“These men are brigands,” declared François, “who think nothing of coming by night and rousing the entire household to obtain money. We shall soon have to establish a militia in every parish.”
“Unless we j-join the brigands,” said Michel. “Most of our fellows would d-do so, if I gave the word.”
So I was back again to privation and distress and the poor state of trade; perhaps it was as well I had not brought young Jacques with me after all. Yet as I leaned out of my window that night, and breathed the good sweet air, fragrant with blossom from the orchard below, I was thankful to be home again, under my own roof, and away from the fearful murmur of that Paris crowd, the memory of which would haunt me night after night during the months to come.
My brother Robert, when he wrote, said little of his own feelings, or of his son’s; once more it was the political pulse in the capital that preoccupied him. He had managed by some means or other to be on the fringe of the crowd when the States General assembled at Versailles on May the 5th, and so heard the first reports from eyewitnesses within. What troubled him most was that the deputies of the Third Estate were all dressed soberly in black, and, according to him, made a sorry showing beside the high dignitaries of the Church and the lavish costumes of the aristocracy.
“What is more, they were all penned up in an enclosure by themselves like a lot of cattle,” he wrote, “while the aristocracy and the clergy surrounded the King. It was a deliberate affront to the bourgeoisie. The duc d’Orléans received a tumultuous welcome, and the King and Necker had a big ovation too, but the Queen was almost ignored, and they say she looked very pale and never smiled once. As to the speeches, they were disappointing. The Archbishop of Aix, speaking for the clergy, made a good impression, and even produced a wretched piece of black bread to show what appalling stuff the poorest people had to eat. But he was quite eclipsed by one of the deputies of the Third Estate, a young lawyer called Robespierre—I wonder if Pierre has heard of him?—who suggested that the Archbishop would do better if he told his fellow clergy to join forces with the patriots who were friends to the people, and that if they wanted to help they might set an example by giving up some of their own luxurious way of living, and returning to the simple ways of the founder of their faith.
“I can imagine how Pierre would have applauded this speech! Depend upon it, we shall hear more of this fellow.”
Meanwhile, we had the furnace going again, but not more than three days during the week, and some of our younger workmen took themselves off to look for employment elsewhere until trade should improve. I hated to see them drift away, for there was little likelihood of their finding anything beyond casual work on the land, haymaking and so on, and they would only add to the numbers of vagrants wandering the countryside.
The agonies of the winter were over, thank heaven, and our small community was not so sorely tried, but every day came news of more unrest and disturbance from all parts of the country, and it seemed to me that the meeting of the States General in Versailles had so far achieved nothing. Pierre, as usual, was full of optimism when he came to see us at the end of June. He brought with him his good-natured wife and his two boys, whom he was bringing up à la Jean-Jacques. They did not know their alphabet, ate with their fingers, and were as wild as hawks, but lovable enough.
I remember we were taking advantage of the weather that day, and carrying the hay to the barns beside the master’s house.
“Agreed, there is deadlock at the moment,” said Pierre, whistling to his boys to cease tumbling down the shocks of hay which had been so carefully stacked, “but the Third Estate have at least formed themselves into a National Assembly, a show of force has failed to disband them, and the King will be obliged to agree to a new Constitution. None of the deputies will return until this is achieved. You have heard the oath they swore on the twenty-third? ‘Never to separate until such time as the Constitution be firmly established.’ What I would have given to have been there! This is the voice of the true France.”
He went on whistling to his boys, and they continued to ignore him.
“The King is ill advised, more’s the pity,” said François. “If it were he alone, the Assembly would have no trouble. It’s the Court party who do the damage, and the Queen especially.”
“B-b-bitch,” exploded Michel.
How many other families, I wondered, were discussing this same subject, and echoing the same gossip, throughout the country this same day.
“Call her what you will,” I said to Michel. “Do not forget she lost her little boy barely three weeks ago.”
It was true. I, like the rest of the women at the glass-house, had been shocked to hear of the Dauphin’s death on the 2nd of June, a child only a few months younger than my nephew Jacques.
“If you think,” I went on, “that a mother cares about politics at such a moment…”
“Then why doesn’t she s-stop interfering,” said Michel, “and let this c-country govern itself?”
I could not match his arguments, nor Pierre’s either, when he began to side with Michel. It seemed to me presumption on our part to think we knew anything of what went on in high places. Here was Pierre laying down the law about what the King should say to the Assembly, or what the Assembly should say to the King, and yet he could not order his own unruly boys to come down from off the hay-shocks. My mother would have done so and boxed the ears of the pair of them.
Another letter came from Robert in the first week in July. There had been great excitement at the Palais-Royal. Supporters of the duc d’Orléans (who, incidentally, had taken his seat as an ordinary citizen of the Third Estate) had encouraged the crowd to free eleven guardsmen from the Abbaye prison—the guardsmen had been imprisoned in the first place for refusing to fire on demonstrators on the 23rd of June—and in many cafés and restaurants the French Guards were fraternizing with the unruly crowds, telling them, if trouble came, that they would never fire on fellow Frenchmen.
