Chapter XLVII.

The Riot.

It was about eleven o’clock at night. Gondy had not walked a hundred

steps ere he perceived the strange change which had been made in the

streets of Paris.

The whole city seemed peopled with fantastic beings; silent shadows

were seen unpaving the streets and others dragging and upsetting great

wagons, whilst others again dug ditches large enough to ingulf whole

regiments of horsemen. These active beings flitted here and there like

so many demons completing some unknown labor; these were the beggars of

the Court of Miracles—the agents of the giver of holy water in the

Square of Saint Eustache, preparing barricades for the morrow.

Gondy gazed on these deeds of darkness, on these nocturnal laborers,

with a kind of fear; he asked himself, if, after having called forth

these foul creatures from their dens, he should have the power of

making them retire again. He felt almost inclined to cross himself when

one of these beings happened to approach him. He reached the Rue Saint

Honoré and went up it toward the Rue de la Ferronnerie; there the

aspect changed; here it was the tradesmen who were running from shop to

shop; their doors seemed closed like their shutters, but they were only

pushed to in such a manner as to open and allow the men, who seemed

fearful of showing what they carried, to enter, closing immediately.

These men were shopkeepers, who had arms to lend to those who had none.

One individual went from door to door, bending under the weight of

swords, guns, muskets and every kind of weapon, which he deposited as

fast as he could. By the light of a lantern the coadjutor recognized

Planchet.

The coadjutor proceeded onward to the quay by way of the Rue de la

Monnaie; there he found groups of bourgeois clad in black cloaks or

gray, according as they belonged to the upper or lower bourgeoisie.

They were standing motionless, while single men passed from one group

to another. All these cloaks, gray or black, were raised behind by the

point of a sword, or before by the barrel of an arquebuse or a musket.

On reaching the Pont Neuf the coadjutor found it strictly guarded and a

man approached him.

“Who are you?” asked the man. “I do not know you for one of us.”

“Then it is because you do not know your friends, my dear Monsieur

Louvières,” said the coadjutor, raising his hat.

Louvières recognized him and bowed.

Gondy continued his way and went as far as the Tour de Nesle. There he

saw a lengthy chain of people gliding under the walls. They might be

said to be a procession of ghosts, for they were all wrapped in white

cloaks. When they reached a certain spot these men appeared to be

annihilated, one after the other, as if the earth had opened under

their feet. Gondy, edged into a corner, saw them vanish from the first

until the last but one. The last raised his eyes, to ascertain,

doubtless, that neither his companions nor himself had been watched,

and, in spite of the darkness, he perceived Gondy. He walked straight

up to him and placed a pistol to his throat.

“Halloo! Monsieur de Rochefort,” said Gondy, laughing, “are you a boy

to play with firearms?”

Rochefort recognized the voice.

“Ah, it is you, my lord!” said he.

“The very same. What people are you leading thus into the bowels of the

earth?”

“My fifty recruits from the Chevalier d’Humières, who are destined to

enter the light cavalry and who have only received as yet for their

equipment their white cloaks.”

“And where are you going?”

“To the house of one of my friends, a sculptor, only we enter by the

trap through which he lets down his marble.”

“Very good,” said Gondy, shaking Rochefort by the hand, who descended

in his turn and closed the trap after him.

It was now one o’clock in the morning and the coadjutor returned home.

He opened a window and leaned out to listen. A strange,

incomprehensible, unearthly sound seemed to pervade the whole city; one

felt that something unusual and terrible was happening in all the

streets, now dark as ocean’s most unfathomable caves. From time to time

a dull sound was heard, like that of a rising tempest or a billow of

the sea; but nothing clear, nothing distinct, nothing intelligible; it

was like those mysterious subterraneous noises that precede an

earthquake.

The work of revolt continued the whole night thus. The next morning, on

awaking, Paris seemed to be startled at her own appearance. It was like

a besieged town. Armed men, shouldering muskets, watched over the

barricades with menacing looks; words of command, patrols, arrests,

executions, even, were encountered at every step. Those bearing plumed

hats and gold swords were stopped and made to cry, “Long live

Broussel!” “Down with Mazarin!” and whoever refused to comply with this

ceremony was hooted at, spat upon and even beaten. They had not yet

begun to slay, but it was well felt that the inclination to do so was

not wanting.

