"Not a syllable. All there are in perfect security; to communicate intelligence there is not in my department."
As I looked at the keen eye and dark physiognomy of my informant, there was an expression of surprise in mine at this extraordinary coolness, which saved me the trouble of asking the question.
"You doubt me," said he, "you feel distrust of information unpaid and voluntary. But I have been ordered by Mordecai, the chief of our tribe in England, to watch over you; and this information is a part of my obedience to the command." He suddenly darted away.
Notwithstanding the steadiness of his assertions I still doubted their probability, and, to examine the point for myself, I strayed towards the palace. All there was tranquil; a few lights were scattered through the galleries, but every sound of life, much less of watchfulness and preparation, was still. The only human beings in sight were some dismounted cavalry, and a battalion of the national guard, lounging: about the square. As I found it impossible to think of rest until the truth or falsehood of my information was settled, I next wandered along the Boulevarde, in the direction of the Faubourg St Antoine, the focus of all the tumults of Paris; but all along this fine avenue was hushed as if a general slumber had fallen over the city. The night was calm, and the air was a delicious substitute for the hot and reeking atmosphere of this populous quarter in the day. I saw no gathering of the populace; no hurrying torches. I heard no clash of arms, nor tramp of marching men; all lay beneath the young moon, which, near her setting, touched the whole scene with a look of soft and almost melancholy quietude. The character of my Israelite friend began to fall rapidly in the scale, and I had made up my mind that insurrection had gone to its slumbers for that night; when, as I was returning by the Place de Bastile, and was passing under the shadow of one of the huge old houses that then surrounded that scene of hereditary terror, two men, who had been loitering beside the parapet of the fosse, suddenly started forward and planted themselves in my way. I flung one of them aside, but the other grasped my arm, and, drawing a dagger, told me that my life was at his mercy. His companion giving a signal, a group of fierce-looking fellows started from their lurking-places; and of course further resistance was out of the question. I was ordered to follow them, and regarding myself as having nothing to fear, yet uneasy at the idea of compulsion, I remonstrated, but in vain; and was finally led through a labyrinth of horrid alleys, to what I now found to be the headquarters of the insurrection. It was an immense building, which had probably been a manufactory, but was now filled with the leaders of the mob. The few torches which were its only light, and which scarcely showed the roof and extremity of the building, were, however, enough to show heaps of weapons of every kind—muskets, sabres, pikes, and even pitchforks and scythes, thrown on the floor. On one side, raised on a sort of desk, was a ruffianly figure flinging placards to the crowd below, and often adding some savage comment on their meaning, which produced a general laugh. Flags inscribed with "Liberty Bread or Blood—Down with the Tyrant"—and that comprehensive and peculiarly favourite motto of the mob—"May the last of the kings be strangled with the entrails of the last of the priests," were hung from the walls in all quarters; and in the centre of the floor were ranged three pieces of artillery surrounded by their gunners. I now fully acknowledged the exactness of Mendoza's information; and began to feel considerable uncertainty about my own fate in the midst of a horde of armed ruffians, who came pouring in more thickly every moment, and seemed continually more ferocious. At length I was ordered to go forward to a sort of platform at the head of the hall, where some candles were still burning, and the remnants of a supper gave signs that there had been gathered the chief persons of this tremendous assemblage. A brief interrogatory from one of them armed to the teeth, and with a red cap so low down on his bushy brows as almost wholly to disguise his physiognomy, enquired my name, my business in Paris, and especially what I had to allege against my being shot as a spy in the pay of the Tuileries. My answers were drowned in the roar of the multitude. Still, I protested firmly against this summary trial, and at length threatened them with the vengeance of my country. This might be heroic, but it was injudicious. Patriotism is a fiery affair, and a circle of pistols and daggers ready prepared for action, and roused by the word to execute popular justice on me, waited but the signal from the platform. Their leader rose with some solemnity, and taking off his cap, to give the ceremonial a more authentic aspect, declared me to have forfeited the right to live, by acting the part of an espion, and ordered me to be shot in "front of the leading battalion of the army of vengeance." The decree was so unexpected, that for the instant I felt absolutely paralyzed. The sight left my eyes, my ears tingled with strange sounds, and I almost felt as if I had received the shots of the ruffians, who now, incontrollable in their first triumph, were firing their pistols in all directions in the air. But at the moment, so formidable to my future career, I heard the sound of the clock of Notre Dame. I felt a sudden return of my powers and recollections, but the hands of my assassins were already upon me. The sound of the general signal for their march produced a rush of the crowd towards the gate, I took advantage of the confusion, struck down one of my captors, shook off the other, and plunged into the living torrent that was now pouring and struggling before me.