“They say,” continued Robert, “that foreign troops have already entered the country to support the Court party, should they be needed, and many of the bridges are already guarded. The latest rumor is that the King’s brother, the comte d’Artois, and the Queen have had a secret tunnel built under the Bastille which is to admit hundreds of troops and ammunition, and at a given word—if the National Assembly don’t behave themselves—the troops will set light to a mine powerful enough to destroy them and almost all of Paris.”
If this was true, though I could hardly credit it, then there was only one thing to do, and that was for Robert to leave the capital at once, and bring Jacques with him, and the Fiats too, if they were willing to travel.
“W-what did I tell you?” said Michel grimly, after I had read the letter aloud to him and François. “That d-damned Court party and the aristocracy will do anything to b-break up the National Assembly. Why don’t the people of P-Paris get out into the streets and f-fight? If it were happening in Le Mans, I’d soon be on the s-streets with the whole of le Chesne-Bidault b-behind me.”
I wrote at once to Robert, imploring him to leave Paris, though I had very little hope of his agreeing to do so. If he was still in the pay of Laclos or others of the duc d’Orléans’s entourage, it would seem as if their supreme moment might be about to strike.
The hideous story of the Queen’s plot to blow up the National Assembly, if not the whole of Paris, had reached Le Mans—Pierre was full of it when Michel and François went into town the following week. It appeared that one of the deputies had confirmed the tale in a letter to an Elector, the Electors being men of authority in every district who had voted for the deputies of the Third Estate. “Paris is surrounded by troops,” Pierre told his brother and my husband, and for once his equanimity seemed shaken. “The wife of a deputy arrived back yesterday who had heard on the best authority that the Prince de Condé has only to give the word and forty thousand troops will occupy the capital, with orders to fire on anyone who supports the Assembly. If thi
s happens there will be a massacre.”
The story in its turn was contradicted by Edmé, whose husband, Monsieur Pomard, in his capacity as contractor to the Abbey of St. Vincent, had attended a dinner at the Oratoire given by the officers of the Dragons de Chartres to welcome back their colonel, the vicomte de Valence. According to the vicomte, morale in the capital had never been higher, and the duc d’Orléans and Necker were still the men of the hour.
“Of course,” Edmé told Michel, “the vicomte de Valence is one of the duc d’Orléans’s supporters. He is married to the daughter of the duke’s ex-mistress, Madame de Genlis, and is the lover of the duke’s stepmother. You can’t be more involved in a family situation than that!”
Edmé had some of Robert’s talent for searching out gossip, and when Michel repeated the tale I felt relieved that we lived in the country and not in Le Mans.
“I don’t give a f-fig for the gossip,” said Michel. “The point is that I trust n-none of the aristocracy, whether they support the d-duc d’Orléans or not. As to that ass P-Pomard, he’d best keep his mouth shut, along with the damned m-monks at St. Vincent.”
My husband and brother returned home to le Chesne-Bidault with these various tales, and a parting shot from Pierre that if trouble broke out in Paris the patriots and Electors in Le Mans would form a committee and take over the municipality, with orders to every able-bodied citizen to enroll at the hôtel de ville and form a people’s militia.
“And there will be no trouble,” he added significantly, “from the Dragons de Chartres.”
Which, I thought to myself, bore out Edmé’s gossip after all.
As it happened, we were more concerned at le Chesne-Bidault with the ripening corn in our farm acres than with the preparations for possible disturbances in Le Mans. The bands of vagrants roaming the countryside were trespassing on the farms by night and cutting the wheat and barley. Whether they intended to eat it or hoard it nobody knew—but we all feared for our crops, for should there be a disaster to this year’s harvest then, without question, next winter we should starve.
Michel and François posted men as sentries every night to guard the fields, but even so we would go to bed uneasy, for the vagrants were said to be armed. They were also raiding timber stacks in the forests, to sell as fuel, no doubt, against the colder weather to come, and this was an equal threat to our livelihood; if our stocks of timber were purloined, we should not be able to keep the furnace fire alight. Already in the forest of Bonnétable this had happened. Pierre’s wife came from Bonnétable; we had the story direct from her.
“There’s n-nothing for it,” said Michel, “but to have patrols of men, d-day and night, keeping watch b-between here and Montmirail.”
He and François would take it in turn to go out on night patrol, and during those first ten days in July I would lie awake, alone and anxious if my husband had gone; but if he were by my side then I would worry about Michel, standing sentinel out there somewhere in the forest, watching and waiting for the brigands who did not come.
It must have been the Monday or Tuesday, the 13th or 14th of July, I forget which, when François brought the news from Mondoubleau that the Court party had persuaded the King to dismiss Necker from his post as Controller of Finance, and the minister had gone into exile. Paris was in a state of siege, customs barriers outside the city were being burned down or overthrown, and the customs officers forced to fly for their lives—the people everywhere were out of control and raiding the ammunition depots for arms.
“The worst of it is,” said François, “that the whole of the underworld of Paris has been let loose upon the countryside. Prisoners, beggars, thieves, murderers—all the unemployed of the capital—they are making south, leaving honest citizens to fight it out with the Court party and the aristocracy.”
