CHAPTER V.
THE DAY OF THE FIELD OF MARS.
JULY 17, 1791 (Midnight).--I have just returned to our lodging, myspirits still in the grip of horror and affright. I have been at themassacre of the Field of Mars. Curses upon Lafayette!
The recital of this mournful event, which must be charged to thebourgeoisie, will be of service to the sons of Joel.
From early morning, the weather was magnificent. Not a cloud flecked theazure of the sky. A great mass of people, myself among them, directedtheir steps toward the Field of Mars, men, women and children in holidayapparel. Every face breathed joy, and on all countenances shonesatisfaction. At least as many women as citizens were in the throng.They, also, felt a legitimate pride in being able to prove theirdevotion to civic duty by affixing their names to a petition destinedfor the National Assembly.
About half after eight in the morning, as I reached Great Rock, near oneof the gates of the esplanade of the Field of Mars, I heard shouts, andalmost immediately the crowd before me turned and fell away on eitherside, as if a prey to some unspeakable horror. Then I saw approachingthe giant Lehiron, marching at the head of a band of hisbrigands--Lehiron, whom I had thought killed by Franz of Gerolstein, butwho, recovered from his wound, reappeared before my eyes. On the end ofa pike the villain carried a freshly severed head; one of his disciplescarried a second head likewise transfixed on a pike-staff, and shouted:"Death to the aristocrats! To the lamp-post with the enemies of thepeople!" Several vixens, drunk and in tatters, had joined the assassinsand echoed their cries of death. In the group I recognized, throughtheir feminine masquerade, Abbot Morlet and his god-son, little Rodin.
The band of murderers with their frightful trophies passed before melike a horrid vision.
At last, about two o'clock in the afternoon, a deputation of Jacobinsarrived. The spokesman informed the eager and attentive crowd that anaddress proposed the evening before had been withdrawn by the club, asit might be construed as a rebellion against the Assembly. The peoplewere for an instant rendered dumb by disappointment. A number of voicescried out:
"Then draw us up another petition. We will sign it!"
The Jacobin spokesman and four chosen from among his fellow delegates,Citizens Peyre, Vachart, Robert, and Demoy, drew up on the instant anaddress, which Citizen Demoy read, as follows:
"ON THE ALTAR OF THE COUNTRY,
"FIELD OF MARS, JULY 17 OF THE YEAR III OF LIBERTY.
"Representatives of the Nation:
"You are approaching the end of your labors. A great crime has been committed. Louis XVI flees, unworthily abandons his post. The citizens arrest him at Varennes. He is brought back to Paris. The people of the capital immediately demand that the fate of the guilty one be left undecided until an expression of opinion be obtained from the eighty-three departments of France. A multitude of addresses demanded of you that you pass judgment on Louis XVI. You, gentlemen, have prejudged him innocent and inviolable!
"Legislators, such was not the opinion of the people. Justice must be done.
"Everything compels us to demand of you, in the name of all France, that you reconsider your decision, that you hold that the offense of Louis XVI is proven; that the King, by the very fact of his flight, has abdicated.
"Receive, then, his abdication.
"Legislators, convoke a new constituent power, which will proceed in a truly national manner to deal with this guilty King, and above all to the organization of a new executive power.
"Signed:
"PEYRE,
"VACHART,
"ROBERT,
"DEMOY."
The reading of the petition, concise, measured in terms, but marked withenergy, was received with unanimous applause. Its summary tenor,repeated from mouth to mouth down the whole length of the Field of Mars,received the assent of everyone. Then began an admirable scene. Thepetitioners, men, women and children, forming in long files, in perfectorder, to the left of the staging, stopped one by one at the foot of theAltar of the Country, placing their signatures upon the thick book,whose many pages were bound together with lacings, and then descended onthe other side of the stage; and all without confusion, without outcry,as if each were deeply conscious of the importance of the civic act.
