Which? Or, Between Two Women

by Ernest Daudet

"Bridoul is a true patriot. Thanks to him, you will incur no risk! You will now be conducted to the Commissioners."

"Many thanks for your kindness, lieutenant," said Coursegol.

And taking Dolores' arm in his, he followed the soldier who was to conduct them to the municipal authorities. There, they underwent a fresh examination, and Coursegol responded as before. As people who desired to enter Paris at such a time could hardly be regarded with suspicion, Coursegol and Dolores were walking freely about the streets of the city a few moments later, surprised and alarmed at the sights that met their eyes at every turn. The last witnesses of the grand revolutionary drama are disappearing every day. Age has bowed their heads, blanched their locks and enfeebled their memories. Soon there will remain none of those whose testimony might aid the historian of that stormy time in his search after truth; but among the few who still survive and who in the year 1792 were old enough to see and understand and remember, there are none upon whom the recollection of those terrible days in September is not indelibly imprinted. Since the tenth of August, Paris had been delivered up to frenzy and bloodshed. The arrest of the royal family, the rivalry between the Commune and the Convention, the bitter debates at the clubs and the uprising of the volunteers were more than enough to throw the great city into a state of excitement, disorder and terror. Business was paralyzed; the stores were for the most part closed; the aristocratic portions of the city deserted; emigration had deprived France of thousands of her citizens; the streets were filled with a fierce, ragged crowd; the luxury upon which the artisan depended for a livelihood was proscribed; famine was knocking at the gates; gold had disappeared; places of amusement were broken up; the gardens and the galleries of the Palais-Royal alone remained—the only rendezvous accessible to those who, even while looking forward to death, frantically desired to enjoy the little of life that remained. Such was the aspect of affairs in Paris.

With the last days of August came the news of the capture of Longwy by the Prussians, the siege of Terdun, and the warlike preparations of Russia and Germany. This was more than enough to excite the terror of the Parisians and to arouse their anger against those whom they called aristocrats and whom they accused of complicity with the enemies of the nation.

On the 29th of August, by the order of the Commune, the gates were closed. It was impossible to enter Paris without a passport endorsed by examiners appointed for the purpose. No one was allowed to leave the city on any pretext whatever. The Parisians were virtually prisoners. Every house, every apartment was visited by inspectors. Rich and poor were alike compelled to submit. Every suspicious article was seized, and the man in whose dwelling it was discovered was arrested. The inspectors performed their tasks with unnecessary harshness, ruthlessly destroying any valuable object upon which they could lay their hands. They rapped upon the walls to see if they contained any secret hiding-place; they pierced the mattresses with their swords and poignards. After these visits thousands of citizens were arrested and conducted to the Hotel de Ville, where many were detained for thirty hours without food, awaiting their turn to appear before the members of the Commune. After their examination some were released; others were thrown into the prisons, which were soon crowded to such a degree that there was not room for a single newcomer by the first of September. If room could not be found, room must be made; and the following day, the second of September, twenty-four prisoners, chiefly priests, were led before the mayor, adjudged guilty of treason, crowded into fiacres and taken to the Abbaye, where they were executed immediately on their arrival.

After this, their first taste of blood, the executioners hastened to the Châtelet and to the Conciergerie, where they wrought horrors that the pen refuses to describe, sentencing to death the innocent and the guilty without giving them any opportunity to defend themselves. Night did not appease the fury of the butchers. On the third of September they killed again at the Abbaye, at the Force and at the Bernardins prisons; and on the fourth they continued their work of death at La Salpêtriere and Bicêtre.

For three days the tocsin sounded. Bands of sans-culottes and tricoteuses, thirsting for blood, traversed the streets, uttering cries of death; and no one seemed to think of checking their sanguinary fury. A prey to a truly remarkable panic, when we consider the relatively small number of assassins, the terrified citizens remained shut up in their houses. The National Assembly seemed powerless to arrest the horrors of these tragical hours; the Commune seemed to favor them.

Of all those days that inspire us with such horror, even now, after the lapse of nearly a century, the darkest was that which witnessed the execution of the Princesse de Lamballe, who perished for no other crime than that of love for the queen. Beheaded, and thrown at first upon a pile of corpses, her body was afterwards despoiled of its clothing and exposed to the view of an infamous mob. One of the bandits dared to separate from this poor body, defiled with mud, and later by the hands of its murderers, the lovely head that had surmounted it; others, dividing it with a brutality that nothing could soften, quarrelled over the bleeding fragments. Then began a frightful massacre. Like wild beasts, bearing these spoils of the head as trophies of victory, the band of assassins rushed down the Rue de Sicile to carry terror to the heart of Paris.

It was nearly noon when Coursegol and Dolores, having passed the Bastile, entered the Rue Saint Antoine to find a dense crowd of men, women and ragged children yelling at one another and singing coarse songs. Some of the National Guard were among the throng; and they were stopped every few moments by the people to shout: "Vive la Nation!" the patriotic cry that lent courage to the hearts of the soldiers of the Republic nobly fighting for the defence of our frontiers, but which had been caught up and was incessantly vociferated by the ruffians who inaugurated the Reign of Terror. All carriages that attempted to pass through this moving crowd were stopped, and their occupants were obliged to prove their patriotism by mingling their acclamations with those of the mob. The audacity and brutality of the sans-culottes knew no bounds. Woe to him who allowed his face to betray his sentiments, even for a moment! Terror, pity, sadness, these were crimes to be cruelly expiated.