"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
SHAKSPEARE.
The market-place was lighted up, and filled with dragoons. Leaving my
hulans under cover of a dark street, and riding forward to reconnoitre, I
saw with astonishment the utter carelessness with which they abandoned
themselves to their indulgences in the midst of an irritated population.
Some were drinking on horseback; some had thrown themselves on the benches
of the market, and were evidently intoxicated. The people stood at the
corners of the streets looking on, palpably in terror, yet as palpably
indignant at the outrage of the military. From the excessive blaze in some
of the windows, and the shrieks of females, I could perceive that plunder
was going on, and that the intention was, after having ransacked the place,
to set it on fire. Yet a strong body of cavalry mounted in the middle of
the square, and keeping guard round a waggon on which a guillotine had
been already erected, still made me feel that an attack would be hopeless.
I soon saw a rush of the people from one of the side streets; a couple of
dragoon helmets were visible above the crowd; and three or four carts
followed, filled with young females in white robes and flowers, as if
dressed for a ball. I gazed intently, to ascertain the meaning of this
strange and melancholy spectacle. At this moment I felt my horse's bridle
pulled, and saw the old noble at his head. "Now or never!" he cried, in a
voice almost choked with emotion. "Those are destined for the guillotine.
Barbarians! brigands!--they will murder my Amalia." He sank before me.
"What! is this an execution?" I exclaimed. His answer was scarcely above a
whisper, for he seemed fainting. "The villains have been sent," said he,
"to burn the town; they have seized those children of our best families,
compelled them to dress as they were dressed for the Prussian ball, and
are now about to murder them by their accursed guillotine." Pointing to
one lovely girl, who, pale as death, stood in the foremost of those
vehicles of death, he exclaimed "Amalia! O, my Amalia!" The cart was
already within a few feet of the scaffold when I gave the word to my
troopers. The brave fellows answered my "Forward!" with a shout, charged
sabre in hand, and in an instant had thrown themselves between the victims
and the scaffold. Their escort, taken completely by surprise, was broken
at the first shock; we dashed without loss of time on the squadrons
scattered round the market, and swept it clear of them. Surprised,
intoxicated, and unacquainted with our force--which they probably thought
to be the advance of the whole Prussian cavalry--after having lost many
men, for the peasantry showed no mercy on the dismounted, the regiment
turned at full gallop to the open country. The townspeople now performed
their part. The victims were hurried away by their families, among a storm
of lamentations and rejoicings, tears and kisses. The old noble's daughter,
half dead, was carried off in her father's arms, with a thousand
benedictions on me. The guillotine was hewn down with a hundred axes, and
I saw the fragments burning in the square. Its waggon was made to serve
its country as a portion of a barricade; and with every vehicle, wheeled
or unwheeled, which could be rolled out, the entrance to the streets was
fortified with the national rapidity in any deed, good or ill, under the
stars.
After having appeased our hunger and that of our famishing horses, and
being offered all the purses, which the French dragoons, however, had
lightened nearly to the last coin, we finished the exploit by a general
chant in honour of the ladies, and marched on our route, followed by the
prayers of the whole community. This ended the only productive skirmish of
the retreat. It fed us, broke the monotony of the march, and gave us
something to talk of--and the soldier asks but little more. A gallant
action had certainly been done; not the less gallant for its being a
humane one; and even my bold hulans gave me credit for being a "smart
officer," a title of no slight value in their dashing service.
Yet what, as the poet Saadi says, is fortune but a peacock "a showy tail
on a frightful pair of legs?" Our triumph was to be followed by a reverse.
The burgundy and champagne of the old count's cellar had made us festive,
and our voices were heard along the road with a gaiety imprudent in a
hostile land. The sound of a trumpet in our front brought us to our senses
and a dead stand. But we were in a vein of heroism and instead of taking
to our old hussar habits, and slipping round the enemy's flanks, we
determined to cut our way through them, if they had the whole cavalry of
France as their _appui_. The word was given, and the spur carried us
through a strong line of cavalry posted across the road. The moon had just
risen enough to show that there was a still stronger line a few hundred
yards beyond, which it would be folly to touch. There was now no resource
but to return as we went, which we did at full speed, and again broke up
our antagonists. But again we saw squadron after squadron blocking up the
road. All was now desperate. But Frederick's law of arms was well
known--"the officer of cavalry who _waits to be charged_, must be broke."
We made a plunge at our living circumvallation; but the French dragoons
had now learned common sense--they opened for us--and when we were once
fairly in, enveloped us completely; it was then a troop to a brigade;
fifty jaded men and horses to fifteen hundred fresh from camp. What
happened further I know not. I saw for a minute or two a great deal of
pistol firing and a great deal of sabre clashing; I felt my horse stagger
under me, at the moment when I aimed a blow at a gigantic fellow covered
all over with helmet and mustache; a pistol exploded close at my ear as I
was going down, and I heard no more.
On opening my eyes again, I found the scene strangely altered. I was lying
in a little chamber hung round with Parisian ornament--a sufficient
contrast to a sky dark as pitch, or only illumined by carbines and the
sparkles of sabres delving at each other. I was lying on an embroidered
sofa--an equally strong contrast to my position under the bodies of fallen
men and the heels of kicking horses. A showy Turkish cloak, or _robe de
chambre_, had superseded my laced jacket, purple pantaloons, and hussar
boots. I was completely altered as a warrior; and, from a glimpse which I
cast on a mirror, surrounded with gilt nymphs and swains enough to have
furnished a ballet, I saw in my haggard countenance, and a wound, which a
riband but half concealed, across my forehead, that I was not less altered
as a man.
All round me looked so perfectly like the scenes with which I had been
familiar in my romance-reading days, that, bruised and feeble as I was, I
almost expected to find my pillow attended by some of those slight figures
in long white drapery with blue eyes, which of old ministered to so many
ill-used knights and exhausted pilgrims. But my reveries were broken up by
a rough voice in the outer chamber insisting on an entrance into mine, and
replied to by a weak and garrulous female one, refusing the admission. The
dialogue was something of this order--
"Strong or weak, well or ill, able or not able, I must send him, before
twelve o'clock this night, to Paris."
"But the poor gentleman's wounds are still unhealed."
"Still he must set out. The '_malle poste_' will be at the door; and, if
he had fifty wounds on him, he must go. The marquis is halfway to Paris by
this time; perhaps more than halfway to the guillotine."
This was followed by a burst of sobs and broken exclamtions from the
female, whom I discovered, by her sorrowing confessions, to have been a
nurse in the family.
"Well," was the ruffian's reply; "women of all ages are fools: what is it
to you whether this young fellow is shot or hanged? He was taken in arms
against the Republic--one and indivisible. All the enemies of France must
perish!"
The old woman now partially opened the door, to see whether I slept; and I
closed my eyes, for the purpose of hearing all that was to be heard
without interruption. The speaker, whom I alternately took for the
_gendarme_ of the district, and the executioner, gave went to his swelling
soul in the national style.
"What! leave _me_! leave Jean Jacques Louis Gilet in charge of this
wretched aristocrat, while I should be marching with my battalion, and at
its head too, if merit meets its reward, to sweep the foes of the Republic
from the face of the earth. No; I shall not remain in this paltry place,
solicitor of a village, when I ought to be on the highest seat of
justice--or playing the part of arresting aristocrats, when I might be
commandant of a brigade, marching over the bodies of the crowned tyrants
of the earth to glory!"
As his harangue glowed, his pace quickened, and his voice grew more
vehement; at length, probably impatient of the time which lay between him
and the first offices of the Republic, he overpowered the resistance of
the nurse, and rushed into the chamber. Throwng himself into a theatrical
attitude before a mirror--for what Frenchman ever passes one without a
glance of happy recognition?--"Rise, aristocrat!" he cried, in the tone of
Talma calling up the shade of Caesar. "Rise, and account to the world for
your crimes against the liberty of man!"
