WE will not describe the Bastille; it would be useless.
It lives as an eternal image, both in the memory of the old and in the imagination of the young.
We shall content ourselves with merely stating that, seen from the Boulevard, it presented, in front of the square then called Place de la Bastille, two twin towers, while its two fronts ran parallel with the banks of the canal which now exists.
The entrance to the Bastille was defended, in the first place, by a guardhouse, then by two lines of sentinels, and besides these by two drawbridges.
After having passed through these several obstacles, you came to the courtyard of the government house,—that is to say, the residence of the governor.
From this courtyard a gallery led to the ditches of the Bastille.
At this other entrance, which opened upon the ditches, was a drawbridge, a guardhouse, and an iron gate.
At the first entrance they wished to stop Billot; but Billot shows the passport he received from Flesselles, and they allow him to pass on.
Billot then perceives that Pitou is following him. Pitou had no permission; but he would have followed the farmer's steps down to the infernal regions, or would have ascended to the moon.
“Remain outside,” said Billot. “Should I not come out again, it would be well there should be some one to remind the people that I have come in.”
“That is perfectly right,” said Pitou. “How long am I to wait before I remind them of it?”
“And the casket?” inquired Pitou.
“Ah, you remind me! Well, then, should I not get out again; should Gonchon not take the Bastille, or, in short, if, after having taken it, I should not be found, you must tell Doctor Gilbert, whom they will find perhaps, that men who came from Paris took from me the casket which he confided to my care five years ago; that I, on the instant, started off to inform him of what had happened; that, on arriving at Paris, I was informed that he was in the Bastille; that I attempted to take the Bastille, and that in the attempt I left my skin there, which was altogether at his service.”
“'Tis well, Father Billot,” said Pitou; “only 'tis rather a long story, and I am much afraid that I may forget it.”
“Forget what I have said to you?”
“I will repeat it to you, then.”
“No,” said a voice close to Billot's ear; “it would be better to write it.”
“I do not know how to write,” said Billot.
“Ah! you are an usher, are you?” inquired Billot.
“Stanislaus Maillard, usher in the Court of the Châtelet.”
And he drew from his pocket a long ink—horn, in which there were pens, paper, and ink; in fine, all that was necessary for writing.
He was a man about forty—five years old, tall, thin, and grave—looking, dressed entirely in black, as became his profession.
“Here is one who looks confoundedly like an undertaker,” muttered Pitou.
“You say,” inquired the usher, with great calmness, “that men who came from Paris carried off a casket which Dr. Gilbert confided to you?”
“These men belonged to the police of Paris.”
“Infamous robbers!” muttered Maillard.
Then, handing the paper to Piton:—“Here, take this, young man,” said he; “it is the memorandum you require; and should he be killed,”—he pointed to Billot—“should you be killed, it is to be hoped that I shall not be killed too.”
“And should you not be killed, what would you do?” asked Pitou.
“I would do that which you were to have done,” replied Maillard.
And he held out his hand to the usher.
The usher grasped it with a vigor which could not have been anticipated from his lank meagre body.
“Then I may fully depend upon you?” said Billot.
“Good!” said Pitou; “they form a trinity which I am sure I shall not find in paradise.”
“Tell me, Father Billot, you will be prudent, will you not?”
“Pitou,” replied the farmer, with an eloquence which sometimes astonished people, when proceeding from one who had always led a country life, “forget not what I say to you,—that the most prudent line of conduct now in France is to be courageous.”
And he passed the first line of sentinels, while Pitou returned towards the square.
At the drawbridge he was again obliged to parley.
Billot showed his passport. The drawbridge was let down, the iron—grated gate was opened.
Close beside the gate stood the governor.
This interior court, in which the governor was waiting for Billot, was the courtyard which served as a promenade to the prisoners. It was guarded by eight towers,—that is to say, by eight giants. No window opened into it. Never did the sun shine on its pavement, which was damp and almost muddy. It might have been taken for the bottom of an immense well.
In this courtyard was a clock, supported by figures representing enchained captives, which measured the hours, and from which fell the regular and slow sounds of the minutes as they passed by, as in a dungeon the droppings from the ceiling eat into the pavement slabs on which they fall.
At the bottom of this well the prisoner, lost amid the abyss of stone, for a moment contemplated its cold nakedness, and soon asked to be allowed to return to his cell.
Close beside the grated gate which opened on this courtyard stood, as we have said, Monsieur de Launay.
Monsieur de Launay was a man from forty—five to fifty years of age. On that day he was dressed in a gray coat. He wore the red ribbon of the order of Saint Louis, and in his hand he carried a sword—cane.
This Monsieur de Launay was a man of wicked disposition. The memoirs of Linguet had just bestowed upon him a sorrowful celebrity; he was almost as much detested as the prison itself.
