La comtesse de Charny. English
CHAPTER XXI.
BEAUSIRE'S BRAVADO.
Imprisoned in the Chatelet, Beausire was brought before the juryspecially charged to deal with thefts committed in the taking of theTuileries. He could not deny what was only too clearly brought forth,so he most humbly confessed his deed and sued for clemency.
His antecedents being looked up, they so little edified the court onhis moral character, that he was condemned to five years in the hulksand transportation to the plantations.
In vain did he allege that he had been led into crime by the mostcommendable feelings, namely, to provide a peaceful future for hiswife and child; nothing could alter the doom, and as the court was onewithout appeal, and the sentences active, it was likely to be executedimmediately.
Better for him had it not been deferred for a day. Fate would have itthat one of his old associates was put in prison with him on the eve ofhis sentence being carried out. They renewed acquaintance and exchangedconfidences.
The new-comer was, he said, concerned in a well-matured plot which wasto burst on Strand Place or before the Justice Hall. The conspiratorswere to gather in a considerable number, as if to see the executionstaking place at either spot, and, raising shouts of "Long live theking!" "The Prussians are coming, hurrah!" "Death to the nation!" theywere to storm the City Hall, call to their help the National Guards,two thirds Royalist, or at least Constitutional, maintain the abolitionof the Commune, and, in short, accomplish the loyal counter-revolution.
The mischief was that Beausire's old partner was the very man who wasto give the signal. The others in the plot, ignorant of his arrest,would hie to the place of execution, and the rising would fall to theground from nobody being there to start the cries.
This was the more lamentable, added the friend, from there never beinga better arranged plot, and one that promised a more certain result.
His arrest was the more regrettable still as, in the turmoil, theprisoner would most certainly be rescued and get away, so that he wouldelude the branding-iron and the galleys.
Though Captain Beausire had no settled opinions, he leaned towardroyalty, so he began to deplore the check to the scheme, in the firstplace for the king's sake, and then for his own.
All at once he struck his brow, for he was illumined with a bright idea.
"Why, this first execution is to be mine!" he said.
"Of course, and it would have been a rich streak of luck for you."
"But you say that it will not matter who gives the cue, for the plotwill burst out?"
"Yes. But who will do this, when I am caged, and can not communicatewith the lads outside?"
"I," replied Beausire in lofty, tragic tones. "Will I not be on thespot, since it is I whom they are to put in the pillory? So I am theman who will cry out the arranged shouts; it is not so very hard atask, methinks."
"I always said you were a genius," remarked the captain's friend, afterbeing wonder-struck.
Beausire bowed.
"If you do this," continued the Royalist plotter, "you will not onlybe delivered and pardoned, but still further, when I proclaim thatthe success of the outbreak is due to you, you can shake hands withyourself beforehand on the great reward you will earn."
"I am not going to do the deed for anything like lucre," said theadventurer, with the most disinterested of manners.
"We all know that," rejoined the friend; "but when the reward comesalong, I advise you not to refuse it."
"Oh, if you think I ought to take it--" faltered the gambler.
"I press you to, and if I had any power over you, I should order you,"resumed the companion, majestically.
"I give in," said Beausire.
"Well, to-morrow we will breakfast together, for the governor of thejail will not refuse this favor to two old 'pals,' and we will crack ajolly good bottle of the rosy to the success of this plot."
Though Beausire may have had his doubts on the kindness of prisongovernors, the request was granted, to his great satisfaction. It wasnot one bottle they drained, but several. At the fourth, Beausirewas a red-hot Royalist. Luckily, the warders came to take him to theStrand before he emptied the fifth. He stepped into the cart as into atriumphal chariot, disdainfully surveying the throng for whom he wasstoring up such a startling surprise.
On Notre Dame Bridge, a woman and a little boy were waiting for him tocome along. He recognized poor Oliva, in tears, and young Toussaint,who, on beholding his father among the soldiers, said:
"Serves him right; what did he beat me for?"
The proud father smiled protectingly, and would have waved a blessingbut his hands were tied behind his back.
The City Hall Square was crammed with people. They knew that this felonhad robbed in the palace, and they had no pity for him. Hence, theGuards had their work cut out to keep them back when the cart stoppedat the pillory foot.
Beausire looked on at the uproar and scuffling, as much as to say: "Youshall see some fun in awhile; this is nothing to the joker I have up mysleeve!"
When he appeared on the pillory platform, there was general hooting;but at the supreme moment, when the executioner opened the culprit'sshirt and pulled down the sleeve to bare the shoulder, and then stoopeddown to take the red-hot brand, that happened which always does--allwas silent before the majesty of the law.
Beausire snatched at this lull, and gathering all his powers, heshouted in a full, ringing and sonorous voice:
"Long live the king! Hurrah for the Prussians! Down with the nation!"
However great a tumult the prisoner may have expected, the one thisraised much exceeded it; the protest was not in shouts, but howls. Thewhole gathering uttered an immense roar and rushed on the pillory.
This time the guards were insufficient to protect their man. Theirranks were broken, the scaffold swarmed upon, the executioner thrownover, and the condemned one torn from the stand and flung into thesurging mob.
He would have been flayed, dismembered, and torn to pieces but for oneman, arrayed in his scarf as a town officer, who luckily saw it allfrom the City Hall steps.
It was the Commune attorney, Manuel. He had strongly humane feelings,which he often had to keep hidden, but they moved him at such times.
With great difficulty he fought his way to Beausire, and laying hold ofhim, said in a loud voice:
"In the name of the law, I claim this man!"
There was hesitation; he unloosed his scarf, floating it like a flag,and called for all good citizens to assist him.
A score clustered round him and drew Beausire, half dead, from thecrowd. Manuel had him carried into the Hall, which was seriouslythreatened, so deep was the exasperation. Manuel came out on thebalcony.
"This man is guilty," he said, "but of a crime for which he has notbeen tried. Let us select a jury from among us to assemble in a room ofthe City Hall. Whatever the sentence, it shall be executed; but let ushave a legal sentence."
Is it not curious that such language should be used on the eve ofthe massacre of the prisoners, by one of the men accused of havingorganized it, at the peril of his life?
This pledge appeased the mob. Beausire was dragged before theimprovised jury. He tried to defend himself, but his second crime wasas patent as the first; only in the popular eye it was much graver.
Was it not a dreadful crime and deserving of condign punishment tocheer the king who was put in prison as a traitor, to hurrah for thePrussians who had captured a French town, and to wish death to thenation, in agony on a bed of pain?
So the jury decided not only that the culprit deserved the capitalpenalty, but that to mark the shame which the law had sought to defineby substituting the guillotine for the gallows, that he should behanged, and on the spot where he committed the offense.
Consequently the headsman of Paris had his orders to erect a gibbet onthe pillory stand.
The view of this work and the certainty that the prisoner could notescape them, pacified the multitude.
This was the matter which the Assembly w
as busied with. It saw thateverything tended to a massacre--a means of spreading terror andperpetuating the Commune. The end was that they voted that the Communehad acted to merit the gratitude of the country, and Robespierre, afterpraising it, asserted that the House had lost the public confidence,and that the only way for the people to save themselves was to retaketheir powers.
So the masses were to be without check, but with a heart full ofvengeance, and charged to continue the August massacre of those who hadfought for the palace on the tenth, by following them into the prisons.
It was the first of September, and a storm seemed to oppress everybodywith its suspended lightning.