THE PRISON GOVERNOR.
Billet looked at the mossgrown edifice, resembling the monsters of fable covered with scales. He counted the embrasures where the great guns might be run out again and the wall-guns which opened their ominous eye to peer through the loopholes. He shook his head, recalling Flesselles' words.
"We'll never get in," he muttered.
"Why never?" questioned a voice at his elbow.
Turning, he saw a wild-looking beggar, in rags, but with eyes glittering like stars in their hollow sockets.
"Because it is hard to take such a pile by main strength."
"Taking the Bastile is not a matter of strength," replied the mendicant, "but an act of faith: have as little faith as a grain of mustard-seed and yet you can overturn a mountain. Believe we can do it, and—Good night, Bastile!"
"Wait a bit," muttered Billet, fumbling for Marat's recommendation in his pocket.
"Wait," reiterated the vagabond, mistaking his mind: "Yes, I can understand you being willing to wait, for you are a farmer, and have always had more than enough to make you fat. But look at my mates: the deaths-heads and raw-bones surrounding us; see their veins dried up, count their bones through the holes in their tatters, and ask them if they know what waiting in patience means?" >
"This man speaks glibly, but he frightens me," remarked Pitou.
"He does not frighten me," replied Billet. Then turning to the stranger, he went on: "I say, patience, because in a quarter-hour yet we shall do."
"I can't call that much," answered the vagrant smiling, "but how much better off will we be then?"
"I shall have visited the Bastile by then," rejoined the farmer-revolutionist. "I shall know how strong the garrison is and the governor's intention—I shall in short have a glimpse of how we can get in."
"It will do, if you see how to get out."
"Well, as to that, if I do not come out, I know a man who will fetch me out."
"Who is he?"
"Gonchon, the People's Spokesman, their orator, their Mirabeau."
"You don't know him," said the man, his eyes flashing fire. "So, how do you make that out?"
"I am going to know him. I was told that the first person I addressed on Bastile Square would take me to him: you are on the spot, lead me to him."
"What do you want of him?"
"To hand him this paper from Surgeon Marat, whom I have just left at the City Hall, whence he was marching to the Invalides to get muskets for his twenty thousand men."
"In this case, hand over the paper. I am Gonchon. Friends," added the vagabond as Billet drew back a step, "here is a chap who does not know me and asks if I am really Gonchon."
The mass burst into laughter; it seemed impossible that their favorite should not be known to all.
"Long life to Gonchon!" was the shout.
"There you are," said Billet, passing the paper to him.
"Mates," said the popular leader, having read, and slapping the bearer on the shoulder, "this is a brother, whom Marat recommends. So you may rely on him. What is your name,Pal?"
"Billet."
"My name isAx—do you see? between us I hope we shall cut something!"
The mob laughed at the ominous pun.
"Ay, somebody will get cut!" was the cry, "How are we to set about it?"
"We are going right into there," answered Gonchon, pointing to the building.
"That is the right kind of talk," said the farmer; "How many have you, Gonchon?"
"Thirty skeletons."
"Thirty thousand of yours, and twenty coming from the Soldiers' Hospital, ten thousand here; more than enough to succeed if we are to succeed."
"We shall," replied the beggar king.
"I believe you. Get your men in hand while I go in and summon the governor to surrender. If he should, so much the better as it will spare bloodshed; if not, the blood will fall on his head and it is bad luck these times. Ask those German dragoons who hewed down the inoffensive."
"How long will you be engaged with the governor?"
"As long as I can make it, so as to have the castle invested thoroughly; if possible, the moment I come out, begin the onset."
"Enough said."
"You don't distrust me?" said the countryman, holding out his hand to the city ragamuffin.
"I, distrust you?" replied the other, shaking with his emaciated hand the plump one of the farmer with a vigor he had not expected; "Wherefore? With a word or a sign, I could have you ground into dust though you were sheltered by yon towers, which to-morrow will exist not. Were you protected by those soldiers, who will be our dead-meat or we shall be theirs! Go ahead and rely on Gonchon as he does on Billet!"
Convinced, the farmer walked towards the Bastile gateway, while his new comrade proceeded towards the dwellings, under cheers for "The People's Mirabeau!"
"I never saw the other Mirabeau," thought Pitou, "but ours is not handsome."
"Towards the city, the Bastile presented two twin towers, while its two sides faced where the canal runs to-day. The entrance was defended by an outpost house, two lines of sentinels and two draw-bridges over moats.
After getting over these obstacles, one reached the Government Yard, where the governor's residence was.
Hence a corridor led to the ditches: another entrance also leading to the ditches, had a drawbridge, a guardhouse, and an iron grating as portcullis.
At the first entry they stopped Billet but he showed the Flesselles introduction and they did not turn him back. Perceiving that Pitou followed him, as he would have locked steps with him and marched up to the moon, he said:
"Stay outside: if I do not return it will be well for somebody to be around to remind the people that I went in."
"Just so; how long shall I wait?"
"An hour."
"What about the casket?" inquired the youth.
"If I do not come out, if Gonchon does not take the Bastile, or if, having taken it, I am not to be found—tell Dr. Gilbert, who may be found—that men from Paris stole the box he entrusted to me five years ago; that on arriving in town I learnt he was put in the Bastile whence I strove to rescue him but left my skin, which was entirely at his service."
"Very good, Father Billet," said the peasant; "it is rather long and I am afraid of forgetting it."
"I will repeat it."
"Better write it," said a voice hard by.
"I cannot write," rejoined Billet.
"I can, for I am clerk to the Chatelet Prison. My name is Maillard, Stanislaus Maillard."
He was a man of forty-five, tall and slim, grave, and clad in black as became such a functionary; he drew a writing-case from his pocket containing writing materials.
"He looks devilish like an undertaker," muttered Pitou.
