I ATTEND A MEETING AT THE CORDELIERS.
We were engulfed, so to speak, M. Drouet and I, in the cave of the
Cordeliers.
The hall was deep and broad, and lighted with smoky lamps; a cloud
formed by their smoke, and the breath of the audience, floated over
our heads, and seemed to weigh heavily upon our chests.
There were no cards of admission—any one might come who liked; the
consequence was that the hall was crowded to excess, and every one
ran a chance of suffocation. At the end of a minute, by means of
vigorous pressure, we managed to force a passage into the body of the
hall.
At first, we were obliged to keep our eyes shut, on account of the
smoky atmosphere; but when we got accustomed to it, we could see
objects, as it were, through a dense fog.
I raised myself up on tip-toe, to see the popular man, _par
excellence_. All cried out, “Vive Lafayette!”
We passed the Tuileries, and the door of the clock-tower, and gained
a bridge. A sort of sympathy drew us to the Champ de Mars.
There was the same amount of bustle as on the day before. A hundred
thousand workmen were throwing up the earth, and forming a valley
between two hills.
The work progressed as if under the wave of an enchanter’s rod. There
was no doubt but that all would be ready for the morrow, so that in
seven days the gigantic undertaking would have been completed. The
middle of the place was entirely clear. Here they erected the altar
of the country, and in front of the Ecole Militaire, built up seats
for the King and the Assembly.
At the end of a wooden bridge thrown over the river, near Chaillot,
they erected a triumphal arch.
It was impossible not to become maddened amid this confusion. We
could resist no longer, but seizing the nearest implements that lay
nearest at hand, we, with a shout of “Vive la nation!” set ourselves
to work with the rest.
At six o’clock we ceased, heated with our exertions. We were hungry.
It was useless to look for a restaurant.
At eight o’clock we left the Champ de Mars, and passing through the
Boulevards des Invalides, and the Rue Plumet, we shaped our course to
the Cordeliers.
An immense crowd of people—some fifty or sixty thousand,
perhaps—filled the place and the adjacent streets.
Those who had been unable to find lodgings had encamped there, or on
the Boulevards.
Being anxious to see historical localities, I asked M. Drouet to
take me to the Hotel de Ville. We went up to the Rue St. Antoine, M.
Drouet showing me the steps on which they had slain De Launay, the
lantern on which they had hung Foulon, and the corner of the quay
where they had killed Flesselles.
Everywhere—on the boulevards, in the places, in the churches, on the
bridges—all was gaiety; every one was shaking hands with everybody;
strangers in a moment became old friends. A shout of “Vive le
Roi!” surrounded you with friends—a shout of “Vive la nation!” with
brothers.
After dinner, we proceeded to the Jacobin Club. It was crowded, like
all the rest—if possible, more so.
“Look, look!” said M. Jean Baptiste, the moment it was possible to
see.
“Look! Where?” said I.
“There—on the President’s chair, between two candles! Do you see any
one?”
“Oh, M. Drouet!” said I, trembling.
“Well, what do you say?” asked he.
“I say that it is not a man whom you point out to me.”
“What is he, then?”
“A monster!”
“Good! Look at him for some length of time, and you will get
accustomed to his face, all hideous as it is.”
That man was M. Danton.
He rang the bell, and shook with a fury that seemed to animate all he
did.
In a moment all was silence.
His mouth, like the top of a cyclops, opened, and a voice, which
could have thundered down the noise had it continued, pronounced
these words, “It is Marat’s turn to speak!”
Let us say a word or two about Marat before we proceed any further.
Marat was born in 1744, at Neuchatêl. He was, at the period of which
I speak, forty-six years of age. His mother, nervous and romantic,
was ambitious enough to try and make her son a second Rousseau.
His father, a Protestant clergyman, well read and hard-working,
taught his son the elements of science, and all the other branches
of knowledge that he was acquainted with, so that the young man
resembled a dictionary full of errors, and without even method or
form.
His grandfather nicknamed him Mara—the “t” is an addition of his
father’s, or his own. He had been a teacher of languages in England,
and understood English pretty well. He also dabbled a little in
physiology and chemistry, but in a slight degree. In ’89 he became
veterinary surgeon to the Comte D’Artois.
On the 14th of July, the day of the taking the Bastille, he found
himself on the Pont Neuf, and escaping being crushed to death by a
detachment of hussars. Marat ordered them, in the name of the people,
to throw down their arms—so he said, at least, but no one believed it.
Marat was not brave. He hid himself all day for the flight. He said
that the satellites of Lafayette and De Bailly were looking for him,
whereas, in fact, they never thought of him. In the evening, he crept
out like a beast of prey; his eye, yellow as that of an owl, seemed
better adapted for seeing in the dark than in the daylight. He lived,
creeping from hiding-place to hiding-place, never seeing the light
of day, and writing continually, imparting to his compositions all
the bitterness and acerbity of his forced mode of life. From time to
time he would exalt and provoke himself to blood. They say that blood
was his ordinary drink—that he imbibed it when he was thirsty. His
physician shook his head, and said, “Marat writes red.” His friends
the journalists lifted him up to laugh at him. They called him the
divine Marat. The people took a leaf out of their book, and called
him a god. Let Marat do what he liked, the people applauded. Marat
did more than lead them—he gave them room for amusement.
