Ange Pitou (Volume 1)

by Alexandre Dumas

  "The Rue Royale still remains open to us. Come this way; come, Pitou."

  Pitou followed the farmer as if he had been his shadow. But a line of soldiers was drawn across the street, near the St. Honoré gate.

  "Ah, ah!" muttered Billot; "you may be in the right, friend Pitou."

  "Hum!" was Pitou's sole reply.

  But this word expressed, by the tone in which it had been pronounced, all the regret which Pitou felt at not having been mistaken.

  The crowd, by its agitation and its clamors, proved that it was not less sensible than Pitou of the position in which it was then placed.

  And, in fact, by a skilful manoeuvre, the Prince de Lambesq had surrounded not only the rebels, but also those who had been drawn there from mere curiosity, and by preventing all egress by the Bridge Louis XV., the quays, the Champs Élysées, the Rue Royale, and Les Feuillants, he had enclosed them in a bow of iron, the string of which was represented by the walls of the Tuileries Gardens, which it would be very difficult to escalade, and the iron gate of the Pont Tournant, which it was almost impossible to force.

  Billot reflected on their position; it certainly was not a favorable one; however, as he was a man of calm, cool mind, full of resources when in danger, he cast his eyes around him, and perceiving a pile of timber lying beside the river,—

  "I have an idea," said he to Pitou: "come this way."

  Pitou followed him, without asking him what the idea was.

  Billot advanced towards the timber, and seizing the end of a large block, said to Pitou, " Help me to carry this."

  Pitou, for his part, without questioning him as to his intentions, caught hold of the other end of the piece of timber. He had such implicit confidence in the farmer, that he would have gone down to the infernal regions with him, without even making any observation as to the length of the descent or the depth of the abyss.

  They were soon upon the quay again, bearing a load which five or six men of ordinary strength would have found difficult to raise.

  Strength is always a subject of admiration to the mob, and although so compactly huddled together, they made way for Billot and Pitou.

  Then, as they felt convinced that the manœuvre which was being accomplished was one of general interest, some men walked before Billot, crying, "Make way! make way!"

  "Tell me now, Father Billot," inquired Pitou, after having carried the timber some thirty yards, "are we going far?"

  "As far as the gate of the Tuileries."

  "Ho! ho!" cried the crowd, who at once divined his intention.

  And it made way for them more eagerly even than before.

  Pitou looked about him, and saw that the gate was not more than thirty paces distant.

  "I can reach it," said he, with the brevity of a Pythagorean.

  The labor was so much the easier to Pitou from five or six of the strongest of the crowd taking their share in the burden.

  The result of this was a very notable acceleration in their progress.

  In five minutes they had reached the iron gate.

  "Come, now," cried Billot, "clap your shoulders to it, and all push together."

  "Good!" said Pitou. "I understand it now. We have just made a warlike engine; the Romans used to call it a ram."

  "Now, my boys," cried Billot, "once, twice, thrice!" And the joist, directed with a furious impetus, struck the lock of the gate with resounding violence.

  The soldiers who were on guard in the interior of the garden hastened to resist this invasion. But at the third stroke the gate gave way, turning violently on its hinges, and through that gaping and gloomy mouth the crowd rushed impetuously.

  From the movement that was then made, the Prince de Lambesq perceived at once that an opening had been effected which allowed the escape of those whom he had considered as his prisoners. He was furious with disappointment. He urged his horse forward in order the better to judge of the position of affairs. The dragoons who were drawn up behind him imagined that the order had been given to charge, and they followed him. The horses, going off at full speed, could not be suddenly pulled up. The men, who wished to be revenged for the check they had received on the square before the Palais Royal, scarcely endeavored to restrain them.

  The prince saw that it would be impossible to moderate their advance, and allowed himself to be borne away by it. A sudden shriek uttered by the women and children ascended to heaven crying for vengeance against the brutal soldiers.

  A frightful scene then occurred, rendered still more terrific by the darkness. Those who were charged upon became mad with pain; those who charged them were mad with anger.