I looked with such surprise on this champion of the sons of Adam--a little
meagre creature, who seemed to be shaped on the model of one of his own
pens, stripped, withered, and ink-dried--that I actually burst into
laughter. His indignation rose, and, pulling out a pistol with one hand,
and a roll of paper from his bosom with the other, he presented them
together. I perceived, as I lay on my pillow, that the pistol was without
a lock, and thus was comforted; but the paper was of a more formidable
description. It was the famous decree of "Fraternization," by which France
pronounced the fall of her own monarchy, declared "that she would grant
succour to every people who wished to recover their liberty," and
commanded her generals "to aid all such, and to defend all citizens who
might be troubled in the cause of freedom."
This paper indeed startled me; it was the consummation which I had dreaded
so long. I saw at once that France, in those wild words, had declared war
against every throne in Europe, and that we were now beginning the era of
struggle and suffering which Mordecai's strong sense had predicted, and of
which no human sagacity could foresee the end. My countenance probably
showed the impression which this European anathema had made upon me; for
Monsieur Gilet became more heroic than ever, tore his grizzled curls,
throwing aside his pistol, which he had at length discovered to be _hors
de combat_, and drawing the falchion which clattered at his heels, and was
nearly as long as himself, flourished it in quick march backward and
forward before the mirror--that mirror never forgotten!--in all the
whirlwind of his rage, and panted for the conquest of "perfidious Albion,"
the "traitor" Pitt, and the whole brood of hoary power. I was too feeble
to turn him out of the room, and too contemptuous to reply. But his
overthrow was not the further off. The old nurse, who, old as she was,
still retained some of the sinews and all the irritability of a stout
Champenoise peasant, roused by his insults to the aristocracy, one of whom
she probably regarded herself, from having lived so long under their roof,
watched her opportunity, made a spring at him like a wild-cat, wrested the
sabre from his hand, and, grasping the struggling and screaming little
functionary in her strong arms, carried him like a child out of the room.
She then returned, and having locked the door to prevent his second inroad,
sat down by the side of my couch, and, with the usual passion of women
after strong excitement, burst into exclamations and tears. What I could
collect from her broken narrative, was little more than the commonplace of
national misery in that fearful time. She had been a servant in the family
of the nobleman whose daughter I had saved from death. She had been the
nurse of the young countess; and all the blessings that sorrow and
gratitude ever gathered together, could not be exceeded by the praises
which she poured upon my head. It had been rumoured in the town that I was
attacked and killed by a body of cavalry sent to revenge the rout of their
comrades. And the Marquis Lanfranc--I now first learned the name of my
noble entertainer--had gone forth to look for my remains in the field. I
was found still breathing, and to avoid further danger was carried to this
dwelling, a hunting-lodge in the heart of the forest; there I had been
attended by the family physician only, and, after a week of insensibility,
had given signs of recovery. The marquis's humanity had brought evil on
himself. His visits to the lodge had been remarked, and on this very
morning he had been arrested, and conveyed with his daughter, in a
carriage escorted by _gendarmes_ to the capital. My detection followed of
course; papers found on my person had proved that I was an agent of
England; and the officious M. Gilet had spent the morning in exhibiting to
the peasantry of the neighbourhood the order of the "Committee of Public
Safety," a name which froze the blood, to take me under his charge, and
conduct me forthwith to their tribunal. I tell all this in my own way; for
the dame's sighs, sobs, and vehement indignation, would have defied all
record.
My prospect was now black enough, for justice was a word unheard of in the
present condition of things; and my plea of being an Englishman, and in
the civil service of my country, would have been a death-warrant. I must
acknowledge, too, that I had fairly thrown it away by my adoption of the
Prussian sabre. I might well be now in low spirits; for the guillotine was
crushing out life at that moment in every province of France, and the
thirst of public curiosity was to be fed by nothing but blood. Yet, even
in that moment, let me give myself credit for the recollection, my first
enquiry was for the fate of my squadron. The old woman could tell me but
little on the subject; but that little was consolatory. The French
troopers, who had come back triumphing into the town, had not brought any
Prussian prisoners: two or three foreigners, who had lost their horses,
were sheltered in her master's stables until they could make their escape;
and of them she had heard no more. The truth is, that nothing is more
difficult in war than to catch a hussar who understands his business; and
the probability was, that the chief part of them had slipped away, leaving
the French to sabre each other in the dark. The fall of my horse had
brought me down, otherwise I might have escaped the shot which stunned me,
and been at that hour galloping to Berlin.
Monsieur Gilet, with some of the civic authorities, paid me a second visit
in the evening, to prepare me for my journey. To me it was become
indifferent whether I died in the carriage or by the edge of the
guillotine; the journey was short in either case, and the shorter and
sooner the better. I answered none of their interrogatories; told them I
was at their disposal; directed the old woman to pack up whatever
travelling matters remained to me, and to remember me to her master and
mistress, if she ever should see them in this world; shook her strong old
hand, and bade God bless her. In return, she kissed me on both cheeks,
whispered a thousand benedictions, and left the room violently sobbing;
yet with a parting glance at Monsieur Gilet and his _collaborateurs_, so
mingled of wrath and ridicule, that it was beyond all my deciphering.
"Time and the hour run through the longest day,"
says the great poet; and, with the coming of midnight, a _chaise de poste_
drew up at the door. As I was a prisoner of importance, M. Gilet was not
suffered to take all the honour of my introduction to the axe on himself;
and the mayor and deputy-mayor of the district insisted on this
opportunity of making themselves known to the supreme Republic. They
mounted the box in front, a couple of gendarmes sat behind, M. Gilet took
his seat at my side, and, with an infinite cracking of whips, we rushed
out upon the causeway.
I soon discovered that my companion was by no means satisfied with
existing circumstances. The officiousness of the pair of mayors
prodigiously displeased him. He broke forth--
"See these two beggars," he exclaimed, "pretending to patriotism! They
have no energy, no courage, no civism. Why, _you_ might have remained for
a twelvemonth under their very nostrils before they would have found you
out. Gilet is the man for the service of his country." Merely to stop the
torrent of his complainings, I asked him some vague questions relative to
the nobleman whom I was now following to Paris. But the patriot was not to
be moved from his topic.
"Hah! Citizen Lanfranc. All is over with him. He once held his head high
enough, but it will soon be as low as ever it was high. Yet I could have
forgiven his aristocracy, if he had not put these two 'chiens' above me."
The position in which the mayor and his deputy sat, on the box of the
chaise, continually presenting them to the eye of my companion, kept his
choler peculiarly active.
"One of these fellows," he exclaimed, "was the Marquis's cook, another his
perruquier! _I_ was his tailor. Every man of taste and talent knows the
superiority of _my_ profession; for what is the first of noblemen without
elegance of costume, or what indeed would man himself be without my art,
the noblest and the earliest art of mankind? And yet he made these two
'brigands' mayor and deputy--_peste_! I did my duty. I denounced him on
the spot. I did more. The aristocrat had a faction in the town. It was
filled with his dependents. In fact, it had been built on his grounds, and
tenanted by the old hangers-on of the family. So, to make a clear stage, I
denounced the town." He clapped his hands with exultation at this civic
triumph.
My recollection of the miseries which his malice had caused roused me into
wrath, and, rash as the act was, I grasped him by the collar, with the
full intent of throwing the little writhing wretch out of the window; but,
while I was lifting him from the seat to which he clung screaming for help,
and had already forced him halfway outside, a shot whistled close by the
head of the postilion, which brought him to a full stop. "Mon
Dieu!--Brigands!" exclaimed Monsieur Gilet; and, dropping back into the
carriage, attempted to make a screen of my body by slipping his adroitly
behind me. Two or three more discharges rattled through the trees,
followed by a rush of peasants, who unceremoniously knocked down the two
officials in front, and began a general scuffle with the gendarmes. The
night was so dark, that I could discover nothing of the _mêlée_ but by the
blaze of the fusils. All, however, was quiet in a few moments, by the
disappearance of the gendarmes, and the complete capture of the convoy--M.