"You say," said the clerk, imperturbably writing, "that men from Paris took from your dwelling a casket entrusted to you by Dr. Gilbert? that is an offense, to begin with."
"They belonged to the Paris Police."
"Infamous theft," said Maillard. "Here is your memorandum, young man," he added, giving the note to Ange; "if he be slain, it is to be hoped that both of us will not. I will do it if you both go down."
"Thank you," said Billet, giving his hand to the clerk who grasped it with more power than one might accredit to the meager frame.
"So I may rely on you?"
"As on Marat, and Gonchon."
"Such triplets are not born everyday," thought Pitou, who only said: "Be prudent, Father Billet!"
"Do not forget that the most prudent thing in France is courage," said the farmer with his blunt eloquence, sometimes startling in his rough body.
He passed the first line of sentinels, while Pitou backed out. At the bridge he had to parley, but it was lowered on his showing his pass, and the iron grating was raised. Behind the portcullis was the governor.
This inner yard was the prisoners' exercise ground. Eight giant towers guarded it: no window opened into it. The sun never penetrated its well-like circuit where the pavement was damp, almost muddy.
Here, a clock, the face upheld by chained captives in carving, dropped the seconds like water oozing through a ceiling on the dungeon slabs. At the bottom of this pit, the prisoner, lost in the stony gulf, would glance up at the inexorable nakedness and sue to be led back into his cell.
Governor Launay was about fifty years of age; he wore a grey linseywoolsey suit this day; it was crossed by a red sash of the Order of St. Louis, and he carried a swordcane. He was a bad man: Linguet's Memoirs had just shown him up in a sad light and he was hated almost as much as the jail. His father had been governor before him.
The officers here were on the purchase system, so that the officials tried to make all the money they could squeeze out of the prisoners and their friends. The governor, chief warder, doubled his 60,000 francs appointments by extortion.
In the way of meanness Launay out-did his foregoers: he may have had to pay more highly for the post than hisfather and so had to put on the screw to retrieve his outlay. He fed his household out of the prisoners' rations; he reduced the firing allowance and doubled the hire of furniture. Maybe he foresaw that he was not to enjoy the berth long.
He had the right to pass a hundred casks of wine into Paris free of duty. He sold it to a wine-shopkeeper who got in the best vintage and supplied him for the prisoners with vinegar.
The latter had one relief, one pleasure—a little garden made on a bastion where they got a whiff of sweet air and saw flowers and grass and sunshine. He let this out to a truck-gardener, robbing the prisoners for fifty livres a-year.
On the other hand he was yielding to rich captives: he let one furnish his room in his own style and have any visitors he liked.
For further particulars see "The Bastile Unveiled."
For all this Launay was brave.
He might be pale, but he was calm, although the storm had raged against him from the previous evening. He felt aware of the riot becoming a revolt for the waves broke at the foot of his castle wall.
It is true that he had four cannon and a garrison of old soldiers and Swiss—with only one unarmed man confronting him. For Billet had handed his fowling-piece to Ange on entering the stronghold.
He understood that a weapon might get him into trouble beyond the barrier.
With a glance he remarked everything; the governor's calm and menacing attitude; the Swiss ranked in the guardhouses; the Veterans on the platforms, and the silent bustle of the artillerists loading up their caissons with ammunition.
The sentinels had their muskets on their shoulders and their officers carried drawn swords.
As the commander stood still, Billet was obliged to go to him. The grating closed behind the people's parliamentarian with an ugly grinding of metal on metal which made him shudder to the marrow, brave though he was.
"What do you want again?" challenged Launay.
"Again" took up Billet. "It seems to me that this is the first time you have seen me, so that you cannot be very tired of me."
"I was told you come from the City Hall and I have just had a deputation from there to get me to promise not to open fire. I promised that much and so I had the guns drawn in."
"I was on the square as you did so, and I——"
"You thought I was giving way to the calls of the crowd?"
"It looked that way," replied the farmer.
"Did I not tell you that they would believe me just such a coward?" said Launay, turning round to his officers. "Who do you come from then?" he demanded of Billet.
"I come on behalf of the people," rejoined the visitor proudly.
"That is all very well," sneered Launay, smiling; "but you must have shown some other warrant, for otherwise you would not have passed the first dead-line of sentries."
"True, I have a pass from your friend Flesselles."
"Flesselles? why do you dub him my friend?" exclaimed the prison warden, looking at the speaker to read to the bottom of his mind. "How do you conclude that he is a friend of mine?"
"I supposed as much."
"Is that all? never mind. Let us see your safe-conduct."
Billet presented the paper which Launay read more than once in order to catch a hidden meaning or concealed lines; he even held it up to the light to see if there was secret writing.
"Is that all? are you perfectly sure? nothing by word of mouth in addition?"
"Not a bit."
"Strange!" said Launay, plunging his glance by a loophole on Bastile Square. "Then tell me your want and be quick."
"The people want you to give up the Bastile."
"What do you say?" cried Launay, turning quickly as if he must be mistaken in his hearing.
"I summon you in the people's name to give up the Bastile."
"Queer animals the people," sneered Launay, snapping his fingers. "What do they want with the Bastile?"
"To demolish it."
"Why, what the mischief is the Bastile to the people? is any common man ever shut up herein? why, the people ought to bless every stone of the Bastile. Who are locked up here? philosophers, learned men, aristocrats, statesmen, princes—all the enemies of the dregs."
"This only proves that the people are not selfish and want to do good to others."
"It is plain that you are not a soldier, my friend," said the other with a kind of pity.
"It is true and come fresh from the country."
"For you do not know what the Bastile is: come with me and I will show you."
"He is going to pull the spring of some trap which will open beneath my feet," thought the adventurer, "and then good-bye, Old Billet!"
