CHAPTER XXIX
Pere Lachaise.
It was not difficult to guess which way the crowd had gone; yells,hoots, and hoarse cries could be heard from the farther side of theriver.
Citizen Santerne had been unable to keep the mob back until the arrivalof the cavalry reinforcements. Within five minutes of the abduction ofDeroulede and Juliette the crowd had broken through the line ofsoldiers, and had stormed the cart, only to find it empty, and the preydisappeared.
"They are safe in the Temple by now!" shouted Santerne hoarsely, insavage triumph at seeing them all baffled.
At first it seemed as if the wrath of the infuriated populace, fooled inits lust for vengeance, would vent itself against the commandant ofParis and his soldiers; for a moment even Santerre's ruddy cheeks hadpaled at the sudden vision of this unlooked for danger.
Then just as suddenly the cry was raised.
"To the Temple!"
"To the Temple! To the Temple!" came in ready response.
The cry was soon taken up by the entire crowd, and in less than twominutes the purlieus of the Hall of Justice were deserted, and the PontSt Michel, then the Cite and the Pont au Change, swarmed with therioters. Thence along the north bank of the river, and up the Rue duTemple, the people still yelling, muttering, singing the "_Ca ira,_" andshouting: "_A la lanterne! A la lanterne!_"
Sir Percy Blakeney and his little band of followers had found the PontNeuf and the adjoining streets practically deserted. A few stragglersfrom the crowd, soaked through with the rain, their enthusiasm damped,and their throats choked with the mist, were sulkily returning to theirhomes.
The desultory group of six _sansculottes_ attracted little or noattention, and Sir Percy boldly challenged every passer-by.
"The way to the Rue du Temple, citizen?" he asked once or twice, or:
"Have they hung the traitor yet? Can you tell me, citizeness?"
A grunt or an oath were the usual replies, but no one took any furthernotice of the gigantic coal-heaver and his ragged friends.
At the corner of one of the cross streets, between the Rue du Temple andthe Rue des Archives, Sir Percy Blakeney suddenly turned to hisfollowers:
"We are close to the rabble now," he said in a whisper, and speaking inEnglish; "do you all follow the nearest stragglers, and get as soon aspossible into the thickest of the crowd. We'll meet again outside theprison--and remember the sea-gull's cry."
He did not wait for an answer, and presently disappeared in the mist.
Already a few stragglers, hangers-on of the multitude, were graduallycoming into view, and the yells could be distinctly heard. The mob hadevidently assembled in the great square outside the prison, and wasloudly demanding the object of its wrath.
The moment for cool-headed action was at hand. The Scarlet Pimpernel hadplanned the whole thing, but it was for his followers and for those,whom he was endeavouring to rescue from certain death, to help him heartand soul.
Deroulede's grasp tightened on Juliette's little hand.
"Are you frightened, my beloved?" he whispered.
"Not whilst you are near me," she murmured in reply.
A few more minutes' walk up the Rue des Archives and they were in thethick of the crowd. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, Lord Anthony Dewhurst, and LordHastings, the three Englishmen, were in front; Deroulede and Julietteimmediately behind them.
The mob itself now carried them along. A motley throng they were, soakedthrough with the rain, drunk with their own baffled rage, and with thebrandy which they had imbibed.
Everyone was shouting; the women louder than the rest; one of them wasdragging the length of rope, which might still be useful.
"_Ca ira! ca ira! A la lanterne! A la lanterne! les traitres!_"
And Deroulede, holding Juliette by the hand, shouted lustily with them:
"_Ca ira!_"
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes turned, and laughed. It was rare sport for theseyoung bucks, and they all entered into the spirit of the situation. Theyall shouted "_A la lanterne!_" egging and encouraging those around them.
Deroulede and Juliette felt the intoxication of the adventure. They weredrunk with the joy of their reunion, and seized with the wild, mad,passionate desire for freedom and for life ... Life and love!
So they pushed and jostled on in the mud, followed the crowd, sang andyelled louder than any of them. Was not that very crowd the greatbulwark of their safety?
As well have sought for the proverbial needle in the haystack, as fortwo escaped prisoners in this mad, heaving throng.
The large open space in front of the Temple Prison looked like onegreat, seething, black mass.
The darkness was almost thick here, the ground like a morass, withinches of clayey mud, which stuck to everything, whilst the sparselanterns, hung to the prison walls and beneath the portico, threwpractically no light into the square.
