WHILE the people were thus rushing into the fortress, howling at once with joy and rage, two men were struggling in the muddy waters of the ditch.
These men were Pitou and Billot.
Pitou was supporting Billot. No shot had struck him. He had not been wounded in any way; but his fall had somewhat confused the worthy farmer.
Ropes were thrown to them; poles were held out to them.
Pitou caught hold of a pole, Billot a rope.
Five minutes afterwards they were carried in triumph by the people, and eagerly embraced, notwithstanding their muddy state.
One man gives Billot a glass of brandy, another stuffs Pitou's mouth full of sausages, and gives him wine to wash them down.
A third rubs them down with straw, and wishes to place them in the sun to dry their clothes.
Suddenly an idea, or rather a recollection, shot through the mind of Billot. He tears himself away from their kind cares and rushes into the Bastille.
“To the prisoners!” cried he, “to the prisoners!”
“Yes, to the prisoners!” cried Pitou, in his turn, bounding after the farmer.
The crowd, which until then had thought only of the executioners, shuddered when thinking of their victims.
They with one shout repeated: “Yes, yes, yes,—to the prisoners!”
And a new flood of assailants rush through the barriers, seeming to widen the sides of the fortress by their numbers, and bearing liberty with them to the captives.
A dreadful spectacle then offered itself to the eyes of Billot and Pitou. The excited, enraged, maddened throng had precipitated themselves into the courtyard. The first soldier they had met was at once hacked to pieces.
Gonchon had quietly looked on. Doubtless he had thought that the anger of the people, like the currents of great rivers, does more harm when any impediment is thrown in its way to arrest it than if allowed tranquilly to flow on.
Elie and Hullin, on the contrary, had thrown themselves before the infuriated executioners. They prayed, they supplicated, uttering the sublime lie that they had promised life and safety to the whole garrison.
The arrival of Billot and Pitou was a reinforcement to them.
Billot, whom they were avenging, Billot was living, Billot was not even wounded. The plank had turned under his feet, and that was all; he had taken a mudbath, and nothing more.
It was, above all, against the Swiss that the people were particularly enraged; but the Swiss were nowhere to be found. They had had time to put on gray frocks, and they were taken either for servants or for prisoners.
The mob hurled large stones at the dial of the clock, and destroyed the figures of the two captives which supported it. They rushed to the ramparts to mutilate the cannon which had vomited forth death upon them. They even wreaked their vengeance on the stone walls, tearing their hands in endeavoring to displace them. When the first of the conquerors were seen upon the platform, all those who had remained without the fortress, that is to say, a hundred thousand men, shouted with clamorous joy,—
This cry resounded through Paris, and spread itself over the whole of France, as if borne with the rapidity of eagle's wings.
On hearing this cry all hearts were softened, all eyes shed tears, all arms were extended. There were no longer any contending parties; there were no longer any inimical castes. All Parisians felt that they were brothers, all men felt that they were free.
A million of men pressed one another in a mutual embrace.
Billot and Pitou had entered the Bastille, following some and followed by others; what they wished for was, not to claim their share in the triumph; it was the liberty of the prisoners.
When crossing the courtyard of the government house, they passed near a man in a gray coat, who was standing calmly, his hand resting on a gold—headed cane.
This man was the governor. He was quietly waiting either that his friends should come to save him, or that his enemies should come to strike him down.
Billot, on perceiving him, recognized him, uttered a slight exclamation of surprise, and went straight to him.
De Launay also recognized Billot. He crossed his arms and waited, looking at the farmer with an expression that implied,—”
Let us see: is it you that will give me the first blow?”
Billot at once divined the meaning of his look, and stopped.
“If I speak to him,” said he to himself, “I shall cause him to be recognized, and should he be recognized, his death is certain.”
And yet, how was he to find Doctor Gilbert amid this chaotic confusion? How could he drag from the Bastille the secret which its walls enclosed?
All this hesitation, these heroic scruples, were understood by De Launay.
“What is it that you wish?” asked De Launay, in an undertone.
“Nothing,” replied Billot, pointing with his finger to the gate, indicating to him that escape was yet possible; “nothing. I shall be able readily to find Doctor Gilbert.”
“Third Bertaudière,” replied De Launay, in a gentle and almost affectionate tone of voice.
But he stirred not from the place on which he stood.
Suddenly a voice from behind Billot pronounced these words:—“Ah! there is the governor.”
This voice was so calm, so hollow, that it appeared not to be of this world, and yet each word it had uttered was a sharp poniard turned against the breast of De Launay.
He who had spoken was Gonchon.
