The Sword of Honor Part 25

"FIELD OF MARS, JULY 17 OF THE YEAR III OF LIBERTY.

"Representatives of the Nation:

"You are approaching the end of your labors. A great crime has been committed. Louis XVI flees, unworthily abandons his post. The citizens arrest him at Varennes. He is brought back to Paris. The people of the capital immediately demand that the fate of the guilty one be left undecided until an expression of opinion be obtained from the eighty-three departments of France. A mult.i.tude of addresses demanded of you that you pa.s.s judgment on Louis XVI.

You, gentlemen, have prejudged him innocent and inviolable!

"Legislators, such was not the opinion of the people. Justice must be done.

"Everything compels us to demand of you, in the name of all France, that you reconsider your decision, that you hold that the offense of Louis XVI is proven; that the King, by the very fact of his flight, has abdicated.

"Receive, then, his abdication.

"Legislators, convoke a new const.i.tuent power, which will proceed in a truly national manner to deal with this guilty King, and above all to the organization of a new executive power.

"Signed:

"PEYRE,

"VACHART,

"ROBERT,

"DEMOY."

The reading of the pet.i.tion, concise, measured in terms, but marked with energy, was received with unanimous applause. Its summary tenor, repeated from mouth to mouth down the whole length of the Field of Mars, received the a.s.sent of everyone. Then began an admirable scene. The pet.i.tioners, men, women and children, forming in long files, in perfect order, to the left of the staging, stopped one by one at the foot of the Altar of the Country, placing their signatures upon the thick book, whose many pages were bound together with lacings, and then descended on the other side of the stage; and all without confusion, without outcry, as if each were deeply conscious of the importance of the civic act.

Toward three o'clock I saw three munic.i.p.al officers, girt in their sashes, mount the stage. They were Leroux, Hardy, and Renaud. The Jacobin delegation having given them notice of the pet.i.tion, one of the three, after reading it to his colleagues, addressed the mult.i.tude as follows:

"Citizens, your pet.i.tion is perfectly legal. We are charmed at the sight presented to us. Everything here is being carried on in admirable order.

Some have told us there was a riot on the Field of Mars; we are now convinced that the report is baseless. Far from interfering with the signing of your pet.i.tion, we shall aid you with the public powers if anyone attempts to trouble you in the exercise of your rights."

The words of the committee of the Commune of Paris were applauded by the crowd. The committee left, and the people continued to pour towards the Altar of the Country to sign the lists.

The day drew to its close. The sun disappeared behind the hill of Meudon. The hour of eight sounded from the clock of the Military School.

A part of the vast throng which surrounded me, setting out to regain their homes, turned their steps toward that entrance to the Field of Mars which gives upon Great Rock. Each one rejoiced that he had a.s.sisted at the great demonstration.

Suddenly, from the neighborhood of the Great Rock gate, towards which we were proceeding, we heard the sound of a large corps of drums, beaten at the double-quick; then, in the pauses of the march, the heavy rumbling of several pieces of artillery; almost at the same instant, but further off, in the direction of the gate near the Military School, sounded the trumpet calls of cavalry; and finally, more distant still, the snarl of other drums from the quarter of the bridge leading across the Seine from the end of the field. The vast parade-ground, surrounded by walls whose perpendicular sides overhung great moats, was thus being invaded by an armed force advancing at once toward the three outlets through which the people intended to return to Paris. The immense deploy of troops, infantry, cavalry and artillery, converging in unison upon the Field of Mars, filled with an inoffensive mult.i.tude at the point of leaving it, caused great and general surprise, but at first aroused neither fear nor suspicion. The groups around me, yielding to innocent curiosity and to the love of sight-seeing native in the Parisian, quickened their steps "to see the soldiers go by," all the while asking themselves what could be the object of this ma.s.sing of military forces. The advance guard of the column which entered by the Great Rock gate, was composed of the battalion of the National Guard called, from their district, the Daughters of St. Thomas. Then followed General Lafayette, surrounded by his brilliant staff, and finally Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, accompanied by several munic.i.p.al officers. One of these carried a staff around which was furled a piece of red cloth, hardly visible, for I had not noticed it except for the exclamation of an old man in front of me:

"Meseems they hoist the red flag! I believe that is not done except in the presence of public danger, in case of insurrection, or when martial law has been proclaimed from the City Hall!"

"In that case," anxiously queried the spectators, "can they have proclaimed martial law in the interior of Paris?" "Is there, then, trouble, or a tumult of the people, or an insurrection in the city? What about?"

