The red cockade

by Stanley John Weyman

Two or three ruffianly men with smoke-grimed faces were firing through a window on the ground floor, and one of these, looking behind him as I passed, saw me. He called to me to stop, adding with an oath that if I went into the street I should be shot by the aristocrats. But in my excitement I took no heed; in a second I had the door open, and was standing in the street--alone in the sunny, cleared space. On either side of me, fifty paces distant, were the close ranks of the mob; in front of me rose the white blind face of the St. Alais' house, from which, even as I appeared, there came a little spit of smoke and the bang of a musket.

The crowd, astonished to see me there alone and standing still, fell silent, and I held up my hand. A gun went off above my head, and another; and a splinter flew from one of the green shutters opposite. Then a voice from the crowd cried out to cease firing; and for a moment all was still. I stood in the midst of a hot breathless hush, my hand raised. It was my opportunity--I had got it by a miracle; but for a moment I was silent, I could find no words.

At last, as a low murmur began to make itself heard, I spoke.

"Men of Cahors!" I cried. "In the name of the Tricolour, stand!" And trembling with agitation, acting on the impulse of the instant, I walked slowly across the street to the door of the besieged house, and under the eyes of all I took the Tricolour from my bosom, and hung it on the knocker of the door. Then I turned. "I take possession," I cried hoarsely, at the top of my voice, that all might hear, "I take possession of this house and all that are in it in the name of the Tricolour, and the Nation, and the Committee of Cahors. Those within shall be tried, and justice done upon them. But for you, I call upon you to depart, and go to your homes in peace, and the Committee----"

I got no farther. With the word a shot whizzed by my ear, and struck the plaster from the wall; and then, as if the sound released all the passions of the people, a roar of indignation shook the air. They hissed and swore at me, yelled "A la lanterne!" and "A bas le traître!" and in an instant burst their bounds. As if invisible floodgates gave way, the mob on either side rushed suddenly forward, and, rolling towards the door in a solid mass, were in an instant upon me.

I expected that I should be torn to pieces, but instead I was only buffeted and flung aside and forgotten, and in a moment was lost in the struggling, writhing mass of men, who flung themselves pell-mell upon the door, and fell over one another, and wounded one another in the fury with which they attacked it. Men, injured earlier, were trodden under foot now; but no one stayed for their cries. Twice a gun was fired from the house, and each shot took effect; but the press was so great, and the fury of the assailants, as they swarmed about the door, so blind, that those who were hit sank down unobserved, and perished under their comrades' feet.

Thrust against the iron railings that flanked the door, I clung to them, and protected from the pressure by a pillar of the porch, managed with some difficulty to keep my place. I could not move, however; I had to stand there while the crowd swayed round me, and I waited in dizzy, sickening horror for the crisis. It came at last. The panels of the door, riven and shattered, gave way; the foremost assailants sprang at the gap. Yet still the frame, held by one hinge, stood, and kept them out. As that yielded at length under their blows, and the door fell inward with a crash, I flung myself into the stream, and was carried into the house among the foremost, fortunately--for several fell--on my feet.

I had the thought that I might outpace the others, and, getting first to the rooms upstairs, might at least fight for Mademoiselle if I could not save her. For I had caught the infection of the mob, my blood was on fire. There was no one in all the crowd more set to kill than I was. I raced in, therefore, with the rest; but when I reached the foot of the stairs I saw, and they saw, that which stopped us all.

It was M. de Gontaut, lifted, in that moment of extreme danger, above himself. He stood alone on the stairs, looking down on the invaders, and smiling--smiling, with everything of senility and frivolity gone from his face, and only the courage of his caste left. He saw his world tottering, the scum and rabble overwhelming it, everything which he had loved, and in which he had lived, passing; he saw death waiting for him seven steps below, and he smiled. With his slender sword hanging at his wrist, he tapped his snuff-box and looked down at us; no longer garrulous, feeble, almost--with his stories of stale intrigues and his pagan creed--contemptible; but steady and proud, with eyes that gleamed with defiance.

"Well, dogs," he said, "will you earn the gallows?"