Ange Pitou

by Alexandre Dumas

  "Say on, Monsieur Marat."

  Marat placed the paper on the table, and, pointing with his finger to the place on which the provost was to write the required postscript:—

  "The citizen Billot," said he, "having the character of bearer of a flag of truce, I confide his care to your honor."

  Flesselles looked at Marat, as if he would rather have smashed his flat face with his fist than do that which he had requested.

  "Would you resist, sir?" demanded Marat.

  "No," replied Flesselles, "for, after all, you only ask me what is strictly right."

  And he wrote the postscript demanded of him.

  "However, gentlemen, you will be pleased to observe this well, that I do not answer for the safety of Monsieur Billot."

  "And I—I will be answerable for it," said Marat, jerking the paper out of his hands; "for your liberty is the guarantee of his liberty,—your head for the safety of his head. Here, worthy Billot," continued Marat, "here is your passport."

  "Labrie!" cried M. de Flesselles,—"Labrie!"

  A lackey in grand livery entered the room.

  "My carriage," said the provost.

  "It is waiting for you, sir, in the courtyard."

  "Let us go, then," said the provost. " There is nothing else which you desire, gentlemen?"

  "No," simultaneously replied Billot and Marat.

  "Am I to let them pass?" inquired Pitou.

  "My friend," said Flesselles to him, "I would observe to you that you are rather too indecently attired to mount guard at my door. If you insist upon remaining here, turn your cartouche-box round in front, and set your back against the wall."

  "Am I to let them pass?" Pitou repeated, with an air which indicated that he did not greatly relish the jest of which he had been the subject.

  "Yes," said Billot.

  Pitou made way for the provost to pass by him.

  "Perhaps you were wrong in allowing that man to go," said Marat. "He would have been a good hostage to have kept. But, in any case, let him go where he will, you may feel perfectly assured that I will find him again."

  "Labrie," said the Provost of the Merchants, as he was getting into his carriage, "they are going to distribute powder here. Should the Hôtel de Ville perchance blow up, I should like to be out of the way of the splinters. Let us get out of gunshot, Labrie,—out of gunshot."

  The carriage rattled through the gateway, and appeared upon the square, on which were growling some four or five thousand persons.

  Flesselles was afraid that they might misinterpret his departure, which might be considered as a flight.

  He leaned half-way out of the door.

  "To the National Assembly," cried he, in a loud voice to the coachman.

  This drew upon him from the crowd a loud and continued outburst of applause.

  Marat and Billot were on the balcony, and had heard the last words of Flesselles.

  "My head against his," said Marat, "that he is not going to the National Assembly, but to the king."

  "Would it not be well to have him stopped?" said Billot.

  "No," replied Marat, with his hideous smile; "make yourself easy; however quickly he may go, we shall go still quicker than he. But now for the gunpowder."

  "Yes, to the gunpowder," said Billot.

  And they both went down the great staircase, followed by Pitou.

  1 Town House, or City Hall.

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  Chapter XV

  Monsieur de Launay, Governor of the Bastille

  As Monsieur de Flesselles had said, there were eight thousand pounds of gunpowder in the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville.

  Marat and Billot went into the first cellar with a lantern, which they suspended to a hook in the ceiling.

  Pitou mounted guard at the door.

  The powder was in small kegs, containing each about twenty pounds. Men were stationed upon the stairs, forming a chain which reached the square, and they at once began to send up the kegs.

  There was at first a momentary confusion. It was not known whether there would be powder enough for everybody, and they all rushed forward to secure their share. But the chain formed by Billot at length succeeded in making the people wait patiently for their turn, and the distribution was effected with something like an approach to order.

  Every citizen received half a pound of powder,—about thirty or forty shots.

  But when every one had received the powder, it was perceived that muskets were sadly deficient. There were scarcely five hundred among the whole crowd.

