CHAPTER VI. 'LA GRUE'
When Gerald gained the street, it was to find it crammed with a densemob, whose wild cries and screams filled the air. No sooner was heperceived by some of the multitude than a hundred yells saluted him,with shouts of 'Down with the aristocrat; down with the tyrant, whoinsults the friend of the people.' It was a mob who, in fervour ofenthusiasm for Mirabeau's memory, had closed each of the theatres insuccession, dispersed all meetings of public festivity, and even invadedthe precincts of private houses, to dictate a more becoming observancetoward the illustrious dead. Few men could bear such prescription lesspatiently than Fitzgerald. The very thought of being ruled and directedby the 'canaille' was insupportably offensive, and he drove back thosewho rudely pressed upon him, and answered with contempt their words ofinsult and outrage.
'Who is it that insults the majesty of the people?' cried one; 'let ushear his name.'
'It is Louvet'--'It is Plessard'--'It is Lestocq'--'It is that miserableCustine '--shouted several together.
'You are all wrong. I am a stranger, whose name not one of you has everheard----'
'A spy! an emissary of Pitt and Cobourg!'
'I am a foreigner, with whose sentiments you have no concern. I do notobtrude my opinions upon you.'
'What do we care for that?' shouted a deep voice. 'You have dared tooffend the most sacred sentiments of a nation, and to riot in a festiveorgie while we weep over the deathbed of a patriot.'
'_A la Grue! a la Grue!_' screamed the wild mass in a yell of passion.
Now the Grue was an immense crane--used in some repairs of the PontNeuf--which still held its place at the approach to the bridge. It washere that a sort of public tribunal held its nightly sittings by thelight of a gigantic lantern, suspended from the crane; and which, reportalleged, had more than once given way to a very different pendant. Itis certain that two men, taken in the act of robbery, had been hanged bythe sentence of this self-constituted tribunal, which, in open defianceof the authorities, continued to assemble there. The cry, '_A la Grue!a la Grue!_' had, therefore, a dreadful significance; and there wasa terrible import in the savage roar of the mob as they ratified theproposal.
'We will try him fairly. He shall be judged deliberately, and be allowedto speak in his own defence,' said several, who believed that theirwords were those of moderation and equity:
Powerless against the overwhelming mass, and too indignant to profferone single word of palliation, Gerald was hurried along towards thequay.
There was something singularly solemn in the measured tread of that vastmultitude, as, in a mockery of justice, they marched along. At first nota word was spoken; but suddenly a deep voice in the front rank began oneof the popular chants of the day, the whole dense mass joining in therefrain. Nothing could be ruder than the verses, save the accents thatintoned them; but there was in the very roar and resonance a depth thatimparted a sense of force and power.
We offer a rough version of the unpolished chant--
'The Cour Royale has a princely hall, And many come there to sue; But I love the sight of a stilly night, And the crowd beneath the Grue.
No lawyer clown, with his cap and gown, Has complex work to do; For the horny hand and the face that's tanned Are the judges beneath the Grue.
At best, this life is a fleeting strife, For me as well as for you; But our work is brief with a rogue or thief When he stands beneath the Grue.
No bribes resort to our humble court, All is open and plain to view; And the people's voice and the people's choice Are the law beneath the Grue.
The Grue! the Grue! the Grue! I ween there are but few Who have hearts for hope as they see the rope That dangles beneath the Grue.'
As they sang a number of voices in front of them took up the strain,till the crowd seemed to make the very air ring with their hoarse chant.In this way they reached the Seine, over whose dark and rapid flood thefatal crane seemed to droop sadly. Several hundred people were assembledhere, a confused murmur showing that they were engaged in conversingrather than in that judicial function it was their pride to discharge.
'A rebel against the majesty of the people and the fame of its greatestmartyr,' said a deep voice, as he announced the crime of Fitzgerald,and pushed him forward to the place reserved for the accused. 'While anation humbles itself in sorrow, this man chooses the hour for riotousdissipation and excess. We met him as he issued forth from the womanRoland's house, so that he cannot deny the charge.'
