Edmond Dantes Part 29

"And do you not know--you, a journalist--that for three leagues around, in every direction, every railway radiating from Paris has been torn up?

Do you not know that every public conveyance, even to the Mail Diligences, has been stopped, and that all the telegraph stations have been dismantled--all to prevent the further concentration of troops in Paris by the Government?"

"I did hear of this, indeed," said Beauchamp.

"At dawn I was at the railway depot, having late last night, with extreme difficulty, procured a pa.s.sport. And whom think you, among crowds of others, I encountered there? You would never guess, and I haven't time for you to try. Lucien Debray, and with him--but that's impossible for you to divine--she who was Madame Danglars, wife of the rich banker years ago. Well, the banker is dead and she is immensely rich, and I suppose Lucien's spouse into the bargain."

"And where go they?"

"Oh! to England of course--that grand reservoir of all emigrant royalists, that asylum for all who love kings! But farewell, farewell!

If I am not off soon I may have to go without my head! And if you are not ma.s.sacred by your detestable party, I hope to hear of you yet as a Cabinet Minister. Despite your abominable principles, you have my best wishes! Farewell!"

And with a hearty shake of Beauchamp's hand, the young n.o.ble was off for an atmosphere more congenial to monarchists than was that of Paris.

Nor was he alone. Thousands fled from Paris in like manner that same day, and the only cry that followed them was this:

"Let them go! Let them go!"

The streets of Paris were now choked with barricades--not the mere temporary breastworks of the first and second days, which a single charge of heavy dragoons would sweep away, but regular systematic, scientific structures, erected apparently under the direction of military engineers, and calculated upon every principle of art to insure resistance. Some of them were of immense size--that, for example, at the corner of the Rue Richelieu; some had port-holes from which protruded the mouths of ordnance in battery; all were surmounted by a flag, tri-color or red, and all were defended by desperate men. Some other thoroughfares were crossed by many barricades--the Rue St. Martin, for instance, by thirty or forty. The troops a.s.sailing these structures were mowed down, throughout the day, in a manner which even their opponents deemed most merciless. Instances of individual bravery on both sides were frequent. In the Rue Mauconseil, a young man exposed himself on the top of the barricade, time after time, firing with fatal aim, and every time a shower of b.a.l.l.s from the troops a.s.sailing whistled around him.

But he stood untouched, and, at length, the officer ordering the troops to fire at him no more, he retired at once behind the breastwork. A boy in the Rue St. Honore mounted the barricade, enveloped in a tri-color flag, and dared the troops to fire on their colors. He descended unharmed. An officer of the Line was summoned to yield his sword. He did so, but first broke it in twain across his knee. The same demand was made to a lieutenant of the Munic.i.p.al Guard, with a musket at his breast; he was bidden also to shout "Vive la Republique!" but he only cried "Vive le Roi!" as the weapon was wrenched from his grasp! Yet he was spared. Arms were demanded from every householder, and when given, the gift was endorsed on the door in these words: "Here we were given arms." One man received a sword splendidly decorated with gems upon its scabbard and hilt. "I want only the blade!" he said, tearing it away from its ornaments and grasping the naked steel!

At ten o'clock M. Odillon Barrot, General Lamoriciere and Horace Vernet, the great marine artist, proceeded on horseback to the barricades to induce the people to disperse, but all their eloquent entreaties were received only with insults. "No truce--no tricks--no mistake this time!"

were the decisive shouts with which they were greeted. A second time, in the Rue Richelieu, General Lamoriciere, accompanied by Moline Saint Gru bearing a palm-branch, was equally unsuccessful. "It is too late!" was the terrible response from the heart of the barricades, followed by a shower of stones, one of which wounded General Lamoriciere on the hand.

A third time, in the Rue Rohan, General Gourgaud, who even promised the abdication of the King, met with the same utter defeat, and hastily fled from the fury of the monster now thoroughly roused.