The barricades had been pushed as far as the Palais Royal. From the Rue

de Bons Enfants to that of the Ferronnerie, from the Rue Saint

Thomas-du-Louvre to the Pont Neuf, from the Rue Richelieu to the Porte

Saint Honoré, there were more than ten thousand armed men; those who

were at the front hurled defiance at the impassive sentinels of the

regiment of guards posted around the Palais Royal, the gates of which

were closed behind them, a precaution which made their situation

precarious. Among these thousands moved, in bands numbering from one

hundred to two hundred, pale and haggard men, clothed in rags, who bore

a sort of standard on which was inscribed these words: “BEHOLD THE

MISERY OF THE PEOPLE!” Wherever these men passed, frenzied cries were

heard; and there were so many of these bands that the cries were to be

heard in all directions.

The astonishment of Mazarin and of Anne of Austria was great when it

was announced to them that the city, which the previous evening they

had left entirely tranquil, had awakened to such feverish commotion;

nor would either the one or the other believe the reports that were

brought to them, declaring they would rather rely on the evidence of

their own eyes and ears. Then a window was opened and when they saw and

heard they were convinced.

Mazarin shrugged his shoulders and pretended to despise the populace;

but he turned visibly pale and ran to his closet, trembling all over,

locked up his gold and jewels in his caskets and put his finest

diamonds on his fingers. As for the queen, furious, and left to her own

guidance, she went for the Maréchal de la Meilleraie and desired him to

take as many men as he pleased and to go and see what was the meaning

of this pleasantry.

The marshal was ordinarily very adventurous and was wont to hesitate at

nothing; and he had that lofty contempt for the populace which army

officers usually profess. He took a hundred and fifty men and attempted

to go out by the Pont du Louvre, but there he met Rochefort and his

fifty horsemen, attended by more than five hundred men. The marshal

made no attempt to force that barrier and returned up the quay. But at

Pont Neuf he found Louvières and his bourgeois. This time the marshal

charged, but he was welcomed by musket shots, while stones fell like

hail from all the windows. He left there three men.

He beat a retreat toward the market, but there he met Planchet with his

halberdiers; their halberds were leveled at him threateningly. He

attempted to ride over those gray cloaks, but the gray cloaks held

their ground and the marshal retired toward the Rue Saint Honoré,

leaving four of his guards dead on the field of battle.

The marshal then entered the Rue Saint Honoré, but there he was opposed

by the barricades of the mendicant of Saint Eustache. They were

guarded, not only by armed men, but even by women and children. Master

Friquet, the owner of a pistol and of a sword which Louvières had given

him, had organized a company of rogues like himself and was making a

tremendous racket.

The marshal thought this barrier not so well fortified as the others

and determined to break through it. He dismounted twenty men to make a

breach in the barricade, whilst he and others, remaining on their

horses, were to protect the assailants. The twenty men marched straight

toward the barrier, but from behind the beams, from among the

wagon-wheels and from the heights of the rocks a terrible fusillade

burst forth and at the same time Planchet’s halberdiers appeared at the

corner of the Cemetery of the Innocents, and Louvières’s bourgeois at

the corner of the Rue de la Monnaie.

The Maréchal de la Meilleraie was caught between two fires, but he was

brave and made up his mind to die where he was. He returned blow for

blow and cries of pain began to be heard in the crowd. The guards, more

skillful, did greater execution; but the bourgeois, more numerous,

overwhelmed them with a veritable hurricane of iron. Men fell around

him as they had fallen at Rocroy or at Lerida. Fontrailles, his

aide-de-camp, had an arm broken; his horse had received a bullet in his

neck and he had difficulty in controlling him, maddened by pain. In

short, he had reached that supreme moment when the bravest feel a

shudder in their veins, when suddenly, in the direction of the Rue de

l’Arbre-Sec, the crowd opened, crying: “Long live the coadjutor!” and

Gondy, in surplice and cloak, appeared, moving tranquilly in the midst

of the fusillade and bestowing his benedictions to the right and left,

as undisturbed as if he were leading a procession of the _Fête Dieu_.

All fell to their knees. The marshal recognized him and hastened to

meet him.

“Get me out of this, in Heaven’s name!” he said, “or I shall leave my

carcass here and those of all my men.”

A great tumult arose, in the midst of which even the noise of thunder

could not have been heard. Gondy raised his hand and demanded silence.

All were still.

“My children,” he said, “this is the Maréchal de la Meilleraie, as to

whose intentions you have been deceived and who pledges himself, on

returning to the Louvre, to demand of the queen, in your name, our

Broussel’s release. You pledge yourself to that, marshal?” added Gondy,

turning to La Meilleraie.