  While the distribution was going on, a portion of this furious population who were crying out for arms, went up to the rooms where the electors held their sittings. They were occupied in forming the National Guard, of which the usher had spoken to Billot.

  They had just decreed that this civic militia should be composed of forty—eight thousand men. This militia but yet existed in the decree, and they were disputing as to the general who should command it.

  It was in the midst of this discussion that the people invaded the Hôtel de Ville. They had organized themselves. They only asked to march; all they required was arms.

  At that moment the noise of a carriage coming into the courtyard was heard. It was the Provost of the Merchants, who had not been allowed to proceed upon his journey, although he had exhibited a mandate from the king, ordering him to proceed to Versailles, and he was brought back by force to the Hôtel de Ville.

  "Give us arms! give us arms!" cried the crowd, as soon as they perceived him at a distance.

  "Arms!" cried he; "I have no arms; but there must be some at the arsenal."

  "To the arsenal! to the arsenal!" cried the crowd.

  And five or six thousand men rushed on to the Quay de la Grève.

  The arsenal was empty.

  They returned, with bitter lamentations, to the Hôtel de Ville.

  The provost had no arms, or rather would not give them. Pressed by the people, he had the idea of sending them to the Chartreux.

  The Chartreux opened its gates. They searched it in every direction, but did not find even a pocket—pistol.

  During this time Flesselles, having been informed that Billot and Marat were still in the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville, completing the distribution of the gunpowder, proposed to send a deputation to De Launay, to propose to him that he should withdraw the cannon from his ramparts, so as to be out of sight.

  That which the evening before had made the crowd hoot most obstreperously was these guns, which, stretching forth their long necks, were seen beyond the turreted parapets. Flesselles hoped that, by causing them to disappear, the people would be contented by the concession, and would withdraw satisfied.

  The deputation had just set forth, when the people returned in great fury.

  On hearing the cries they uttered, Billot and Marat ran upstairs into the courtyard.

  Flesselles, from an interior balcony, endeavored to calm the people. He proposed a decree which should authorize the districts to manufacture fifty thousand pikes.

  The people were about to accept this proposal.

  "Decidedly this man is betraying us," said Marat. Then, turning to Billot,—

  "Go to the Bastille," said he, "and do what you proposed to do. In an hour I will send you there twenty thousand men, and each man with a musket on his shoulder."

  Billot, at first sight, had felt great confidence in this man, whose name had become so popular that it had reached even him. He did not even ask him how he calculated on procuring them. An abbé was there, imbued with the general enthusiasm, and crying, like all the rest, "To the Bastille!" Billot did not like abbés, but this one pleased him. He gave him the charge of continuing the distribution, which the worthy abbé accepted. Then Marat mounted upon a post. There was at that moment the most frightful noise and tumult.

  "Silence!" cried he; "I am Marat, and I wish to speak."

  They were at once quieted as if by magic, and every eye was directed toward
s the orator.

  "You wish for arms?" he said.

  "Yes, yes!" replied thousands of voices.

  "To take the Bastille?"

  "Yes! yes! yes!"

  "Well then, come with me, and you shall have them."

  "And where?"

  "To the Invalides, where there are twenty—five thousand muskets. To the Invalides!"

  "To the Invalides! to the Invalides!" cried every voice.

  "And now," said Marat to Billot, who had just called Pitou; "you will go to the Bastille?"

  "Yes."

  "Stay. It might happen that before my men arrive you may stand in need of assistance."

  "In fact," said Billot, "that is possible."

  Marat tore out a leaf from a small memorandum book, and wrote four words upon it with a pencil:—

  "This comes from Marat."

  Then he drew a sign upon the paper.

  "Well!" cried Billot, "what would you have me do with this note, since you do not tell me the name or the address of the person to whom I am to deliver it?"

  "As to the address, the man to whom I recommend you has none; as to his name, it is well known. Ask the first workman you may meet for Gonchon, the Mirabeau of the people."