François had driven in from Mondoubleau in one of the foundry wagons, and both he and his horses were sweating with heat and exhaustion. In a moment he was surrounded by a group of workmen, with Michel among them.
“What is it? What has happened? Who told you of it?”
He repeated his tale, and almost immediately Michel started giving directions to the men to split into groups—all work at the foundry was to cease until further orders—and these groups were to go to le Plessis-Dorin, Montmirail, St. Avit, le Gault, and west to Vibraye, to inform the people in these communes what was happening in Paris, and to prepare against brigands. Another group would stay at le Chesne-Bidault in charge of the foundry. Either he or François would go to la Ferté-Bernard to seek further news when the change-coach arrived from Paris.
It was my business, naturally, to counsel the families, calling upon all of them in turn, warning them not to stir from the foundry precincts, nor to let the children wander out of earshot. As I repeated my warnings, and saw their anxiety, I myself felt seized with their apprehension; doubt and uncertainty were in the air, we none of us knew what might happen next, and the thought of the brigands penetrating so far south, burning and pillaging as they went, filled all of us with terror.
No more news came to us that night, other than what we had already heard through François from Mondoubleau. Two days passed without direct contact with Paris, save that there had been fighting in the streets and many killed—some said the Bastille had been blown up by gunpowder, others that the English Prime Minister Pitt had sent hundreds of troops into France to support the aristocracy and chase the brigands into the French countryside to disrupt communications.
On Saturday the 18th of July, it was the turn of François to go into la Ferté-Bernard to obtain news from those who might be traveling by the diligence plying from Paris to Le Mans, descending at Bellême and changing coaches to la Ferté. The thought of staying alone at the master’s house, guarded by a small group of workmen, with François away and Michel on patrol in the forest, was more than I could bear.
“I’m coming with you,” I told my husband. “I’d rather face the dangers on the road than wait here, hour after hour, without even the roar of the furnace fire to keep me company.”
He took one of the small covered carrioles, and I climbed up on the seat beside him like a market-woman. If we were stopped by vagrants they would find nothing in the cart but ourselves, and the worst they could do would be to overturn it and force us to walk home.
We found la Ferté-Bernard in an uproar. No one was working, everyone was in the streets. The bells of Notre-Dame-des-Marais were sounding the tocsin. It was the first time in my life I heard church bells peal an alarm instead of a call to prayer, and the incessant sound was far more agitating and conducive to fear than a bugle call or a roll of drums.
We went to the Petit Chapeau Rouge to put up the carriole. Although there were no vagrants there, the crowds were thick in the street outside, and François agreed with me that many of them were not local townsfolk, but strangers.
Suddenly there was a movement among the crowd, which divided, and we saw the change-coach approaching through the town from Bellême. We ran towards it, ourselves part of the crowd, seized with the same passionate hunger for news, and then as the driver reined in his horses, and the coach shuddered to a standstill, the first passengers broke from within, to be immediately surrounded by a mob of questioners.
A slim figure caught my attention as he paused an instant before descending, giving his hand to a child.
“It’s Robert,” I cried, catching at François, “it’s Robert and Jacques.”
We pushed forward towards the coach, and at last succeeded in reaching the passengers beside it. There was my brother, calm, smiling, answering a dozen questions at once, while little Jacques sprang into my arms.
Robert nodded to us. “I’ll be with you directly,” he called. “First I have a letter here from the mayor of Dreux that I must deliver in person to the mayor of la Ferté-Bernard.”
The crowd drew back, eyeing François and myself with a new respect because of our connection with this seemingly important traveler, and we followed
in Robert’s train, Jacques clutching my hand, while my brother and a group of men in authority walked to the hôtel de ville.
We could get no sense out of Jacques. There had been fighting in Paris for two days, he said, there were men wounded and killed everywhere, and we had to listen to the news from other passengers, who were now telling the tale to the surrounding crowd.
The Bastille had been stormed and taken by the people of Paris. The Governor had been killed. The King’s brother, the comte d’Artois, had fled, also the King’s cousin, the Prince de Condé, and the de Polignacs, the friends of the Queen. The National Assembly was in control of the capital, with a citizen militia to protect it under the command of General Lafayette, hero of the American wars.
François turned to me, stupefied.
“We’ve beaten them,” he said. “It can’t be possible. We’ve beaten them.”
People around us began shouting and cheering, waving their arms and laughing, and from nowhere, it seemed, the driver of the coach, a great, red-faced fellow, began distributing among the crowd cockades of rose and blue, which he had brought with him from the diligence at Bellême. “Come on,” he was shouting, “help yourselves. These are the colors of the duc d’Orléans, who with the help of the people of Paris has beaten the aristocracy,” and everyone pushed forward to snatch the colors. The enthusiasm took hold of us. François, being tall, reached over the heads of several and secured a cockade, which he gave me, laughing, and I did not know whether to laugh or to cry as someone shouted “Vive le Tiers Etat… Vive l’Assemblée… Vive le duc d’Orléans… Vive le Roi.”