PART X.
"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
SHAKSPEARE.
On reaching the prison, I gave up all for lost; sullenly resigned myself to what now seemed the will of fate; and without a word, except in answer to the interrogatory of my name and country, followed the two horrid-looking ruffians who performed the office of turnkeys. St Lazare had been a monastery, and its massiveness, grimness, and confusion of buildings, with its extreme silence at that late hour, gave me the strongest impression of a huge catacomb above ground. The door of a cell was opened for me after traversing a long succession of cloisters; and on a little wooden trestle, and wrapt in my cloak, I attempted to sleep. But if sleep has not much to boast of in Paris at any time, what was it then? I had scarcely closed my eyes when I was roused by a rapid succession of musket-shots, fired at the opposite side of the cloister, the light of torches flashing through the long avenues, and the shouts of men and women in wrath, terror, and agony. I threw myself off my uneasy bed, and climbing up by my prison bars, endeavoured to ascertain the cause of the mêlée. But the imperfect light served little more than to show a general mustering of the national guard in the court, and a huge and heavy building, into which they were discharging random shots whenever a head appeared at its casements. A loud huzza followed whenever one of those shots appeared to take effect, and a laugh equally loud ran through the ranks when the bullet wasted its effect on the massive mullions or stained glass of the windows. A tall figure on horseback, whom I afterwards learned to be Henriot, the commandant of the national guard, galloped up and down the court with the air of a general-in-chief manœuvring an army. I think that he actually had provided himself with a truncheon to meet all the emergencies of supreme command. While this sanguinary, and yet mocking representation of warfare was going on, M. le Commandant was in full eloquence and prodigious gesticulation. "A la gloire, mes enfans!" was his constant cry. "Fight, mes braves! the honour of France demands it: the eyes of Europe—of the world—are turned upon you. Vive la Republique!" And all this accompanied with waving his hat, and spurring his horse into foam and fury. But fortune is a jade after all; and the hero of the tricolored scarf was destined to have his laurels a little shorn, even on this narrow field. While his charger was caracoling over the cloisters, and his veterans from the cellars and counters of Paris were popping off their muskets at the unfortunates who started up against the old casement, I heard a sudden rush and run; a low postern of the cloister had been flung back, and the prisoners within the building had made a sally on their tormentors. A massacre at the Bicêtre, in which six thousand had perished, had warned these unhappy people that neither the prison wall, nor night, was to be security against the rage of the bloodhounds with whom murder seemed to have grown into a pastime; and after having seen several of their number shot down within their dungeon, they determined to attack them, and, if they must die, at least die in manly defence. Their rush was perfectly successful; it had the effect of a complete surprise; and though their only weapons were fragments of their firewood—for all fire-arms and knives had been taken from them immediately on their entrance into the prison—they routed the heroes of the guard at the first charge. Even the gallant commander himself only shared the chance of his "camarades:" a flourish or two of his sabre, and an adjuration of "liberty," had no other effect than to insure a heavier shower of blows, and I had the gratification of seeing the braggadocio go down from his saddle in the midst of a group, who certainly had no veneration for the majesty of the truncheon. The victory was achieved; but, like many another victory, it produced no results: the gates of the St Lazare were too strongly guarded to be forced by an unarmed crowd, and I saw the prisoners successively and gloomily return to the only roof, melancholy as that was, which now could shelter them.
The morning brought my case before the authorities of this den. Half a dozen coarse and filthy uniformed men, and some of them evidently sufferers in the tumult of the night, for their heads were bound up and their arms bandaged—a matter which, if it did not improve their appearance, gave me every reason to expect increased brutishness in their tempers—formed the tribunal. The hall in which they had established their court had once been the kitchen of the convent; and, though all signs of hospitality had vanished, its rude and wild construction, its stone floor and vaulted roof, and even its yawning and dark recesses for the different operations which, in other days, had made it a scene of busy cheerfulness, now gave it a look of dreariness in the extreme. I could have easily imagined it to be a chamber of the Inquisition. But men in my circumstances have not much time for the work of fancy; and I was instantly called on for my name, and business in France. I had heard enough of popular justice to believe, that I had now arrived within sight of the last struggle, and I resolved to give these ruffians no triumph over the Englishman.
"Citizen, who are you?" Was the first interrogatory.
"I am no citizen, no Frenchman, and no republican," was my answer. My judges stared at each other.
"You are a prisoner. How came you here?"
"You are judges; how came you there?"
"You are charged with crimes against the Republic."
"In my country no man is expected to criminate himself."
"But you are a traitor: can you deny that?"
"I am no traitor to my king; can you say as much for yourselves?" They now began to cast furious glances at me.
"You are insolent: what brought you into the territory of France?"
"The same thing which placed you on that bench—force."
"Are you mad?"
"No—are you?"
"Do you not know that we can send you to the"—
"If you do, I shall only go before you."
This put an end to my interrogatory at once. I had accidentally touched upon the nerve which quivered in every bosom of these fellows. There was a singular presentiment among even the boldest of the Revolutionists, that the new order of things would not last, and that, when the change came, it would be a bloody one. Life had become sufficiently precarious already among the possessors of power; and the least intimation of death was actually formidable to a race of villains whose hands were hourly imbued in slaughter. I had been hitherto placed in scarcely more than surveillance. An order for my confinement as a "Brigand Anglais," was made out by the indignant "commission," and I was transferred from my narrow and lonely cell into the huge crowded building in the opposite cloister, which had been the scene of the attack on the previous night. I could, with Cato, "smile on the drawn dagger and defy its point." I walked out with the air of a Cato.
This change, intended for my infinite degradation until the guillotine should have dispatched its business in arrear, I found much to my advantage. The man who expects nothing, cannot be hurt by disappointment; and when I was conducted from my solitary cell into the midst of four or five hundred prisoners, I felt the human feelings kindle in me, which had been chilled between my four stone walls.
