Ange Pitou (Volume 1)

by Alexandre Dumas

  All this is a steeple-chase affair. The question was as to who should arrive first,—the king and queen at Arnouville, or mesdames at Pontchartrain.

  The king has the power in his own hands; the chances are therefore in his favor.

  He hastens to write:—

  Set out, the very moment you receive this, for Paris; I am waiting for you.

  He slips his despatch into an envelope, and on the envelope he writes,—

  "Monsieur le Comte de Machaut, at Arnouville."

  A page of the king's stables is sent for; the royal missive is put into his hands, and he is ordered to mount a horse, and to go to Arnouville full speed.

  And now that the page is despatched, the king can receive mesdames.

  Mesdames,—the same whom the king their father, as has been seen in "Balsamo," called Loque, Chiffe, and Graille, three names eminently aristocratic,—mesdames are waiting at a door opposite to that by which the page goes out, until he shall have left the room.

  The page once gone out, mesdames may go in.

  They go in, entreat the king in favor of Monsieur Maurepas; all this is a mere question of time; the king does not like to refuse mesdames anything,—the king is so good!

  He will accede to their request when the page shall have got so far on his journey that no one can come up with him.

  He contested the point with mesdames, his eyes fixed on the time-piece. Half an hour will be sufficient for him. The time-piece will not deceive him. It is the time-piece which he himself regulates.

  Twenty minutes have elapsed, and he yields.

  "Let the page be overtaken," said he, " and all shall be as you please."

  Mesdames rush out of the room; they will despatch a man on horseback; he shall kill a horse, two horses, ten horses, but the page must be overtaken.

  All these determinations are unnecessary; not a single horse will be killed.

  In going down the staircase one of the page's spurs struck against one of the stone steps and broke short off. How could any one go at full speed with only one spur?

  Besides, the Chevalier d'Abzac is the chief of the great stable, and he would not allow a courier to mount his horse—he whose duty it was to inspect the couriers-if the courier was about to set out in a manner that would not do honor to the royal stables.

  The page therefore could not set out without having both his spurs.

  The result of all this was, that instead of overtaking the page on the road to Arnouville—galloping at full speed—he was overtaken before he had left the courtyard of the palace.

  He was already in the saddle and was about to depart in the most irreproachable good order.

  The despatch is taken from him, the text of the missive is left unchanged, for it was as good for the one as the other. Only instead of writing the address, "To Monsieur de Machaut, at Arnouville," mesdames wrote, "To Monsieur le Comte de Maurepas, at Pontchartrain."

  The honor of the royal stable is saved, but the monarchy is lost.

  With Maurepas and Calonne everything goes on marvellously: the one sings, the other pays; but besides the courtiers, there are the receivers-general, who also have their functions to perform.

  Louis XIV. began his reign by ordering two receivers-general to be hanged, with the advice of Colbert; after which he took Lavallière for his mistress and built Versailles. Lavallière cost him nothing.

  But Versailles, in which he wished to lodge her, cost him a round sum.

  Then, in 1685, under the pretext that they were Protestants, he drove a million of industrious men from France.

  And thus, in 1707, still under the great king, Boisguilbert said, speaking of 1698:—

  "Things still went on well in those days, there was yet some oil in the lamp. But now all has come to an end for want of aliment."

  What could be said eighty years afterwards, when the Dubarrys, the Polignacs, had taken their fill? After having made the people sweat water, they would make them sweat blood. That was all.

  And all this in so delightful and polite a manner.

  In former days the contractors of the public revenue were harsh, brutal, and cold, as the prison gates into which they cast their victims.

  But in these days they are philanthropists: with one hand they despoil the people, it is true; but with the other they build hospitals for them.

  One of my friends, a great financier, has assured me that out of one hundred and twenty millions, which the town dues bring in, the contractors managed to keep seventy millions for themselves.

  It happened that at a meeting where the state of expenses was demanded, a counsellor, playing upon the word, said:—

  "It is not any particular state that we require; what we want are the States-General."

  The spark fell upon gunpowder, the powder ignited and caused a general conflagration.

  Every one repeated the saying of the counsellor, and the States-General were loudly called for.

  The court fixed the opening of the States-General for the 1st of March, 1789.

  On the 24th of August, 1788, Monsieur de Brienne withdrew from public affairs. He was another who had managed the financial affairs with tolerable recklessness.

  But on withdrawing, he at least gave good counsel; he advised that Necker should be recalled.

  Necker resumed the administration of affairs, and all again breathed confidently.

  Notwithstanding this, the great question of the three orders was discussed throughout France.

  Sieyès published his famous pamphlets upon the Tiers État.1

  Dauphiny, the States of which province still met in spite of all the court could do, decided that the representation of the Tiers État should be on an equality with that of the nobility and clergy.

  The assembly of the notables was reconstructed.

  This assembly lasted thirty-two days, that is to say, from the 6th of November to the 8th of December, 1788.

  On this occasion the elements performed their part. When the whip of kings does not suffice, the whip of Providence whistles in the air and compels the people to move onward.

