University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXV.

All the efforts of Claude to gain an entrance into
the chateau, or to obtain any communication with the
inhabitants of it, were in vain. He was obliged to use
the utmost caution in making the endeavour, and he
more than once subjected himself to serious danger in
the attempt.

Some days passed away in this state of suspense,
which grew every moment more awful. The most
frightful reports were continually in circulation. It
was said the town was to be sacked—there was to be
a rising of the mob—the chateau was to be burned,
and the royal family and household massacred. The
tumult and alarm each day augmented. Some dreadful
event was clearly impending. The crisis was at
hand.

It was on the afternoon before the memorable 10th
of August, that, having snatched a hasty meal, and
equipped himself, as every one else had done, with
pistols and a sabre, Claude left his lodging with the
full determination to make his way to the chateau, and
to be first in the attack which, it was understood, was
to be made upon it, so that, gaining entrance with the
mob, he might seek and save Ida, if, indeed, she had
not long since escaped from it. All his exertions could
procure for him no other chance of admission. As he
attempted to make his way towards the Tuileries, he
found the streets thronged with crowds of the worst
description. The shops were closed. Business was
entirely abandoned. Only wild hordes of women and
ruffians, whose actions gave evidences, not to be mistaken,
of an immediate outbreak.

It was late in the day when he left his lodgings, and
the shadows of night soon descended upon one of the

most frightful scenes recorded by history. The uproar
increased, and, with feelings which we shall not
undertake to depict, he perceived the tide set towards
the chateau. Suddenly a tremendous pressure, in
which some of the more feeble were trampled to death
around him, required him to exert all his strength to
escape the same fate. He succeeded with difficulty
in mounting the steps of a church, and it would be difficult
to describe the emotions with which, from this
eminence, he beheld approaching, with that kind of
solemn grandeur which always attends the exhibition
of immense power, an organized body of about thirty
thousand persons, consisting of the most desperate
men and dissolute and frantic women—the mere refuse
of human nature. Some children were distinguished
in this formidable battalion, and, fearfully indicative of
the extent of the revolutionary fury, many of the National
Guards swelled the rank of the enemy they
should have confronted. Few regular arms, however,
were seen; but countless hands bore with a firm grasp
whatever chance had thrown in their way—axes, poles,
scythes, pitchforks, clubs, spears, and butcher's knives.
Hundreds of torches threw a lurid glare upon the
scene, rendering it at once more picturesque and awful;
and, at short intervals of distance, and waved
wildly in the smoky light, were lifted banners displaying
inscriptions of the various revolutionary watchwords
most in vogue, such as Down with the Veto!
Death to the Austrian! Long live the Sans Culottes!
The country in danger! and, The nation for ever!

This dreadful army came up and passed on with a
measured tread, that sounded like the rumbling of a
volcano about to burst—the unbridled and clamorous
fury of individual passion having subsided into a general
current, more silent only because more deep.
Suddenly they broke out, as if with a simultaneous
impulse, into the chorus “ça-ira!” The blended voices
of so many thousands—their irregular and terrible
arms—their garb of rags, filth, and desperate wretchedness—their

haggard and ferocious faces—and the deep,
hollow tramp with which those determined feet—bent
to the throne of their king—kept time to the music,
made a scene which would have appalled a heart less
stout than Claude's. It seemed, indeed, the whole nation
gathered together in gigantic force, and rolling, in
one stupendous billow, to sweep away the solid banks
which had pent it up for ages.

Different indeed were the feelings and intentions
which animated Claude from those which, perhaps
with scarcely a single exception, inspired the dreadful
masses of desperate beings around him, and deep was
the horror and disgust with which he beheld their
slow, but determined, portentous advance; but he saw
no other chance of effecting his purpose than joining
their ranks, and accordingly he fell in, his drawn sabre
in hand, and pursued his march. He well knew their
path and his own were the same. In this way he succeeded
in getting much nearer the scene where centred
so many of his hopes and fears.

It was his intention to follow this army of desperadoes
to the very gate of the chateau; but an accident
prevented him. A female, whose appearance was that
of a fury, finding him in her way, suddenly thrust him
violently forward, and on his turning to defend himself
from the second blow, she raised a glittering knife, as
if to anticipate his resentment by making the first fatal
attack. In the astonishment excited by this incident,
Claude's foot slipped, and he would have received,
without being able to parry it, the descending stroke
of this half-drunken pythoness, and fallen only to be
trampled to death beneath the multitude, which no
such trifle could an instant arrest in its course, when
a third person extended his scythe so as to fend the
thrust, and hastily, at the same time, reaching his hand,
sustained him in a perpendicular position. There are
kind hearts in the lowest scenes. He was, however,
thus pressed out of the ranks, and, breathless and fatigued,
he was obliged to rest among a group which,

motionless itself, beheld this portentous tide flow by.
The regiment from which he had been thus excluded
passed on, and, unaccustomed as he was to such violent
exercise, he was glad to stop a moment and recover
breath.