Gilet, mayors, and all. Whether we had fallen into the hands of highwaymen,
or of stragglers from the French army, was doubtful for a while, as not a
syllable was spoken, nor a sound uttered, except by the unhappy
functionaries, who grumbled prodigiously as they were dragged along
through "rough and smooth, moss and mire," and whose pace was evidently
quickened by many a kick and blow of the fusil. This was a rude march for
me, too, with my unhealed wound, and my week's sojourn in bed; but I was
treated, if not with tenderness, without incivility, while my _compagnons
de voyage_ were insulted with every contemptuous phrase in a vocabulary at
least as rich in those matters as any other in Europe. At length, after
about an hour's rapid movement, we reached an open ground, and the door of
one of the wide, old, staring, yet not uncomfortable farmhouses which are
to be found in the northern provinces of France.
Signs of comfort within were visible even at a distance, and the light of
a huge wood fire had been seen for the last quarter of an hour gleaming
through the woods, and leaving us in doubt whether we were approaching a
horde of gipsies, or about to realize the classic scenes of Gil Blas.
But it was only a farm-house after all. The good dame of the house, with
an enormous cap, enormous petticoats, enormous earrings, and all the
glaring good-humour of a countenance of domestic plenty and power, came to
meet us on the threshold; and her reception of me was ardent, to the very
verge of stranglulation. Nothing could exceed her rapture at the sight of
me, or the fierceness of her embraces, except her indignation at the sight
of my traveling companions. Her disgust at the mayor and his deputy--and
certainly after their night trip they were not figures to charm the
eye--was pitched in the highest key of scorn, so as to be surpassed only
by the torrent of contempt which her well-practised elocution poured upon
the "_traître tailleur._" I really believe, that, if she could have
boiled him in the huge soup-kettle which bubbled upon the fire, without
spoiling our supper, she would have flung him in upon the spot. The
peasants who had captured us--bold, tall fellows, well dressed and well
armed with cutlass and fusil, in the style of the
_gardes-de-chasse_--could scarcely be kept from taking them out to the
next tree, to make marks of them; and it was probably by my intercession
alone that they were consigned to an outer house for the night. How the
scene was to end with me, I knew not; though the jovial visage of my
protectress showed me that I was secure. But the prisoners had no sooner
been flung out of the door than I was ushered into an inner room, prepared
with somewhat more of attention; where, to my great surprise and delight,
the Marquis Lanfranc came forward to shake my hand, and, with a thousand
expressions of gratitude, made me known to his daughter. The adventure was
of the simplest order. The arrest of the Marquis was, of course, known in
an instant, and a party of his foresters had immediately determined to
take the law into their own hands--had posted themselves on the road by
which his carriage was to pass, and had released him without difficulty.
My release was merely a sequel to the drama. I had been left in the
hunting-lodge by its owner, under the impression that an individual who
could not be moved without hazard to life, would escape the vengeance of
village patriotism. But the nurse, whom he had placed in charge of me, had
no sooner ascertained that I was arrested, than she sent an express to the
farm-house. The consequence naturally followed in my liberty; and the
night which I expected to have spent freezing on my way to the dungeon,
presented me with the pleasant exchange of hospitable shelter, the society
of a most accomplished man, and his graceful handsome daughter; and last,
not least, a couple of kisses from my late nurse, according to the custom
of the country, as glowing and remorseless as those of my portly landlady
herself.
We sat for some hours, and scarcely felt them pass in the anxious topics
which engrossed us; the perils of France, the prospects of the Allies, and
the captivity of the unhappy Bourbons. Now and then the conversation
turned on their own hair-breadth escapes, and those of their relatives and
friends. Among the rest, the hazards of the De Tourville family were
mentioned, and I heard the name of Clotilde pronounced with a sensation
indescribable. The name was connected with such displays of fortitude,
nobleness of spirit, and deep devotion to the royal cause, that, if I had
loved before, I now honoured her. She had saved the lives of her household;
she had, by an act of extraordinary, but most perilous affection, saved
the life of her mother, at the moment when the first insurgency broke out;
and, young as she was, she had exhibited so noble a union of generosity
and strength of mind, that the Marquis's eyes filled with tears as he told
it, and Amalia buried her forehead in her hands to conceal her convulsive
emotions: what must have been mine!
Our conversation was not unfrequently interrupted by bursts of merriment
from the outer room, where the peasants were at supper provided by the
Marquis for his bold rescuers--an indulgence which they seemed to enjoy
with the highest zest imaginable. Songs were sung with very various kinds
of merit in the performer, but all well received. Healths were proposed,
in which the existing Government was certainly not much honoured; and, if
the good wishes of the party could have sent the "Committee of Public
Safety," the butcher cabinet of France, to the darkest spot on earth, or
under it, its time would have been brief. But even this died away; the
laugh subsided, the mirth grew silent, and at length the
_gardes-de-chasse_ went away, making the forest ring with their
professional whoops and holloas, the remnants of their honest revel. At
length the Marquis and his daughter, who were to be on the wing at
daybreak for the German frontier, and who had generously offered to take
charge of my invalid frame in the same direction, retired; and wrapping
myself up in a dark cloak, furnished by my mistress and formed to her
showy proportions, I threw myself on the sofa, and was in the land of
dreams.
But though I slept, I did not rest. My fever, or my lassitude, or probably
some presentiment of the troubled career into which I was to be plunged,
made "tired nature's sweet restorer" a stepmother to me. I can never
endure hearing the dreams of others, and thus I cannot suffer myself to
inflict them on my hearers; but on that night, Queen Mab, like Jehu, drove
her horses furiously. Every possible kind of disappointment, vexation, and
difficulty; every conceivable shape of things, past and present, rushed
through my brain; and all pale, fierce, disastrous, and melancholy. I was
beckoned along dim shades by shapeless phantoms; I was trampled in battle;
I was brought before a tribunal; I was on board a ship which blew up, and
was flung strangling down an infinite depth in a midnight ocean. But this
exceeded the privilege even of dreams. I made one desperate effort to rise,
and awoke with a bound on the floor. There I found a real obstacle--a
ruffian in a red cap. One strong hand was on my throat; and by the glimmer
of the dying lantern, which hung from the roof, I saw the glitter of a
pistol-barrel in the other. "Surrender in the name of the Republic!" were
the words which told me my fate. Four or five wearers of the same ominous
emblem, with sabres and pistols, were round me at the moment, and after a
brief struggle I was secured. Cries were now heard outside the door, and a
wounded gendarme was carried in, borne in the arms of his comrades. From
their confused clamour, I could merely ascertain that the gendarmes who
had escaped in the original _mêlée_, had obtained assistance, and returned
on their steps. The farm-house had been surrounded, and the Marquis was
indebted only to the vigilance of his peasantry for a second escape with
his daughter. The _gardes-de-chasse_ had kept the gendarmes at bay until
their retreat was secure; and the post-chaise which had brought M. Gilet
and his coadjutors, was, by this time, some leagues off, at full speed,
beyond the fangs of Republicanism.
This at least was comfort, though I was left behind. But it was clear that
the gallant old noble was blameless in the matter, and that nothing was to
be blamed but my habitual ill luck. "_En route_ for Paris," was the last
order which I heard; and with a gendarme, in the strange kind of
post-waggon which was rolled out from the farmer's stable, I was
dispatched, before daybreak, on my startling journey.
