Taking the Bastile

CHAPTER XI.
THE PRISON GOVERNOR

Billet looked at the mossgrown edifice, resembling the monsters of fable covered with scales. He counted the embrasures where the great guns might be run out again and the wall-guns which opened their ominous eye to peer through the loopholes. He shook his head, recalling Flesselles' words.

"We'll never get in," he muttered.

"Why never?" questioned a voice at his elbow.

Turning, he saw a wild-looking beggar, in rags, but with eyes glittering like stars in their hollow sockets.

"Because it is hard to take such a pile by main strength."

"Taking the Bastile is not a matter of strength," replied the mendicant, "but an act of faith: have as little faith as a grain of mustard-seed and yet you can overturn a mountain. Believe we can do it, and – Good night, Bastile!"

"Wait a bit," muttered Billet, fumbling for Marat's recommendation in his pocket.

"Wait," reiterated the vagabond, mistaking his mind: "Yes, I can understand you being willing to wait, for you are a farmer, and have always had more than enough to make you fat. But look at my mates: the deaths-heads and raw-bones surrounding us; see their veins dried up, count their bones through the holes in their tatters, and ask them if they know what waiting in patience means?" >

"This man speaks glibly, but he frightens me," remarked Pitou.

"He does not frighten me," replied Billet. Then turning to the stranger, he went on: "I say, patience, because in a quarter-hour yet we shall do."

"I can't call that much," answered the vagrant smiling, "but how much better off will we be then?"

"I shall have visited the Bastile by then," rejoined the farmer-revolutionist. "I shall know how strong the garrison is and the governor's intention – I shall in short have a glimpse of how we can get in."

"It will do, if you see how to get out."

"Well, as to that, if I do not come out, I know a man who will fetch me out."

"Who is he?"

"Gonchon, the People's Spokesman, their orator, their Mirabeau."

"You don't know him," said the man, his eyes flashing fire. "So, how do you make that out?"

"I am going to know him. I was told that the first person I addressed on Bastile Square would take me to him: you are on the spot, lead me to him."

"What do you want of him?"

"To hand him this paper from Surgeon Marat, whom I have just left at the City Hall, whence he was marching to the Invalides to get muskets for his twenty thousand men."

"In this case, hand over the paper. I am Gonchon. Friends," added the vagabond as Billet drew back a step, "here is a chap who does not know me and asks if I am really Gonchon."

The mass burst into laughter; it seemed impossible that their favorite should not be known to all.

"Long life to Gonchon!" was the shout.

"There you are," said Billet, passing the paper to him.

"Mates," said the popular leader, having read, and slapping the bearer on the shoulder, "this is a brother, whom Marat recommends. So you may rely on him. What is your name, Pal?"

"Billet."

"My name is Ax– do you see? between us I hope we shall cut something!"

The mob laughed at the ominous pun.

"Ay, somebody will get cut!" was the cry, "How are we to set about it?"

"We are going right into there," answered Gonchon, pointing to the building.

"That is the right kind of talk," said the farmer; "How many have you, Gonchon?"

"Thirty skeletons."

"Thirty thousand of yours, and twenty coming from the Soldiers' Hospital, ten thousand here; more than enough to succeed if we are to succeed."

"We shall," replied the beggar king.

"I believe you. Get your men in hand while I go in and summon the governor to surrender. If he should, so much the better as it will spare bloodshed; if not, the blood will fall on his head and it is bad luck these times. Ask those German dragoons who hewed down the inoffensive."

"How long will you be engaged with the governor?"

"As long as I can make it, so as to have the castle invested thoroughly; if possible, the moment I come out, begin the onset."

"Enough said."

"You don't distrust me?" said the countryman, holding out his hand to the city ragamuffin.

"I, distrust you?" replied the other, shaking with his emaciated hand the plump one of the farmer with a vigor he had not expected; "Wherefore? With a word or a sign, I could have you ground into dust though you were sheltered by yon towers, which to-morrow will exist not. Were you protected by those soldiers, who will be our dead-meat or we shall be theirs! Go ahead and rely on Gonchon as he does on Billet!"

Convinced, the farmer walked towards the Bastile gateway, while his new comrade proceeded towards the dwellings, under cheers for "The People's Mirabeau!"

"I never saw the other Mirabeau," thought Pitou, "but ours is not handsome."

"Towards the city, the Bastile presented two twin towers, while its two sides faced where the canal runs to-day. The entrance was defended by an outpost house, two lines of sentinels and two draw-bridges over moats.