But even when I reached the open air—and never did I feel its freshness with a stronger sense of revival—I was still in the midst of the multitude, and any attempt to make my way alone would have obviously been death. Thus was I carried on along the Boulevarde, in the heart of a column of a hundred thousand maniacs, trampled, driven, bruised by the rabble, and deafened with shouts, yells, and cries of vengeance, until my frame was a fever and my brain scarcely less than a frenzy.
That terrible morning gave the deathblow to the mighty monarchy of the Bourbons. The throne was so shaken by the popular arm, that though it preserved a semblance of its original shape, a breath was sufficient to cast it to the ground. I have no heart for the recital. Even now I can scarcely think of that tremendous pageant of popular fantasy, fury, and the very passion of crime; or bring to my mind's eye that column, which seemed then to be boundless and endless, with the glare of its torches, the rattle of its drums, the grinding of its cannon-wheels, as we rushed along the causeway, from time to time stopping to fire, as a summons to the other districts, and as a note of exultation; or the perpetual, sullen, and deep roar of the populace—without a thrilling sense of perplexity and pain.
Long before daybreak we had swept all minor resistance before us, plundered the arsenal of its arms, and taken possession of the Hotel de Ville. The few troops who had kept guard at the different posts on our way, had been captured without an effort, or joined the insurgents. But intelligence now came that the palace was roused at last, that troops were ordered from the country for its defence, and that the noblesse remaining in the capital were crowding to the Tuileries. I stood beside Danton when those tidings were brought to him. He flung up his cap in the air, with a burst of laughter. "So much the better!" he exclaimed; "the closer the preserve, the thicker the game." I had now a complete view of this hero of democracy. His figure was herculean; his countenance, which possibly, in his younger days, had been handsome, was now marked with the lines of every passion and profligacy, but it was still commanding. His costume was one which he had chosen for himself, and which was worn by his peculiar troop; a short brown mantle, an under-robe with the arms naked to the shoulder, a broad leathern belt loaded with pistols, a huge sabre in hand, rusted from hilt to point, which he declared to have been stained with the blood of aristocrats, and the republican red cap, which he frequently waved in the air, or lifted on the point of his sabre as a standard. Yet, in the midst of all this savage disorder of costume, I observed every hair of his enormous whiskers to be curled with the care of a Parisian merveilleux. It was the most curious specimen of the ruling passion that I remember to have seen.
At the Hotel de Ville, Danton entered the hall with several of the insurgents; and the crowd, unwilling to waste time, began to fire at the little statues and insignia of the French kings, which ornamented this old building. When this amusement palled—the French are easily ennuied—they formed circles, and danced the Carmagnole. Rum and brandy, largely introduced among them, gave them animation after their night's watching, and they were fit for any atrocity. But the beating of drums, and a rush to the balconies of the Hotel de Ville, told us that something of importance was at hand; and, in the midst of a group of municipal officers, Petion, the mayor of Paris, arrived. No man in France wore a milder visage, or hid a blacker heart under it. He was received with shouts, and after a show of resistance, just sufficient to confirm his character for hypocrisy, suffered himself to be led to the front of the grand balcony, bowing as the man of the people. Another followed, a prodigious patriot, who had been placed at the head of the National Guard for his popular sycophancy, but who, on being called on by the mob to swear "death to the King;" and hesitating, felt the penalty of being unprepared to go all lengths on the spot. I saw his throat cut, and his body flung from the balcony. A cannon-shot gave the signal for the march, and we advanced to the grand prize of the day. I can describe but little more of the assault on the Tuileries, than that it was a scene of desperate confusion on both sides. The front of the palace continually covered with the smoke of fire-arms of all kinds, from all the casements; and the front of the mob a similar cloud of smoke, under which men fired, fled, fell, got drunk, and danced. Nothing could be more ferocious, or more feeble. Some of the Sections utterly ran away on the first fire; but, as they were unpursued, they returned by degrees, and joined the fray. It may be presumed that I made many an effort to escape; but I was in the midst of a battalion of the Faubourg St Antoine. I had already been suspected, from having dropped several muskets in succession, which had been thrust into my hands by the zeal of my begrimed comrades; and a sabre-cut, which I had received from one of our mounted ruffians as he saw me stepping to the rear, warned me that my time was not yet come to get rid of the scene of revolt and bloodshed.
