A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 Part 5

At six in the evening I saw a troop of national guards and _sans-culottes_ kill a Swiss who was running away, by cleaving his skull with a dozen sabres at once, on the _Pont-royal_, and then cast him into the river, in less time than it takes to read this, and afterwards walk quietly on.

The shops were shut all this day, and also the theatres; no coaches were about the streets, at least not near the place of carnage; the houses were lighted up, and patroles paraded the streets all night. Not a single house was pillaged.

The barracks were still in flames, as well as the houses of the Swiss porters at the end of the gardens; these last gave light to five or six waggons which were employed all night in carrying away the dead carcases.

STATUES PULLED DOWN. NEW NAMES.

THE next day, Sat.u.r.day the 11th, about an hundred Swiss who had not been in the palace placed themselves under the protection of the National a.s.sembly. They were sent to the _Palais Bourbon_ escorted by the Ma.r.s.eillois, with _Mr. Petion_ at their head, in order to be tried by a court-martial.

The people were now employed, some in hanging thieves, others with _Mademoiselle_ _Teroigne_ on horseback at their head, in pulling down the statues of the French Kings.

The first was the equestrian one in bronze of Lewis XV. in the square of the same name, at the end of the _Tuileries_ gardens; this was the work of _Bouchardon_, and was erected in 1763. At the corners of the pedestal were the statues, also in bronze, of strength, peace, prudence, and justice, by _Pigalle_. Many smiths were employed in filing the iron bars within the horse's legs and feet, which fastened it to the marble pedestal, and the _sans-culottes_ pulled it down by ropes, and broke it to pieces; as likewise the four statues above-mentioned, the pedestal, and the new magnificent bal.u.s.trade of white marble which surrounded it.

The next was the equestrians statue of _Lewis XIV._ in the _Place Vendome_, cast in bronze, in a single piece, by Keller, from the model of Girardon; twenty men might with ease have sat round a table in the belly of the horse; it stood on a pedestal of white marble of thirty feet in height, twenty-four in length, and thirteen in breadth. This statue crushed a man to pieces by falling on him, which must be attributed to the inexperience of the _pullers-down_.

The third was a pedestrian statue of _Lewis XIV._ in the _Place Victoire_, of lead, gilt, on a pedestal of white marble; a winged figure, representing victory, with one hand placed a crown of laurels on his head, and in the other held a bundle of palm and olive branches. The king was represented treading on _Cerberus_ and the whole group was a single cast. There were formerly four bronze slaves at the corners of the pedestal, each of twelve feet high; these were removed in 1790. The whole monument was thirty-five feet high, and was erected in 1689, at the expence of the Duke _de la Feuillade_, who likewise left his duchy to his heirs, on condition that they should cause the whole group to be new gilt every twenty-five years; and who was buried under the pedestal.

On Sunday the 12th, at about noon, the equestrian statue, in bronze, of _Henry IV._ which was on the _Pont-neuf_, was pulled down; this was erected in 1635, and was the first of the kind in Paris. The horse was begun at Florence, by _Giovanni Bologna_, a pupil of _Michael Angelo_, finished by _Pietro Tacca_, and sent as a present to _Mary of Medicis_, widow of _Henry IV._ Regent. It was shipped at _Leghorn_, and the vessel which contained it was lost on the coast of Normandy, near _Havre de Grace_, the horse remained a year in the sea, it was, however, got out and sent to Paris in 1614.

This statue used to be the idol of the Parisians; immediately after the revolution it was decorated with the national c.o.c.kade; during three evenings after the federation, in 1790, magnificent festivals were celebrated before it.

It was broken in many pieces by the fall; the bronze was not half an inch thick, and the hollow part was filled up with brick earth.

The fifth and last was overthrown in the afternoon of the same day; it was situated in the _Place Royale_; it was an equestrian statue in bronze, of Lewis XIII. on a vast pedestal of white marble; it was erected in 1639. The horse was the work of _Daniel Volterra_; the figure of the king was by _Biard_.

The people were several days employed in pulling down all the statues and busts of kings and queens they could find. On the Monday I saw a marble or stone statue, as large as the life, tumbled from the top of the _Hotel de Ville_ into the _Place de Greve_, at that time full of people, by which two men were killed, as I was told, and I did not wish to verify the a.s.sertion myself, but retired.

They then proceeded to deface and efface every crown, every _fleur de lis_, every inscription wherein the words king, queen, prince, royal, or the like, were found. The hotels and lodging-houses were compelled to erase and change their names, that of the _Prince de Galles_ must be called _de Galles_ only; that of _Bourbon_ must have a new name; a sign _au lys d'or_ (the golden lily) was pulled down; even billiard tables are no longer _n.o.ble_ or _royal_.

