BILLOT still walked on, but it was no longer he who shouted. The crowd, delighted with his martial air, recognized in this man one of their own class. Commenting on his words and action, they followed him, still increasing like the waves of the incoming tide.
Behind Billot, when he issued from the narrow streets and came upon the Quay St. Michel, marched more than three thousand men, armed with cutlasses or pikes or guns.
They all cried, “To the Bastille! to the Bastille!”
Billot counselled with his own thoughts. The reflections which we made at the close of the last chapter presented themselves to his mind, and by degrees all the fumes of his feverish excitement evaporated.
Then he saw clearly into his own mind.
The enterprise was sublime, but insensate. This was easily to be understood from the affrighted and ironical countenances on which were reflected the impressions produced by the cry of “To the Bastille!” But nevertheless he was only the more strengthened in his resolution.
He could not, however, but comprehend that he was responsible to mothers, wives, and children for the lives of the men who were following him, and he felt bound to use every possible precaution.
Billot, therefore, began by leading his little army on to the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville.
There he appointed his lieutenant and other officers—watch-dogs—to restrain the flock.
“Let us see,” thought Billot, “there is a power in France,—there are even two,—there are even three. Let us consult.”
He entered the Hôtel de Ville, asking who was the chief of the municipality.
He was told it was the Provost of the Merchants, the mayor of Paris, Monsieur de Flesselles.
“Ah, ah!” cried he, with a dissatisfied air. “Monsieur de Flesselles, a noble, that is to say, an enemy of the people.”
“Why no,” they replied to him; “he is a man of talent.”
Billot ascended the staircase of the Hôtel de Ville.
In the ante-chamber he met an usher.
“I wish to speak with Monsieur Flesselles,” said he, perceiving that the usher was approaching him to ask him what he wanted.
“Impossible!” replied the usher; “he is now occupied in drawing up the lists of a militia force which the city is about to organize.”
“That falls out marvellously well,” observed Billot, “for I also am organizing a militia, and as I have already three thousand men enlisted, I am as good as Monsieur de Flesselles, who has not a single soldier yet afoot. Enable me, therefore, to speak with Monsieur de Flesselles, and that instantly. Oh, look out of the window, if you will!”
The usher had, in fact, cast a rapid glance upon the quays, and had perceived Billot's men. He therefore hastened to inform the mayor, to whom he showed the three thousand men in question, as a postscript to his message.
This inspired the provost with a sort of respect for the person who wished to see him: he left the council-room and went into the ante-chamber, looking about for his visitor.
He perceived Billot, guessed that he was the person, and smiled.
“It was you who were asking for me, was it not?” said he.
“You are Monsieur de Flesselles, Provost of the Merchants, I believe?” replied Billot.
“Yes, sir. In what way, may I ask, can I be of service to you? Only speak quickly, for my mind is much occupied.”
“Good Monsieur Provost,” continued Billot, “how many powers are there in France?”
“Why, that is as people may choose to understand it, my dear sir,” replied Flesselles.
“Say it, then, as you yourself understand it.”
“Were you to consult Monsieur Bailly, he would tell you there is but one, the National Assembly; if you consult Monsieur de Dreux Brézé, he would also tell you there is but one—the king.”
“And you, Monsieur Provost,—of these two opinions, which is yours?”
“My own opinion, and above all at the present moment, is, that there is but one.”
“The assembly, or the king?” demanded Billot
“Neither the one nor the other; it is the nation,” replied Flesselles, playing with the frill of his shirt.
“Ah! ah! the nation!” cried the farmer.
“Yes; that is to say, those gentlemen who are waiting down yonder on the quay with knives and roasting-spits. The nation,—by that I mean everybody.”
“You may perhaps be right, Monsieur de Flesselles,” replied Billot, “and they were not wrong in telling me that you are a man of talent.”
“To which of these three powers do you think of appealing, sir?” asked Flesselles.
“Upon my faith,” said Billot, “I believe that when one has anything very important to ask, a man had better address himself at once to God and not to his saints.”
“Which means to say that you are about to address yourself to the king.”
“Would it be indiscreet to inquire what it is you think of asking of the king?”
“The liberation of Doctor Gilbert, who is in the Bastille.”
“Doctor Gilbert?” solemnly asked Monsieur de Flesselles; “he is a writer of pamphlets, is he not?”
“That is one and the same thing, my dear Monsieur Billot. I think you stand but a poor chance of obtaining what you desire from the king.”
“In the first place, because, if the king sent Doctor Gilbert to the Bastille he must have had reasons for so doing.”
“'Tis well,” replied Billot; “he shall give me his reasons on the subject, and I will give him mine.”
