ii.
Looking around as I hurried through the streets, it didn’t strike me at first, but then I saw that the crowds, though a mingled-together rushing, pushing pell-mell of bodies, actually fell into two distinct groups: those intent on preparing for the oncoming trouble, protecting themselves, their families and their possessions, fleeing the trouble because they wished to avoid the conflict or, like me, because they were concerned they might well be the target of the trouble.
And those intent on starting the trouble.
And what distinguished the two groups? Weapons. The carrying of weapons – I saw pitchforks, axes and staffs brandished and held aloft – and the locating of weapons. A whisper became a shout, became a clamour. Where are the muskets? Where are the pistols? Where is the gunpowder? Paris was a powder keg.
Could all of this have been avoided? I wondered. Could we, the Templars, have prevented our beloved country reaching this dreadful impasse, teetering above a precipice of previously unimagined change?
There were shouts – shouts for ‘Freedom!’ mingled with the whinnies and brays of scattering, flustered animals.
Horses snorted as they were driven at dangerous speeds through crowded streets by panicked drivers. Herders tried to take wide-eyed, frightened livestock to safety. The stink of fresh dung was heavy in the air, but more than that there was another scent in Paris today. The smell of rebellion. No, not of rebellion, of revolution.
And why was I on the streets, and not helping the staff to board up the windows of the La Serre estate?
Because of Arno. Because even though I hated Arno I couldn’t stand by – not while he was in danger. The truth was I’d done nothing about the letter from Jennifer Scott. What would Mr Weatherall, Mother and Father have thought about that? Me, a Templar – no, a Templar Grand Master, no less – knowing full well that one of our own was close to being discovered by the Assassins and doing nothing – not a thing – about it? Skulking around the unpopulated floors of her Paris estate like a lonely old eccentric widow?
I’ll say this for rebellion, there’s nothing like it to spur a girl into action, and even though my feelings for Arno hadn’t changed – it wasn’t as though I’d suddenly stopped hating him for his failure to deliver the letter – I still wanted to get to him before the mob.
I’d hoped that I might arrive before them, but even as I rushed towards Saint-Antoine it became apparent that I was not ahead of a tide of people going in the same direction; rather I was part of it, joining a throng of partisans, militia and tradesman of all stripes, who brandished weapons and flags as they moved towards that great symbol of the king’s tyranny, the Bastille.
I cursed, knowing I was too late, but staying with the crowd, darting between knots of people as I tried, somehow, to get ahead of the pack. With the towers and ramparts of the Bastille visible in the distance, the crowd seemed to slow down all of a sudden and a cry went up. In the street was a cart bristling with muskets, probably liberated from the armoury, and there were men and women handing them out to a sea of waving, upstretched hands. The mood was jovial, celebratory, even. There was a sense that this was easy.
I pushed past, through rows of tightly packed bodies, ignoring the curses that came my way. The crowds were less dense on the other side but now I saw a cannon being wheeled along the highway. It was manoeuvred by men on foot, some in uniform, some in the garb of the partisan, and for a moment I wondered what was happening until the cry went up: ‘The Gardes Françaises have come over!’ Sure enough I heard tales of soldiers turning on their commanders; there was talk that men’s heads had been mounted on pikes.
Not far away I saw a well-dressed gentleman who had overheard too. He and I shared a quick look and I could see the fear in his eyes. He was thinking the same as me: was he safe? How far would these revolutionaries go? After all, their cause had been supported by many nobles and members of the other estates, and Mirabeau himself was an aristocrat. But would that mean anything in the upheaval? When it came to revenge, would they discriminate?
The battle at the Bastille began as I came to it. On the approach to the prison I’d heard that a delegation of the Assembly had been invited inside to discuss terms with the governor, De Launay. However, the delegation had been inside for three hours now, eating breakfast, and the crowd outside had become more and more restless. Meanwhile, one of the protestors had climbed from the roof of a perfume shop on to the chains that held the raised drawbridge and had been cutting the chains, and as I rounded the corner and brought the Bastille into view he finished the job and the drawbridge fell with a great wallop that seemed to reverberate around the entire area.
