The women surrounded the man with the gray coat, and threw a rope round his neck.
But Billot hastened forward. Billot was determined to render the same service to Maillard which Maillard had rendered the abbé.
He grasped the rope, which he cut into three pieces with a well-tempered and sharp knife, which at that moment served its owner to cut a rope, but which in an extremity, wielded as it was by a powerful arm, might serve him for another purpose.
And while cutting the rope and getting piece by piece of it as he could, Billot cried:—
“Why, you unfortunate wretches, you do not then recognize one of the conquerors of the Bastille, who passed over the plank to effect the capitulation, while I lay floundering in the moat Do you not recognize Monsieur Maillard?”
At that well-known and redoubtable name all these women at once paused; they looked at one another, and wiped the perspiration from their brows.
The work had been a difficult one; and although they were in the month of October, they might well perspire in accomplishing it.
“A conqueror of the Bastille! and that conqueror Maillard! Maillard, the usher of the Châtelet! Long live Maillard!”
Threats are immediately turned into caresses; they embrace Maillard, and all cry, “Long live Maillard!”
Maillard exchanged a hearty shake of the hand and a look with Billot.
The shake of the hand implied, “We are friends!”
The look implied, “Should you ever stand in need of me, you may calculate upon me.”
Maillard had resumed an influence over these women, which was so much the greater from their reflecting that they had committed some trifling wrong towards him, and which he had to pardon.
But Maillard was an old sailor on the sea of popular fury; he knew the ocean of the faubourgs, which is raised by a breath, and calmed again by a word.
He knew how to speak to these human waves, when they allow you time enough to speak.
Moreover, the moment was auspicious for being heard. They had all remained silent around Maillard.
Maillard would not allow that Parisian women should destroy the municipal authorities,—the only power to protect them; he would not allow them to annihilate the civic registers, which proved that their children were not all bastards.
The harangue of Maillard was of so novel a nature, and delivered in so loud and sarcastic a tone, that it produced a great effect.
No one should be killed; nothing should be burned.
But they insist on going to Versailles. It is there that exists the evil. It is there that they pass their nights in orgies, while Paris is starving. It is Versailles that devours everything. Corn and flour are deficient in Paris, because, instead of coming to Paris, they are sent direct from Corbeil to Versailles.
It would not be thus if the “great baker,” the “baker’s wife,” and the “baker’s little boy” were at Paris.
It was under these nicknames that they designated the king, the queen, and the dauphin,—those natural distributors of the people’s bread.
They would go to Versailles.
Since these women are organized into troops, since they have muskets, cannon, and gunpowder, -and those who have not muskets nor gunpowder, have pikes and pitchforks,—they ought to have a general.
“And why not? the National Guard has one.”
Lafayette is the general of the men.
Maillard is the general of the women.
Monsieur de Lafayette commands his do-little grenadiers, which appear to be an army of reserve, for they do so little when there is so much to be done.
Maillard will command the active army. Without a smile, without a wink, he accepts his appointment.
Maillard is general commandant of the women of Paris.
The campaign will not be a long one; but it will be decisive.
1 A celebrated coffee-house.
Chapter XX
Maillard a General
IT was really an army that Maillard commanded.
It had cannon, deprived of carriages and wheels, it is true; but they had been placed on carts. It had muskets, many of which were deficient in locks and triggers, it is true; but every one had a bayonet.
It had a quantity of other weapons, very awkward ones, it is true; but they were weapons.