CHAPTER XVI
BROKEN ON THE WHEEL
The prisoners were condemned to death, in the terrible form of breakingon the wheel. Wife Gougeon and the Admiral returned late on the lastnight before the execution to the old-iron shop, dismayed and ferocious.Her vanity was deeply hurt by the failure of her plan. In the back ofthe shop, among piles of horse-shoes, locks, spikes, and bars, a meetingof the Big Bench of the Galley-on-land was held to decide the course tobe taken. The yellow light of the dip threw their shadows into therecesses and shed its flicker on their faces. Gougeon sat picking at thecandle-grease in his apathetic way. Hache cheerfully threw himself on along box. The Admiral stood wrapped in his cloak, melodramatic as usual.
Femme Gougeon pushed into the centre.
"Men, or whatever you call yourselves," she hissed, throwing her grimyarm into the air, "will you let la Tour, Bec, and Caron die like dogs?"and her deep-set eyes scintillated from one to the other.
A sullen silence ensued.
Finding no reply, she rushed to the window-sill at the rear and tookdown an assortment of pike-heads and stilletti, with which were a coupleof pistols. She thrust a dirk or pike-head into the hand of each, but tothe Admiral she gave one of the pistols; the other she kept.
"There," shrieked she furiously, raising her arm to its full height withthe pistol. "That is what I say about this."
They were still sullen and reluctant.
"What have you done, Motte?" the Admiral said, turning to the beggar ofVersailles.
"I have seen Fouche; he is persuaded an escape is impossible."
"Who is Fouche?"
"A prison guard of the Chatelet, and belongs to our Galley."
"Did you tell him I had the money?"
"He says money in this case is useless; this is not an ordinarybusiness; the Lieutenant sees to it in person on account of the King'sinterest in it; it is robbery from the person of a Prince, and a crimeagainst the King on his own lands."
"Reasons only too clear," reflected the Admiral. "Where will theexecution be?"
At the mention of the unpleasant word a grimace passed over Hache'sface.
"On the Place de Greve," Gougeon replied, showing a little interest, "ateight to-morrow."
"How many guards will attend them?"
"Six by the cart, with their officers; and the streets are lined withthe guards of Paris," continued Gougeon.
"You intend a _rescue_? Sacre!" vociferated Wife Gougeon. "I will bethere too; they dare not arrest me. Greencaps, I tell you thosewhite-gills fear us people, and we could kick their heads about thestreets if we all stood together."
"Death to the hogs!" cried the beggar.
"Take care," Gougeon grumbled.
"What do you mean, beast?" retorted his amiable spouse.
"That there are plenty of _sheep_[1] on this street."
[Note 1: Spies.]
"Curse the _sheep_!" ejaculated the Admiral. "Go everywhere, all of you,and rouse the Galley and all ragmen for to-morrow at the Quai Pelletierat half-past seven. Return here by six sharp."
By six next morning the Council had returned, and their friends as theyleft the door hung about the street corner near by, amusing themselvesby striking the lamp with their sticks.
At half-past six the Council issued, shouting--
"To the execution!"
Hache ran up the middle of the street repeating the cry in hisstentorian voice, so that as he rushed along the dingy houses pouredforth their contents after him like swarms of bees; boys, men, and womenmingling pell-mell, half clothed, unkempt, fierce-mouthed, wild-faced,ignorant.
Motte, the beggar, took up the words and sped like the wind up thenarrow side streets and lanes, shouting, "To the execution!"
Wife Gougeon screamed it. Even her husband opened his malign jaws fromtime to time and automatically gave vent to a harsh shout.
Thus sown, it became a cry springing up everywhere. The whole quarter ofSt. Marcel grew alive, and an immense crowd ran together into theneighbouring square. Little direction was needed to band them into amarching mob, waving clubs, pikes, and bottles, dancing, quarrelling andhowling, with ribald songs and shouts of "To the execution!" In onething they differed notably from a similar crowd in this century, couldsuch be imagined. Ragged and wretched though they were, they wore_colour_ in profusion. The mass was a rich subject for the artist.
Among the women at the front was seen Wife Gougeon brandishing herpistol. The Admiral and Hache were at her side haranguing the leaders.Surging along, the demoniac screams of drunken women and the babel ofshouting men, as they approached each new neighbourhood, seemed to stirit to its depths and to add to the rear a new contingent.
Thus their numbers swelled at every street, and the excitement increasedto a pitch beyond description. They swept forward by the Rue Mouffetardand through the Latin Quarter till they reached the broad Boulevard St.Germain. Turning along the latter through the Rue St. Jacques theysuddenly increased their speed and uproar, and thundered across thePetit Pont Bridge and Isle of France, and once more across abridge--that of Notre Dame--where they saw the Quai Le Pelletier on theother side lined with a black sea of people. At least a quarter of thepopulation of Paris were crammed together within the available spaceupon the quays and the neighbouring streets along the Seine, from thetowered Chatelet--court-house and prison--some distance below, to thePlace de Greve, some distance above, in front of the Hotel de Ville. Aline of blue-coated, white-gaitered soldiers on each side kept the spaceclear down the centre.