  Then a species of defence was organized from the top of a terrace. Chairs were hurled down on the dragoons. The Prince de Lambesq, who had been struck on the head, replied by giving a sabre—cut to the person nearest to him, without considering that he was punishing an innocent man instead of a guilty one, and an old man more than seventy years of age fell beneath his sword.

  Billot saw this man fall, and uttered a loud cry. In a moment his carbine was at his shoulder. A furrow of light for a moment illuminated the darkness, and the prince had then died, had not his horse, by chance, reared at the same instant.

  The horse received the ball in his neck, and fell.

  It was thought that the prince was killed; the dragoons then rushed into the Tuileries, pursuing the fugitives, and firing their pistols at them.

  But the fugitives, having now a greater space, dispersed among the trees.

  Billot quietly reloaded his carbine.

  "In good faith, Pitou," said he, "I think that you were right. We really have arrived in the nick of time."

  "If I should become a bold, daring fellow!" said Pitou, discharging his musketoon at the thickest group of the dragoons. "It seems to me not so difficult as I had thought."

  "Yes," replied Billot; "but useless courage is not real courage. Come this way, Pitou, and take care that your sword does not get between your legs."

  "Wait a moment for me, dear Monsieur Billot; if I should lose you I should not know which way to go. I do not know Paris as you do: I was never here before."

  "Come along, come along," said Billot; and he went by the terrace by the water—side, until he had got ahead of the line of troops, which were advancing along the quay; but this time as rapidly as they could, to give their aid to the Lambesq dragoons, should such aid be necessary.

  When they reached the end of the terrace, Billot seated himself on the parapet and jumped on to the quay.

  Pitou followed his example.

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  Chapter XII

  What occurred during the Night of the 12th July, 1789

  ONCE upon the quay, the two countrymen saw glittering on the bridge near the Tuileries the arms of another body of men, which in all probability was not a body of friends; they silently glided to the end of the quay and descended the bank which leads along the Seine.

  The clock of the Tuileries was just then striking eleven.

  When they had got beneath the trees which line the banks of the river, fine aspen-trees and poplars, which bathe their feet in its current; when they were lost to the sight of their pursuers, hid by their friendly foliage, the farmer and Pitou threw themselves upon the grass and opened a council of war.

  The question was to know,—and this was suggested by the farmer,—whether they should remain where they were, that is to say, in safety, or comparatively so, or whether they should again throw themselves into the tumult and take their share of the struggle which was going on, and which appeared likely to be continued the greater part of the night.

  The question being mooted, Billot awaited the reply of Pitou.

  Pitou had risen very greatly in the opinion of the farmer,—in the first place, by the knowledge which he had shown the day before, and afterwards by the courage of which he had given such proofs during the evening.

  Pitou instinctively felt this, but instead of being prouder for it, he was only
the more grateful towards the good farmer. Pitou was naturally very humble.

  "Monsieur Billot," said he, "it is evident that you are more brave and I less a poltroon than I imagined. Horace, who, however, was a very different man from us, with regard to poetry, at least, threw away his arms and ran off at the very first blow. As to me, I have still my musketoon, my cartridge-box, and my sabre, which proves that I am braver than Horace."

  "Well, what are you driving at?"

  "What I mean is this, dear Monsieur Billot,—that the bravest man in the world may be killed by a ball."

  "And what then?" inquired the farmer.

  "And then, my dear sir, thus it is: as you stated, on leaving your farm, that you were going to Paris for an important object—"

  "Oh, confound it, that is true, for the casket!"

  "Well, then, did you come about this casket,—yes, or no?"

  "I came about the casket, by a thousand thunders! and for nothing else."

  "If you should allow yourself to be killed by a ball, the affair for which you came cannot be accomplished."

  "In truth, you are ten times right, Pitou."

  "Do you hear that crashing noise—those cries?" continued Pitou, encouraged by the farmer's approbation; "wood is being torn like paper, iron is twisted as if it were but hemp."