The prisoners with whom I was now to take my chance, were of all ranks, professions, and degrees of crime. The true crime in the eyes of the republic being, to be rich. Yet there the culprit had some hope of being suffered to live, at least while daily examinations, with the hourly perspective of the axe, could make him contribute to the purses of the tribunal. Those who happened to be poor, were found guilty of incivisme at once, and were daily drafted off to the Place de Grève, from which they never returned. But some of the prisoners were from La Vendée, peasants mixed with nobles; who, though no formal shape of resistance to the republic was yet declared, had exhibited enough of that gallant contempt of the new tyranny, which afterwards immortalized the name, to render them obnoxious to the ruffians at its head. It was this sturdy portion which had made the dash on the night of the riot, and their daring had the effect, at least, of saving their fellow-prisoners in future from being made marks, to teach the national guard the art of shooting. Even their sentries kept a respectful distance; and M. Henriot, wisely mindful of his flagellation, flourished his staff of command no more within our cloister. We were, in fact, left almost wholly to ourselves. Yet, if a philosopher desired to take a lesson in human nature, this was the spot of earth for the study. We had it in every shape and shade. We had it in the wits and blockheads, the courtiers and the clowns, the opulent and the ruined, the brave and the pusillanimous—and all under the strangest pressure of those feelings which rouse the nature of man to its most undisguised display. Death was before every eye. Where was the use of wearing a mask, when the wearer was so soon to part with his head? Pretence gradually vanished, and a general spirit of boldness, frankness, and something, if not exactly of dignity, at least of manliness, superseded the customary cringing of society under a despotism. In all but the name, we were better republicans than the tribe who shouted in the streets, or robbed in the tribunals.
I made the remark one day to the Marquis de Cassini, a philosopher and pupil of the great Buffon. "The reason is," said he, "that men differ chiefly by circumstances, as they differ chiefly by their clothes. Throw off their dress, whether embroidery or rags, and you will find the same number of ribs in them all."
"But my chief surprise is, to find in this prison more mutual kindness, and, in every sense, more generosity of sentiment, than one generally expects to meet in the world."
"Helvetius would tell you that all this was self-interest," was my pale-visaged and contemplative friend's reply. "But I always regarded M. Helvetius in the light of a well-trained baboon, who thought, when men stared at his tricks, they were admiring his talents. The truth is, that self-interest is the mere creature of society, and is the most active in the basest society. It is the combined cowardice and cruelty of men struggling for existence; the savageness of the forest, where men cannot gather acorns enough to share with their fellows; the effort for life, where there is but one plank in a storm, and where, if you are to cling at all, it must be by drowning the weaker party. But here," and he cast his eyes calmly round the crowd, "as there is not the slightest possibility that any one of us will escape, we have the better opportunity of showing our original bienséance. All the struggling on earth will not save us from the guillotine; and therefore we resolve to accommodate each other for the rest of our journey."
I agreed with him on the philosophy of the case, and in return he introduced me to some of the Vendéan nobles, who had hitherto exhibited their general scorn of Parisian contact by confining themselves to the circle of their followers. I was received with the distinction due to my introducer, and was invited to join their supper that night. The prison had once been the chapel of the convent; and though the desecration had taken place a hundred years before, and the revolutionary spoil had spared but little of the remaining ornaments, the original massiveness of the building, and the nobleness of the architecture, had withstood the assaults of both time and plunder. The roofs of the aisles could not be reached except by flame, and the monuments of the ancient priors and prelates, when they had once been stripped of their crosses, were too solid for the passing fury of the mob. And thus, in the midst of emblems of mortality, and the recollections of old solemnity, were set some hundreds of people, who knew as little of each other as if they had met in a caravansery, and who, perhaps, expected to part as soon. The scene was curious, but by no means uncheerful. The national spirit is inextinguishable; and, however my countrymen may bear up against the extremes of ill-fortune, no man meets its beginnings with so easy an air as the man of France. Our supper was laid out in one of the side chapels; and, coarse and scanty as it was, I seldom recollect an evening which I passed with a lighter sense of the burden of a prisoner's time. I found the Vendéan nobles a manlier race than their more courtly countrymen. Yet they had courtliness of their own; but it was more the manner of our own country gentlemen of the last century, than the polish of Versailles. Their habits of living on their domains, of country sports, of intercourse with their peasantry, and of the general simplicity of country life, had drawn a strong line of distinction between them and the dukes and marquises of the royal saloons. Like all Frenchmen of the day, they conversed largely upon the politics of France; but there was a striking reserve in their style. The existing royal family were but little mentioned, or mentioned only with a certain kind of sacred respect. Their misfortunes prohibited the slightest severity of language. Yet still it was not difficult to see, that those straightforward and honest lords of the soil, who were yet to prove themselves the true chevaliers of France, could feel as acutely, and express as strongly, the injuries inflicted by the absurdities and vices of the successive administrations of their reign, as if they had figured in the clubs of the capital. But the profligacies of the preceding monarch, and the tribe of fools and knaves whom those profligacies as naturally gathered round him as the plague propagates its own contagion, met with no mercy. And, though they were spoken of with the gravity which became the character and rank of the speakers, they were denounced with a sternness which seemed beyond the morals or the mind of their country. Louis XV., Du Barri, and the whole long succession of corrupting and corrupted cabinets, which had at length rendered the monarchy odious, were denounced in terms worthy of gallant men; who, though resolved to sink or swim with the throne, experienced all the bitterness of generous indignation at the crimes which had raised the storm.
We had our songs too, and some of them were as contemptuous as ever came from the pen of Parisian satire. Among my recollections of the night was one of those songs, of which the refrain was—
"Le Bien-Aimé—de l'Almanac."
A burlesque on the title—Le Bien-Aimé, &c., which the court calendar, and the court calendar alone, had annually given to the late king. I can offer only a paraphrase.
"Louis Quinze, our burning shame,
Hear our song, 'old well-beloved,'
What if courts and camps are tame,
Pension'd beggars laced and gloved,
France's love grows rather slack,
Idol of—the Almanac.
"Let your flatterers hang or drown,
We are of another school,
Truth no more shall be put down,
We can call a fool a fool,
Fearless of Bastile or rack,
Titus of—the Almanac.
"Louis, trample on your serfs,
We'll be trampled on no more,
Revel in your parc aux cerfs,[1]
Eat and drink—'twill soon be o'er.
France will steer another tack,
Solon of—the Almanac!
"Hear your praises from your pages,
Hear them from your liveried lords,
Let your valets earn their wages,
Liars, living on their words;
We'll soon give them nuts to crack,
Cæsar of—the Almanac!
"When a dotard fills the throne,
Fit for nothing but a nurse,
When a nation's general groan,
Yields to nothing but its curse;
What are armies at thy back,
Henri of—the Almanac?
"When the truth is bought and sold,
When the wrongs of man are spurn'd,
Then the crown's last knell is toll'd,
Then, old Time, thy glass has turn'd,
And comes flying from thy pack
To nations a new Almanac!
"Mistress, minister, Bourbon,
Rule by bayonets, bribes, and spies,
Charlatans in church and throne,
France is opening all her eyes—
Down go minion, king, and quack,
We'll have our new Almanac!"