After getting over these obstacles, one reached the Government Yard, where the governor's residence was.

Hence a corridor led to the ditches: another entrance also leading to the ditches, had a drawbridge, a guardhouse, and an iron grating as portcullis.

At the first entry they stopped Billet but he showed the Flesselles introduction and they did not turn him back. Perceiving that Pitou followed him, as he would have locked steps with him and marched up to the moon, he said:

"Stay outside: if I do not return it will be well for somebody to be around to remind the people that I went in."

"Just so; how long shall I wait?"

"An hour."

"What about the casket?" inquired the youth.

"If I do not come out, if Gonchon does not take the Bastile, or if, having taken it, I am not to be found – tell Dr. Gilbert, who may be found – that men from Paris stole the box he entrusted to me five years ago; that on arriving in town I learnt he was put in the Bastile whence I strove to rescue him but left my skin, which was entirely at his service."

"Very good, Father Billet," said the peasant; "it is rather long and I am afraid of forgetting it."

"I will repeat it."

"Better write it," said a voice hard by.

"I cannot write," rejoined Billet.

"I can, for I am clerk to the Chatelet Prison. My name is Maillard, Stanislaus Maillard."

He was a man of forty-five, tall and slim, grave, and clad in black as became such a functionary; he drew a writing-case from his pocket containing writing materials.

"He looks devilish like an undertaker," muttered Pitou.

"You say," said the clerk, imperturbably writing, "that men from Paris took from your dwelling a casket entrusted to you by Dr. Gilbert? that is an offense, to begin with."

"They belonged to the Paris Police."

"Infamous theft," said Maillard. "Here is your memorandum, young man," he added, giving the note to Ange; "if he be slain, it is to be hoped that both of us will not. I will do it if you both go down."

"Thank you," said Billet, giving his hand to the clerk who grasped it with more power than one might accredit to the meager frame.

"So I may rely on you?"

"As on Marat, and Gonchon."

"Such triplets are not born everyday," thought Pitou, who only said: "Be prudent, Father Billet!"

"Do not forget that the most prudent thing in France is courage," said the farmer with his blunt eloquence, sometimes startling in his rough body.

He passed the first line of sentinels, while Pitou backed out. At the bridge he had to parley, but it was lowered on his showing his pass, and the iron grating was raised. Behind the portcullis was the governor.

This inner yard was the prisoners' exercise ground. Eight giant towers guarded it: no window opened into it. The sun never penetrated its well-like circuit where the pavement was damp, almost muddy.

Here, a clock, the face upheld by chained captives in carving, dropped the seconds like water oozing through a ceiling on the dungeon slabs. At the bottom of this pit, the prisoner, lost in the stony gulf, would glance up at the inexorable nakedness and sue to be led back into his cell.

Governor Launay was about fifty years of age; he wore a grey linseywoolsey suit this day; it was crossed by a red sash of the Order of St. Louis, and he carried a swordcane. He was a bad man: Linguet's Memoirs had just shown him up in a sad light and he was hated almost as much as the jail. His father had been governor before him.

The officers here were on the purchase system, so that the officials tried to make all the money they could squeeze out of the prisoners and their friends. The governor, chief warder, doubled his 60,000 francs appointments by extortion.

In the way of meanness Launay out-did his foregoers: he may have had to pay more highly for the post than his father and so had to put on the screw to retrieve his outlay. He fed his household out of the prisoners' rations; he reduced the firing allowance and doubled the hire of furniture. Maybe he foresaw that he was not to enjoy the berth long.

He had the right to pass a hundred casks of wine into Paris free of duty. He sold it to a wine-shopkeeper who got in the best vintage and supplied him for the prisoners with vinegar.

The latter had one relief, one pleasure – a little garden made on a bastion where they got a whiff of sweet air and saw flowers and grass and sunshine. He let this out to a truck-gardener, robbing the prisoners for fifty livres a-year.

On the other hand he was yielding to rich captives: he let one furnish his room in his own style and have any visitors he liked.

For further particulars see "The Bastile Unveiled."

For all this Launay was brave.

He might be pale, but he was calm, although the storm had raged against him from the previous evening. He felt aware of the riot becoming a revolt for the waves broke at the foot of his castle wall.

It is true that he had four cannon and a garrison of old soldiers and Swiss – with only one unarmed man confronting him. For Billet had handed his fowling-piece to Ange on entering the stronghold.

He understood that a weapon might get him into trouble beyond the barrier.