  Winter came, accompanied by famine. Hunger and cold opened the gates of 1789.

  Paris was filled with troops, its streets with patrols.

  Two or three times the muskets of the soldiers were loaded in the presence of the people, who were dying of hunger.

  And then the muskets being loaded, and the moment having arrived for using them, they did not use them at all.

  One morning, the 28th of April, five days before the opening of the States-General, a name was circulated among the crowd.

  This name was accompanied by maledictions, and the more vituperative because this name was that of a workman who had become rich.

  Réveillon, as was then asserted,—Réveillon, the director of the celebrated paper manufactory of the Faubourg Saint Antoine,—Réveillon had said that the wages of workmen ought to be reduced to fifteen sous a day.

  And this was true.

  It was also said that the court was about to decorate him with the black ribbon,—that is to say, with the Order of Saint Michael.

  But this was an absurdity.

  There is always some absurd rumor in popular commotions; and it is remarkable that it is also by this rumor that they increase their numbers, that they recruit, and at last become a revolution.

  The crowd makes an effigy, baptizes it with the name of Réveillon, decorates it with the black ribbon, sets fire to it before Réveillon's own door, and then proceeds to the square before the Hôtel de Ville, where it completes the burning of the effigy before the eyes of the municipal authorities, who see it burning.

  Impunity emboldens the crowd, who give notice that, after having done justice on the effigy, they will the following day do justice on the real person of the offender.

  This was a challenge in due form addressed to the public authorities.

  The authorities sent thirty of the French Guards, and even then it was not the authorities who sent
them, but their colonel, Monsieur de Biron.

  These thirty French Guards were merely witnesses of this great duel, which they could not prevent. They looked on while the mob was pillaging the manufactory, throwing the furniture out of the windows, breaking everything, burning everything. Amid all this hubbub, five hundred louis in gold were stolen.

  They drank the wine in the cellars, and when there was no more wine, they drank the dyes of the manufactory, which they took for wine.

  The whole of the day of the 27th was employed in effecting this villanous spoliation.

  A reinforcement was sent to the thirty men. It consisted of several companies of the French Guards, who in the first place fired blank cartridges, then balls. Towards evening there came to the support of the Guards part of the Swiss regiment of Monsieur de Besenval.

  The Swiss never make a jest of matters connected with revolution.

  The Swiss forgot to take the balls out of their cartridges, and as the Swiss are naturally sportsmen, and good marksmen too, about twenty of the pillagers remained upon the pavement.

  Some of them had about them a portion of the five hundred louis which we have mentioned, and which from the secretary of Réveillon had passed into the pockets of the pillagers, and from the pockets of the pillagers into those of the Swiss Guards.

  Besenval had done all this; he had done it "out of his own head," as the vulgar saying has it.

  The king did not thank him for what he had done, nor did he blame him for it.

  Now, when the king does not thank, the king blames.

  The parliament opened an inquiry.

  The king closed it.

  The king was so good!

  Who it was that had stirred on the people to do this no one could tell.

  Has it not been often seen, during the great heats of summer, that conflagrations have taken place without any apparent cause.

  The Duke of Orleans was accused of having excited this disturbance.

  The accusation was absurd, and it fell to the ground.

  On the 29th Paris was perfectly tranquil, or at least appeared to be so.

  The 4th of May arrived. The king and the queen went in procession with the whole Court to the Cathedral of Notre Dame to hear "Veni, Creator."

  There were great shouts of "Long live the king!" and above all of, "Long live the queen!"

  The queen was so good!

  This was the last day of peace. The next day the shouts of "Long live the queen!" were not so frequent, but the mob cried more frequently, "Long live the Duke of Orleans!"

  These cries wounded her feelings much, poor woman!—she who detested the duke to such a degree that she said he was a coward.

  As if there had ever been a coward in the Orleans family,—from Monsieur, who gained the battle of Cassel, down to the Duke of Chartres, who contributed to the gaining of those at Jemmapes and Valmy!

  It went so far that the poor woman was near fainting, but was supported, her head drooping on her shoulder. Madame Campan relates this incident in her memoirs.

  But this reclining head raised itself up haughty and disdainful. Those who saw the expression of those features were at once cured, and forever, of using the expression:—

  The queen is so good!

  There exist three portraits of the queen: one painted in 1776, another in 1784, and a third in 1788.

  I have seen all three of them. See them in your turn! If ever these three portraits are placed in the same gallery, the history of Marie Antoinette can be read in those three portraits.2

  The meeting of the three orders, which was to have produced a general pacification, proved a declaration of war.

  "Three orders," said Sieyès; "no, three nations."

  On the 3d of May, the eve of the Mass of the Holy Ghost, the king received the deputies at Versailles.

  Some persons counselled him to substitute cordiality for etiquette.

  The king would not listen to anything.

  He in the first place received the clergy.

  After them the nobility.

  At last the Tiers État.

  The Third had been waiting a long time.

  The Third murmured.

