I now expected the return of the officer every moment, but nevertheless he did not appear; and, still gazing forth upon the dark masses of the multitude, fluctuating hither and thither like the waves of a troubled sea, I soon after beheld a party of gentlemen, preceded by a royal trumpet, enter the Place de Grève, and endeavour to make their way through the people. At the head of this little body I at once recognised Monsieur de Villardin, riding beside a gentleman whom I did not know, but who, I found afterwards, was the Maréchal de L'Hôpital. With much difficulty they gained the steps of the Town-house, amidst the execrations and insults of the people; and every moment, while waiting the return of a messenger whom they sent into the building, they were exposed both to danger and offence. At length, when, as it appeared, the order for giving them admittance was returned, and they dismounted from their horses and entered the doors, a general rush of the people took place, apparently for the purpose of enveloping and massacring the King's officers, though they had come with a flag of truce. The doors, however, were closed promptly upon them; but the fury of the populace now passed all hounds: yells, more like the cries of demons than those of human beings, issued from the multitude; the signal for strife was given by the discharge of a musket; and while a number, who had possessed themselves of firelocks, kept up a scattered fire at the windows of the Hôtel de Ville, I saw a large body rush away towards the quay, from which they returned in a few minutes, bearing bundles of the fire wood which was there piled up for sale. Before any measures could be taken to prevent them, a mass of these faggots, between six and seven feet in height, was heaped up against the great door, some lighted embers were procured from a neighbouring house, and in a moment the whole was in a blase.
It was now evident that the purpose of the multitude was to massacre all those that were within the Hôtel de Ville; and the cries of "Death to them all!" "Down with the Mazarines!" "Spare not the traitors!" "Take none to mercy!" which rose up in deafening shouts as the people continued firing in at the windows of the Town-house, and piling up fresh logs of wood upon the fire before the door, convinced me that, if something could not be done to save him, the life of Monsieur de Villardin would be lost within ten minutes. The guards, indeed, within the building, fired a few shots from time to time upon the people, but their number was too few to offer any serious resistance, and the efforts that they did make only served to irritate their assailants to a pitch of frenzy.
There was no time for consideration; the life of Monsieur de Villardin depended on the turning of a die; and running down the stairs as hard as I could, I caught up for a badge of partisanship some straws, which I found under a pile of cheeses in the kitchen, and rushing forward towards the door of the Hôtel de Ville, I determined to force my way into it amongst the very first, in order to take advantage of whatever opportunity might occur to save the life of my friend. As I pushed on, elbowing my way through the crowd, one of the rioters, who was armed with a musket, turned fiercely upon me for disturbing his aim; and he seemed about to strike me with the butt end of his piece, when a shot from the windows of the building settled our dispute by going through his head. He fell forward upon me, but, throwing him off, I snatched the musket out of his hands, as it could be of no farther service to him, and might be of great service to me; and thus armed, I soon forced a passage for myself up to the very door of the building. My eagerness and haste, though inspired by very different motives from those which actuated the rest of the crowd, caught the attention and excited the applause of a number of persons in the multitude, and was afterwards of great service to me in effecting my object. Lucky it was that all these circumstances combined to facilitate my advance, for scarcely had I reached the doors, when they gave way, and fell thundering and blazing into the entrance hall. A number of those cooped up within rushed forth, and, plunging into the crowd endeavoured to effect their escape; while I, darting through the midst of them, sprang up the stairs towards those spots where Monsieur de Villardin had been generally found upon former occasions.
He was not in the great hall, however, nor in the grand chamber, where the Parliament usually assembled, but I found him in one of the buvettes with Monsieur de L'Hôpital, and a young man whom I had remarked amongst the most vehement of the rioters without, but who had outstripped me by passing the shortest way, and was now engaged in rapid conversation with the Maréchal de L'Hôpital. The moment I rushed in, with my face covered with the smoke and dirt of the fire which had been kindled at the gate, and the musket in my hand, Monsieur de Villardin drew his sword, not recognising a friend in the figure before him; but as soon as I had entered, I closed the door between the buvettes and the passage leading to the great chamber, and turning the key, which I put in my pocket, I thus shut out those who, I knew, could not be far behind me. By this time the Duke had recognised me, and was exclaiming, "Good God, De Juvigny! I thought you dead, my dear lad! How came you here?"
"There is no time to tell you," I replied. "Instantly change part of your clothes with me, and throw away that scarf, or you will be murdered directly. If you wish to save that gentleman," I added, turning to the young man who was speaking with the Maréchal de L'Hôpital, "make him change his dress."