I found my gendarme a facetious fellow; though his merriment might not be
well adapted to cheer his prisoner. He whistled, he sang, he screamed, he
stamped, to get rid of the ennui of travelling with so silent a companion.
He told stories of his own prowess; libeled M. Gilet, who had got him
beaten on this service in the first instance, and who seemed to be in the
worst possible odour with man and woman; and abused all, mayors,
deputy-mayors, and authorities, with the tongue of a leveler. But my
facetious friend had his especial _chagrins_.
"I have all my life," said he, "been longing to see Paris, and have never
been able to stir a step beyond this stupid province. Yet I have had my
chances too. I was once valet to a German count, and we were on the way to
Paris together when the post-chaise was stopped, the baron was arrested as
a swindler, and I was charged as his accomplice. He was sent to the
galleys; I got off. I then had a second chance. I enlisted in a regiment
of dragoons which was to be quartered in Versailles. But such was my fate,
I had no sooner passed the first drill, when we were ordered off to
Lorraine to watch old King Stanislaus, the Pole, who lived there like one
of his own bears, frozen and fat. Still I was determined to see Paris. I
asked leave of absence; the adjutant laughed at me, the colonel turned on
his heel, and the provost-marshal gave me a week of the black-hole. But a
week is but seven days after all, and on my seeing the parade again--I--"
"You deserted?"
"Not quite that," was the reply. "I took leave, and, as I had seen enough
of the black hole already, I took good care to give the provost-marshal no
notice on the subject. A fortnight's march brought me within sight of the
towers of Notre-Dame. But as I was resting myself on the roadside, our
adjutant, as ill luck would have it, came by in the _coupe_ of the
diligence. He jumped out. I was seized, given up to the next guard-house,
and after fitting me with a pair of fetters, by way of boots, I was
ordered to take my passage with a condemned regiment for the West Indies.
There I served ten years; I saw the regiment reduced to a skeleton by
short rations and new rum; and returned the tenth representative of
fifteen hundred felons. At last I have a chance; the gendarme of the
village was so desperately mauled by the foresters in the attempt to carry
you prisoner, that he has been forced to take to his bed, and let me take
his place. The thing is certain now. _You_ will be guillotined, but I
shall see Paris."
Yet what is certain in this most changeful of possible worlds?
"Fate granted half the prayer,
The rest the gods dispersed in empty air."
We had toiled through our long journey, rendered doubly long by the
dreariest and deepest roads on earth, and were winding round the spur of
Montmartre, when a troop of citizen heroes, coming forth to sweep the
country of the retreating Prussians, and whose courage had risen to the
boiling point by the news of the retreat, surrounded the carriage. My
Prussian uniform was proof enough for the brains of the patriots; and the
quick discovery of Parisian ears, that I had not learned my French in
their capital, settled the question of my being a traitor. The gendarme
joined in the charge with his natural volubility; but rather insisted
rashly on his right to take his prisoner into Paris on his own behalf. I
saw a cloud gathering on the brow of the _chef_, a short, stout, and
grim-looking fellow, with the true Faubourg St Antoine physiognomy. The
prize was evidently too valuable not to be turned to good account with the
authorities; and he resolved on returning at the head of his brother
patriots to present me as the first-fruits of his martial career. The
dispute grew hot; my escort was foolish enough to clap his hand on the
hilt of his sabre--an affront intolerable to a citizen, at the head of
fifty or sixty _braves_ from the counter or the shambles; the result was,
a succession of blows from the whole troop, which closed in my seeing him
stripped of every thing, and flung into the _cachot_ of the _corps de
garde_, from which his only view of his beloved Paris must have been
through an iron _grille_.
My captor, determined to enter the capital for once with eclat, seated
himself beside me in the _chaise de poste_, and, surrounded by his
pike-bearers, we began our march down the descent of the hill.
My new friend was communicative. He gave his history in a breath. He had
been a clerk in the office of one of the small tribunals in the south;
inflamed with patriotism, and indignant at the idea of selling his talents
at the rate of ten sous a-day, "in a rat-hole called a bureau," he had
resolved on being known in the world, and to Paris he came. Paris was the
true place for talent. His _civisme_ had become conspicuous; he had
"assisted" at the birth of liberty. He had carried a musket on the 10th of
August, and had "been appointed by the Republic to the command of the
civic force," which now moved, before and behind me. He was a "_grand
homme_" already. Danton had told him so within the last fortnight, and
France and Europe would no sooner read his last pamphlet on the "Crimes of
Kings," than his fame would be fixed with posterity.
I believe that few men have passed through life without experiencing times
when it would cost them little to lay it down. At least such times have
occurred to me, and this was among them. Yet this feeling, whether it is
to be called nonchalance or despair, has its advantages for the moment; it
renders the individual considerably careless of the worst that man can do
to him; and I began to question my oratorical judge's clerk on the events
in the "city of cities." No man could take fuller advantage of having a
listener at his command.
"We have cut down the throne," said he, clapping his hands with exultation,
"and now you may buy it for firewood. But you are an aristocrat, and of
course a slave; while we have got liberty, equality, and a triumvirate
that shears off the heads of traitors at a sign. Suspicion of being
suspected is quite sufficient. Away goes the culprit; a true patriot is
ordered to take possession of his house until the national pleasure is
known; and thus every thing goes on well. Of course, you have heard of the
clearance of the prisons. A magnificent work. Five thousand aristocrats,
rich, noble, and enemies to their country, sent headless to the shades of
tyrants. _Vive la Republique_! But a grand idea strikes me. You shall see
Danton himself, the genius of liberty, the hero of human nature, the
terror of kings." The thought was new, and a new thought is enough to turn
the brain of the Gaul at any time. He thrust his head out of the window,
ordered a general halt; and, instead of taking me to the quarters of the
National, resolved to have the merit of delivering up an "agent of Pitt
and English guineas" to the master of the Republic alone. "_A l'Abbaye_!"
was his cry. But a new obstacle now arose in his troop; they had reckoned
on a civic supper with their comrades of the guard; and the notion of
bivouacking in front of the Abbaye, under the chilling wind and fierce
showers which now swept down the dismal streets, was too much for their
sense of discipline. The dispute grew angry. At length one of them, a huge
and savage-looking fellow, who, by way of illustration, thrust his pike
close to the little commandant's shrinking visage, bellowed out--
"The people are not to be insulted. The people order, and all must obey!"
Nothing could be more unanswerable, and no attempt was made to answer. The
captain dropped back into the chaise, the troop took their own way, and my
next glance showed the street empty. But the Frenchman finds comfort under
all calamities. After venting his wrath in no measured terms on "rabble
insolence," and declaring that laws were of no use when "_gueux_" like
these could take them into their hands, he consoled himself by observing
that, stripped as he was of his honours, the loss might be compensated by
his profits; that the "vagabonds" might have expected to share the reward
which the "grand Danton would infallibly be rejoiced to give for my
capture, and that both the purse and the praise would be his own." "_A
l'Abbaye_!" was the cry once more.
We now were in motion again; and, after threading a labyrinth of streets,
so dreary and so dilapidated as almost to give me the conception that I
had never been in Paris before, we drove up to the grim entrance of the
Abbaye. My companion left me in charge of the sentinel, and rushed in.
"And is this," thought I, as I looked round the narrow space of the four
walls, "the spot where so many hundreds were butchered; this the scene of
the first desperate triumph of massacre; this miserable court the last
field of so many gallant lives; these stones the last resting-place of so
many whose tread had been on cloth of gold; these old and crumbling walls
giving the last echo to the voices of statesmen and nobles, the splendid
courtiers, the brilliant orators, and the hoary ecclesiastics, of the most
superb kingdom of Europe!" Even by the feeble lamp-light, that rather
showed the darkness than the forms of the surrounding buildings, it seemed
to me that I could discover the colour of the slaughter on the ground; and
there were still heaps in corners, which looked to me like clay suddenly
flung over the remnants of the murdered.