Toward three o'clock I saw three municipal officers, girt in theirsashes, mount the stage. They were Leroux, Hardy, and Renaud. TheJacobin delegation having given them notice of the petition, one of thethree, after reading it to his colleagues, addressed the multitude asfollows:
"Citizens, your petition is perfectly legal. We are charmed at the sightpresented to us. Everything here is being carried on in admirable order.Some have told us there was a riot on the Field of Mars; we are nowconvinced that the report is baseless. Far from interfering with thesigning of your petition, we shall aid you with the public powers ifanyone attempts to trouble you in the exercise of your rights."
The words of the committee of the Commune of Paris were applauded by thecrowd. The committee left, and the people continued to pour towards theAltar of the Country to sign the lists.
The day drew to its close. The sun disappeared behind the hill ofMeudon. The hour of eight sounded from the clock of the Military School.A part of the vast throng which surrounded me, setting out to regaintheir homes, turned their steps toward that entrance to the Field ofMars which gives upon Great Rock. Each one rejoiced that he had assistedat the great demonstration.
Suddenly, from the neighborhood of the Great Rock gate, towards which wewere proceeding, we heard the sound of a large corps of drums, beaten atthe double-quick; then, in the pauses of the march, the heavy rumblingof several pieces of artillery; almost at the same instant, but furtheroff, in the direction of the gate near the Military School, sounded thetrumpet calls of cavalry; and finally, more distant still, the snarl ofother drums from the quarter of the bridge leading across the Seine fromthe end of the field. The vast parade-ground, surrounded by walls whoseperpendicular sides overhung great moats, was thus being invaded by anarmed force advancing at once toward the three outlets through which thepeople intended to return to Paris. The immense deploy of troops,infantry, cavalry and artillery, converging in unison upon the Field ofMars, filled with an inoffensive multitude at the point of leaving it,caused great and general surprise, but at first aroused neither fear norsuspicion. The groups around me, yielding to innocent curiosity and tothe love of sight-seeing native in the Parisian, quickened their steps"to see the soldiers go by," all the while asking themselves what couldbe the object of this massing of military forces. The advance guard ofthe column which entered by the Great Rock gate, was composed of thebattalion of the National Guard called, from their district, theDaughters of St. Thomas. Then followed General Lafayette, surrounded byhis brilliant staff, and finally Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, accompaniedby several municipal officers. One of these carried a staff around whichwas furled a piece of red cloth, hardly visible, for I had not noticedit except for the exclamation of an old man in front of me:
"Meseems they hoist the red flag! I believe that is not done except inthe presence of public danger, in case of insurrection, or when martiallaw has been proclaimed from the City Hall!"
"In that case," anxiously queried the spectators, "can they haveproclaimed martial law in the interior of Paris?" "Is there, then,trouble, or a tumult of the people, or an insurrection in the city? Whatabout?"
While these words were being anxiously exchanged around me, theapparition of the almost invisible bit of red bunting, the expression ofsinister glee I had just remarked on the faces of several inebriatedNational Guardsmen who, marching past the crowd, tapped their guns,crying "We shall send a few pills into the Jacobins;"--all thesecircumstances connected themselves in my mind and forced upon me all tooclear a premonition of what was about to occur. The batteries ofartillery had commenced to disgorge through the Great Rock gate when thebourgeois guard which wa
s in line halted, and, deploying before itsbanner, advanced, with leveled guns and quickened pace, upon themultitude, which recoiled before it. At the same instant the cavalryentered at a rapid trot by the gate near the Military School, while theother column poured in by the bridge over the Seine. By thissimultaneous manoeuvre the forty thousand persons or thereabouts whostill remained in the Field of Mars, surrounded by embankments andwalls, saw themselves hemmed in on every side by the troops who occupiedthe gates.
