Ange Pitou (Volume 1)

by Alexandre Dumas

"Go on, I tell you. A man may be a good patriot, and yet not be able to read or write."

  "That is true," replied Pitou. "Well, suddenly a man came in, completely out of breath. 'Victory!' cried he. 'Victory! Foulon was not dead! Foulon is still alive! I have found him! I have found him!'

  "Everybody there was like you, Father Billot. No one would believe him. Some said, 'How! Foulon?' 'Yes.' Others said, 'Pshaw! impossible!' And others said, 'Well, while you were at it, you might as well have discovered his son-in-law, Berthier.'"

  "Berthier!" cried Billot.

  "Yes, Berthier de Savigny. Don't you recollect our intendant at Compiègne, the friend of Monsieur Isidore de Charny?"

  "Undoubtedly! he who was always so proud with everybody, and so polite with Catherine?"

  "Precisely," said Pitou; "one of those horrible contractors,—a second leech to the French people; the execration of all human nature; the shame of the civilized world, as said the virtuous Loustalot."

  "Well, go on! go on!" cried Billot.

  "That is true," said Pitou; "ad eventum festina,—which means to say, Monsieur Billot, 'Hasten to the winding up.' I shall proceed, then. A man, out of breath, comes running to the club of the Virtues, and shouts: 'I have found Foulon. I have found him.'

  "You should have heard the vociferations that followed."

  "He was mistaken," said Billot, obstinately.

  "He was not, for I have seen Foulon."

  "You have seen him, Pitou?"

  "With these two eyes. Wait a moment."

  "I am waiting; but you make my blood boil."

  "Ah, but listen. I am hot enough too. I tell you that he had given it out that he was dead, and had one of his servants buried in his place. Fortunately, Providence was watching."

  "Providence, indeed!" disdainfully exclaimed the Voltairean Billot.

  "I intended to say the nation," rejoined Pitou, with humility. "This good citizen, this patriot, out of breath, who announced the news to us, recognized him at Viry, where he had concealed himself."

  "Ah! ah!"

  "Having recognized him, he denounced him, and the syndic, whose name is Monsieur Rappe, instantly arrested him."

  " And what is the name of the brave patriot who had the courage to do all this?"

  "Of informing against Foulon?"

  "Yes."

  Well, his name is Monsieur Saint-Jean."

  "Saint-Jean! Why, that is a lackey's name."

  "And he was precisely the lackey of the villain Foulon. Aristocrat, you are rightly served. Why had you lackeys?"

  "Pitou, you interest me," said Billot, going close to the narrator.

  "You are very kind, Monsieur Billot. Well, then, here is Foulon denounced and arrested; they are bringing him to Paris. The informer had run on ahead to announce the news, and receive the reward for his denunciation; and sure enough, in a few moments afterwards Foulon arrived at the barrier."

  "And it was there that you saw him?"

  "Yes. He had a very queer look, I can tell you. They had twisted a bunch of stinging-nettles round his neck, by way of cravat."

  "What say you? stinging-nettles? And what was that for?"

  "Because it appears that he had said—rascal as he is!—that bread was for men, oats for horses, but that nettles were good enough for the people."

  "Did he say that, the wretch?"

  "Yes! by Heaven! he said so, Monsieur Billot."

  "Good! there, now, you are swearing."

  "Bah!" cried Pitou, with a swaggering air, "between military men! Well, they brought him along on foot, and the whole of the way they were giving him smashing blows on his back and head."

  "Oh! oh!" cried Billot, somewhat less enthusiastic.

  "It was very amusing," continued Pitou, "only that everybody could not get at him to give him a blow, seeing that there were ten thousand persons hooting after him."

  "And after this?" asked Billot, who began to reflect.

  "After that they took him to the president of the St. Marcel district,—a good patriot, you know."

  "Yes, Monsieur Acloque."

  "Cloque,—yes, that is it; who ordered him to be taken to the Hôtel de Ville, seeing that he did not know what to do with him; so that you will presently see him."

  "But how happens it that it is you who have come to announce this, and not the famous Saint-Jean?"