We all saw it fall on to a man standing below. A man unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, who one moment was standing on the bank of the moat, brandishing a musket and egging on those who were trying to free the drawbridge, and the next moment had disappeared in a mist of blood and tangle of limbs protruding at horrible angles from beneath the drawbridge.
A great cheer went up. This one unfortunate life lost was nothing compared to the victory of opening the drawbridge. In the next instant the crowds began to flood across the open bridge and into the outside courtyard of the Bastille.
iii.
The reply came. I heard a shout from the battlements and a thunderclap of musket fire, which was followed by a smoke cloud that rose like a puff of powder from the ramparts.
Below, we dived for cover as musket balls zinged into the stone and cobbles around us, and there were screams. It wasn’t enough to disperse the crowds, though. Like poking a wasps’ nest with a stick, the gunfire, far from deterring the protestors, had only made them more angry. More determined.
Plus, of course, they had cannons.
‘Fire!’ came a shout from not far away, and I saw the cannons buck into huge billows of smoke before the balls tore chunks out of the Bastille. Moving forward were more armed men. Muskets held by the attackers bristled above their heads like the spines of a hedgehog.
Militia had taken control of buildings around us, and smoke was pouring from the windows. The governor’s house was ablaze, I was told. The smell of gunpowder mingled with the stench of smoke. From the Bastille came another shout and there was a second volley of gunfire and I ducked down behind a low stone wall. Around me were more screams.
Meanwhile, the crowd had made their way across a second drawbridge and were trying to negotiate a moat. From behind me planks were produced and used to form a bridge into the inner sanctum of the prison. Soon they would be through.
More shots were fired. The protestors’ cannons replied. Stone fell around us.
In there somewhere was Arno. With my sword drawn I joined the protestors flooding through into the inner sanctum.
From above us, the musket fire stopped, the battle won now. I caught a glimpse of the governor, De Launay. He had been arrested and there was talk of taking him to the Hôtel de Ville, the Paris city hall.
For a moment I allowed myself a moment of relief. The revolution had maintained its head; there was to be no bloodlust.
But I was wrong. A cry went up. Idiotically, De Launay had aimed a kick at a man in the crowd and, incensed, the man had leapt forward and plunged a knife into him. Soldiers attempting to protect De Launay were pushed back by the crowd and he disappeared beneath a seething mass of bodies. I saw blades arcing up and down, plumes of blood making rainbows, and heard one long, piercing scream like that of a wounded animal.
Suddenly there was a cheer and a pike rose above the crowd. On it was the head of De Launay, the flesh at his torn neck ragged and bloody, his eyeballs rolled up in their sockets.
The crowd whooped and hollered and looked upon their prize with happy, blood-spattered faces as it bobbed up and down on the pike, paraded back along the planks and drawbridges, over the mangled, forgotten body of the protestor crushed by the drawbridge and out on to the streets of Paris, where the sight of it would inspire further acts of bloodlust and barbarism
.
There and then I knew it was the end for us all. For every noble man and woman in France it was the end. Whatever our sympathies: even if we’d talked of the need for change; even if we’d agreed that Marie Antoinette’s excesses were disgusting and the king both greedy and inadequate, and even if we’d supported the Third Estate and backed the Assembly, it didn’t matter, because from this moment on none of us was safe; we were all collaborators or oppressors in the eyes of the mob and they were in charge now.
I heard screams as more of the Bastille guards were lynched. Next I caught sight of a prisoner, a frail old man who was being lifted down a set of steps leading from a prison door. And then, with a rush of mixed emotions – gratitude, love and hate among them – I saw Arno high up on the ramparts. He was with another old man, the pair of them running towards the other side of the fortress.
‘Arno,’ I called to him, but he didn’t hear. There was too much noise and he was too far away.