But he was intrepid and did not wince as he prepared to accede to the invitation.
"In the first place," continued Launay, "it is well to know that I have enough powder in the store to blow up the castle and lay half the suburbs in ashes."
"I knew that," was the tranquil reply.
"Do you see these cannon? They rake this gallery, which is defended by a guardhouse, and by two ditches only to be crossed by draw-bridges; lastly there is a portcullis."
"Oh, I am not saying that the Bastile will be badly defended, but that it will be well attacked."
"To proceed: here is a postern opening on the moats: observe the thickness of the walls. Forty feet here and fifteen above. You see that though the people have nails they will break against such walls."
"I am not saying that the people will demolish the Bastile to master it but that, having mastered it, they will demolish it," said the leader of the revolutionists.
"Let us go upstairs," said the governor, leading up thirty steps, where he paused to say: "This embrasure opens on the passage by which you would be bound to come. It isdefended by one rampart gun, but it enjoys a fair reputation. You know the song:
"'Oh, my sweet-voiced Sackbut, I love your dear song?'"
"Certainly, I have heard it, but I do not think this a time to sing it, or anything else."
"Stay; Marshal Saxe called this gun his Sackbut, because it sang the only music he cared anything for. This is a historical fact. But let us go on."
"Oh," said Billet when upon the tower top, "you have not dismounted the cannon, but merely drawn them in. I shall have to tell the people so."
"The cannon were mounted here by the King's command and by that alone can they be dismounted."
"Governor Launay," returned Billet, feeling himself rise to the level of the emergency, "the true sovereign is yonder and I counsel you to obey it."
He pointed to the grey-looking masses, spotted with blood from the night's battling, and reflecting the dying sunlight on their weapons up to the very moats.
"Friend, a man cannot know two masters," replied theroyalist, holding his head up haughtily: "I, the Governor of the Bastile, know but one: the Sixteenth Louis, who put his sign-manual at the foot of the patent which made me the commander over men and material here."
"Are you not a French citizen?" demanded Billet warmly.
"I am a French nobleman," said the Count of Launay.
"True, you are a soldier, and speak like one."
"You are right," said the gentleman bowing. "I am a soldier and carry out my orders."
"Well, I am a citizen," went on Billet, "and as my duty as such is opposed to yours as the King's soldier, one of us must die. He who fulfills his orders or his duties."
"That is likely, sir."
"So you are determined to fire on the people?"
"Not unless I am fired at. I pledged myself to that effect to Lord Provost Flesselles' deputation. You see the guns have been retired, but at the first shot, I will roll one—say thisone—forward out of the embrasure with my own hands, train it and point it, and fire with the slow-match you see there."
"If I believed that," said Billet, "before you could commit such a crime——"
"I have told you that I am a soldier and know nothing outside my orders."
"Then, look!" said Billet, drawing Launay to the gap in the battlements and pointing alternately in two different directions—the main street from the town and the street through the suburbs, "behold those who will henceforth give you orders."
Launay saw two black, dense, roaring bodies, undulating like snakes, with head and bodies in sight but the rearmost coils still waving onwards till lost in the hollows of the ground. All the bodies of these immense reptiles glittered with the scales. These were the two armies to which Billet had given the Bastile as the meeting-place, Marat's men and Gonchon's beggars. As they surged forward they brandished their weapons and yelled blood-curdling cries.
At the sight Launay lost color and said as he raised his cane:
"To your guns!" Then, threatening Billet, he added: "You scoundrel, to come here and gain time under pretence of a parley, do you know that you deserve death?"
Billet saw the attempt to draw the sword from the cane and pierce him; he seized the speaker by the collar and waistband as swift as lightning, and raising him clear off the ground, he replied:
"And you deserve to be hurled down to the bottom of the ditch to be smashed in the mud. But, never mind, thank God I can fight you in another manner."
At this instant, an immense howl, a universal one, rose in the air like a whirlwind, as Major Losme appeared on the platform.
"Oh, sir, for mercy's sake," he said to Billet: "Show yourself for the people there believe something has happened you and they call for you."
Indeed, the name of Billet, set afloat by Pitou, ascended on the clamor.
The farmer let go Launay who replaced the blade in the stick. The three men hesitated for a moment while the innumerable cries of vengeance and menace arose.
"Show yourself, sir," said Launay, "not because the noise frightens me but to prove that I have acted fairly."
The farmer thrust his head out of the porthole, waving his hand.
At this sight the populace burst with cheering: it was in a measure Revolution standing up in Billet's stead as this man of the lowest ranks trod the Bastile turret like a master.
"That is well, sir," went on Launay. "Now all is ended between us; you have no further business here. They ask for you below; go down."
Billet appreciated this moderation on the part of a man who had him in his power: he went down by the same stairs, the governor following. The major remained up there as the governor had whispered some orders to him.
It was evident that Count Launay had but one wish, that the bearer of the flag of truce should be his active enemy as soon as possible.
Without speaking a word the envoy crossed the yard, where he saw the cannoniers were at their pieces and the lintstocks were lighted and smoking. He stopped before them.
"Friends," he cried, "remember that I came to your commander to stay the shedding of blood, but that he refused me."
"In the King's name, be off from here!" said Launay, stamping his foot.
"Have a care," retorted the farmer: "I am ordered out in the King's name but I shall return in that of the People. Speak out," he added, turning to the Swiss, "who are you for?"
The foreign soldiers were silent. Launay pointed to the iron door. But Billet attempted a final effort.
"Governor, in the name of the nation, in the name of your brothers!"
"Brothers? is that what you call them who are bellowing 'Down the Bastile, and Death to the Governor?' they may be brothers of yours, but surely they are none of mine."
"In humanity's, then!"
"Humanity—which urges you to come a hundred thousand strong against one hundred hapless soldiers immured in these walls and cut their throats?"