  "Why, because my legs are six inches longer than his. He had set off before me, but I soon came up with, and passed him. I wanted to inform you first, that you might inform Monsieur Bailly of it."

  "What luck you have, Pitou!"

  "I shall have much more than this to-morrow."

  "And how can you tell that?"

  "Because this same Saint-Jean, who denounced Monsieur Foulon, proposed a plan to catch Monsieur Berthier, who has run away."

  "He knows, then, where he is?"

  "Yes; it appears that he was their confidential man,—this good Monsieur Saint-Jean,—and that he received a great deal of money from Foulon and his son-in-law, who wished to bribe him."

  "And he took the money?"

  "Certainly, the money of an aristocrat is always good to take; but he said: 'A good patriot will not betray his nation for money.'"

  "Yes," murmured Billot, "he betrays his masters,—that is all. Do you know, Pitou, that your Monsieur Saint-Jean appears to me to be a worthless vagabond?"

  "That is possible, but it matters not; they will take Monsieur Berthier, as they have taken Master Foulon, and they will hang them nose to nose. What horrid wry faces they will make, looking at each other,—hey?"

  "And why should they be hanged?"

  "Why, because they are vile rascals, and I detest them."

  "What! Monsieur Berthier, who has been at the farm,—Monsieur Berthier, who, during his tours into the Île-de-France, has drunk our milk, and eaten of our bread, and sent gold buckles to Catherine from Paris? Oh, no, no! they shall not hang him."

  "Bah!" repeated Pitou, ferociously, "he is an aristocrat,—a wheedling rascal!"

  Billot looked at Pitou with stupefaction. Beneath the gaze of the farmer, Pitou blushed to the very whites of his eyes.

  Suddenly the worthy cultivator perceived Monsieur Bailly, who was going from the hall into his own cabinet; he rushed after him to inform him of the news.

  But it was now for Billot in his turn to be treated with incredulity.

  "Foulon! Foulon!" cried the mayor, "what folly!"

  "Well, Monsieur Bailly, all I can say is, here is Pitou, who saw him."

  "I saw him, Monsieur Mayor," said Pitou, placing his hand on his heart, and bowing.

  And he related to Monsieur Bailly all he had before related to Billot.

  They observed that poor Bailly turned very pale; he at once understood the extent of the catastrophe.

  "And Monsieur Acloque sends him here?" murmured he.

  "Yes, Monsieur Mayor."

  "But how is he sending him?"

  "Oh, there is no occasion to be uneasy," said Pitou, who misunderstood the anxiety of Bailly; "there are plenty of people to guard the prisoner. He will not be carried off."

  "Would to God he might be carried off!" murmured Bailly.

  Then turning to Pitou:—

  "Plenty of people,—what mean you by that, my friend?"

  "I mean plenty of people."

  "People!"

  "More than twenty thousand men, without counting the women," said Pitou, triumphantly.

  "Unhappy man!" exclaimed Bailly. "Gentlemen, gentlemen electors!"

  And he related to the electors all he had just heard.

  While he was speaking, exclamations and cries of anguish burst forth from all present.

  The silence of terror pervaded the hall, during which a confused, distant, indescribable noise assailed the ears of those assembled, like that produced by the rushing of blood to the head in attacks upon the brain.

  "What is that?" inquired an elector.

  "Why, the noise of the crowd, to be sure," re
plied another.

  Suddenly a carriage was heard rolling rapidly across the square; it contained two armed men, who helped a third to alight from it, who was pale and trembling.

  Foulon had at length become so exhausted by the ill usage he had experienced that he could no longer walk; and he had been lifted into a coach.

  Behind the carriage, led on by Saint-Jean, who was more out of breath than ever, ran about a hundred young men, from sixteen to eighteen years of age, with haggard countenances and flaming eyes.

  They cried, "Foulon! Foulon!" running almost as fast as the horses.

  The two armed men were, however, some few steps in advance of them, which gave them the time to push Foulon into the Hôtel de Ville; and its doors were closed against the hoarse barkers from without.

  "At last we have him here," said his guards to the electors, who were waiting at the top of the stairs. "By Heaven! it was not without trouble!"

