Around him the shouts were as loud and hearty as for the liberated prisoners, but they were of death not of triumph.
Gilbert, from his elevated stand, did not lose an incident of the horrible occurrence. Alone, among all his fellow captives, he enjoyed the fulness of his faculties, because five days' imprisonment was but a black speck in his career. His eye had not had time to be dimmed by the Bastile's darkness.
Usually fighting makes men hardhearted only during the action. Men coming out of the fire with their own lives intact, feel kindly towards their foes.
But in great popular uprisings, such as France had seen many from the Jacquerie or Peasants' Outbreak in 1358, those whom fear kept in the rear during the conflict, but were irritated by the turbulence, are ferocious cowards who seek after the victory to redden their hands in the blood of those they dared not face in the combat. They take their share in the reprisal.
Since he was dragged out of his castle the march of the governor was a dolorous one.
Elie, protected by his uniform and the part he had taken in the assault, marched at the head, having taken Launay's life under his special care: he was admired for the manner in which he had borne himself. On his swordpoint he carried the letter which Launay had passed out of the prison loophole to be taken by Maillard. After him came the Tax-Commissioners Guards, carrying the keys of the royal fortress; then, Maillard, bearing the Bastile flag; then, a young man who bore on a pike the Bastile's rules and regulations, an odious rescript by virtue of which many a tear had been made to flow.
Lastly came the governor, protected by Hullin and three or four others, but almost covered in with shaking fists, flourished blades and brandished pikeheads.
Beside this column, almost parallel, rolling up St. Antoine Street, leading from the main avenue to the River Seine, was to be distinguished another, no less awful and menacing, dragging Major Losme, whom we saw struggle against his superior for a space but succumb under the determination to resist to the last.
He was a kind, good and brave man who had alleviated many miseries within the jail, but the general public did not know this. On account of his showy uniform many took him to be the governor. The latter, clothed in grey, having torn off the embroidery and the St. Louis scarf, was shielded by some doubt from those who did not recognize him.
This was the spectacle which Gilbert beheld with his gloomy, profound and observant glance, amid the dangers foreseen by his powerful organization.