Among the prisoners, it will be recollected, the following were of the greatest note:—
The Iron Mask, Lauzun, Latude. The Jesuits were father confessors; for greater security they confessed the prisoners.
For greater security still, the prisoners were buried under supposititious names.
The Iron Mask, it will be remembered, was buried under the name of Marchialy. He had remained forty-five years in prison.
Lauzun remained there fourteen years. Latude, thirty years.
But, at all events, the Iron Mask and Lauzun had committed heinous crimes.
The Iron Mask, whether brother or not of Louis XIV., it is asserted, resembled King Louis XIV. so strongly that it was almost impossible to distinguish the one from the other.
It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to resemble a king.
Lauzun had been very near marrying, or did actually marry, the Grande Mademoiselle.
It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to marry the niece of King Louis XIII., the granddaughter of Henry IV.
But Latude, poor devil, what had he done?
He had dared to fall in love with Mademoiselle Poisson, Dame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress.
He had written a note to her.
This note, which a respectable woman would have sent back to the man who wrote it, was handed by Madame de Pompadour to Monsieur de Sartines, the lieutenant-general of police.
And Latude, arrested, fugitive, taken and retaken, remained thirty years locked up in the Bastille, the Castle of Vincennes, and Bicêtre.
It was not, therefore, without reason that the Bastille was abhorred.
The people hated it as if it were a living thing. They had formed of it a gigantic chimera, one of those monsters like those of Gévauden, who pitilessly devour the human species.
The grief of poor Sebastien Gilbert will therefore be fully comprehended, when he was informed that his father was in the Bastille.
Billot’s conviction will also be understood, that the doctor would never be released from his prison unless he was released by force.
The frenetic impulse of the people will be also understood, when Billot vociferated, “To the Bastille!”
Only that it was a senseless idea, as the soldiers had remarked, that the Bastille could be taken.
The Bastille had provisions, a garrison, artillery.
The Bastille had walls, which were fifteen feet thick at their summit and forty at their base.
The Bastille had a governor, whose name was De Launay, who had stored thirty thousand pounds of gunpowder in his cellars, and who had sworn, in case of being surprised by a coup de main, to blow up the Bastille, and with it half the Faubourg St. Antoine.
1 The Third Order, or Third Estate.
2 The three portraits are at Versailles.
3 The tennis-court.
4 Secret orders of imprisonment.
Chapter XIV
The Three Powers of France
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.1
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.”