Chapter XII
The Son-in-Law
THEN those who were insulting the remains of Foulon left their sanguinary game, to rush forward in pursuit of a new vengeance.
The adjacent streets immediately disgorged a large proportion of that howling mob, who hurried from the square with upraised knives and menacing gestures, towards the Rue St. Martin, to meet the new funeral procession.
The junction having been accomplished, both parties were equally eager to return to the square.
A strange scene then ensued.
Some of those ingenious persons whom we have seen upon the Place de Grève presented to the son-in-law the head of Foulon on the end of a pike.
Monsieur Berthier was coming along the Rue St. Martin with the commissary. They were then just crossing the Rue St. Merry.
He was in his own cabriolet,—a vehicle which at that period was considered as eminently aristocratic; a vehicle which more than any other excited popular animadversion; for the people had so often complained of the reckless rapidity with which they were driven, either by young fops or dancing-girls who drove themselves, and which, drawn by a fiery horse, sometimes ran over, but always splashed, the unfortunate pedestrian.
Berthier, in the midst of all the shouts, the hootings, and the threats of the infuriate mob, was talking tranquilly with the elector Rivière,—the commissary sent to Compiègne to save him, but who, being abandoned by his colleague, had with much difficulty saved himself.
The people had begun with the cabriolet; they had turned off the head of it, so that Berthier and his companion were completely exposed, not only to the view, but to the blows of the populace.
As they moved onwards, his misdeeds were related to him, commented upon, and exaggerated by the popular fury.
“He wished to starve Paris,” cried one.
“He had the rye and wheat cut when it was green; and then, a rise in the price of corn having taken place, he realized enormous sums.”
“Not only did he do that,” said they, “which was enough in itself, but he was conspiring.”
In searching him, they had found a pocket-book. In this pocket-book were incendiary letters, orders for massacre, proof that ten thousand cartridges had been distributed to his agents; so said the crowd.
These were all monstrous absurdities; but as is well known, the mob, when in a paroxysm of rage, gives out as positive facts the most absurd improbabilities.
The person whom they accused of all this was a man who was still young, not being more than from thirty to thirty-two years of age, elegantly dressed, almost smiling, though greeted every moment by injurious epithets and even blows. He looked with perfect indifference at the infamous placards which were held up to him, and without affectation continued his conversation with Rivière.
Two men, irritated at his assurance, had wished to terrify him, and to diminish this self-confidence. They had mounted on the steps, on each side of the cabriolet, and each of them placed the point of his bayonet on Berthier’s breast.
But Berthier, brave even to temerity, was not to be moved by such a trifle. He had continued to converse with the elector as if those two muskets were but inoffensive accessories to the cabriolet.
The mob, profoundly exasperated by this disdain, which formed so complete a contrast to the terror of Foulon,—the mob roared around the vehicle, and waited with impatience for the moment when instead of a threat they might inflict a wound.
It was then that Berthier had fixed his eyes on a misshapen and bloody object, which was held up and danced before him, and which he suddenly recognized as the head of his father-in-law, and which the ruffians who bore it held down close to his lips.
They wished to make him kiss it.
Monsieur Rivière, indignant at this brutality, pushed the pike away with his hand.
Berthier thanked him by a gesture, and did not even deign to turn round to follow this hideous trophy with his eyes. The executioners carried it behind the cabriolet, holding it over Berthier’s head.
They thus arrived on the Place de Grève; and the prisoner, after unheard-of efforts by the civic guards, who had been re-assembled in some order, was delivered into the hands of the electors of the Hôtel de Ville.