CHAPTER XLIV
SELF-DEFENCE
Dominique made an incomparable butler. It boots not to tell how, underhis military sway, the servants seemed almost to acquire the newPrussian drill; the stores and cellars were listed with the system of acommissariat, dust disappeared like magic from gildings and parquetry,and order and state surrounded "the young Chevalier" in all hismovements.
But above all the new _maitre d'hotel_ energetically carried out theimmediate wish of his master, and soon everything was ready for an eventto which Germain was looking forward with supreme delight--the coming ofCyrene to see her future home. The day arrived. The Canoness accompaniedher. The ecstasy of the lovers as they clasped each other in the placeof their first meeting may be left unwritten. Very often was theCanoness constrained to absorb herself in her little illuminatedprayer-book.
Eight or nine days after the event, the time arrived when it wascustomary at Eaux Tranquilles for the tenants to pay their feudal dues,and Germain was alone in the office of the chateau, looking over theancient titles of de Bailleul's inheritances, preparatory to receivingthe "faith and homage" of his subjects.
"I must go no farther," he was saying to himself. "She must not marry mewithout knowing everything. The time has come for confession, and I mustspare myself in nothing. What will she think of me when she knows howfalse I have been?"
At that point Dominique stepped in gravely and shut the door.
"They are at some mischief in Grelot," he said.
"Against me?"
"It looks that way."
"How? I saw nothing of it yesterday."
The day before being Sunday, Germain had gone over alone in his coach toattend High Mass in the parish church. The people standing about thefront doors greeted him respectfully, and he passed up the aisle andtook his seat in his raised and curtained pew. The priest, as wascustomary, had named him in the prayers as patron of the church, he wasthe first to be passed the blessed bread, and the congregation evenreceived with subdued approbation a warm reference in the sermon to hisdistribution of wheat to the poor. His leaving was treated in asrespectful a manner. How then, one day later, could the Grelotins be atmischief against him?
"It was that Mule and that trash of a Cliquet. They were haranguing thepeople after Mass--something about a thing Mule calls the Third Estate.Nobody knows what it is--but everybody thinks it belongs to himself andthat the aristocrats want to take it from him. So everybody got into arage against the aristocrats (save your honour), and Mule brought themover to the tavern hall, ordered everybody's fill of brandy, and readout something from the King. He told them the King was on their side,and for all to tell out their complaints against the Seigneur. Soeverybody began to think if he had complaints, and Master Mule wrotethem into a copybook. When Mule read it out, the people groaned andcried that they never knew they had had so many miseries. Cliquetshouted that you were the cause of all these miseries; that you hadgrain while the peasants were starving, and that they ought to drive youout of the country and then would all be well."
They were startled by a musket-shot so near the house that Dominiquehastened to the window to look. Germain sprang up too. The office facedat the rear, close to the old chateau and lake.
A rough fellow with a gun was coolly standing near the great dovecot andshooting at the pigeons. Dominique threw open the window and shouted.The answer was a gesture of derision.
Germain rang furiously for the lackeys. For answer Jovite and 'Lexandreran up, pale, and out of their wits, reporting that "the brigands" wereinvading the front of the house.
"Go and find what is the matter, Dominique," Lecour said, and sprang upto seek for Cyrene, but checking himself, crossed the corridor and wentto a front window.
He saw a multitude trooping down the gardens from the gates and walls,over which in the distance he could descry them swarming, and forming asort of semicircle around the entrance door. The vanguard were led by adrum and a violin. The expressions on the faces of the men were wild andhaggard, most wore greasy bonnets of wool, some huge wooden shoes, somehobnailed ones, and over their shoulders or in their hands protrudedtheir weapons--pitchforks, scythes, flails, knives, clubs, and rustyguns. All must have been several thousand, collected from every hamletin his territory. They seemed like a legion of some spectre army ofHunger and Ignorance. In the commander Germain recognised hisdischarged butler.
The Canoness he descried escaping, unseen by them, with the aid of agardener, across the pond into the park. He withdrew from the window andfled quickly towards the chamber of Cyrene. She likewise was seekinghim, and in a passage they rushed into each other's arms.