'Accused, stand forward,' said a coarse-looking man, in a mechanic'sdress, but whose manner was not devoid of a certain dignity. 'You arehere before the French people, who will judge you fairly.'
'Were I even conscious of a crime, I would deny your right to try me.'
'Young man, you do but injury to yourself in insulting us, was the graverebuke, delivered with a calm decorum which seemed to have its influenceon Fitzgerald.
'Who accuses him?' asked the judge aloud.
'I'--'and I '--'and I'--'all of us,' shouted a number together, followedby a burst of, 'Let Lamarc do it; let Lamarc speak'; and a pale, veryyoung man, of gentle look and slight figure, came forward at the call.
With the ease of one thoroughly accustomed to address public assemblies,and with an eloquence evidently cultivated in very different spheres,the young man pronounced a glowing panegyric on Mirabeau. It was reallya fine and scarce exaggerated appreciation of that great man. Haughtilydisclaiming the right of any less illustrious than Riquetti himself tosit in judgment upon the excesses of his turbulent youth, theorator even declared that it was in the passionate commotion of suchtemperaments that grand ideas were fostered, just as preternaturalfertility is the gift of countries where earthquakes and volcanoes haveconvulsed them.
'Deplore, if you will,' cried he, 'his faults, for his own sake; sorrowover the terrible necessities of a nature whose excitements must besought for even in crime; mourn over one whose mysterious being demandedfor mere sustenance the poisoned draughts of intemperance; but foryourselves and for your own sakes, rejoice that the age has given youGabriel Riquetti de Mirabeau.'
'Who is it dares to say such words as these, cried a hoarse, discordantvoice, as forcing his way through the dense mass, a small, misshapenfigure stood forward. Though bespeaking in his appearance a conditionconsiderably above those around him, his dress was disordered, hiscravat awry, and his features trembling with recent excitement. Asthe strong light fell upon him, Gerald could mark a countenance whosefeatures once seen were never forgotten. The forehead was high, butretreating, and the eyes so sunk within their sockets that theircolour could not be known, and their only expression a look of wolfishferocity; to this, too, a haggard cheek and long, lean jaw contributed.All these signs of a harsh and cruel nature were greatly heightened byhis mode of speaking, for his mouth opened wide, exposing two immenserows of teeth, a display which they who knew him well said he wasinordinately vain of.
'Is it to men and Frenchmen that any dares to speak thus?' yelled he, ina voice that overtopped the others, and was heard far and wide throughthe crowd. 'Listen to me, people,' screamed he again, as, ascendingthe sort of bench on which the judge was seated, he waved his hand toenforce silence. 'Kneel down and thank the gods that your direst enemyis dead!'
A low murmur--it was almost like the growl of a wild beast--ran throughthe assembly; but such was the courage of the speaker that he waitedtill it had subsided, and then in accents shriller than before repeatedthe same words. The hum of the multitude was now reduced to a meremurmuring sound, and he went on. It was soon evident how inferior thepolished eloquence of the other must prove before such an audience tothe stormy passion of this man's speech. Like the voice of a destroyingangel scattering ruin and destruction, he poured out over the memoryof Mirabeau the flood of his invective. He reproduced the vices of hisyouth to account for the crimes of his age, and saw the treason to hisparty explained in his falsehood to his friends. There w
as in his wordsand in all he said the force of a mad mountain torrent, bounding wildlyfrom crag to crag, sweeping all before it as it went, and yet everpouring its flood deeper, fuller, and stronger. From a narrative ofRiquetti's early life, with every incident of which he was familiar, heturned suddenly to show how such a man must, in the very nature of hisbeing, be an enemy to the people. A noble by birth, an aristocrat in allhis instincts, he could never have frankly lent himself to the cause ofliberty. It was only a traitor he was, then, within their camp; he wasthere to learn their strength and their weakness, to delude them bymock concessions. It was, as he expressed it, by the heat of their ownpassions that he welded the fetters for their own limbs.
