Taking the Bastile; Or, Pitou the Peasant

by Alexandre Dumas

  CHAPTER X.

  BLOWING HOT AND COLD.

  It was on the morning of the fourteenth of July that Billet openedoratorical fire against the monument which had for five centuriesweighed like an incubus on the breast of France--a rock of Sisyphus.Less confident than the Titan in her power, France had never thought tothrow it off.

  The Bastile was the seal of feudalism on the brow of Paris.

  The King was accounted too good to order people to be beheaded; but hesent people into the Bastile. Once there a man was forgotten, isolated,sequestered, buried alive, annihilated. He stayed there till themonarch remembered him, and kings have so many new matters to think ofthat they often forget the old ones.

  There were twenty other Bastiles in France, the name being general forprison, so that, to this day, the tramp on the dusty road speaks of the"Steel," without perhaps knowing that the title of ignominy referred tothe great French Statesprison.

  The fortress by the St. Antoine Gate was _the_ Bastile pre-eminently.It was alone worth all the others.

  Some of the prisoners were perhaps great criminals; but others likeLatude had done nothing to merit thirty years' captivity.

  He had fallen in love with Lady Pompadour, the King's mistress, andwrote her a note which caused his imprisonment for a life-time.

  It was not for nothing that the Bastile was hated by the people.

  It was hated like a living thing--a monster like the dragoons who defya people till a champion rises, like Billet, to show them how to attackit.

  Hence one may comprehend Sebastian's hopeless grief at his father beingincarcerated in the Bastile.

  Hence Billet's belief that he would never be liberated but by beingplucked forth.

  Hence the popular transport may be felt when the shout rose of "Downwith the Bastile!"

  But it was, as the soldiers said, an insane project to think ofcapturing the King's Prison-Castle.

  The Bastile had a garrison, artillery and provisions. The walls werefifteen feet thick at the top and forty at the base.

  The governor was Count Launay, who had thirty thousand pounds ofgunpowder in the magazine, and had promised in case of annoyance toblow up the fort and with it all that part of Paris.

  Nevertheless Billet marched forward, but he did not have to do anyshouting.

  Liking his martial mien, the multitude felt he was one of their kind,and commenting on his words and bearing, it followed him, increasinglike the flowing tide.

  When Billet came out on St. Michel's quay, he had behind him more thanthree thousand men, armed with hatchets, cutlasses, pikes and guns.

  All were shouting: "On, to the Bastile!"

  Billet was making the reflections which his knowledge of the strongholdwarranted, and the vapor of his enthusiasm faded gradually.

  He saw clearly that the enterprise was sublime though insane.

  That was easy to understand by the awed expression of those to whom hehad first broached the project of taking the Bastile.

  But he was only the more fortified in his resolve. But he understoodthat he had to answer to these mothers and fathers, girls and children,for the lives of those whom he was leading, and that he was bound totake all the precautions possible.

  He commenced by collecting his followers at the City Hall.

  He appointed lieutenants to control the flock--of wolves.

  "Let me see," said Billet to himself; "there is more than one power inFrance. There are two--the head of the chief city, for one, and may beanother yet."

  He entered the City Hall, asking for the Chief civic magistrate. It wasthe Traders' Provost Flesselles.

  "My lord de Flesselles," he repeated; "a noble and no friend of thepeople?"

  "Oh, no, he is a sensible man."

  Billet went up the stairs into the ante-chamber where he met an usher,who came up to him to see what he wanted.

  "Speech with Lord Flesselles," replied Billet.

  "Can't sir," answered the man. "He is completing the list for themilitia which the City is to raise."

  "Capital!" rejoined Billet; "I am also organizing a militia, and as Ihave three thousand men ready under arms, I am worth a Flesselles whois only going to get his together. Let me speak with him, and rightoff. If you like, just look out of the window at my soldiers."

  One rapid glance on the waterside was enough for the servant whohastened to notify the Traders' Provost, to whom, as emphasis to hismessage, he pointed out the army.