But my reveries were suddenly broken up by the return of the little
captain, more angry than ever. He had missed the opportunity of seeing the
"great man," who had gone to the Salpetrière. And some of the small men
who performed as his jackals, having discovered that the captain was
looking for a share in their plunder, had thought proper to treat him, his
commission, and even his civism, with extreme contempt. In short, as he
avowed to me, the very first use which he was determined to make of that
supreme power to which his ascent was inevitable, would be to clear the
_bureaux_ of France, beginning with Paris, of all those insolent and idle
hangers-on, who lived only to purloin the profits, and libel the services,
of "good citizens."
"_A la Salpetrière_." There again disappointment met us. The great man had
been there "but a few minutes before," and we dragged our slow way through
mire and ruts that would have been formidable to an artillery waggon with
all its team. My heart, buoyant as it had been, sank within me as I looked
up at the frowning battlements, the huge towers, more resembling those of
a fortress than of even a prison, the gloomy gates, and the general grim
aspect of the whole vast circumference, giving so emphatic a resemblance
of the dreariness and the despair within.
"_Aux Carmes_!" was now the direction; for my conductor's resolve to earn
his reward before daybreak, was rendered more pungent by this interview
with the _gens de bureau_ at the Abbaye. He was sure that they would be
instantly on the scent; and if they once took me out of his hands, adieu
to dreams, of which Alnaschar, the glassman's, were only a type. He grew
nervous with the thought, and poured out his whole vision of hopes and
fears with a volubility which I should have set down for frenzy, if in any
man but a wretch in the fever of a time when gold and blood were the
universal and combined idolatries of the land.
"You may think yourself fortunate," he exclaimed, "in having been in my
charge! That brute of a country gendarme could have shown you nothing. Now,
_I_ know every jail in Paris. I have studied them. They form the true
knowledge of a citizen. To crush tyrants, to extinguish nobles, to avenge
the cause of reason on priests, and to raise the people to a knowledge of
their rights--these are the triumphs of a patriot. Yet, what teacher is
equal to the jail for them all? _Mais voilà les Carmes_!"
I saw a low range of blank wall, beyond which rose an ancient tower.
"Here," said he, "liberty had a splendid triumph. A hundred and fifty
tonsured apostles of incivism here fell in one day beneath the two-handed
sword of freedom. A cardinal, two archbishops, dignitaries, monks, hoary
with prejudices, antiquated with abuses, extinguishers of the new light of
liberty, here were offered on the national shrine! _Chantons la
Carmagnole_."
But he was destined to be disappointed once more. Danton had been there,
but was suddenly called away by a messenger from the Jacobins. Our
direction was now changed again. "Now we shall be disappointed no longer.
Once engaged in debate, he will be fixed for the night. _Allons_, you
shall see the 'grand patriote,' 'the regenerator,' 'the first man in the
world.' _Aux Jacobins_!"
Our unfortunate postilion falling with fatigue on his horses' neck,
attempted to propose going to an inn, and renewing our search in the
morning; but the captain had made up his mind for the night, and, drawing
a pistol from his breast, exhibited this significant sign pointed at his
head. The horses, as tired as their driver, were lashed on. I had for some
time been considering, as we passed through the deserted streets, whether
it was altogether consistent with the feelings of my country, to suffer
myself to be dragged round the capital at the mercy of this lover of lucre;
but an apathy had come over my whole frame, which made me contemptuous of
life. The sight of his pistol rather excited me to make the attempt, from
the very insolence of his carrying it. But we still rolled on. At length,
in one of the streets, which seemed darker and more miserable than all the
rest, we were brought to a full stop by the march of a strong body of the
National Guard, which halted in front of an enormous old building,
furnished with battlement and bartizan. "_Le Temple_!" exclaimed my
companion, with almost a shriek of exultation. I glanced upward, and saw a
light with the pale glimmer which, in my boyish days, I had heard always
attributed to spectres passing along the dim casements of a gallery. I
cannot express how deeply this image sank upon me. I saw there only a huge
tomb--the tomb of living royalty, of a line of monarchs, of all the
feelings that still bound the heart of man to the cause of France. All now
spectral. But, whatever might be the work of my imagination, there was
terrible truth; enough before me to depress, and sting, and wring the mind.
Within a step of the spot where I sat, were the noblest and the most
unhappy beings in existence--the whole family of the throne caught in the
snare of treason. Father, mother, sister, children! Not one rescued, not
one safe, to relieve the wretchedness of their ruin by the hope that there
was an individual of their circle beyond their prison bars--all consigned
to the grave together--all alike conscious that every day which sent its
light through their melancholy casements, only brought them nearer to a
death of misery! But I must say no more of this. My heart withered within
me as I looked at the towers of the Temple. It almost withers within me,
at this moment, when I think of them. They are leveled long since; but
while I write I see them before me again, a sepulchre; I see the mustering
of that crowd of more than savages before the grim gate; and I see the
pale glimmer of that floating lamp, which was then, perhaps, lighting the
steps of Marie Antoinette to her solitary cell.
Of all the sights of that melancholy traverse, this the most disheartened
me, whatever had been my carelessness of life before. It was now almost
scorn. The thoughts fell heavy on my mind. What was I, when such victims
were prepared for sacrifice? What was the crush of my obscure hopes, when
the sitters on thrones were thus leveled with the earth? If I perished in
the next moment, no chasm would be left in society; perhaps but one or two
human beings, if even they, would give a recollection to my grave. But
here the objects of national homage and gallant loyalty, beings whose
rising radiance had filled the eye of nations, and whose sudden fall was
felt as an eclipse of European light, were exposed to the deepest
sufferings of the captive. What, then, was I, that I should murmur; or,
still more, that I should resist; or, most of all, that I should desire to
protract an existence which, to this hour, had been one of a vexed spirit,
and which, to the last hour of my career, looked but cloud on cloud?
Some of this depression may have been the physical result of fatigue, for
I had been now four-and-twenty hours without rest; and the dismal streets,
the dashing rain, and the utter absence of human movement as we dragged
our dreary way along, would have made even the floor of a dungeon welcome.
I was as cold as its stone.
At length our postilion, after nearly relieving us of all the troubles of
this world, by running on the verge of the moat which once surrounded the
Bastile, and where nothing but the screams of my companion prevented him
from plunging in, wholly lost his way. The few lamps in this intricate and
miserable quarter of the city had been blown out by the tempest, and our
only resource appeared to be patience, until the tardy break of winter's
morn should guide us through the labyrinth of the Faubourg St Antoine.
However, this my companion's patriotism would not suffer. "The Club would
be adjourned! Danton would be gone!" In short, he should not hear the
Jacobin lion roar, nor have the reward on which he reckoned for flinging
me into his jaws. The postilion was again ordered to move, and the turn of
a street showing a light at a distance, he lashed his unfortunate horses
towards it. Utterly indifferent as to where I was to be deposited, I saw
and heard nothing, until I was roused by the postilion's cry of "Place de
Grève."
