THE RED FLAG.
Upon our arrival, the Champ de Mars presented an aspect of the most
profound tranquillity.
A strong detachment of troops, with two or three pieces of cannon,
which had been stationed there in consequence of the assassination
which had taken place in the morning, seeing that nothing
extraordinary took place, gradually withdrew, leaving the place to
three or four hundred inoffensive strollers, and a small group of
men, to whom no one paid the slightest attention, but which, like
many small clouds, contained a terrific tempest.
This group seemed to have as leaders two strange-looking
individuals. One of these creatures, whose name was Verriéres, was a
fantastic-looking hunchback. He had not been seen since the 5th and
6th of October, when he had made himself conspicuous at Versailles.
He reappeared, however, on the night before our present date.
The other was from the department of Auvergne, and called Fournier,
the American, because he had been overseer of a negro plantation in
St. Domingo.
He held in his hand a firelock.
The miserable creatures who were listening to the harangue of these
two men were a sort of human larva, arising none knew from where.
On entering the Champ de Mars we threw a glance around, to see if
we could recognise, in the midst of these three or four hundred
strollers, the four persons we came in search of. At that moment, it
was all the easier to do so, as every one was following Lanterre to
the altar of the country. We followed as the rest. Lanterre announced
to the patriots, with a voice which suited admirably these sort of
proceedings, that the petition placed there the preceding night
could not be signed, as, at the moment this petition was written,
it was supposed that the Assembly had not yet decided the fate of
the King, but that, since then, they had recognised his innocence
and inviolability in the sitting of the night before. The Jacobins,
he continued, intended occupying themselves with the forming a new
petition, which they would, ere long, present for signature.
This declaration was received with murmurs.
“Why should we await the presentation of a petition already formed?
Don’t we know, as well as Messieurs Brissot, Laclos, and Robespierre,
what we want?” said an enormous man, of about forty years of age, a
young and beautiful woman leaning on his arm. “We can also write,”
added he, with a smile; “and I might even say that we commence to
think.”
“No one hinders you. Citizen Robert,” said Lanterre, who was,
probably, not annoyed at the interruption. “You, and, above all, the
Citizen Keralio, whose dear little arm you have the extreme felicity
of squeezing within your own, are more capable of success than any
one else. In the meantime, I take possession of the one made by the
Society.”
So saying, Lanterre placed in his pocket the petition written by me,
dictated by Brissot, amended by Laclos, and definitely corrected by
Bonneville and Camille Desmoulins.
“With all this, I neither see my wife nor my daughters,” exclaimed M.
Duplay.
“I have an idea,” replied I, “that, having required some
refreshments, she went to some _café_ with Félicién.”
“We require pen, ink, and paper,” said the citizen whom Lanterre had
called Robert, “which we will find at the first stationer’s.”
“Would you wish me to go and fetch it for you?” said a red-headed
individual, with a strong German accent.
“But,” said a strange voice, “do you think you can spare time to
go such a distance? How would it be, in the meantime, if the Queen
required your services?”
“The Queen!—the Queen!” demanded the people from all sides, and at
the same time fixing their eyes on the man with the red hair.
“Yes. Why, the Citizen Weder is the _valet-de-chambre_ of the Queen,
and has come here, probably, to see what was going on, so that he
might be enabled to carry it to her Majesty. If I make a mistake, and
you are not the Citizen Weder, say what your name is.”
“My name is Chaumette, a medical student, of No. 9, Rue Mazarine. Let
every one do as I have done, and make known his name, then we shall
be acquainted with who are our friends, and who are our enemies.”
“Yes, yes, let every one say who he is,” said a man of about
eight-and-twenty, whose black beard seemed to have added to the
sternness of his features. “My name is Brune, a typographical worker;
and, if futurity could be seen into,” he might have added, “a future
Marshal of France.”
“And if you want a printer for your petition, here am I, Momoro, the
printer of liberty!”
“And I, Hébert, journalist, Rue Mirabeau.”
Then succeeded such tumultuous uproar of men shrieking their names
with all their force, that one could scarcely distinguish those of
Renouard, Lagarde, Moreau, Henriot, Laschereau, and David.
When this tempestuous noise ceased, the man named Weder had
disappeared.
“M. Robert,” said I to him who had offered to frame the text of the
petition, “I have some business in yonder _café_, where I fancy I
can distinguish some of my friends, whence I will proceed to the
nearest stationer’s, and bring you back everything that is necessary
for writing purposes.” Then I added to M. Duplay, “Follow me with
your eyes, sir; and if, as I believe, those are the ladies we are in
search of, I will make you a sign with my pocket-handkerchief.”
As I had fancied, it was Madame Duplay and her daughters. I told them
where I had left M. Duplay, and asked them to go and meet him at the
altar of the country. I then proceeded to the stationer’s, and bought
two or three sheets of paper, knowing very well that if even there
was only one sheet required for the petition itself, there would be
one hundred or one hundred and fifty signatures. I also bought a
bottle of ink and a packet of pens already cut.
When returning, I met with M. Duplay and his family. This gentleman,
fearing some serious disorder, was taking his family home by the
nearest road—that is to say, by the Invalides. Before separating with
him, though, I promised that if anything grave took place, I would
return with a full account to the house.
I now hastened to the altar, where I was impatiently awaited.
