Ange Pitou (Volume 1)

The Invalides and the Swiss soldiers who felt that their existence depended on the result, gazed at him, while he was writing, with a sort of respectful terror.

  De Launay looked round before allowing his pen to touch the paper. He saw that the courtyard was free of all intruders.

  In an instant the people outside were informed of all that had happened within the fortress.

  As Monsieur de Losme had said, the population seemed to spring up from beneath the pavement. One hundred thousand men surrounded the Bastille.

  They were no longer merely laborers and artisans, but citizens of every class had joined them. They were not merely men in the prime of life, but children and old men had rushed forward to the fight.

  And all of them had arms of some description, all of them shouted vehemently.

  Here and there among the groups was to be seen a woman in despair, with hair dishevelled, wringing her hands, and uttering maledictions against the granite giant.

  She is some mother whose son the Bastille has just annihilated, some daughter whose father the Bastille has just levelled with the ground, some wife whose husband the Bastille has just exterminated.

  But during some moments no sounds had issued from the Bastille, no flames, no smoke. The Bastille had become as silent as the tomb.

  It would have been useless to endeavor to count the spots made by the balls which had marbled its surface. Every one had wished to fire a ball at the stone monster, the visible symbol of tyranny.

  Therefore, when it was rumored in the crowd that the Bastille was about to capitulate, that its governor had promised to surrender, they could scarcely credit the report.

  Amid this general doubt, as they did not yet dare to congratulate themselves, as they were silently awaiting the result, they saw a letter pushed forth through a loophole on the point of a sword. Only between this letter and the besiegers there was the ditch of the Bastille, wide, deep, and full of water.

  Billot calls for a plank. Three are brought and are pushed across the ditch, but, being too short, did not reach the opposite side. A fourth is brought, which lodges on either side of the ditch.

  Billot had them lashed together as he best could, and then ventured unhesitatingly upon the trembling bridge.

  The whole crowd remained breathlessly silent; all eyes were fixed upon the man who appears suspended above the ditch, whose stagnant waters resemble those of the river Cocytus.

  Pitou tremblingly seated himself on the edge of the slope, and hid his head between his knees.

  His heart failed him, and he wept.

  When Billot had got about two thirds of the way over the plank, it twisted beneath his feet. Billot extends his arms, falls, and disappears in the ditch.

  Pitou utters a cry of horror and throws himself into the ditch, like a Newfoundland dog anxious to save his master.

  A man then approached the plank from which Billot had just before been precipitated.

  Without hesitation he walked across the temporary bridge. This man is Stanislaus Maillard, the usher of the Châtelet.

  When he had reached the spot below which Pitou and Billot were struggling in the muddy ditch, he for a moment cast a glance upon them, and seeing that there was no doubt they would regain the shore in safety, he continued to walk on.

  Half a minute afterwards he had reached the opposite side of the ditch, and had taken the letter which was held out to him on the point of a sword.

  Then, with the same tranquillity, the same firmness of step, he recrossed the ditch.

  But at the moment when the crowd were pressing round him to hear the letter read, a storm of musketballs rained down upon them from the battlements, and a frightful detonation was heard.

  One only cry, but one of those cries which announce the vengeance of a whole people, issues from every mouth.

  "Trust, then, in tyrants!" exclaimed Gonchon.

  And then, without thinking any more of the capitulation, without thinking any more of the powder—magazine, without thinking of themselves or of the prisoners, without desiring, without demanding anything but vengeance, the people rushed into the courtyard, no longer by hundreds of men, but by thousands.

  That which prevents the crowd from entering is no longer the musketry, but the gates, which are too narrow to admit them.

  On hearing the detonation we have spoken of, the two soldiers who were still watching Monsieur de Launay threw themselves upon him; a third seized the match and extinguished it under his foot.

  De Launay drew the sword which was concealed in his cane, and would have turned it against his own breast, but the soldiers plucked it from him and snapped it in two.

  He then felt that all he could do was to abide the result; he therefore tranquilly awaited it.

  The people rush forward; the garrison open their arms to them, and the Bastille is taken by assault,—by main force, without a capitulation.

  The reason for this was that for more than a hundred years the royal fortress had not merely imprisoned inert matter within its walls, it had imprisoned thought also. Thought had thrown down the walls of the Bastille, and the people entered by the breach.

  As to the discharge of musketry, which had taken place amid the general silence, during the suspension of hostilities,—as to this unforeseen aggression, as impolitic as it was murderous, it was never known who had ordered it, who had excited it, how it was accomplished.

  There are moments when the destiny of a whole nation is being weighed in the scales of Fate. One of them weighs down the other. Every one already thinks he has attained the proposed end. Suddenly some invisible hand lets fall into the other scale the blade of a poniard or a pistol ball.

  Then all changes, and one only cry is heard: "Woe to the vanquished!"

  | Go to Contents |

  Chapter XVIII

  Doctor Gilbert

  WHILE the people were thus rushing into the fortress, howling at once with joy and rage, two men were struggling in the muddy waters of the ditch.

  These men were Pitou and Billot.

  Pitou was supporting Billot. No shot had struck him. He had not been wounded in any way; but his fall had somewhat confused the worthy farmer.

  Ropes were thrown to them; poles were held out to them.

  Pitou caught hold of a pole, Billot a rope.

  Five minutes afterwards they were carried in triumph by the people, and eagerly embraced, notwithstanding their muddy state.

  One man gives Billot a glass of brandy, another stuffs Pitou's mouth full of sausages, and gives him wine to wash them down.

  A third rubs them down with straw, and wishes to place them in the sun to dry their clothes.

  Suddenly an idea, or rather a recollection, shot through the mind of Billot. He tears himself away from their kind cares and rushes into the Bastille.

  "To the prisoners!" cried he, "to the prisoners!"

  "Yes, to the prisoners!" cried Pitou, in his turn, bounding after the farmer.

  The crowd, which until then had thought only of the executioners, shuddered when thinking of their victims.

  They with one shout repeated: "Yes, yes, yes,—to the prisoners!"

  And a new flood of assailants rush through the barriers, seeming to widen the sides of the fortress by their numbers, and bearing liberty with them to the captives.

  A dreadful spectacle then offered itself to the eyes of Billot and Pitou. The excited, enraged, maddened throng had precipitated themselves into the courtyard. The first soldier they had met was at once hacked to pieces.

  Gonchon had quietly looked on. Doubtless he had thought that the anger of the people, like the currents of great rivers, does more harm when any impediment is thrown in its way to arrest it than if allowed tranquilly to flow on.

  Elie and Hullin, on the contrary, had thrown themselves before the infuriated executioners. They prayed, they supplicated, uttering the sublime lie that they had promised life and safety to the whole garrison.

  The arrival of Billot and Pitou was a reinforcement
to them.

  Billot, whom they were avenging, Billot was living, Billot was not even wounded. The plank had turned under his feet, and that was all; he had taken a mudbath, and nothing more.

  It was, above all, against the Swiss that the people were particularly enraged; but the Swiss were nowhere to be found. They had had time to put on gray frocks, and they were taken either for servants or for prisoners.

  The mob hurled large stones at the dial of the clock, and destroyed the figures of the two captives which supported it. They rushed to the ramparts to mutilate the cannon which had vomited forth death upon them. They even wreaked their vengeance on the stone walls, tearing their hands in endeavoring to displace them. When the first of the conquerors were seen upon the platform, all those who had remained without the fortress, that is to say, a hundred thousand men, shouted with clamorous joy,—

  "The Bastille is taken!"

  This cry resounded through Paris, and spread itself over the whole of France, as if borne with the rapidity of eagle's wings.

  On hearing this cry all hearts were softened, all eyes shed tears, all arms were extended. There were no longer any contending parties; there were no longer any inimical castes. All Parisians felt that they were brothers, all men felt that they were free.