“My dear Monsieur Billot, the king is just now very busy, and he would not even receive you.”
“Oh, if he does not receive me, I shall find some means of getting in without his permission!”
“Yes; and when you have once got in, you will find there Monsieur de Dreux Brézé, who will have you shoved out of doors.”
“Who will have me shoved out of doors?”
“Yes; he wished to do that to the National Assembly altogether. It is true that he did not succeed; but that is a stronger reason for his being in a furious rage, and taking his revenge on you.”
“Very well; then I will apply to the Assembly.”
“The road to Versailles is intercepted.”
“I will go there with my three thousand men.”
“Take care, my dear sir. You would find on your road some four or five thousand Swiss soldiers and two or three thousand Austrians, who would make only a mouthful of you and your three thousand men. In the twinkling of an eye you would be swallowed.”
“Ah! the devil! What ought I to do, then?”
“Do what you please; but do me the service to take away your three thousand men who are beating the pavement yonder with their pikes, and who are smoking. There are seven or eight thousand pounds of powder in our cellars here. A single spark might blow us all up.”
“In that case, I think, I will neither address myself to the King nor to the National Assembly. I will address myself to the nation, and we will take the Bastille.”
“With the eight thousand pounds of powder that you are going to give me, Monsieur Provost.”
“Ah, really!” said Flesselles, in a jeering tone.
“It is precisely as I say, sir. The keys of the cellars, if you please.”
“Hey! you are jesting, sure!” cried the provost.
“No, sir, I am not jesting,” said Billot.
And seizing Flesselles by the collar of his coat with both hands,—“The keys,” cried he, “or I call up my men.”
Flesselles turned as pale as death. His lips and his teeth were closed convulsively; but when he spoke, his voice was in no way agitated, and he did not even change the ironical tone he had assumed.
“In fact, sir,” said he, “you are doing me a great service by relieving me from the charge of this powder. I will therefore order the keys to be delivered to you, as you desire. Only please not to forget that I am your first magistrate, and that if you have the misfortune to conduct yourself towards me before others in the way you have done when alone with me, an hour afterwards you would be hanged by the town guards. You insist on having this powder?”
“And you will distribute it yourself?”
“Your pardon. Let us understand each other. I have business which will detain me here about a quarter of an hour, and should rather like, if it is the same to you, that the distribution should not be commenced until I have left the place. It has been predicted to me that I shall die a violent death; but I acknowledge that I have a very decided repugnance to being blown into the air.”
“Be it so. In a quarter of an hour, then. But now, in my turn, I have a request to make.”
“Let us both go close up to that window.”
“I am greatly obliged; but in what manner?”
Billot took the provost to the window, which was open, and called out to his friends in the square below.
“My friends,” said he, “you still wish to take the Bastille, do you not?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” shouted three or four thousand voices.
“But you want gunpowder, do you not?”
“Well, then, here is his honor the provost, who is willing to give us all he has in the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville. Thank him for it, my friends.”
“Long live the Provost of the Merchants! Long live Monsieur de Flesselles!” shouted the whole crowd.
“Thanks, my friends: thanks for myself, thanks for him,” cried Billot.
Then, turning towards the provost:—
“And now, sir,” said Billot, “it is no longer necessary that I should take you by the collar, while here alone with you, or before all the world; for if you do not give me the gunpowder, the nation, as you call it, the nation will tear you to pieces.”
“Here are the keys, sir,” said the provost. “You have so persuasive a mode of asking, that it does not even admit a refusal.”
“What you say really encourages me,” said Billot, who appeared to be meditating some other project.
“Ah, the deuce! Can you have anything else to ask of me?”
“Yes. Are you acquainted with the governor of the
“I do not know what his name is.”
“Be it so. Well, do you know Monsieur de Launay?”
“In that case, you must desire that no misfortune should happen to him.”
“In fact, I should desire it.”
“Well, then, the way to prevent any misfortune happening to him is, that he should surrender the Bastille to me, or, at all events, liberate the doctor.”
“You do not imagine, surely, that I should have influence enough with him to induce him to surrender to you either his prisoner or his fortress, do you?”
“That is my affair. All that I ask is, that you will give me an introduction to him.”
“My dear Monsieur Billot, I forewarn you that if you go into the Bastille you will go into it alone.”
“I forewarn you, moreover, that if you enter it alone you will perhaps not get out again.”
“Then I will give you your permission to go into the Bastille.”
“But it will be on still another condition.”
“It is that you will not come to me again to-morrow and ask for a passport to the moon. I forewarn you that I am not acquainted with any one in those regions.”