In fact, the De Launays, like the Châteauneufs, the Levrillières, and the Saint Florentins, who held the lettres de cachet from father to son, also from father to son transmitted the Bastille to one another.
For, as is well known, it was not the minister of war who appointed the officers of this jail. At the Bastille, all the places were sold to the highest bidder, from that of the governor himself, down to that of the scullion. The governor of the Bastille was a jailer on a grand scale, an eating—house keeper wearing epaulettes, who added to his salary of sixty thousand livres, sixty thousand more which he extorted and plundered.
It was highly necessary that he should recover the capital and interest of the money he had invested.
Monsieur de Launay, in point of avarice, far surpassed his predecessors. This might, perhaps, have arisen from his having paid more for the place, and having foreseen that he would not remain in it so long as they did.
He fed his whole house at the expense of his prisoners. He had reduced the quantity of fuel, and doubled the hire of furniture in each room.
He had the right of bringing yearly into Paris a hundred pipes of wine, free of duty. He sold his right to a tavern—keeper, who brought in wines of excellent quality; then with a tenth part of this duty he purchased the vinegar with which he supplied his prisoners.
The unhappy prisoners in the Bastille had only one consolation; this was a small garden, which had been formed on one of the bastions. There they could walk; there for a few moments they could inhale pure air, the perfumes of the flowers, and enjoy the light.
He rented this little garden to a gardener, and for fifty livres a year which he received from him he had deprived the prisoners of this last enjoyment.
It is true that to rich prisoners his complaisance was extreme. He conducted one of them to the house of his own mistress, who had thus her apartments furnished, and was kept in luxury, without its costing a stiver to him, De Launay.
See the work entitled “The Bastille Unveiled,” and you will find in it this fact, and many others besides.
And, notwithstanding, this man was courageous.
Since the previous evening the storm had been threatening around him. Since the previous evening he perceived the waves of this great commotion, which was still ascending, beat against his walls.
And yet he was calm, though pale.
It is true that he had to support him four pieces of artillery, ready prepared to fire; around him, a garrison of Swiss and Invalides; before him, only an unarmed man.
For, on entering the Bastille, Billot had given Pitou his carbine to take care of.
He had understood that within that iron grating which he saw before him, a weapon would be more dangerous than useful to him.
Billot, at a single glance, observed all,—the calm and almost threatening attitude of the governor; the Swiss and Invalides in the several guard—houses and on the platforms; and the silent bustle of the artillerymen, who were stowing their cartridges into the magazines of their ammunition—wagons.
The sentinels held their muskets at the make—ready; the officers had their swords drawn.
The governor remained motionless; Billot was obliged to advance towards him; the iron—grated gate closed behind the bearer of the people's flag of truce with a sinister noise of grating iron, which, brave as he was, made the marrow of his bones chill within him.
“What want you with me again?” said De Launay to him.
“Again!” reiterated Billot; “it appears to me, however, that this is the first time I have seen you, and consequently that you have yet no right to be wearied of seeing me.”
“It is because I have been told that you come from the Hôtel de Ville.”
“That is true. I came from there.”
“Well, then, only just now I received a deputation from the municipality.”
“And for what purpose did it come?”
“It came to obtain a promise from me that I would not be the first to fire.”
“And you promised that you would not?”
“It also came to request that I would draw in my guns.”
“And you have them drawn in; I know that, for I was on the square of the Bastille when this manuvre was executed.”
“And you doubtless thought that I was yielding to the threats of the people?”
“Why, zounds! it did look very like it.”
“Did I not tell you so, gentlemen?” exclaimed De Launay, turning towards his officers; “did I not tell you that we should be thought capable of such cowardice?”
“And you,—from whom do you come?”
“I come on behalf of the people,” proudly replied
“'tis well,” said De Launay, smiling; “but you have some other recommendation, I suppose; for with that which you set forth, you would not have been allowed to pass the first line of my sentries.”
“Yes; I have a safe—conduct from Monsieur de Flesselles, your friend.”
“Flesselles! You say that he is my friend,” rejoined De Launay, looking intently at Billot, as if he would have read the inmost recesses of his heart. “Whence know you that Monsieur de Flesselles is my friend?”
“Why, I supposed him to be so.”
“Supposed!—oh, that is all! 'tis well. Let us see your safe—conduct.”
Billot presented the paper to him.
De Launay read it once, then a second time, and turned and twisted it about to discover whether it did not contain some postscript between its pages; held it up to the light, to see whether there were not some lines written between the lines of the missive.
“And this is all he has to say to me?”
“'tis very strange!” exclaimed De Launay, darting through one of the loop—holes a glance at the crowd assembled in the square before the Bastille.