  A million of men pressed one another in a mutual embrace.

  Billot and Pitou had entered the Bastille, following some and followed by others; what they wished for was, not to claim their share in the triumph; it was the liberty of the prisoners.

  When crossing the courtyard of the government house, they passed near a man in a gray coat, who was standing calmly, his hand resting on a gold—headed cane.

  This man was the governor. He was quietly waiting either that his friends should come to save him, or that his enemies should come to strike him down.

  Billot, on perceiving him, recognized him, uttered a slight exclamation of surprise, and went straight to him.

  De Launay also recognized Billot. He crossed his arms and waited, looking at the farmer with an expression that implied,—"

  Let us see: is it you that will give me the first blow?"

  Billot at once divined the meaning of his look, and stopped.

  "If I speak to him," said he to himself, "I shall cause him to be recognized, and should he be recognized, his death is certain."

  And yet, how was he to find Doctor Gilbert amid this chaotic confusion? How could he drag from the Bastille the secret which its walls enclosed?

  All this hesitation, these heroic scruples, were understood by De Launay.

  "What is it that you wish?" asked De Launay, in an undertone.

  "Nothing," replied Billot, pointing with his finger to the gate, indicating to him that escape was yet possible; "nothing. I shall be able readily to find Doctor Gilbert."

  "Third Bertaudière," replied De Launay, in a gentle and almost affectionate tone of voice.

  But he stirred not from the place on which he stood.

  Suddenly a voice from behind Billot pronounced these words:—"Ah! there is the governor."

  This voice was so calm, so hollow, that it appeared not to be of this world, and yet each word it had uttered was a sharp poniard turned against the breast of De Launay.

  He who had spoken was Gonchon.

  These words, like the first sounds of an alarm—bell, excited a fearful commotion; all these men, drunk with revengeful feelings, started on hearing them; they looked around with flaming eyes, perceived De Launay, and at once darted upon and seized him.

  "Save him," said Billot, as he passed near Elie and Hullin, "or they will murder him."

  "Assist us to do so," said the two men.

  "I am obliged to remain here," replied Billot, "for I also have some one to save."

  In an instant De Launay had been surrounded by a thousand men, who dragged him along, lifted him up, and were bearing him away.

  Elie and Hullin bounded after him, crying,—

  "Stop! stop! we promised him that his life should be saved."

  This was not true; but the thought of uttering this magnanimous falsehood had risen to the mind of these two generous men at the same moment.

  In a second, De Launay, followed by Elie and Hullin, disappeared under the vaulted passage which led from the Bastille, amidst loud voices of, "To the Hôtel de Ville! To the Hôtel de Ville!"

  It was a singular spectacle to see this mournful and silent monument, which for four centuries had been tenanted only by prisoners, their jailers, their guards, and a gloomy governor, now become the prey of the people, who ran through the courtyards, ascended and descended the staircases, buzzing like a swarm of flies, and filling this granite hive with noise and movement.

  De Launay, a living prey, was to some of the victors of as great value as the dead prey, the captured Bastille.

  Billot for a moment or two followed De Launay with his eyes, who was carried rather than led, and appeared to soar above the crowd.

  But, as we have said, he soon disappeared. Billot heaved a sigh, looked around him, perceived Pitou, and rushed towards a tower, crying,—

  "Third Bertaudière."

  A trembling jailer met him on his way.

  "Third Bertaudière," said Billot.

  "This way, sir," replied the jailer; "but I have not the keys."

  "Where are they?"

  "They took them from me."

  "Citizen, lend me your hatchet," said Billot, to one of the men from the Faubourg.

  "I give it to you," replied the latter; "I do not want it any more, since the Bastille is taken."

  Billot snatched the hatchet, and ran up a staircase, conducted by the jailer.

  The jailer stopped before a door.

  "Third Bertáudière?" asked Billot.

  "Yes, this is it."