"But by giving up the Bastile you save their lives."
"And I lose my honor."
Billet was hushed, for the soldierly argument crushed him; but again he addressed the soldiers, saying:
"Surrender, friends, while it is yet time; in another ten minutes it will be too late."
"I will have you shot unless you are out of this instantly," thundered Launay, "as true as I am a noble."
Billet stopped an instant, folded his arms in token of defiance and, crossing glances for the last time with the exasperated governor, walked forth.
STORMING THE BASTILE.
Under the burning July sun the crowds awaited, shuddering with fever. Gonchon's men had joined in with Marat's, the suburbs hailing each other as brothers. Gonchon was at the head of his patriots but Marat had disappeared.
The scene on the open place was terrifying.
On seeing Billet the cheering was tremendous.
"He is a brave man," said Billet to Gonchon, "or rather I should say he is stubborn. He will not surrender the Bastile but will sustain the siege."
"Do you think he will hold out long?"
"To death."
"All right, he shall have that."
"But how many men will be killed by us?" said the farmer, no doubt fearing that he had not the right usurped by generals, kings and emperors, those who take out licenses to kill and maim.
"Rubbish," said Gonchon; "there are too many, since wehave not enough for half the population. Is not that about the size of it, boys?" he asked of the bystanders.
"Yes, yes," was the reply in sublime abnegation.
"But the moat?" queried Billet.
"It need be filled up in only one place," responded the beggar's leader: "and I calculate that we could choke it up altogether, eh, lads?"
The friends answered unanimously in the affirmative.
"Have it so," said Billet, overpowered.
At this moment, Launay appeared on a terrace, followed by Major Losme and two or three other officers.
"Commence," shouted Gonchon.
The governor turned his back on him.
Gonchon might have put up with a threat but he would not bear contempt: he lifted his gun and fired at him. A man near him fell. Instantly a hundred, nay, a thousand gunshots sounded, as if it were awaited as a signal, and the grey towers were striped with white.
A few seconds' silence succeeded this discharge, as if the assailants were frightened at what they had done.
Then a gush of flame lost in a cloud of smoke crowned the crest of one tower. A detonation thundered. Shrieks of pain were heard in the throngs closely pressed. The first cannonshot had been fired by the royalists, the first blood shed.
The battle between people and Bastile was begun.
An instant previously menacing, the multitudes felt something like terror. By defending itself with so little of its weapons the Bastile seemed impregnable. In this period of concession the majority had no doubt supposed that they would always have their way.
That was a mistake: this cannonshot fired into them gave the measure of the Titanic work they had undertaken.
A firing of muskets, well aimed, from the platform, immediately followed.
The fresh silence was broken by renewed screams, groans and a few complaints. But nobody thought to flee, and had the thought struck any one, he must have been ashamed seeing the numbers.
Indeed all the thoroughfares were streams of human beings:the square an immense sea, with each billow a human head; the eyes flamed and the mouths hurled curses.
In a trice all the windows on the square were filled with sharpshooters who fired, though out of range. If a soldier appeared at a loophole or an embrasure, a hundred barrels were leveled at him, and the hail of bullets chipped away the edge of the stone angle shielding him.
But soon they were tired of firing at insensible stone: they wanted the flesh to aim at, and to see the blood spirt.
Everybody shouted ideas of an assault. Billet, weary of listening, caught up an ax from a carpenter's hand, and rushed forward, in the midst of a shower of missiles, striking down the men around him like a scythe lays the grain, till he reached a small guardhouse before the first drawbridge. While the grapeshot was hurling and whistling about him, he hacked at the chains till down came the bridge.
During the quarter of an hour that this insane enterprise went on, the lookers-on held their breath. At each volley they expected to see their champion laid low. Forgetting their own danger, they thought solely of that the audacious worker ran. When the drop came down,they uttered a loud whoop and dashed into the first yard.
The rush was so unexpected, rapid and impetuous that no resistance was made.
The frenziedly joyful cheers announced the first advantage to Launay. Nobody noticed that a man had been mangled under the bridge.
Then, as if at the depth of a cavern, the four guns, pointed out to Billet by the governor, were shot off with a dreadful crash and all the outer yard was swept clear. The iron hurricane cleft a long swath of blood through the mass; on the path lay ten or twelve dead and double as many wounded.
Billet had stood on the guardhouse roof to reach the chain well up; he slid down where he found Pitou, who had reached the spot he knew not how. The young man had a quick eye, a poacher's habit. He had seen the gunners step up to the touchhole with the lighted matches, and seizing his patron by the coat, he had pulled him back behind a corner of the wall which sheltered both from the cannonade.
From this period on, the war was real. The tumult was alarming; the onslaught murderous; ten thousand gunshots poured upon the fort at risk of slaying the assaulters with the garrison. To cap all, a field-piece brought up by the French Guardsmen, added its boom to the cracking of small arms.
The frightful uproar intoxicated the amateur fighters and began to daunt the besieged who felt that they could never raise a commotion equal to this deafening them. The officers saw that their soldiers were weakening: they had to snatch their muskets from them and fire themselves.
At this juncture, amid the roar of great guns and smaller ones, and the shouting, as the mob were rushing forward to carry away the injured and dead on litters, a little body of citizens appeared calm and unarmed at the yard entrance. It was a deputation of electors from the City Hall. They were sacrificing life under protection merely of the white flag before and after them to indicate they came to parley.
Wishing to stop the effusion of blood, after hearing that the attack had commenced, they forced Flesselles to renew negotiations with the governor. In the name of the city, they summoned the governor of the citadel to cease firing, and to receive in the place a hundred of the town guards to guarantee his safety, the garrison's and the inhabitants.
