CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE FIRST GUILLOTINE.
On Christmas Eve, a party was given at the Princess Lamballe’s, which
the Queen’s presiding over made it really her own reception.
Isidore Charny had returned from Italy that morning and he had found
King and Queen very kind to him. Two reasons influenced the latter: one
his being the brother of Count Charny, which was a charm in his absence,
and his bringing back news from the fugitive princes which suited her
wishes.
They backed the Favras scheme and urged her to flee for Turin.
He left her only to go and acquaint Favras with the encouragement. The
Queen had said nothing positive about the flight: but he took enough to
the conspirator to fill him with joy. For the rest, the cash was in
hand, the men notified to stand ready, and the King would only have to
nod to have the whole plot set in motion.
The silence of the royal couple was the only thing which worried him.
The Queen broke this by sending Isidore, and vague as were the words he
repeated, they acquired weight from coming out of a royal mouth.
At nine the young viscount went to Lady Lamballe’s.
Count Provence was uneasy; Count Louis Narbonne walked about with the
ease of a man quite at home among princes. Isidore was not known to any
of the circle of the princes’ bosom friends, but his well-known name and
the partiality accorded him by the princess led to all hands being held
out to him.
Besides, he brought news from the foreign refuge where so many had
relatives.
When he had delivered his budget, the conversation returned to its
former channel; the young men were laughing about a machine for
executing criminals which Dr. Guillotin had shown in a full size working
model and had proposed to the National Assembly.
When an usher announced the King, and another the Queen, of course all
the merriment and chatter ceased.
The more the revolutionary spirit stripped majesty of its eternals the
more the true royalists vied with each other to pour evidences of
respect upon the august chiefs. 1789 saw great ingratitude, but 1793
great devotion.
To talk over the Favras scheme in secret a whist party was made up of
the two rulers, Provence and Charny for the fourth hand. Respect
isolated the table.
“Brother,” said the Queen, “Lord Charny, who comes from Turin, says that
our kinsfolk there are begging us to join them.”
The King gave a stamp with impatience.
“I entreat you to listen,” whispered Lady Elizabeth, who sat on a stool.
“Listen to what?”
“That Lord Charny has also seen the Marquis Favras since he came home, a
gentleman whose lealty we know, and he says that the King has but to say
a word,” went on the Queen, “or make a sign, and this very night, you
will be at Peronne.”
The King kept still. His brother twisted a jack of hearts all to rags.
“Repeat this as the marquis put it,” said he to Isidore.
“Your Majesty, thanks to measures taken by Marquis Favras, he declares
that the King has but the cue to give to be in safety in Peronne this
blessed night.”
Turning sharply on his brother, the King said as he fixed his eyes on
him:
“Are you coming if I go?”
“I” said the other, turning pale and trembling. “I have not been
notified, and I have made no preparations.”
“You know nothing about it, and yet you found the money for Favras?”
exclaimed the monarch. “You not notified, and the moves in the game have
been reported to you hour by hour?”
“The game?” faltered the prince.
“The plot; for it is one of those plots for which, if discovered, Favras
will be tried and doomed to death--unless by money and other means we
save him as we did Bezenval.”
“Then you will save Favras.”
“No; for I might not be able to do as much for him. Besides, Bezenval
was my liege as Favras is yours. Let each save his own man, and both of
us shall have done our duty.”
He rose, but the Queen retained him by the skirt of the coat.
“Sire, whether you accept or refuse, you owe the marquis an answer. What
is Viscount Charny to answer for the King?”
“That the King does not allow himself to be spirited away like a slave
for the Louisiana plantations.” He disengaged his coat.
“This means,” said Provence, “that the King will not allow of the
abduction but if it be executed in spite of his permission, it will be
welcome. In politics success condones the crime and blunderers deserve
double punishment.”
“Viscount,” said the Queen, “tell the marquis what you heard and let him
act as he thinks it points. Go.”