  "It is because the people are angry, Pitou."

  "But it appears to me." Pitou ventured to say, "that the king is tolerably angry too."

  "How say you,—the king?"

  "Undoubtedly; the Austrians, the Germans, the Kaiserliks, as you call them, are the king's soldiers. Well, if they charge the people, it is the king who orders them to charge, and for him to give such an order, he must be angry too."

  "You are both right and wrong, Pitou."

  "That does not appear possible to me, Monsieur Billot, and I dare not say to you that had you studied logic, you would not venture on such a paradox."

  "You are right and you are wrong, Pitou and I will presently make you comprehend how this can be."

  "I do not ask anything better, but I doubt it."

  "See you now, Pitou, there are two parties at court,—that of the king, who loves the people, and that of the queen, who loves the Austrians?"

  "That is because the king is a Frenchman, and the queen an Austrian," philosophically replied Pitou.

  "Wait a moment. On the king's side are Monsieur Turgot and Monsieur Necker, on the queen's, Monsieur de Breteuil and the Polignacs. The king is not the master, since he has been obliged to send away Monsieur Turgot and Monsieur Necker. It is therefore the queen who is the mistress, the Breteuils and the Polignacs: therefore all goes badly.

  "Do you see, Pitou, the evil proceeds from Madame Deficit, and Madame Deficit is in a rage, and it is in her name that the troops charge; the Austrians defend the Austrian woman, that is natural enough."

  "Your pardon, Monsieur Billot," said Pitou, interrupting him, "but deficit is a Latin word, which means to say a want of something. What is it that is wanting?"

  "Zounds! why, money, to be sure; and it is because money is wanting, it is because the queen's favorites have devoured this money which is wanting, that the queen is called Madame Deficit. It is not therefore the king who is angry, but the queen. The king is only vexed,—vexed that everything goes so badly."

  "I comprehend," said Pitou; but the casket?"

  "That is true, that is true, Pitou; these devilish politics always drag me on farther than I would go—yes, the casket, before everything. You are right, Pitou; when I shall have seen Doctor Gilbert, why, then, we can return to politics—it is a sacred duty."

  "There is nothing more sacred than sacred duties," said Pitou.

  "Well, then, let us go to the College Louis-le-Grand, where Sebastien Gilbert now is," said Billot.

  "Let us go," said Pitou, sighing; for he would be compelled to leave a bed of moss-like grass, to which he had accustomed himself. Besides which, notwithstanding the over-excitement of the evening, sleep, the assiduous host of pure consciences and tired limbs, had descended with all its poppies to welcome the virtuous and heartily tired Pitou.

  Billot was already on his feet, and Pitou was about to rise, when the half-hour struck.

  "But," said Billot, "at half-past eleven o'clock the college of Louis-le-Grand must, it would appear to me, be closed."

  "Oh, most assuredly," said Pitou.

  "And then, in the dark," continued Billot, "we might fall into some ambuscade; it seems to me that I see the fires of a bivouac in the direction of the Palace of Justice. I may be arrested, or I may be killed; you are right, Pitou, I must not be arrested,—I must not be killed."

  It was the third time since morning that Pitou's ears had been saluted with those words so flattering to human pride,—

  "You are right."

  Pitou thought he could not do better than to repeat the words of Billot.

  "You are right," he repeated, lying down again upon the grass; "you must not allow yourself to be killed, dear Monsieur Billot."

  And the conclusion of this phrase died away in Pitou's throat. Vox faucibus hæsit, he might have added, had he been awake; but he was fast asleep.

  Billot did not perceive it.

  "All idea," said he.

  "Ah!" snored Pitou.

  "Listen to me; I have an idea. Notwithstanding all the precautions I am taking, I may be killed. I may be cut down by a sabre or killed from a distance by a ball,—killed suddenly upon the spot; if that should happen, you ought to know what you will have to say to Doctor Gilbert in my stead: but you must be mute, Pitou."

  Pitou heard not a word of this, and consequently made no reply.