  In the assemblies of former times the Tiers État pronounced their discourses on their knees.

  There was no possibility of inducing the president of the Tiers État to go down on his knees.

  It was decided that the Tiers État should not pronounce an oration.

  In the sittings of the 5th the king put on his hat.

  The nobility put on their hats.

  The Tiers État were about to put on their hats also, but the king then took off his. He preferred holding it in his hand to seeing the Tiers État covered in his presence.

  On Wednesday, the 10th of June, Sieyès entered the assembly. He found it almost entirely composed of the Tiers État.

  The clergy and the nobility were assembled elsewhere.

  "Let us cut the cable," said Sieyès. "It is now time."

  And Sieyès proposed that the clergy and the nobility should be summoned to attend within an hour from that time at the latest.

  In case of non-appearance, default should be pronounced against the absent.

  A German and Swiss army surrounded Versailles. A battery of artillery was pointed against the assembly.

  Sieyès saw nothing of all this; he saw the people, who were starving; but the Third, Sieyès was told, could not, of itself, form the States-General.

  "So much the better," replied Sieyès, "it will form the National Assembly."

  The absent did not present themselves; the proposal of Sieyès was adopted; the Tiers État calls itself the National Assembly by a majority of four hundred votes.

  On the 19th of June the king orders the building in which the National Assembly held their meetings to be closed.

  But the king, in order to accomplish such a coup d'état, needed some pretext.

  The hall was closed for the purpose of making preparations for a royal sitting, which was to take place on the following Monday.

  On the 20th of June, at seven in the morning, the President of the National Assembly is informed that there will be no meeting on that day.

  At eight o'clock he presents himself at the door of the hall, with a great number of the deputies.

  The doors are closed, and sentinels are guarding the doors.

  The rain is falling.

  They wish to break open the doors.

  The sentinels had received their orders, and they present their bayonets.

  One of the deputies proposes that they should meet at the Place d'Armes.

  Another that it should be at Marly.

  Guillotin proposes the Jeu de Paume.3

  Guillotin!

  What a strange thing that it should be Guillotin, whose name, by adding an e to it, should become so celebrated four years afterwards,—how strange that it should be Guillotin who proposed the Jeu de Paume,—the Jeu de Paume, unfurnished, dilapidated, open to the four winds of heaven!

  To this great demonstration the king replies by the royal word, "Veto!"

  Monsieur de Brézé is sent to the rebels to order them to disperse.

  "We are here by the will of the people," said Mirabeau, "and we will not leave this place but with bayonets pointed at our breasts."

  And not, as it has been asserted, that he said" by the force of bayonets. "Why is it that there is always behind great men some paltry rhetorician who spoils his sayings under pretext of arranging them?

  Why was there such a rhetorician behind Mirabeau at the Jeu de Paume?

  And behind Cambronne at Waterloo?

  The reply was at once reported to the king.

  He walked about for some time with the air of a man who was suffering from ennui.

  "They will not go away" said he.

  "No, Sire."

  "Well, then, leave them where they are."

  As is here shown, royalty was already bending beneath the hand of the people, and bending v
ery low.

  From the 21st of June to the 12th of July all appeared tolerably calm; but it was that heavy and stifling calm which precedes the tempest.

  It was like the uneasy dream of an uneasy slumber.

  On the 11th the king formed a resolution, urged to it by the queen, the Count d'Artois, the Polignacs,—in fact, the whole of the Camarilla of Versailles; in short, he dismissed Necker.

  On the 12th this intelligence reached Paris.

  The effect which it produced has already been seen.

  On the evening of the 13th, Billot arrived just in time to see the barriers burning.

  On the 13th, in the evening, Paris was defending itself.

  On the 14th, in the morning, Paris was ready to attack.

  On the morning of the 14th Billot cried, "To the Bastille!" and three thousand men, imitating Billot, reiterated the same cry, which was about to become that of the whole population of Paris.

  The reason was, that there had existed during five centuries a monument weighing heavily upon the breast of France, like the infernal rock upon the shoulders of Sisyphus.

  Only that, less confiding than the Titan in his strength, France had never attempted to throw it off.

  This monument, the seal of feudality, imprinted on the forehead of Paris, was the Bastille.

  The king was too good, as Madame de Hausset had said, to have a head cut off.

  But the king sent people to the Bastille.

  When once a man became acquainted with the Bastille, by order of the king, that man was forgotten, sequestrated, interred, annihilated.

  He remained there until the king remembered him; and kings have so many new things occurring around them every day, of which they are obliged to think, that they often forget to think of old matters.

  Moreover, in France there was not only one Bastille, there were twenty other Bastilles, which were called Fort l'Evêque, Saint-Lazare, the Châtelet, the Conciergerie, Vincennes, the Castle of La Roche, the Castle of If, the Isles of St. Marguerite, Pignerolles, etc.

  Only the fortress at the gate St. Antoine was called the Bastille, as Rome was called the city.

  It was the Bastille, par excellence. It was of more importance than all the others.