At twelve o'clock the rumor sped with lightning rapidity through the streets of Paris that the troops, who had ostensibly been ordered to their quarters, were, in fact, concentrated around the palace. Instantly rose the shout, "To the Tuileries! To the Tuileries!" and a hundred thousand men from all sections of the city marched toward the Palais Bourbon and the Tuileries!

The rumor of the concentration at the palace was true. The Place du Carrousel was crowded with troops of every arm, including several squadrons of cuira.s.siers, and six pieces of ordnance were in position, with their ammunition caissons and their provisions and baggage wagons, as if for a siege. The King, attended by his staff and accompanied by the Dukes of Nemours and Montpensier, now descended into the court to pa.s.s the troops in review. The Line shouted "Vive le Roi!" as the King rode along. The National Guards, with tones and looks of menace and defiance, cried "Reform!" The King replied, "Yes, my friends, you shall have reform," and sad and dispirited turned away to his apartments; as he retired the bitter murmur was heard from his aged lips, "Like Charles X."

A deputation of the people had been admitted within the limits of the Place du Carrousel to announce the terms they would accept, but after a brief parley had retired dissatisfied. The men of the barricades now invested the Tuileries and the Palais Royal on every side.

Such was the scene without. Within, all was confusion and dismay. The salons were thronged by deputies, peers, generals and marshals; Bugeaud, Lamoriciere, Dupin, Thiers, de Lasteyrie and many others were there, together with all of the Royal family then in the capital, whether male or female.

Meanwhile, the rattle of musketry, broken by the occasional roar of ordnance, in the direction of the Palais Royal, indicated the severe struggle then going on between the people and the troops; from time to time, the furious shout of "To the guillotine with Louis Philippe!"

reached the ear.

"Does your Majesty hear that?" asked the Duke of Nemours coldly of his dismayed father. Alas! the old man was no longer the hero of July 3d!

"I do, my son," was the trembling reply. "Do you advise abdication?"

"Is there any other course left?" asked the Duke of Montpensier.

"Any other course!" cried the Queen, indignantly. "Oh! are you my son--are you a son of Orleans, and can you talk thus of degradation? Are you a soldier and do you fear? Mount!--mount!--charge on the rebels!--cut them to the earth!--drench the pavement with their blood!--perish, but yield not ignominiously thus!"

"Madame," said M. Thiers, solemnly, "it is too late! There must be an abdication in favor of the Count of Paris, and the appointment of the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans as Regent, or all is lost!"

"Then if this must be, let it be done with dignity becoming a monarch,"

said the n.o.ble Queen. "Let us all retire to St. Cloud. There may be dictated terms of honorable capitulation. There--"

At that instant in rushed a man breathless, bearing a sheet of paper in his hand, and exclaiming:

"Sire--Sire--your troops are delivering their arms to the people! In a moment they will stand where you now stand! Sign this paper, or your life and the lives of all your family will be sacrificed!"

That man was emile de Girardin, the editor of "La Presse," and the murderer of Armand Carrel, and that paper was an act of abdication.

"Ah! this is a bitter cup," said the old King as he placed his signature to the sheet, "and doubly bitter presented by such a hand! Like Charles X.!"

At one o'clock, at the Bourse and at the corners of all the princ.i.p.al streets, was posted this proclamation:

"CITIZENS OF PARIS: The King has abdicated in favor of the Count of Paris, with the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans as Regent.

A General Amnesty.

Dissolution of the Chamber.

Appeal to the Country."

But the people were now in the midst of the a.s.sault on the Palais Royal, and to check them was impossible.