The King had gone over to where the younger men were so hilariously
chatting; but the deepest silence fell at his approach.
“Is the King so unhappy that he casts melancholy around him?” he
demanded.
“Sire!” muttered the gentlemen.
“You were very merry when the Queen and I came in. It is a bad thing for
kings when no one dares laugh before them. I may say the converse:
‘Happy are the kings before whom laughter resounds.'”
“Sire,” returned one, “the subject is not one for a comic opera.”
“Of what were you talking?”
“Sire, I yield the guilty one to your Majesty,” said another, stepping
forward.
“Oh, it is you, Editor Suleau,” said the King. “I have read the last
number of your journal the Acts of the Apostles. Take care that you do
not offend Master Populus.”
“I only said that our Revolution is going so slowly that it has to help
on that in Brabant. We are lamenting the dulness of the session of the
Assembly where they had to take up the motion of Dr. Guillotin upon--of
all things--a new machine for public executions.”
“Are you making fun of Dr. Guillotin--a philanthropist? remember that I
am one myself.”
“There are various kinds; the sort I approve of has a representative at
the head of the French Nation--the one who abolished torture before
trial: we venerate, nay, we love him.”
The hearers bowed with the same impulse.
“But,” proceeded Suleau, “there are others who try to find means to kill
the hale while they had a thousand to send the ailing out of this life.
I beg your Majesty to let me deal with them?”
“What would you do? decapitate them painlessly, or at least merely give
a slight coolness round the neck?” inquired the King, quoting Dr.
Guillotin’s recommendation of his invention.
“Sire, I should like all of these inventors to have the first experiment
tried on themselves. I do not complain that Marigny was hanged on the
Gibbet of Montfaucon which he built. I am not asking, I am not even a
judge; the probability is that I shall have to take my revenge on Dr.
Guillotin in the columns of my paper. I will give him a whole number and
propose that the machine shall bear his name for eternity, the
Guillotine!”
“Ha, ha, the Guillotine!” exclaimed the men, without waiting for express
permission to laugh.
“I shall assert, also, that life is divided not extinguished by this
process,” continued Suleau; “why may not the sufferer feel pain in the
head and the trunk after being cut in two?”
“This is a question for medical men. Did none of us here witness the
experiment this very morning at Bicetre madhouse?” asked the King.
“No, no, no!” cried many voices.
“Sire, I was there,” said one grave voice.
“Oh; it is you? Dr. Gilbert,” said the sovereign, turning.
“Yes, Sire.”
“And how did the experiment succeed?”
“Perfectly in two instances; but at the third the instrument, though it
severed the spine, did not detach the head. They had to finish with a
knife.”
The young gentlemen listened with frightened eyes and parted lips.
“Three executions this morning?” exclaimed Charles Lameth, who with his
brother had not yet turned against the Queen.
“Yes, gentlemen,” said the King; “but they were three corpses furnished
by the hospitals. What is your opinion of the instrument?”
“An improvement on such machines; but the accident at the third
experiment proves that it stands in need of improvement still.”
“What is it like?” asked the royal locksmith who had a bias for
machines.
Gilbert helped his explanation out by drawing a sketch on a sheet of
paper at a table. The King saw how curious the bystanders were and
allowed them to come near.
“Who knows,” said Suleau obeying, “but that one of us may make the
acquaintance of Lady Guillotine?”
Laughing, they pressed round the board where the King, taking the pen
from Dr. Gilbert, said:
“No wonder the experience failed, particularly after awhile. The cutting
blade is crescent-shaped whereas it ought to be triangular to sever a
resisting substance. See here: shape your knife thus, and I wager that
you would cut me off twenty-four heads one after another without the
edge turning up.”
He had scarcely finished the words before a heart-rending scream was
heard. The Queen had been attracted to the group of which the King and
his corrected sketch were the centre. She beheld the same instrument
which had been presented her in its likeness in a glass of water by
Balsamo the Magician twenty years before!
