The Sword of Honor Part 29

Judge of the excitement among the people of Paris!

The royalists only awaited the favorable moment to unchain their vengeance on the capital. All these causes combined could do no less than let loose a whirlwind. And that is what happened on the terrible days of September 2nd and 3rd. The following are extracts from my journal, which I wrote almost hour by hour, as these sad events unrolled themselves.

September 2, about eleven in the morning, I heard the sound of a signal gun, to which were quickly added the rapid clanging of the tocsin and the roll of drums. The news of the taking of Longwy by the Prussians had spread through Paris the previous night, and had thrown the people into consternation.

I left my ironsmithy and hastily donned my uniform of the National Guard, in order to a.s.semble with my Section of the Pikes. I was about to go to Victoria's room, where I supposed she was, as usual, busy sewing, when I saw her come in from out-of-doors.

"I was about to go in and tell you that I was bound for my Section," I said to her. "What is forward in Paris?"

"The great day of reprisals has dawned at last," replied my sister shrilly; "O, age-long martyrs of the Kings, the n.o.bles, and the clergy!

O, shades of our fathers, of our mothers! Daughters and sons of Joel, rejoice. The hour of vengeance has sounded! Ah, for centuries your sweat, your tears, your blood have flowed! Martyrs of the Kings, priests and n.o.bles, the tyrant issue of a conquering race, at last upon your torturers has descended the day of expiation, the day of retribution!"

"Sister," I cried, shuddering for very fear, "what mean you?"

But Victoria, the victim of a sort of ecstatic hallucination, continued without seeming to hear me: "Does not the blood of slaves, of serfs, of va.s.sals, despoiled, exploited, tortured, immolated by thousands, by seigniory and n.o.bility since the Frankish conquest, cry 'Vengeance!'?

Does not the blood of the Arians, ma.s.sacred by thousands by Clovis's hordes at the word of the priests of Rome, cry 'Vengeance!'? Does not the blood of the Vaudois, of the Albigensians, ma.s.sacred by thousands by Simon of Montfort's bandits, at the voice of the priests of Rome, cry 'Vengeance!'? Does not the blood of the Reformers, ma.s.sacred by thousands by the Valois and the Guises, cry 'Vengeance!'? And the Protestants hanged, broken on the wheel, drawn and quartered by the soldiers of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarch? Just G.o.d! if all that blood had flowed in a single day, the land of the Gauls would have become one crimson sea! If they should heap together the bones of our fathers, our mothers, the victims of royalty, n.o.bility and clergy, the charnel-pile would graze the heavens!"

Victoria's savage eloquence, the light in her glowing eyes, her darksome beauty, which at the moment gave her the aspect of the G.o.ddess of Vengeance, wove over me a sort of fascination. The frightful enumeration of the victims of the Kings, the n.o.bles, and the Romish Church, the memory of the martyrs whom we wept in our own family for so many centuries, the general exasperation, which in that moment I shared, against the murderous plots of our eternal enemies, carried away my reason, and while the spell lasted, I, too, believed in the justice of reprisal, and answered:

"You speak true, sister, you speak true. Too long has the vengeance of heaven spared these scoundrels. Let now the sword of the people fall upon them!"

"Aye, brother, justice shall not be less terrible for having been delayed! Retribution will recall to life none of the dead we mourn; but our enemies, annihilated or struck with terror, will hesitate to create new victims! In avenging the past, we safeguard the future. The instinct of the people can be trusted--its history is ours! It does not know the details of its age-long martyrdom, but it feels itself the representative of martyrs; it is conscious of being the living legend of the miseries and tortures of generations past. It is in their name that it will judge and execute."

Before I could reply, one of my companions in arms, a workman like myself, the son of our neighbor Jerome, and like myself belonging to the Section of the Pikes, called to me, without: "John, hear you not the drum? They have just posted placards in the street that the nation is in danger. Longwy is taken! The Prussians are marching upon Paris. They are sounding the a.s.sembly everywhere--come, come, let us to our place in the fray."

Fearing I should be lacking in duty should I further delay joining my Section, I bade my sister farewell and left our dwelling. My comrade and I directed our steps towards Vendome Place, the Section's a.s.sembly-ground.

It were useless to attempt to portray the thousand aspects presented by the mult.i.tude that packed the street corners and the crossings; for it was in these places that were posted by preference the placards issued by the patriot press or the clubs, as well as the decrees, issued almost hourly by the National a.s.sembly, or by the Commune of Paris, elected by the insurgent Sections on the night of the 9th of August.