While these words were being anxiously exchanged around me, the apparition of the almost invisible bit of red bunting, the expression of sinister glee I had just remarked on the faces of several inebriated National Guardsmen who, marching past the crowd, tapped their guns, crying "We shall send a few pills into the Jacobins;"--all these circ.u.mstances connected themselves in my mind and forced upon me all too clear a premonition of what was about to occur. The batteries of artillery had commenced to disgorge through the Great Rock gate when the bourgeois guard which was in line halted, and, deploying before its banner, advanced, with leveled guns and quickened pace, upon the mult.i.tude, which recoiled before it. At the same instant the cavalry entered at a rapid trot by the gate near the Military School, while the other column poured in by the bridge over the Seine. By this simultaneous manoeuvre the forty thousand persons or thereabouts who still remained in the Field of Mars, surrounded by embankments and walls, saw themselves hemmed in on every side by the troops who occupied the gates.

Vain would be any attempt on my part to give an idea of the stupor, then the fright, and soon the panic, which seized the helpless mult.i.tude.

Great G.o.d, what a picture! What heartrending cries! What shrieks of children, of women, mingling with the imprecations of men whose energy became paralyzed, either by the physical impossibility of doing anything in the crush, or by their preoccupation to safeguard a wife, a mother, a daughter, or children of tender age, exposed to smothering, or to being trampled under foot!

Suddenly I saw appear, on top of one of the embankments, Lehiron and about a score of his cut-throat band, accompanied by some tattered, bare-headed urchins who cried:

"Down with the National Guard! Down with the blue-bonnets! Down with Lafayette!"

While his followers rained a hail of rocks at the city guard, Lehiron drew a pistol from his pocket, and, without even taking aim, discharged his weapon in the direction of the General's staff, shouting:

"Death to Lafayette!"

At the same moment, without unfurling the red flag, without Mayor Bailly having issued a single order, a company of the city guard opened fire, but shot in the air in the direction of the bank occupied by Lehiron and his pack. This first fusillade, although harmless, nevertheless threw the populace into inexpressible terror. Almost immediately, we were pierced by volleys from the whole platoon, this time deadly. I saw the face of the fine old man who had stood in front of me blanch under the blood which poured from his riddled forehead. A young woman who held her four or five-year-old son above her head lest he be smothered in the press, felt her child grow rigid and heavy; he had been shot through the body. Piercing cries or suppressed moans uttered on all sides of me told that other shots also had taken effect. The fusillade continued. A frenzy of flight, of everyone for himself, fell upon the huddled ma.s.s; the people elbowed and trod upon one another. In the midst of this frightful pell-mell, I lost my balance and fell over the body of the old man, which had until then been supported erect by the crowding of my neighbors. The aged body saved my life; it prevented me from being crushed under the feet of the throng. Nevertheless, I received several deep wounds on the head. I felt the blood flow copiously from them. My senses swam, and I completely lost consciousness.

When I came to myself, the clock of the Military School was striking ten. The moon, from the midst of a cloudless and star-strewn sky, lighted up the Field of Mars. The coolness of the night revived me. My first thought was for my sister--what anguish must have been hers! I saw, here and there, the wandering lights of several lanterns, by aid of which men and women had come to seek out among the dead and dying those whom they had left behind them.

Soon, some distance from me, I perceived a woman, tall and slender, in a white robe. This woman bore no lantern; she came and went hurriedly; halting and bending over, she contemplated the victims, she seemed to interrogate their features. My heart bounded; I divined that it was Victoria.

"Sister!" I cried, weakly.

I was not deceived. Learning by the popular rumor of the ma.s.sacre which had taken place, Victoria had run to the Field of Mars to find me. Her tender cares summoned back my strength. She stanched the blood from my wounds, dressed them, and, supporting me on her arm, a.s.sisted me to the gate opening on Great Rock. We pa.s.sed by the scaffolding on which had been erected the Altar of the Country. The steps were buried under corpses.

Arrived home with Victoria, I wished, after an hour's rest, to inscribe in my journal this very night the record of this fatal day of the 17th of July, 1791.

I have added to my record the following fragment of an article from the paper of Camille Desmoulins, explaining the causes of the ma.s.sacre of the Field of Mars. Desmoulins's account, save in one point noted by me, is scrupulously exact. I copy it literally:

"Camille Desmoulins, sending to Lafayette his resignation as journalist:

"'Tis wrong we were, the thing is far too clear, And our good guns have settled this affair.

"Lafayette, liberator of two worlds! Flower of janissary chieftains!