  "Gonchon—you will remember that name, Pitou."

  "Gonchon or Gonchonius," said Pitou. "I shall not forget it."

  "To the Invalides! to the Invalides!" howled the mob, with increasing ferocity.

  "Well, then, go!" said Marat to Billot; "and may the genius of Liberty march before thee!"

  "To the Invalides!" he then cried in his turn.

  And he went down the Quai de Gévres, followed by more than twenty thousand men.

  Billot, on his side, took with him some five or six thousand. These were all armed in one way or another.

  At the moment when they were about to proceed along the bank of the river, and the remainder were going towards the Boulevard, the Provost of the Merchants appeared at a window.

  "My friends," said he, "why is it that I see a green cockade in your hats?"

  They were the leaves of the linden—trees, of Camille Desmoulins, which many had adopted merely from seeing others wear them, but without even knowing their signification.

  "Hope! hope!" cried several voices.

  "Yes; but the color that denotes hope is, at the same time, that of the Count d'Artois. Would you have the air of wearing the livery of a prince?"

  "No, no!" cried all the crowd in chorus, and Billot louder than the rest.

  "Well! then you ought to change that cockade; and, if you will wear a livery, let it at least be that of the city of Paris, the mother of us all,—blue and red, my friends, blue and red."1

  "Yes, yes," cried every tongue; "blue and red."

  Upon these words, every one trampled under foot his green cockade, every one called for ribbons; as if by enchantment, the windows round the square were opened, and blue and red ribbons rained down in floods.

  But all the ribbons that fell scarcely sufficed for a thousand men.

  Instantly aprons, silk gowns, scarfs, curtains, were torn, stripped, and cut in fragments; these fragments were formed into bows, rosettes, and scarfs. Every one took his share.

  After which Billot's small army again moved forward.

  It kept on recruiting as it advanced; all the arteries of the Faubourg St. Antoine sent to it as it passed the most ardent and the most active of their population.

  They reached, in tolerably good order, the end of the Rue Lesdiguières, where already a mass of curious lookers—on—some timid, others calm, and others insolent—were gazing at the towers of the Bastille, exposed to an ardent sun.

  The arrival of the popular drums by the Faubourg St. Antoine;

  The arrival of about a hundred of the French Guards from the Boulevards;

  The arrival of Billot and his troop, at once changed the character and the aspect of the assembled crowd; the timid became emboldened, the calm became excited, and the insolent began to threaten.

  "Down with the cannon! down with the cannon!" cried twenty thousand voices, threatening with their clinched fists the heavy guns which stretched forth their brazen necks from the embrasures of the platforms.

  Just at that moment, as if the governor of the Bastille was obeying the injunctions of the crowd, some artillery—men approached the guns, which they drew in, till at last they disappeared entirely.

  The crowd clapped their hands; they had then become a power, since the governor had yielded to their threats.

  Notwithstanding this, the sentinels continued pacing backwards and forwards on the platforms. At every post was an Invalide and a Swiss.

  After having cried, "Down with the cannon!" the crowd shouted, "Down with the Swiss!" It was a continuation of the cry of the night before, "Down with the Germans!"

  But the Swiss did not the less continue their guard, crossing the Invalides in their measured pacings up and down.

  One of those who cried, "Down with the Swiss!" became impatient; he had a gun in his hand; he pointed the muzzle of his gun at the sentinel, and fired.

  The ball struck the gray wall of the Bastille, one foot below the coping—stone of the tower, and immediately in front of the spot where the Swiss had passed. At the spot where the shot had struck, it left a white mark, but the sentinel did not stop, and did not even turn his head.

  A loud murmur soon arose around the man who had fired, and thus was given the signal of attack, as unheard of as it was senseless,—a murmur more of terror than of anger. Many persons conceived that it was a crime punishable with death to fire a musket—shot at the Bastille.