At the view she had no strength to do more than scream, and life
abandoning her as though she were under the blade, she swooned in the
arms of Dr. Gilbert.
It is easily understood that this incident broke up the party.
Gilbert attended to the royal patient who was given the bed of the
princess. When the crisis was over, which he rightly attributed to a
mental cause, he was going out but she bade him stay.
“Therese,” she added to Lady Lamballe, “tell the King that I have come
to: and do not let us be interrupted: I must speak with the doctor.
Doctor,” she pursued when they were alone, “are you not astonished that
chance seems to place us face to face in all the crises moral or
physical of my life?”
“As I do not know whether to be sorry or to be glad for it, since I read
in your mind that the contact is not through your wish or your will.”
“That is why I said chance. I like to be frank. But the last time we
were in contiguity, you showed true devotion and I thank you and shall
never forget it.”
He bowed.
“I am also a physiognomist. Do you know that you have said without
speaking: ‘That is over; let us change the subject.'”
“At least I felt the desire to be put to the test.”
“Doctor, what do you think of the recent event?” inquired Marie
Antoinette as though this was interlinked with what she had spoken.
“Madam, the daughter of Maria Theresa is not one of the women who faint
at trifles.”
“Do you believe in forewarnings?”
“Science repels all phenomena tending to upset the prevailing order of
things; still, facts offtimes give the lie to science.”
“I ought to have said; do you believe in predictions?”
“I believe that the Supreme Being has benevolently covered the future
with an impenetrable veil. Still,” he went on as if making an effort
over himself to meet questions which he wished relegated into doubt, “I
know a man who sometimes confounds all the arguments of my intelligence
by irrefutable facts. I dare not name him before your Majesty.”
“It is your master, the immortal, the all-powerful, the divine
Cagliostro, is it not, Dr. Gilbert?”
“Madam, my only master is Nature. Cagliostro is but my saver. Pierced by
a bullet in the chest, losing all my blood by a wound which I, a
physician, after twenty years study, must pronounce incurable, he cured
me in a few days by a salve of which I know not the composition: hence
my gratitude to him, I will almost say my admiration.”
“And this man makes predictions which are accomplished?”
“Strange and incredible ones; he moves in the present with a certainty
which makes one believe in his knowledge of the future.”
“So that you would believe if he forecast to you?”
“I should at least act as though it might happen.”
“Would you prepare to meet a shameful, terrible and untimely death if he
foreshowed it?”
“After having tried to escape it by all manner of means,” rejoined
Gilbert, looking steadily at her.
“Escape? No, doctor, no! I see that I am doomed,” said the Queen. “This
revolution is a gulf in which will be swallowed up the throne: this
people is a lion to devour me.”
“Yet it depends on you to have it couch at your feet like a lamb.”
“Doctor, all is broken between the people and me; I am hated and
scorned.”
“Because you do not really know each other. Cease to be a queen and
become a mother to them; forget you are daughter of Maria Theresa, our
ancient enemy, the sister of Joseph our false friend. Be French, and
you will hear the voices rise to bless you, and see arms held out to
fondle you.”
“I know all this,” she replied contemptuously; “fawning one day, they
tear the next.”
“Because aware of resistance to their will, and hatred opposed to their
love.”
“Does this destructive element know whether it loves or hates? it
destroys like the wind, the sea and fire, and has womanly caprices.”
“Because you see it from on high, like the man in the lighthouse views
the ocean. Did you go down in the depths you would see how steady it is.
What more obedient than the vast mass to the movement of the tides. You
are Queen over the French, madam, and yet you know not what passes in
France. Raise your veil instead of keeping it down, and you will admire
instead of dreading.”
“What would I see so very splendid?”
“The New World blooming over the wreck of the Old; the cradle of Free
France floating on a sea wider than the Mediterranean--than the ocean. O
God protect you, little bark--O God shield you, babe of promise,
France!”
Little of an enthusiast as Gilbert was he raised his eyes and hands
heavenward.
The Queen eyed him with astonishment for she did not understand.