I screamed again, ‘Arno,’ and those nearby turned to look my way, made suspicious by my cultured tones.
Unable to do anything, I watched as the first man came to the edge of the ramparts and jumped.
The jump was a leap of faith. An Assassin leap of faith. So that was Pierre Bellec. Sure enough, Arno hesitated then did the same. Another Assassin leap of faith.
He was one of them now.
iv.
I turned and ran. I needed to get home now and send the staff away. Let them get clear before they were caught up in the trouble.
Crowds were moving away from the Bastille and to the city hall. Already I was hearing that the provost of the merchants of Paris, Jacques de Flesselles, had been slaughtered on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, his head hacked off and was being paraded through the streets.
My stomach churned. Shops and buildings were burning. I heard the sound of smashing glass, saw people running, laden down with stolen goods. For weeks Paris had been hungry. We had in our estates and chateaus eaten well, of course, but the common man had been driven almost to the brink of starvation, and though the militia on the streets had prevented any full-scale looting they were powerless to do so now.
Away from Saint-Antoine the crowds had thinned and there were carriages and carts in the road, mostly driven by city folk wanting to escape the trouble. They’d hastily shoved their belongings into whatever mode of transport they could find and were desperately trying to escape. Most were simply ignored by the crowds, but I caught my breath to see a huge two-horse-drawn carriage, complete with liveried groom at the front, slowly trying to make its way through the streets, knowing straight away that whoever it was inside was asking for trouble.
This one wasn’t inconspicuous. As if the simple sight of this sumptuous carriage weren’t enough to incense the mob, the groom was shouting at bystanders to clear the road, waving at them with his crop as though trying to clear a cloud of insects, all the while being goaded by his red-faced mistress who peered from the window of the carriage, wafting a lace handkerchief.
The arrogance and stupidity of them was breathtaking, and even I, whose veins ran with aristocratic blood, took a measure of satisfaction when the crowd paid them no mind at all.
Next, though, the mob turned on them. The situation had been inflamed enough and they began to rock the carriage on its springs.
I considered moving forward to help but knew that to do so would be to sign my own death warrant. Instead I could only watch as the groom was pulled from his imperious perch and the beating began.
He didn’t deserve it. Nobody deserved a beating at the hands of a mob, because it was indiscriminate and vicious and driven by a collective desire for blood. Even so, he had done nothing to guard against his fate. The whole of Paris knew that the Bastille had fallen. The Ancien Régime had been crumbling but in one morning it had fallen completely. To pretend otherwise was madness. Or, in in his case, suicide.
The coachman had run. Meanwhile, members of the crowd had clambered on top of the carriage, ripped open trunks and were tossing clothes from the roof as they delved for valuables. The doors were torn open and a protesting woman dragged from the door. The crowd laughed as one of the protestors planted a foot on her behind and sent her sprawling to the ground.
From the carriage came a shout of protest. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ and my heart sank a little further to hear the usual tone of aristocratic indignation in his voice. Was he that stupid? Was he too stupid to realize that he and his kind no longer had the right to such a tone of voice? He and his kind were no longer in charge.
I heard his clothes rip as they tore him from the carriage. His wife was sent on her way screaming down the street, driven by a series of kicks up the backside, and I wondered how she would fare on her own, in a Paris that was topsy-turvy to the one she had known all her life. I doubted she’d last the day.
Carrying on my way my hopes began to sink. It seemed that looters were pouring out of the houses on either sides of the thoroughfare. In the air was the crackle of musket fire and the sound of breaking glass, triumphant cries from those able to get their way, dismayed screams from the unlucky ones.
I was running by now, sword still drawn and ready to face anyone who stood between me and my chateau. My heart hammered in my ears. I prayed that the staff had got clear, that the mob had not yet reached our estate. All I could think of was my trunk. Among other things, it contained Haytham Kenway’s letters and the necklace given to me by Jennifer Scott. And little trinkets I had collected over the years, things that meant something to me.
