Ange Pitou by Alexandre Dumas part two

“Silence!” cried he; “I am Marat, and I wish to speak.”

They were at once quieted as if by magic, and every eye was directed towards the orator.

“You wish for arms?” he said.

“Yes, yes!” replied thousands of voices.

“To take the Bastille?”

“Yes! yes! yes!”

“Well then, come with me, and you shall have them.”

“And where?”

“To the Invalides, where there are twenty—five thousand muskets. To the Invalides!”

“To the Invalides! to the Invalides!” cried every voice.

“And now,” said Marat to Billot, who had just called Pitou; “you will go to the Bastille?”

“Yes.”

“Stay. It might happen that before my men arrive you may stand in need of assistance.”

“In fact,” said Billot, “that is possible.”

Marat tore out a leaf from a small memorandum book, and wrote four words upon it with a pencil:—

“This comes from Marat.”

Then he drew a sign upon the paper.

“Well!” cried Billot, “what would you have me do with this note, since you do not tell me the name or the address of the person to whom I am to deliver it?”

“As to the address, the man to whom I recommend you has none; as to his name, it is well known. Ask the first workman you may meet for Gonchon, the Mirabeau of the people.”

“Gonchon—you will remember that name, Pitou.”

“Gonchon or Gonchonius,” said Pitou. “I shall not forget it.”

“To the Invalides! to the Invalides!” howled the mob, with increasing ferocity.

“Well, then, go!” said Marat to Billot; “and may the genius of Liberty march before thee!”

“To the Invalides!” he then cried in his turn.

And he went down the Quai de Gévres, followed by more than twenty thousand men.

Billot, on his side, took with him some five or six thousand. These were all armed in one way or another.

At the moment when they were about to proceed along the bank of the river, and the remainder were going towards the Boulevard, the Provost of the Merchants appeared at a window.

“My friends,” said he, “why is it that I see a green cockade in your hats?”

They were the leaves of the linden—trees, of Camille Desmoulins, which many had adopted merely from seeing others wear them, but without even knowing their signification.

“Hope! hope!” cried several voices.

“Yes; but the color that denotes hope is, at the same time, that of the Count d’Artois. Would you have the air of wearing the livery of a prince?”

“No, no!” cried all the crowd in chorus, and Billot louder than the rest.

“Well! then you ought to change that cockade; and, if you will wear a livery, let it at least be that of the city of Paris, the mother of us all,—blue and red, my friends, blue and red.”1

“Yes, yes,” cried every tongue; “blue and red.”

Upon these words, every one trampled under foot his green cockade, every one called for ribbons; as if by enchantment, the windows round the square were opened, and blue and red ribbons rained down in floods.

But all the ribbons that fell scarcely sufficed for a thousand men.

Instantly aprons, silk gowns, scarfs, curtains, were torn, stripped, and cut in fragments; these fragments were formed into bows, rosettes, and scarfs. Every one took his share.

After which Billot’s small army again moved forward.

It kept on recruiting as it advanced; all the arteries of the Faubourg St. Antoine sent to it as it passed the most ardent and the most active of their population.

They reached, in tolerably good order, the end of the Rue Lesdiguières, where already a mass of curious lookers—on—some timid, others calm, and others insolent—were gazing at the towers of the Bastille, exposed to an ardent sun.

The arrival of the popular drums by the Faubourg St. Antoine;

The arrival of about a hundred of the French Guards from the Boulevards;

The arrival of Billot and his troop, at once changed the character and the aspect of the assembled crowd; the timid became emboldened, the calm became excited, and the insolent began to threaten.

“Down with the cannon! down with the cannon!” cried twenty thousand voices, threatening with their clinched fists the heavy guns which stretched forth their brazen necks from the embrasures of the platforms.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *