The Crimson Heirlooms

by Hunter Dennis

  Citizen Bouche entered.

  He emanated power and energy. He stopped two steps into the room, looked around, and then removed his gloves, ever so slowly. It was as if he waited for his authority to fill the place, poured out by the power of his presence.

  He sat without removing his hat or cloak. He nodded a curt no to the bartender, flipped a gold louis on the table for his trouble, and only then looked Jake in the eye. “It is tomorrow.”

  “After Lamarque’s funeral?”

  “And during. Understand something: as of this moment, we can only rely on five-thousand comrades.”

  Jake nodded. “How many muskets do we have?”

  “More than enough. And once it starts, plans have been made to raid armories and magazines. Muskets are not the issue.”

  “Then there are no problems.”

  “Don’t be so sure. There are twenty-thousand Parisian National Guard inside the city, and some additional forty-thousand army regulars within a day’s march.”

  “So, we are outnumbered twenty to one.”

  “Within twenty-four hours, yes. We five-thousand can only be the spark, Citizen Loring. Our spark must ignite the city. Paris must take to the streets, like the times of old.”

  “What is the plan?”

  “Regardless of the response, we hold as long as possible. There will be no orders to stand down or retreat.”

  “I understand.”

  “The funeral will be a showcase of political theater, something akin to what Jacque-Louis David would have designed during the first revolution.”

  “The True Revolution.”

  “Exactly. As you know, the liberation movements in Poland, and the Italian and German states, have experienced temporary setbacks. Some of our comrades have come here as political refugees.”

  “Do they still want to fight?”

  “They do. We have completely infiltrated all three communities, and they will be there in force tomorrow.”

  My God, this is really happening, thought Jake. It wasn’t a joke, a fantasy or an idea - they were taking to the streets.

  “Does my cell have any specific orders for the morrow, Citizen?”

  “Indeed, it does. First, the funeral. There will be a procession accompanying the funeral cortege to the Place Vendôme. You will make your way as close to the carriage as possible. At the signal, you will rush the carriage, and take command of it. The idea is that soldiers will have a harder time firing at youth. We postpone open war until it suits us.”

  “What is the signal?”

  “There will be shouts of ‘Down with Louis-Philippe, long live the Republic.’ In that exact syntax: ‘Down with Louis-Philippe, long live the Republic.”

  “Where are we taking the carriage?”

  “Place de la Bastille. The people need to be reminded of what they are fighting for. There will be a round of speeches, and another signal. A unique flag will be raised, a red flag with a black border. The words Liberty or Death will be stitched upon it. Upon the unfurling of this flag, you are to fight your way through any policing government troops, and move to your next assignment. Are you familiar with Quinze-Vingts, or Saint-Antoine?”

  “No, I am not,” Jake whispered.

  “Go there tonight and reconnoiter. Your cell will build a roadblock to completely seal off Rue de Charenton twenty paces north of the Petite Rue de Reuilly. Saint-Antoine is a neighborhood of deep revolutionary sentiment. Once the inhabitants realize we have taken control, they will come to us for direction, as sheep come to the shepherd. Hopefully, by midnight, we will have the numbers to storm the Tuileries Palace, and take control of the government. If that happens, we can demobilize the National Guard, or subsume it.” Bouche leaned in closer and whispered, “Do not alienate the citizens of Saint-Antoine. Your primary purpose is to excite and recruit them. That is our true purpose behind the effort: to enable the neighborhood to rise.”

  “We are not using their furniture for our roadblocks.”

  “No, indeed. Not unless they donate it to you.” Citizen Bouche looked around in the darkness, and saw all attention was elsewhere. “When I hand these to you, put them away quickly. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  A bulging coin pouch was noiselessly placed on the table top. “One hundred francs for supplies, sundries or bribes.” Jake tried to put it away as carefully.

  Citizen Bouche handed him a cockade, a circular knot of emerald ribbons. Jake slipped the cockade into his breast pocket. Bouche continued, “A green cockade means you hold the rank of Junior Commander. Green and white denotes Senior Commander, green and gold cockades are worn only by Generals. You will take orders from the latter two. Your men will wear tricolor cockades, or the red and blue of Paris. Now listen, this is important: the refugees will wear tricolor cockades, or they will wear blue. If they wear blue, they have no command. Your assignment-”

  “At the barricade.”

  “Yes, at the barricade. Your assignment at the barricade requires more men than you have. It is imperative that you find blue cockades at the cortege, and enlist them into your unit. Once you do this, you will give them a tricolor cockade.” Bouche placed a cloth bag on the table, presumably full of cockades, and Jake pushed it down into a side pocket.

  Next came a bayonet in a scabbard. Jake slipped it under his arm inside his jacket. A large, odd-looking pistol followed. “That is a Lefaucheux twenty-round double-barreled revolver. It uses self-contained metal cartridges.”

  Jake slipped the large pistol into his jacket pocket, “I’ve never seen one of these before.”

  “There are but a handful in the world. Technology advances. We are the future, we must use the tools of the destined. Unfortunately, science has not provided us with longer-range weapons of such modernity. Your men will be using .69 caliber Charleville ‘77’s, but what they lack in technology they make up for in storied history. They are absolutely lethal, and reliable as sunrise.”

  But notoriously inaccurate, thought Jake. Luckily, the enemy would be using the same weapon.

  The man placed a box of metal cartridges on the table, and Jake quickly slid it into his other pocket. Lastly came a scrap of paper. “This is your barricade location, and the address where the carts will be.”

  “Carts?”

  “Holding muskets, powder and shot. It is where you will be issued arms, ammunition and a flag. You will bring a flag staff of some kind for the purpose.”

  “The cart will be guarded.”

  “Yes, it is a command center of sorts. You will return to the cart for more ammunition, and send your messengers there to drop off communication.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Memorize your barricade placement and the cart address, then burn the paper and be on your way.”

  “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “Probably not. It doesn’t matter. You are now an officer of the revolutionary government, with the authority and autonomy to fulfill your orders.”

  “We will take and hold the intersection. No one will get past us.”

  “But more importantly, excite and recruit. If something happens and you are unable to fulfill your assignment, you need to tell a Senior Commander, as soon as humanly possible. Your assignment is very, very important.”

  “I understand.”

  The man stood, and offered his hand. “Good luck, Citizen. Thank you for fighting for the future of my country.”

  Jake took his hand, “Thank you for fighting for mine.”

  The man smiled, and left.

  Jake looked around the tavern. He noticed a difference in the stares of the other patrons. They were respectful, intimidated - even subordinate. Jake felt like a man, in charge of his purpose and destiny. The look on his face changed as well. He took on the part of the revolutionary commander: hard, strong, impassioned and determined.

  He left the tavern, and headed to the right-bank to scout.

  Jérémie, 1776

  Chapter Three


  The Time of the Heirlooms

  Jérémie D’Uts Bouvillon was a commoner of France. He was a peasant, a farmer and a good Catholic. Jérémie had never traveled further than fifteen miles from the small village of Saint-Recipas, in the province of Orléanais. He knew his fields, which officer of the Throne would advance him his salary, and where he should bring his harvest. He knew where to buy the things he needed for when he had the coin, or where to trade for them when he did not. He knew the town and he knew the inside of his church. That was all he knew.

  Jérémie, and his little town, had been left behind. In this, they were not alone. A little over a century ago, a scheming Cardinal had created a way to centralize power around the King. A palace was built, a city in edifice named Versailles, where all the nobles could live with the King himself. They vied for royal favor through trivial tasks, popularity contests, and courtly wit. Soon after, the nobles of Saint-Recipas left their ancestral homes, and headed to the beige Olympus. The peasants quickly became forgotten, and were recorded only as numbers on a balance sheet, to be taken to Versailles by accountants, and then perhaps glanced at, or perhaps not.