  This sight inspired respect in the provost for the man commanding them:he left the council and came into the ante-room. Perceiving Billet, hesmiled at guessing the kind of man he must be.

  "Were you wanting me?" he challenged.

  "If you are Provost Flesselles," responded Billet.

  "Yes; how can I serve you? please, be quick, for I am very busy."

  "How many powers do you acknowledge in France, my Lord Provost?"queried Billet.

  "Hem, that is just how one looks at it," replied the politician. "Ifyou ask Bailly the Mayor he will say 'The National Assembly.' If LordDreux, he would say only one--'the King.'"

  "And which is yours between the two?"

  "Neither one, but the nation, at present," rejoined Flesselles, playingwith his ruffles.

  "Ah, the nation," repeated the farmer.

  "Those gentlemen waiting below there with the wood-choppers andcarving-knives; the nation, all the world to me."

  "You may be right and there was no mistake in their warranting you tome as a knowing man."

  "Which of the three powers do you belong to?" inquired the trimmer,bowing.

  "Faith, when there is a question for the Grand Spirit and the angels, Iapply to the Fountain--head."

  "You mean the King? What for?"

  "To ask for the release of Dr. Gilbert who is in the Bastile."

  "He is one of those pamhleteers I believe," said the aristocratic onesaucily.

  "A lover of mankind."

  "That is all one. My dear M. Billet, I believe you have little chancesof obtaining such a favor from the King. If he put the doctor in hisBastile, he had reasons for it."

  "All right," returned Billet; "he shall offer his reasons and I willmatch them with mine?"

  "My dear sir, the King is so busy that he will not receive you."

  "Oh, if he will not let me in, I shall walk in without his leave orlicence."

  "But you will find Lord Dreux Breze at the door who will put you awayfrom it. It is true he failed to do that with the National Assembly ina body; but that failure will only the more put him on his mettle andhe will take his revenge out of you."

  "Then I will apply to the National Assembly."

  "The way to Versailles is cut off."

  "I will have my three thousand men with me.

  "Have a care, my dear fellow, for you will meet on the road four orfive thousand Swiss soldiers and two or three thousand Austrianswho will make mincemeat of your forces; in a twinkling you will beswallowed."

  "What the deuse am I to do, then?"

  "Do what you like: but rid me of your three thousand tatterdemalionswho are cracking the flagstones with thumps of their halberds, andsmoking. In the vaults are seven or eight thousand pounds of gunpowderand a spark may send us all flying to the Eternal Throne."

  "In that case, turning this over in my mind," said the farmer, "I willnot trouble the King or the Assembly, but call in the nation and takethe Bastile myself."

  "With what?"

  "With the powder you have kindly told me is stored in your cellar."

  "You don't tell me that?" sneered Flesselles.

  "That is the very thing. The cellar keys, my lord."

  "Hello, you are joking," faltered the gentleman.

  "I never joke," returned Billet, grasping the provost by the collarwith both hands. "Let me have the keys or I shall sling you out to mytatterdemalions who know how to pick pockets."

  Flesselles turned pale as death. His lips and teeth closed soconvulsively but his voice did not alter in to
ne from the ironical oneadopted.

  "To tell you the truth, sir, you do me assistance in ridding me of thiscombustible," he said; "So I will hand you over the keys as you desire.Only do not forget that I am your first magistrate, and that if you areso unfortunate as to handle me roughly before others as you have done,catching me privately in an unguarded time, you will be hanged withinthe hour by the city guards. Do you persist in removing this powder?"

  "I do, and will divide it out myself right away."

  "Let us have this clear, then: I have business here for an otherquarter of an hour and if it makes no difference to you, I shouldprefer the distribution to go on during my absence. It has beenforetold me that I should die of a violent death, but I own to having adeep repugnance to being blown into the air."

  "You shall have the time but do me a favor in return. Come to thiswindow, that I may make you popular."

  "Much obliged: in what manner?"

