At the moment that he appeared on the front steps, a furious howl assailed him, making even the stone step on which he had placed his foot tremble beneath him.
But he, disdainful and impassible, looked at all those flashing eyes calmly and unflinchingly, and shrugging his shoulders, pronounced these words:—
“What a fantastic people? What is there to make them howl thus?”
He had scarcely uttered these words, when he was seized upon by the foremost of the mob. They had rushed on to the front steps and clutched him, though surrounded by his guards. Their iron hands dragged him along. He lost his footing, and fell into the arms of his enemies, who in a second dispersed his escort.
Then an irresistible tide impelled the prisoner over the same path, stained with blood, which Foulon had been dragged over only two hours before.
A man was already seated astride the fatal lamp, holding a rope in his hand.
But another man had clung to Berthier, and this man was dealing out with fury and delirium blows and imprecations on the brutal executioners.
He continually cried:—
“You shall not have him! You shall not kill him!”
This man was Billot, whom despair had driven mad, and as strong as twenty men.
To some he shrieked:—
“I am one of the conquerors of the Bastille!”
And some of those who recognized him became less furious in their attack.
To others he said:—
“Let him be fairly tried. I will be responsible for him. If he is allowed to escape, you shall hang me in his stead.”
Poor Billot! poor worthy man! The whirlwind swept him away,—him and Berthier,—as the water-spout carries away a feather or a straw in its vast spirals.
He moved on without perceiving anything. He had reached the fatal spot.
The thunderbolt is less swift.
Berthier, who had been dragged along backwards,—Berthier, whom they had raised up, seeing that they stopped, raised his eyes and perceived the infamous, degrading halter swinging above his head.
By an effort as violent as it was unexpected, he tore himself from the grasp of those who held him, snatched a musket from the hands of a National Guard, and inflicted several wounds on his self-appointed executioners with his bayonet.
But in a second a thousand blows were aimed at him from behind. He fell, and a thousand other blows from the ruffians who encircled him rained down upon him.
Billot had disappeared beneath the feet of the assassins.
Berthier had not time to suffer. His life’s blood and his soul rushed at once from his body through a thousand gaping wounds.
Then Billot was witness to a spectacle more hideous than he had yet seen. He saw a fiend plunge his hand into the open breast of the corpse, and tear out the still smoking heart.
Then, sticking this heart, on the point of his sabre, he held it above the heads of the shouting mob, which opened before him as he advanced, carried it into the Hôtel de Ville, and laid it on the table of the grand council, where the electors held their sessions.
Billot, that man of iron nerve, could not support this frightful sight; he fell fainting against a post at about ten paces from the fatal lantern.
Lafayette, on seeing this infamous insult offered to his authority,—offered to the Revolution which he directed, or rather which he had believed he should direct,—Lafayette broke his sword, and threw it at the faces of the assassins.
Pitou ran to pick up the farmer, and carried him off in his arms, whispering into his ear:—
“Billot! Father Billot! take care; if they see that you are fainting, they will take you for his accomplice, and will kill you too. That would be a pity—so good a patriot!”
And thereupon he dragged him towards the river, concealing him as well as he was able from the inquisitive looks of some zealous patriots who were murmuring.
Chapter XIII
Billot begins to perceive that all is not Roses in Revolutions
BILLOT, who, conjointly with Pitou, had been engaged in all the glorious libations, began to perceive that the cup was becoming bitter.
When he had completely recovered his senses, from the refreshing breezes on the river’s banks:—