A large fire was burning in the midst of the gloomy square, round which a
party of the National Guard were standing, with their muskets piled, and
wrapped in their cloaks, against the inclemency of the night. Further off,
and in the centre, feebly seen by the low blaze, was a wooden structure,
on whose corners torches were flaring in the wind. "_Voilà, la
guillotine_!" exclaimed my captor with the sort of ecstasy which might
issue from the lips of a worshipper. As I raised my eyes, an accidental
flash of the fire showed the whole outline of the horrid machine. I saw
the glitter of the very axe that was to drop upon my head. My first
sensation was that of deadly faintless. Ghastly as was the purpose of that
axe, my imagination saw even new ghastliness in the shape of its huge
awkward scythe-like steel; it seemed made for massacre. The faintness went
off in the next moment, and I was another man. In the whole course of a
life of excitement, I have never experienced so total a change. All my
apathy was gone. The horrors of public execution stood in a visible shape
before me at once. I might have fallen in the field with fortitude; I
might have submitted to the deathbed, as the course of nature; I might
have even died with exultation in some great public cause. But to perish
by the frightful thing which shot up its spectral height before me; to be
dragged as a spectacle to scoffing and scorning crowds--dragged, perhaps,
in the feebleness and squalid helplessness of a confinement which might
have exhibited me to the world in imbecility or cowardice; to be grasped
by the ruffian executioner, and flung, stigmatized as a felon, into the
common grave of felons--the thought darted through my mind like a jet of
fire; but it gave me the strength of fire. I determined to die by the
bayonets of the guard, or by any other death than this. My captor
perceived my agitation, and my eye glanced on his withered and malignant
visage, as with a smile he was cocking his pistol. I sprang on him like a
tiger. In our struggle the pistol went off, and a gush of blood from his
cheek showed that it had inflicted a severe wound. I was now his master,
and, grasping him by the throat with one hand, with the other I threw open
the door and leaped upon the pavement. For the moment, I looked round
bewildered; but the report of the pistol had caught the ears of the guard,
whom I saw hurrying to unpile their muskets. But this was a work of
confusion, and, before they could snatch up their arms, I had made my
choice of the darkest and narrowest of the wretched lanes which issue into
the square. A shot or two fired after me sent me at my full speed, and I
darted forward, leaving them as they might, to follow.
How long I scrambled, or how often I felt sinking from mere weariness in
that flight, I knew not. In the fever of my mind, I only knew that I
twined my way through numberless streets, most of which have been since
swept away; but, on turning the corner of a street which led into the
Boulevard, and when I had some hope of taking refuge in my old hotel, I
found that I had plunged into the heart of a considerable crowd of persons
hurrying along, apparently on some business which strongly excited them.
Some carried lanterns, some pikes, and there was a general appearance of
more than republican enthusiasm, even savage ferocity, among them, that
gave sufficient evidence of my having fallen into no good company. I
attempted to draw back, but this would not be permitted; the words, "Spy,
traitor, slave of the Monarchiques!" and, apparently as the blackest
charge of all, "Cordelier!" were heaped upon me, and I ran the closest
possible chance of being put to death on the spot. It may naturally be
supposed that I made all kinds of protestations to escape being piked or
pistoled. But they had no time to wait for apologies. The cry of "Death to
the traitor!" was followed by the brandishing of half a dozen knives in
the circle round me. At that moment, when I must have fallen helplessly, a
figure stepped forward, and opening the slide of his dark lantern directly
on his own face, whispered the word Mordecai. I recognised, I shall not
say with what feelings, the police agent who had formerly conveyed me out
of the city. He was dressed, like the majority of the crowd, in the
republican costume; and certainly there never was a more extraordinary
costume. He wore a red cap, like the cap of the butchers of the Faubourgs;
an enormous beard covered his breast, a short Spanish mantle hung from his
shoulders, a short leathern doublet, with a belt like an armoury, stuck
with knives and pistols, a sabre, and huge trousers striped with red, in
imitation of streams of gore, completed the patriot uniform. Some wore
broad bands of linen round their waists, inscribed, "2d, 3d and 4th
September,"--the days of massacre. These were its heros. I was in the
midst of the _élite_ of murder.
"Citizens," exclaimed the Jew in a voice of thunder, driving back the
foremost, "hold your hands up; are you about to destroy a friend of
freedom? Your knives have drunk the blood of aristocrats; but they are the
defence of liberty. This citizen, against whom they are now unsheathed, is
one of ourselves. He has returned from the frontier, to join the brave men
of Paris, in their march to the downfall of tyrants. But out friends await
us in the glorious club of the Jacobins. This is the hour of victory.
Advance, regenerated sons of freedom! Forward, Frenchmen!"
His speech had the effect. The rapid executors of public vengeance fell
back; and the Jew, whispering to me, "You must follow us, or be
killed,"--I chose the easier alternative at once, and stepped forward like
a good citizen. As my protector pushed the crowd before him, in which he
seemed to be a leader, he said to me from time to time, "Show no
resistance. A word from you would be the signal for your death--we are
going to the hall of the Jacobins. This is a great night among them, and
the heads of the party will either be ruined to-night, or by morning will
be masters of every thing. I pledge myself, if not for your safety, at
least for doing all that I can to save you." I remained silent, as I was
ordered; and we hurried on, until there was a halt in front of a huge old
building. "The hall of the Jacobins," whispered the Jew, and again
cautioned me against saying or doing any thing in the shape of reluctance.
We now plunged into the darkness of a vast pile, evidently once a convent,
and where the chill of the massive walls struck to the marrow. I felt as
if walking through a charnel-house. We hurried on; a trembling light,
towards the end of an immense and lofty aisle, was our guide; and the
crowd, long familiar with the way, rushed through the intricacies where so
many feet of monks had trod before them, and where, perhaps, many a deed
that shunned the day had been perpetrated. At length a spiral stair
brought us to a large gallery, where our entrance was marked with a shout
of congratulation; and tumbling over the benches and each other, we at
length took our seats in the highest part, which, in both the club and the
National Assembly, was called, from its height, the Mountain, and from the
characters which generally held it, was a mountain of flame. In the area
below, once the nave of the church, sat the Jacobin club. I now, for the
first time, saw that memorable and terrible assemblage. And nothing could
be more suited than its aspect to its deeds. The hall was of such extent
that a large portion of it was scarcely visible, and few lights which hung
from the walls scarcely displayed even the remainder. The French love of
decoration had no place here; neither statues nor pictures, neither
gilding nor sculpture, relieved the heaviness of the building. Nothing of
the arts was visible but their rudest specimens; the grim effigies of
monks and martyrs, or the coarse and blackened carvings of a barbarous age.
The hall was full; for the club contained nearly two thousand members, and
on this night all were present. Yet, except for the occasional cries of
approval or anger when any speaker had concluded, and the habitual murmur
of every huge assembly, they might have been taken for a host of spectres;
the area had so entirely the aspect of a huge vault, the air felt so thick,
and the gloom was so feebly dispersed by the chandeliers. All was
sepulchral. The chair of the president even stood on a tomb, an antique
structure of black marble. The elevated stand, from which the speakers
generally addressed the assembly, had the strongest resemblance to a
scaffold, and behind it, covering the wall, were suspended chains, and
instruments of torture of every horrid kind, used in the dungeons of old
times; and though placed there for the sake of contrast with the mercies
of a more enlightened age, yet enhancing the general idea of a scene of
death. It required no addition to render the hall of the Jacobins fearful;
but the meetings were always held at night, often prolonged through the
whole night. Always stormy, and often sanguinary, daggers were drawn and
pistols fired--assassination in the streets sometimes followed bitter
attacks on the benches; and at this period, the mutual wrath and terror of
the factions had risen to such height, that every meeting might be only a
prelude to exile or the axe; and the deliberation of this especial night
must settle the question, whether the Monarchy or the Jacobin club was to
ascend the scaffold. It was the debate on the execution of the unhappy
Louis XVI.
The arrival of the crowd, among whom I had taken my unwilling seat,
evidently gave new spirits to the regicides; the moment was critical. Even
in Jacobinism all were not equally black, and the fear of the national
revulsion at so desperate a deed startled many, who might not have been
withheld by feelings of humanity. The leaders had held a secret
consultation while the debate was drawing on its slow length, and Danton's
old expedient of "terror" was resolved on. His emissaries had been sent
round Paris to summon all his banditti; and the low _cafés_, the Faubourg
taverns, and every haunt of violence, and the very drunkenness of crime,
had poured forth. The remnant of the Marseillois--a gang of actual
galley-slaves, who had led the late massacres--the paid assassins of the
Marais, and the _sabreurs_ of the Royal Guard, who after treason to their
king, had found profitable trade in living on the robbery and blood of the
nobles and priests, formed this reinforcement; and their entrance into the
gallery was recognised by a clapping of hands from below, which they
answered by a roar, accompanied with the significant sign of clashing
their knives and sabres.