  "You shall see. Friends," he called out, as the two stood at thewindow, "you want to take the Bastile?"

  "Ay, ay," replied the thousands of voices.

  "But we want powder? now, here is the provost who gives us all there isin the City Hall cellars. Thank him, boys!"

  "Long live the provost--Flesselles forever!" roared the mob.

  "Now, my lord; there is no need for me to collar you before the crowdor when alone," said Billet: "for if you do not give the powder, thepeople--or the nation as you call it--will tear you to pieces."

  "Here are the keys: your way of asking for anything allows no refusing."

  "This encourages me," said Billet, who was meditating.

  "Hang it all, have you more to ask?"

  "Yes; if you know Governor Launay."

  "Of the Bastile? he is a friend of mine."

  "In that case, you cannot wish evil to befall him. To prevent that, askhim to give up the prison to me or at least the prisoner Gilbert."

  "You cannot hope that I have any such influence?"

  "That is my lookout--all I want is an introduction to him."

  "My dear M. Billet, I must warn you that if you enter the Bastile, itwill be alone, and it is likely that you will never come out again.Still I will give you a passport into the Bastile, on one condition,that you do not ask me another for the moon. I have no acquaintanceslunatics."

  "Flesselles," shrilled a harsh voice behind the speaker, "if youcontinue to wear two faces--one laughing with the aristocrats and theother smiling on the people, you will be signing your own passport ina day or two to the other world whence none return."

  "Who speak thus?" cried the provost, turning to the ill-favored man whointerrupted.

  "I, Marat."

  "The surgeon Marat, the philosopher," said Billet.

  "Yes, the same Marat," continued Flesselles; "who as a medical manought to attend to the insane; he will have his hands full in France atthis moment."

  "Provost Flesselles," replied the sombre surgeon, "this honest citizenasks a passport to Governor Launay. I would point out that you are notonly keeping him waiting but three thousand other honest citizens."

  "Very well; he shall have it."

  Going to a table, he passed his hand over his forehead before writingwith the other a few rapid lines in ink.

  "Here is your introduction," he said, presenting it to the countryman.

  "I do not know how to read," said Billet.

  "Give it to me and I will do so," said Marat; and he saw that the passwas couched in these words:

  "GOVERNOR: We, Provost of Traders of Paris, send you M. Billet to confer on the welfare of the city.

  "14th July, 1789. FLESSELLES."

  "All right, let me have it," said Billet.

  "Oh, you think it good enough?" sneered Marat; "Wait for the provost toadd a postscript, which will improve it."

  He went over to the provost, who was leaning one closed hand on thetable and regarding with a scornful air not only the two men who werethe jaws of a vice which enclosed him, but a third, whose breeches weretorn, standing before the doorway, with a musketoon in his fist.

  This was Pitou who followed his friend and was ready to execute anyorder of his.

  "I suggest the following postscript to improve the paper," said Marat.

  "Speak."

  Marat laid the paper again on the table and pointing with his crookedfinger to the place for the addendum, he dictated:

  "Citizen Billet being under flag of truce, I confide his life to yourhonor."

  Flesselles looked at the cunning face as if he had a strongest desireto smash it with a blow than do what he was counselled.

  "Do you hesitate?" demanded the surgeon.

  "No, for at the most, you only ask what is fair," replied the other,writing as proposed.

  "Still, gentlemen, I want you to bear in mind that I do not answer forthe envoy's safety."

  "But I will," said Marat, taking the paper from his hands: "for yourliberty is here to answer for his--your head will guarantee his. Thereis your pass, my brave Billet."

  Flesselles called for his coach and said loudly:

  "I suppose, my friends, you are asking nothing more?"

  "No," replied the two together.

  "Am I to let him pass?" asked Pitou.

  "My young friend," said the gentleman, "I should like to observe thatyou are rather too insufficiently clad to stand guard at my door. Ifyou feel constrained to do it, at least sling your cartridge-box roundand stand with your back to the wall."

