Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune

‘There is the Due d’Angeac,’ cried a fellow, pointing to a venerable old man, who was seated at the corner of the cart with an air of calm dignity; ‘I know him well, for I was his perruquier.’

‘His hair must be content with sawdust this morning, instead of powder,’ said another; and a rude laugh followed the ruffian jest.

‘See! mark that woman with the long dark hair – that is La Bretonville, the actress of the St. Martin.’

‘I have often seen her represent terror far more naturally,’ cried a fashionably dressed man, as he stared at the victim through his opera-glass.

‘Bah!’ replied his friend, ‘she despises her audience, voilà tout. Look, Henri, if that little girl beside her be not Lucille, of the Pantheon.’

‘Parbleu! so it is. Why, they’ll not leave a pirouette in the Grand Opera. Pauvre petite, what had you to do with politics?’

‘Her little feet ought to have saved her head any day.’

‘See how grim that old lady beside her looks; I’d swear she is more shocked at the company she’s thrown into than the fate that awaits her. I never saw a glance of prouder disdain than she has just bestowed on poor Lucille.’

‘That is the old Marquise d’Estelles, the very essence of our old nobility. They used to talk of their mésalliance with the Bourbons as the first misfortune of their house.’ ‘Pardi! they have lived to learn deeper sorrows.’ I had by this time discovered her they were speaking of, whom I recognised at once as the old marquise of the chapel of St. Blois. My hands nearly gave up their grasp as I gazed on those features, which so often I had seen fixed in prayer, and which now – a thought paler, perhaps – wore the self-same calm expression. With what intense agony I peered into the mass, to see if the little girl, her granddaughter, were with her; and, oh! the deep relief I felt as I saw nothing but strange faces on every side. It was terrible to feel, as my eyes ranged over that vast mass, where grief, and despair, and heart-sinking terror were depicted, that I should experience a spirit of joy and thankfulness; and yet I did so, and with my lips I uttered my gratitude that she was spared! But I had not time for many reflections like this; already the terrible business of the day had begun, and the prisoners were now descending from the cart, ranging themselves, as their names were called, in a line below the scaffold. With a few exceptions, they took their places in all the calm of seeming indifference. Death had long familiarised itself to their minds in a thousand shapes. Day by day they had seen the vacant places left by those led out to die, and if their sorrows had not rendered them careless of life, the world itself had grown distasteful to them. In some cases a spirit of proud scorn was manifested to the very last; and, strange inconsistency of human nature! the very men whose licentiousness and frivolity first evoked the terrible storm of popular fury, were the first to display the most chivalrous courage in the terrible face of the guillotine. Beautiful women, too, in all the pride of their loveliness, met the inhuman stare of that mob undismayed. Nor were these traits without their fruits. This noble spirit – this triumphant victory of the well born and the great – was a continual insult to the populace, who saw themselves defrauded of half their promised vengeance, and they learned that they might kill, but they could never humiliate them. In vain they dipped their hands in the red life-blood, and, holding up their dripping fingers, asked – ‘How did it differ from that of the people?’ Their hearts gave the lie to the taunt; for they witnessed instances of heroism, from grey hairs and tender womanhood, that would have shamed the proudest deeds of their new-born chivalry!

‘Charles Grégoire Courcelles!’ shouted out a deep voice from the scaffold.

‘That is my name,’ said a venerable-looking old gentleman, as he arose from his seat, adding, with a placid smile, ‘but for half a century my friends have called me the Duc de Riancourt.’

‘We have no dukes nor marquises; we know of no titles in France,’ replied the functionary. ‘All men are equal before the law.’

‘If it were so, my friend, you and I might change places; for you were my steward, and plundered my château.’

‘Down with the Royalist – away with the aristocrat!’ shouted a number of voices from the crowd.

‘Be a little patient, good people,’ said the old man, as he ascended the steps with some difficulty; ‘I was wounded in Canada, and have never yet recovered. I shall probably be better a few minutes hence.’