The Palais Royal consisted of two portions--the Chateau d'Eau, or palace, and the other part, which though the property of the Orleans family was yet rented by private persons, and was occupied for cafes, shops, dwellings and places of entertainment--adorned by colonnades and arcades, and by trees, statues and fountains in the magnificent quadrangle. The property of the citizens was respected--that of the King only was a.s.sailed. For two hours did the 14th Regiment pour forth its fire from the numerous windows of that edifice and from the court below. At length, a band of bold Republicans, headed by the chivalric etienne Arago, musket in hand, charged from the side of the Cafe de la Regence, followed by a detachment of the National Guard, and, driving the troops into the building, surrounded it with straw which they set on fire. The vast edifice was instantly filled with smoke and flame. The defence ceased. The soldiers rushed out and were instantly slain. The commander of the detachment was pierced by a bayonet. The mult.i.tude rushed in, and the building was sacked. The richest and most costly furniture and decorations were at once torn down, dashed to pieces and thrown from the windows by the infuriated populace.

Within the Palace of the Tuileries is a subterranean pa.s.sage, constructed for the infant King of Rome and his nurses, which, plunging beneath the pavements, and pa.s.sing along the whole length of the gardens, under the terrace beside the river bank, suddenly emerges at the gate of the Place du Carrousel, in front of the obelisk. Into this pa.s.sage, in wild panic, descended the King and Queen of France, with all their children and grandchildren, immediately upon the signing of the abdication, and just as the doors were about to be forced. Emerging from the pa.s.sage, the King, leaning on the arm of his faithful wife, Marie Amelie, and followed by the Royal party, crossed the Place de la Concorde as far as the asphalt pavement. The Royal party now consisted of the King and Queen, the d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours and her children, the Princess Clementine and her husband, the Duke Augustus of Saxe-Coburg, and the Duke of Montpensier with his young and lovely Spanish bride, now enceinte and far advanced. Ignorant of the language, only sixteen years of age, a stranger to the customs and people of the country, and in her delicate situation, the position of this young creature was peculiarly trying. At one moment she clung with terror to her young husband's arm, which she refused for an instant to resign, and the next laughed at her own terror, saying that one who in her infancy had twice, in Madrid, been saved by being carried off in a sack ought not now to fear when she had feet to carry herself away and was suffered to use them! It is said that the fair Senora was forgotten in the hurry of the flight and almost left behind!

As soon as the Royal party were perceived, they were surrounded by a troop of National Guards as an escort, and a large number of officers of the Line in various uniforms. The King leaned on the Queen, as if for support, while she boldly advanced with a firm step and stern look. Both were in deepest mourning for the recent death of the beloved sister of the King, the Princess Adelaide.

Upon this melancholy procession the people gazed with mingled curiosity, amus.e.m.e.nt, gratification and regret.

"They are going to the Chamber of Deputies to complete the abdication!"

cries one.

"Vive la Reforme!" shouts another.

"Vive la France!" shouts a second.

"Vive le Roi!" in suppressed tones falters a third.

"See the poor young d.u.c.h.ess!" cried a woman, who was availing herself of her peculiar rotundity as a battering-ram to force her way through the crowd.

"She had better have remained at home!" sneered a Dynastic bitterly.

"The poor little children!" exclaimed a young woman more remarkable for prettiness than neatness, and more remarkable still for the scantiness of her attire, nearly all of which had been torn from her rounded shoulders in the throng.

The spirit which pervaded the ma.s.s was, evidently, by no means unfriendly to the Royal family, and it was as evidently misunderstood by them, for, suddenly, as if by fatality, on the very spot where Louis XVI. was beheaded, just beyond the Pont Tournant, on the pavement of the Obelisk of Luxor, the whole party, with no apparent necessity, came to a dead and complete halt. Instantly the mult.i.tude was crowded upon them, and this augmented their terror. The King dropped the Queen's arm and hastily raising his hat cried, "Vive la Reforme!" All was in a moment uproar and confusion. The Queen in terror at finding her husband's arm was gone turned hurriedly on every side.

"Fear not, Madame," said a mild voice beside her. "The people will do you no harm."

This was M. Maurice, editor of "Le Courrier des Spectacles."