“_Morbleu!_” cried the latter, “I should say that I do pledge myself to

it! I had no hope of getting off so easily.”

“He gives you his word of honor,” said Gondy.

The marshal raised his hand in token of assent.

“Long live the coadjutor!” cried the crowd. Some voices even added:

“Long live the marshal!” But all took up the cry in chorus: “Down with

Mazarin!”

The crowd gave place, the barricade was opened, and the marshal, with

the remnant of his company, retreated, preceded by Friquet and his

bandits, some of them making a presence of beating drums and others

imitating the sound of the trumpet. It was almost a triumphal

procession; only, behind the guards the barricades were closed again.

The marshal bit his fingers.

In the meantime, as we have said, Mazarin was in his closet, putting

his affairs in order. He called for D’Artagnan, but in the midst of

such tumult he little expected to see him, D’Artagnan not being on

service. In about ten minutes D’Artagnan appeared at the door, followed

by the inseparable Porthos.

“Ah, come in, come in, Monsieur d’Artagnan!” cried the cardinal, “and

welcome your friend too. But what is going on in this accursed Paris?”

“What is going on, my lord? nothing good,” replied D’Artagnan, shaking

his head. “The town is in open revolt, and just now, as I was crossing

the Rue Montorgueil with Monsieur du Vallon, who is here, and is your

humble servant, they wanted in spite of my uniform, or perhaps because

of my uniform, to make us cry ‘Long live Broussel!’ and must I tell

you, my lord what they wished us to cry as well?”

“Speak, speak.”

“‘Down with Mazarin!’ I’faith, the treasonable word is out.”

Mazarin smiled, but became very pale.

“And you did cry?” he asked.

“I’faith, no,” said D’Artagnan; “I was not in voice; Monsieur du Vallon

has a cold and did not cry either. Then, my lord——”

“Then what?” asked Mazarin.

“Look at my hat and cloak.”

And D’Artagnan displayed four gunshot holes in his cloak and two in his

beaver. As for Porthos’s coat, a blow from a halberd had cut it open on

the flank and a pistol shot had cut his feather in two.

“_Diavolo!_” said the cardinal, pensively gazing at the two friends

with lively admiration; “I should have cried, I should.”

At this moment the tumult was heard nearer.

Mazarin wiped his forehead and looked around him. He had a great desire

to go to the window, but he dared not.

“See what is going on, Monsieur D’Artagnan,” said he.

D’Artagnan went to the window with his habitual composure. “Oho!” said

he, “what is this? Maréchal de la Meilleraie returning without a

hat—Fontrailles with his arm in a sling—wounded guards—horses bleeding;

eh, then, what are the sentinels about? They are aiming—they are going

to fire!”

“They have received orders to fire on the people if the people approach

the Palais Royal!” exclaimed Mazarin.

“But if they fire, all is lost!” cried D’Artagnan.

“We have the gates.”

“The gates! to hold for five minutes—the gates, they will be torn down,

twisted into iron wire, ground to powder! God’s death, don’t fire!”

screamed D’Artagnan, throwing open the window.

In spite of this recommendation, which, owing to the noise, could

scarcely have been heard, two or three musket shots resounded,

succeeded by a terrible discharge. The balls might be heard peppering

the facade of the Palais Royal, and one of them, passing under

D’Artagnan’s arm, entered and broke a mirror, in which Porthos was

complacently admiring himself.

“Alack! alack!” cried the cardinal, “a Venetian glass!”

“Oh, my lord,” said D’Artagnan, quietly shutting the window, “it is not

worth while weeping yet, for probably an hour hence there will not be

one of your mirrors remaining in the Palais Royal, whether they be

Venetian or Parisian.”

“But what do you advise, then?” asked Mazarin, trembling.

“Eh, egad, to give up Broussel as they demand! What the devil do you

want with a member of the parliament? He is of no earthly use to

anybody.”

“And you, Monsieur du Vallon, is that your advice? What would you do?”

“I should give up Broussel,” said Porthos.

“Come, come with me, gentlemen!” exclaimed Mazarin. “I will go and

discuss the matter with the queen.”

He stopped at the end of the corridor and said:

“I can count upon you, gentlemen, can I not?”

“We do not give ourselves twice over,” said D’Artagnan; “we have given

ourselves to you; command, we shall obey.”

“Very well, then,” said Mazarin; “enter this cabinet and wait till I

come back.”

And turning off he entered the drawing-room by another door.