As the little band, composed of the three Englishmen, and of Deroulede,holding Juliette by the hand, emerged into the open space, they heard astrident cry, like that of a sea-mew thrice repeated, and a hoarse voiceshouting from out the darkness:
"_Ma foi!_ I'll not believe that the prisoners are in the Temple now! Itis my belief, friends, citizens, that we have been fooled once more!"
The voice, with its strange, unaccountable accent, which seemed tobelong to no province of France, dominated the almost deafening noise;it penetrated through, even into the brandy-soddened minds of themultitude, for the suggestion was received with renewed shouts of thewildest wrath.
Like one great, living, seething mass the crowd literally bore down uponthe huge and frowning prison. Pushing, jostling, yelling, the womenscreaming, the men cursing, it seemed as if that awesome day--the 14thof July--was to have its sanguinary counterpart to-night, as if theTemple were destined to share the fate of the Bastille.
Obedient to their leader's orders the three young Englishmen remained inthe thick of the crowd: together with Deroulede they contrived to form asturdy rampart round Juliette, effectually protecting her against roughbuffetings.
On their right, towards the direction of Menilmontant, the sea-mew's cryat intervals gave the strength and courage.
The foremost rank of the crowd had reached the portico of the building,and, with howls and snatches of their gutter song, were loudlyclamouring for the guardian of the grim prison.
No one appeared; the great gates with their massive bars and hingesremained silent and defiant.
The crowd was becoming dangerous: whispers of the victory of theBastille, five years ago, engendered thoughts of pillage and of arson.
Then the strident voice was heard again:
"_Pardi!_ the prisoners are not in the Temple! The dolts have allowedthem to escape, and now are afraid of the wrath of the people!"
It was strange how easily the mob assimilated this new idea. Perhaps thedark, frowning block of massive buildings had overawed them with itspeaceful strength, perhaps the dripping rain and oozing clay had dampedtheir desire for an immediate storming of the grim citadel; perhaps itwas merely the human characteristic of a wish for something new,something unexpected.
Be that as it may, the cry was certainly taken up with marvellous,quick-change rapidity.
"The prisoners have escaped! The prisoners have escaped!"
Some were for proceeding with the storming of the Temple, but they werein the minority. All along, the crowd had been more inclined for privaterevenge than for martial deeds of valour; the Bastille had been taken bydaylight; the effort might not have been so successful on a pitch-blacknight such as this, when one could not see one's hand before one's eyes,and the drizzling rain went through to the marrow.
"They've got through one of the barriers by now!" suggested the samevoice from out the darkness.
"The barriers--the barriers!" came in sheeplike echo from the crowd.
The little group of fugitives and their friends tightened their hold onone another.
They had understood at last.
"It is for u
s to see that the crowd does what we want," the ScarletPimpernel had said.
He wanted it to take him and his friends out of Paris, and, by God! hewas like to succeed.
Juliette's heart within her beat almost to choking; her strong littlehand gripped Deroulede's fingers with the wild strength of a madexultation.
Next to the man to whom she had given her love and her very soul sheadmired and looked up to the remarkable and noble adventurer, thehigh-born and exquisite dandy, who with grime-covered face, and stronglimbs encased in filthy clothes, was playing the most glorious part everenacted upon the stage.
"To the barriers--to the barriers!"
Like a herd of wild horses, driven by the whip of the herdsmen, the mobbegan to scatter in all directions. Not knowing what it wanted, notknowing what it would find, half forgetting the very cause and object ofits wrath, it made one gigantic rush for the gates of the great citythrough which the prisoners were supposed to have escaped.
The three Englishmen and Deroulede, with Juliette well protected intheir midst, had not joined the general onrush as yet. The crowd in theopen place was still very thick, the outward-branching streets were verynarrow: through these the multitude, scampering, hurrying, scurrying,like a human torrent let out of a whirlpool, rushed down headlongtowards the barriers.
Up the Rue Turbigo to the Belleville gate, the Rue des Filles, and theRue du Chemin Vert, towards Popincourt, they ran, knocking each otherdown, jostling the weaker ones on one side, trampling others underfoot.They were all rough, coarse creatures, accustomed to these wildbousculades, ready to pick themselves up, again after any number offalls; whilst the mud was slimy and soft to tumble on, and those who didthe trampling had no shoes on their feet.
