Gertrude hastened to execute her mistress's order, and revealed to the deputy's family St. Honoré Street, packed, as far as the eye could reach, with a dense crowd. The windows of the houses bordering on it were filled by their inhabitants, drawn thither by the commotion. The column of the vanquishers of the Bastille was stationed in front and to both sides of the Desmarais domicile; it was composed for the most part of men of the people, clad in their working clothes. Some carried guns, pikes, or swords; several among them were armed with the implements of their trade. All, bourgeois, mechanics, soldiers, acclaimed the victory of the people with the cry, a thousand times repeated:
"Long live the Nation!"
In the center of the column glowered two pieces of light artillery captured in the courtyard of the redoubtable prison. On the caisson of one of these cannon, erect, majestically leaning on a pike-staff from which floated the tricolor, stood a woman of massive stature, a red kerchief half concealing the heavy tresses which fell down upon her shoulders. Her dark robe disclosed her robust arms. She held her pike in one hand—in the other a shattered chain. Woman of the people as she was, she seemed the genius of Liberty incarnate.
To the rear of the cannon rested a cart trimmed with green branches and surrounded by men who bore at the end of long poles or of pikes chains, garrottes, gags, iron boots, iron corsets, pincers, and other strange and horrible instruments of torture gathered up in the subterranean chambers of the Bastille. In the car were three of the prisoners delivered by the people. One of these was the Provost of Beaumont, imprisoned fifteen years before for having denounced the famine agreement. Another, who seemed to have lost his reason in the sufferings of a long and drear captivity, was the Count of Solange, imprisoned by lettre de cachet during the reign of Louis XV. The last of the three prisoners was broken, bent to the ground, tottering. He lifted to heaven his colorless eyes—alas, the unfortunate man had become blind in his dungeon. It was the father of John Lebrenn. Poor victim of tyranny! He feebly supported himself by the arm of his son, wounded though the latter was.
Such was the picture that met the gaze of advocate Desmarais as he stepped out upon the balcony of his dwelling, his wife and daughter on either side of him. Charlotte's first glances went in search of, and as soon found, John Lebrenn. With a woman's intuition she divined that the aged figure beside him, snatched from the cells of the Bastille was indeed his father.
The appearance of advocate Desmarais and his family was greeted with a new outburst of acclaim:
"Long live the friend of the people!"
In stepping forth upon the balcony, Desmarais had yielded merely to policy. He made a virtue of necessity. Condescending, gracious, complaisant, he began by greeting with smile, look, and gesture the populace assembled beneath his windows. Then he bowed, and placed his hand on his heart as if to express by that pantomime the emotion, the gratitude, which he experienced at the demonstration of which he was the object.
Silence was re-established among the crowd. John Lebrenn, still standing in the cart beside his father, addressed the attorney in a voice clear and sonorous:
"Citizen Desmarais, defender of the rights of the people, thanks to you, our representative in the National Assembly! Your acts, your speeches, have responded to all that we expected of you. Honor to the friend of the people!"