"Where is the Canoness?" she exclaimed.
"She is gone, she was warned," he said. "You know there is danger,love?"
"I see it," she answered.
"Come," he urged her, "the office is strong, we may have to defendourselves."
Thither, therefore, they returned and anxiously awaited Dominique, eachfearful of the safety of the other. For the moment the protection of thehouse had to be trusted wholly to the Auvergnat.
Dominique was absent about fifteen minutes, during which Germain couldhear the servants barring the doors, and voices surrounding the house inall directions. The valet returned and related his observations. Aftermaking the doors fast and collecting the female servants in the hall, hehad carefully looked out of the wicket of the grand entrance, and seeingno one approaching, opened, and going out to the head of the steps,inquired of the mob their errand. He was met by a hurly-burly of cries.
"Long live Liberty! Long live the King! Death to the aristocrats! Longlive the nation!"
"What do you seek of Monsieur le Chevalier?"
"His head!" cried Cliquet.
"Bread, bread!" shouted the sabot-maker.
But two others came forward and more rightly interpreted the chief andquaint demand of the ignorant peasants. They demanded all hisparchments and title-deeds to burn; "for," said they sententiously, "weshall then be freed of rents and dues, which are now abolished by theKing." Some of the bolder rioters had even started a fire to burn thedocuments.
"And if he does not give them up?"
"We must cut off his head and burn down his chateau. We are sorry, butit is the King's order."
Dominique, in reporting, made no suggestions; instead, he waited forinstructions. Lecour thought a moment. He came to the conclusion to tryseverity. "Tell them," said he, "that unless they are quiet I will makeparchments of their skins."
Cyrene caught his arm, but the answer had already gone.
Dominique dropped the _role_ of butler for his old ones of soldier. Hesaluted, and marched down to deliver the message. A hush was heard for afew moments, then the entrance door slammed, and an instant after allthe windows in the mansion seemed to shatter simultaneously before atremendous volley of musketry and stones. Every wall and casement shookwith the shouts and racketing sounds of a fierce and general attack.
Germain and Cyrene shuddered. The noise awoke them to the seriousness ofthe situation. It brought them face to face with that terrible stormwhose thunderclouds were now thickly darkening over France--thedeath-dealing typhoon of the Revolution. A proud thought came into hishead. "My time is come. I shall die defending her."
"Do you and all the servants save yourselves," he said to Dominique. Andhe took two pistols from the drawer and laid them on the table, lookinginto Cyrene's eyes.
"No, my master," Dominique returned, "if you die, I will die with you.I know my duty. But let us at least defend ourselves well."
"See that the others escape, and especially the women. It is not rightfor them, who are from the country here, to be embroiled with theirrelatives. Tell them on no account to open the outer doors, or they runthe risk of massacre, but to make terms through their friends in themob."
It was only a question of minutes when the besiegers should succeed inbreaking a door or scaling the walls to the windows and making theirentrance. From the office windows they could
see a score of those in therear running forward across the grounds with a ladder which they hadsecured in the stables. Passing again to the front of the house, Lecoursaw the mob angrily tearing up garden benches and summerhouses for thesame purpose. An active crowd besides, under the urging of Cliquet, wasbattering the main door with a beam. The fire, lit for his parchmentswas blazing merrily, and a man with a shock of matted hair, by a suddenimpulse snatched a long brand and raised the cry of "Burn him up!"Others sprang forward to do the same, and fought for the blazing pieces,but Cliquet bounded down the steps and knocked the matted-hair man down.
"Curse you!" he shouted. "You will spoil the whole business. You don'tknow how many good things are in there for us."
Dominique returned from the servants. "They are well arranged for," saidhe.
Cyrene tremblingly caught Germain's arm, excited with a new idea. "Tothe old chateau! not a moment to lose!" she cried, and seizing Lecour bythe arm hurried him into the passage which communicated between the newmansion on land and the ancient one in the lake, while Dominiquefollowed. Half-way across was a decayed wooden door, which once haddone duty as a gate behind the portcullis. They shut and bolted thiswith all speed, and then turned to look round them. The crash of themain door falling and the shout of the mob which followed, penetrated totheir retreat.
