without me! Gone without one word to me. I will not believe it.
It cannot be."
"Not without one word," the monk replied. "As she died I heard her
whisper 'Louis' once. A moment later she murmured 'Saved'. Be content,
my son, she is at rest."
THE END
Humphrey and Jacquette heard the next day of all that had taken place
outside the Bastille and learnt that De Beaurepaire was to be at once
sent to the Ile Ste. Marguerite or the Château d'If, where he would
remain a prisoner for the rest of his life. The prayers of his mother,
aided by the words of the King's Confessor who, though only a humble
priest, was much esteemed by Louis, had saved him from death at least.
Of those who mourned De Beaurepaire's fate, and they were many, none
did so more than these two who were now about to become man and wife.
For, whatever the character of that unhappy man had been, however his
vaulting ambition may have o'erleaped itself, it became the custom ere
long to speak of him as one who had been more led into error than as
the instigator of "the great crime." Indeed, it was not long ere the
punishment, even still severe, of Louis de Beaurepaire was generally
referred to as one of those _crimes de la cour_ which, in earlier
days, had made victims of Enguerrand de Marigny and Beaune de
Semblançay, of Jacques C[oe]ur and the unfortunate victim of
Richelieu's hate, Cinq-Mars. And, as gradually matters became more and
more unfolded, as Louis XIV. learnt how De Beaurepaire had been
tempted by his enemy, Spain, he himself was known to express regret
for him, and, sometimes, to even hint at eventually forgiving him.
For Emérance de Villiers-Bordéville if, until it became known who she
was, no sympathy had been expressed in Normandy, some regret for her
unhappy earlier life was at last forthcoming. By her real name she was
afterwards spoken of and written of in the province as a woman who had
been cruelly treated by both her husband and the law, and neglected by
those whom, at least at first, she had striven hard to benefit, though
in a wicked way; and as one whose mad love for De Beaurepaire had
finally led her to her doom. In Paris, those who had witnessed her
death, and, above all, those who had heard, or heard of, her last
words, regarded her as a martyr to that love. Van den Enden has also,
even with all the social prejudice there was against him, at last been
written of as "_un pauvre Utopiste Hollandais_." Fleur de Mai, as the
Chevalier la Preaux chose to call himself, was soon forgotten or, if
ever mentioned, was spoken of as a brigand who had turned conspirator.
It was a month after the imprisonment of De Beaurepaire and when the
execution of his two companions had taken place, that Humphrey and
Jacquette were married at St. Nicholas-des-Champs preparatory to
setting out for England, which country was henceforth to be their
home.
"We have done with France for ever, sweetheart," he said to the girl
who was to be his bride on the morrow; "England must henceforth be our
home. My mother has long made it hers and will never leave it; and it
is your mother's land. Jacquette, will it suffice you?"
"It is your land too," the girl replied. "Where you are there is my
home. There my heart."
Then, softly, she repeated the words of Ruth which, though not
addressed to one who was a lover, have, through the centuries, been so
often used by women to those whom they love.
"My own, my very own," Humphrey whispered. "Ah! if it were not that it
was I who took the first step to send that unhappy man and woman to
their fate, I should carry no regrets away with me. De Beaurepaire was
ever kind and gracious to me; I made him but a poor return."
"Nay, say not so. He would have overthrown the King who had done all
for him; his myrmidons would have slain you. Your duty lay along the
road you took, you could have travelled no other. Had you held your
peace, had you let the King fall a victim to him and those who egged
him on to such wickedness--the King who persuaded your own King to do
justice to you--then would you not have been the hero in my eyes that
you are."
"A hero. I? Ah, no! What did I do to earn that name? What, except
bring the Prince to his fate?"
"Humphrey. Humphrey, my love, my husband that is to be, do not palter
with yourself. Did you not risk your life against those men at Basle
rather than consent to keep silence upon their hateful plot? Would you
not have slain that bravo had he not played the coward; would you not
sooner have slain yourself than become one of them? That--that--was
hero's work; as a hero will you ever stand in my eyes."
Wherefore those words of the old dramatist, Quinault, _Les drames sans
héros ni héroïne sont les vrais drames_, true as their philosophy may
be in general, were not so in this particular. For he who, by his
actions in an actual human drama, can earn the opinion of the creature
he loves best in this world--the woman who is his wife--as well as the
opinion of a despotic monarch, that he is a hero, has scarcely failed
to disprove that old writer's remark.
It is not, consequently, to be denied that, in the drama of De
Beaurepaire's last year of life, if he was no hero at least Humphrey
West was one, while was not Emérance a heroine in a different manner?
Not a good heroine, it is true, but a heroine in the same manner as
Rodogune, as Phædra, were. A heroine who, though the words were not
written ere she died, justified the poet's line: "All for love and the
world well lost."
The End.
End of Project Gutenberg's Traitor and True, by John Bloundelle-Burton