The people were looking forward to the spectacle of the morning withintense delight.
Meanwhile at the prison doors of the Chatelet the three poor wretches ofprisoners were forced into a cart by gendarmes in the sight of themultitude. A man sat awaiting them in the cart, curled, powdered,dressed; and perfumed with foppish elegance, and his every motion madewith a dainty sense of distinction. He was the people's hero--the publicexecutioner. He took in his hands the ends of the rope which hung fromthe necks of his victims. Another figure mounted the cart behind them.It was a priest, who knelt, bent his head, and offered to each of themthe crucifix; and the cart then proceeded slowly along the soldier-linedstreets, accompanied by half a dozen guards carrying their muskets ontheir shoulders, bayonetted.
The emotions meanwhile of the condemned were told in their bearing.Young Hugues de la Tour stood up, and scornfully refusing the crucifixof the priest, looked around upon the scene with an air ofirreconcilable indignation. His companions, Bec and Caron, the men whoin the cave had spoken of themselves as ruined, the one by taxes, theother by the tithe, were more abject, and clutched the crucifix indespair.
Comments were shouted freely at the victims. Applause greeted thedemeanour of la Tour, rough raillery the terror of his companions.
After this manner they jolted painfully along the cobbled paving, downthrough the swaying crowd towards the Place de Greve. Though thedistance was not perhaps more than a couple of hundred yards the poormen underwent ages of tension. When they came to the Quai Le Pelletier,Hugues heard, as in a dream, a startling stentorian, familiar cry--
"Vive the Galley!"
His bloodshot eyes strained towards the place whence it came, and oncemore a voice, this time the shriek of a woman, pierced the air--
"Vive the Galley!"
The two other prisoners now raised their heads, still dazed and in astupor.
Immediately a third voice, loud and shrill, but instinct with the thrillof command, took up the words. It was the Admiral, and his third "Vivethe Galley!" was a signal.
Nine soldiers of the line of troops at the point nearest the prisonerswere simultaneously thrown on the street, and a score of desperate menhad broken into the centre and made a rush for the small guard aroundthe carts. A cry, rising into a multitudinous commotion of shouts, wentup from the gazing mob, ever on the verge of a tumult. At the same timethere was a resistless swaying on all sides--the two lines of soldiersgave way for a few minutes, and people far and near r
ushed into themiddle of the street. The vortex of St. Marcellese, at the Pont NotreDame, already filled with winey purpose, pushed forward with a suddenbound towards their leaders and the death-cart, triumphing over theirold enemies, the gendarmes, and preparing for every excess.
Femme Gougeon, as leader of a horde of viragoes, was rushing among themshrieking more fiendishly than ever. While some held down the guard orwrested away their arms, the prisoners were lifted out of the cart andbegan to be hurried along towards the bridge, Bec and Caron strugglinglike maniacs with their fetters. The mob had at this moment completemastery.
It lasted only a few seconds. Drums began to beat towards the Place deGreve. The tocsin bell of the Hotel de Ville sounded. There was ashock--a check of the crowd's volitions. A heavy rolling-back movementtook place, and a public roar of fear was heard. People on the edges ranto shelter, and in a few moments more a volley of musketry sounded downthe street. The crowd broke in all directions. It scattered away assuddenly as it had risen, and through the clearing smoke the soldierscould be seen closing up and again preparing to fire in volley. Theprisoners were left in the hands only of the Admiral and Hache.
"Come, come," cried the latter, urging them to run.
"Brave men, save yourselves; as for us we are lost," was the reply of laTour.
So Hache and the Admiral disappeared.
Bec and Caron lay prostrate on the deserted pavement. Hugues stood upproudly until a musket-ball broke his arm and knocked him over.
Then the dead and wounded could be counted, scattered over the scene ofthe _melee_.
Sickening it would be to tell in full of the execution which followed.
The Place de Greve was surrounded by an entire regiment, keeping backthe crowd, who soon, remastered by overpowering curiosity, struggled forstanding room and strained their necks to see. A conspicuous platformhad been erected in front of the Hotel de Ville. Caron was the first tosuffer. At the order of the executioner he was caught hold of by twoassistants, thrown down, and bound to a large St. Andrew's cross ofplank which lay on the platform. The black-robed confessor knelt down athis head and held up the crucifix before him, at the same time hidinghis own face by his book and the sleeve of his gown. The executioneradjusted his wig elegantly, took up and minutely examined his crowbar,and casting first a coxcomb look at the breathless spectators, broughtthe bar into the air with a flourish, and down with a crash on the rightthigh of the poor prisoner. The agonising cry of the helpless man wasdrowned in a tremendous outburst of applause from the crowd. When he hadbeen disposed of in each of his four limbs, Bec was treated in the samemanner. Then the assistants, seizing Hugues, threw him on the cross,bound him, and the executioner lifted his bar in the air----