With a glance he remarked everything; the governor's calm and menacing attitude; the Swiss ranked in the guardhouses; the Veterans on the platforms, and the silent bustle of the artillerists loading up their caissons with ammunition.

The sentinels had their muskets on their shoulders and their officers carried drawn swords.

As the commander stood still, Billet was obliged to go to him. The grating closed behind the people's parliamentarian with an ugly grinding of metal on metal which made him shudder to the marrow, brave though he was.

"What do you want again?" challenged Launay.

"Again" took up Billet. "It seems to me that this is the first time you have seen me, so that you cannot be very tired of me."

"I was told you come from the City Hall and I have just had a deputation from there to get me to promise not to open fire. I promised that much and so I had the guns drawn in."

"I was on the square as you did so, and I – "

"You thought I was giving way to the calls of the crowd?"

"It looked that way," replied the farmer.

"Did I not tell you that they would believe me just such a coward?" said Launay, turning round to his officers. "Who do you come from then?" he demanded of Billet.

"I come on behalf of the people," rejoined the visitor proudly.

"That is all very well," sneered Launay, smiling; "but you must have shown some other warrant, for otherwise you would not have passed the first dead-line of sentries."

"True, I have a pass from your friend Flesselles."

"Flesselles? why do you dub him my friend?" exclaimed the prison warden, looking at the speaker to read to the bottom of his mind. "How do you conclude that he is a friend of mine?"

"I supposed as much."

"Is that all? never mind. Let us see your safe-conduct."

Billet presented the paper which Launay read more than once in order to catch a hidden meaning or concealed lines; he even held it up to the light to see if there was secret writing.

"Is that all? are you perfectly sure? nothing by word of mouth in addition?"

"Not a bit."

"Strange!" said Launay, plunging his glance by a loophole on Bastile Square. "Then tell me your want and be quick."

"The people want you to give up the Bastile."

"What do you say?" cried Launay, turning quickly as if he must be mistaken in his hearing.

"I summon you in the people's name to give up the Bastile."

"Queer animals the people," sneered Launay, snapping his fingers. "What do they want with the Bastile?"

"To demolish it."

"Why, what the mischief is the Bastile to the people? is any common man ever shut up herein? why, the people ought to bless every stone of the Bastile. Who are locked up here? philosophers, learned men, aristocrats, statesmen, princes – all the enemies of the dregs."

"This only proves that the people are not selfish and want to do good to others."

"It is plain that you are not a soldier, my friend," said the other with a kind of pity.

"It is true and come fresh from the country."

"For you do not know what the Bastile is: come with me and I will show you."

"He is going to pull the spring of some trap which will open beneath my feet," thought the adventurer, "and then good-bye, Old Billet!"

But he was intrepid and did not wince as he prepared to accede to the invitation.

"In the first place," continued Launay, "it is well to know that I have enough powder in the store to blow up the castle and lay half the suburbs in ashes."

"I knew that," was the tranquil reply.

"Do you see these cannon? They rake this gallery, which is defended by a guardhouse, and by two ditches only to be crossed by draw-bridges; lastly there is a portcullis."

"Oh, I am not saying that the Bastile will be badly defended, but that it will be well attacked."

"To proceed: here is a postern opening on the moats: observe the thickness of the walls. Forty feet here and fifteen above. You see that though the people have nails they will break against such walls."

"I am not saying that the people will demolish the Bastile to master it but that, having mastered it, they will demolish it," said the leader of the revolutionists.

"Let us go upstairs," said the governor, leading up thirty steps, where he paused to say: "This embrasure opens on the passage by which you would be bound to come. It is defended by one rampart gun, but it enjoys a fair reputation. You know the song:

"'Oh, my sweet-voiced Sackbut, I love your dear song?'"

"Certainly, I have heard it, but I do not think this a time to sing it, or anything else."

"Stay; Marshal Saxe called this gun his Sackbut, because it sang the only music he cared anything for. This is a historical fact. But let us go on."

"Oh," said Billet when upon the tower top, "you have not dismounted the cannon, but merely drawn them in. I shall have to tell the people so."

"The cannon were mounted here by the King's command and by that alone can they be dismounted."

"Governor Launay," returned Billet, feeling himself rise to the level of the emergency, "the true sovereign is yonder and I counsel you to obey it."

He pointed to the grey-looking masses, spotted with blood from the night's battling, and reflecting the dying sunlight on their weapons up to the very moats.