When I returned to the place where my mattress was flung, the crowd had already sunk to rest, and there was a general silence throughout the building. The few lights which our jailers supplied to us, had become fewer; and, except for the heavy sound of the doubled sentries' tread outside, I might have imagined myself in a vast cemetery. The agitation of the day, followed by the somewhat unsuitable gayety of the evening, had thrown me into such a state of mental and bodily fatigue, that I had scarcely laid my side on my bed, untempting as it was, when I dropped into a heavy slumber. The ingenuity of our tormentors, however, prohibited our knowing any thing in the shape of indulgence; and in realisation of the dramatist's renowned mot, "traitors never sleep," the prison door was suddenly flung open—a drum rattled through the aisle—the whole body of the prisoners were ordered to stand forth and answer to their names; this ceremony concluding with the march of the whole night-guard into the chapel, and their being ordered to load with ball-cartridge, to give us the sufficient knowledge of what any attempt to escape would bring upon us in future. This refinement in cruelty we owed to the escapade of the night before.
At length, after a variety of insulting queries, even this scene was over. The guard marched out, the roll of their drum passed away among the cloisters; we went shivering to our beds—threw ourselves down dressed as we were, and tried to forget France and our jailers.
But a French night in those times was like no other, and I had yet to witness a scene such as I believe could not have existed in any other country of the globe.
After some period of feverish sleep I was awakened by a strange murmur, which, mixing with my dreams, had given me the comfortless idea of hearing the roar of the multitude at some of the horrid displays of the guillotine; and as I half opened my unwilling eyes, still heavy with sleep, I saw a long procession of figures, in flowing mantles and draperies, moving down the huge hall. A semicircle of beds filled the extremity of the chapel, which had been vacated by a draft of unfortunate beings, carried off during the day to that dreadful tribunal, whose sole employment seemed to be the supply of the axe, and from which no one was ever expected to return. While my eyes, with a strange and almost superstitious anxiety—such is the influence of time and place—followed this extraordinary train, I saw it take possession of the range of beds; each new possessor sitting wrapt in his pale vesture, and perfectly motionless. I can scarcely describe the singular sensations with which I continued to gaze on the spectacle. My eyes sometimes closed, and I almost conceived that the whole was a dream; but the forms were too distinct for this conjecture, and the question with me now became, "are they flesh and blood?" I had not sunk so far into reverie as to imagine that they were the actual spectres of the unhappy tenants of those beds on the night before, all of whom were now, doubtless, in the grave; but the silence, the distance, the dimness perplexed me, and I left the question to be settled by the event. At a gesture from the central figure they all stood up—and a man loaded with fetters was brought forward in front of their line. I now found that a trial was going on: the group were the judges, the man was the presumed criminal; there was an accuser, there was an advocate—in short, all the general process of a trial was passing before my view. Curiosity would naturally have made me spring from my bed and approach this extraordinary spectacle; but I am not ashamed now to acknowledge, that I felt a nervelessness and inability to speak or move, which for the time wholly awed me. All that I could discover was, that the accused was charged with incivisme, and that, defying the court and disdaining the charge, he was pronounced guilty—the whole circle, standing up as the sentence was pronounced, and with a solemn waving of their arms and murmur of their voices, assenting to the act of the judge. The victim was then seized on, swept away into the darkness, and after a brief pause I heard a shriek and a crash; the sentence had been fulfilled—all was over. The court now covered their heads with their mantles, as if in sorrow for this formidable necessity.
But how shall I speak of the closing scene? However it surprised and absorbed me in that moment of nervous excitement, I can allude to it now only as characteristic of a time when every mind in France was half lunatic. I saw a figure enveloped in star-coloured light emerge from the darkness, slowly ascend, in a vesture floating round it like the robes which Raphael or Guido gives to the beings of another sphere, and, accompanied by a burst of harmony as it rose, ascend to the roof, where it suddenly disappeared. All was instantly the silence and the darkness of the grave.
Daylight brought back my senses, and I was convinced that the pantomimic spirit of the people, however unaccountably it might disregard proprieties, had been busy with the scene. I should now certainly have abandoned the supernatural portion of the conjecture altogether; but on mentioning it to Cassini, he let me into the solution at once.
"Have you never observed," said he, "the passion of all people for walking on the edge of a precipice, climbing a church tower, looking down from a battlement, or doing any one thing which gives them the nearest possible chance of breaking their necks?—then you can comprehend the performance of last night. There we are, like fowls in a coop: every day sees some of us taken out; and the amusement of the remaining fowls is to imagine how the heads of the others were taken from their bodies." The prisoners were practising a trial.
I gave an involuntary look of surprise at this species of amusement, and remarked something on the violation of common feeling—to say nothing of the almost profaneness which it involved.
"As to the feeling," said Cassini, with that shrug which no shoulders but those of a Frenchman can ever give, "it is a matter of taste; and perhaps we have no right to dictate in such matters to persons who would think a week a long lease of life, and who, instead of seven days, may not have so many hours. As to the profanation, if your English scruples made you sensitive on such points, I can assure you that you might have seen some things much more calculated to excite your sensibilities. The display last night was simply the trial of a royalist; and as we are all more or less angry with republicanism at this moment, and with some small reason too, the royalist, though he was condemned, as every body now is, was suffered to have his apotheosis. But I have seen exhibitions in which the republican was the criminal, and the scene that followed was really startling even to my rather callous conceptions. Sometimes we even had one of the colossal ruffians who are now lording it over France. I have seen St Just, Couthon, Caier, Danton, nay Robespierre himself; arraigned before our midnight tribunal; for this amusement is the only one which we can enjoy without fear of interruption from our jailers. Thus we enjoy it with the greater gusto, and revenge ourselves for the tribulations of the day by trying our tormentors at night."
"I am satisfied with the reason, although I am not yet quite reconciled to the performance. Who were the actors?"
"You are now nearer the truth than you suspected. We have men of every trade here, and, among the rest, we have actors enough to stock the Comédie Française. If you remain long enough among us, you will see some of the best farces of the best time played uncommonly well by our fellow détenus. But in the interim—for our stage is permitted by the municipality to open in the St Lazare only four times a month—a piece of cruelty which we all regard as intolerable—our actors refresh their faculties with all kinds of displays. You acknowledge that the scene last night was well got up; and if you should see the trial of some of our 'Grands Democrats,' be assured that your admiration will not be attracted by showy vesture, blue lights, or the harmonies of the old asthmatic organ in yonder gallery; our pattern will be taken from the last scene of 'Il Don Giovanni.' You will have no pasteboard figure suspended from the roof, and wafted upward in starlight or moonlight. But if you wish to see the exhibition, I am concerned to tell you that you must wait, for to-night all our artistes are busy. In what, do you conceive?"
I professed my inability to fathom "the infinite resources of the native mind, where amusement was the question."
"Well then—not to keep you in suspense—we are to have a masquerade."
