He knew, or thought he knew—for the voice that had cried out “Fire!” had been undoubtedly de Moulny’s. And the anguish he tasted was of the poignant, exquisite quality that we may only know when the hand that has stabbed us under cover of the dark has been proved to be that of a friend.
XXIX
The people collected their dead and their wounded and commandeered wagons, and loaded them with the pale harvest reaped from the bloody paving-stones before the great gateway and the tall gilded railings and the chipped façade with the shattered windows, behind which the unpopular driver of the Coach of the Crown sat gripping the broken reins of State.
Pallida Mors headed the grim midnight procession. And as it rolled, to the slow wailing of a mournful chant, by the light of flaring torches through the streets, upon its way to the offices of the National and the Réforme,—where lights had burned, and men had sat in conference for sixty hours past,—those who marched with it knocked at the doors of scared, unsleeping citizens, crying: “Wake! behold the deeds that are done by Kings!” And the noise of firing, and of furious cries, with the clanging of church-bells, sounding the tocsin at the bidding of Revolutionary hands, reached the ears of pale Louis Philippe at the Tuileries, and must have shrieked in them that all was over!
For all was over even before the Place du Palais Royal was filled by thousands of armed insurgents; before the Palais was stormed and gutted; before the Fifth Legion of the National Guard,—having its Major, its Lieutenant-Colonel, and several officers in command—marched upon the Tuileries; followed by the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, and Tenth: before the Deed of Abdication was signed—the Royal dwelling emptied of its garrison—the shabby one-horse hackney coach called from the stand—(the Royal carriages having been burned)—and before the Monarchy, covered with an ancient round hat, clad in worn black garments, and with only five francs or so in its pockets, had emerged by the little wicket-gateway near the Obelisk, stepped into the humble conveyance above mentioned, and passed away at full gallop, surrounded by Chausseurs and Municipal Guards, and accompanied by a running cortége of mechanics, artisans, nursemaids, gamins, ragpickers, shoeblacks, and other representatives of the Sovereign People.
With the aid of the English Admiralty, and the British Consul at Havre, Mr. Thomas Smith, his lady and their grandchildren, obtained berths on the Express packet-boat; and, despite the activities of the local Procurer of the Republic—not to mention certain perils incurred through the too-excellent memory of a certain female commissionaire or tout for cheap lodging-houses, Madame Mousset by name,—who by the light of her dark lantern recognized Majesty even minus its whiskers—the voyage to Newhaven was accomplished without disaster. Claremont received the Royal refugees; the Tory organs of the English Press were distinctly sympathetic; even the ultra-Whig prints, amidst stirring descriptions of barricade-fighting and the carnage on the Boulevard des Capucines, refrained from the dubious sport of mud-throwing at the monarch all shaven and shorn....
The popular Reviews devoted some pages to the favorable comparison of peaceable, contented, happy England (then pinched and gaunt with recent famine, breaking out in angry spots with Chartist riots)—with feverish, frantic, furious France. In The Ladies’ Mentor, the leading periodical published for the delectation of the sex we were accustomed in those days to designate as “soft” and “gentle,” there is indeed in Our Weekly Letter from Paris a reference to “the landing of a royal and venerable exile upon our happier shores”; but beyond this, not a single reference or allusion calculated to shock the delicate sensibilities of my Aunt Julietta, or any other young gentlewoman of delicacy and refinement....
The pen of the writer of the above-named delicious epistles reverts with evident relief to the latest thing in Concert-dresses. A full-gored skirt of green velvet with a gathered flounce in pink crèpe up to the knee ... could anything be more genteel? The hair should be waved; brought low to hide the ears—“A pity,” reflected my Aunt Julietta, “when mine are so much prettier than poor dear Marietta’s!”—and wreathed with a garland of natural blooms, in the ease of young ladies ... the heads of matrons being adorned with caps of costly lace, or lappets, fastened with the artificial rose.
Pompadour fans were also the rage. One-button gloves, worn with broad bracelets of gold, or black velvet with cameo clasps, were de rigueur. Sleeves for day-wear were elbow-length with volantes of guipure. For evening, short and puffed. Pray remember that these were the days of swanlike necks and champagne-bottle shoulders, high, expansive brows, large melting Oriental eyes, and waists that tapered. And considering the obstinate preference of Dame Nature for turning out her daughters in different shapes, makes, and sizes, it is marvelous how all the women of the era managed to look exactly alike....