“Flesselles! Flesselles!” said a hollow and threatening voice from behind the Provost of the Merchants, “if you continue to wear two faces,—the one which laughs with the aristocrats, the other which smiles upon the people,—you will perhaps receive between this and tomorrow morning a passport for a world from which no one returns.”
The provost turned round, shuddering.
“Who is it that speaks thus?” said he.
“Marat, the philosopher! Marat, the physician!” exclaimed Billot.
“Yes,” replied the same voice.
“Yes, Marat, the philosopher; Marat, the physician,” repeated Flesselles; “who in this last capacity ought to attend to curing lunatics, which would have been a sure means of now having a goodly number of patients.”
“Monsieur de Flesselles,” replied the lugubrious interlocutor, “this worthy citizen has asked you for a passport which will facilitate his seeing Monsieur de Launay. I would observe to you, that not only is he waiting for you, but that three thousand men are waiting for him.”
“'Tis well, sir; he shall soon have it.”
Flesselles went to a table, passed one hand over his brow, and with the other seizing a pen, he rapidly wrote several lines.
“Here is your safe-conduct,” said he, delivering the paper to Billot.
“Well, then, give it to me; I can read.”
Billot handed the paper to Marat.
This passport was conceived in the following terms:
M. GOVERNOR,—We, Provost of the Merchants of the city of Paris, send to you M. Billot, in order to concert with you as to the interests of the said city.
DE FLESSELLES.
“Good!” said Billot, “give it to me.”
“You find this passport good as it is?” said Marat.
“Stop a minute. The provost is going to add a postscript to it, which will make it better.”
And he went up to Flesselles, who had remained standing, his hand on the table, and who looked with a disdainful air at the two men with whom he was so particularly engaged, and at a third one, half naked, who had just presented himself at the door, leaning upon a musketoon.
It was Pitou, who had followed Billot, and who held himself ready to obey the farmer's orders, be they what they might.
“Sir,” said Marat to Flesselles, “the postscript which you are about to add, and which will render the passport so much better, is the following:”
Marat placed the paper on the table, and, pointing with his finger to the place on which the provost was to write the required postscript:—
“The citizen Billot,” said he, “having the character of bearer of a flag of truce, I confide his care to your honor.”
Flesselles looked at Marat, as if he would rather have smashed his flat face with his fist than do that which he had requested.
“Would you resist, sir?” demanded Marat.
“No,” replied Flesselles, “for, after all, you only ask me what is strictly right.”
And he wrote the postscript demanded of him.
“However, gentlemen, you will be pleased to observe this well, that I do not answer for the safety of Monsieur Billot.”
“And I—I will be answerable for it,” said Marat, jerking the paper out of his hands; “for your liberty is the guarantee of his liberty,—your head for the safety of his head. Here, worthy Billot,” continued Marat, “here is your passport.”
“Labrie!” cried M. de Flesselles,—“Labrie!”
A lackey in grand livery entered the room.
“My carriage,” said the provost.
“It is waiting for you, sir, in the courtyard.”
“Let us go, then,” said the provost. “ There is nothing else which you desire, gentlemen?”
“No,” simultaneously replied Billot and Marat.
“Am I to let them pass?” inquired Pitou.
“My friend,” said Flesselles to him, “I would observe to you that you are rather too indecently attired to mount guard at my door. If you insist upon remaining here, turn your cartouche-box round in front, and set your back against the wall.”
“Am I to let them pass?” Pitou repeated, with an air which indicated that he did not greatly relish the jest of which he had been the subject.
Pitou made way for the provost to pass by him.
“Perhaps you were wrong in allowing that man to go,” said Marat. “He would have been a good hostage to have kept. But, in any case, let him go where he will, you may feel perfectly assured that I will find him again.”
“Labrie,” said the Provost of the Merchants, as he was getting into his carriage, “they are going to distribute powder here. Should the Hôtel de Ville perchance blow up, I should like to be out of the way of the splinters. Let us get out of gunshot, Labrie,—out of gunshot.”
The carriage rattled through the gateway, and appeared upon the square, on which were growling some four or five thousand persons.
Flesselles was afraid that they might misinterpret his departure, which might be considered as a flight.
He leaned half-way out of the door.
“To the National Assembly,” cried he, in a loud voice to the coachman.
This drew upon him from the crowd a loud and continued outburst of applause.
Marat and Billot were on the balcony, and had heard the last words of Flesselles.
“My head against his,” said Marat, “that he is not going to the National Assembly, but to the king.”
“Would it not be well to have him stopped?” said Billot.
“No,” replied Marat, with his hideous smile; “make yourself easy; however quickly he may go, we shall go still quicker than he. But now for the gunpowder.”
“Yes, to the gunpowder,” said Billot.
And they both went down the great staircase, followed by Pitou.