Vain would be any attempt on my part to give an idea of the stupor, thenthe fright, and soon the panic, which seized the helpless multitude.Great God, what a picture! What heartrending cries! What shrieks ofchildren, of women, mingling with the imprecations of men whose energybecame paralyzed, either by the physical impossibility of doing anythingin the crush, or by their preoccupation to safeguard a wife, a mother,a daughter, or children of tender age, exposed to smothering, or tobeing trampled under foot!
Suddenly I saw appear, on top of one of the embankments, Lehiron andabout a score of his cut-throat band, accompanied by some tattered,bare-headed urchins who cried:
"Down with the National Guard! Down with the blue-bonnets! Down withLafayette!"
While his followers rained a hail of rocks at the city guard, Lehirondrew a pistol from his pocket, and, without even taking aim, dischargedhis weapon in the direction of the General's staff, shouting:
"Death to Lafayette!"
At the same moment, without unfurling the red flag, without Mayor Baillyhaving issued a single order, a company of the city guard opened fire,but shot in the air in the direction of the bank occupied by Lehiron andhis pack. This first fusillade, although harmless, nevertheless threwthe populace into inexpressible terror. Almost immediately, we werepierced by volleys from the whole platoon, this time deadly. I saw theface of the fine old man who had stood in front of me blanch under theblood which poured from his riddled forehead. A young woman who held herfour or five-year-old son above her head lest he be smothered in thepress, felt her child grow rigid and heavy; he had been shot through thebody. Piercing cries or suppressed moans uttered on all sides of me toldthat other shots also had taken effect. The fusillade continued. Afrenzy of flight, of everyone for himself, fell upon the huddled mass;the people elbowed and trod upon one another. In the midst of thisfrightful pell-mell, I lost my balance and fell over the body of the oldman, which had until then been supported erect by the crowding of myneighbors. The aged body saved my life; it prevented me from beingcrushed under the feet of the throng. Nevertheless, I received severaldeep wounds on the head. I felt the blood flow copiously from them. Mysenses swam, and I completely lost consciousness.
* * * * *
When I came to myself, the clock of the Military School was strikingten. The moon, from the midst of a cloudless and star-strewn sky,lighted up the Field of Mars. The coolness of the night revived me. Myfirst thought was for my sister--what anguish must have been hers! Isaw, here and there, the wandering lights of several lanterns, by aid ofwhich men and women had come to seek out among the dead and dying thosewhom they had left behind them.
Soon, some distance from me, I perceived a woman, tall and slender, in awhite robe. This woman bore no lantern; she came and went hurriedly;halting and bending over, she contemplated the victims, she seemed tointerrogate their features. My heart bounded; I divined that it wasVictoria.
"Sister!" I cried, weakly.
I was not deceived. Learning by the popular rumor of the massacre whichhad taken place, Victoria had run to the Field of Mars to find me. Hertender cares summoned back my strength. She stanched the blood from mywounds, dressed them, and, supporting me on her arm, assisted me to thegate opening on Great Rock. We passed by the scaffolding on which hadbeen erected the Altar of the Country. The steps were buried undercorpses.
Arrived home with Victoria, I wished, after an hour's rest, to inscribein my journal this very night the record of this fatal day of the 17thof July, 1791.
I have added to my record the following fragment of an article from thepaper of Camille Desmoulins, explaining the causes of the massacre ofthe Field of Mars. Desmoulins's account, save in one point noted by me,is scrupulously exact. I copy it literally:
"Camille Desmoulins, sending to Lafayette his resignation as journalist:
"'Tis wrong we were, the thing is far too clear, And our good guns have settled this affair.
"Lafayette, liberator of two worlds! Flower of janissary chieftains!Phoenix of constable-majors! Don Quixote of the Capets and the twochambers! Constellation of the White Horse! I improve the first momentthat I touch a land of liberty to send you the resignation as journalistand as national censor which you have for so long been demanding of me.I place it also at the feet of Monsieur Bailly and his red flag. I feelthat my voice is too feeble to raise itself above that of thirtythousand cowards and also of your satellites, above the din of your fourhundred drums and your hundreds of cannon....
