Burlesques Part 49

The theatres and cafes remained open as usual: the funds rose three centimes. The Journal des Debats published three editions of different tones of politics: one, the Journal de l'Empire, for the Napoleonites; the Journal de la Legitimite another, very complimentary to the Legitimate monarch; and finally, the original edition, bound heart and soul to the dynasty of July. The poor editor, who had to write all three, complained not a little that his salary was not raised: but the truth is, that, by altering the names, one article did indifferently for either paper. The Duke of Brittany, under the t.i.tle of Louis XVII., was always issuing manifestoes from Charenton, but of these the Parisians took little heed: the Charivari proclaimed itself his Gazette, and was allowed to be very witty at the expense of the three pretenders.

As the country had been ravaged for a hundred miles round, the respective Princes of course were for throwing themselves into the forts, where there was plenty of provision; and, when once there, they speedily began to turn out such of the garrison as were disagreeable to them, or had an inconvenient appet.i.te, or were of a doubtful fidelity.

These poor fellows turned into the road, had no choice but starvation; as to getting into Paris, that was impossible: a mouse could not have got into the place, so admirably were the forts guarded, without having his head taken off by a cannon-ball. Thus the three conflicting parties stood, close to each other, hating each other, "willing to wound and yet afraid to strike"--the victuals in the forts, from the prodigious increase of the garrisons, getting smaller every day. As for Louis Philippe in his palace, in the centre of the twenty-four forts, knowing that a spark from one might set them all blazing away, and that he and his money-bags might be blown into eternity in ten minutes, you may fancy his situation was not very comfortable.

But his safety lay in his treasure. Neither the Imperialists nor the Bourbonites were willing to relinquish the two hundred and fifty billions in gold; nor would the Princes of Orleans dare to fire upon that considerable sum of money, and its possessor, their revered father.

How was this state of things to end? The Emperor sent a note to his Most Christian Majesty (for they always styled each other in this manner in their communications), proposing that they should turn out and decide the quarrel sword in hand; to which proposition Henri would have acceded, but that the priests, his ghostly counsellors, threatened to excommunicate him should he do so. Hence this simple way of settling the dispute was impossible.

The presence of the holy fathers caused considerable annoyance in the forts. Especially the poor English, as Protestants, were subject to much petty persecution, to the no small anger of Jenkins, their commander.

And it must be confessed that these intrepid Footmen were not so amenable to discipline as they might have been. Remembering the usages of merry England, they clubbed together, and swore they would have four meals of meat a day, wax-candles in the casemates, and their porter.

These demands were laughed at: the priests even called upon them to fast on Fridays; on which a general mutiny broke out in the regiment; and they would have had a FOURTH standard raised before Paris--viz., that of England--but the garrison proving too strong for them, they were compelled to lay down their sticks; and, in consideration of past services, were permitted to leave the forts. 'Twas well for them! as you shall hear.

The Prince of Ballybunion and the Irish force were quartered in the fort which, in compliment to them, was called Fort Potato, and where they made themselves as comfortable as circ.u.mstances would admit. The Princes had as much brandy as they liked, and pa.s.sed their time on the ramparts playing at dice, or pitch-and-toss (with the halfpenny that one of them somehow had) for vast sums of money, for which they gave their notes-of-hand. The warriors of their legion would stand round delighted; and it was, "Musha, Master Dan, but that's a good throw!" "Good luck to you, Misther Pat, and throw thirteen this time!" and so forth. But this sort of inaction could not last long. They had heard of the treasures ama.s.sed in the palace of the Tuileries: they sighed when they thought of the lack of bullion in their green and beautiful country. They panted for war! They formed their plan.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BATTLE OF THE FORTS.

On the morning of the 26th October, 1884, as his Majesty Louis Philippe was at breakfast reading the Debats newspaper, and wis.h.i.+ng that what the journal said about "Cholera Morbus in the Camp of the Pretender Henri,"--"Chicken-pox raging in the Forts of the Traitor Bonaparte,"--might be true, what was his surprise to hear the report of a gun; and at the same instant--whiz! came an eighty-four-pound ball through the window and took off the head of the faithful Monsieur de Montalivet, who was coming in with a plate of m.u.f.fins.

"Three francs for the window," said the monarch; "and the m.u.f.fins of course spoiled!" and he sat down to breakfast very peevishly. Ah, King Louis Philippe, that shot cost thee more than a window-pane--more than a plate of m.u.f.fins--it cost thee a fair kingdom and fifty millions of tax-payers.

The shot had been fired from Fort Potato. "Gracious heavens!" said the commander of the place to the Irish Prince, in a fury, "What has your Highness done?" "Faix," replied the other, "Donegal and I saw a sparrow on the Tuileries, and we thought we'd have a shot at it, that's all."