"We have plenty of powder and pistols," Dominique exclaimed; "there isthe armoury just at our backs."
The armoury, in truth, was close at hand and in it an ample selection ofold-fashioned weapons.
"Let us place this to command the passage," Germain said, touching abronze cannon, after they had taken some pistols and powder.
"Very good, my General," Dominique assented excitedly, and pushing therusty trunnion they got it into position. It was an ornate affair, whichhad been for centuries discharged by the de Bailleuls on the birthdaysof the family. Cyrene had the good judgment to remain in the armoury.
It was several hours before they were discovered. The reason, as theyconcluded by listening at the door in the passage, was the exploring ofthe wine-cellars by the besiegers, under the guidance of Cliquet. Blows,shouts, and crashes indicated numerous acts of destruction. Inevitably,however, they were at last found out by Cliquet himself, who could notforego the delights of revenge. He came to the wooden door.
"Baptism, dame, I have you now, you cursed young white-gill!" cried he."Break it in, my boys, smash, hack. We'll roast _him_ in place of hisparchments--the man who will make parchments of our skins."
Lecour ran back to take a moment's glance at Cyrene. She was kneeling atprayer. He withdrew, grasped his pistols with renewed determination, andstood at his post.
Lecour and Dominique were quite ready--the latter with his fuse, theformer with a pistol in each outstretched hand and the need of savingCyrene in his fast-beating heart. They were disciplined soldiers, themob was not. No sooner had the door fallen in and the crowd of attackersrushed into the passage, than the roar of the cannon was heard, itsflame was seen, a cloud of sulphurous smoke thickly filled the passage,and a mass of mutilated and shrieking creatures covered the floor. Aterrible sorrow for his suffering tenants surged over Germain. Adreadful silence fell upon the rest of the house, followed by mingledsounds of confusion in the distance, and soon the main multitude itselfappeared, pressing forward towards the passage.
Lecour, with his pistols undischarged, again stood immovably coveringDominique, as he deliberately and rapidly reloaded, and once more whilethe crowd still pressed on a torrent of shrapnel poured into them,sickening all finally of the attempt.
The two army men thus remained temporary masters of the situation, butthey knew that the advantage could not serve them long.
As for Cyrene she was weak with the shock, but insisted on making nocomplaints. He watched her anxiously and tenderly until she seemedsomewhat recovered, but it was evident by her trembling limbs that agrave illness was but briefly postponed. The groans which came from thepassage caused her to make several attempts to go to the sufferers, andshe had to be gently restrained and removed by them to another part ofthe castle.
As dusk fell the two defenders moved cautiously forward among thehorrors of the dead and dying, and once more rudely fastened up thedoor. It became clear that they must attempt an escape, for with thedark came fresh dangers.
Dominique remained on guard, while Lecour, taking a candle, wentthrough the old castle, making a rapid survey. The night was clear andcold, the moon had not yet risen, and the darkness was sufficient tofavour them. He selected a window for the attempt. Then, reckless oftreasures, he cut down some of the old tapestries which lined thechambers, and slit off enough to twist into a rope. This would bringthem to the level of the water, now thinly covered with ice.
"But will the ice bear us?"
"No, Monsieur, I started across this morning and it broke."
"Of what nature is it?"
"Soft, and bends, and your foot sinks through it."
"Very well, we can cross it."
He hurried back to one of the chambers where there were some of the deBailleul portraits hanging, pulled them down with his own hands, andtore the frames of several apart. Their sides he attached as cross-barsto others, by means of strings ravelled from the canvas of thetapestries. The result was a makeshift for snowshoes. With these theyescaped across the ice to the park, unnoticed by their enemies, who, bythe lights in every part of the mansion, they could see were active anduproarious.
When at last, arriving at the gate of a chateau miles onward towardParis they looked back they saw an immense blaze in the distance, andthe heavens aglare from east to west with the conflagration. But thesaving of Cyrene made up in Germain's heart for the loss of his mansion,and he felt as if by that as he had taken a step towards redemption.