They rushed out from the dark, open place, these creatures of the night,into streets darker still.
On they ran--on! on!--now in thick, heaving masses, anon in loose,straggling groups--some north, some south, some east, some west.
But it was from the east that came the seagull's cry.
The little band ran boldly towards the east. Down the Rue de laRepublique they followed their leader's call. The crowd was very thickhere; the Barriere Menilmontant was close by, and beyond it there wasthe cemetery of Pere Lachaise. It was the nearest gate to the TemplePrison, and the mob wanted to be up and doing, not to spend too muchtime running along the muddy streets and getting wet and cold, but torepeat the glorious exploits of the 14th of July, and capture thebarriers of Paris by force of will rather than force of arms.
In this rushing mob the four men, with Juliette in their midst, remainedquite unchallenged, mere units in an unruly crowd.
In a quarter of an hour Menilmontant was reached.
The great gates of the city were well guarded by detachments of theNational Guard, each under command of an officer. Twenty strong atmost--what was that against such a throng?
Who had ever dreamed of Paris being stormed from within?
At every gate to the north and east of the city there was now a rabblesome four or five thousand strong, wanting it knew not what. Everyonehad forgotten what it was that caused him or her to rush on so blindly,so madly, towards the nearest barrier.
But everyone knew that he or she wanted to get through that barrier, toattack the soldiery, to knock down the captain of the Guard.
And with a wild cry every city gate was stormed.
Like one huge wind-tossed wave, the populace on that memorable night ofFructidor, broke against the cordon of soldiery, that vainly tried tokeep it back. Men and women, drunk with brandy and exultation, shouted"_Quatorze Juillet!_" and amidst curses and threats demanded the openingof the gates.
The people of France _would_ have its will.
Was it not the supreme lord and ruler of the land, the arbiter of theFate of this great, beautiful, and maddened country?
The National Guard was powerless; the officers in command could offerbut feeble resistance.
The desultory fire, which in the darkness and the pouring rain did verylittle harm, had the effect of further infuriating the mob.
The drizzle had turned to a deluge, a veritable heavy summer downpour,with occasional distant claps of thunder and incessant sheet-lightning,which ever and anon illumined with its weird, fantastic flash thisheaving throng, these begrimed faces, crowned with red caps of Liberty,these witchlike female creatures with wet, straggly hair and gaunt,menacing arms.
Within half-an-hour the people of Paris was outside its own gates.
Victory was complete. The Guard did not resist; the officers hadsurrendered; the great and mighty rabble had had its way.
Exultant, it swarmed around the fortifications and along the _terrainsvauges_ which it had conquered by its will.
But the downpour was continuous, and with victory came satiety--satietycoupled with wet skins, muddy feet, tired, wearied bodies, and throatsparched with continual shouting.
At Menilmontant, where the crowd had been thickest, the tempers highest,and the yells most strident, there now stretched before this tired,excited throng, the peaceful vastness of the cemetery of Pere Lachaise.
The great alleys of sombre monuments, the weird cedars with theirfantastic branches, like arms of a hundred ghosts, quelled and awedthese hooting masses of degraded humanity.
The silent majesty of this city of the dead seemed to frown withwithering scorn on the passions of the sister city.
Instinctively the rabble was cowed. The cemetery looked dark, dismal,and deserted. The flashed of lightning seemed to reveal ghostlikeprocessions of the departed heroes of France, wandering silently amidstthe tombs.
And the populace turned with a shudder away from this vast place ofeternal peace.
From within the cemetery gates, there was suddenly heard the sound of asea-mew calling thrice to its mate. And five dark figures, wrapped incloaks, gradually detached themselves from the throng, and one by oneslipped into the grounds of Pere Lachaise through that break in thewall, which is quite close to the main entrance.
Once more the sea-gull's cry.
Those in the crowd who heard it, shivered beneath their drippingclothes. They thought it was a soul in pain risen from one of thegraves, and some of the women, forgetting the last few years ofgodlessness, hastily crossed themselves, and muttered an invocation tothe Virgin Mary.
Within the gates all was silent and at peace. The sodden earth gaveforth no echo of the muffled footsteps, which slowly crept towards themassive block of stone, which covers the graves of the immortal lovers--Abelard and Heloise.