  "Should I be wounded mortally, and not be able to fulfil my mission, you will, in my place, seek out Doctor Gilbert, and you will say to him—do you understand me, Pitou?" added the farmer, stooping towards his companion, "and you will say to him—why, confound him, he is positively snoring, the sad fellow!"

  All the excitement of Billot was at once damped on ascertaining that Pitou was asleep.

  "Well, let us sleep, then," said he; and he laid himself down by Pitou's side, without grumbling very seriously. For, however accustomed to fatigue, the ride of the previous day and the events of the evening did not fail to have a soporific effect on the good farmer.

  And the day broke about three hours after they had gone to sleep, or rather, we should say, after their senses were benumbed.

  When they again opened their eyes, Paris had lost nothing of that savage countenance which they had observed the night before. Only there were no soldiers to be seen; the people were everywhere.

  The people armed themselves with pikes hastily manufactured, with muskets which the majority of them knew not how to handle, with magnificent weapons made centuries before, and of which the bearers admired the ornaments, some being inlaid with gold or ivory or mother-of-pearl, without comprehending the use or the mechanism of them.

  Immediately after the retreat of the soldiers the populace had pillaged the palace called the Garde-Meuble.

  And the people dragged towards the Hôtel de Ville two small pieces of artillery.

  The alarm-bell was rung from the towers of Notre Dame, at the Hôtel de Ville, and in all the parish churches. There were seen issuing,—from where no one could tell,—but as from beneath the pavement, legions of men and women, squalid, emaciated, in filthy rags, half naked, who but the evening before cried, "Give us bread!" but now vociferated, "Give us arms!"

  Nothing could be more terrifying than these bands of spectres, who, during the last three months had poured into the capital from the country, passing through the city gates silently, and installing themselves in Paris, where famine reigned, like Arabian ghouls in a cemetery.

  On that day the whole of France, represented in Paris by the starving people from each province, cried to its king, "Give us liberty!" and to its God, "Give us food!"

  Billot, who was first to awake, roused up Pitou, and they both set off to t
he College Louis-le-Grand; looking around them, shuddering and terrified at the miserable creatures they saw on every side.

  By degrees, as they advanced towards that part of the town which we now call the Latin Quarter, as they ascended the Rue de la Harpe, as they approached their destination, the Rue Saint Jacques, they saw, as during the times of La Fronde, barricades being raised in every street. Women and children were carrying to the tops of the houses ponderous folio volumes, heavy pieces of furniture, and precious marble ornaments, destined to crush the foreign soldiers in case of their venturing into the narrow and tortuous streets of old Paris.

  From time to time Billot observed one or two of the French Guards forming the centre of some meeting which they were organizing, and which, with marvellous rapidity, they were teaching the handling of a musket,-exercises which women and children were curiously observing, and almost with a desire of learning them themselves.

  Billot and Pitou found the College of Louis-le-Grand in flagrant insurrection; the pupils had risen against their teachers, and had driven them from the building. At the moment when the farmer and his companion reached the grated gate, the scholars were attacking this gate, uttering loud threats, to which the affrighted principal replied with tears.

  The farmer for a moment gazed on this intestine revolt, when suddenly, in a stentorian voice, he cried out:—

  "Which of you here is called Sebastien Gilbert?"

  "'Tis I," replied a young lad, about fifteen years of age, of almost feminine beauty, and who, with the assistance of four or five of his comrades, was carrying a ladder wherewith to escalade the walls, seeing that they could not force open the gate.

  "Come nearer to me, my child."

  "What is it that you want with me?" said young Sebastien to Billot.

  "Do you wish to take him away?" cried the principal, terrified at the aspect of two armed men, one of whom—the one who had spoken to young Gilbert—was covered with blood.

  The boy, on his side, looked with astonishment at these two men, and was endeavoring, but uselessly, to recognize his foster-brother, Pitou, who had grown so immeasurably tall since he last saw him, and who was altogether metamorphosed by the warlike accoutrements he had put on.