"Hurroo! look out for squalls," here cried the intrepid Hibernian; for at this moment one of Paixhans' sh.e.l.ls fell into the counterscarp of the demilune on which they were standing, and sent a ravelin and a couple of embrasures flying about their ears.

Fort Twenty-three, which held out for Louis Philippe, seeing Fort Twenty-four, or Potato, open a fire on the Tuileries, instantly replied by its guns, with which it blazed away at the Bourbonite fort. On seeing this, Fort Twenty-two, occupied by the Imperialists, began pummelling Twenty-three; Twenty-one began at Twenty-two; and in a quarter of an hour the whole of this vast line of fortification was in a blaze of flame, flas.h.i.+ng, roaring, cannonading, rocketing, bombing, in the most tremendous manner. The world has never perhaps, before or since, heard such an uproar. Fancy twenty-four thousand guns thundering at each other. Fancy the sky red with the fires of hundreds of thousands of blazing, brazen meteors; the air thick with impenetrable smoke--the universe almost in a flame! for the noise of the cannonading was heard on the peaks of the Andes, and broke three windows in the English factory at Canton. Boom, boom, boom! for three days incessantly the gigantic--I may say, Cyclopean battle went on: boom, boom, boom, bong!

The air was thick with cannon-b.a.l.l.s: they hurtled, they jostled each other in the heavens, and fell whizzing, whirling, cras.h.i.+ng, back into the very forts from which they came. Boom, boom, boom, bong--brrwrrwrrr!

On the second day a band might have been seen (had the smoke permitted it) a.s.sembling at the sally-port of Fort Potato, and have been heard (if the tremendous clang of the cannonading had allowed it) giving mysterious signs and countersigns. "Tom," was the word whispered, "Steele" was the sibilated response. (It is astonis.h.i.+ng how, in the roar of elements, THE HUMAN WHISPER hisses above all!) It was the Irish Brigade a.s.sembling. "Now or never, boys!" said their leaders; and sticking their doodeens into their mouths, they dropped stealthily into the trenches, heedless of the broken gla.s.s and sword-blades; rose from those trenches; formed in silent order; and marched to Paris. They knew they could arrive there un.o.bserved--n.o.body, indeed, remarked their absence.

The frivolous Parisians were, in the meanwhile, amusing themselves at their theatres and cafes as usual; and a new piece, in which Arnal performed, was the universal talk of the foyers: while a new feuilleton by Monsieur Eugene Sue, kept the attention of the reader so fascinated to the journal, that they did not care in the least for the vacarme without the walls.

CHAPTER IX.

LOUIS XVII.

The tremendous cannonading, however, had a singular effect upon the inhabitants of the great public hospital of Charenton, in which it may be remembered Louis XVII. had been, as in mockery, confined. His majesty of demeanor, his calm deportment, the reasonableness of his pretensions, had not failed to strike with awe and respect his four thousand comrades of captivity. The Emperor of China, the Princess of the Moon, Julius Caesar, Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, the Pope of Rome, the Cacique of Mexico, and several singular and ill.u.s.trious personages who happened to be confined there, all held a council with Louis XVII.; and all agreed that now or never was the time to support his legitimate pretensions to the Crown of France. As the cannons roared around them, they howled with furious delight in response. They took counsel together: Dr. Pinel and the infamous jailers, who, under the name of keepers, held them in horrible captivity, were pounced upon and overcome in a twinkling. The strait-waistcoats were taken off from the wretched captives languis.h.i.+ng in the dungeons; the guardians were invested in these shameful garments, and with triumphant laughter plunged under the Douches. The gates of the prison were flung open, and they marched forth in the blackness of the storm!

On the third day, the cannonading was observed to decrease; only a gun went off fitfully now and then.

On the fourth day, the Parisians said to one another, "Tiens! ils sont fatigues, les cannoniers des forts!"--and why? Because there was no more powder?--Ay, truly, there WAS no more powder.

There was no more powder, no more guns, no more gunners, no more forts, no more nothing. THE FORTS HAD BLOWN EACH OTHER UP. The battle-roar ceased. The battle-clouds rolled off. The silver moon, the twinkling stars, looked blandly down from the serene azure,--and all was peace--stillness--the stillness of death. Holy, holy silence!

Yes: the battle of Paris was over. And where were the combatants? All gone--not one left!--And where was Louis Philippe? The venerable Prince was a captive in the Tuileries; the Irish Brigade was encamped around it: they had reached the palace a little too late; it was already occupied by the partisans of his Majesty Louis XVII.

That respectable monarch and his followers better knew the way to the Tuileries than the ignorant sons of Erin. They burst through the feeble barriers of the guards; they rushed triumphant into the kingly halls of the palace; they seated the seventeenth Louis on the throne of his ancestors; and the Parisians read in the Journal des Debats, of the fifth of November; an important article, which proclaimed that the civil war was concluded:--

"The troubles which distracted the greatest empire in the world are at an end. Europe, which marked with sorrow the disturbances which agitated the bosom of the Queen of Nations, the great leader of Civilization, may now rest in peace. That monarch whom we have long been sighing for; whose image has lain hidden, and yet oh! how pa.s.sionately wors.h.i.+pped, in every French heart, is with us once more. Blessings be on him; blessings--a thousand blessings upon the happy country which is at length restored to his beneficent, his legitimate, his reasonable sway!