Danton immediately rushed into the Tribune. I had seen him before, on the
fearful night which prepared the attack on the palace; but he was then in
the haste and affected savageness of the rabble. He now played the part of
leader of a political sect; and the commencement of his address adopted
something of the decorum of public council. In this there was an artifice;
for, resistless as the club was, it still retained a jealousy of the
superior legislative rank of the assembly of national representatives, the
Convention. The forms of the Convention were strictly imitated; and even
those Jacobins who usually led the debate, scrupulously wore the dress of
the better orders. Robespierre was elaborately dressed whenever he
appeared in the Tribune, and even Danton abandoned the _canaille_ costume
for the time. I was struck with his showy stature, his bold forehead, and
his commanding attitude, as he stood waving his hand over the multitude
below, as if he waved a sceptre. His appearance was received with a
general shout from the gallery, which he returned by one profound bow, and
then stood erect, till all sounds had sunk. His powerful voice then rang
through the extent of the hall. He began with congratulating the people on
their having relieved the Republic from its external dangers. His language
at first was moderate, and his recapitulation of the perils which must
have befallen a conquered country, was sufficiently true and even touching;
but his tone soon changed, and I saw the true democrat. "What!" he cried,
"are those perils to the horrors of domestic perfidy? What are the ravages
on the frontier to poison and the dagger at our firesides? What is the
gallant death in the field to assassination in cold blood? Listen,
fellow-citizens, there is at this hour a plot deeper laid for your
destruction than ever existed in the shallow heads of, or could ever be
executed by the coward hearts of, their soldiery. Where is that plot? In
the streets? No. The courage of our brave patriots is as proof against
corruption as against fear." This was followed by a shout from the gallery.
"Is it in the Tuileries? No; there the national sabre has cut down the
tree which cast its deadly fruits among the nation. Where then is the
focus of the plot--where the gathering of the storm that is to shake the
battlements of the Republic--where that terrible deposit of combustibles
which the noble has gathered, the priest has piled, and the king has
prepared to kindle? Brave citizens, that spot is ----," he paused, looking
mysteriously round, while a silence deep as death pervaded the multitude;
then, as if suddenly recovering himself, he thundered out--"The Temple!"
No language can describe the shout or the scene that followed. The daring
word was now spoken which all anticipated; but which Danton alone had the
desperate audacity to utter. The gallery screamed, howled, roared,
embraced each other, danced, flourished their weapons, and sang the
Marseillaise and the Carmagnole. The club below were scarcely less violent
in their demonstrations of furious joy. Danton had now accomplished his
task; but his vanity thirsted for additional applause, and he entered into
a catalogue of his services to Republicanism. In the midst of the detail,
a low but singularly clear voice was heard, from the extremity of the hall.
"Descend, man of massacre!"
I saw Danton start back as if he had been shot. At length, recovering his
breath, he said feebly--
"Citizens, of what am I accused?"
"Of the three days of September," uttered the voice again, in a tone so
strongly sepulchral, that it palpably awed the whole assemblage.
"Who is it that insults me? who dares to malign me? What spy of the
Girondists, what traitor of the Bourbons, what hireling of the gold of
Pitt, is among us?" exclaimed the bold ruffian, yet with a visage which,
even at the distance, I could observe had lost its usual fiery hue, and
turned clay-colour. "Who accuses me?"
"I!" replied the voice, and I saw a thin tall figure stalk up the length
of the hall, and stand at the foot of the tribune. "Descend!" was the only
word which he spoke; and Danton, as if under a spell, to my astonishment,
obeyed without a word, and came down. The stranger took his place, none
knew his name; and the rapidity and boldness of his assault suspended all
in wonder like my own. I can give but a most incomplete conception of the
extraordinary eloquence of this mysterious intruder. He openly charged
Danton with having constructed the whole conspiracy against the
unfortunate prisoners of September; with having deceived the people by
imaginary alarms of the approach of the enemy; with having plundered the
national treasury to pay the assassins; and, last and most deadly charge
of all, with having formed a plan for a National Dictatorship, of which he
himself was to be the first possessor. The charge was sufficiently
probable, and was not now heard for the first time. But the keenness and
fiery promptitude with which the speaker poured the charge upon him, gave
it a new aspect; and I could see in the changing physiognomies round me,
that the great democrat was already in danger. He obviously felt this
himself; for starting up from the bench to which he had returned, he cried
out, or rather yelled--
"Citizens, this man thirsts for my blood. Am I to be sacrificed? Am I to
be exposed to the daggers of assassins!" But no answering shout now arose;
a dead silence reigned: all eyes were still turned on the tribune. I saw
Danton, after a gaze of total helplessness on all sides, throw up his
hands like a drowning man, and stagger back to his seat. Nothing could be
more unfortunate than his interruption; for the speaker now poured the
renewed invective, like a stream of molten iron, full on his personal
character and career.
"Born a beggar, your only hope of bread was crime. Adopting the profession
of an advocate, your only conception of law was chicanery. Coming to Paris,
you took up patriotism as a trade, and turned the trade into an imposture.
Trained to dependence, you always hung on some one till he spurned you.
You licked the dust before Mirabeau; you betrayed him, and he trampled on
you; you took refuge in the cavern of Marat, until he found you too base
even for his base companionship, and he, too, spurned you; you then clung
to the skirts of Robespierre, and clung only to ruin. Viper! known only by
your coils and your poison; like the original serpent, degraded even from
the brute into the reptile, you already feel your sentence. I pronounce it
before all. The man to whom you now cling will crush you. Maximilien
Robespierre, is not your heel already lifted up to tread out the life of
this traitor? Maximilien Robespierre," he repeated with a still more
piercing sound, "do I not speak the truth?" "Have I not stripped the veil
from your thoughts? Am I not looking on your heart?" He then addressed
each of the Jacobin leaders in a brief appeal. "Billaud Varennes, stand
forth--do you not long to drive your dagger into the bosom of this new
tyrant? Collot d'Herbois, are you not sworn to destroy him? Couthon, have
you not pronounced him perjured, perfidious, and unfit to live? St Just,
have you not in your bosom the list of those who have pledged themselves
that Danton shall never be Dictator; that his grave shall be dug before he
shall tread on the first step of the throne; that his ashes shall be
scattered to the four winds of heaven; that he shall never gorge on
France?"
A hollow murmur, like an echo of the vaults beneath, repeated the
concluding words. The murmur had scarcely subsided when this extraordinary
apparition, flinging round him a long white cloak, which he had hitherto
carried on his arm, and which, in the dim light, gave him the look of one
covered with a shroud, cried out in a voice of still deeper solemnity,
"George Jacques Danton, you have this night pronounced the death of your
king--I now pronounce your own. By the victims of the 20th of June--by the
victims of the 10th of August--by the victims of the 2d of September--by
the thousands whom your thirst of blood has slain--by the tens of
thousands whom your treachery has sent to perish in a foreign grave--by
the millions whom the war which you have kindled will lay in the field of
slaughter--I cite you to appear before a tribunal, where sits a judge whom
none can elude and none can defy. Within a year and a month, I cite you to
meet the spirits of your victims before the throne of the Eternal."
He stopped; not a voice was heard. He descended the steps of the Tribune,
and stalked slowly through the hall; not a hand was raised against him. He
pursued his way with as much calmness and security as if he had been a
supernatural visitant, until he vanished in the darkness.