This terrible body had scarcely passed, when it was
followed by several companies of grenadiers—and legions
of licentious vagabonds, at first entirely without
order or arms, but who received the latter as they proceeded
from hands careful to supply them, without fee
or question, wherever they were wanted. From these
frightful crowds ever and anon rose a kind of half-chanted
chorus, which had the most solemn and almost
sublime effect, of “Bread! bread! bread!”

Suddenly the deep report of a cannon sent an electric
shock through the stormy sea of human beings
heaving around. Then the drums beat far and wide
the terrible générale, and from all quarters rose shouts,
fierce and universal, “To the palace! To the palace!”

This was the long-expected signal for the attack on
the chateau.

Claude—his blood boiling, his mind greatly excited
by the scenes he had passed through—pressed his way
on, resolved to reach the scene of the attack at any
hazard, certain that, if these hellhounds forced admission
into the royal residence, every member of the
family would be instantly massacred, unless the friends
of the king should have gathered around him, at this
dark hour, in sufficient numbers to make a resistance,
and should have foreseen the necessity of preparing in
an adequate manner to defend their position. Bold and
firm measures would certainly have afforded a hope of
safety. The cool skill of a disciplined militia—a determined
resistance—a resolution to defend the royal
residence inch by inch, and to the last drop of blood,
supported by even a tolerable force, might check the
onset—give time for the royalists to rally around their
sovereign, till the fickle multitude should abandon

their bloody purpose. Had these requisite arrangements
been made, Claude knew that every accession
to the besieged would be of fearful importance, and
that the fate of the contest might be turned even by a
single arm. He pictured the unfortunate and excellent,
but wavering, monarch and his beautiful queen
awaiting in horror this appalling attack; and Ida, pale
with terror, calling perhaps on him for aid, which she
little dreamed he had thus promptly determined to offer.
Deeply did he yearn, during that midnight march
amid the most remorseless and bloodthirsty wretches
that ever gathered to a scene of carnage and crime, to be
planted in front of the almost defenceless circle which
they were hastening to attack. No tempest-tossed
mariner ever sighed more eagerly for land, than he for
the moment when he might throw himself before the
king and her who was now trembling at his side, and
when he might oppose even his single breast to this
awful danger. He had been denounced as a coward
for shrinking from doing what he deemed wrong, and
he could be driven neither by anger nor false shame
to violate his principle, and to break the law of man
and God. Among those who sneered at and despised
him, was there one heart that would have remained
more unappalled in this scene? one foot that would
have more steadily pursued its way where humanity,
chivalry, and love called him?

After breathing a few moments, and feeling that his
arms were safe, his pistols firm in his girdle, and his
poniard in his bosom, grasping his sword with a
prayer to Heaven for success, he stepped from his
resting-place, and committed himself once more to the
swift current which rushed towards the fated chateau.
He soon found that his principal danger lay in the effect
of the now momentarily increasing excitement of
the scene upon his mind. He could scarcely restrain
his disgust and indignation within the bounds of prudence,
or wait the proper moment to strike a blow in
defence of the weaker party. It was only the image