Amid the murmur of applause which greeted him—applause which had
been, in conjunction with silence, denied to Robespierre the evening
before—Danton, opening the door of the rostrum, said, “It is Marat’s
turn to speak!”
Scarcely had the words been pronounced, when Marat was seen mounting
the steps leading to the rostrum, in which he appeared, with a lurid
smile on his coarse mouth, seeming to embody, at one, and the same
time, three distinct genera: the man, the frog, and the serpent.
That _Thing_, dressed in almost rags, with dishevelled hair,
squinting eyes, broad nose, and hideous appearance, was _the Friend
of the People_! They had concluded by giving Marat the name of his
journal.
At last, his hideous head appearing over the ledge of the rostrum,
radiant with pride, and held, as it were, defiantly back to hide a
neck covered with ulcers, all cried out, “Speak, Marat, speak!”
“Yes,” replied Marat, with a deep voice, “I am going to.”
All was hushed, as if by magic. Danton covered his face with his
hands, and listened with a smile of scorn, while a young man placed
himself in front of the rostrum, his arms crossed over his breast, in
the attitude of a gladiator, defying his enemy.
“Look—look!” said Drouet.
“At whom? Marat? I can see him.”
“No, no! that young man in front of the rostrum.”
“Who is he?”
“Camille Desmoulins, the man of the thirteenth of July; the man of
the Café de Foy; the man of the green cockade!”
“Silence! silence!” cried out several voices.
Marat, hearing a whisper, had turned his evil eyes on us.
We became as still as mice.
“Great treason!” cried Marat; “but that is not wonderful—they would
not follow my advice; and I tell you that until the heads of some of
the National Assembly ornament pikestaffs, things will go wrong. Do
as I tell you, and the Constitution will be perfect.”
“Why—why—why—don’t you send a mod-mod-model to the Assembly?” said
the young man, in front of the rostrum, with a terrible and painful
stutter in his speech.
“I am framing it,” said Marat, “while you make love, Camille, I
think.”
“Dream, you mean!” said the same satirical voice.
“Silence! silence!” cried the audience.
“Yes; I am preparing a scheme for our Constitution.”
“Tell—tell it us, great—great legislator!” said Camille, totally
disregarding the cries for silence.
“I say that the form of government should be monarchical,” continued
Marat; “that Monarchy is the guiding-star of France, and that the
person of the King should be sacred, only to be approached through
the medium of his ministers.”
“Ah, aristocrat!” cried Camille.
“M. Danton,” cried Marat, furiously, “it is my turn to speak, and I
demand silence!”
“Silence! silence!” again cried the crowd.
“Citizen Camille,” said Danton, in a voice as satirical as that of
the man whom he reproved, “I call you to order!”
“Then ask the speaker,” said the imperturbable Camille, “to give us
part of his plans for the legislation.”
“Firstly,” cried Marat, “I demand that the blasphemer’s tongue be cut
out!”
“Well, cut my to-to-to-tongue out! I blas-blas-blaspheme! I say Marat
is a fool!”
And, suiting the action to the words, he protruded his tongue at
Marat, and made a grimace.
Some of the audience could not avoid laughing.
Marat was mad with rage.
“I again say,” said he, “in my project for our Constitution, that the
city is burdened with two hundred thousand poor people. I argue the
right of the poor to share.”
“Good!” said Camille. “We are ready; let us plun-plun-plunder!”
“Yes, plunder!” cried Marat, rapidly becoming more and more excited.
“When one has nothing, he has a right to take the superfluities of
the rich—rather than starve, he has the right to take and devour
their palpitating flesh! Let man commit what outrage he likes on his
fellow-men—it is no worse than a wolf killing a sheep!”
“Marat has asked for me to be called to order: I ask that he may be
called to reason.”
“Why should I have pity on men?” yelled Marat. “Firstly, pity is only
a folly, acquired in society. In nature, neither man nor inferior
animals know pity. Does Bailly, who tracks me, or Lafayette, who
hunts me down, or the National Guards, who seek to slay me, know
pity?”
“Who prevents your eating them?” said Camille.
“No, no!” said Marat, sneering at Camille in his turn. “No, I will
not eat them; I will leave Lafayette to the women, and will cry unto
them, ‘Make him an Abelard!’ I will leave Bailly to the people, and
will cry unto them, ‘Hang him, as you have hanged Foulon, as you have
hanged Flesselles!’ I will ask for the heads of the National Guards—I
will ask for the heads of the aristocrats—I will ask, not for six
hundred heads as I did yesterday, but for nineteen thousand four
hundred!”
“Make it twen-twenty thousand, round numbers!”
The admirers of Marat chafed. Marat’s mouth shut, his eyes darted
fire, his head was drawn back; he looked as if he could have
swallowed his adversary at one mouthful.
The friends of Camille, Frérone, and Danton, the enemies of Marat,
took the part of Camille Desmoulins.
They would have come to blows, despite Danton’s continuously ringing
the bell for order, and his terrible voice sounding far above the
din, and crying, “Silence! silence!”
I passed with M. Drouet to the side of Camille Desmoulins, for whom
I felt a sympathy as strong as my hatred of Marat. The attention of
all, however, was now drawn to the entrance of a new personage, on
whom all eyes were fixed.