Stray Pearls: Memoirs of Margaret De Ribaumont, Viscountess of Bellaise

‘And who told my Lady Carlisle?’ demanded Mademoiselle with some archness; whereupon Queen Henrietta became very curious to know whether the handsome Duke of Beaufort were, after his foolish fashion, in the crowd, making himself agreeable to the ladies of the market-place.

Trumpets, however, sounded, and all rose from their seats, as up the nave swept Queen Anne, her black mantilla descending over her fair hair from a little diamond crown, her dress—white satin—with a huge long blue velvet train worked with gold fleurs-de-lys, supported by four pair of little pages in white satin. Most regal did she look, leading by the hand the little Duke of Anjou; while the young King, who was now old enough to form the climax of the procession, marched next after in blue and gold, holding his plumed hat in his hand, and bowing right and left with all his royal courtesy and grace, his beautiful fair hair on his shoulders, shining with the sun. And there was my little Marquis among the boys, who immediately followed him in all his bright beauty and grace.

Most glorious was the High Mass that followed. Officer after officer marched up and laid standard after standard before the Altar, heavy with German blazonry, or with the red and gold stripes of Aragon, the embattled castles of Castille, till they amounted to seventy-three. It must have been strange to the Spanish Queen to rejoice over these as they lay piled in a gorgeous heap before the high Altar, here and there one dim with weather or stained with blood. The peals of the Te Deum from a thousand voices were unspeakably magnificent, and yet through them all it seemed to me that I heard the wail not only of the multitudes of widowed wives and sonless parents, but of the poor peasants of all the nation, crying aloud to Heaven for the bread which they were forbidden to eat, when they had toiled for it in the sweat of their brow. Yes, and which I was not permitted to let them enjoy!

Ah! which did the Almighty listen to? To the praise, or to the mourning, lamentation, and woe? You have often wondered, my children, that I absented myself from the Te Deums of victory while we had them. Now you know the reason.

And then I knew that all this display was only an excuse under which the Queen hid her real design of crushing all opposition to her will. She wanted to commit an injustice, and silence all appeals against it, so that the poor might be more and more ground down! How strange in the woman whom I had seen bearing patiently, nay, joyfully, with the murmurs of the faggot-seller in the hospital! Truly she knew not what she did!

As she left the Cathedral, and passed M. de Comminges, a lieutenant of her Guards, she said: ‘Go, and Heaven be with you.’

I was soon at home safely with my boys, to carry an account of our doings to my dear little M. d’Aubepine, who, unable to bear the fatigue and the crush of Notre Dame, had taken her little children to a Mass of thanksgiving celebrated by our good Abbe at the nearest Church.

We waited long and long for the others to come. I was not uneasy for my mother, who was with the Queen; but the servants brought reports that the canaille had risen, and that the streets were in wild confusion. We could see nothing, and only heard wild shouts from time to time. What could have become of Eustace and Annora? My mother would have been afraid that with their wild English notions they had rushed into something most unsuitable to a French demoiselle, and I was afraid for Eustace, if they were involved in any crowd or confusion, for his strength was far from being equal to his spirit. We watched, sure that we heard cries and shouts in the distance, the roar of the populace, such as I remembered on that wedding day, but sharper and shriller, as French voices are in a different key from the English roar and growl.

It passed, however, and there was long silence. Gaspard and Armantine stood at the window, and at last, as evening twilight fell, cried out that a carriage was coming in at the porte cochere. Presently Annora ran into the room, all in a glow, and Eustace followed more slowly.

‘Have you been frightened?’ she cried. ‘Oh, we have had such an adventure! If they had not screamed and shrieked like peacocks, or furies, I could have thought myself in England.’

‘Alack! that a tumult should seem like home to you, sister,’ said Eustace gravely.

Then they told how at the ambassador’s chapel they had heard that good Lady Fanshawe, whom they had known in England, had arrived sick and sad, after the loss of a young child. They determined, therefore, to steal away from Notre Dame before the ceremony was over, and go to see whether anything could be done for her. They could not, however, get out so quickly as they expected, and they were in the Rue de Marmousets when they saw surging towards them a tremendous crowd, shouting, screeching, shrieking, roaring, trying to stop a carriage which was being urged on with six horses, with the royal guards trying to force their way. Eustace, afraid of his sister being swept from him, looked for some escape, but the mob went faster than they could do; and they might soon have been involved in it and trampled down. There seemed no opening in the tall houses, when suddenly a little door opened close to them, and there was a cry of surprise; a hand was put out.

‘You here! Nay, pardon me, Mademoiselle; take my arm.’

Clement Darpent was there. A few steps more, and taking out a small key, he fitted it into the same little door, and led them into a dark passage, then up a stair, into a large room, simply furnished, and one end almost like an oratory. Here, looking anxiously from the window, was an old lady in a plain black dress and black silk hood, with a white apron and keys at her girdle.

‘My mother,’ said Clement, ‘this gentleman and lady, M. le Baron de Ribaumont and Mademoiselle sa soeur, have become involved in this crowd. They will do us the favour of taking shelter here till the uproar is over.’