The fact was even so. France having grown tired of all things that had been, grew tired of weeks, and Decades were the law of the land. The year was divided into packs of ten days each, and she began the great game of time by shuffling and cutting her cards anew. The change was not marked by any peculiar good fortune; for it was laughed at, as every thing in France was except an order for deportation to the colonies, or a march to the scaffold. The populace, fully admitting the right of government to deal with kings and priests as it pleased, regarded the interference with their pleasures as a breach of compact; and the result was, that the populace had their Dimanche as well as their Decadi, and that the grand experiment for wiping out the Sunday, issued in giving them two holidays instead of one.
It was still early in the day when some bustle in the porch of the prison turned all eyes towards it, and a new detachment of prisoners was brought in. I shall say nothing of the scenes of wretchedness which followed; the wild terrors of women on finding themselves in this melancholy place, which looked, and was, scarcely more than a vestibule to the tomb; the deep distress of parents, with their children clinging round them, and the general despair—a despair which was but too well founded. Yet the tumult of their settling and distribution among the various quarters of the chapel had scarcely subsided when another scene was at hand. The commissary of the district came in, with a list of the prisoners who were summoned before the tribunal. Our prison population was like the waters of a bath, as one stream flowed in another flowed out; the level was constantly sustained. With an instinctive pang I heard my name pronounced among those unhappy objects of sanguinary rule. Cassini approached me with a smile, which he evidently put on to conceal his emotion.
"This is quick work, M. Marston," said he, taking my hand. "As the ruffian in the school fable says, 'Hodie tibi, cras nihi'—twelve hours will probably make all the difference between us."
I took off the little locket coutaining my last remembrance of Clotilde, and put it into his hands, requesting him, if he survived, to transmit it to his incomparable countrywoman, with an assurance that I remembered her in an hour when all else was forgotten.
"I shall perform the part of your legatee," said he, "till to-morrow; then I will find some other depositary. Here you must know that heirship is rapid, and that the will is executed before the ink is dry." He turned away to hide a tear. "I have not known you long, sir," said he; "but in this place we must be expeditious in every thing. You are too young to die. If you are sacrificed, I am convinced that you will die like a gentleman and a man of honour. And yet I have some feeling, some presentiment, nay almost a consciousness, that you will not be cut off, at least until you are as weary of the world as I am."
I endeavoured to put on a face of resignation, if not of cheerfulness, and said, "That though my country might revenge my death, my being engaged in its service would only make my condemnation inevitable. But I was prepared."
"At all events, my young friend," said he, "if you escape from this pandemonium of France, take this paper, and vindicate the memory of Cassini."
He gave me a memoir, which I could not help receiving with a smile, from the brevity of the period during which the trust was likely to hold. The gendarme now came up to demand my attendance. I shook hands with the marquis, who at that moment was certainly no philosopher, and followed the train.
We were about fifty in number; and after being placed in open artillery waggons, the procession moved rapidly through the suburb, until we reached one of those dilapidated and hideous-looking buildings which were then to be found startling the stranger's eye with the recollections of the St Bartholomew and the Fronde.
A crowd, assembled round the door of one of these melancholy shades, and the bayonets of a company of the national guard glittering above their heads, at length indicated the place of our destination. The crowd shouted, and called us "aristocrats, thirsting for the blood of the good citizens." The line of the guard opened, and we were rapidly passed through several halls, the very dwelling of decay, until we reached a large court, where the prisoners remained while the judges were occupied in deciding on the fate of the train which the morning had already provided. I say nothing of the insults which were intended, if not to add new bitterness to death, to indulge the wretched men and women who could find an existence in attending on the offices of the tribunal, with opportunities of triumphing over those born to better things. While we remained in the court exposed to the weather, which was now cold and gusty, shouts were heard at intervals, which, as the turnkeys informed us, arose from the spectators of the executions—death, in these fearful days, immediately following sentence. Yet, to the last the ludicrous often mingled with the melancholy. While I was taking my place in the file according to the order of our summons, and was next in rotation for trial, a smart and overdressed young man stepped out of his place in the rank, and drawing from his bosom a pamphlet in manuscript, presented it to me, with the special entreaty that, "in case I survived, I should take care of its propagation throughout Europe." My answer naturally was, "That my fate was fully as precarious as that of the rest, and that thus I had no hope of being able to give his pamphlet to mankind."
"Mais, monsieur," that phrase which means so many inexpressible things—"But, sir, you must observe, that by putting my pamphlet into your charge, it has a double chance. You may read it as a part of your defence; it is a treatise on the government of France, which settles all the disputed questions, reconciles republicanism with monarchy, and shows how a revolution may be made to purify all things without overthrowing any. Thus my sentiments will become public at once, the world will be enlightened, and, though you may perish, France will be saved."
Nothing could be more convincing; yet I continued stubborn. He persisted. I suggested the "possibility of my not being suffered to make any defence whatever, but of being swept away at once; in this case endangering the total loss of his conceptions to the world;" but I had to deal with a man of resources.
"No," said the author and philanthropist; "for that event I have provided. I have a second copy folded on my breast, which I shall read when I am called on for trial. Then those immortal truths shall not be left to accident; I shall have two chances for celebrity; the labour of my life shall be known; nor shall the name of Jean Jacques Pelletier go to the tomb without the renown due to a philosopher."
But further deprecation on my part was cut short by the appearance of two of the guard, by whom I was marched to the presence of the tribunal. The day had now waned, and two or three lamps showed my weary eye the judges, whose decision was to make the difference to me between life and death, within the next half hour. Their appearance was the reverse of one likely to reconcile the unfortunate to the severity of the law. They were seven or eight sitting on a raised platform, with a long table in their front, covered with papers, with what seemed to be the property taken from the condemned at the moment—watches, purses, and trinkets; and among those piles, very visibly the fragments of a dinner—plates and soups, with several bottles of cognac and wine. Justice was so indefatigable in France, that its ministers were forced to mingle all the functions of public and private life together; and to be intoxicated in the act of passing sentence of death was no uncommon event.
The judges of those sectional tribunals were generally ruffians of the lowest description, who, having made themselves notorious by violence and Jacobinism, had driven away the usual magistracy, and, under the pretext of administering justice, were actually driving a gainful trade in robbery of every kind. The old costume of the courts of law was of course abjured; and the new civic costume, which was obviously constructed on the principle of leaving the lands free for butchery, and preserving the garments free from any chance of being disfigured by the blood of the victim—for they were the perfection of savage squalidness—was displayed à la rigueur on the bench. A short coat without sleeves, the shirt sleeves tucked up as for instant execution, the neck open, no collar, fierce mustaches, a head of clotted hair, sometimes a red nightcap stuck on one side, and sometimes a red handkerchief tied round it as a temporary "bonnet de nuit"—for the judges frequently, in drunkenness or fatigue, threw themselves on the bench or the floor, and slept—exhibited the regenerated aspect of Themis in the capital of the polished world.