At length the struggle drew to a close. A rumour spread that the King had left the palace, and gone to the Assembly. The cry was now on all sides—"Advance, the day is our own!" The whole multitude rushed forward, clashing their pikes and muskets, and firing their cannon, which were worked by deserters from the royal troops; the Marseillais, a band of the most desperate-looking ruffians that eye was ever set upon, chiefly galley-slaves and the profligate banditti of a sea-port, led the column of assault; and the sudden and extraordinary cessation of the fire from the palace windows, seemed to promise a sure conquest. But, as the smoke subsided, I saw a long line of troops, three deep, drawn up in front of the chief entrance. Their scarlet uniforms showed that they were the Swiss. The gendarmerie, the National Guard, the regular battalions, had abandoned them, and their fate seemed inevitable. But there they stood, firm as iron. Their assailants evidently recoiled; but the discharge of some cannon-shots, which told upon the ranks of those brave and unfortunate men, gave them new courage, and they poured onward. The voice of the Swiss commandant giving the word to fire was heard, and it was followed by a rolling discharge, from flank to flank, of the whole battalion. It was my first experience of the effect of fire; and I was astonished at its precision, rapidity, and deadly power. In an instant, almost the whole troop of the Marseillais, in our front, were stretched upon the ground, and every third man in the first line of the Sections was killed or wounded. Before this shock could be recovered, we heard the word "fire" again from the Swiss officer, and a second shower of bullets burst upon our ranks. The Sections turned and fled in all directions, some by the Pont Neuf, some by the Place Carrousel. The rout was complete; the terror, the confusion, and the yelling of the wounded were horrible. The havoc was increased by a party of the defenders of the palace, who descended into the court and fell with desperation on the fugitives. I felt that now was my time to escape, and darted behind one of the buttresses of a royal porte cachere, to let the crowd pass me. The skirmishing continued at intervals, and an officer in the uniform of the Royal Guard was struck down by a shot close to my feet. As he rolled over, I recognised his features. He was my young friend Lafontaine! With an inconceivable shudder I looked on his pale countenance, and with the thought that he was killed was mingled the thought of the misery which the tidings would bring to fond ears in England. But as I drew the body within the shelter of the gate, I found that he still breathed; he opened his eyes, and I had the happiness, after waiting in suspense till the dusk covered our movements, of conveying him to my hotel.
Of the remaining events of this most calamitous day, I know but what all the world knows. It broke down the monarchy. It was the last struggle in which a possibility existed of saving the throne. The gentlest of the Bourbons was within sight of the scaffold. He had now only to retrieve his character for personal virtue by laying down his head patiently under the blade of the guillotine. His royal character was gone beyond hope, and all henceforth was to be the trial of the legislature and the nation. Even that trial was to be immediate, comprehensive, and condign. No people in the history of rebellion ever suffered, so keenly or so rapidly, the vengeance which belongs to national crimes. The saturnalia was followed by massacre. A new and darker spirit of ferocity displayed itself, in a darker and more degraded form, from hour to hour, until the democracy was extinguished. Like the Scripture miracle of the demoniac—the spirits which had once exhibited the shape of man, were transmitted into the shape of the brute; and even the swine ran down by instinct, and perished in the waters.