The deputies called this out as they marched along. Frightened by the magnitude of the task they had set themselves, the people were ready to accept the proposal, seeing, too, the dead and wounded carried by. If Launay accepted the partial defeat they would be content with a half-victory.
At sight of them, the inner-yard firing ceased; they were beckoned to approach and they scrambled over the corpses, slipped in gore and held their hands out to the maimed. Under their shelter the others grouped. The injured and lifeless were borne out, streaking the marble flags with broad purple stains.
Firing ceasing on the fort side, Billet went out to get his party to refrain. At the doors he met Gonchon, without arms, exposing his naked breast like a man inspired, calm as though invulnerable.
"What has become of the deputation?" he inquired.
"It has got in," replied Billet. "Cease firing."
"It is useless; he will not give in," said the beggar leader, with the same certainty as if he had been gifted with reading the future.
"No matter; respect the usages of war, since we have become soldiers."
"I do not mind," said Gonchon; "Elie, Hullin, go," he said to two men who seemed to rule the crowd together with him: "Do not let a shot be fired till I say so."
At the voice the two darted away, cleaving the throng, and soon the sound of the musketry dying away, stopped entirely.
During the short rest the wounded were attended to; they were upwards of forty. Two o'clock struck: they had been hammering away two hours, from noon. Billet had returned to the front where Gonchon found him. His impatience was visible as he watched the iron grating.
"What is wrong?" asked the farmer.
"All is lost if the Bastile is not taken in two hours," was the beggar's reply.
"How so?"
"Because the royal court will learn what we are at. It will send us Bezenval's Switzers and Lambesq's heavies, who will help catch us between three fires."
Billet was forced to confess the truth in the prospect. At length the deputies appeared: by their woe-begone aspect it was clear their errand had failed.
"What did I tell you?" cried the popular orator, gladly; "What was foretold by Balsamo and Cagliostro will come to pass. The accursed fortress is doomed. To arms, boys, to arms," he yelled without waiting for the deputies to relate their doings, "the commandment refuses."
In fact, scarcely had the governor read Flesselles' letter introducing the party than he brightened up in the face and exclaimed, instead of yielding to the proposition:
"You Parisian gentlemen wanted the fight and it is too late to draw back."
The citizens had protested and persisted in picturing the horrors which the defense would entail. But he would heed nothing and finishing by saying to them what he had told Billet a couple of hours anteriorly:
"Begone or I will have you shot."
The citizens were glad to get out of it.
Launay took the offensive this time. He was wild with impatience. Before the deputation crossed the threshold, the Sackbut of Marshal Saxe played its tune: three men fell—one dead and two wounded, the latter being a French guardsman and the other one of the flag-of-truce bearers. At sight of this victim, whose errand made him sacred, carried away smothered in blood, the fury of the numbers was exalted once more.
Gonchon's aid-de-camps had returned to take their places by his side; but each had run home to change his dress. Elie had been the Marquis Conflans' running-footman and his livery resembled a Hungarian officer's uniform. Elie put on the uniform he had worn when an officer of the Queen's own Regiment, and this gave more confidence to the masses with the thought that the army was on their side.
The firing recommenced more fiercely than before.
At this Major Losme approached his superior. He was a brave and honorable soldier, but he had some manhood left him and he saw with pain what had happened and foresaw with more pain what would occur.
"You know we have no food," he said.
"I know that," answered Launay.
"And we have no order to hold out."
"I ask your pardon, Military Governor of the Bastile, but I am the governor of it in all respects; my order is to shut the doors and I hold the keys."
"My lord, keys are to open locks as well as fasten them. Have a care that you do not get the garrison massacred without saving the castle. That will be two triumphs for the revolters in one day. Look at the men we kill—they spring up again from the pavement. This morning only three thousand were there: three hours ago, there were six. Now they are over sixty thousand and to-morrow they will number a hundred thousand. When our cannon are silenced, and that will be the upshot,they will be strong enough to pull down the Bastile with their bare hands."
"You do not speak like the military governor of the Bastile, Major Losme."
"I speak like a Frenchman, my lord. I say that his Majesty having given us no special order—and the Provost of the Traders having made us a very acceptable proposition, to introduce a hundred Civil Guards into the castle—you might avoid the misery I foresee by acceding to Provost Flesselles' proposition."
"In your opinion, the City of Paris is a power we ought to obey?"
"Yes, in the absence of special royal order."
"Then, read, Major Losme," said the prison chief, leading his lieutenant aside into a corner.
On the small sheet of paper which he let him read, was written:
"Hold out firmly: I will amuse the Parisians with Cockades and promises. Before day is done, Bezenval will send you reinforcements.
Flesselles."
"How did this advice reach you?" inquired the major.
"In the letter the deputies carried. They thought they were bearing a desire for the Bastile to be surrendered, and it was the order to defend it that they handed me."
The major bent his head.
"Go to your post and do not quit it till I command you sir," continued Launay. Losme obeying, he coldly folded up the paper, replaced it in his pocket, and went over to the cannoniers to advise them to aim true and fire low. They obeyed like the major.
But the fortalice's fate was settled. No human power could delay the accomplishment.
To every cannonshot the reply was "We mean to have the Bastile!"
While voices claimed it, arms were not idle.
Pitou's and Billet's arms and voices were among those asking most energetically and working most efficaciously.
Each worked according to his character. Courageous and confident as the bulldog, Billet had run at the enemy, heedless of shot and steel. Pitou, prudent and circumspect as the fox, endowed to the highest degree with self-preservation, utilized all his faculties to watch danger and anticipate it. His sight knew the most deadly embrasures, and distinguished the least move of the bronze tube to enter it. He could guess the exact moment when the rampart-gun was about to fire through the portcullis. His eyes having done their office, he made his limbs work for their owner.
Down went his shoulders and in went his chest, so that his frame offered no more surface than a board seen edgewise.