Monsieur de Villardin had at that moment a fillemot-coloured cloak, lined with light blue, and light blue plumes in his hat; but without pausing for any ceremonious consent, I tore the cloak from his shoulders, and threw over him my own, which, having been purchased by the gaoler at Stenay, and having passed through a long journey in July, was neither very fine nor very clean. The blue plumes were next scattered upon the floor; and as there was a procureur's gown hanging over one of the benches, I tore off the cord to fasten a few of the straws which I had assumed as the badge of the popular party into the front of Monsieur de Villardin's hat. The white scarf was then disposed of; and as we could hear the shouts of the multitude coming from the side of the grand chamber, we took our way, as fast as possible to the small door which led from the buvettes into the outer hall. Here, however, we were met by a dense mass of the populace, who instantly assailed us with cries and hootings, and one fierce-looking savage drew back his pike to run it into my chest; but, calling him boldly an accursed Mazarine, I pointed the firelock at his head, and would certainly have shot, had he made the slightest movement. But at that moment one of his companions recognised me as having shown great activity in the crowd below, and, catching my adversary by the arm, assured him that it was I who had first proposed to burn the doors. This honourable reputation, though founded on a falsehood, gained me instant applause, and knowing that the best means to manage a mob is to employ it on any mischief, I told the rascals that some Mazarines in the grand chamber had barricaded the doors of the buvettes, and leading them back to the one I had myself locked, I set them to work to demolish it, well assured that they would meet a party of their friends on the other side.
In the meanwhile, Monsieur de Villardin had been pushing his way on towards the door; and I found him held at bay by half a dozen of the rioters, who would have cut his throat within another minute; but, as I approached, I shouted with the full strength of my voice to bring sledge-hammers, and, taking him by the arm, asked if he had found any. He replied, smiling in the midst of the imminent danger which surrounded him, that he could not even seek them, for that the gentry before me would not let him pass. Strong in my reputation as a leader of the tumult, I now set to work to curse them with my whole heart, asking if they were partisans of the Court and friends of Mazarin; and bidding them, if they were followers of the Fronde and the Princes, immediately to seek sledge-hammers, to knock down all the doors. This seemed so laudable an undertaking in their sight, that, shouting, "Des marteaux! des marteaux! vite! des marteaux!" they rushed away in search of hammers, while, seizing Monsieur de Villardin by the arm, I cried, "Come, come; I know a blacksmith's where we shall find plenty." And thus boldly taking upon ourselves the character of chief rioters, we made our way down the stairs and out into the Place. Our situation, however, was still more dangerous here than ever; for a number of the more coolly bloodthirsty had suffered the violent and the excited to make their way into the building, while they themselves remained without, in order to watch their victims as they came forth into the Place de Grève, and then massacre them without mercy. The cry for hammers, however, had already spread amongst them, and I found it a sort of watch-word, which, for a time, obtained a passage--though that passage was through the warm blood and amongst the quivering bodies of the unhappy men who had lately tenanted the Town-house.
Just as we were passing through the midst of the Place, one fierce and brutal wretch had got down the unhappy Ferrand de Vavari, one of the councillors, and was coolly running a knife into his throat, notwithstanding all his cries and struggles, with the same reckless indifference with which a butcher kills a sheep. Starting up as we passed, the assassin shouted out "More Mazarines! More Mazarines! Why do you let them go?"
The people made a movement round us; and I saw that there was nothing for it but decision. Halting abruptly in the midst, I cried, with every appearance of fury and indignation, that either my voice or features would take on, "He calls me a Mazarine!--me!--a Mazarine!--when he knows us both for officers of the Prince de Condé:--me a Mazarine!" and, without farther ceremony--seeing that the incarnate fiend, who, most probably, recognised M. de Villardin, was about to retort upon me--I presented my musket, and, at the same moment, pulled the trigger. He fell directly; and the people, convinced by the boldness of the action that I was really a follower of the Princes, who were then omnipotent amongst them, made way, shouting, "Vivent les Princes! Vive Condé!"
Without giving time for those who had crowded round my fallen opponent to become interested in his cause, or to hear anything he might have to say in case he were only wounded, I hurried forward as fast as possible, directing my course away from the river, towards which M. de Villardin seemed inclined to proceed. The fact was, however, that at the window of one of the houses in that part of the Grève I saw the head of the Duc de Beaufort backed by the faces of several of his officers; and, as I did not feel at all sure that he might not point us out for massacre as we passed, I thought it best to get out of his sight by the nearest road.