The French Revolution eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,095 pages of information about The French Revolution.

The French Revolution eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,095 pages of information about The French Revolution.

However, Besenval, with horse and foot, is in the Place Louis Quinze.  Mortals promenading homewards, in the fall of the day, saunter by, from Chaillot or Passy, from flirtation and a little thin wine; with sadder step than usual.  Will the Bust-Procession pass that way!  Behold it; behold also Prince Lambesc dash forth on it, with his Royal-Allemands!  Shots fall, and sabre-strokes; Busts are hewn asunder; and, alas, also heads of men.  A sabred Procession has nothing for it but to explode, along what streets, alleys, Tuileries Avenues it finds; and disappear.  One unarmed man lies hewed down; a Garde Francaise by his uniform:  bear him (or bear even the report of him) dead and gory to his Barracks;—­where he has comrades still alive!

But why not now, victorious Lambesc, charge through that Tuileries Garden itself, where the fugitives are vanishing?  Not show the Sunday promenaders too, how steel glitters, besprent with blood; that it be told of, and men’s ears tingle?—­Tingle, alas, they did; but the wrong way.  Victorious Lambesc, in this his second or Tuileries charge, succeeds but in overturning (call it not slashing, for he struck with the flat of his sword) one man, a poor old schoolmaster, most pacifically tottering there; and is driven out, by barricade of chairs, by flights of ‘bottles and glasses,’ by execrations in bass voice and treble.  Most delicate is the mob-queller’s vocation; wherein Too-much may be as bad as Not-enough.  For each of these bass voices, and more each treble voice, borne to all points of the City, rings now nothing but distracted indignation; will ring all another.  The cry, To arms! roars tenfold; steeples with their metal storm-voice boom out, as the sun sinks; armorer’s shops are broken open, plundered; the streets are a living foam-sea, chafed by all the winds.

Such issue came of Lambesc’s charge on the Tuileries Garden:  no striking of salutary terror into Chaillot promenaders; a striking into broad wakefulness of Frenzy and the three Furies,—­which otherwise were not asleep!  For they lie always, those subterranean Eumenides (fabulous and yet so true), in the dullest existence of man;—­and can dance, brandishing their dusky torches, shaking their serpent-hair.  Lambesc with Royal-Allemand may ride to his barracks, with curses for his marching-music; then ride back again, like one troubled in mind:  vengeful Gardes Francaises, sacreing, with knit brows, start out on him, from their barracks in the Chaussee d’Antin; pour a volley into him (killing and wounding); which he must not answer, but ride on. (Weber, ii. 75-91.)

Counsel dwells not under the plumed hat.  If the Eumenides awaken, and Broglie has given no orders, what can a Besenval do?  When the Gardes Francaises, with Palais-Royal volunteers, roll down, greedy of more vengeance, to the Place Louis Quinze itself, they find neither Besenval, Lambesc, Royal-Allemand, nor any soldier now there.  Gone is military order.  On the far Eastern Boulevard, of Saint-Antoine, the Chasseurs Normandie arrive, dusty, thirsty, after a hard day’s ride; but can find no billet-master, see no course in this City of confusions; cannot get to Besenval, cannot so much as discover where he is:  Normandie must even bivouac there, in its dust and thirst,—­unless some patriot will treat it to a cup of liquor, with advices.

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The French Revolution from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.