It was under these auspices that the 20th of June dawned. A second council, more secret and less numerous than the former, had assembled the men destined to put these designs into execution, and they only separated at midnight. Each of them went to his post, awoke his most trusty followers, and stationed them in small groups, to stop and assemble together the workmen, as they quitted their homes. Santerre answered for the neutrality of the national guard. "Do not fear," said he; "Pétion will be there." Pétion in reality had on the previous evening ordered the battalions of the national guard to get under arms, not to oppose the columns of the people, but to fraternise with the petitioners and swell the cortège of sedition. This equivocal measure at once saved the responsibility of Pétion to the department, and his complicity before the assembled people; to the one he said I watch; to the other, I march with you.
At daybreak the battalions were assembled, and their arms piled on all the grandes places. Santerre harangued his on the Place de la Bastille, whilst around him flocked an immense throng, agitated, impatient, ready to rush upon the city at his signal. Uniforms and rags were blended, and detachments of invalides, gendarmes, national guards, and volunteers, received the orders of Santerre, and repeated them to the crowd. An instinctive discipline prevailed amidst this disorder, and the half military half civil appearance of this camp of the people gave the Assembly rather the character of a warlike expedition than an émeute. This throng recognised leaders, manœuvred at their command, followed their flags, obeyed their voice, and even controlled their impatience to await reinforcements and give detached bodies the appearance of a simultaneous movement. Santerre on horseback, surrounded by a staff of men of the faubourgs, issued his orders, fraternised with the citizens and insurgents, recommended the people to remain silent and dignified, and slowly formed the columns, ready for the signal to march.
X.
At eleven o'clock the people set out for the quartier of the Tuileries. The number of men who left the Place de la Bastille was estimated at twenty thousand; they were divided into three bodies, the first composed of the battalions of the faubourg, armed with sabres and bayonets, obeyed Santerre; the second, composed of the lowest rabble, without arms or only armed with pikes and sticks, was under the orders of the demagogue Saint-Huruge; the third, a confused mass of squalid men, women, and children, followed, in a disorderly march, a young and beautiful woman in male attire, a sabre in her hand, a musket on her shoulder, and seated on a cannon drawn by a number of workmen. This was Théroigne de Méricourt.
Santerre was well known: he was the king of the faubourgs. Saint-Huruge had been, since '89, the great agitator of the Palais Royal.
The Marquis de Saint-Huruge, born at Mâcon of a rich and noble family, was one of those men of tumult and disturbances who seem to personify the masses. Gifted by nature with a towering stature and a martial figure, his voice thundered above the roars of the crowd. He had his agitations, his fury, his moments of repentance, and sometimes even of cowardice; his heart was not cruel, but his brain was disturbed. Too aristocratic to be envious, too rich to be a spoliator, too frivolous to be a fanatic by principle, the Revolution turned his brain in the same manner as a rapidly flowing river carries with it the eye that in vain strives to gaze fixedly on it. His life seemed that of a maniac; he loved the Revolution when in motion because it was akin to madness. When yet very young he had sullied his name, ruined his fortune, and forfeited his honours by debauchery, women, and gaming. At the Palais Royal and the neighbouring quartiers, the scene of every disorder, he possessed the infamous celebrity of scandal and shame. All the world had heard of him; his family had procured his incarceration in the Bastille, from which the 14th of July had freed him. He had sworn to be avenged, and he kept his oath; a voluntary and indefatigable accomplice of every faction, he had offered his unpaid services to the Duc d'Orleans, Mirabeau, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, the Girondists, and Robespierre: always an adherent of the party who went the greatest lengths; always a leader of those émeutes that promised the most havoc and ruin. Awake before daybreak, present at every club, he hastened at the slightest noise to swell the crowd; at the smallest tumult to stir men up to more violence. He himself was consumed by the common passion, ere he comprehended its nature; and his voice, his gestures, the expression of his features communicated it to others. He vociferated tales of terror; he disseminated the fever; he electrified the wavering masses; he urged on the current; he was in himself a sedition.
XI.
After Saint Huruge, marched Théroigne de Méricourt. Théroigne, or Lambertine de Méricourt, who commanded the third corps of the army of the faubourgs, was known among the people by the name of La Belle Liégoise. The French Revolution had drawn her to Paris, as the whirlwind attracts things of no weight. She was the impure Joan of Arc of the public streets. Outraged love had plunged her into disorder, and the vice, at which she herself blushed, only made her thirst for vengeance. In destroying the aristocrats she fancied she purified her honour, and washed out her shame in blood.
She was born at the village of Méricourt, near Liège, of a family of wealthy farmers, and had received a finished education. At the age of seventeen her singular loveliness had attracted the attention of a young seigneur, whose chateau was close to her residence. Beloved, seduced, and deserted, she had fled from her father's roof and taken refuge in England, from whence, after a residence of some months, she proceeded to France. Introduced to Mirabeau, she knew through him Siéyès, Joseph Chénier, Danton, Ronsin, Brissot, and Camille Desmoulins. Romme, a mystical republican, infused into her mind the German spirit of illumination. Youth, love, revenge, and the contact with this furnace of a revolution, had turned her head, and she lived in the intoxication of passions, ideas, and pleasures. Connected at first with the great innovators of '89, she had passed from their arms into those of rich voluptuaries, who purchased her charms dearly. Courtezan of opulence, she became the voluntary prostitute of the people; and like her celebrated prototypes of Egypt or of Rome, she lavished upon liberty the wealth she derived from vice.
On the first assemblage of the people she appeared in the streets, and devoted her beauty to serve as an ensign to the people. Dressed in a riding habit of the colour of blood, a plume of feathers in her hat, a sabre at her side, and two pistols in her belt, she hastened to join every insurrection. She was the first of those who burst open the gates of the Invalides and took the cannon from thence. She was also one of the first to attack the Bastille; and a sabre d'homme was voted her on the breach by the victors. On the days of October, she had led the women of Paris to Versailles, on horseback, by the side of the ferocious Jourdan, called "the man with the long beard." She had brought back the king to Paris: she had followed, without emotion, the heads of the gardes du corps, stuck on pikes as trophies. Her language, although marked by a foreign accent, had yet the eloquence of tumult. She elevated her voice amidst the stormy meetings of the clubs, and from the galleries blamed their conduct. Sometimes she spoke at the Cordeliers. Camille Desmoulins mentions the enthusiasm which her harangues created. "Her similes," says he, "were drawn from the Bible and Pindar,—it was the eloquence of a Judith." She proposed to build the palace of the representative body on the site of the Bastille. "To found and embellish this edifice," said she, "let us strip ourselves of our ornaments, our gold, our jewels. I will be the first to set the example." And with these words she tore off her ornaments in the tribune. Her ascendency during the émeutes was so great, that with a single sign she condemned or acquitted a victim; and the royalists trembled to meet her.