of Ida—pale—pursued perhaps by ruffians, and consigned
to dangers too horrible to dwell on—that gave
him power to govern the impetuosity of his soul—to
repress his mounting passions, and to check the arm
that longed to deal death among the fierce and brutal
wretches who howled around him for the blood of the
noble, the innocent, and helpless. But for long habits
of self-control, he would probably have here sacrificed
his life at once, without the slightest advantage to the
cause he espoused. Guarding himself with a powerful
effort from a premature discovery of his intention,
and making his way on and on with unwavering perseverance
and the most unshrinking disregard of such
dangers as could not be avoided, he struck through the
masses of the tumultuous rabble, who, supposing that
the tall and determined man—grasping his sabre as one
who meant to use it well, and advancing through all
obstacles with such a reckless energy—was one of
those acting as their leaders, made way for him on every
side. His form, indeed, was one that commanded
attention. His hat had long since fallen. His hair
was streaming wildly about his head, and the deep emotion
of his soul had imparted to his demeanour a commanding
dignity, and to his face a sternness, for which
he had been in some degree remarked even in the glittering
scenes of fashion, but which at this hour spoke
like one born to command, and whom it was not safe
to resist. Yes, he who had been able to endure a blow,
and all its humiliating consequences, rather than violate
a principle, now disclosed, perhaps half unexpectedly
to himself, the soul of a hero—cool and self-governed
in the midst of such shocking and perilous
scenes as the world have rarely witnessed, without
a shudder at the death-shrieks which often arose
around him—now of some wretch suspended to a
lamp-post at his side, now the wild cry of some woman
fainting and trampled to a shapeless clod beneath
his feet—and without the slightest disturbance of his
calmness, although pressing on and on amid weapons
which he knew must be presently directed against
himself, and expecting each instant as he advanced—
hoping, indeed—to be rewarded by a discharge of cannon—which
might rake the narrow and crowded streets
from end to end, and greet the besiegers with such a
reception as they deserved. He felt his soul exalted
with emotions never known before. He grew more
and more calm and resolute, and deeper and deeper
every moment grew the burning impatience of his
soul, to find the occasion when he might abandon the
ranks of his bloodthirsty companions, and, throwing
himself by the side of the other party—of Ida, perhaps—aid
in checking the attack, or yield his life in
the attempt.

But alas! one individual in a scene like this is but
an atom; and, the nearer he approached the central
scene, the more he was hemmed in, and deprived of
power over his own motions. He was borne slowly
onward, as a plank upon the billows; and, long before
he came in sight of the Tuileries, in an agony of suspense
to know whether any attack could have been
made already, without, perhaps, any defence, the
morning had filled the east, and the smoky flambeaux
began to grow pale before her pure light.

At length he reached a point whence the chateau
was visible; and he perceived, with inexpressible exultation,
not only that the attack had not commenced,
but that it was to be met with a manly defence. Battallions
of the National Guard were marched up to the
chateau. The gend'armerie followed on horseback.
Various appearances indicated that the besieged had
not abandoned hope; and that the besiegers, great as
were their strength and numbers, would not advance
farther on their enterprise without some hesitation.

On looking in another direction, however, it was seen
that the insurgents were swelled each hour by new accessions,
and were steadily advancing in several columns.
Even while Claude reconnoitred them, a large
body of the wildest rabble—who had just forced the

arsenal, and thus completely equipped themselves with
arms—approached in regular order, showing that they
were acting under cool and able leaders. They were
received with reiterated shouts of triumph. They
were followed almost immediately by another column
fifteen or twenty thousand strong, and then by another
of equal force. As the strength of the assailants received
their augmentations, the air was rent with universal
bursts of triumph, in which the name of each
body was the burden, “Hurrah! Victory! The faubourg
St. Antoine! The faubourg St. Marceau!!!”

And now the assailants were drawn up in the order
in which they were to advance to the attack. The
clamour of the crowd for a moment abated before the
intense interest of the scene. A burst of music was
heard. A company of the Marsellaise moved forward
in perfect order. Claude had placed himself as near
the front ranks as he could get—a position for him of
double peril; for, while he thus exposed himself to the
fire of the besieged, he ran the hazard of being cut
down or shot by his own party the instant he should
discover his intention of joining their victims. The
guards of the palace appeared crowded at the doors
and windows. The assailants advanced at first with
some show of order. Suddenly a single musket fired
from a window laid the man next to Claude dead beneath
his feet. A general discharge followed instantly
from both sides, and then all was smoke—crash—fire
—shrieks—shouts — thunder, and such confusion as
rendered it almost impossible to know in which direction
lay the chateau. His ears were deafened—his
clothes blackened and burnt—a ball had passed through
his sleeve, and he had a slight cut upon the arm, which
he only knew some time afterward by the sight of the
flowing blood. Borne, as a struggling sailor in a shipwreck,
by the waves, he found himself at length, with
a firm footing, immediately before the palace. His heart
leaped to perceive that he was among the first. There
were heavy blows, and crash after crash, and peals of

cannon shook the earth, and the bullets whizzed close to
his head. As the breeze blew away the smoke, he perceived
that he was in the midst of the maddened soldiery,
doing their dreadful work upon the poor Swiss, who,
fighting to the last, yielded their bosoms and their throats
to each red and ruthless hand. He threw himself into
the midst of them to save a poor fellow who was set
on by four or five ruffians, and who fought like a lion.
Claude rushed to his side. The impulse which seized
him was irresistible as madness. He fired, and the
foremost of the assailants fell. It was the first time he
had ever taken human life, and he experienced a thrill
as the poor wretch tumbled back and the blood gushed
from his head and nostrils; but there was no compunction
in his feelings, and the next assailant shared the
same fate. The poor Swiss thus supported, escaped for
the time at least; but a cloud of smoke from a cannon
discharged at their side, and a rush of the assailants into
the grand hall, separated him from the person he had
saved, luckily hid his interference from general notice,
and enabled him to reach the interior of the palace.