  "Gentlemen! gentlemen" cried Foulon, trembling, "will you save me?"

  "Ah, sir," replied Bailly, with a sigh, "you have been very culpable."

  "And yet, sir," said Foulon, entreatingly, his agitation increasing, "there will, I hope, be justice to defend me."

  At this moment the exterior tumult was redoubled.

  "Hide him quickly!" cried Bailly to those around him, "or—"

  He turned to Foulon.

  "Listen to me," said he; "the situation is serious enough for you to be consulted. Will you—perhaps it is not yet too late—will you endeavor to escape from the back part of the Hôtel de Ville?"

  "Oh, no," exclaimed Foulon; "I should be recognized—massacred!"

  "Do you prefer to remain here in the midst of us? I will do, and these gentlemen will do, all that is humanly possible to defend you; will you not, gentlemen?"

  "We promise it," cried all the electors, with one voice.

  "Oh, I prefer remaining with you, gentlemen. Gentlemen, do not abandon me!"

  "I have told you, sir," replied Bailly, with dignity, "that we will do all that may be humanly possible to save you."

  At that moment a frightful clamor arose from the square, ascended into the air, and invaded the Hôtel de Ville through the open windows.

  "Do you hear? Do you hear?" murmured Foulon, perfectly livid with terror.

  In fact, the mob had rushed, howling and frightful to behold, from all the streets leading to the Hôtel de Ville, and above all from the Quay Pelletier, and the Rue de la Vannerie.

  Bailly went to a window.

  Knives, pikes, scythes, and muskets glistened in the sunshine. In less than ten minutes the vast square was filled with people. It was the whole of Foulon's train, of which Pitou had spoken, and which had been increased by curious idlers, who, hearing a great noise, had run to the Place de Grève as towards a common centre.

  All these voices, and there were more than twenty thousand, cried incessantly: "Foulon! Foulon!"

  Then it was seen that the hundred young men who had been the precursors of this furious mob, pointed out to this howling mass the gate by which Foulon had entered the building; this gate was instantly threatened, and they began to beat it down with the butt-ends of their muskets, and with crowbars.

  Suddenly it flew open.

  The guards of the Hôtel de Ville appeared, and advanced upon the assailants, who, in their first terror, retreated, and left a large open space in the front of the building.

  This guard stationed itself upon the front steps, and presented a bold front to the crowd.

  The officers, moreover, instead of threatening, harangued the crowd in friendly terms, and endeavored to calm it by their protestations.

  Bailly had become quite confused. It was the first time that the poor astronomer had found himself in opposition to the popular tempest.

  "What is to be done?" demanded he of the electors,—"what is to be done?"

  "We must try him."

  "No trial can take place when under the intimidation of the mob," said Bailly.

  "Zounds!" exclaimed Billot, "have you not, then, men enough to defend you?"

  "We have not two hundred men."

  "You must have a reinforcement, then."

  "Oh, if Monsieur de Lafayette were but informed of this!"

  "Well, send and inform him of it."

  "And who would venture to attempt it? Who could make his way through such a multitude?"

  "I would," replied Billot.

  And he was about to leave the hall.

  Bailly stopped him.

  "Madman!" cried he; "look at that ocean! You would be swallowed up even by one of its waves. If you wish to get to Monsieur de Lafayette,—and even then I would not answer for your safety,—go out by one of the back doors. Go!"

  "'Tis well!" tranquilly replied Billot.

  And he darted out of the room with the swiftness of an arrow.

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  Chapter XI

  The Father-in-Law

  THE clamor, which kept on constantly increasing from the square, clearly proved that the exasperation of the mob was becoming greater. It was no longer hatred that they felt; it was abhorrence. They no longer merely threatened; they foamed.

  The cries of "Down with Foulon! Death to Foulon!" crossed each other in the air, like projectiles in a bombardment. The crowd, which was still augmenting, pressed nearer to the entrance of the Hôtel de Ville, till they, as it may be said, almost suffocated the civic guards at their posts.