'If you ask who should mourn this man, the answer is, His own order; andit is they, and they alone, who sorrow over the lost leader. Not you,nor I, nor that youth yonder, whom you pretend to arraign; but whom youshould honour with words of praise and encouragement. Is it not brave ofhim, in this hour of bastard grief, that he should stand forth to tellyou how mean and dastardly ye are! I tell you, once more, that he whodares to stem the false sentiments of misguided enthusiasm has a couragegrander than his who storms a breach. My friendship is his own from thishour,' and as he said, he descended from the bench, and flung his armsaround Fitzgerald.
Shouts of 'Well done, Marat, bravely spoken!' rent the air, and ahundred voices told how the current of public favour had changed itscourse.
'Let us not tarry here, young man,' said Marat. 'Come along with me;there is much to be done yet.'
While Gerald was not sorry to be relieved from a position of difficultyand danger, he was also eager to undeceive his new ally, and avow thathe had no sympathy with the opinions attributed to him. It was no time,however, for explanations, nor was the temper of the mob to be longtrusted. He therefore suffered himself to be led along by the friendsof Marat, who, speedily making way for their chief, issued into the openstreet.
'Whither now!' cried one aloud.
'To the Bureau--to the Bureau!' said another.
'Be it so,' said Marat. 'The _Ami du Peuple_--so was his journalcalled--' must render an account of this night to its readers. I haveaddressed seven assemblies since eleven o'clock, and save that one inthe Rue de Grenelle, all successfully. By the way, who is our friend?What is he called? Fitzgerald--a foreign name--all the better; we canturn this incident to good account. Are Frenchmen to be taught thepath to liberty by a stranger, eh, Favart? That's the keynote for youroverture!'
'The article is written--it is half-printed already,' said Favart. 'Itbegins better--"The impostor is dead: the juggler who gathered yourliberties into a bundle and gave them back to you as fetters, is nomore! "'
'_Ah, que c'est beau_, that phrase!' cried two or three together.
'I will not have it,' said Marat impetuously; 'these are not momentsfor grotesque imagery. Open thus: "Who are the men that have constitutedthemselves the judges of immortality? Who are these, clad in shame andcloaked in ignominy, who assume to dispense the glory of a nation? Arethese mean tricksters--these fawners on a corrupted court--theseslaves of the basest tyranny that ever defaced a nation's image, to beguardians at the gate of civic honours?"
'Ah! there it is. It was Marat himself spoke there,' said one.
'That was the clink of the true metal,' said Chaptal.
And now, in the wildest vein of rhapsody, Marat continued to pour fortha strange confused flood of savage invective. For the most part thelanguage was coarse and ill-chosen and the reasoning faulty in theexpression, but here and there would pierce through a phrase or an imageso graphic or so true as actually to startle and amaze. It was theseimprovisations, caught up and reproduced by his followers, whichconstituted the leading articles of his journal. Too much immersed inthe active career of his demagogue life to spare time for writing, hegave himself the habit of this high-flown and exaggerated style, whichwore, so to say, a mock air of composition.
Pointing to the immense quantity of this sort of matter which hisjournal contained, Marat would boast to the people of his unceasinglabours in their cause, his days of hard toil, his nights of unbrokenexertion. He artfully contrasted a life thus spent with the luxuriousexistence of the pampered 'rich.' Such were the first steps of one whojourneyed afterward far in crime--such the initial teachings of one whosubsequently helped mainly to corrupt a whole people.
A strange impulse of curiosity to see something of these men of whom hehad heard so much, influenced Gerald, while he was also in part swayedby the marvellous force of that torrent which never ceased to flow fromMarat's lips. It was a sort of fascination, not the less strong that itimparted a sense of pain.
'I will see this night's adventure to the end,' said he to himself, andhe went along with them.
Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel Page 31