This singular occurrence threw a complete damp on the regicidal ardour;
and, as no one seemed inclined to mount the Tribune, the club would
probably have broken up for the night, when a loud knocking at one of the
gates, and the beating of drums, aroused the drowsy sitters on the benches.
The gallery was as much awake as ever; but seemed occupied with evident
expectation of either a new revolt, or a spectacle; pistols were taken out
to be new primed, and the points and edges of knives duly examined. The
doors at length were thrown open, and a crowd, one half of whom appeared
to be in the last stage of intoxication, and the other half not far from
insanity, came dancing and chorusing into the body of the building. In the
midst of their troop they carried two busts covered with laurels--the
busts of the regicides Ravaillac and Clement, with flags before them,
inscribed, "They were glorious; for they slew kings!" The busts were
presented to the president, and their bearers, a pair of _poissardes_,
insisted on giving him the republican embrace, in sign of fraternization.
The president, in return, invited them to the "honours of a sitting;" and
thus reinforced, the discussion on the death of the unhappy monarch
commenced once more, and the vote was carried by acclamation. The National
Convention was still to be applied to for the completion of the sentence;
but the decree of the Jacobins was the law of the land.
I had often looked towards the gallery door, during the night, for the
means of escape; but my police friend had forbade my moving before his
return. I therefore remained until the club were breaking up, and the
gallery began to clear. Cautious as I had been, I could not help
exhibiting, from time to time, some disturbance at the atrocities of the
night, and especially at the condemnation of the helpless king. In all
this I had found a sympathizing neighbour, who had exhibited marked
civility in explaining the peculiarities of the place, and giving me brief
sketches of the speakers as they rose in succession. He had especially
agreed with me in deprecating the cruelty of the regicidal sentence. I now
rose to bid my gentlemanlike _cicerone_ good-night; but, to my surprise, I
saw him make a sign to two loiterers near the door, who instantly pinioned
me.
"We cannot part quite so soon, Monsieur l'Aristocrat," said he; "and,
though I much regret that I cannot have the honour of accommodating you in
the Temple, near your friend Monsieur Louis Capet, yet you may rely on my
services in procuring a lodging for you in one of the most agreeable
prisons in Paris."
I had been entrapped in the most established style, and I had nothing to
thank for it but fortune. Resistance was in vain, for they pointed to the
pistols within their coats; and with a vexed heart, and making many an
angry remark on the treachery of the villain who had ensnared me--matters
which fell on his ear probably with about the same effect as water on the
pavement at my feet--I was put into a close carriage, and, with ny captors,
carried off to the nearest barrier, and consigned to the governor of the
well-known and hideous St Lazare.
* * * * *
The Olympic Jupiter.
Calm the Olympian God sat in his marble fane,
High and complete in beauty too pure and vast to wane;
Full in his ample form, Nature appear'd to spread;
Thought and sovran Rule beam'd in his earnest head;
From the lofty foliaged brow, and the mightily bearded chin,
Down over all his frame was the strength of a life within.
Lovely a maid in twilight before the vision knelt,
Looking with upturn'd gaze the awe that her spirit felt.
Hung like the skies above her was bow'd the monarch mild,
Hearing the whisper'd words of the fair and panting child.
--Could she be dear to him as dews to ocean are,
Be in his wreath a leaf, on his robes a golden star!
Could she as incense float around his eternal throne,
Sound as the note of a hymn to his deep ear alone!
Lo! while her heart adoring still to the God exhales,
Speech from his glimmering lips on the silent air prevails:
--"Child of this earth, bewilder'd in thine aërial dream,
Turn thee to Powers that are, and not to those that seem.
All of fairest and noblest filling my graven form
First in a human spirit was breathing alive and warm.
Seek thou in him all else that he can evoke from nought,
Seek the creative master, the king of beautiful thought."
--Down the eyes of the maiden sank from the Thunderer's look,
Pale in her shame and terror, and yet with delight she shook
Swift on her brow she felt a crown by the God bestow'd,
Shading her face that now with a hope too lively glow'd.
Bending the Sculptor stood who wrought the work divine,
Godlike in voice he spake--Ever, oh, maid be mine!
J.S.
* * * * *
A ROMAN IDYL.
Oh! blame not, friend, with scoff unfeeling,
The gentle tale of grief and wrong,
Which, all the pain of life revealing,
Yet teaches peace by thoughtful song.
The landscape round us wide expanded
As ere was heard the name of Rome;
And Rome, though fallen, our souls commanded,
In this her empire's earliest home.
Her brightness beam'd on each far mountain,
Her life made green the grass we trode,
Her memory haunted still the fountain,
And spread her shadows o'er the sod.
Her ruins told their tale of glory,
Decreed to that eternal sky;
And through that ancient grove, her story
With sibyl whisper seem'd to sigh.
The pile her wealthiest mourner builded,
In glimpse we caught through ilex gloom--
Metella's Tower, by sunshine gilded,
That beams alike on feast or tomb.
And on this plain, not yet benighted,
'Mid awful ages mouldering there,
Young hands in new-bloom flowers delighted,
Young eyes look'd bright in sunniest air.
Till we, Viterbo's wine-cup quaffing,
Which fairer lips refused to grace,
Could win by jest those lips to laughing,
And veil'd in folly wisdom's face.
But say, my friend, thou sage mysterious,
What Nymph, what Muse disown'd the strain
Which bade our heedless mirth be serious,
And woke our ears to nobler pain?
That region grave of plain and highland,
With Rome's grey ruin strewn around,
Is not a soft Calypso's island,
Nor fades at Truth's evoking sound.
High thoughts in words of quiet beauty
Accord with visions grand as these,
And song's imperishable duty
Has holier aims than but to please.
By word and image deeply wedded,
By cadence apt and varied rhyme,
To rouse the soul in sloth imbedded,
And tune its powers to life sublime.
By loftier shows of man's large being
Than man's dim actual hour displays,
To clear our eyes for purer seeing,
And nerve the flagging spirit's gaze.
By strains of bold heroic pleasure,
And action strong as thought conceives,
By many a doom-resounding measure
That best our selfish woes relieves;
By these to stir, by these to brighten,
By these to lift the soul from earth,
The Poet dares our joys to frighten,
And thrills the dirge of lazy mirth.
Ye Ruins, dust of empires vanish'd,
Ye mountains, clad with countless years,
From your great presence ne'er be banish'd
Sad songs that live in earnest ears:
Sad songs, the music of all sorrow,
Profound and calm as night's blue deep:
Accurst the dreams of any morrow
When man will feel he cannot weep.
J.S.
* * * * *
GOETHE
Alas! on earth his marvels done,
The noble German bosom lies,
His fatherland's Athenian son,
Amid the sage must largely rise!
Amid the sage the generous race
Of soaring thought and steadfast glow,
He breathes no more who gave a grace
To all our daily lot below.
He gave to man's encumber'd hours
The tuneful joys of truth serene,
And twined our life's neglected flowers
With nature's holiest evergreen.
Alas! for him the soul of fire,
For him of fancy's golden rays,
For him whose aims ascended higher
Than all that won a nation's praise!
We pause and ask--Why gloom'd the grave
For one of light so broadly mild?
And wonder beauty could not save
From death's deep night her eager child.
But could the lyre be heard again,
Its widow'd notes would seem to cry--
In all was he a man of men,
For them to live, like them to die.
What life inspires 'twas his to feel,
With ampler soul than all beside;
What earth's bright shows to few reveal,
His art for all expanded wide.
With earnest heed from hour to hour,
Through all his years of striving hope,
He fed his lamp, its light to shower
On paths where myriads dimly grope.
He taught nankind by toil, by love,
To cheer the world that must be theirs;
And ne'er to look for peace above,
By scorning earthly joys and cares.