"His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVII. yesterday arrived at his palace of the Tulleries, accompanied by his august allies. His Royal Highness the Duke of Orleans has resigned his post as Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, and will return speedily to take up his abode at the Palais Royal. It is a great mercy that the children of his Royal Highness, who happened to be in the late forts round Paris, (before the bombardment which has so happily ended in their destruction,) had returned to their father before the commencement of the cannonading. They will continue, as heretofore, to be the most loyal supporters of order and the throne.

"None can read without tears in their eyes our august monarch's proclamation.

"'Louis, by &c.--

"'My children! After nine hundred and ninety-nine years of captivity, I am restored to you. The cycle of events predicted by the ancient Magi, and the planetary convolutions mentioned in the lost Sibylline books, have fulfilled their respective idiosyncrasies, and ended (as always in the depths of my dungeons I confidently expected) in the triumph of the good Angel, and the utter discomfiture of the abominable Blue Dragon.

"'When the bombarding began, and the powers of darkness commenced their h.e.l.lish gunpowder evolutions, I was close by--in my palace of Charenton, three hundred and thirty-three thousand miles off, in the ring of Saturn--I witnessed your misery. My heart was affected by it, and I said, "Is the multiplication-table a fiction? are the signs of the Zodiac mere astronomers' prattle?"

"'I clapped chains, shrieking and darkness, on my physician, Dr. Pinel.

The keepers I shall cause to be roasted alive. I summoned my allies round about me. The high contracting Powers came to my bidding: monarchs from all parts of the earth; sovereigns from the Moon and other illumined orbits; the white necromancers, and the pale imprisoned genii.

I whispered the mystic sign, and the doors flew open. We entered Paris in triumph, by the Charenton bridge. Our luggage was not examined at the Octroi. The bottle-green ones were scared at our shouts, and retreated, howling: they knew us, and trembled.

"'My faithful Peers and Deputies will rally around me. I have a friend in Turkey--the Grand Vizier of the Mussulmans: he was a Protestant once--Lord Brougham by name. I have sent to him to legislate for us: he is wise in the law, and astrology, and all sciences; he shall aid my Ministers in their councils. I have written to him by the post. There shall be no more infamous mad-houses in France, where poor souls s.h.i.+ver in strait-waistcoats.

"'I recognized Louis Philippe, my good cousin. He was in his counting-house, counting out his money, as the old prophecy warned me.

He gave me up the keys of his gold; I shall know well how to use it.

Taught by adversity, I am not a spendthrift, neither am I a miser. I will endow the land with n.o.ble inst.i.tutions instead of diabolical forts. I will have no more cannon founded. They are a curse and shall be melted--the iron ones into railroads; the bronze ones into statues of beautiful saints, angels, and wise men; the copper ones into money, to be distributed among my poor. I was poor once, and I love them.

"'There shall be no more poverty; no more wars; no more avarice; no more pa.s.sports; no more custom-houses; no more lying: no more physic.

"'My Chambers will put the seal to these reforms. I will it. I am the king.

(Signed) 'Louis.'"

"Some alarm was created yesterday by the arrival of a body of the English Foot-Guard under the Duke of Jenkins; they were at first about to sack the city, but on hearing that the banner of the lilies was once more raised in France, the Duke hastened to the Tuileries, and offered his allegiance to his Majesty. It was accepted: and the Plush Guard has been established in place of the Swiss, who waited on former sovereigns."

"The Irish Brigade quartered in the Tuileries are to enter our service.

Their commander states that they took every one of the forts round Paris, and having blown them up, were proceeding to release Louis XVII., when they found that august monarch, happily, free. News of their glorious victory has been conveyed to Dublin, to his Majesty the King of the Irish. It will be a new laurel to add to his green crown!"

And thus have we brought to a conclusion our history of the great French Revolution of 1884. It records the actions of great and various characters; the deeds of various valor; it narrates wonderful reverses of fortune; it affords the moralist scope for his philosophy; perhaps it gives amus.e.m.e.nt to the merely idle reader. Nor must the latter imagine, because there is not a precise moral affixed to the story, that its tendency is otherwise than good. He is a poor reader, for whom his author is obliged to supply a moral application. It is well in spelling-books and for children; it is needless for the reflecting spirit. The drama of Punch himself is not moral: but that drama has had audiences all over the world. Happy he, who in our dark times can cause a smile! Let us laugh then, and gladden in the suns.h.i.+ne, though it be but as the ray upon the pool, that flickers only over the cold black depths below!

c.o.x'S DIARY.