"Friend, a man cannot know two masters," replied theroyalist, holding his head up haughtily: "I, the Governor of the Bastile, know but one: the Sixteenth Louis, who put his sign-manual at the foot of the patent which made me the commander over men and material here."

"Are you not a French citizen?" demanded Billet warmly.

"I am a French nobleman," said the Count of Launay.

"True, you are a soldier, and speak like one."

"You are right," said the gentleman bowing. "I am a soldier and carry out my orders."

"Well, I am a citizen," went on Billet, "and as my duty as such is opposed to yours as the King's soldier, one of us must die. He who fulfills his orders or his duties."

"That is likely, sir."

"So you are determined to fire on the people?"

"Not unless I am fired at. I pledged myself to that effect to Lord Provost Flesselles' deputation. You see the guns have been retired, but at the first shot, I will roll one – say this one – forward out of the embrasure with my own hands, train it and point it, and fire with the slow-match you see there."

"If I believed that," said Billet, "before you could commit such a crime – "

"I have told you that I am a soldier and know nothing outside my orders."

"Then, look!" said Billet, drawing Launay to the gap in the battlements and pointing alternately in two different directions – the main street from the town and the street through the suburbs, "behold those who will henceforth give you orders."

Launay saw two black, dense, roaring bodies, undulating like snakes, with head and bodies in sight but the rearmost coils still waving onwards till lost in the hollows of the ground. All the bodies of these immense reptiles glittered with the scales. These were the two armies to which Billet had given the Bastile as the meeting-place, Marat's men and Gonchon's beggars. As they surged forward they brandished their weapons and yelled blood-curdling cries.

At the sight Launay lost color and said as he raised his cane:

"To your guns!" Then, threatening Billet, he added: "You scoundrel, to come here and gain time under pretence of a parley, do you know that you deserve death?"

Billet saw the attempt to draw the sword from the cane and pierce him; he seized the speaker by the collar and waistband as swift as lightning, and raising him clear off the ground, he replied:

"And you deserve to be hurled down to the bottom of the ditch to be smashed in the mud. But, never mind, thank God I can fight you in another manner."

At this instant, an immense howl, a universal one, rose in the air like a whirlwind, as Major Losme appeared on the platform.

"Oh, sir, for mercy's sake," he said to Billet: "Show yourself for the people there believe something has happened you and they call for you."

Indeed, the name of Billet, set afloat by Pitou, ascended on the clamor.

The farmer let go Launay who replaced the blade in the stick. The three men hesitated for a moment while the innumerable cries of vengeance and menace arose.

"Show yourself, sir," said Launay, "not because the noise frightens me but to prove that I have acted fairly."

The farmer thrust his head out of the porthole, waving his hand.

At this sight the populace burst with cheering: it was in a measure Revolution standing up in Billet's stead as this man of the lowest ranks trod the Bastile turret like a master.

"That is well, sir," went on Launay. "Now all is ended between us; you have no further business here. They ask for you below; go down."

Billet appreciated this moderation on the part of a man who had him in his power: he went down by the same stairs, the governor following. The major remained up there as the governor had whispered some orders to him.

It was evident that Count Launay had but one wish, that the bearer of the flag of truce should be his active enemy as soon as possible.

Without speaking a word the envoy crossed the yard, where he saw the cannoniers were at their pieces and the lintstocks were lighted and smoking. He stopped before them.

"Friends," he cried, "remember that I came to your commander to stay the shedding of blood, but that he refused me."

"In the King's name, be off from here!" said Launay, stamping his foot.

"Have a care," retorted the farmer: "I am ordered out in the King's name but I shall return in that of the People. Speak out," he added, turning to the Swiss, "who are you for?"

The foreign soldiers were silent. Launay pointed to the iron door. But Billet attempted a final effort.

"Governor, in the name of the nation, in the name of your brothers!"

"Brothers? is that what you call them who are bellowing 'Down the Bastile, and Death to the Governor?' they may be brothers of yours, but surely they are none of mine."

"In humanity's, then!"

"Humanity – which urges you to come a hundred thousand strong against one hundred hapless soldiers immured in these walls and cut their throats?"

"But by giving up the Bastile you save their lives."

"And I lose my honor."

Billet was hushed, for the soldierly argument crushed him; but again he addressed the soldiers, saying:

"Surrender, friends, while it is yet time; in another ten minutes it will be too late."

"I will have you shot unless you are out of this instantly," thundered Launay, "as true as I am a noble."

Billet stopped an instant, folded his arms in token of defiance and, crossing glances for the last time with the exasperated governor, walked forth.