These words, like the first sounds of an alarm—bell, excited a fearful commotion; all these men, drunk with revengeful feelings, started on hearing them; they looked around with flaming eyes, perceived De Launay, and at once darted upon and seized him.
“Save him,” said Billot, as he passed near Elie and Hullin, “or they will murder him.”
“Assist us to do so,” said the two men.
“I am obliged to remain here,” replied Billot, “for I also have some one to save.”
In an instant De Launay had been surrounded by a thousand men, who dragged him along, lifted him up, and were bearing him away.
Elie and Hullin bounded after him, crying,—
“Stop! stop! we promised him that his life should be saved.”
This was not true; but the thought of uttering this magnanimous falsehood had risen to the mind of these two generous men at the same moment.
In a second, De Launay, followed by Elie and Hullin, disappeared under the vaulted passage which led from the Bastille, amidst loud voices of, “To the Hôtel de Ville! To the Hôtel de Ville!”
It was a singular spectacle to see this mournful and silent monument, which for four centuries had been tenanted only by prisoners, their jailers, their guards, and a gloomy governor, now become the prey of the people, who ran through the courtyards, ascended and descended the staircases, buzzing like a swarm of flies, and filling this granite hive with noise and movement.
De Launay, a living prey, was to some of the victors of as great value as the dead prey, the captured Bastille.
Billot for a moment or two followed De Launay with his eyes, who was carried rather than led, and appeared to soar above the crowd.
But, as we have said, he soon disappeared. Billot heaved a sigh, looked around him, perceived Pitou, and rushed towards a tower, crying,—
A trembling jailer met him on his way.
“Third Bertaudière,” said Billot.
“This way, sir,” replied the jailer; “but I have not the keys.”
“Citizen, lend me your hatchet,” said Billot, to one of the men from the Faubourg.
“I give it to you,” replied the latter; “I do not want it any more, since the Bastille is taken.”
Billot snatched the hatchet, and ran up a staircase, conducted by the jailer.
The jailer stopped before a door.
“Third Bertáudière?” asked Billot.
“The prisoner confined in this room is Doctor Gilbert, is it not?”
“He was brought here only five or six days ago?”
“Well, then,” said Billot, “I shall soon know it.”
And he began chopping at the door with his hatchet.
The door was of oak, but it soon flew into splinters beneath the vigorous blows of the robust farmer.
In a few moments he had cut a hole through it and could look into the room.
Billot placed his eye at the opening. Through it he could see the interior of the cell.
In the line of sunshine which penetrated into the dungeon through its grated window a man was standing, his head thrown rather backwards, holding in his hand one of the posts of his bedstead, and in an attitude of defence.
This man had evidently prepared himself to knock down the first person who should enter his room.
Notwithstanding his long beard, notwithstanding his pallid countenance, notwithstanding his short—cut hair, Billot recognized him. It was Doctor Gilbert.
“Doctor! doctor!” cried Billot to him, “is it you?”
“Who is it that is calling me?” inquired the prisoner.
“It is I—I, Billot, your friend.”
“Yes! yes!—he! he!—we! we!” cried the voices of twenty men, who had run into the passage on hearing the vigorous blows struck by Billot.
“We?—why, the conquerors of the Bastille. The Bastille is taken; you are free.”
“The Bastille is taken; I am free!” exclaimed the doctor.
And passing both his hands through the opening, he shook the door so violently that the hinges and the lock appeared nearly yielding to his powerful pressure, and part of a panel, already loosened by Billot, broke off, and remained in the prisoner's hands.
“Wait, wait!” said Billot, who was afraid that a second effort of so violent a nature would exhaust his strength, which had been overtaxed; “wait.”
And indeed, through the opening, which was every moment becoming wider, he could see the prisoner, who had seated himself upon his bench, pale as a spectre, and incapable of raising the bedpost which was lying near him, and who but a few moments before, another Samson, seemed strong enough to shake down the walls of the Bastille.
“Billot! Billot!” murmured he.
“Yes, yes! and I also, my good doctor—I, Pitou—you must remember poor Pitou, whom you placed at board with his aunt Angélique,—Pitou has come to liberate you.”
“But I can get through that hole,” cried the doctor.
“No! no!” cried all the voices; “wait.”
All those present uniting their strength in one simultaneous effort, some slipping a crowbar between the door and the framework, others using a lever between the lock and doorpost, and the remainder pushing with all the might of their shoulders or their hands, the oak gave a last cracking sound, the wall gave way, and they all of them stumbled, one over the other, into the room.
In a moment Gilbert found himself in the arms of Pitou and Billot.