Arriving at the gates I saw the butler, Pierre, standing with a case of his own hugged to his chest, his eyes darting to and fro.
‘Thank God, mademoiselle,’ he said, catching sight of me, and I looked past him, my gaze travelling along the courtyard and up the steps to the front door.
What I saw was a courtyard strewn with my belongings. The door of the chateau stood open and I could see devastation within. My house had been ransacked.
‘The mob were in and out within minutes,’ said Pierre breathlessly. ‘The boards were up and the locks were thrown, but they captured hold of the gardener Henri and threatened to kill him unless we opened the doors. We had no choice, mademoiselle.’
I nodded, thinking only of my trunk in my bedchamber, part of me wanting to dash there straight away, another part of me needing to put this right.
‘You absolutely did the right thing,’ I assured him. ‘What about your personal effects?’
He hefted the case he held. ‘All in here.’
‘Even so, it must have been a frightening experience. You should go. Right now is not a good time to be associated with nobility. Make your way to Versailles and we shall see to it that you receive recompense.’
‘And what about you, mademoiselle? Won’t you come?’
I glanced towards the villa, feeling steely-hearted to see my family’s belongings discarded like rubbish. I recognized a dress that had belonged to my mother. So they had been to the upper floors and had rampaged through the bedchambers.
I pointed with my sword. ‘I’m going in there,’ I said.
‘No, mademoiselle, I can’t allow that,’ said Pierre. ‘There are still some of the bandits inside, drunk as lords, sifting through the room for more things to steal.’
‘That’s why I’m going in there. To stop them doing that.’
‘But they’re armed, mademoiselle.’
‘So am I.’
‘They’re drunk and vicious.’
‘Well, I’m angry and vicious. And that’s better.’ I looked at him. ‘Now go.’
v.
He was never really serious about staying. Pierre was a good man, but his loyalty only went so far. He would have resisted the looters – but not that much. Perhaps it had been better that I wasn’t home when the raiders arrived. There would have been bloodshed. Maybe the wrong people would have lost their lives.
At the front door I drew my pistol. With my elbow I shoved t
he door wider and crept into the entrance hall.
It was a mess. Overturned tables. Smashed vases. Unwanted booty everywhere. Lying on his front close by was a man snoring in a drunken slumber. Slumped in an opposite corner was another one, this one with his chin resting on his chest, an empty bottle of wine in his hand. The door to the wine cellar was open and I approached it carefully, my pistols raised. I listened but heard nothing, prodded the nearby drunk with my toe and got a loud snore for my troubles. Drunk, yes. Vicious, no. Same for his friend by the door.
Snoring apart, the ground floor was silent. I walked to a stairway that led below-stairs and again I listened, hearing nothing.
Pierre was right; they must have been in and out within moments, looting the wine cellar and the pantry and no doubt the silverware from the plate room. My home just another step along the way.
Now for upstairs. I returned to the entrance hall then took the stairs, heading straight for my bedchamber and finding it in a similar ransacked state to the rest of the house. They’d found the trunk but evidently decided that whatever was inside was worthless, so had settled merely for spreading the contents around the floor. I sheathed my cutlass, holstered my pistol and dropped to my knees, gathering the papers to me, sorting them and replacing them in the trunk. Thank God the necklace had been in the bottom of the trunk; they’d missed it altogether. Carefully I laid the correspondence on top of the trinkets, smoothing out any creased pages, keeping the letters together. When I’d finished I locked the trunk. It would need to go to the Maison Royale for safekeeping, just as soon as I’d cleared and secured my home.
I was numb, I realized, as I pulled myself to my feet and sat on the end of the bed to gather my thoughts. All I could think of was closing the doors, crawling into a corner somewhere and avoiding all human contact. Perhaps that was the real reason I’d sent Pierre away. Because the pillaging of my home gave me another reason to mourn, and I wanted to mourn alone.
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