In these moments, of the filling-out Pitou, thin only in the legs, nothing remained but the geometrical expression of a straight line.
He chose a spot where the masonry shaped out cavities and projections so that his head was shielded by a stone, his heart by another and his knees by still another slab. Nowhere could a mortal wound be got in on him.
He fired a shot now and then, to relieve his feelings and because Billet told him to "blaze away." But he had nothing but wood and stone before him.
For his part he kept begging his friend not to expose himself to the firing. "There goes the Sackbut," or "I hear a hammer coming down."
Despite these injunctions the farmer executed prodigies of daring and energy, all in pure waste, till the idea struck him to go along the woodwork of the bridge and chop the chains of the second one, as he had done with the first.
Ange howled for him to stay and seeing that howls were useless, he followed him, from cover, saying
"Dear Master Billet, your wife will be a widow if you get killed."
The Swiss thrust their guns through the loopholes by which the Sackbut was fired to try to pick off the daring fellow who was making the chips fly off their bridge.
Billet called on his single gun to answer the Sackbut, but when the latter fired, the other artillerists retreated and the farmer was left alone to serve the cannon. This again drew Pitou out of his refuge.
"Master," he sued, "in the name of Catherine! think if you are done for, that Catherine will be an orphan."
Billet yielded to his plea, and because he had a new idea.
He ran out on the square, holloaing.
"A cart!"
"Two carts," added Pitou, "thinking you cannot have too much of a good thing."
Ten carts were immediately trundled through the multitude.
"Dry hay and straw!" shouted Billet.
"Straw and hay," repeated Pitou.
Like a flash, two hundred men brought each a truss of straw or half a bale of hay. Others brought dry fodder on litters. They were obliged to call out that they had ten times more than was wanted. In an hour they would have smothered the Bastile.
Billet put himself in the rails of a bush-cart, laden with hay, and pushed it before him instead of dragging it.
Pitou did the same with another, without knowing why but thinking the farmer's example was worthy of imitation.
Elie and Hullin guessed what the farmer proposed; they supplied themselves with carts and pushed them into the prison yard.
Scarcely did they enter than small shot and canister received them but the hay and straw deadened the bullets and slugs and only a few rattled on the wheels and shafts. None of the assailants were touched.
As soon as this discharge was fired, two or three hundred musketmen dashed on behind the cart-pushers and lodged under the sloping shed of the bridge itself, under cover of the moving breastwork.
There Billet pulled out a scrap of paper, and flint and steel; he wrapped up a pinch of gunpowder in the paper, struck a light and ignited it and shoved the flaring piece into the heap of hay. Others took lighted wisps and scattered the flames. It caught the pentroof and the four blazing carts set fire to beams high up and sneaked along the bridge supports.
To put out the fire the garrison would have to come out and to show oneself was to court death.
The glad cheer, started in the yard, was caught up on the square where the smoke was seen above the towers. Something fatal to the besieged was surmised to be going on.
Indeed the redhot chains drew out and snapped from the ringbolts. The half-broken bridge fell, smoking and sending up sparks.
The firemen came up with their engines, but the governor ordered them to be fired upon though the prison might be thus burned over the garrison's heads.
The old French soldiers refused. The Swiss were willing, but as they were not artillerists they could not work the carriage-guns. These had to be abandoned.
On the other side, seeing that the cannonade ceased, the French Guards resumed their field-piece work and with the third ball sent the portcullis flying.
The governor had gone upon the tower to see if the promised succor was arriving when he suddenly found himself enwrapped in smoke. He ran downstairs and ordered the gunners to keep up the firing. The refusal of the French Veterans exasperated him.
On hearing the portcullis smashed in, he recognized that all was lost.
He was fully aware that he was hated. He guessed that there was no safety for him. During the whole of the action, he had cherished the thought of burying himself under the ruins of his castle.
As soon as he acknowledged that all resistance was useless, he snatched a lintstock from an artillerist and precipitated himself towards the powder magazine.
"The powder, the powder!" shrieked twenty terrified voices.
On seeing the governor with the burning match they divined his intention. Two soldiers crossed their bayonets before his breast at the very instant when he opened the ammunition-storeroom door.
"You may kill me," he said, "but you cannot do that so quickly that I shall not have had time to toss this brand into one of the open kegs. Then, all of us, besieged and besiegers, go up!"
The soldiers stopped with the steel at his breast, but he was still their commander and commanded, for he held the lives of all in his hands. His movement rivetted everybody to their place.
The assailants perceived that something extraordinary was going on. They peered into the yard and saw the governor threatening and being threatened.
"Hark to me," said he, "as true as I have death in my grasp for all of you, I will fire the powder if one of you dare step within this yard."
The hearers might fancy the earth quaked beneath their feet.
"What do you want?" several voices gasped with the accent of a panic.
"An honorable capitulation."
As the assailants could not fully comprehend the extent of Launay's despair and did not believe his speech, they began to enter, Billet at the head. But he suddenly turned pale and trembled, for he had thought of Dr. Gilbert. It little mattered to the farmer whether the Bastile was torn down or blown up; but at any price the arch-revolutionist must live, the pupil of Balsamo, his successor, perhaps, at the head of the Invisibles.
"Stop," shouted Billet, "for the sake of the prisoners!"
Elie and Hullin, and their men, who had not shrank from death on their own behalf, recoiled, white and trembling like he had.
"What do you want?" they demanded of the governor, renewing the question his garrison had put to him.
"Everybody must retire," replied Count Launay. "I will listen to no proposition while there is an intruder inside the Bastile walls."
"But you will take advantage of our withdrawal to repair damages," remonstrated Billet.
"If the capitulation be refused, you will find things in the same condition; you there, I at this door, on the faith of a nobleman!"