“Fine words,” she sneered. “I thought you philosophers had run them down
to dust.”
“No, great deeds have killed them,” returned Gilbert. “Whither tends old
France? to the unity of the country. There are no longer provinces, but
all French.”
“What are you driving at? that your united thirty millions of rebels
should form a universal federation against their King and Queen?”
“Do not deceive yourself: it is not the people who are rebels but the
rulers who have rebelled against them. If you go to one of the feasts
which the people hold, you will see that they hail a little child on an
altar--emblem of the new birth of liberty. Italy, Spain, Ireland,
Poland, all the down-trodden look towards this child and hold out their
enchained hands, saying: ‘France, we shall be free because of you.’
Madam, if it be still time, take this child and make yourself its
mother.”
“You forget that I am the mother of others, and I ought not do as you
suggest--disinherit them in favor of a stranger.”
“If thus it be,” replied Gilbert with profound sorrow, “wrap your
children up in your royal robe, in the war-cloak of Maria Theresa, and
carry them with you far from France; for you spoke the truth in saying
that the people will devour you and your offspring with you. But there
is no time to lose--make haste!”
“You will not oppose?”
“I will further you in the departure.”
“Nothing could fall more timely,” said the Queen, “for we have a
nobleman ready to act in this escape----“
“Do you mean Marquis Favras?” demanded Gilbert, with apprehension.
“Who breathed you his name--who communicated to you his project?”
“Oh, have a care, for a bloody prediction pursued him also.”
“Of the same Prophet? what fate awaits him?”
“Untimely, terrible and infamous like that you mentioned.”
“Then you speak truly--no time must be lost in giving the lie to this
prophet of evil.”
“You were going to tell Favras that you accepted his aid?”
“He was advised and I am awaiting his reply.”
She had not long to wait, for Isidore Charny was ushered in by the
Princess Lamballe.
“I am told that I may speak before Dr. Gilbert,” said he. “Then, know
that Marquis Favras was arrested an hour ago and imprisoned in the
Chatelet.”
Bright but despairing and full of ire, the Queen’s glance crossed that
of the doctor. All her wrath seemed spent in that flash.
“Madam,” said Gilbert with deep pity, “if I can be useful in any way,
make use of me. I lay at your feet my mind, my life, my devotion.”
“Dr. Gilbert,” she said in a slow and resigned voice, “is it your
opinion that the death given by this dread engine is as sweet as the
inventor asserts?”
He sighed and hid his face in his hands.
As the news of Favras’ arrest had circulated over the palace in a few
seconds, Count Provence went to his brother. His advice was that Favras
should be repudiated and the King take the oath to the Constitution.
“But how can I swear fidelity to an incomplete Constitution?”
“The more easily,” replied the schemer, with his false squint which came
from the darkest sinuosities of his soul.
“I will,” said the King: “this does not prevent my writing to Marquis
Bouille that our plan is postponed. This will give Charny time to
regulate the route.”
For his part, Provence acted on part of his own suggestion: he
repudiated Favras and received the thanks of the Assembly.
Favras was left alone save for Cagliostro who perhaps felt a little
remorse that he had let the bravest in the conspiracy go so far in a
mission which he had foredoomed to failure. But Favras would not accept
rescue and met his death by hanging with unblemished courage and honor.
The King took the oath, as he had promised his brother, to the
Constitution, yet in embryo. If he loved it so dearly already, what
would he do when it was in shape?
The ten days following were days of rejoicing; joy in the Assembly; calm
in Paris; altars built all over the town for passers to take oath after
the royal precedent.
The Assembly commanded a Te Deum to be chanted in the Cathedral, where
all gathered to renew the oath in solemnity.
“Why did you not go to the church?” sneered the Queen to her husband.
“Because I do not object to lying for a purpose, but I do not mean to
perjure myself,” said Louis XVI.