  Billot gazed upon the dark—green mass like to those fabulous monsters which in ancient legends are represented to us as covered with scales. He counted the embrasures at which the cannon might at any given moment be rolled back to their places. He counted the number of muskets the muzzles of which might be directed through the loop—holes at the assembled crowd.

  And Billot shook his head, recalling to mind the words uttered by Flesselles.

  "We shall never be able to get in there," said he.

  "And why shall we never be able to get in?" said a voice close beside him.

  Billot turned round and saw a man with a savage countenance, dressed in rags, and whose eyes sparkled like two stars.

  "Because it appears to me impossible to take such a mass as that by force."

  "The taking of the Bastille," said the man, "is not a deed of war, but an act of faith. Believe, and thou shalt succeed."

  "Patience!" said Billot, feeling in his pocket for his passport.

  The man was deceived as to his meaning. "Patience!" cried he, "oh, yes, I understand you! you are fat—you—you look like a farmer."

  "And I am one, in fact," said Billot.

  "Then I can well understand why you say patience! You have been always well fed; but look behind you for a moment and see those spectres who are now surrounding us. See their dried—up veins, count their bones through the rents in their garments, and then ask them whether they understand the word patience."

  "This is one who speaks well," said Pitou, "but he terrifies me."

  "He does not terrify me," said Billot; and turning again towards the man:—"Yes, patience," he said; "but only for another quarter of an hour, that's all."

  "Ah, ah!" cried the man, smiling; "a quarter of an hour; that indeed is not too much. And what will you do in a quarter of an hour?"

  "During that time I shall have visited the Bastille, I shall know the number of its garrison, I shall know the intentions of its governor! I shall know, in fine, the way into it."

  "Yes! if after that you could only find the way out of it?"

  "Well, supposing that I do not get out of it. There is a man who will come and show me the way."

  "And who is this man?"

  "Gonchon, the Mirabeau of the people."

  The man gave a start. His eyes emitted flashes of fire.

  "Do you know him?" inquire
d he.

  "No."

  "Well, what mean you, then?"

  "Why, I am going to know him; for I was told that the first to whom I might speak on the square before the Bastille would lead me to him. You are on the square of the Bastille; take me to him."

  "What do you want with him?"

  "To deliver to him this paper."

  "From whom is it?"

  "From Marat, the physician."

  "From Marat! you know Marat!" exclaimed the man.

  "I have just left him."

  "Where?"

  "At the Hôtel de Ville."

  "What is he doing?"

  "He has gone to arm twenty thousand men at the Invalides."

  "In that case, give me that paper. I am Gonchon." Billot drew back a step.

  "You are Gonchon?" cried he.

  "My friends," said the man in rags, "here is one who does not know me, and who is asking whether it is true that I am Gonchon."

  The crowd burst into a loud laugh. It appeared to all these men that it was impossible that any one could be so ignorant as not to know their favorite orator.

  "Long live Gonchon!" cried two or three thousand voices.

  "Take it," said Billot, handing the paper to him.

  "Friends," cried Gonchon, after having read it, and laying his hand on Billot's shoulder, "this is a brother. Marat recommends him. We can therefore rely upon him. What is your name" said he to the farmer.

  "My name is Billot."

  "And mine," rejoined Gonchon, "is Hache, and between us both I trust we shall be able to do something."2

  The crowd smiled at this sanguinary jest.

  "Yes, yes, we shall soon do something," cried they.

  "Well! what are we going to do?" asked several voices.

  "Why, zounds!" cried Gonchon, "we are going to take the Bastille."

  "This is as it should be," cried Billot; "that is what I call speaking. Listen to me, brave Gonchon. How many men have you to back you?"

  "Thirty thousand, or somewhere near that."

  "Thirty thousand men you have at your disposal, twenty thousand will soon be here from the Invalides, and ten thousand are already here; why, 'tis more than enough to insure our success, or we shall never succeed at all."

  "We shall succeed," replied Gonchon.