"You and your accomplices in the City Hall and the Assembly feared theexpression of the views of the people of Paris, which will soon becomethose of all France. You feared to hear your sentence pronounced by thenation in person, seated on its bed of justice, in the Field of Mars.'What shall we do?' you asked yourselves.
"'Eh, call to our aid martial law!' Against peaceful and unarmedpetitioners, who were quietly practising their right of assemblage!
"Or, that is what the Constitutionals imagined, to the end of gratifyingus a second time with martial law; and, instead of hanging one man (asthe baker Francis), they massacred two."
At this point Camille Desmoulins recounts the arrest of two individualsfound during the morning hiding under the Altar of the Country, andcontinues:
"The cowards, the back-sliding bandits, counterfeiting the appearance ofexaggerated patriots, threw themselves upon the two unfortunates, torethem to pieces, cut off their heads, and went to promenade them aboutParis.
"Thus sought they to prepare the citizens, by the horror of thespectacle, to support the declaration of martial law. Immediately thenews spread in the city, with the rapidity of lightning--'Two heads havebeen struck off in the Field of Mars.' Then, 'Out upon the petitioners,the Jacobins and the Cordeliers!' Thus were the municipal officersbewitched."
Here Desmoulins forgets or passes over in silence the honorable conductof a minority of the council of the Commune of Paris. The threecouncilmen, learning on their return from the Field of Mars of theproclamation of martial law, were astounded, and affirmed and testifiedon their honor that the most admirable order reigned on the concourse,that they had looked into the address to the Representatives of thepeople; that it was perfectly in place and legitimate; that they hadassured the petitioners that, far from troubling them in the exercise oftheir duty, the municipal authority would protect them with all care. Infine, the three officers, deeply moved and indignant, exclaimed withtears in their eyes that it would disgrace them, ruin them, to marchagainst petitioners to whom they had pledged and guaranteed completesecurity. But in spite of the generous words of the three officers,Lafayette excited his pretorians; they cried, goes on CamilleDesmoulins:
"'There is the red flag already flung out. The most difficult thing isdone. Now, if all the clubs, all the fraternal societies would meet atthe Field of Mars to sign the petition for the abdication of Louis XVI,what a bowl of nectar that Jacobin blood would be to our palates!'
"And so the pretorians pushed their measures. They assembled tenthousand troops: infantry, cavalry, artillery. The night, the time setfor marching, having come, Lafayette's three aides-de-camp spreadthemselves in the public places, declaring that their General had beenassassinated by a Jacobin. But properly to judge of the fury of theseidolaters, these blue-bonnets of the Nero of two worlds, one should haveseen them in one moment pour furiously from their pens, or, rather, fromtheir dens. They loaded with ball in plain view of the people; on allsides the drums beat the assembly; the twenty-seven battalions mostheavily composed of
aristocrats received the order to march upon theField of Mars. They inflamed themselves to the massacre. As they loadedtheir muskets they were heard to say: _We shall send some pills into theJacobins_. The cavalry flourished their sabers. It was half after eightin the evening when the red flag was unrolled as the signal for themassacre of inoffensive petitioners. The battalions arrived at the Fieldof Mars, not by one sole entrance, in order that the citizens mightdisperse, but by all the three issues at once, that the petitionersmight be enclosed from all sides. And here is the final perfidy, thatwhich caps the climax of the horrors of the day. These volleys--alldelivered without orders--were fired upon petitioners, who seeing deathadvancing from all sides, and unable to flee, received them as theyembraced the Altar of the Country, which in an instant was heaped withthe corpses of the slain."
Such was the melancholy day of the Field of Mars. And yet the will ofthe petitioners--the forfeiture of Louis XVI's right to the crown andconsequently the establishment of the Republic--was so sane, so logical,so inevitable by the march of events and the force of affairs, that thefollowing year saw Louis suspended from the throne upon accusation ofhigh treason, and saw the National Convention proclaim the Republic. Butalas! how many victims!