“But what would you have had him say to you?” said Billot.
De Launay made an impatient gesture.
“Oh nothing, nothing! Come, now, tell me what you want; but speak quickly, for I am pressed for time.”
“Well, then, what I want is, that you should surrender the Bastille to us.”
“What said you?” cried De Launay, quickly turning round, as if he thought he had misunderstood the farmer's meaning. “You say—?”
“I say that I have come in the name of the people, to demand that you surrender the Bastille.”
De Launay shrugged his shoulders.
“The people are, in truth, very strange animals,” said he.
“And what do they want to do with the Bastille?”
“And what the devil has the Bastille to do with the people? Was ever a man of the people put into the Bastille? The people, on the contrary, ought to bless every stone of which the Bastille is formed. Who are they who are put into the Bastille? Philosophers, men of science, aristocrats, ministers, princes,—that is to say, the enemies of the people.”
“Well, that proves that the people are not egotists.” retorted Billot.
“My friend,” said De Launay, with a shade of commiseration in his tone, “it is easy to perceive that you are not a soldier.”
“You are quite right. I am a farmer.”
“That you do not inhabit Paris.”
“In fact, I am from the country.”
“That you do not thoroughly know what the Bastille is.”
“That is true. I only know what I have seen of it,—that is to say, the exterior walls.”
“Well, then, come along with me, and I will show you what the Bastille is.”
“Ho! ho!” muttered Billot to himself, “he is going to lead me over some villanous trap—door, which will suddenly open under my feet, and then, good—night, Father Billot.”
But the intrepid farmer did not even blink, and showed himself ready to follow the governor of the Bastille.
“In the first place,” said De Launay, “you must know that I have powder enough in my cellars to blow up, not only the Bastille itself, but with it at least half of the Faubourg St. Antoine.”
“I know that,” tranquilly replied Billot.
“Very well; but now look at those four pieces of artillery.”
“They enfilade the whole of this gallery, as you can also see; and this gallery is defended, first, by a guardhouse; secondly, by two ditches, which only can be crossed with the assistance of two drawbridges; and lastly, by a grated iron gate.”
“Oh, I do not say that the Bastille is badly defended,” calmly observed Billot; “all that I say is, that it will be well attacked.”
“Let us go on,” said De Launay.
“Here is a postern which opens on the ditches,” said the governor; “look at the thickness of the walls.”
“Yes; forty at the bottom, and fifteen at the top. You see that, although the people may have good nails, they would break them against these stones.”
“I did not say,” rejoined Billot, “that the people would demolish the Bastille before taking it. What I said was, that they would demolish it after having taken it.”
“Let us go up the steps,” said De Launay.
They went up some thirty steps.
“See,” said he, “here is another embrasure, which opens on the passage by which you wish to enter; this is only defended by a rampart gun, but it has already acquired a certain reputation. You know the song—
“Certainly,” said Billot; “I do know it; but I do not think that this is the time to sing it.”
“Wait a moment. Well, Marshal Saxe called this small cannon his Musette, because it sung correctly the air he best liked. That is an historical detail.”
“Let us go up higher;” and they continued to climb up the stairs.
They soon reached a platform on the tower called La
“What is it?” inquired De Launay. “You have not had the cannon dismounted.”
“I have had them drawn in, that's all.”
“You know that I shall tell the people that cannon are still here.”
“You will not have them dismounted, then?”
“The king's cannon are here by the king's order, sir; they can only be dismounted by an order from the king.”
“Monsieur de Launay,” said Billot, feeling his thoughts rise within him according to the importance of the moment, “the real king, whom I counsel you to obey, is yonder.”
And he showed to the governor the gray crowd, some of whom were still covered with blood from the combat of the preceding evening, and whose undulating movements before the ditches made their arms gleam in the sunshine.
“Sir,” said De Launay in his turn, throwing his head back with a haughty air, “you may perhaps acknowledge two kings; but I, the governor of the Bastille, know but one, and he is Louis, the Sixteenth of that name, who has affixed his name to a commission by virtue of which I command here, both men and things.”
“You are not, then, a citizen!” cried Billot in anger.
“I am a French gentleman,” said the governor.
“Ah! that is true; you are a soldier, and you speak as a soldier.”
“You have said the word, sir,” said De Launay, bowing. “I am a soldier, and I execute the orders I receive.”
“And I, sir,” said Billot, “am a citizen, and my duty as a citizen being in opposition with your orders as a soldier, one of us two will die,—whether it be the one who obeys his orders, or the one who fulfils his duty.”
“Then you are determined to fire upon the people?”
“By no means—so long as they do not fire upon me.