And now, with a trembling heart, he forced his way
in at the head of the troops, as if he had been their
leader. He cast his eyes around. The halls, slippery
with blood, were already yielding to the work of destruction.
He mounted the broad stairs — he flew
breathless through the gorgeous halls—he sought in
every chamber, with the expectation of beholding the
royal circle surrounded by their last defenders, and
ready to be slaughtered. He had made up his mind,
in such a case, to fling himself into the midst of them,
and share their fate, whatever it might be. At his
heels were a thousand ruffians—their drawn swords
red and dripping—their hoarse screams resounding
“the king! the king!”

At length they were met by another party, who had
conducted the search with a better knowledge of the
localities, and who were headed by a fierce young man,
whose actions were those of a maniac. “Sacré dia

ble!” cried he, “they are gone. The birds have
flown!”

The intelligence was received with a storm of oaths
and maledictions by all but Claude, who heard it with
an exultation which almost deprived him of prudence.
It was with difficulty he restrained himself from uttering
a shout of triumph which would have betrayed
him to his rough associates.

“Mais n'importe!” cried the voice of the young
leader; “nous y reviendrons![1] We shall come here
again.”

“Oh, save me! save me!” cried a voice husky
with terror, and one of the unhappy Swiss, whose
companions had been all massacred, pursued by a
band of butchers, rushed through the crowd. He traversed
the hall with steps winged with terror, and escaped
through an opposite door. All joined in the
pursuit. It resembled the violent phrensy of a pack
of hounds after a deer. The poor youth, better acquainted
than his pursuers with the localities of the
chateau, succeeded in eluding their grasp till he descended
into the lower apartments and offices of that
huge edifice. Here he reached the royal kitchen, with
the whole yelling crew at his heels. An enormous
fire, as if the royal family had expected to enjoy their
dinner that day as usual, was blazing on the hearth.
He sank exhausted to the floor, and was instantly
seized.

“To the roof—to the roof—hurl him off!” cried a
cracked female voice.

“No—the hook, the hook!” exclaimed others, pointing
to a large hook in the ceiling; and several eager
hands had already thrown over it a cord which hung
dangling in the air.

“The fire!” shrieked a brawny woman, her eyes
glittering with the light of intoxication, if not of madness.

The last proposal was received with frantic delight,

and immediately acted on. The victim was grasped
by a dozen fierce hands, and bound with the cord which
was to have been used in strangling him. Claude
turned to escape the sight of what he could not prevent,
and, as he hastened away, he heard the plunge
and sudden shriek of the desperate wretch, the crackling
of the sparks and flames, and the hoarse yells of
the barbarian executioners.

A scream in an adjoining corridor, sounding above
all the roar and tumult of the palace, now called his
attention in a new direction; and, with considerable surprise,
he saw several females in the last state of terror,
pursued by a rabble who threatened to sacrifice them
as the poor Swiss had been sacrificed before. A man
had even seized the arm of one of the trembling fugitives,
who, by their attire and appearance, seemed of
superior rank. His trembling eagerness scarcely permitted
him to examine whether Ida might not be among
them, though he had persuaded himself of her escape
with the queen. The defenceless victim sank upon
her knee, and lifted her hands as if yielding to death.
Of all the sensations which a human being can experience,
perhaps that of Claude was the most singular
mixture of delight and horror, on recognising in the
uplifted face of the unhappy being the features of Ida.
He advanced with the intention of striking dead the
ruffian who still dragged his victim by the arm. But
the habit of self-control here again came to his aid; for,
instead of cutting down the man, which would have
been the signal for an instant slaughter of himself and
those he wished to defend, he seized his throat with a
giant's grasp, and hurled him back against the wall.

“She is a woman!” cried he, in a voice so stern
that for a moment the wretch paused in fear.

The wild scream which Ida uttered on recognising
him, and the joy and confidence with which she clung
to his arm and to his bosom, almost unnerved him
for the crisis in which he found himself.