My name was now called. I shall not say with what a throb of heart I heard it. But at the moment when I was stepping forward, I felt my skirt pulled by one of the guard behind me. I looked, and recognized through all his beard, and the hair that in profusion covered his physiognomy, my police friend, who seemed to possess the faculty of being every where—a matter, however, rendered easier to him by his being in the employ of the government—and who simply whispered the words—"Be firm, and acknowledge nothing." Slight as the hint was, it had come in good time; for I had grown desperate from the sight of the perpetual casualties round me, and, like Cassini's idea of the man walking on the edge of the precipice, had felt some inclination to jump off, and take my chance. But now contempt and defiance took the place of despair; and instead of openly declaring my purposes and performances, my mind was made up to leave them to find out what they could.
On my being marched up to the foot of the platform between two frightful-looking ruffians, whose coats and trousers seemed to have been dyed in gore, to show that they were worthy of the murders of September, and who, to make "assurance doubly sure," wore on their sword-belts the word "September," painted in broad characters, I remained for a while unquestioned, until they turned over a pile of names which they had flung on the table before them. At last their perplexity was relieved by one of the clerks, who pronounced my name. I was then interrogated in nearly the same style as before the committee of my first captors. I gave them short answers.
"Who are you?" asked the principal distributor of rabble justice. The others stooped forward, pens in hand, to record my conviction.
My answer was—
"I am a man." (Murmurs on the platform.)
"Whence come you?"
"From your prison."
"You are not a Frenchman?"
"No, thank Heaven!" (Murmurs again.)
"Beware, sir, of insolence to the tribunal. We can send you instantly to punishment."
"I know it. Why then try me at all?"
"Because, prisoner, we desire to hear the truth first."
"First or last, can you bear to hear it?" (Angry looks, but more attention.)
"We have no time to waste—the business of the Republic must be done. Are you a citizen?"
"I am; a citizen of the world."
"You must not equivocate with justice. Where did you live before you were arrested?"
"On the globe." (A half-suppressed laugh among the crowd in the back ground.)
"What profession?"
"None."
"On what then do you live, have lived, or expect to live?"
"To-day on nothing, for your guards have given me nothing. Yesterday, I lived on what I could get. To-morrow, it depends on circumstances whether I shall want any thing." (A low murmur of applause among the bystanders, who now gathered closer to the front.)
"Prisoner," said the chief, swilling a glass of cognac to strengthen the solemnity of his jurisprudence, "the Republic must not be trifled with. You are arraigned of incivisme. Of what country are you a subject?"
"Of France, while I remain on her territory."
"Have you fought for France?"
"I have; for her laws, her liberty, her property, and her honour." (Bravo! from the crowd.)
"Yet you are not a Republican?"
"No; no more than you are."
This produced confusion on the bench. The hit was contemptuously accidental; but it was a home-thrust at the chief, who had former been a domestic in the Tuileries, and was still strongly suspected of being a spy of the Bourbons. The crowd who knew his story, who are always delighted with a blow at power, burst into a general roar. But a little spruce fellow on the bench, who had already exhibited a desire to take his share in the interrogatory, now thrust his head over the table, and said in his most searching tone—
"To come to the point—Prisoner, how do you live? What are your means? All honest men must have visible means. That is my question." (All eyes were now turned on me.)
I was now growing angry; and, pointing to the pile of purses and watches on the table—
"No man," said I, "needs ask what are your visible means, when they see that pile before you. Yet I doubt if that proves you to be an honest man. That is my answer."
The little inquisitor looked furious, and glanced towards the chief for protection; but his intrusion had provoked wrath in that quarter, and his glance was returned with a rigid smile.
"Prisoner," said the head of the tribunal, "though the question was put improperly, it was itself a proper one. How do you live?"
"By my abilities."
"That is a very doubtful support in those times."
"I do not recommend you, or any of those around you, to make the experiment," was my indignant answer.
The bystanders gave a general laugh, in which even the guard joined. To get the laugh against one, is the most unpardonable of all injuries in France, and this answer roused up the whole tribunal. They scarcely gave themselves the trouble of a moment's consultation. A few nods and whispers settled the whole affair; and the chief, standing up and drawing his sabre from its sheath—then the significant custom of those places of butchery, pronounced the fatal words, "Guilty of incivisme. Let the criminal be conducted à la Force," the well-known phrase for immediate execution.
The door was opened from which none ever came back. Two torches were seen glaring down the passage, and I was seized by the grim escort who were to lead me to the axe.
The affectation of cowardice is as childish as the affectation of courage; but I felt a sensation at that moment which took me by surprise. I had been perfectly assured of my sentence from the first glance at the judges. If ever there was a spot on earth which deserved Dante's motto of Erebus—
"Voi qui entrate, lasciate agui speranza"—
it was the revolutionary tribunal. Despair was written all over it in characters impossible to be mistaken. I had fixed my resolution to go through the whole scene, if not with heroism, at least with that decent firmness which becomes a man; yet the sound of the words which consigned me to the scaffold struck me with a general chill. Momentary as the period was, the question passed through my mind, are those paralysed limbs the same which bore me so well through the hazards of the campaign? Why am I to feel the fluttering of heart now, more than when I was facing sabres and cannon-shot? Why am I thus frigid and feeble, when I so lately fought and marched, and defied alike fatigue and wounds? But I felt in this chamber of death an inconceivable exhaustion, which had never approached me in the havoc of the field. My feet refused to move, my lips to breathe; all objects swam round, and sick to death and fainting, I thrust out my hand to save me from falling, and thus gave the last triumph to my murderers.
At this decisive moment I found my hand caught by a powerful grasp, and a strong voice exclaiming, "Messieurs, I demand the delay of this sentence. The criminal before you is of higher importance to the state than the wretches whom justice daily compels you to sacrifice. His crime is of a deeper dye. I exhibit the mandate of the Government to arrest the act of the tribunal, and order him to be reserved until he reveals the whole of the frightful plots which endanger the Republic."
He then advanced to the platform; and, taking a paper from his bosom, displayed to the court and the crowd the order for my being remanded to prison, signed by the triumvirate, whose word was law in France. Some confusion followed on the bench, and some bustle among the spectators; but the document was undeniable, and my sentence was suspended. I am not sure that the people within much regretted the delay, however those who had been lingering outside might feel themselves ill-used by a pause in the executions, which had now become a popular amusement; for the crowd instantly pushed forward to witness another trial of sarcasm between me and my judges; but this the new authority sternly forbade.