Some shook their heads.
"Is there any here who doubt a nobleman?" questioned the count.
"No, no, nobody," rejoined five hundred voices.
"Bring me pen, ink and paper," continued the governor. "That is well," he went on as his orders were executed. "Now, retire!" he said to the assaulters.
Billet, Elie and Hullin set the example, and all followed them.
Launay laid the match by his side and began to write the terms of surrender on his knee. The French Veterans and the Swiss, aware that their safety was at stake, silently looked at him in superstitious terror. When he turned, before writing the document out fair, all the yards were clear.
In a twinkling all the concourse outside had learnt what was proceeding. As Losme had said, it was the population which issued from beneath the flagstones and pavement. Not only workmen and beggars, the homeless and the imperfectly clad, but citizens of the better classes. Not only men but women and children. Each had a weapon and uttered a war-cry.
From spot to spot, amid groups, was seen a woman, disheveled, wringing her hands and waving her arms, howling curses at the giant of stone: it was a mother, a wife or a sweetheart whose dearest one had been incarcerated in its flanks.
But since a short space the giant had ceased to vomit flame and scowl in the smoke; the fire was extinct and the whole mute as a tomb. On the blackened walls the bullet grazes stood out white and were above count; everybody had wanted to leave his mark on the granite brow of his personification of tyranny.
They could hardly believe that the Bastile was about to be turned over to them; that its governor would surrender.
In the midst of this general doubt, as none ventured to congratulate another, and all waited in silence, a letter stuck on a spearpoint was seen thrust through a loophole.
Between the despatch and the besiegers was the great moat deep and wide and full of water.
Billet called for a plank, but three were too short, and the fourth, while long enough, was ill adjusted. Still he balanced himself as well as he could and unhesitatingly risked himself on the bending bridge.
All in dumbness fixed their eyes on the man who seemed suspended over the stagnant water, while Pitou, quivering, sat on the brink and hid his face.
All of a sudden, when Billet was two-thirds over, the plank shifted, and throwing up his arms he fell in the moat where he sank out of sight.
Pitou uttered a roar and dived after his master like a Newfoundland dog.
A man went right out on the plank, without hesitation, choosing the same road as Billet: it was Stanislas Maillard, the prison clerk. On reaching the point beneath which he saw two men struggling, he looked, but seeing that they could swim ashore, he continued his way.
In half a minute he was across and took the letter off the pike.
With the same tranquil nerve and steadiness of gait, he passed back over the plank.
But at the very second when all crowded round him to read the message, a hail of bullets rained down from the battlements at the same time as a tremendous report was heard.
From all breasts a cry arose, one announcing that the people meant to have revenge.
"Trust the tyrants again," said Gonchon.
Nobody cared any more about capitulations, the powder, the prisoners or himself—nothing was wanted but retaliation and the besiegers strewed into the yards not by hundreds but by thousands. The only thing preventing them entering still faster was not the muskets but the narrowness of the doorways.
On hearing the firing, the two soldiers who had not gone away from their commander, jumped at him and a third set his foot on the slow-match, and crushed it out. Launay drew the sword hidden in his cane and tried to stab with it but it was wrenched off from him and broken, while in his grip.
He was convinced that he could do no more, and he waited for his doom.
The mobs rushing in met the soldiers, holding out their hands to them—and so the Bastile was not taken under a surrender but by assault.
This came from the royal castle having ceased to enclose inert matter: latterly the King had shut up human brain there and the spirit had burst the vessel.
The people entered at the breach.
As for the treacherous volley fired in the midst of silence during the suspension of hostilities, and unforeseen, impolitic and deadly aggression, it will never be known who gave the order, inspired it and accomplished it.
There are moments when the future of a nation is exactly poised in the scales of Fate. One of the plates bears up the other, even while each party thinks his side will make the other kick the beam. An invisible hand has flung into the dish a dagger or a pistol and all changes. The only cry heard is:
"Woe to the vanquished!"
DOWN IN THE DUNGEONS.
While the multitude poured, roaring with delight and anger at the same time, into the yards of the prison, two men were floundering in the ditch: Billet and Pitou. The latter was keeping up the other whom no bullet or blow had struck, but the fall had a trifle stunned him. Ropes were thrown to them and poles thrust down.
In five minutes they were rescued, and were hugged and carried in triumph, muddy though they were.
One gave Billet a drink of brandy, another crammed the younger peasant with bread and sausage. A third dried them off and led them into the sunshine.
Suddenly an idea or rather a memory crossed the good farmer's mind: he tore himself from the friendly arms and ran towards the fort.
"The prisoners, help the prisoners!" he shouted.
"Yes, the prisoners," repeated Pitou, darting into the tower after his leader.
Only thinking of the jailers, the mob now shuddered on remembering the captives. The cries were reiterated. A fresh flood of assailants burst any remaining barriers and seemed to enlarge the flanks of the prison to expand it with liberty.
A frightful scene was presented to Billet and his friend. The mob crowded into the court, enraged, drunken and furious. The first soldier falling under hand was torn to pieces.
Gonchon looked on quietly, no doubt thinking that popular wrath is like a great river, doing more mischief if one tries to dam it than if letting it make its course. On the contrary, Elie and Hullin leaped in between defenders and attackers; they prayed and supplicated, vociferating the holy lie that the soldiers were promised their lives.
Billet and Pitou's arrival was reinforcement to them.
Billet whom they were revenging, was alive; not even hurt; the plank had swerved underfoot and he was clear with a mud bath, that was all.
The Swiss were most detested: but they were not to be found. They had time to put on overalls and smockfrocks of dull linen, and they passed off as servants.
With sledges the invaders broke the captive images on the clock face. They raced up to the turret tops to kick the cannon which had belched death on them. They laid hands on the stones and endeavored to dislodge them.