Gilbert, the little country lad of the Château de Taverney, Gilbert, whom we left bathed in his blood in a cavern of the Azores, was now a man from thirty—four to thirty—five years old, of pale complexion, though he was not sickly, with black hair, eyes penetrating and fixed; never did his gaze lose itself in vacuity; never did it wander; when it was not fixed on some exterior object worthy to attract, it was fixed on his own thought, and became only more profound and more gloomy; his nose was straight, being attached to his forehead in a direct line; it rose above a lip of rather scornful expression, which, in the slight space between it and the nether lip, allowed one to perceive the dazzling enamel of his teeth. In ordinary times his dress was simple and grave, like that of a Quaker; but this simplicity was closely allied to elegance, from its extreme neatness. His height was somewhat above the medium stature, and he was well formed; as to his strength, we have just seen the feats it could perform when in a state of over—excitement, whether caused by anger or enthusiastic feeling.
Although in prison for five or six days, the doctor had paid the same attention to his person; his beard, which had grown some few lines, caused the paleness of his complexion to contrast favorably with its darkness, and indicated only a negligence which certainly was not the prisoner's, but his jailer's, who had refused to give him a razor, or to allow him to be shaved.
When he had pressed Billot and Pitou in his arms, he turned towards the crowd who had filled his dungeon. Then, as if a moment had sufficed to restore all his self-possession:—
“The day which I had foreseen has then arrived,” said he. “Thanks to you, my friends,—thanks to the eternal genius which watches over the liberty of nations!”
And he held out both his hands to the men who had assisted Billot to break down the door, and who, recognizing in him, from the dignity of his demeanor and his proud look, a man of superior genius, hardly dared to touch them.
On leaving the dungeon, he walked before all these men, leaning on Billot's shoulder, and followed by Pitou and his liberators.
The first moment had been devoted by Gilbert to friendship and to gratitude, the second had re—established the distance which existed between the learned doctor and the ignorant farmer, the warm—hearted Pitou, and the whole throng which had liberated him.
When he reached the door at the foot of the staircase Gilbert stopped, on perceiving the broad sunshine which beamed full upon him. He paused, crossing his arms over his breast and raising his eyes to heaven. “Hail to thee, lovely Liberty!” he exclaimed. “I saw thee spring to life in another world, and we are old friends. Hail to thee, lovely Liberty!”
And the smile of the doctor clearly said that the cries he then heard of a whole people, inebriated with independence, were no new thing to him.
Then, meditating for a few seconds:—
“Billot,” said he, “the people, then, have vanquished despotism?”
“You knew, then, of my arrest?”
“Your son informed me of it this morning.”
“Poor Sebastien! Have you seen him?”
“And he remained quietly at his school?”
“I left him struggling with four of the attendants of the infirmary.”
“Is he ill—has he been delirious?”
“He wanted to come with us to fight.”
“Ah!” ejaculated the doctor, and a smile of triumph passed over his features. His son had proved himself to be what he had hoped.
“And what did you say to him?” inquired the doctor. “I said, since Doctor Gilbert is in the Bastille, let us take the Bastille; and now the Bastille is taken. But that is not all.”
“What is there, then, besides?” asked the doctor.
“The casket which I had confided to your care?”
“By some men dressed in black, who came into my house under the pretext of seizing your pamphlets: they arrested me, locked me up in a room; they searched the house all over, found the casket, and carried it off.”
“Ho! ho! there is an evident connection between my arrest and this robbery. The person who caused my arrest, at the same time had the casket stolen. Let me but know the persons who contrived my arrest, and I shall know who it was contrived the robbery. Where are the archives of the fortress” continued the doctor, turning to the jailer.
“In the courtyard of the government house, sir,” replied the jailer.
“Then to the archives, my friends—to the archives!” cried the doctor.
“Sir,” said the jailer, stopping him, “let me go with you, or speak a word in my favor to these worthy people, that no harm may happen to me.”
Then, addressing the crowd who surrounded him, and gazed at him with curiosity mingled with respect:—
“My friends,” said he, “I recommend this worthy man to you; he only fulfilled his office in opening and shutting the prison doors; but he was kind towards the prisoners. Let no injury happen to him.”
“No, no!” cried the crowd with one accord, “no!—he need not fear; no harm shall be done to him. Let him come with us.”
“I thank you, sir,” said the jailer to the doctor; “but if you wish for anything in the archives, I advise you to move quickly, for I believe they are burning the papers.”
“Oh, then there is not an instant to be lost,” cried Gilbert; “to the archives!”
And he hastened towards the courtyard of the government house, followed by the crowd, at the head of which were still Billot and Pitou.