"The prisoner," said he, in a dictatorial tone, "is now in my charge. He is a prisoner of state—an Englishman—an agent of the monster Pitt"—(he paused, and was answered with a general shudder;) "and, above all, has actually been in arms with the fiend Brunswick, (a general groan,) and with those worse than fiends, those parricides, those emigrant nobles, who have come to burn our harvests, slay our wives and children, and destroy the proudest monument of human wisdom, the grandest triumph of human success, and the most illustrious monument of the age of regeneration—the Republic of France." Loud acclamations followed this popular rhetoric; and the panegyrist, firmly grasping me by the arm, walked with me rapidly out of court. All made way for him, and, before another word could be uttered by the astounded bench, we were in one of the covered carriages reserved for prisoners of the higher rank, and on our way, at full gallop, through the intricate streets of Paris.
All this was done with such hurried action, that I had scarcely time to know what my own emotions were; but the relief from immediate death, or rather from those depressing and overwhelming sensations which perhaps make its worst bitterness, was something, and hope dawned in me once more. Still, it was wholly in vain that I attempted to make my man of mystery utter a word. Nothing could extort a syllable from him, and he was evidently unwilling that I should even see his face, imperfect as the chance was among the few lamps which Paris then exhibited to enlighten the dismal darkness of her thoroughfares. Yet the idea that my rescue was not without a purpose predominated; and I was beginning even to imagine that I already felt the fresh air of the fields, and that our journey would terminate outside the walls of Paris, when the carriage came to a full stop, and, by the light of a torch streaming on the wind in front, I saw the gate of the St Lazare. All was now over—resistance or escape was equally beyond me. The carriage was surrounded by the guard, who ordered me to descend; their officer received the rescript for my safe custody, and I had nothing before me but the dungeon. But at the moment when my foot was on the step of the vehicle, my companion stooped forward, and uttered in my ear, with a pressure of my hand, the word "Mordecai." I was hurried onward, and the carriage drove away.
My surprise was excessive. This talismanic word changes the current of my thoughts at once. It had so often and so powerfully operated in my favour, that I could scarcely doubt its effect once more; yet before me were the stern realities of confinement. What spell was equal to those stonewalls, what dexterity of man or friendship, or even the stronger love of woman, could make my dungeon free, or my chains vanish into "thin air?" Still there had been a interposition, and to that interposition, whether for future good or ill, it certainly was due that I was not already mounting the scaffold, or flung, headless trunk, into the miserable and nameless grave.
As I passed again through the cloisters, my ears were caught with the sound of music and dancing. The contrast was sufficiently strong to the scene from which I had just returned; yet this was the land of contrasts. To my look of surprise, the turnkey who attended me answered "Perhaps you have forgotten that this is Decadi, and on this night we always have our masquerade. If you have not got a dress, I shall supply you; my wife is a fripier in the Antoine; she supplies all the civic fêtes with costumes, and you may have any dress you like, from a grand signor with his turban, down to a colporteur with his pack, or a watchman with his nightcap."
My mind was still too unsettled to enjoy masquerading, notwithstanding the temptation of the turnkey's wardrobe; and I felt all that absence of accommodation to circumstances, that want of plasticity, that failure of grasping at every hair's-breadth of enjoyment, which is declared by foreigners to form the prodigious deficiency of John Bull. If I could have taken refuge, for that night at least, in the saddest cell of the old convent, or in the deepest dungeon of the new prison, I should have gone to either with indulgence. I longed to lay down my aching brains upon my pillow, and forget the fever of the time. But prisoners have no choice; and the turnkey, after repeating his recommendations that I should not commit an act of such profound offence as to appear in the assembly without a domino, if I should take nothing else from the store of the most popular marchande in Paris, the wife of his bosom, at last, with a shake of his head and a bending of his heavy brows at my want of taste, unlocked the gate, and thrust me into the midst of my old quarters, the chapel.
There a new scene indeed awaited me. The place which I had left filled with trembling clusters of people, whole families clinging to each other in terror, loud or mute, but all in the deepest dread of their next summons, I found in a state of the most extravagant festivity—the chapel lighted up from floor to root—bouquets planted wherever it was possible to fix an artificial flower—gaudy wreaths depending from the galleries—and all the genius of this country of extremes lavished on attempts at decoration. Rude as the materials were, they produced at first sight a remarkably striking effect. More striking still was the spectacle of the whole multitude in every grotesque dress of the world, dancing away as if life was but one festival.
As I stood aloof for a while, wholly dazzled by the glare, the movement, and the multitude, I was recognised by some of my "old" acquaintance—the acquaintance of twenty-four hours—but here time, like every thing else, had changed its meaning, and a new influx had recruited the hall. Cassini and some others came forward and welcomed me, like one who had returned from the tomb—the news of the day was given and exchanged—a bottle of champagne was prescribed as the true medicine for my lowness of pulse—and I gradually gave myself up to the spirit of the hour.
As I wandered through the crowd, a mask dressed as a sylph bent its head over my shoulder, and I heard the words, "Why are you not in a domino?" I made some careless answer. "Go and get one immediately," was the reply. "Take this card, fasten it on your robe, and meet me here again." The mask put a card marked with a large rose into my hand, and was gone waltzing away among the crowd. I still lingered, leaning against one of the pillars of the aisle. The mask again approached me. "Monsieur Anglais," was the whisper, "you do not know your friends. Go and furnish yourself with a domino. It is essential to your safety." "Who are my friends, and why do you give me this advice?" was my enquiry. The mask lightly tripped round me, laid its ungloved hand on mine, as if in the mere sport of the dance; and I saw that it was the hand of a female from its whiteness and delicacy. I was now more perplexed than ever. As the form floated round me with the lightness of a zephyr, it whispered the word "Mordecai," and flew off into an eddy of the moving multitude. I now obeyed the command; went to the little shrine where the turnkey's wife had opened her friperie, and equipped myself with the dress appointed; and, with the card fixed upon my bosom, returned to take my station beside the pillar. But no sylph came again; no form rivaled the zephyr before me. I listened for that soft, low voice; but listened in vain. Yet what was all this but the common sport of a masquerade?