The Queen breathed again for until then she had believed in the
monarch’s honesty. She felt empowered by this perfidy to take the same
path and it was after giving her hand for Mirabeau to kiss that this new
leader for the court party vowed that the monarchy was saved.
Her forehead was swathed in a wet bandage, her eyes were wandering and
her face flushed with fever. Amongst the incoherent words, the farmer
thought he could distinguish the name of Isidore.
“I see that it is good time that I came home,” he muttered.
He went forth, and was followed by Pitou, but Dr. Raynal detained the
latter.
“I want you my lad,” he said, “to help Mother Clement hold the patient
while I bleed her for the third time.”
“The third time?” cried Mrs. Billet, awaking from her dulness. “Do you
hear that, my man, they bleed her for the third time.”
“Woman, this would not have happened had you looked after your daughter
closer,” said the farmer in a stern voice.
He went to his room, from which he had been absent three months while
Pitou entered the sick room.
Pitou was astonished but he would have felt more so if he had guessed
that the doctor called him in as a moral remedy.
The doctor had noticed two names as used by the girl in her frenzy, Ange
Pitou and Isidore Charny, and he soon distinguished that one was a
friend’s and the other a dearer one. He concluded that Pitou was the
lovers’ confidant and that there would be no inconvenience in the
gallant’s friend being there to speak with the patient on the mutual
acquaintance.
Everybody knew down here that Valence Charny had been killed at
Versailles and that his eldest brother had called away Isidore on the
next evening.
That night Pitou found Catherine fainted on the high road. When she
revived on the farm, it was to be in a fever, and she raved of some one
riding away whom the doctor judged to be Isidore Charny.
The greatest need to a brain-stricken invalid is calm. To learn about
her lover would best calm Catherine, and she would ask the news of their
friend, Pitou.
On seeing the good effect of the bleeding, the doctor stationed Mother
Clement by her side, with the strange recommendation for her to get some
sleep, and beckoned Pitou to follow him into the kitchen.
Her forehead was swathed in a wet bandage, her eyes were wandering and
her face flushed with fever. Amongst the incoherent words, the farmer
thought he could distinguish the name of Isidore.
“I see that it is good time that I came home,” he muttered.
He went forth, and was followed by Pitou, but Dr. Raynal detained the
latter.
“I want you my lad,” he said, “to help Mother Clement hold the patient
while I bleed her for the third time.”
“The third time?” cried Mrs. Billet, awaking from her dulness. “Do you
hear that, my man, they bleed her for the third time.”
“Woman, this would not have happened had you looked after your daughter
closer,” said the farmer in a stern voice.
He went to his room, from which he had been absent three months while
Pitou entered the sick room.
Pitou was astonished but he would have felt more so if he had guessed
that the doctor called him in as a moral remedy.
The doctor had noticed two names as used by the girl in her frenzy, Ange
Pitou and Isidore Charny, and he soon distinguished that one was a
friend’s and the other a dearer one. He concluded that Pitou was the
lovers’ confidant and that there would be no inconvenience in the
gallant’s friend being there to speak with the patient on the mutual
acquaintance.
Everybody knew down here that Valence Charny had been killed at
Versailles and that his eldest brother had called away Isidore on the
next evening.
That night Pitou found Catherine fainted on the high road. When she
revived on the farm, it was to be in a fever, and she raved of some one
riding away whom the doctor judged to be Isidore Charny.
The greatest need to a brain-stricken invalid is calm. To learn about
her lover would best calm Catherine, and she would ask the news of their
friend, Pitou.
On seeing the good effect of the bleeding, the doctor stationed Mother
Clement by her side, with the strange recommendation for her to get some
sleep, and beckoned Pitou to follow him into the kitchen.
“Cheer up, mother,” said he to Mrs. Billet who was mooning in the
chimney corner, “she is going on as well as possible.”
“It is very hard that a mother cannot care for her child,” said the
farmer’s wife.
“You are too fragile--we should only have you ill. She will get along
finely with Mother Clement and Ange to look after her.”