  And already there began to circulate among the crowd, and to increase in volume, those rumors which are the precursors of violence.

  These rumors no longer threatened Foulon only, but the electors who protected him.

  "They have let the prisoner escape!" said some.

  "Let us go in! let us go in!" said others.

  "Let us set fire to the Hôtel de Ville!"

  "Forward! forward!"

  Bailly felt that as Monsieur de Lafayette did not arrive, there was only one resource left to them.

  And this was that the electors should themselves go down, mix in with the groups, and endeavor to pacify the most furious among them.

  "Foulon! Foulon!"

  Such was the incessant cry, the constant roaring of those furious waves.

  A general assault was preparing; the walls could not have resisted it.

  "Sir," said Bailly to Foulon, "if you do not show yourself to the crowd, they will naturally believe that we have allowed you to escape. Then they will force the door, and will come in here; and when once here, should they find you, I can no longer be responsible for anything."

  "Oh, I did not know that I was so much execrated!" exclaimed Foulon.

  And supported by Bailly, he dragged himself to the window.

  A fearful cry resounded immediately on his presenting himself. The guards were driven back; the doors broken in; a torrent of men precipitated themselves up the staircase into the corridors, into the rooms, which were invaded in an instant.

  Bailly threw around the prisoner all the guards who were within call, and then he began to harangue the crowd.

  He wished to make these men understand that to assassinate might sometimes be doing justice, but that it was never an act of justice.

  He succeeded, after having made the most strenuous efforts, after having twenty times perilled his own existence.

  "Yes, yes," cried the assailants, "let him be tried! let him be tried! but let him be hanged!"

  They were at this point in the argument when General de Lafayette reached the Hôtel de Ville, conducted there by Billot.

  The sight of his tricolored plume—one of the first which had been worn—at once assuaged their anger, and the tumult ceased.

  The commander-in-chief of the National Guard had the way cleared for him, and addressing the crowd, repeated, though in more energetic terms, every argument that Bailly had endeavored to enforce.

  His speech produced a great effect on all those who were near enough to hear it, and the cause of Foulon was c
ompletely gained in the electors' hall.

  But on the square were twenty thousand furious people who had not heard Monsieur de Lafayette, and who remained implacable in their frenzy.

  "Come, now," said Lafayette, at the conclusion of his oration, very naturally imagining that the effect he had produced on those who surrounded him had extended to all outside,—"come, now, this man must be tried."

  "Yes," cried the mob.

  "And consequently I order that he be taken to prison," added Lafayette.

  "To prison! to prison!" howled the mob.

  At the same time the general made a sign to the guards of the Hôtel de Ville, who led the prisoner forward.

  The crowd outside understood nothing of all that was going on, excepting that their prey was about to appear. They had not even an idea that any one had the slightest hope of disputing it with them.

  They scented, if we may be permitted the expression, the odor of the human flesh which was descending the staircase.

  Billot had placed himself at the window with several electors, whom Bailly also joined in order to follow the prisoner with their eyes while he was crossing the square, escorted by the civic guards.

  On the way, Foulon here and there addressed a few incoherent words to those around him, which, although they were protestations of confidence, clearly evinced the most profound and ill-disguised terror.

  "Noble people," said he, while descending the staircase, "I fear nothing; I am in the midst of my fellow-citizens."

  And already bantering laughs and insults were being uttered around him, when suddenly he found himself outside of the gloomy archway at the top of the stone steps which led into the square, and felt on his face the wind and sunshine.

  Immediately one general cry—a cry of rage, a howling threat, a roar of hatred—burst from twenty thousand lungs. On this explosion of the public feeling, the guards conducting the prisoner are lifted from the ground, broken, dispersed; Foulon is seized by twenty powerful arms, raised above their shoulders, and carried into the fatal corner under the lamp-post,—ignoble and brutal executioner of the anger of the people, which they termed their justice.

  Billot from his window saw all this, and cried out against it; the electors also did all they could to stimulate the guards, but they were powerless.

  Lafayette, in despair, rushed out of the Hôtel de Ville, but he could not break through the first rank of that crowd, which spread out like an immense lake between him and the victim.