Madame Darpent welcomed them kindly, but with anxious inquiries. Her son only threw her a word in answer, prayed to be excused, and dashed off again.

‘Ah! there he is. May he be saved, the good old man,’ cried Madame Darpent.

And they could see a carriage with four horses containing the Lieutenant Comminges holding a white-haired old man, in a very shabby dressing-gown; while soldiers, men, women, boys, all struggled, fought, and shrieked round it, like the furies let loose. The carriage passed on, but the noise and struggle continued, and Madame Darpent was soon intensely anxious about her son.

It seemed that Clement had carried his warnings, and that four or five of the councillors had taken care to be beyond the walls of Paris; among them his own father, the Councillor Darpent, who was a prudent man, and thought it best to be on the right side. The President Broussel, a good-humoured, simple, hearty old man, was not quite well, and though he thanked his young friend, he would not believe any such harm was intended against him as to make him derange his course of medicine.

Thus, when Comminges marched into the house to arrest him, he was sitting at dinner, eating his bouillon, in dressing-gown and slippers. His daughter cried out that he was not fit to leave the house. At the same time, an old maid-servant put her head out at a window, screaming that her master was going to be carried off.

He was much beloved, and a host of people ran together, trying to break the carriage and cut the traces. Comminges, seeing that no time was to be lost, forced the poor old lawyer down to the carriage just as he was, in his dressing-gown and slippers, and drove off. But the mob thickened every moment, in spite of the guards, and a very few yards beyond where they had taken refuge at Madame Darpent’s, a large wooden bench had been thrown across the street, and the uproar redoubled round it—the yells, shrieks, and cries ringing all down the road. However, the carriage passed that, and dashed on, throwing down and crushing people right and left; so that Madame Darpent was first in terror for her son, and then would fain have rushed out to help the limping, crying sufferers.

They heard another horrible outcry, but could see no more, except the fluctuating heads of the throng below them, and loud yells, howls, and maledictions came to their ears. By and by, however, Clement returned, having lost his hat in the crowd; with blood on his collar, and with one of his lace cuffs torn, though he said he was not hurt.

‘They have him!’ he said bitterly; ‘the tyranny has succeeded!’

‘Oh, hush, my son! Take care!’ cried his mother.

‘M. le Baron and I understand one another, Madame,’ he said, smiling.

He went on to tell that the carriage had been overturned on the Quai des Orfevres, just opposite the hotel of the First President. Comminges sprang out, sword in hand, drove back the crowd, who would have helped out Broussel, and shouted for the soldiers, some of whom kept back those who would have succoured the prisoner with their drawn swords. Clement himself had been slightly touched, but was forced back in the scuffle; while the good old man called out to him not to let any one be hurt on his behalf.

Other soldiers were meantime seizing a passing carriage, and taking out a poor lady who occupied it. Before it could be brought near, the raging crowd had brought axes and hacked it to pieces. Comminges and his soldiers, well-armed, still dragged their victim along till a troop of the Queen’s guards came up with another carriage, in which the poor old President was finally carried off.

‘And this is what we have to submit to from a Spaniard and an Italian!’ cried Clement Darpent.

He had come back to reassure his mother and his guests, but the tumult was raging higher than ever. The crowd had surrounded the Tuileries, filling the air with shouts of ‘Broussel! Broussel!’ and threatening to tear down the doors and break in, overwhelming the guards. Eustace and his host went out again, and presently reported that the Marshal de Meileraye had been half killed, but had been rescued by the Coadjutor, who was giving the people all manner of promises. This was verified by shouts of ‘Vive le Roi!’ and by and by the crowd came past once more, surrounding the carriage, on the top of which was seated the Coadjutor, in his violet robes, but with his skull cap away, and his cheek bleeding from the blow of a stone. He was haranguing, gesticulating, blessing, doing all in his power to pacify the crowd, and with the hope of the release of the councilors all was quieting down; and Clement, after reconnoitering, thought it safe to order the carriage to take home his guests.

‘No one can describe,’ said my sister, ‘how good and sweet Madame was, though she looked so like a Puritan dame. Her face was so wonderfully calm and noble, like some grand old saint in a picture; and it lighted up so whenever her son came near her, I wanted to ask her blessing! And I think she gave it inwardly. She curtsied, and would have kissed my hand, as being only bourgeois, while I was noble; but I told her I would have no such folly, and I made her give me a good motherly embrace!’

‘I hope she gave you something to eat,’ I said, laughing.

‘Oh, yes; we had an excellent meal. She made us eat before sending us home, soup, and ragout, and chocolate—excellent chocolate. She had it brought as soon as possible, because Eustace looked so pale and tired. Oh, Meg! She is the very best creature I have seen in France. Your Rambouillets are nothing to her! I hope I may see her often again!’

And while Eustace marveled if this were a passing tumult or the beginning of a civil war, my most immediate wonder was what my mother would say to this adventure.