“Ange?”
“Yes, he has a leaning toward medicine and I shall make him my
assistant. He is coming over to my place now to get a soothing potion
made up. He will bring it back and direct the administration of it. He
will remain on duty here, to run over to me with the news of any
change.”
“You know best, doctor; but give the poor father a word of your hope.”
“Where is he?”
“In the next room.”
“Useless,” said a voice on the threshold, “I have heard all.”
As though this was all he wanted, the pale-faced farmer withdrew and
offered no opposition to this ruling of the house by the medical
adviser.
The latter was not a light of science but he was a keen observer.
He had seen that Pitou would be the best confidant to place before his
patient’s eyes as soon as they opened to life and reason.
He was able with the first words to reassure her upon Isidore’s health.
There was no rioting in Paris and the young noble had gone off to Italy
as a messenger.
He was sure to write to Catherine, she said, and she authorized him to
go to the post for the letter.
As Pitou on the farm ate and drank with his accustomed appetite Billet
did not suspect the treacherous part he was playing.
Consoled by the progress the girl made after the receipt of the beloved
letter, Pitou was enabled to proceed with his public work.
With the money Gilbert gave him, he equipped the Haramont National
Guards with new suits; this was for the ceremony of the Federation of
Villers Cotterets and other villages of the canton, to be held on a
following Sunday.
At this prospect of uniforms, the Guards assembled with their two
minstrels and gave their liberal leader a serenade, interspersed with
fire-crackers and cheers, among which was to be heard a voice or two,
slightly tipsy, shouting:
“Long live Pitou, the Hero of the People!”
Remembering the impression the Haramont National Guard had created when
they had hats alike, you can appreciate the justice in the roar of
admiration when they appeared in uniforms, and what a dashing air the
captain must have worn, with his little cap cocked over one ear, his
gorget shining on his breast, his catspaws, as the epaules were
irreverently called, and his sword.
Aunt Angelique could hardly identify her nephew who almost rode her down
on his white horse.
But he saluted her with a wave of the sword and left her crushed by the
honor.
Recalling that the tailor had boasted of the order which Pitou had paid,
she thought he had come home a millionaire.
“I must not quarrel with him,” she mumbled: “aunts inherit from
nephews.”
Alas! he had forgotten her by this time. Among the girls wearing
tricolored sashes and carrying green palm boughs, he recognized
Catherine. She was pale, her beauty more delicate, but Raynal had
fulfilled his word.
She was happy, for Pitou had managed to find a hollow tree where he
deposited letters for her to take them out in a stroll, and that morning
one was there.
Pitou came up and saluted her with his sword. He would have only touched
his hat for General Lafayette.
“How grand you look in your uniform,” she said loudly. “I thank you, my
dear Pitou,” she added in a voice for him alone; “how good you are. I
love you!”
She took his hand and pressed it in hers. Giddiness passed into poor
Pitou’s head; he dropped his hat from the free hand, and would have
fallen at her feet like the hat only for a great tumult with menacing
sounds being heard towards Soissons.
Whatever the cause, he profited by it to get out of the awkward
situation.
He disengaged his hand from Catherine’s, picked up his hat and put it on
as he ran to the head of his thirty-three men, shouting:
“To arms!”
It was an old enemy of his who was causing a block to the festivities.
Father Fortier had been designated to perform the office of celebrating
the Federation Mass on the Altar of the Country, for which the holy
vessels were to be carried from the church. The mayor, Longpre, was to
superintend the transfer. Like everybody he knew the schoolmaster’s
temper and thought he would not bear him good will for the part he took
in the turning over the muskets.
So, rather than face him, he had sent him an order in writing to be
present for the mass at ten.
At half past nine he sent his secretary to see how things looked. The
gentleman brought bad news. The church was locked up. The church
officials were all laid up with various complaints. It had the air of a
conspiracy.
At ten the crowd gathered and talked of beating in the church doors and
taking out the church plate.