How could one hope to describe the aspects, so diverse, presented by those surging ma.s.ses, or convey an idea of the tumultuous sentiments of the population?--now dumbfounded and seemingly crushed by the approach of grave public danger; now shrieking maledictions and cries of death against the royalists and the foreign despots; and again, carried away by a burst of patriotism, shouting: "To the frontiers!" All Paris oscillated in turn between terror, hatred and blind vengeance.

A reading of the placards and decrees alone can explain the downheartedness, the fury, and the recurring ferocious appet.i.tes of the delirious crowd. The following placard is from the _Courier of the Departments_, published by the Girondin Gorsas:

PLAN OF THE ALLIES AGAINST PARIS.

More than two hundred Royalist chiefs, scattered about in the different centers of France, have their rendezvous.--They hold the signatures of numerous persons who are ready to join the armies of the allied Kings when they shall have cleared the frontier.--The combined armies will march on the fortified towns as if to lay siege to them; but will take only such as will open their gates.--The Duke of Brunswick will combine with his army those corps of the French forces which are scattered along the frontier, while the King of Prussia will advance at the head of his troops, swelled by the counter-revolutionists of the interior.--They will march first upon Paris.--They will reduce the city by starvation.

No consideration, not even the danger of the royal family, will change the following dispositions:--The inhabitants, of Paris will be led into the open country. They will be sorted out. THE REVOLUTIONISTS WILL BE PUT TO DEATH.--As to the others they will be disposed of later.--Perhaps they will follow the system of the Emperor of Austria, not to spare any but the women and children. In case of unequal forces, they will set the cities on fire; for, according to the expression of the allied Kings, DESERTS ARE PREFERABLE TO PLACES INHABITED BY A REVOLTED PEOPLE.

To arms, citizens! The enemy is at our gates!

Another poster stuck on the walls of the city read:

TO ARMS, CITIZENS!!!

Citizens:

The enemy will soon be under the walls of Paris!

Longwy is taken!

Verdun can hold out but a few days. Its defenders appeal to the people.

The citizens who defend the citadel have sworn to die sooner than surrender it. They make for you a rampart with their bodies. It is your duty to succor them.

Citizens!

This very day, immediately, let all friends of liberty gather under its flag!

Let us a.s.semble in the Field of Mars, and let an army of sixty thousand men be formed without delay.

Citizens!

Let us march on the enemy, either to fall under their blows or to exterminate them under ours!

The Commune of Paris decrees:

ARTICLE 1. The Sections shall give to the State the men ready to set out.

ARTICLE 2. The Military Committee shall sit in permanence, to receive enrolments.

ARTICLE 3. The alarm gun shall be fired, the tocsin shall ring, night and day.

CITIZENS, THE NATION IS IN DANGER!

TO ARMS!

"Save Paris! save France! Else, woe is us!" repeated the imploring voices of women, whose cries and moans mingled with the clamor of the alarm bell.

At that moment there advanced, through the crowd which made way for him, a munic.i.p.al officer bearing a banner, and followed by several drummers beating the charge. They preceded a troop of volunteers of all ages and conditions, singing the Ma.r.s.eillaise, that sacred hymn of the Revolution. At the end of each stanza they waved their pikes, their guns, their sabers, their caps, their hats, crying:

"To arms, brothers! To the Field of Mars! And to-night, off for the frontier!"

The majority of the citizens, who, after reading the decree of the Commune, also cried "To arms!" fell in line with the volunteers. Among them I beheld a man in the prime of life, his face radiant with civic ardor, embrace his wife and little daughters who accompanied him, and, his eyes filled with tears, exclaim--"Adieu! I go to defend you!"

I was still thrilling under the impression produced by this patriotic act, when I heard someone read, in a loud voice, this fragment of a placard, posted, they said, by order of the ministry:

"--Citizens of Paris, you have traitors in your midst. Ah, but for them, the strife would soon be over!"

"Who are the traitors?" the word went 'round. "Who are they, if not the royalists, hidden in the two hundred dens mentioned by Gorsas--if not the priests and the monks?"

"And our fathers, our husbands, our sons, our brothers, are enrolling in ma.s.s to run to the frontiers!" cried a woman, in terror. "Who will defend us against the fury of the enemies within?"

"The royalists will let slip upon Paris the counterfeiters and the brigands shut up with them in the prisons!"

"Mercy of G.o.d! While we are at the front, these wretches will pillage our shops, a.s.sault our daughters, slaughter our wives. No, no, it shall never be!"