LA BERGERE GARDANT SES MOUTONS
MILLET
(Louvre, Chauchard Collection)
"Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible! Guard-rooms are burnt, Invalides mess-rooms. A distracted 'Perukemaker with two fiery torches' is for burning 'the saltpetres of the Arsenal';—had not a woman run screaming; had not a Patriot, with some tincture of Natural Philosophy, instantly struck the wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach), overturned barrels, and stayed the devouring element. A young beautiful lady, seized escaping in these Outer Courts, and thought falsely to be De Launay's daughter, shall be burnt in De Launay's sight; she lies swooned on a paillasse: but again a Patriot, it is brave Aubin Bonnemère the old soldier, dashes in, and rescues her. Straw is burnt; three cartloads of it, hauled thither, go up in white smoke: almost to the choking of Patriotism itself; so that Elie had, with singed brows, to drag back one cart; and Réole the 'gigantic haberdasher' another. Smoke as of Tophet; confusion as of Babel; noise as of the Crack of Doom!
"Blood flows; the aliment of new madness. The wounded are carried into houses of the Rue Cerisaie; the dying leave their last mandate not to yield till the accursed Stronghold fall. And yet, alas, how fall? The walls are so thick! Deputations, three in number, arrive from the Hôtel-de-Ville; Abbé Fauchet (who was of one) can say, with what almost superhuman courage of benevolence. These wave their Town-flag in the arched Gateway; and stand, rolling their drum; but to no purpose. In such Crack of Doom De Launay cannot hear them, dare not believe them: they return, with justified rage, the whew of lead still singing in their ears. What to do? The Firemen are here, squirting with their fire-pumps on the Invalides cannon, to wet the touchholes; they unfortunately cannot squirt so high; but produce only clouds of spray. Individuals of classical knowledge propose catapults. Santerre, the sonorous Brewer of the Suburb Saint-Antoine, advises rather that the place be fired, by a 'mixture of phosphorus and of oil-of-turpentine spouted up through forcing-pumps': O Spinola-Santerre, hast thou the mixture ready? Every man his own engineer! And still the fire-deluge abates not: even women are firing, and Turks; at least one woman (with her sweetheart), and one Turk. Gardes Françaises have come: real cannon, real cannoneers. Usher Maillard is busy; half-pay Elie, half-pay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands.
"How the great Bastille Clock ticks (inaudible) in its Inner Court there, at its ease, hour after hour; as if nothing special, for it or the world, were passing! It tolled One when the firing began; and is now pointing towards Five, and still the firing slakes not.—Far down, in their vaults, the seven Prisoners hear muffled din as of earthquakes; their Turnkeys answer vaguely.
"Wo to thee, De Launay, with thy poor hundred Invalides! Broglie is distant, and his ears heavy: Besenval hears, but can send no help. One poor troop of Hussars has crept, reconnoitering, cautiously along the Quais, as far as the Pont Neuf. 'We are come to join you,' said the Captain; for the crowd seem shoreless. A large-headed dwarfish individual, of smoke-bleared aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips, for there is sense in him; and croaks: 'Alight then, and give up your arms!' The Hussar-Captain is too happy to be escorted to the Barriers, and dismissed on parole. Who the squat individual was? Men answer, It is M. Marat, author of the excellent pacific Avis au Peuple! Great truly, O thou remarkable Dogleech, is this thy day of emergence and new-birth: and yet this same day come four years—!—But let the curtains of the Future hang."
After some hours the deed is done and Paris re-echoes to the cries "La Bastille est prise!" "In the Court, all is mystery, not without whisperings of terror; though ye dream of lemonade and epaulettes, ye foolish women! His Majesty, kept in happy ignorance, perhaps dreams of double-barrels and the Woods of Meudon. Late at night, the Duke de Liancourt, having official right of entrance, gains access to the Royal Apartments; unfolds, with earnest clearness, in his constitutional way, the Job's-news. 'Mais,' said poor Louis, 'c'est une révolte, Why, that is a revolt!'—'Sire,' answered Liancourt, 'it is not a revolt,—it is a revolution.'"
That was July 14th, 1789; but it is not the July that the Colonne de Juillet in the centre of the Place celebrates. That July was forty-one years later, not so late but that many Parisians could remember both events. July 27th to 29th, 1830, the Second Revolution, which overturned the Bourbons and set Louis-Philippe of Orleans in the siège périlleux of France. Louis-Philippe himself erected this monument in memory of the six hundred and fifteen citizens who fell in his interests and who are buried beneath. Their names are cut in the bronze of the column, on the summit of which is the beautiful winged figure of Liberty.
Beneath the vault of the Colonne, and immediately beneath the Colonne itself, runs the great canal which brings merchandise into Paris from the east, entering the Seine between the Pont Sully and the Pont d'Austerlitz. At this point it is not very interesting, but from the Avenue de la République, where it re-emerges again into the light of day, and thence right away to the Abattoirs de Villette, it is very amusing to stroll by. The Paris Daily Mail, which in its eager paternal way has taken English and American visitors completely under its wing, is diurnally anxious that its readers should make a tour of these abattoirs. But not I. That a holiday in Paris should include the examination of a slaughter-house strikes me as a joyless proposition, putting thoroughness far before pleasure. But the Daily Mail is like that; it also does its best on the second and fourth Wednesdays in every month to get its compatriots down the Paris sewers. And I suppose they go. Strange heart of the tourist! We never think of penetrating either to the sewers or the slaughter-houses of our native land; we have no theories of sewers, no data for comparison; we love the upper air and the sun. But being in a foreign city we cheerfully give the second or fourth Wednesday to such delights.