The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI

She claimed the death of the ten other prisoners along with Suleau.

Through the door he heard her ringing voice, amid applause. He called the captain of the guard to him, and asked to be turned loose to the mob, that by his sacrifice he might save his fellow-prisoners. They did not believe he meant it. They refused to open the door to him, and he tried to jump out of the window, but they pulled him back. They did not think that they would be handed over to the slaughterers in cold blood; they were mistaken.

Intimidated by the yells, Chairman Bonjour yielded to Theroigne's demand, and bid the National Guardsman stand aloof from resisting the popular will. They stepped aside, and the door was left free. The mob burst into the jail and grabbed the first prisoner to hand.

It was a priest, Bonyon, a playwright noted for his failures and his epigrams. He was a large-built man, and fought desperately with the butchers, who tore him from the arms of the commissioner who tried to save him; though he had no weapon but his naked fists, he laid out two or three of the ruffians. A bayonet pinned him to the wall, so that he expired without being able to hit with his last blows.

Two of the prisoners managed to escape in the scuffle.

The next to the priest was an old Royal Guardsman, whose defense was not less vigorous; his death was but the more cruel. A third was cut to pieces before Suleau's turn came.

"There is your Suleau," said a woman to Theroigne.

She did not know him by sight; she thought he was a priest, and scoffed at him as the Abbe Suleau. Like a wild cat, she sprung at his throat. He was young, brave, and lusty; with a fist blow he sent her ten paces off, shook off the men who had seized him, and wrenching a saber from a hand, felled a couple of the assassins.

Then commenced a horrible conflict. Gaining ground toward the door, Suleau cut himself three times free; but he was obliged to turn round to get the cursed door open, and in that instant twenty blades ran through his body. He fell at the feet of Theroigne, who had the cruel joy of inflicting his last wound.

Another escaped, another stoutly resisted, but the rest were butchered like sheep. All the bodies were dragged to Vendome Place, where their heads were struck off and set on poles for a march through the town.

Thus, before the action, blood was spilled in two places; on the City Hall steps and in Feuillants' yard. We shall presently see it flow in the Tuileries; the brook after the rain-drops, the river after the brook.

While this massacre was being perpetrated, about nine A. M., some eleven thousand National Guards, gathered by the alarm-bell of Barbaroux and the drum-beat of Santerre, marched down the St. Antoine ward and came out on the Strand. They wanted the order to assail the Tuileries.

Made to wait for an hour, two stories beguiled them: either concessions were hoped from the court, or the St. Marceau ward was not ready, and they could not fall on without them.

A thousand pikemen waxed restless; as ever, the worst armed wanted to begin the fray. They broke through the ranks of the Guard, saying that they were going to do without them and take the palace.

Some of the Marseilles Federals and a few French Guards – of the same regiments which had stormed the Bastile three years before – took the lead and were acclaimed as chiefs. These were the vanguard of the insurrection.

In the meanwhile, the aid who had seen Mandat murdered had raced back to the Tuileries; but it was not till after the king and the queen had returned from the fiasco of a review that he announced the ghastly news.

The sound of a disturbance mounted to the first floor and entered by the open windows.

The City and the National Guards and the artillerists – the patriots, in short – had taunted the grenadiers with being the king's tools, saying that they were bought up by the court; and as they were ignorant of their commander's murder by the mob, a grenadier shouted:

"It looks as though that shuffler Mandat had sent few aristocrats here."

Mandat's eldest son was in the Guards' ranks – we know where the other boy was, uselessly trying to defend his father on the City Hall steps. At this insult to his absent sire, the young man sprung out of the line with his sword flourished. Three or four gunners rushed to meet him. Weber, the queen's attendant, was among the St. Roch district grenadiers, dressed as a National Guardsman. He flew to the young man's help. The clash of steel was heard as the quarrel spread between the two parties.

Drawn to the window by the noise, the queen perceived her foster-brother, and she sent the king's valet to bring him to her.

Weber came up and told what was happening, whereupon she acquainted him with the death of Mandat.

The uproar went on beneath the windows.

"The cannoniers are leaving their pieces," said Weber, looking out; "they have no spikes, but they have driven balls home without powder, so that they are rendered useless!"

"What do you think of all this?"

"I think your majesty had better consult Syndic Roederer, who seems the most honest man in the palace."

Roederer was brought before the queen in her private apartment as the clock struck nine.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE REPULSE

At this point, Captain Durler, of the Switzers, went up to the king to get orders from him or the major-general. The latter perceived the good captain as he was looking for some usher to introduce him.

"What do you want, captain?" he inquired.

"You, my Lord Charny, as you are the garrison commander. I want the final orders, as the head of the insurrectionary column appears on the Carrousel."

"You are not to let them force their way through, the king having decided to die in the midst of us."

"Rely on us, major-general," briefly replied Captain Durler, going back to his men with this order, which was their death-sentence.

As he said, the van of the rebels was in sight. It was the thousand pikemen, at the head of whom marched some twenty Marseilles men and fifteen French Guardsmen; in the ranks of the latter gleamed the bullion epaulets of a National Guards captain. This young officer was Ange Pitou, who had been recommended by Billet, and was charged with a mission of which we shall hear more.

Behind these, at a quarter-mile distance, came a considerable body of National Guards and Federals, preceded by a twelve-gun battery.

When the garrison commandant's order was transmitted to them, the Swiss fell silently into line and resolutely stood, with cold and gloomy firmness.

Less severely disciplined, the National Guards took up their post more disorderly and noisily, but with equal resolution.

The nobles, badly marshaled, and armed with striking weapons only, as swords or short-range pistols, and aware that the combat would be to the death, saw the moment approach with feverish glee when they could grapple with their ancient adversary, the people, the eternal athlete always thrown, but growing the stronger during eight centuries.

While the besieged were taking places, knocking was heard at the royal court-yard gate, and many voices shouting: "A flag of truce!" Over the wall at this spot was seen a white handkerchief tied to the tip of a pike-staff.

Roederer was on his way to the king when he saw this at the gate and ordered it to be opened. The janitor did so, and then ran off as fast as he could. Roederer confronted the foremost of the revolutionists.

"My friends," said he, "you wanted the gates open to a flag of truce, and not to an army. Who wants to hold the parley?"

"I am your man," said Pitou, with his sweet voice and bland smile.

"Who are you?"

"Captain Ange Pitou, of the Haramont Federal Volunteers."

Roederer did not know who the Haramont Federals were, but he judged it not worth while to inquire when time was so precious.

"What are you wanting?"

"I want way through for myself and my friends."

Pitou's friends, who were in rags, brandished their pikes, and looked with their savage eyes like dangerous enemies indeed.

"What do you want to go through here for?"