I have pledged my word to the envoys of Monsieur de Flesselles. You see that the guns have been drawn in, but at the first shot fired from the square upon my castle—”
“I will run to one of these guns,—this one, for instance,—I will myself wheel it to the embrasure, I will point it with my own hands, and I will fire it with the match you see standing here.”
“Oh, if I believed that,” said Billot, “before allowing you to commit such a crime—”
“I have told you that I am a soldier, sir, and that I know nothing but my orders.”
“Well, then, look!” said Billot, drawing De Launay towards an embrasure, and pointing out to him alternately two different points, the Faubourg St. Antoine and the Boulevard, “yonder are those from whom in future you will receive your orders.”
And he showed De Launay two dark, dense, and howling masses, who, compelled to take the form of the Boulevards, undulated like an immense serpent, of which the head and the body could be seen, but the last rings of which were lost to sight, from the unevenness of the ground on which it crawled; and all that could be seen of the gigantic reptile was refulgent with luminous scales.
It was the double troop, to which Billot had given rendezvous on the square of the Bastille,—the one led by Marat, and the other by Gonchon.
On both sides they advanced, brandishing their arms and uttering the most terrific cries.
De Launay turned pale at the sight, and raising his cane:—
Then, advancing towards Billot with a threatening gesture:—
“And you, wretch!” he exclaimed, “you who have come here under the pretext of parleying with me while the others are advancing to the attack, do you know that you deserve to die?”
And he half drew his sword from the cane which concealed it.
Billot saw the movement, and, rapid as the lightning, seized De Launay by the collar and the waistband.
“And you,” said he, as he raised him from the ground, “you deserve that I should hurl you over the ramparts, to dash you in pieces against the sides of the ditch! But, God be thanked! I shall fight you in another manner!”
At that moment an immense and universal clamor, ascending from below, and rushing through the air like the wild howlings of the hurricane, reached their ears, and Monsieur de Losme, the major of the Bastille, appeared upon the platform.
“Sir,” cried he, addressing himself to Billot, “sir, be pleased to show yourself; all those people yonder believe that some misfortune has befallen you, and they are calling for you.”
And in fact the name of Billot, which had been spread among the crowd by Pitou, was heard amidst the clamor.
Billot had loosed his hold, and Monsieur de Launay sheathed his sword.
Then there was a momentary hesitation between these three men; while cries calling for vengeance, and threatening shouts were heard.
“Show yourself then, sir,” said De Launay: “not that these clamors intimidate me, but that it may be known that I am a man who loyally keeps his word.”
Then Billot put his head between the battlements, making a sign with his hand.
On seeing this, loud shouts of applause rose from the populace. It was, in a manner, the revolution rising from the forehead of the Bastille in the person of this man of the people, who was the first to trample on its platform as a conqueror.
“'tis well, sir,” then said De Launay; “all is now terminated between us; you have nothing further to do here. You are called for yonder: go down.”
Billot was sensible of this moderation in a man who had him completely in his power; he went down the same staircase by which he had ascended the ramparts, the governor following him.
As to the major, he had remained there; the governor had given him some orders in a whisper.
It was evident that Monsieur de Launay had but one desire, and this was that the bearer of the flag of truce should become his enemy, and that as quickly as possible.
Billot walked across the courtyard without uttering a word. He saw the artillerymen standing by their guns. The match was smoking at the end of a lance.
“My friends,” said he, “remember that I came to request your chief to prevent the spilling of blood, and that he has refused.”
“In the name of the king, sir,” cried De Launay, stamping his foot “leave this place!”
“Beware!” said Billot; “if you order me out in the name of the king, I shall come in again in the name of the people.”
Then, turning towards the guard—house, before which the Swiss were standing:—
“Come, now,” said he, “tell me for which side are you?”
The Swiss soldiers remained silent.
De Launay pointed with his finger to the iron gate.
Billot wished to make a last effort.
“Sir,” said he to De Launay, “in the name of the nation! in the name of your brothers!”
“Of my brothers! You call my brothers those men who are howling, 'Down with the Bastille!' 'Death to its governor!' They may be your brothers, sir, but most assuredly they are not mine!”
“In the name of humanity, then!”
“In the name of humanity, which urges you on to come here, with a hundred thousand men, to cut the throats of a hundred unfortunate soldiers shut up in these walls.”
“And by surrendering the Bastille you would be doing precisely that which would save their lives.”
Billot said no more to him. This logic of the soldier completely overcame him; but turning to the Swiss and Invalides:—
“Surrender, my friends!” cried he; “it is still time.
In ten minutes it will be too late.”
“If you do not instantly withdraw, sir,” in his turn cried De Launay, “on the word of a gentleman, I will order you to be shot!”
Billot paused a moment, crossed his arms over his chest in token of defiance, exchanged a last threatening glance with De Launay, and passed through the gate.