As a conciliator, Longpre quieted them as well as he could and went to
knock at Fortier’s housedoor.
In the meantime he sent for the armed forces. The gendarmes officers
came up. They were attended by additions to the mob.
As they had no catapult to force the door, they summoned the locksmith.
But when he was going to insert a picklock, the door opened and Abbé
Fortier appeared, with fiery eye and hair bristling.
“Back,” he cried with a threatening gesture, “back, heretics, impious
relapsers! avaunt ye from the sill of the man of God!”
The murmur receiving his outburst was not flattering to him.
“Excuse me,” said the unctuous mayor, “but we only wanted to know
whether you would serve the mass on the altar of the country, or not?”
“Sanction revolt, rebellion and ingratitude,” yelled the holy man in one
of the fits of passion habitual to him: “curse virtue and bless sin? you
cannot have hoped it, mayor. I will not say your sacrilegous mass!”
“Very well; this is a free country now--you need not unless you like.”
“Free? ha, ha, ha!” and with a most exasperating laugh he was going to
slam the door in their faces when a man burst through the throng, pushed
the door nearly open again and all but overturned Fortier though he was
a stout man.
It was Billet.
There was profound silence as all divined that not two mere men, but two
forces were opposing each other.
Though Billet had displayed so much strength to open the door, he spoke
in a calm voice:
“Pardon me, mayor, but I think I heard you say that the father might say
the mass or not, at his pleasure? this is an error and it is no longer
the time when errors are allowed to flourish. Every man who is paid to
do work is bound to do it. You are paid by the country to say mass and
you shall say it.”
“Blasphemer, Manichean,” roared the priest.
“You ought to set the example of obedience and here you are doing the
other thing. If you are a citizen and a Frenchman, obey the nation.”
“Bravo, Billet!” cried the multitude. “To the altar, with the priest.”
Encouraged by the acclamations, Billet lugged out from his hall the
first priest who had given the signal for counter-revolution.
“I am a martyr,” groaned the priest, comprehending that resistance was
impossible in the farmer’s vigorous hands, “I call for martyrdom!” And
as he was hurried along he sang “Good Lord, deliver us!”
This crowd conducting him was the cause of the turbulence towards which
Pitou was marching his cohort. But on seeing the reason, he and
Catherine appealed to the farmer with the same voice.
Untouched, the latter carried the prize up to the altar where he let him
fall.
“I proclaim you unworthy to serve at this altar which you disdained,”
said Billet: “no man should go up these steps unless his head is filled
with these feelings, the desire of liberty, devotion to the country and
love of mankind. Priest, have you these sentiments? if so, go up boldly
and invoke our Maker. But if you do not feel you are the foremost of us
all as a citizen, give place to the more worthy, and be off!”
“Madman, you do not know what you are declaring war upon,” hissed the
priest, retiring with uplifted finger.
“I do know, if they are like you, vipers, foxes, wolves,” returned
Billet: “all that sneak and poison and tear in the shade. Come at me,
then--I can face ye, in the open!” he concluded, smiting his broad
chest.
During a silent moment the throng parted to let the priest skulk
through, and, closing, remained mute and admiring the vigorous man who
offered himself as target to the terrible power to which half the world
was enslaved at that era.
There was no longer mayor, town councilmen or gendarmes, only the Hero
of the People, Billet.
“But we have no priest now,” said Mayor Longpre.
“We do not want him,” replied Billet who had never been in church but
twice, for his wedding and his child’s baptism. “We will read the
Declaration of the Rights of Man from the altar. That is the Creed of
Liberty and the Gospel of the Future.”
Billet could not read but he had his manifesto by heart. When he had
finished and with a noble movement embraced the Law and the Sword by
taking the mayor’s and Pitou’s hands, the multitude appreciated the
grandeur of what they were doing in shouting:
“Long live the Nation!”
It was one of the scenes of which Gilbert had spoken to the Queen
without her understanding him.
From that time forward, France became one great family, with one heart
and one language.