Taking the Bastile; Or, Pitou the Peasant
Page 14
CHAPTER XIII.
DOWN IN THE DUNGEONS.
While the multitude poured, roaring with delight and anger at the sametime, into the yards of the prison, two men were floundering in theditch: Billet and Pitou. The latter was keeping up the other whom nobullet or blow had struck, but the fall had a trifle stunned him. Ropeswere thrown to them and poles thrust down.
In five minutes they were rescued, and were hugged and carried intriumph, muddy though they were.
One gave Billet a drink of brandy, another crammed the younger peasantwith bread and sausage. A third dried them off and led them into thesunshine.
Suddenly an idea or rather a memory crossed the good farmer's mind: hetore 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 hisleader.
Only thinking of the jailers, the mob now shuddered on remembering thecaptives. The cries were reiterated. A fresh flood of assailants burstany remaining barriers and seemed to enlarge the flanks of the prisonto expand it with liberty.
A frightful scene was presented to Billet and his friend. The mobcrowded into the court, enraged, drunken and furious. The first soldierfalling under hand was torn to pieces.
Gonchon looked on quietly, no doubt thinking that popular wrath islike a great river, doing more mischief if one tries to dam it than ifletting it make its course. On the contrary, Elie and Hullin leapedin 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 plankhad 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 hadtime to put on overalls and smockfrocks of dull linen, and they passedoff 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 belcheddeath on them. They laid hands on the stones and endeavored to dislodgethem.
When the first of the conquerors were seen on the battlements, allwithout, 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 inimicalcastes, for all Parisians understood that they were brothers and allmen that they were free.
A million of men mutually embraced.
Billet and Pitou wanted no part in the rejoicing, they sought theliberation of the prisoners.
Traversing Government yard, they passed near a man in grey clothes,calmly leaning on a gold-headed cane: it was the governor, quietlywaiting for his friends to save him or his foes to lay him low.
Billet recognized him at sight, and uttered an outcry. He walkedstraight up to him. Launay knew him again, also; but folded his armsand 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 thenhe will be killed."
Yet how would he find Dr. Gilbert in this chaos? how wrest from theBastile the grim secret enshrouded in its womb? Launay understood allthis heroic hesitation and scruple.
"What do you want?" asked he, in an undertone.
"Nothing," rejoined Billet, pointing out that the doorways are doorlessall 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 worldbut 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 menathirst for vengeance, started and turned their flaring eyes on Launayat 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 hislife for surrendering."
This was not true, but the sublime falsehood rushed from both ofthe 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 fourcenturies threaded solely by the warden and his turnkeys, become thestrolling ground of any tatterdemalion: the crowd roamed over thegarden, up and down the stairs, buzzing like a swarm of bees, andfilling 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. Billetsighed and looking round him and seeing Pitou, said as he dartedtowards a tower:
"The Third Bertaudiere."
A trembling jailer was in the way.
"Here you are, captain," he answered: "but I have not the keys, theywere 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 thewarder. 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 thevigorous yeoman. In a short time one could peep into the room. Billetlooked in at the cleft. In the beam of light from a grated window inthe yard a man was visible in the cell, standing a little back, holdingone of his bedslates, he was in the attitude of defense, ready to knockdown 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 forciblythat the hinges and lock-bolt seemed likely to shoot out of thepockets. One of the split panels, shattered by Billet, fell clean outand was left in the prisoner's hands.
"Wait, wait," said the rescuer, seeing that such another exertion wouldexhaust 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 thebroken beam again with which he had tried like a Samson to shake theBastile down.
"Billet," he kept on saying.
"And me with him, doctor, poor Pitou, whom you must remember fromhaving placed me for board and lodging at Aunt Angelique's--I camealong 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 inserteda crowbar between the wall and the door-jamb, another got a purchaseon the lock with the
lever, and others put their shoulders to thewoodwork; the oak gave a last crack, and the stones scaled off, so thatby the removed door and the crumbling stone, the torrent plunged withinthe prison.
Gilbert was soon in the arms of his friends.
Gilbert, who was a little peasant boy on the Taverney estate, wherehe conceived an undying and life-long passion for his master'sdaughter 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 hadaccomplished the love-design of his existence in giving Andrea thetitle of mother to little Sebastian Gilbert, would not recognize himhe left bathed in blood. Pale without sickliness, with black hair andsteady though animated eyes, one could tell that he, like his teacherBalsamo-Cagliostro, was endowed with the power of magnetism. As hecould now mesmerize Andrea, he could mentally master most men.
When his gaze was idle, it did not wander in vacancy but retired intohis meditations and became the gloomier and deeper.
His nose was straight, coming down from the brow in a direct line: itsurmounted a disdainful lip, showing the dazzling enamel of his teeth.
Commonly he was clad with Quaker-like simplicity; but it approachedelegance from its extreme primness. His stature, above the middleheight, was well formed; and we have seen how strong he could be whenhe roused all his nervous force.
Although a week in jail, he had taken the usual care of himself. Thoughhis beard had grown long, it was combed out and set off his clear skin,indicating by its length, not his neglect but the refusal of a razor ora shave.
After thanking Billet and Pitou, he turned to the crowd in the cell. Asif he recovered all his command in a twinkling, he said:
"Then the long looked-for day has come! I thank you, all my friends,and I thank the Eternal Spirit which watches over the liberty ofpeoples."
He held out his hands, but they shrank from touching them, so lofty washis glance, and his voice so dignified as of a superior man.
Leaving the dungeon, he walked out before them all, leaning on thefarmer and the country boy.
After Gilbert's first impulse of gratitude and friendship, a second hadestablished the first distance between him and the subordinates.
At the door, Gilbert stopped, dazzled by the sunshine.
He stopped, folded his arms, and said as he gazed upwards:
"Hail, beautiful Liberty! I saw you spring into life in the New World,and we are old friends and battlefield comrades. Hail!"
The smile he wore showed that the cheers of a free people were not anovelty to him.
"Billet," he said, after collecting his thoughts, "Have the peopleovercome despotism?"
"They have."
"And you came to liberate me? how did you know of my arrest?"
"Your son told me this morning."
"Poor Emile-Sebastian! have you seen him? is he at peace in the school?"
"I left him being carried to the sick ward as he had a fit. He was wildbecause we would not let him have a share in the fighting to get youout."
The physician smiled, for the boy was his hope, and had borne himselfas he hoped.
"I said that as you were in the Bastile we would have to take theBastile," went on the farmer, "and now we have taken it. But that isnot all: the casket is stolen which you entrusted to me."
"Stolen by whom?"
"By men wearing black, who broke into the house under guise of seizingthe pamphlet which you sent me; locking me up in a room, they searchedthe whole house and found the casket."
"Yesterday? then there is a coincidence between my arrest and thispurloining. The same person caused this arrest and abstraction. I mustknow whom. Where are the books of the jail?" demanded the doctor,turning round to the jailer who kept close.
"In Government yard," replied he. "Oh, master, let me go with you orsay a good word to these gentlemen who will otherwise knock me about."
"Just so," replied Gilbert; "Friends, I want you not to do any harm tothis poor fellow who only did his duty in opening doors and lockingthem; he was always gentle with the prisoners."
"Good," cried the voices all round, as they surrounded him in respectmingled with curiosity; "he need not be scared, but can come along."
"Thank you, sir," said the jailer; "but we had better make haste, forthey are burning the papers."
"Then there is not an instant to be lost," cried the physician. "To theArchives."
He darted off towards the office, drawing the mob with him, at the headof which still marched Billet and Pitou.