CHAPTER XVI. – THE BARRICADES

My mother did not come home till the evening, when the streets had become tolerably quiet. She had a strange account to give, for she had been at the palace all the time in attendance on Queen Henrietta, who tried in vain to impress her sister-in-law with a sense that the matter was serious. Queen Anne of Austria was too proud to believe that a parliament and a mob could do any damage to the throne of France, whatever they might effect in England.

There she sat in her grand cabinet, and with her were the Cardinal, the Duke of Longueville, and many other gentlemen, especially Messieurs de Nogent and de Beautru, who were the wits, if not the buffoons of the Court, and who turned all the reports they heard into ridicule. The Queen-Regent smiled in her haughty way, but the Queen of England laid her hand sadly on my mother’s arm and said, ‘Alas, my dear friend, was it not thus that once we laughed?’

Presently in came Marshal de la Meilleraye and the Coadjutor, and their faces and gestures showed plainly that they were seriously alarmed; but M. de Beautru, nothing daunted, turned to the Regent, saying, ‘How ill Her Majesty must be, since M. le Coadjutor is come to bring her extreme unction,’ whereupon there was another great burst of applause and laughter.

The Coadjutor pretended not to hear, and addressing the Queen told her that he had come to offer his services to her at a moment of pressing danger. Anne of Austria only vouchsafed a little nod with her head, by way at once of thanks, and showing how officious and superfluous she thought him, while Nogent and Beautru continued to mimic the dismay of poor Broussel, seized in his dressing-gown and slippers, and the shrieks of his old housekeeper from the window. ‘Did no one silence them for being so unmanly?’ cried Annora, as she heard this.

‘Child, thou art foolish!’ said my mother with dignity. ‘Why should the resistance of canaille like that be observed at all, save to make sport?’

For my poor mother, since she had been dipped again into the Court atmosphere, had learned to look on whatever was not noble, as not of the same nature with herself. However, she said that Marshal de la Meilleraye, a thorough soldier, broke in by assuring the Queen that the populace were in arms, howling for Broussel, and the Coadjutor began to describe the fierce tumult through which he had made his way, but the Cardinal only gave his dainty provoking Italian smile, and the Queen-Regent proudly affirmed that there neither was nor could be a revolt.

‘We know,’ added Mazarin, in his blandest tone of irony, ‘that M. le Coadjuteur is so devoted to the Court, and so solicitous for his flock, that a little over-anxiety must be pardoned to him!’

This was while shouts of ‘BROUSSEL! BROUSSEL!’ were echoing through the palace, and in a few moments came the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Guards to say that the populace were threatening to overpower the soldiers at the gates; and next came the Chancellor, nearly frightened out of his wits, saying that he had seen the people howling like a pack of wolves, carrying all sorts of strange weapons, and ready to force their way in. Then old Monsieur Guitauet, the Colonel of the Guards, declared ‘that the old rogue Broussel must be surrendered, dead or alive.’

‘The former step would not be accordant with the Queen’s piety nor her justice,’ broke in the Coadjutor; ‘the second might stop the tumult.’

‘I understand you, M. le Coadjuteur,’ broke out the Queen. ‘You want me to set Broussel at liberty. I would rather strangle him with my own hands, and those who—’

And she held those plump white hands of hers almost close to the Archbishop’s face, as if she were ready to do it, but Cardinal Mazarin whispered something in her ear which made her less violent, and the next moment the lieutenant of police came in, with such a terrific account of the fury of the mob and their numbers, that there was no more incredulity; it was plain that there was really a most frightful uproar, and both the Regent and the Cardinal entreated the Coadjutor to go down and pacify the people by promises. He tried to obtain from the Queen some written promise.

‘He was right,’ said Eustace.

‘Right!’ cried my mother. ‘What! to seek to bind Her Majesty down by written words, like a base mechanical bourgeois? I am ashamed of you, my son! No, indeed, we all cried out upon him, Archbishop though he were, and told him that Her Majesty’s word was worth ten thousand bonds.’

‘May it be so proved!’ muttered Eustace, while my mother went on to describe how the Coadjutor was pressed, pushed, and almost dragged down the great stair-case to speak to the infuriated people who were yelling and shrieking outside the court. Monsieur de Meilleraye went before him, backed by all the light horse drawn up in the court, and mounting his horse, drew his sword crying, ‘Vive le Roi! Liberty for Broussel!’ he was met by a cry of ‘To arms, to arms!’ and there was a rush against him, some trying to pull him off his horse, and one attacking him with a rusty old sword. The Marshal fired at him and he fell, severely wounded, just as the Coadjutor came down, and seeing him lying in the gutter like one dead, knelt down by him, heard his confession, and absolved him.

(It was afterwards said that the man was a pick-lock, but we always suspected that the Coadjutor had made the worst of him by way of enhancing a good story.)

Just as the absolution was finished, some more of the mob came up, and one threw a stone which hit the Archbishop on the cheek, and another pointed a musket at him. ‘Unhappy man,’ he cried, ‘if your father saw you!’ This seemed to touch the man; he cried: ‘Vive le Coadjuteur!’ And so easily were the people swayed, that they all began to applaud him to the skies, and he led them off to the market-place.