When the first of the conquerors were seen on the battlements, all without, below, a hundred thousand or so, cast up an immense clamor.
It spread over Paris, and flew over France like a swiftwinged eagle:
"The Bastile is taken!"
At this news, hearts melted, eyes were moist with tears of gladness, and hands clasped; no longer were there opposition parties or inimical castes, for all Parisians understood that they were brothers and all men that they were free.
A million of men mutually embraced.
Billet and Pitou wanted no part in the rejoicing, they sought the liberation of the prisoners.
Traversing Government yard, they passed near a man in grey clothes, calmly leaning on a gold-headed cane: it was thegovernor, quietly waiting for his friends to save him or his foes to lay him low.
Billet recognized him at sight, and uttered an outcry. He walked straight up to him. Launay knew him again, also; but folded his arms and looked at Billet as much as to say:
"Is it you who will deal me the first stab?"
"If I speak to him," thought the farmer, "they will know him, and then he will be killed."
Yet how would he find Dr. Gilbert in this chaos? how wrest from the Bastile the grim secret enshrouded in its womb? Launay understood all this heroic hesitation and scruple.
"What do you want?" asked he, in an undertone.
"Nothing," rejoined Billet, pointing out that the doorways are doorless all the way to the street, "nothing; but I should like to find Dr. Gilbert."
"No. Three, Bertaudiere Tower," replied the count in a gentle voice, almost softened, but he would not flee.
At this juncture a voice behind Billet pronounced these words:
"Halloa, here is the governor!"
The voice was as emotionless as though spoken by no being of this world but every syllable was a dagger-blade cruelly dug into Launay's bosom. The voice was Gonchon's.
At the denunciation, as if from an alarm bell ringing, all the men athirst for vengeance, started and turned their flaring eyes on Launay at whom they flung themselves.
"He is lost, unless we can save him," said Billet to Elie and Hullin.
"Help us," they answered.
"I must stay here, as I have a task to do."
In a flash, Launay was taken up by numerous hands and carried out.
Elie and his comrade hurried after, calling: "Stop, he was promised his life for surrendering."
This was not true, but the sublime falsehood rushed from both of the noble hearts. In a second the governor, followed by the pair, disappeared in the corridor opening on the square, amid shouts:
"Take him to the City Hall!"
As a living prey Launay was in the eyes of most equal to the dead prey, the prison, overrun.
Strange was the sight of this sad and silent edifice, for four centuries threaded solely by the warden and his turnkeys, become the strolling ground of any tatterdemalion: the crowd roamed over the garden, up and down the stairs, buzzing like a swarm of bees, and filling the granite hive with bustle and uproar.
Billet for an instant watched Launay, carried rather than dragged, seeming to hover over the multitude. But he was gone in a space. Billet sighed and looking round him and seeing Pitou, said as he darted towards a tower:
"The Third Bertaudiere."
A trembling jailer was in the way.
"Here you are, captain," he answered: "but I have not the keys, they were taken from me."
"Brother, lend me your ax," said Billet of a neighbor.
"I give it you, for it is not wanted now we have taken the old den."
Grasping the weapon, Billet dashed into a stairway, conducted by the warder. The latter stopped before a door.
"This is No. Three, Bertaudiere Tower," said he.
"Is the prisoner here, Dr. Gilbert?"
"Don't know the names."
"Only put here a few days ago?"
"Don't know."
"Well, I shall," rejoined the farmer, attacking the door with the ax.
It was of oak, but the splinters flew freely under the chops of the vigorous yeoman. In a short time one could peep into the room. Billet looked in at the cleft. In the beam of light from a grated window in the yard a man was visible in the cell, standing a little back, holding one of his bedslates, he was in the attitude of defense, ready to knock down any one intruding.
Spite of his long beard, pale face and his hair being close cropped, Billet recognized Gilbert.
"Doctor, doctor, is it you? It is Billet who calls, your friend."
"Are you here, Billet, here?"
"Yes, yes, that's Billet, right here!" shouted the crowd; "we are here, in the Bastile, for we have taken it. You are free!"
"The Bastile is taken and I am free?" repeated the doctor.
Running both hands through the bars of the door he shook it so forcibly that the hinges and lock-bolt seemed likely to shoot out of the pockets. One of the split panels, shattered by Billet, fell clean out and was left in the prisoner's hands.
"Wait, wait," said the rescuer, seeing that such another exertion would exhaust the man's powers, too much excited; "wait."
He redoubled his blows. Through the gap the prisoner could be seen, fallen on his stool, pale as a sceptre and incapable of moving the broken beam again with which he had tried like a Samson to shake the Bastile down.
"Billet," he kept on saying.
"And me with him, doctor, poor Pitou, whom you must remember from having placed me for board and lodging at Aunt Angelique's—I came along to get you out."
"But I cannot get through that crack," objected the prisoner.
"We will widen it," cried the bystanders.
In a common effort each brought his effort to bear: while one inserted a crowbar between the wall and the door-jamb, another got a purchase on the lock with the lever, and others put their shoulders to the woodwork; the oak gave a last crack, and the stones scaled off, so that by the removed door and the crumbling stone, the torrent plunged within the prison.
Gilbert was soon in the arms of his friends.
Gilbert, who was a little peasant boy on the Taverney estate, where he conceived an undying and life-long passion for his master's daughter Andrea, was now a man of thirty-five. Philip of Taverney, who tried to kill him in a cave in the Azores Islands because he had accomplished the love-design of his existence in giving Andrea the title of mother to little Sebastian Gilbert, would not recognize him he left bathed in blood. Pale without sickliness, with black hair and steady though animated eyes, one could tell that he,like his teacher Balsamo-Cagliostro, was endowed with the power of magnetism. As he could now mesmerize Andrea, he could mentally master most men.