The _Pont-royal_, the new bridge of _Lewis XVI._ the _Place des Victoires_, the _Place Royal_, the _Rue d'Artois, &c._ have all new names, which, added to the division of the kingdom into eighty-three departments, abolishing all the ancient n.o.ble names of _Bourgogne, Champagne, Provence, Languedoc, Bretagne, Navarre, Normandie, &c._ and in their stead subst.i.tuting such as these: _Ain, Aube, Aude, Cher, Creuse, Doubs, Eure, Gard, Gers, Indre, Lot, Orne, Sarte, Tarne, Var, &c._ which are the names of insignificant rivers; to that of Paris into forty-eight new sections, and to all t.i.tles being likewise abolished, makes it very difficult for a stranger to know any thing about the geography of the kingdom, nor what were the _ci-devant_ t.i.tles of such of the n.o.bility as still remain in France, and who are at present only known by their family names.

BEHEADING. DEAD NAKED BODIES.

BUT to return to those "active citizens, whom aristocratic insolence has stiled _sans-culottes, brigands_."[28]

[Note 28: These are the words of a French newspaper, called, _Journal universel, ou Revolutions des Royaumes, par J. P. Audarin_. No.

994, for Sunday, 12 August, 4th year of Liberty, under the motto of Liberty, Patriotism and Truth.]

On Sunday, they dragged a man to the _Hotel de Ville_, before a magistrate, to be tried, for having stolen something in the _Tuileries_ as they said. He was accordingly tried, searched, and nothing being found on him, was acquitted; _n'importe_, said these citizens, we must have his head for all that, for we caught him in the act of stealing.

They laid him on his back on the ground, and in the presence of the judge, who had acquitted him, they sawed off his head in about a quarter of an hour, with an old notched scythe, and then gave it to the boys to carry about on a pike, leaving the carcase in the justice-hall.[29]

[Note 29: This is inserted on the authority of a lady, a native of the French West-India isles, who resided in the same hotel with me, and who, with two gentlemen who attended her, were witnesses to this transaction, which they told to whoever chose to listen.]

At the corner of almost every chief street is a black marble slab, inserted in the wall about ten feet high, on which is cut in large letters, gilt, _Loix et actes de l'autorite publique_ (laws and acts of the public authority) and underneath are pasted the daily and sometimes hourly decrees and notices of the National a.s.sembly. One of these acquainted the citizens, that _Mandat_ (the former commander-general of the national guards) had yesterday undergone the punishment due to his crimes; that is to say, the people had cut off his head.

During several days, after _the day I_ procured all the Paris newspapers, about twenty, but all on the same side, as the people had put the editors of the aristocratic papers, _hors d'etat de parler_ (prevented their speaking) by beheading one or two of them, and destroying all their presses.

They, about this time, hanged two money changers (people who gave paper for _louis d'or_, crowns, and guineas) under the idea that the money was sent to the emigrants.

On the Sat.u.r.day morning, at seven, I was in the _Tuileries_ gardens; only thirty-eight dead naked bodies were still lying there; they were however covered where decency required; the people who stript them on the preceding evening, having cut a gash in the belly, and left a bit of the shirt sticking to the carcase by means of the dried blood. I was told, that the body of a lady had just been carried out of the _Carousel_ square; she was the only woman killed, and that probably by accident. Here I had the pleasure of seeing many beautiful ladies (and ugly ones too as I thought) walking arm in arm with their male friends, though so early in the morning, and forming little groups, occupied in contemplating the mangled naked and stiff carcases.

The fair s.e.x has been equally courageous and curious, in former times, in this as well as in other countries; and of this we shall produce a few instances, as follows:

COURAGE AND CURIOSITY OF THE FAIR s.e.x. Ma.s.sACRE IN 1572.

ON the 24th of August, St. Bartholemew's day, 1572, the ma.s.sacre of the Hugonots or or Calvinists, began by the murder of Admiral _Coligni_ the signal was to have been given at midnight; but _Catherine of Medicis_, mother to the then King Charles IX. (who was only two and twenty years of age) _hastened the signal more than an hour_, and endeavoured to encourage her son, by quoting a pa.s.sage from a sermon: "What pity do we not shew in being cruel? what cruelty would it not be to have pity?"

In _Mr. Wraxall's_ account of this ma.s.sacre, in his _Memoirs of the Kings of France of the Race of Valois_, compiled from all the French historians, he says, _Soubise_, covered with wounds, after a long and gallant defence, was finally put to death under the queen-mother's windows. The ladies of the court, from a savage and horrible curiosity, went to view his naked body, disfigured and b.l.o.o.d.y.