However, an object soon drew the general attention so strongly, as to put an end to private curiosity for the time. This was a mask in the uniform of a national guard, but so outrageously fine that his entrée excited an universal burst of laughter. But when, after a few displays of what was apparently all but intoxication, he began a detail of his own exploits, it was evident that the whole was a daring caricature; and as nothing could be less popular among us than the heroes of the shops, the Colonels Calicot, and Mustaches au comptoir, all his burlesque told incomparably. The old officers among us, the Vendéans, and all the ladies—for the sex are aristocrats under every government and in every region of the globe—were especially delighted. "Alexandre Jules Cæsar," colonel of the "brave battalion of the Marais," was evidently worth a dozen field-marshals in his own opinion; and his contempt for Vendôme, Marlborough, and Frederick le Grand, was only less piquant than the perfect imitation and keen burlesque of Santerre, Henriot, and our municipal warriors. At length when his plaudits and popularity were at their height, he proposed a general toast to the "young heroism," of the capital, and prefaced it by a song, in great repute in the old French service.
"AVANCEZ, BRAVE GUERRIERS."
"Shoulder arms—brave regiment!
Hark, the bugle sounds 'advance.'
Pile the baggage—strike the tent;
France demands you—fight for France.
If the hero gets a ball,
His accounts are closed—that's all!
"Who'd stay wasting time at home,
Made for women to despise;
When, where'er we choose to roam,
All the world before us lies,
Following our bugle's call,
Life one holiday—that's all!
"When the soldier's coin is spent,
He has but to fight for more;
He pays neither tax nor rent,
He's but where he was before.
If he conquer, if he fall—
Fortune de la guerre—that's all!
"Let the pedant waste his oil,
With the soldier all is sport;
Let your blockheads make a coil
In the cloister or the court;
Let them fatten in their stall,
We can fatten too—that's all!
"What care we for fortune's frown,
All that comes is for the best;
What's the noble's bed of down
To the soldier's evening rest
On the heath or in the hall,
All alike to him—that's all!
"When the morn is on the sky,
Hark the gay reveillé rings!
Glory lights the soldier's eye,
To the gory breach he springs,
Plants his colours on the wall
Wins and wears the croix—that's all!"
The dashing style in which this hereditary song of the French camp was given by "Colonel Alexandre Jules Cæsar" of the "brave battalion of the Marais," his capitally awkward imitation of the soldier of the old régime, and his superb affectation of military nonchalance, were so admirable, that his song excited actual raptures of applause. His performance was encored, and he was surrounded by a group of nymphs and graces, among whom his towering figure looked like a grenadier of Brobdignag in the circle of a Liliputian light company. He carried on the farce for a while with great adroitness and animation; but at length he put the circle of tinsel and tiffany aside, and rushing up to me, insisted on making me a recruit for the "brave battalion of the Marais." But I had no desire to play a part in this pantomime, and tried to disengage myself. One word again made me a captive: that word was now "Lafontaine;" and at the same moment I saw the sylph bounding to my side. What was I to think of this extraordinary combination? All was as strange as a midsummer night's dream. The "colonel," as if fatigued, leaned against the pillar, and slightly removing his mask, I saw, with sudden rejoicing, the features of that gallant young friend, whom I had almost despaired of ever seeing again. "Wait in this spot until I return," was all that I heard, before he and the sylph had waltzed away far down the hall.
I waited for some time in growing anxiety; but the pleasantry of the night went on as vividly as ever, and some clever tableaux vivants had varied the quadrilles. While the dancers gave way to a well-performed picture of Hector and Andromache from the Iliad, and the hero was in the act of taking the plumed helmet from his brow, with a grace which enchanted our whole female population, an old Savoyard and his daughter came up, one playing the little hand-organ of their country, and the other dancing to her tamborine. This was pretty, but my impatience was ill disposed to look or listen; when I was awakened by a laugh, and the old man's mask being again half turned aside, I again saw my friend: the man moved slowly through the crowd, and I followed. We gradually twined our way through the labyrinth of pillars, leaving the festivity further and further behind, until he came to a low door, at which the Savoyard tapped, and a watchword being given, the cell was opened. There our robes and masks were laid aside; we found peasant dresses, for which we exchanged them; and following a muffled figure who carried a lantern, we began our movements again through the recesses of the endless building. At length we came to a stop, and our guide lifting up a ponderous stone which covered the entrance to a deep and dark staircase, we began to descend. I now for the first time heard the cheerful voice of Lafontaine at my side. "I doubt," said he, "whether a hundred years ago any one of us would have ventured on a night march of this kind; for, be it known to you, that we are now in the vaults of the convent, and shall have to go through a whole regiment of monks and abbots in full parade." I observed that, "if we were to meet them at all, they would be less likely to impede our progress dead than alive;" but I still advised Lafontaine to allude as little as he could to the subject, lest it might have the effect of alarming our fair companion. "There is no fear of that," said he, "for little Julie is in love with M. le Comte, our gallant guide; and a girl of eighteen desperately in love, is afraid of nothing. You Englishmen are not remarkable for superstition; and as for me and my compatriots, we have lost our reverence for monks in any shape since the taking of the Bastile."
We now went on drearily and wearily through a range of catacombs, stopping from time to time to ascertain whether we were pursued; and occasionally not a little startled by the sudden burst of sound that came from the revelry above, through the ventilators of these enormous vaults. But the Count had well prepared his measures, had evidently traced his way before, and led us on without hinderance, until we approached a species of sallyport, which, once opened, would have let us out into the suburb. Here misfortune first met us; none of the keys which the Count had brought with him would fit the lock. It was now concluded by our alarmed party, either that the design of escape had been discovered, or that the lock had been changed since the day before. Here was an insurmountable difficulty. To break down the gate, or break through it, was palpably impossible, for it was strongly plated with iron, and would have resisted every thing but a six-pounder. What was to be done? To remain where we were was starvation and death; to return, would be heart-breaking; yet escape was clearly out of the question. The Count was furious, as he tried in vain to shake the solid obstacle; Lafontaine was in despair. I, rather more quietly, took it for granted that the guillotine would settle all our troubles in the course of the next day; and the pretty Julie, in a deluge of tears, charging herself with having undone us all, hung upon the neck of her cavalier, and pledged herself, by all the hopes and fears of passion, to die along with him. While the lovers were exchanging their last vows, Lafontaine, in all the vexation of his soul, was explaining to me the matchless excellence of the plot, which had been thus defeated in the very moment of promised success.