There was something of half simplicity in the careless way the words were uttered that hushed the multitude, and already some expressions of sympathy were heard; but as quickly the ribald insults of the hired ruffians of the Convention drowned these sounds, and ‘Down with the Royalist’ resounded on every side, while two officials assisted him to remove his stock and bare his throat. The commissary, advancing to the edge of the platform, and, as it were, addressing the people, read in a hurried, slurring kind of voice, something that purported to be the ground of the condemnation. But of this not a word could be heard. None cared to hear the ten-thousand-time told tale of suspected Royalism, nor would listen to the high-sounding declamation that proclaimed the virtuous zeal of the Government – their untiring energy – their glorious persistence in the cause of the people. The last words were as usual responded to with an echoing shout, and the cry of ‘Vive la République! rose from the great multitude.

‘Vive le Roi! cried the old man, with a voice heard high above the clamour; but the words were scarce out when the lips that uttered them were closed in death; so sudden was the act, that a cry burst forth from the mob, but whether in reprobation or in ecstasy I know not.

I will not follow the sad catalogue, wherein nobles, and peasants, priests, soldiers, actors, men of obscure fortune, and women of lofty station, succeeded each other, occupying for a brief minute every eye, and passing away for ever. Many ascended the platform without a word; some waved a farewell towards a distant quarter, where they suspected a friend to be; others spent their last moments in prayer, and died in the very act of supplication. All bore themselves with a noble and proud courage; and now some five or six alone remained of whose fate none seemed to guess the issue, since they had been taken from the Temple by some mistake, and were not included in the list of the commissary. There they sat, at the foot of the scaffold, speechless and stupefied – they looked as though it were matter of indifference to which side their steps should turn – to the gaol or the guillotine. Among these was the marquise, who alone preserved her proud self-possession, and sat in all her accustomed dignity; while close beside her an angry controversy was maintained as to their future destiny – the commissary firmly refusing to receive them for execution, and the delegate of the Temple, as he was styled, as flatly asserting that he would not reconduct them to prison. The populace soon grew interested in the dispute, and the most violent altercations arose among the partisans of each side of the question.

Meanwhile the commissary and his assistants prepared to depart. Already the massive drapery of red cloth was drawn over the guillotine, and every preparation made for withdrawing, when the mob, doubtless dissatisfied that they should be defrauded of any portion of the entertainment, began to climb over the wooden barricades, and, with furious cries and shouts, threaten vengeance upon any who would screen the enemies of the people.

The troops resisted the movement, but rather with the air of men entreating calmness than with the spirit of soldiery. It was plain to see on which side the true force lay.

‘If you will not do it, the people will do it for you,’ whispered the delegate to the commissary; ‘and who is to say where they will stop when their hands once learn the trick!’

The commissary grew lividly pale, and made no reply.

‘See there!’ rejoined the other – ‘they are carrying a fellow on their shoulders yonder – they mean him to be the executioner.’

‘But I dare not – I cannot – without my orders.’

‘Are not the people sovereign? – whose will have we sworn to obey but theirs?’

‘My own head would be the penalty if I yielded.’

‘It will be, if you resist – even now it is too late.’

And as he spoke he sprang from the scaffold, and disappeared in the dense crowd that already thronged the space within the rails.

By this time the populace were not only masters of the area around, but had also gained the scaffold itself, from which many of them seemed endeavouring to harangue the mob – others contenting themselves with imitating the gestures of the commissary and his functionaries. It was a scene of the wildest uproar and confusion – frantic cries and screams, ribald songs and fiendish yellings on every side. The guillotine was again uncovered, and the great crimson drapery, torn into fragments, was waved about like flags, or twisted into uncouth head-dresses. The commissary, failing in every attempt to restore order peaceably, and either not possessing a sufficient force, or distrusting the temper of the soldiers, descended from the scaffold, and gave the order to march. This act of submission was hailed by the mob with the most furious yell of triumph. Up to that very moment they had never credited the bare possibility of a victory; and now they saw themselves suddenly masters of the field – the troops, in all the array of horse and foot, retiring in discomfiture. The exultation knew no bounds; and, doubtless, had there been amongst them those with skill and daring to profit by the enthusiasm, the torrent had rushed a longer and more terrific course than through the blood-steeped clay of the Place de Grève.

