"The people are not to be insulted. The people order, and all must obey!" Nothing could be more unanswerable, and no attempt was made to answer. The captain dropped back into the chaise, the troop took their own way, and my next glance showed the street empty. But the Frenchman finds comfort under all calamities. After venting his wrath in no measured terms on "rabble insolence," and declaring that laws were of no use when "gueux" like these could take them into their hands, he consoled himself by observing that, stripped as he was of his honours, the loss might be compensated by his profits; that the "vagabonds" might have expected to share the reward which the "grand Danton would infallibly be rejoiced to give for my capture, and that both the purse and the praise would be his own." "A l'Abbaye!" was the cry once more.
We now were in motion again; and, after threading a labyrinth of streets, so dreary and so dilapidated as almost to give me the conception that I had never been in Paris before, we drove up to the grim entrance of the Abbaye. My companion left me in charge of the sentinel, and rushed in. "And is this," thought I, as I looked round the narrow space of the four walls, "the spot where so many hundreds were butchered; this the scene of the first desperate triumph of massacre; this miserable court the last field of so many gallant lives; these stones the last resting-place of so many whose tread had been on cloth of gold; these old and crumbling walls giving the last echo to the voices of statesmen and nobles, the splendid courtiers, the brilliant orators, and the hoary ecclesiastics, of the most superb kingdom of Europe!" Even by the feeble lamp-light, that rather showed the darkness than the forms of the surrounding buildings, it seemed to me that I could discover the colour of the slaughter on the ground; and there were still heaps in corners, which looked to me like clay suddenly flung over the remnants of the murdered.
But my reveries were suddenly broken up by the return of the little captain, more angry than ever. He had missed the opportunity of seeing the "great man," who had gone to the Salpetrière. And some of the small men who performed as his jackals, having discovered that the captain was looking for a share in their plunder, had thought proper to treat him, his commission, and even his civism, with extreme contempt. In short, as he avowed to me, the very first use which he was determined to make of that supreme power to which his ascent was inevitable, would be to clear the bureaux of France, beginning with Paris, of all those insolent and idle hangers-on, who lived only to purloin the profits, and libel the services, of "good citizens."
"A la Salpetrière." There again disappointment met us. The great man had been there "but a few minutes before," and we dragged our slow way through mire and ruts that would have been formidable to an artillery waggon with all its team. My heart, buoyant as it had been, sank within me as I looked up at the frowning battlements, the huge towers, more resembling those of a fortress than of even a prison, the gloomy gates, and the general grim aspect of the whole vast circumference, giving so emphatic a resemblance of the dreariness and the despair within.
"Aux Carmes!" was now the direction; for my conductor's resolve to earn his reward before daybreak, was rendered more pungent by this interview with the gens de bureau at the Abbaye. He was sure that they would be instantly on the scent; and if they once took me out of his hands, adieu to dreams, of which Alnaschar, the glassman's, were only a type. He grew nervous with the thought, and poured out his whole vision of hopes and fears with a volubility which I should have set down for frenzy, if in any man but a wretch in the fever of a time when gold and blood were the universal and combined idolatries of the land.
"You may think yourself fortunate," he exclaimed, "in having been in my charge! That brute of a country gendarme could have shown you nothing. Now, I know every jail in Paris. I have studied them. They form the true knowledge of a citizen. To crush tyrants, to extinguish nobles, to avenge the cause of reason on priests, and to raise the people to a knowledge of their rights—these are the triumphs of a patriot. Yet, what teacher is equal to the jail for them all? Mais voilà les Carmes!"
I saw a low range of blank wall, beyond which rose an ancient tower.
"Here," said he, "liberty had a splendid triumph. A hundred and fifty tonsured apostles of incivism here fell in one day beneath the two-handed sword of freedom. A cardinal, two archbishops, dignitaries, monks, hoary with prejudices, antiquated with abuses, extinguishers of the new light of liberty, here were offered on the national shrine! Chantons la Carmagnole."
But he was destined to be disappointed once more. Danton had been there, but was suddenly called away by a messenger from the Jacobins. Our direction was now changed again. "Now we shall be disappointed no longer. Once engaged in debate, he will be fixed for the night. Allons, you shall see the 'grand patriote,' 'the regenerator,' 'the first man in the world.' Aux Jacobins!"
Our unfortunate postilion falling with fatigue on his horses' neck, attempted to propose going to an inn, and renewing our search in the morning; but the captain had made up his mind for the night, and, drawing a pistol from his breast, exhibited this significant sign pointed at his head. The horses, as tired as their driver, were lashed on. I had for some time been considering, as we passed through the deserted streets, whether it was altogether consistent with the feelings of my country, to suffer myself to be dragged round the capital at the mercy of this lover of lucre; but an apathy had come over my whole frame, which made me contemptuous of life. The sight of his pistol rather excited me to make the attempt, from the very insolence of his carrying it. But we still rolled on. At length, in one of the streets, which seemed darker and more miserable than all the rest, we were brought to a full stop by the march of a strong body of the National Guard, which halted in front of an enormous old building, furnished with battlement and bartizan. "Le Temple!" exclaimed my companion, with almost a shriek of exultation. I glanced upward, and saw a light with the pale glimmer which, in my boyish days, I had heard always attributed to spectres passing along the dim casements of a gallery. I cannot express how deeply this image sank upon me. I saw there only a huge tomb—the tomb of living royalty, of a line of monarchs, of all the feelings that still bound the heart of man to the cause of France. All now spectral. But, whatever might be the work of my imagination, there was terrible truth; enough before me to depress, and sting, and wring the mind. Within a step of the spot where I sat, were the noblest and the most unhappy beings in existence—the whole family of the throne caught in the snare of treason. Father, mother, sister, children! Not one rescued, not one safe, to relieve the wretchedness of their ruin by the hope that there was an individual of their circle beyond their prison bars—all consigned to the grave together—all alike conscious that every day which sent its light through their melancholy casements, only brought them nearer to a death of misery! But I must say no more of this. My heart withered within me as I looked at the towers of the Temple. It almost withers within me, at this moment, when I think of them. They are leveled long since; but while I write I see them before me again, a sepulchre; I see the mustering of that crowd of more than savages before the grim gate; and I see the pale glimmer of that floating lamp, which was then, perhaps, lighting the steps of Marie Antoinette to her solitary cell.