Phoenix of constable-majors! Don Quixote of the Capets and the two chambers! Constellation of the White Horse! I improve the first moment that I touch a land of liberty to send you the resignation as journalist and as national censor which you have for so long been demanding of me.

I place it also at the feet of Monsieur Bailly and his red flag. I feel that my voice is too feeble to raise itself above that of thirty thousand cowards and also of your satellites, above the din of your four hundred drums and your hundreds of cannon....

"You and your accomplices in the City Hall and the a.s.sembly feared the expression of the views of the people of Paris, which will soon become those of all France. You feared to hear your sentence p.r.o.nounced by the nation in person, seated on its bed of justice, in the Field of Mars.

'What shall we do?' you asked yourselves.

"'Eh, call to our aid martial law!' Against peaceful and unarmed pet.i.tioners, who were quietly practising their right of a.s.semblage!

"Or, that is what the Const.i.tutionals imagined, to the end of gratifying us a second time with martial law; and, instead of hanging one man (as the baker Francis), they ma.s.sacred two."

At this point Camille Desmoulins recounts the arrest of two individuals found during the morning hiding under the Altar of the Country, and continues:

"The cowards, the back-sliding bandits, counterfeiting the appearance of exaggerated patriots, threw themselves upon the two unfortunates, tore them to pieces, cut off their heads, and went to promenade them about Paris.

"Thus sought they to prepare the citizens, by the horror of the spectacle, to support the declaration of martial law. Immediately the news spread in the city, with the rapidity of lightning--'Two heads have been struck off in the Field of Mars.' Then, 'Out upon the pet.i.tioners, the Jacobins and the Cordeliers!' Thus were the munic.i.p.al officers bewitched."

Here Desmoulins forgets or pa.s.ses over in silence the honorable conduct of a minority of the council of the Commune of Paris. The three councilmen, learning on their return from the Field of Mars of the proclamation of martial law, were astounded, and affirmed and testified on their honor that the most admirable order reigned on the concourse, that they had looked into the address to the Representatives of the people; that it was perfectly in place and legitimate; that they had a.s.sured the pet.i.tioners that, far from troubling them in the exercise of their duty, the munic.i.p.al authority would protect them with all care. In fine, the three officers, deeply moved and indignant, exclaimed with tears in their eyes that it would disgrace them, ruin them, to march against pet.i.tioners to whom they had pledged and guaranteed complete security. But in spite of the generous words of the three officers, Lafayette excited his pretorians; they cried, goes on Camille Desmoulins:

"'There is the red flag already flung out. The most difficult thing is done. Now, if all the clubs, all the fraternal societies would meet at the Field of Mars to sign the pet.i.tion for the abdication of Louis XVI, what a bowl of nectar that Jacobin blood would be to our palates!'

"And so the pretorians pushed their measures. They a.s.sembled ten thousand troops: infantry, cavalry, artillery. The night, the time set for marching, having come, Lafayette's three aides-de-camp spread themselves in the public places, declaring that their General had been a.s.sa.s.sinated by a Jacobin. But properly to judge of the fury of these idolaters, these blue-bonnets of the Nero of two worlds, one should have seen them in one moment pour furiously from their pens, or, rather, from their dens. They loaded with ball in plain view of the people; on all sides the drums beat the a.s.sembly; the twenty-seven battalions most heavily composed of aristocrats received the order to march upon the Field of Mars. They inflamed themselves to the ma.s.sacre. As they loaded their muskets they were heard to say: _We shall send some pills into the Jacobins_. The cavalry flourished their sabers. It was half after eight in the evening when the red flag was unrolled as the signal for the ma.s.sacre of inoffensive pet.i.tioners. The battalions arrived at the Field of Mars, not by one sole entrance, in order that the citizens might disperse, but by all the three issues at once, that the pet.i.tioners might be enclosed from all sides. And here is the final perfidy, that which caps the climax of the horrors of the day. These volleys--all delivered without orders--were fired upon pet.i.tioners, who seeing death advancing from all sides, and unable to flee, received them as they embraced the Altar of the Country, which in an instant was heaped with the corpses of the slain."

Such was the melancholy day of the Field of Mars. And yet the will of the pet.i.tioners--the forfeiture of Louis XVI's right to the crown and consequently the establishment of the Republic--was so sane, so logical, so inevitable by the march of events and the force of affairs, that the following year saw Louis suspended from the throne upon accusation of high treason, and saw the National Convention proclaim the Republic. But alas! how many victims!