‘Here is the man we want,’ shouted a deep voice. ‘St. Just told us t’ other day that the occasion never failed to produce one; and see, here is “Jean Gougon”; and though he’s but two feet high, his fingers can reach the pin of the guillotine.’

And he held aloft on his shoulders a misshapen dwarf, who was well known on the Pont Neuf, where he gained his living by singing infamous songs, and performing mockeries of the service of the mass. A cheer of welcome acknowledged this speech, to which the dwarf responded by a mock benediction, which he bestowed with all the ceremonious observance of an archbishop. Shouts of the wildest laughter followed this ribaldry, and in a kind of triumph they carried him up the steps, and deposited him on the scaffold.

Ascending one of the chairs, the little wretch proceeded to address the mob, which he did with all the ease and composure of a practised public speaker. Not a murmur was heard in that tumultuous assemblage, as he, with a most admirable imitation of Hébert, then the popular idol, assured them that France was, at that instant, the envy of surrounding nations; and that, bating certain little weaknesses on the score of humanity – certain traits of softness and over-mercy – her citizens realised all that ever had been said of angels. From thence he passed on to a mimicry of Marat, of Danton, and of Robespierre – tearing off his cravat, baring his breast, and performing all the oft-exhibited antics of the latter, as he vociferated, in a wild scream, the well-known peroration of a speech he had lately made – ‘If we look for a glorious morrow of freedom, the sun of our slavery must set in blood!’

However amused by the dwarfs exhibition, a feeling of impatience began to manifest itself among the mob, who felt that, by any longer delay, it was possible time would be given for fresh troops to arrive, and the glorious opportunity of popular sovereignty be lost in the very hour of victory.

‘To work – to work, Master Gougon!’ shouted hundreds of rude voices; ‘we cannot spend our day in listening to oratory.’

‘You forget, my dear friends,’ said he blandly, ‘that this is to me a new walk in life. I have much to learn, ere I can acquit myself worthily to the Republic.’

‘We have no leisure for preparatory studies, Gougon,’ cried a fellow below the scaffold.

‘Let me, then, just begin with monsieur,’ said the dwarf, pointing to the last speaker, and a shout of laughter closed the sentence.

A brief and angry dispute now arose as to what was to be done; and it is more than doubtful how the debate might have ended, when Gougon, with a readiness all his own, concluded the discussion by saying —

‘I have it, citizens, I have it! There is a lady here, who, however respectable her family and connections, will leave few to mourn her loss. She is, in a manner, public property, and if not born on the soil, at least a naturalised Frenchwoman. We have done a great deal for her, and in her name, for some time back, and I am not aware of any singular benefit she has rendered us. With your permission, then, I ‘ll begin with her.*

‘Name, name – name her!’ was cried by thousands.

‘La voilà,’ said he archly, as he pointed with his thumb to the wooden effigy of Liberty above his head.

The absurdity of the suggestion was more than enough for its success. A dozen hands were speedily at work, and down came the goddess of Liberty! The other details of an execution were hurried over with all the speed of practised address, and the figure was placed beneath the drop. Down fell the axe, and Gougon, lifting up the wooden head, paraded it about the scaffold, crying —

‘Behold! an enemy of France. Long live the Republic, one and indivisible!’

Loud and wild were the shouts of laughter from this brutal mockery; and for a time it almost seemed as if the ribaldry had turned the mob from the sterner passions of their vengeance. This hope, if one there ever cherished it, was short-lived, and again the cry arose for blood. It was too plain that no momentary diversion, no passing distraction, could withdraw them from that lust for cruelty that had now grown into a passion.

And now a bustle and movement of those around the stairs showed that something was in preparation; and in the next moment the old marquise was led forward between two men.

‘Where is the order for this woman’s execution?’ asked the dwarf, mimicking the style and air of the commissary.

‘We give it – it is from us!’ shouted the mob, with one savage roar.

Gougon removed his cap, and bowed in token of obedience.

‘Let us proceed in order, citizens,’ said he gravely; ‘I see no priest here.’

‘Shrive her yourself, Gougon; few know the mummeries better!’ cried a voice.