by Eugène Sue
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FLIGHT.
Salaun Lebrenn, his son, and their friend, the witnesses to themassacre, stood shuddering with terror, when they were suddenly arousedby the cries of several voices: "And now for Tilly!" "Death to Tilly!""To the sack of his house!" "Death to the traitors!" "Death to thefriends of the French!"
"Vengeance and reprisals!" howled the most infuriated of the mob. "ToTilly's house! to Tilly's house! Sack the house of Tilly!"
The three Frenchmen, who were, until then, wedged in the compact mass ofthe mob, and compelled, despite themselves, to witness the sight of thepopular fury, succeeded by dint of vigorous efforts in cleaving theirway in a diagonal line across the press, and finally freed themselvesentirely, while the mass of people took the direction of the house ofMonsieur Tilly.
Madam Tremblay and Abbot Boujaron, faithful to the recommendations ofMonsieur Tilly, kept the curtains of the windows closed, and abstainedfrom showing their faces. Standing near one of the embrasures, andslightly parting the curtain, the Abbot sought to obtain a glimpse ofwhat went on upon the street, and cast furtive looks upon the square.
"Abbot!--no imprudence!" cried the Marchioness.
Mademoiselle Plouernel sat steeped in revery at the opposite end of theparlor. Her mind dwelt indignantly upon the odious designs that her ownfamily had dared to plot, and in which so ignoble a role was assigned toher. She remained an utter and indifferent stranger to all that washappening within and without the house.
"Well, Abbot," inquired Madam Tremblay, "do you see anything on thesquare?"
"Marchioness!" cried the Abbot, turning pale and stepping back from thewindow, "we are lost! A mob of men armed with pikes and axes is justturning into the square. They yell: 'Death to the French!' Listen!Listen! Do you hear them? The mob is running this way, howling andvociferating!"
Indeed, at that moment, a formidable clamor that drew ever nearer washeard on the square, and distinctly could be made out the furious cries:
"Death to Tilly!" "Death to the French!" "Sack the house!"
"They are coming to murder Tilly!" stammered the Abbot, livid withterror. "It is done for us! We are lost!"
"Abbot, you are losing your senses," replied the Marchioness endeavoringto allay her own alarm. "Matters are not at such an extremity."
"Madam, do you not hear those furious cries: 'Vengeance and reprisals!'"asked Mademoiselle Plouernel. "These people are coming to takevengeance upon us for the atrocities committed by the troops of yourmaster, at the instigation of your infamous Catholic clergy!"
The danger grew ever more threatening. Hurried steps were heard in thehouse, where the frightened servants were running about crying out toone another and precipitately and noisily closing and bolting the maindoor on the ground floor. The door, though thick and strong, and studdedwith iron nails, could not long resist the assailants. Already it shookunder the repeated blows of axes and the butts of muskets, while avolley of stones, thrown from the street, broke with a crash thewindow-panes in the parlor. The shattered windows allowed the clamorfrom without to reach the parlor with distinctness. "My sister wasviolated and disemboweled by the soldiers of Louis XIV," cried thebutcher in his stentorian voice; "Vengeance and reprisals! French womenare housed in Tilly's residence! Fire upon the door and windows! We willget in! Massacre and fury!"
The sound of a discharge of musketry fire followed almost instantly uponthe butcher's words. The house seemed to rock to its very foundations.The fusilade continued uninterrupted. At the same time the main door,already half broken down, was attacked with renewed blows of axes, and alever was applied to its hinges.
Suddenly the ceiling of the parlor shook with the vibrations of heavyblows given with iron maces and by dint of which the main street doorfinally fell in with a great crash. The vociferations of the assailants,who irrupted into the house, reached the ears of the Abbot, theMarchioness and Mademoiselle Plouernel. They stood petrified withterror. At that instant a little door, that communicated with, and wasconcealed by the drapery of the parlor flew open.
"The assassins are here!" stammered the Marchioness, almost dead withfright. "We are lost! Mercy! Mercy!"
"We are saved!" cried Bertha of Plouernel, as she recognized in the newarrivals Serdan and his two friends. "These are our liberators!"
The uproar and the distinct rush of hurrying and tumultuous stepsannounced that the assailants were mounting the staircase. Serdan ran tothe principal door of the parlor, closed and double barred it."Mademoiselle," he said hurrying back to the young lady and pointing toher the issue through which he had just entered, "flee by that door--thecorridor leads to a concealed staircase."
Already the parlor door cracked under the repeated blows from without.Bertha, seized with a sort of vertigo, followed Serdan mechanically; theAbbot pushed the Marchioness before him, and disappeared after the twowomen in the corridor. The hall was left empty.
The parlor door, attacked with heavy axes, was rent and dashed intosplinters, giving a passage to the butcher, who rushed in followed byhis band. The Frenchwomen had vanished, but he saw the little doorthrough which they escaped hurriedly closed. He ran forward to open it,or break it down with his fists. It resisted his efforts. Not having hadtime to bolt the little door from the inside, Nominoe had placed hisback against it, and held it closed with his feet firmly planted againstthe side-walls. Finding himself unable to force his passage, the butchercalled out for a hatchet in order to break down the obstacle that nowbarred his progress.
"We can do better!" exclaimed one of the assailants. "Let us dischargeour muskets against the door. The balls will pierce the wood and killthe man. Death to the traitors! Death to the French!"
Three muskets were lowered and fired.
While these incidents were following one another with the rapidity ofthought, the fugitives had crossed the corridor and descended the stepsof a masked staircase that led to a little inside yard, which openedupon a narrow lane, into which a number of dark and vaulted passages,common in The Hague, ran out. Serdan, being long familiar with theentrances to Monsieur Tilly's residence, and bent upon endeavoring tosnatch Mademoiselle Plouernel from the frightful peril that threatenedher, the means of escape offered by these devious passages, of which theassailants knew nothing, occurred to him. Through the same secretpassages the servants of Monsieur Tilly's household now took flight.
"Monsieur," said Bertha to Salaun in a fainting voice, "I implore you,acquaint me with the name of the man to whom I owe my life and honor!Give me the name of my generous deliverer!"
"Nominoe Lebrenn, my son, a mariner of the port of Vannes as is hisfather, mademoiselle."
At that moment the detonations of the shots, fired upon the door whichNominoe defended, resounded through the narrow corridor which thefugitives had just left. The reverberations were immediately followed bythe distant and expiring cry of the young mariner: "Adieu, father! Flee!Flee!"
"Unhappy boy! They have killed him!" cried Salaun Lebrenn in aheartrending voice. "They have killed my dear Nominoe!"
Leaving Mademoiselle Plouernel to the care of Serdan, who just returnedafter exploring the lane, Salaun Lebrenn re-ascended the flight ofstairs and ran to his son's aid.
"Come! Come, mademoiselle," said Serdan. "The lane is deserted. Night isupon us. I answer for your safety the moment we have entered the firstvaulted passage."
Mademoiselle Plouernel did not seem to hear the words of her guide. Shestood motionless; her eyes roamed about bewildered; she murmured toherself: "I am the cause of his death. They killed him! They killed myliberator! Woe is me!"
"Make haste, madam; cross the yard, then the alley and enter into thefirst passage to your right; then wait for me there," said Serdan to theMarchioness and the Abbot, whose terror inspired them with the strengthto follow Serdan's instructions.
Serdan himself speedily joined them, sustaining, in fact carryingMademoiselle Plouernel, who had lost consciousness.
As Salaun Lebrenn was rushing to the a
ssistance of his son, he ran inthe corridor against the butcher. "Wretch! You killed my son!" he cried;and seizing the tall fellow by the throat threw him down. The two menstruggled on the floor. The obstruction of the narrow passage by the twocombatants impeded the advance of the butcher's companions. That instanta ruddy glow projected itself into the corridor. It was the firstflickering flames of the conflagration that the men who remained in theparlor had started. Salaun Lebrenn leaped up; the butcher, findinghimself free, fled back through the parlor, before escape from the firewere too late. The Breton discovered his son lying prone and bathed inhis own blood. He took him on his shoulder, hastened to the maskedstaircase, to the yard, to the alley, and, only then considering himselfsafe, laid down his precious burden, ignorant as yet whether his sonlived or was dead. God be praised! Salaun Lebrenn felt the heart ofNominoe beat.
Mademoiselle Plouernel having returned to consciousness, she could besupported by Serdan to a carriage, and conveyed, together with theMarchioness and the Abbot, to the port of Delft. Before leaving TheHague the young girl had at least the consolation to know that, althoughserious, the wounds received by Nominoe were not mortal. The guide towhom Serdan entrusted the three fugitives inquired, upon his arrival inDelft, after any outgoing vessel. A captain of Hamburg, a neutral citywhose merchant vessels had, consequently, nothing to fear from theFrench, the English or the Dutch squadrons, agreed to convey the threepassengers to Havre-de-Grace. That same day the vessel set sail forFrance, where it calculated to arrive safely after a short passage.
* * * * *
On the same day of the double murder of the De Witts the Assembly of theStates of Holland despatched a courier to the young Prince of Orange,then encamped with his army at Alpen on the banks of the Rhine, betweenLeyden and Woerden. The courier arrived as the Prince was about to sitdown to table. He opened one of the two despatches brought to him, readit and said: "Gentlemen, I have good news to announce to the friends ofFagel, who is greatly endeared to me. He was appointed yesterday GrandPensionary of Holland in consequence of the resignation of John De Witt.Let us drink to the health of Grand Pensionary Fagel."
The Prince thereupon opened the second despatch and read it. His faceremained impassive; not the least emotion did his features betray. Herefolded the despatch, and sitting down where the cover was laid forhim, remarked: "I learn that both De Witts were yesterday massacred atThe Hague by the populace. May God pardon them, if it is true that theybetrayed the fatherland!" And turning to his chaplain, the Prince addedwith unction: "You will order prayers to be read for the repose of thesouls of the two De Witts. May God be merciful unto them!"
* * * * *
These were the only words that the young Prince vouchsafed to the memoryof Cornelius and John De Witt.
PART II.
BRITTANY.