  "Am I to let him go?" asked Pitou again, looking at the speaker as ifhe did not relish the jest.

  "Yes," Billet said.

  "Perhaps you are wrong to let him go," said Marat as Pitou steppedaside; "he was a good hostage to hold: but in any case, be he where hemay, I can lay hands on him, never fear."

  "Labrie," said Flesselles to his valet, as he got into his carriage,"they are going to serve out the powder. If the City Hall goes up in anexplosion I should like to be well out of the reach of splinters. Tellthe coachman to whip up smartly."

  The vehicle rolled under the covered way and came out on the squarebefore some thousands of spectators. The Provost feared that hisdeparture might be misinterpreted and taken for a flight. So he leanedout of the window and said loudly:

  "Drive to the National Assembly!"

  This earned him a cheer. Up on the balcony, outside, Marat and Billetheard the order.

  "My head to his, that he is not going to the Assembly but to the King,"commented the surgeon.

  "Had he not better be stopped?" said the farmer.

  "No," replied the other with a hideous grin. "Be easy: go where he may,and however quickly, we shall travel more quickly than he. Now, let usget out that powder!"

  "Out with the powder," said Billet.

  Flesselles was right in saying there were eight thousand pounds ofgunpowder in the vaults.

  Marat and Billet walked in the first with a lantern which they hung toa beam. Pitou mounted guard at the door.

  The powder was in twenty-pound kegs; men were stationed in a line andthe kegs were passed out, hand to hand. There was a brief confusionas it was not known what was the amount and some feared they couldnot get any if they did not scramble for it. But Billet had selectedhis lieutenants on his own model, with leg-of-mutton fists, and thedistribution went on with much order.

  Each man received half a pound of powder, which would fire thirty orforty shots.

  But when everybody had powder it was discovered that guns were short.Only some five hundred men had them.

  While the powder was being dealt out, some of the unarmed went intoa council chamber where a debate was proceeding. It was about thenational guards of which the usher had mentioned a word to Billet. Itwas settled that the force should consist of forty-eight thousand men.The army existed only on paper and yet they were wrangling about whoshould have the command.

  In the midst of this dispute in rushed the weaponless men. The peoplehad formed an army of their own but th
ey wanted arms.

  At this moment was heard the arrival of a carriage: it was Flesselles',for they would not let him pass though he had shown the royal order forhim to go to Versailles: and he was brought back to the Hall by mainforce.

  "Arms, arms," they yelled at him as soon as they saw him.

  "No arms here, but there must be some at the Arsenal," he replied.

  So five thousand men ran over to the Arsenal to find it was bare. Theyreturned howling to the City Hall. The provost had no firearms orhe would not tell of them. He packed them off to the Old CarthusianMonastery, but it was empty too. Not so much as a pocket pistolrewarded them.

  Meanwhile Flesselles, learning that Marat and Billet were still busygetting out the powder, suggested sending a deputation to GovernorLaunay to induce him to draw in the cannon. He had made the populacehowl dreadfully on the evening before by running out his guns throughthe embrasures. Flesselles hoped that by having them taken in, thepeople would be satisfied and settle down.

  The deputation was starting when the arm-seekers came back enraged.

  On hearing their vociferations, Billet and Marat came up out of theunderground.

  On a lower balcony the provost was trying to quiet the multitude. Heproposed a resolution that the wards should forge fifty thousand pikes.The people were jumping at the offer.

  "Truly this fellow is playing with us," said the surgeon.

  He turned to his new friend, saying:

  "Go and get to work at the Bastile. In an hour I shall be sending youtwenty thousand muskets with a man to each butt."

  At first blush Billet had felt great confidence in this leader, whosename was so popular as to have reached him down in the country. Henever thought to ask him how he was going to get them. He noticeda priest in the crowd working lustily and though he had no greatconfidence in the cloth he liked this one to whom he confided theserving out of the amunition.

  Marat jumped upon a stone horseblock. The uproar was indescribable.

  "Silence," he called out; "I am Marat and I want to speak."