"You perhaps remember," said he, "the letter which the father of Mariamne, that dearest girl whom I shall now never see again in this world, gave you for one of his nation in Paris. On the night when I last saw you, I had found it lying on your table; and in the confusion of the moment, when I thought you killed, and rushed into the street to gain some tidings of you, I took charge of the letter, to assist me in the enquiry. Unlucky as usual, I fell into the hands of a rabble returning from the plunder of the palace, was fired on, was wounded, and carried to the St Lazare. The governor was a man of honour and a royalist, and he took care of me during a dangerous illness and a slow recovery. But to give me liberty was out of his power. I had lost sight of the world so long, that the world lost sight of me, and I remained, forgetting and forgotten; until, within these two days—when I received a note from the head of the family to whom your letter was directed, informing me that you had been arrested and sent to the very prison in which I was—my recollection of the world suddenly revived, and I determined to save you if possible. I had grown familiar with the proceedings of that tribunal of demons, the Revolutionary committee; and as I had no doubt of your condemnation, through the mere love of bloodshed, I concerted with my Jewish friend the plan of having you claimed as a British agent, who had the means of making important disclosures to the government. If this succeeded, your life was saved for the day, and your escape was prepared for the night. This weeping girl is the daughter of the late governor, who has engaged in our plot to save the life of her affianced husband; and now, within an hour of daylight, when escape will be impossible, all our plans are thrown away—we are brought to a dead stand by the want of one miserable key, and shall have nothing more to do than to make up our minds to die with what composure we can."
Having finished his story, the narrator wrapt up his head in his cloak, and laid himself down like one determined never to rise again. The Count and his Julie were so engaged in recapitulating their sorrows, sitting side by side on a tombstone, like a pair of monumental figures, that they had neither ear nor eye for any thing else; but my English nature was made of sterner stuff, and thinking that at the last I could but die, I took the lantern and set sturdily to work to examine the gate. It was soon evident that it could be neither undermined nor broken down by any strength of ours; but it was also evident that the lock was the old one which had closed it perhaps for the last century, and that the right key was the only thing wanting. Leaving Lafontaine in his despair lying at the foot of the monument, on which the lovers sat murmuring like a pair of turtle doves, I determined to make a thorough search for the missing key, and made my way back through all the windings of the catacomb, tracing the ground step by step. Still no key was to be found. At last I reached the cell where we had changed our dresses, and examined table, floor, and chair. Still nothing was to be found; but, unluckily, the light of the lantern glancing through the loop-hole of the cell, caught the eye of the sentinel on the outside, and he challenged. The sound made me start; and I took up one of the robes to cover the light. Something hard struck my hand. It was in the gown of the Savoyard's daughter. I felt its pockets, and, to my infinite astonishment and delight, produced the key. The pretty Julie, who had procured it, had forgotten every thing in the rapture of meeting her lover, and had left it behind her when she threw off her masquerading costume.
I now hastened back with the rapid step becoming the bearer of good tidings, and revived the group of despair. The key was applied to the lock, but it refused to move, and we had another pang of disappointment. Lafontaine uttered a groan, and Julie poured another gush of tears upon her companion's shoulder. I made the experiment again; the rust of the lock was now found to have been our only hinderance; and with a strong turn the bolt flew back, and the door was open.
We had all been so much exhausted by agitation, and the dreary traverse of the catacomb, that the first gush of fresh air conveyed a sensation almost of new life. The passage had probably been formed in the period when every large building in Paris was a species of fortress; and we had still a portcullis to pass. When we first pushed against it, we felt another momentary pang; but age had made it an unfaithful guardian, and a few stout attacks on its decayed bars gave us free way. We were now under the open sky; but, to our consternation, a new and still more formidable difficulty presented itself. The moat was still to be passed. To attempt the drawbridge was hopeless; for we could hear the sentinel pacing up and down its creaking planks. The moment was critical; for a streak of grey light in the far east showed that the day was at hand. After resolving all imaginable plans, and abandoning them all as fruitless; determining, at all events, never to return, and yet without the slightest prospect of escape, except in the bottom of that sullen pool which lay at our feet—the thought occurred to me, that in my return through the vault I had stumbled over the planks which covered a vault lately dug for a prisoner. Communicating my idea to Lafontaine, we returned to the spot, loaded ourselves with the planks, and fortunately found them of the length that would reach across the narrowest part of the fosse. Our little bridge was made without delay, and Lafontaine led the way, followed by the count and Julie, I waiting to see them safe across, before I added my weight to the frail structure. But I was not yet fated to escape. The sentinel, whose vigilance I had startled by my lantern in the cell, had given the alarm; and, as I was setting my foot on the plank, a discharge of fire-arms came from the battlement above. I felt that I was struck, and a stunning sensation seized me. I made an attempt to spring forward, but suddenly found myself unable to move. The patrol from the drawbridge now surrounded me, and in this helpless state, bleeding, and as I thought dying, I was hurried back into the St Lazare.
After a fortnight's suffering in the hospital of the prison, which alone probably saved me from the guillotine, then almost the natural death of all the suspected, I was enabled to get on my feet again. I found the prison as full as ever, but nearly all its inmates had been changed except the Vendéans, whom the crooked policy of the time kept alive, partly to avoid raising the whole province in revolt, partly as hostages for their countrymen.
On my recovery, I had expected to be put down once more in the list for trial; but it reached even the prison, that the government were in a state of alarm for themselves, which prevented them from indulging their friends in the streets with the national amusement. The chance of mounting the scaffold themselves had put the guillotine out of fashion; and two or three minor attempts at the seizure of the Jacobin sceptre by the partisans of the Girondists and Cordeliers, had been put down with such difficulty, that even the Jacobin Club had begun to protest against bloodshed, through the prospect of a speedy retaliation. Thus we were suffered to linger on. But, "disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, thou art a bitter draught," and the suspense was heart-sickening. At length, however, a bustle outside the walls, the firing of alarm guns, and the hurrying of the national guard through the streets, told us that some new measure of atrocity was at hand, and we too soon learned the cause.
The army under Dumourier had been attacked by the Austrians under Clairfait, and had been defeated with heavy loss; despatches had been received from their favourite general, in all the rage of failure, declaring that the sole cause of the disaster was information conveyed from the capital to the Austrian headquarters, and demanding a strict enquiry into the intrigues which had thus tarnished the colours of the Republic. No intelligence could have been more formidable to a government, which lived from day to day on the breath of popularity; and, to turn the wrath of the rabble from themselves, an order was given to examine the prisons, and send the delinquents to immediate execution. It may be easily believed that the briefest enquiry was enough for vengeance, and the prisoners of St Lazare were the first to furnish the spectacle. A train of carts rattled over the pavement of our cloisters, and we were ordered to mount them without delay. The guard was so strong as to preclude all hope of resistance; and with all the pomp of a military pageant, drums beating, trumpets sounding, and bands playing Ça Ira and the Marseillaise, we left our dreary dwelling, which habit had now almost turned into a home, and moved through the principal streets of the capital, for the express purposes of popular display, in the centre of a large body of horse and foot, and an incalculable multitude of spectators, until in the distance we saw the instrument of death.
Footnote 1: [(return)]
A scene of peculiar infamy near Paris.