  Agricultural storage and preservation techniques had improved - indeed, been revolutionized. Blight and disease control measures were being adopted. Crops were introduced that were more appropriate to certain climates of the country. The peasants of Saint-Recipas had no idea this had happened. They were backwards and oppressed, and their lords did not know, and did not care to know, and certainly would not have cared to tell them if they did. The ancient right to create more arable land by cutting down trees, or draining swamps and such, had been abolished. Forests were kept pristine so lords could hunt in them. Peasants were not allowed to hunt. God help the peasant who was seen killing doves eating his newly-planted grain. The lords kept such birds at their châteaux, even if they were close to their peasant’s fields. If the birds did not eat all the seed, deer nibbled on the shoots and greens soon after, and were even more prized and protected than the doves.

  There were perhaps a few hundred souls working the land around the small town of Saint-Recipas. There was a nice, old church and a poor, emaciated Abbé named Father Eliphas. He was growing old, but seemed wise and solicitous of their welfare. There was a host of magnificent châteaux dotting the area that one dared not approach too closely. Mostly the nearby forests were the hunting preserves of nobles, and one dared not approach them too closely either. Although the poor farmers knew who the châteaux belonged to, and who their lords were, they were simply called les Seigneurs. Les Seigneurs charged them rent if they did not own the land, and taxed them if they did. The land they plowed with oxen, or their own backs, was given to them through ancient and archaic laws of inheritance. Most farmers had a multitude of small plots dotted over miles. They would work one of the little patches, and then take their oxen to the next one, if they had oxen.

  They never saw the lords, or nobles, except from a distance, and certainly never spoke to them. Instead, they dealt with overseers, commoners like themselves, but roughly-mannered, and usually from the city. The overseers did not help the farmers, or listen to complaints. They simply collected. If there wasn’t enough to collect, they evicted and replaced. One dared not fight them. To fight them meant being arrested by the efficient and competent Royal Police, charged, tried, broken on the wheel, and finally executed. After such a miserable end, one’s family was still duly evicted. Vagabonds, either evicted farmers or migrant laborers, seemed to be everywhere. They were a plague on the roads, eating from the fields, and sometimes even stealing livestock. They ended up criminals and beggars in Paris and other cities. If they committed crimes, the cold judicial system thinned their ranks through torture and execution. If they remained law-abiding, the cold Winters still culled the herd. But regardless, come Autumn, their ranks were brought back to full strength by the merciless course of evictions.

  That was not the only hobgoblin affecting Jérémie and those like him. There were other men who called themselves farmers - but they farmed men and money, not the land. They were independent tax collectors, called the Farmer-Generals, who made their living collecting for those who claimed the right to receive. Taxes had risen steadily over the last sixty years to a full two-thirds more, mostly to pay the war debts. If the Farmer-Generals did not get what they wanted, they could be equally rapacious - and their hunger was insatiable. If a peasant owned their land, they had to pay a land tax called the Taille. The lords were exempt from this tax because they were lords. The Taillon tax paid for military expenditures but did not cover the debt incurred by the previous wars. There was a newer tax called the Vingtième, which was simply one-twentieth of everything. All of the peasants were legally forced to buy salt, in a tyranny that masqueraded as a tax, by a law called the Gabelle. The price for salt was arbitrarily set by the Farmer-Generals. In Orléanais, the price was thirty times higher than it was in Brittany, where salt was collected and the citizens were exempt. The salt was of poor quality, but they had no choice regarding the amount they had to buy or at what price. There were also the Droits Féodaux, a long list of petty duties for every possible event or activity in a peasant's life. There was a duty to be paid in order to inherit land, to marry, to use the watermill or even the roads, to be exempt from doing mandatory chores for the local lord, and for a host of other things. The King, who loved his people, had done away with many of these duties, but some still remained. The Dîme took one-tenth of everything and gave it to the church. Since the Abbé was as hungry as the peasants, Jérémie had no idea where the goods generated by this tax were actually going. On top of everything, the peasant owed his labor to France. At any time, he could be called up in the corvée, and forced to work on the roads and bridges, or to repair walls or government buildings. This labor was performed without pay, and one could be called up for service in the middle of the harvest. The peasant also owed his life to the King. He could be forced to join the army through the levée. At least in this the peasant was paid, given uniforms, and necessary tools and weapons to ensure some chance of success.