I have already mentioned the names of Robert and Mademoiselle
Keralio. Notwithstanding how well posted we are at the present moment
in the history of the Revolution, very few persons are acquainted
with the very prominent part taken by these two persons in the
proceedings of that terrible day, the 17th of July, which killed with
the one blow the absolute royalty, which it ought to have raised from
its low position, and the constitutional royalty, which it ought to
have upheld, and which, directed against the Jacobins, whom it ought
to have extinguished, gave them, on the contrary, an additional
strength.
Robert, as I have said, was an enormous man, of forty or forty-five
years of age. Being a member of the Club of the Cordeliers, he vainly
searched with his eyes some of his colleagues of reputation. Either
by accident, or otherwise, he did not succeed in finding a single
one of these. On the Saturday evening, Danton was obliged to join a
meeting in the wood of Vincennes, and thence he went on to Fontenoy,
where his father-in-law was a street vender of lemonade. Legendre
had left about the same time, with Camille Desmoulins, and Féron. A
meeting had been arranged at Fontenoy, by Danton, and all four dined
there together.
A great responsibility was, therefore, about to be placed on the
shoulders of Robert; he would be obliged to represent alone, or
nearly so, the entire Club of the Cordeliers. We must, however, agree
that he accepted his position bravely. The Club of the Jacobins was
totally out of the question, since Lanterre, in the name of the
Society, had come and withdrawn the petition.
As to the wife of Robert, Mademoiselle Keralio was a young lady—very
gay, lively, talented. She was a Breton, and daughter of a Chevalier
de St. Louis, called Guniement de Keralio. As inspector of the
military colleges of France, he had, on paying a visit to the college
at Brienne, given a favorable account of a young Corsican, named
Bonaparte—he who afterwards became the Great Napoleon.
His calling not being sufficient for the support of his family, he
made translations, and wrote for several journals, among others for
the _Mercure_, and _Journal des Savants_. His daughter assisted
him to the best of her powers. At eighteen years of age, she wrote
a novel, called “Adelaide;” then the “History of Elizabeth,” a long
and serious work; afterwards she married Robert, a great friend of
Camille Desmoulins, and an enemy of Lafayette, who had written a
book, entitled, “Republicanism adapted to France.” Not less patriotic
than her husband, Madame Robert had come with him to add her
signature to the petition, declaring that France neither recognised
Louis XVI nor any other King; and seeing that it had been withdrawn,
she was the first to advise her husband to draw up another.
I had no sooner arrived on the spot with my pens, ink, and paper,
than she snatched them from my hands with such gracious vivacity,
that I could really say nothing, but thank her. She then handed a pen
to her husband, who was not very clever at composition.
“Write, write,” said she, “what I dictate.”
Then, amidst thunders of applause, and while consulting some with her
eyes, and others with words and signs, she set to work to dictate,
clearly, and with much eloquence, a petition for the dethronement of
the King, which was at the same time a violent charge against royalty.
The affair was done, and well done, in less than three-quarters of an
hour.
Robert, who had written the petition, signed it first and passed the
pen to his neighbor.
Every one wished for the pen. I had a packet, which I distributed;
and as it would take too long for them to sign one after the other,
so dense had the mass become, the idea struck me to distribute the
three extra sheets of paper, each of which could contain two hundred
signatures.
No doubt, the assembly had heard from Weder what was going on on the
Champ de Mars. The situation was grave; for if the people broke the
decrees of the Assembly, it would cease being the first power of the
State.
There was not a moment to be lost. The meeting would have to be
dissolved, and the petition destroyed at all risks; the more so,
as every instant the mob was becoming more and more numerous; not
from the side of Paris, where it was made known to all, that, by
proceeding to the Champ de Mars, they would be guilty of an act of
rebellion, but from the village of D’Yssy, Vaugirard, Sevres, St.
Cloud, and Boulogne, where they were foretold of the reunion, and had
not heard of any counter-petition. They flocked to it, as to a fête.
The intentions were good, although nothing was easier than to accuse
them of being bad. The Assembly—duped either by mistake, or profiting
by the occasion—sent a message to the Mayor, announcing that a band
of fifty thousand robbers were congregated in the Champ de Mars, and
were about to march upon the Salle du Manège.
They called to their protection a military body, and gave the order
to Bailly to disperse the brigands by force. Bailly, who was not
aware of the goings on, and who should, before all other things, obey
the orders of the Assembly, forewarned Lafayette, and sounded the
alarm.
In these times, the paid guard, strongly addicted to aristocratic—or,
rather, Lafayettish—principles, for it was nearly entirely composed
of the conquerors of the Bastille, were always the first to answer
such a call.
This body, perfectly armed and perfectly commanded, were exasperated
at the injuries they received from the Democratic journals, and
particularly the _Friend of the People_, of Marat, in which he called
them the spies of Lafayette; and one day demanded their noses to be
cut off, another day their ears, and even hinted at finishing with
them altogether with the assistance of the guillotine.
They applauded vociferously, when suddenly the red flag was seen to
float from the balcony of the Hotel de Ville, which was a signal to
all the loyal citizens of the town of their help, and never did they
require help more than on this occasion.
In the midst of these cries, the Mayor, who was pale as the day on
which he marched to the scaffold, descended the Place de Grève,
and placed himself at the head of a column of the National Guard.
Lafayette, at the head of another column, followed the left bank of
the Seine, while Bailly took the right bank.
The red flag was unhooked, and followed the column, headed by the
Mayor.