“A woman!” cried the man; “what of that? She

is my prisoner. Stand back!” and he lifted the scythe-blade
which he held in his hand aloft in the air with
gesticulations of fury.

Claude drew a pistol silently but firmly.

“A bas les aristocrats!” cried the wretch, and
started forward to cut him down.

There was no longer time for delay. Claude fired.
The ball passed through the assailant's brain. For a
moment the commanding attitude and stern voice of
him who had so boldly interfered between the lion and
his wrath, arrested the party.

“What! don't you know me?” exclaimed Claude.
“I am your leader. I was the first to mount the tyrant's
steps. Had he been here, you should strike
and spare not; but we shall not commence our cause
by butchering women. Back, I say, and let us send
them in safety away.”

“He's right,” cried two or three voices.

“He was the first in,” said another.

“Then I demand a guard for these miserable women,
who are not worth your rage,” said Claude. “Go, my
friends, seek more worthy game.”

The young man who had made himself so conspicuous,
and whose voice had first announced the escape
of the royal family, here came in with some of the
National Guard.

“Women?” said he; “they must be removed.”

“I demand a guard to take them to a place of safety,”
said Claude.

“You are right, stranger,” said Lazarre. “Antoine”—he
turned to one of the regular soldiers—“take
twenty men and conduct these women to the next
guardhouse.”

The soldier obeyed. The rabble made way. The
females were surrounded by their escort and marched
out of the palace.[2] The trembling Ida was rather
borne than led by Claude, whose brain reeled with a

joy too sweet to be certain, as he found himself under
the protection of the guard, completely disentangled
from the immense multitudes which now surrounded
the palace, but which grew less dense at every step of
their retreat, till they were far removed from the scene
of action, and paused in the comparative safety of a
distant and narrow street. Claude here conferred
with the officer, who promised faithfully to take each
one of his affrighted charge wherever they wished to
go. For himself, he was in the neighbourhood of
the section du Theatre Français. Ida, from the revulsion
of feeling, and the fatigue and danger of the
previous night, was almost unable to support herself.
Bearing, therefore, her light form upon his arm, which
thrilled beneath the beloved burden, he speedily reached
his hotel, gained his room, and deposited her upon
a sofa. A maid attended at his request. She was, by
a fortunate chance, a modest and kind-hearted girl, entirely
untouched with the revolutionary mania. Annette,
her eyes bathed with tears, offered to become,
through every danger, a constant and devoted attendant
of the lovely young stranger thus unexpectedly
committed to her care, and instantly commenced her
duties.

We must beg the reader to paint, according to his
own imagination, the scene which took place when
Ida recovered her senses. All that sensibility and delicacy
could require or bestow, marked every moment
of their interview, while they hastily interchanged such
particulars as were most requisite to a mutual understanding
of their present position and prospects, although
Claude carefully avoided revealing the great
change which had taken place in his fortune, and of
which Ida knew nothing. That they should quit
France instantly was of course desirable; but Carolan
was in prison, and Ida would not desert him. In
vain Claude begged her to go herself to the frontier,
with the means which he hoped to be able to supply
for her journey, promising to remain, and do all in his

power to procure the count's liberation. She firmly
refused to set off without her father. Whatever sentiment
might have been felt of that passion which had
been revealed to each other without words, and so long
cherished without hope, at this instant it gave way to
the more pressing thought of escape for themselves,
and the means of rescuing Carolan.

“Trust to me,” said Claude. “Remain where you
are; if Annette will but be faithful—”

“Oh, for ever!” said the warm-hearted girl, her eyes
filling with tears. “I will never abandon Mademoiselle
Carolan as long as I live.”

“I will consent not to leave Paris, then, till we rescue
your father.”

In this time, when so much prudence and courage
were necessary, Claude appeared more calm and noble
than Ida had ever seen him before. Even through
the mean, torn, and dirty dress which he had assumed,
his air was so free and commanding, his face so full
of manly beauty, that, little knowing the change which
had occurred in his condition, she innocently felt that
her happiness depended on him, and that he was the
only being who could ever possess her love. In the
mean time, he placed a purse in Annette's hands, requesting
her to order everything necessary to the security
and comfort of her young mistress; and Annette
was a femme de chambre whose genius could
have ministered to the wants of a princess, and surrounded
her with such cares as only a French femme
de chambre had any idea of. She was as good-humoured
as she was adroit and intelligent; and it seemed
as if Heaven had sent, in the last moment of danger,
this invaluable aid, as a token that the little party,
beset as they were by perils, were not to be deserted.