  The police controlled every aspect of the harvest. They knew every acre of arable land in the country, and what was being grown upon it. France could barely feed herself - it was a royal imperative to ensure that grain was sown where it could be grown and the harvest went where it was supposed to go. The police ensured that there was no hoarding, and that the price restrictions were obeyed. Jérémie grew wheat, but could not eat his harvest, only sell it at fixed price that he received in advance. He could not afford to buy back and eat what he grew, so he usually bought simpler fair for his family or ate his own small harvests of vegetables, barley, and rye. The provisioning of France - especially Paris - was extremely organized, but what the country really needed was less mouths or more land, and she had lost nearly all her colonies in the star-crossed war of 1754.

  It would have also helped if the mouths of Paris were not so discerning. From the lowliest craftsmen to the richest noble, Paris ate nothing but high-quality white bread. Sometimes there were riots in Paris when the flour had to be made of rye - not when there wasn’t enough bread.

  Besides the authority of nobles, police and taxmen, there was the parish council, composed of Jérémie’s neighbors, and of course Father Eliphas, the Abbé. Any knowledge of the world was limited to the King’s Messages and the news that Father Eliphas would deliver after mass.

  Two years ago, a new king had ascended to the throne. What Jérémie wasn’t told was that the new king inherited a country that was nearly bankrupt, and the central government was at its wit’s end as to how to solve the problem. Jérémie knew the Winters were long and the harvests were poor. He did not know they were poor nearly everywhere in the country, and there had been widespread riots - so far ranging that the troubles were called the Flour War. He knew from Father Eliphas that the King had dismissed two head ministers in two years. He did not know that they were both forced from office by the nobles, because the
y attempted to tax them and revoke their privileges on behalf of the King. He had heard the name of Malesherbes, who was a minister of France. He did not know that Malesherbes was the first to suggest the calling of the Estates General to break the deadlock, or even what the Estates General entailed.

  Jérémie was incredibly strong of body and will. He could eat little, work all day and still maintain his strength. He did not tend to fat, as others did who had this ability. He was the last of his family, the rest dying of disease, perhaps born of hardship, or poor diet. He inherited their fields, a host of small patches of land. One of them was near some chestnut trees. Chestnuts were considered beneath human consumption, but a tree could still feed a starving family through a harsh Winter if the need arose. He also had a small two-story house made of stone a half-mile outside the village. He slept downstairs. The flood-proof second story was for the most important things he owned: baskets filled with seed for the next planting.

  He married a young woman named Sitis. She was small and dark and beautiful. He never would have been able to marry her, except her father died, and her fortunes had suddenly changed.

  Jérémie loved her more than anything in life. Every day with her was a new wonder. Jérémie and Sitis loved their four children together, as one heart. The three eldest were his daughters Jemima, Ketsia and Kéren. Ketsia and Kéren were like their mother, but somehow Jemima was fair as a Summer morning. With her blonde hair and blue eyes, she looked like the Queen - so much so that a noblewoman once stopped her coach and gave her a green silk ribbon for her hair. She was inordinately proud of it, but let her sisters wear it more than she did. His youngest was his only son, named Hervé, and he was the spitting image of his father. Life was difficult, but Jérémie paid such things no mind. There was no work too strenuous, no task too difficult, no meal too small. He was thankful to be alive, and he loved his life. His was a heart soothed through nothing more than the sound of the wind through the trees.