  Like magic all was hushed and every eye was turned upon the orator.

  "You want arms to take the Bastile? come with me to the Invalides whereare twenty-five thousand stand of arms, and you shall have them."

  "To the Invalides!" shouted the throngs.

  "Now," continued Marat to Billet, "you be off to the Bastile butstay--you may want help before I come."

  He wrote on a leaf of his tablets "From Marat," and tore this outto give it to Billet, who smiled to see that it also bore a masonicsign. He and Marat belonged to the Order of the Invisibles overwhich presided Balsamo-Cagliostro, and his work was what they wereprosecuting.

  "What am I to do with a paper having no name or address?" inquired thepeasant.

  "My friend has no address; but his name is well-known. Ask the firstworkingman you come across for the People's Spokesman, Gonchon."

  "Gonchon--fix that on your mind, Pitou."

  "Gonchon, or Gonchonius, in Latin," repeated Pitou; "I shall retain it."

  "To the Invalides," yelled the voices with increasing ferocity.

  "Be on your way," said Marat, "and may the spirit of Liberty march byyour side!"

  "Now, then, brothers, on to the Invalides," shouted Marat in his turn.

  He went off with more than twenty thousand men, while the farmer tookaway some six hundred in his train, but they were armed. As the twoleaders were departing, the provost appeared at a window, calling out:

  "Friends, why do I see the green cockade in your hats, when it is thecolor of Artois, though it may also be that of Hope? Don't look to besporting the colors of a prince."

  "No, no," was the chorus, with Billet's loudest of the voices.

  "Then, change it, and as if you must wear a color, take that good oldParis town, our mother, blue and red, my friends."

  (Later, General Lafayette, making the criticism that Blue and Red werethe Orleans colors also, and perhaps having the stars and stripes ofthe Republic he had fought for in his mind, suggested the addition ofwhite, saying that "The Red, White and Blue, would be a flag that wouldgo round the world.")

  With approving words, everybody tore off the leaves and trampled themunderfoot, while they called for ribbons. As if by enchantment allwindows opened, and there was a rain of red and blue ribbons. But thiswas scant supply for a thousand only. Aprons, silk dresses, tapes,scarves, all sorts of tissues were torn into strips and twisted upinto rosettes, streamers, favors and ties, with which decorations theimprovised army of Billet went its road.

  It had recruits on the line: all the side streets of the St. Antoineor working quarter sent the warmest blooded and strongest of itssons. They reached in good order Lesdigures Street, where a number offolk were staring at the Bastile towers, their red brick ruddy in thesetting sunshine. Some were calm, some saucy.

  In the instant the arrivals of reinforcements changed the multitude inaspect and mood: they were the drumcorps, a hundred French Guards whocame down the main avenue, and Billet's rough fellows upwards of twelvethousand strong. The timid grew bold, the calm were excited, and thepert were menacing.

  "Down with the cannon," howled twenty thousand throats as twice as manyfists were shaken at the brazen pieces stretching their necks over thecrenelations.

  At that very time, as though the fortress governor obeyed theinjunction, the gunners came out to the pieces and retired them untilthey were no longer visible from below. The throngs clapped hands,thinking they were a power because they had apparently been obeyed.

  The sentries continued to pace up and down the ramparts, withalternations of the Swiss and the Veterans.

  After the shout of "Down with the cannons!" that of "Draw back theSwiss!" arose, in continuation of "Down with the Germans!" of theevening before.

  But the Swiss continued all the same to march up and down to meet theFrench Invalides.

  One of the shouters was impatient, and having a gun, he fired on asentinel: the bullet struck the grey stone wall a foot above thecornice of the tower, above the soldier's head: it left a white mark,but the man did not halt--did not do much as turn his head.

  A great hubbub rose around the firer of the first shot at the Bastile:it was the signal for a mad and unheard-of attack; the tumult had moredread in it than rage; many did not understand that to fire on a royalprison was incurring the death penalty.