CHAPTER XII.
THE FIRST MASSACRE.
Mandat had hardly been slain, before the Commune nominated Santerreas commanding general in his stead, and he ordered the drums to beatin all the town and the bells to be rung harder than ever in all thesteeples. He sent out patrols to scour the ways, and particularly toscout around the Assembly.
Some twenty prowlers were made prisoners, of whom half escaped beforemorning, leaving eleven in the Feuillants' guard-house. In their midstwas a dandified young gentleman in the National Guard uniform, thenewness of which, the superiority of his weapons, and the elegance ofhis style, made them suspect he was an aristocrat. He was quite calm.He said that he went to the palace on an order, which he showed theexamining committee of the Feuillants' ward. It ran:
"The National Guard, bearer of this paper, will go to the palace to learn what the state of affairs is, and return to report to the Attorney-and-Syndic-General of the Department.
(Signed) "BOIRIE, "LEROULX, "Municipal Officers."
The order was plain enough, but it was thought that the signatures wereforged, and it was sent to the City Hall by a messenger to have themverified.
This last arrest had brought a large crowd around the place, and somesuch voices as are always to be heard at popular gatherings yelled forthe prisoner's death.
An official saw that this desire must not spread, and was making aspeech, to which the mob was yielding, when the messenger came backfrom the Hall to say the order was genuine, and they ought to set atliberty the prisoner named Suleau.
At this name, a woman in the mob raised her head and uttered a screamof rage.
"Suleau?" she cried. "Suleau, the editor of the 'Acts of the Apostles'newspaper, one of the slayers of Liege independence? Let me at thisSuleau! I call for the death of Suleau!"
The crowd parted to let this little, wiry woman go through. She worea riding-habit of the national colors, and was carrying a sword in across-belt. She went up to the city official and forced him to give herthe place on the stand. Her head was barely above the concourse, beforethey all roared:
"Bravo, Theroigne!"
Indeed, Theroigne was a most popular woman, so that Suleau had madea hit when he said she was the bride of Citizen Populus, as well asreferring to her free-and-easy morals.
Besides, he had published at Brussels the "Alarm for Kings," and thushelped the Belgian outbreak, and to replace under the Austrian cane andthe priestly miter a noble people wishing to be free and join France.
At this very epoch Theroigne was writing her memoirs, and had read thepart about her arrest there to the Jacobin Club.
She claimed the death of the ten other prisoners along with Suleau.
Through the door he heard her ringing voice, amid applause. He calledthe captain of the guard to him, and asked to be turned loose to themob, that by his sacrifice he might save his fellow-prisoners. They didnot believe he meant it. They refused to open the door to him, and hetried to jump out of the window, but they pulled him back. They did notthink that they would be handed over to the slaughterers in cold blood;they were mistaken.
Intimidated by the yells, Chairman Bonjour yielded to Theroigne'sdemand, and bid the National Guardsman stand aloof from resisting thepopular will. They stepped aside, and the door was left free. The mobburst into the jail and grabbed the first prisoner to hand.
It was a priest, Bonyon, a playwright noted for his failures and hisepigrams. He was a large-built man, and fought desperately with thebutchers, who tore him from the arms of the commissioner who tried tosave him; though he had no weapon but his naked fists, he laid out twoor three of the ruffians. A bayonet pinned him to the wall, so that heexpired without being able to hit with his last blows.
Two of the prisoners managed to escape in the scuffle.
The next to the priest was an old Royal Guardsman, whose defense wasnot less vigorous; his death was but the more cruel. A third was cut topieces before Suleau's turn came.
"There is your Suleau," said a woman to Theroigne.
She did not know him by sight; she thought he was a priest, and scoffedat him as the Abbe Suleau. Like a wild cat, she sprung at his throat.He was young, brave, and lusty; with a fist blow he sent her ten pacesoff, shook off the men who had seized him, and wrenching a saber from ahand, felled a couple of the assassins.
Then commenced a horrible conflict. Gaining ground toward the door,Suleau cut himself three times free; but he was obliged to turn roundto get the cursed door open, and in that instant twenty blades ranthrough his body. He fell at the feet of Theroigne, who had the crueljoy of inflicting his last wound.
Another escaped, another stoutly resisted, but the rest were butcheredlike sheep. All the bodies were dragged to Vendome Place, where theirheads were struck off and set on poles for a march through the town.
Thus, before the action, blood was spilled in two places; on the CityHall steps and in Feuillants' yard. We shall presently see it flow inthe Tuileries; the brook after the rain-drops, the river after thebrook.
While this massacre was being perpetrated, about nine A. M.,some eleven thousand National Guards, gathered by the alarm-bell ofBarbaroux and the drum-beat of Santerre, marched down the St. Antoineward and came out on the Strand. They wanted the order to assail theTuileries.
Made to wait for an hour, two stories beguiled them: either concessionswere hoped from the court, or the St. Marceau ward was not ready, andthey could not fall on without them.
A thousand pikemen waxed restless; as ever, the worst armed wanted tobegin the fray. They broke through the ranks of the Guard, saying thatthey were going to do without them and take the palace.
Some of the Marseilles Federals and a few French Guards--of the sameregiments which had stormed the Bastile three years before--took thelead and were acclaimed as chiefs. These were the vanguard of theinsurrection.
In the meanwhile, the aid who had seen Mandat murdered had raced backto the Tuileries; but it was not till after the king and the queen hadreturned from the fiasco of a review that he announced the ghastly news.
The sound of a disturbance mounted to the first floor and entered bythe open windows.
The City and the National Guards and the artillerists--the patriots, inshort--had taunted the grenadiers with being the king's tools, sayingthat they were bought up by the court; and as they were ignorant oftheir commander's murder by the mob, a grenadier shouted:
"It looks as though that shuffler Mandat had sent few aristocrats here."
Mandat's eldest son was in the Guards' ranks--we know where the otherboy was, uselessly trying to defend his father on the City Hall steps.At this insult to his absent sire, the young man sprung out of theline with his sword flourished. Three or four gunners rushed to meethim. Weber, the queen's attendant, was among the St. Roch districtgrenadiers, dressed as a National Guardsman. He flew to the young man'shelp. The clash of steel was heard as the quarrel spread between thetwo parties.
Drawn to the window by the noise, the queen perceived herfoster-brother, and she sent the king's valet to bring him to her.
Weber came up and told what was happening, whereupon she acquainted himwith the death of Mandat.
The uproar went on beneath the windows.
"The cannoniers are leaving their pieces," said Weber, looking out;"they have no spikes, but they have driven balls home without powder,so that they are rendered useless!"
"What do you think of all this?"
"I think your majesty had better consult Syndic Roederer, who seems themost honest man in the palace."
Roederer was brought before the queen in her private apartment as theclock struck nine.