"An Italian first cut off _Coligni's_ head, which was presented to _Catherine of Medicis_. The populace then exhausted all their brutal and unrestrained fury on the trunk. They cut off the hands, after which it was left on a dunghill; in the afternoon they took it up again, dragged it three days in the dirt, then on the banks of the _Seine_, and lastly carried it to _Montfaucon_ (an eminence between the _Fauxbourg St.

Martin_ and the _Temple_, on which they erected a gallows.) It was here hung by the feet with an iron chain, and a fire lighted under it, with which it was half roasted. In this situation the King and several of the courtiers went to survey it. These remains were at length taken down privately in the night, and interred at _Chantilly_."

"During seven days the ma.s.sacre did not cease, though its extreme fury spent itself in the two first."

"Every enormity, every profanation, every atrocious crime, which zeal, revenge, and cruel policy are capable of influencing mankind to commit, stain the dreadful registers of this unhappy period. More than five thousand persons of all ranks perished by various species of deaths. The _Seine_ was loaded with carcases floating on it, and _Charles_ fed his eyes from the windows of the _Louvre_, with this unnatural and abominable spectacle of horror. A butcher who entered the palace during the heat of the ma.s.sacre, boasted to his sovereign, baring his b.l.o.o.d.y arm, that he himself had dispatched an hundred and fifty."

"_Catherine of Medicis_, the presiding demon, who scattered destruction in so many shapes, was not melted into pity at the view of such complicated and extensive misery; she gazed with savage satisfaction on the head of _Coligni_ which was brought her."

_Sully_ only slightly mentions this ma.s.sacre of which he was notwithstanding an eye-witness, because he was but twelve years of age.

_Mezeray_ gives the most circ.u.mstantial account of it; he says, "The streets were paved with dead or dying bodies, the _portes-cocheres_, (great gates of the hotels) were stopped up with them, there were heaps of them in the public squares, the street-kennels overflowed with blood, which ran gushing into the river. Six hundred houses were pillaged at different times, and four thousand persons were ma.s.sacred with all the inhumanity and all the tumult than can be imagined."

"Among the slain was _Charles de Quelleue Pontivy_, likewise called _Soubise_, because he had married _Catherine_, only daughter and heiress of _Jean de Partenay_ Baron _de Soubise_: this Lady had entered an action against him for impotence; His naked dead body being among others dragged before the _Louvre_, there were ladies curious enough to examine leisurely, if they could discover the cause or the marks of the defeat of which he had been accused."

_Brantome_, in his memoirs of _Charles IX._ says, "As soon as it was day the king looked out of the window, and seeing that many people were running away in the _fauxbourg St. Germain_, he took a large hunting _arquebuse_, and shot at them many times, but in vain, for the gun did not carry so far."[30]

[Note 30: The king was shooting from the _Louvre_, and the _Fauxbourg_ St. _Germain_ is on the other side of the river.]

"He took great pleasure in seeing floating in the river, under his windows, more than four thousand dead bodies."

A French writer, _Mr. du Laure_, in a Description of Paris, just published, says, "About thirty thousand persons were killed on that night in Paris and in the country; few of the citizens but were either a.s.sa.s.sins or a.s.sa.s.sinated. Ambition, the hatred of the great, of a woman, the feebleness and cruelty of a king, the spirit of party, the fanaticism of the people, animated those scenes of horror, which do not depose so much against the French nation, at that time governed by strangers, as against the pa.s.sions of the great, and the ill-directed zeal of the religion of an ignorant populace."

A few more modern instances of female fort.i.tude are given in a note.[31]

[Note 31: On the 28th of March, 1757, _Damiens_, who stabbed _Lewis_ XV. was executed in the _Place de Greve_, four horses were to pull his arms and legs from his body: they were fifty minutes pulling in vain, and at last his joints were obliged to be cut: he supported these torments patiently, and expired whilst the tendons of his shoulders were cutting, though he was living after his legs and thighs had been torn from his body; his right hand had previously been cut off. I was in Paris in 1768, and then, and at various times since have been a.s.sured by eye-witnesses, that almost all the windows of the square where the execution was performed were hired by ladies, at from two to ten _louis_ each.

Mr. Thicknesse in his "_Year's journey through France and Part of Spain_," in a letter dated _Dijon_,_ in Burgundy_, 1776, mentions a man whom he saw broke alive on the wheel by, "the executioner and _his mother_, who a.s.sisted at this horrid business, these both seemed to enjoy the deadly office."