  "The prisoner confined in this room is Doctor Gilbert, is it not?"

  "I do not know."

  "He was brought here only five or six days ago?"

  "I do not know."

  "Well, then," said Billot, "I shall soon know it."

  And he began chopping at the door with his hatchet.

  The door was of oak, but it soon flew into splinters beneath the vigorous blows of the robust farmer.

  In a few moments he had cut a hole through it and could look into the room.

  Billot placed his eye at the opening. Through it he could see the interior of the cell.

  In the line of sunshine which penetrated into the dungeon through its grated window a man was standing, his head thrown rather backwards, holding in his hand one of the posts of his bedstead, and in an attitude of defence.

  This man had evidently prepared himself to knock down the first person who should enter his room.

  Notwithstanding his long beard, notwithstanding his pallid countenance, notwithstanding his short—cut hair, Billot recognized him. It was Doctor Gilbert.

  "Doctor! doctor!" cried Billot to him, "is it you?"

  "Who is it that is calling me?" inquired the prisoner.

  "It is I—I, Billot, your friend."

  "You, Billot?"

  "Yes! yes!—he! he!—we! we!" cried the voices of twenty men, who had run into the passage on hearing the vigorous blows struck by Billot.

  "But who are you?"

  "We?—why, the conquerors of the Bastille. The Bastille is taken; you are free."

  "The Bastille is taken; I am free!" exclaimed the doctor.

  And passing both his hands through the opening, he shook the door so violently that the hinges and the lock appeared nearly yielding to his powerful pressure, and part of a panel, already loosened by Billot, broke off, and remained in the prisoner's hands.

  "Wait, wait!" said Billot, who was afraid that a second effort of so violent a nature would exhaust his strength, which had been overtaxed; "wait."

  And he redoubled his blows.

  And indeed, through the opening, which was every moment becoming wider, he could see the prisoner, who had seated himself upon his bench
, pale as a spectre, and incapable of raising the bedpost which was lying near him, and who but a few moments before, another Samson, seemed strong enough to shake down the walls of the Bastille.

  "Billot! Billot!" murmured he.

  "Yes, yes! and I also, my good doctor—I, Pitou—you must remember poor Pitou, whom you placed at board with his aunt Angélique,—Pitou has come to liberate you."

  "But I can get through that hole," cried the doctor.

  "No! no!" cried all the voices; "wait."

  All those present uniting their strength in one simultaneous effort, some slipping a crowbar between the door and the framework, others using a lever between the lock and doorpost, and the remainder pushing with all the might of their shoulders or their hands, the oak gave a last cracking sound, the wall gave way, and they all of them stumbled, one over the other, into the room.

  In a moment Gilbert found himself in the arms of Pitou and Billot.

  Gilbert, the little country lad of the Château de Taverney, Gilbert, whom we left bathed in his blood in a cavern of the Azores, was now a man from thirty—four to thirty—five years old, of pale complexion, though he was not sickly, with black hair, eyes penetrating and fixed; never did his gaze lose itself in vacuity; never did it wander; when it was not fixed on some exterior object worthy to attract, it was fixed on his own thought, and became only more profound and more gloomy; his nose was straight, being attached to his forehead in a direct line; it rose above a lip of rather scornful expression, which, in the slight space between it and the nether lip, allowed one to perceive the dazzling enamel of his teeth. In ordinary times his dress was simple and grave, like that of a Quaker; but this simplicity was closely allied to elegance, from its extreme neatness. His height was somewhat above the medium stature, and he was well formed; as to his strength, we have just seen the feats it could perform when in a state of over—excitement, whether caused by anger or enthusiastic feeling.

  Although in prison for five or six days, the doctor had paid the same attention to his person; his beard, which had grown some few lines, caused the paleness of his complexion to contrast favorably with its darkness, and indicated only a negligence which certainly was not the prisoner's, but his jailer's, who had refused to give him a razor, or to allow him to be shaved.