Twenty years after
“Yes, but he must make haste; for hardly will the people of Paris have
revolted before we shall have a score of princes begging to lead them.
If he defers he will find the place of honor taken.”
“Shall I send word to him as coming from you?”
“Yes certainly.”
“Shall I tell him that he can count on you?”
“To the end.”
“And you will leave the command to him?”
“Of the war, yes, but in politics——”
“You must know it is not his element.”
“He must leave me to negotiate for my cardinal’s hat in my own
fashion.”
“You care about it, then, so much?”
“Since they force me to wear a hat of a form which does not become me,”
said Gondy, “I wish at least that the hat should be red.”
“One must not dispute matters of taste and colors,” said Rochefort,
laughing. “I answer for his consent.”
“How soon can he be here?”
“In five days.”
“Let him come and he will find a change, I will answer for it.”
“Therefore, go and collect your fifty men and hold yourself in
readiness.”
“For what?”
“For everything.”
“Is there any signal for the general rally?”
“A knot of straw in the hat.”
“Very good. Adieu, my lord.”
“Adieu, my dear Rochefort.”
“Ah, Monsieur Mazarin, Monsieur Mazarin,” said Rochefort, leading off
his curate, who had not found an opportunity of uttering a single word
during the foregoing dialogue, “you will see whether I am too old to be
a man of action.”
It was half-past nine o’clock and the coadjutor required half an hour
to go from the archbishop’s palace to the tower of St. Jacques de la
Boucherie. He remarked that a light was burning in one of the highest
windows of the tower. “Good,” said he, “our syndic is at his post.”
He knocked and the door was opened. The vicar himself awaited him,
conducted him to the top of the tower, and when there pointed to a
little door, placed the light which he had brought with him in a corner
of the wall, that the coadjutor might be able to find it on his return,
and went down again. Although the key was in the door the coadjutor
knocked.
“Come in,” said a voice which he recognized as that of the mendicant,
whom he found lying on a kind of truckle bed. He rose on the entrance
of the coadjutor, and at that moment ten o’clock struck.
“Well,” said Gondy, “have you kept your word with me?”
“Not exactly,” replied the mendicant.
“How is that?”
“You asked me for five hundred men, did you not? Well, I have ten
thousand for you.”
“You are not boasting?”
“Do you wish for a proof?”
“Yes.”
There were three candles alight, each of which burnt before a window,
one looking upon the city, the other upon the Palais Royal, and a third
upon the Rue Saint Denis.
The man went silently to each of the candles and blew them out one
after the other.
“What are you doing?” asked the coadjutor.
“I have given the signal.”
“For what?”
“For the barricades. When you leave this you will behold my men at
work. Only take care you do not break your legs in stumbling over some
chain or your neck by falling in a hole.”
“Good! there is your money, the same sum as that you have received
already. Now remember that you are a general and do not go and drink.”
“For twenty years I have tasted nothing but water.”
The man took the bag from the hands of the coadjutor, who heard the
sound of his fingers counting and handling the gold pieces.
“Ah! ah!” said the coadjutor, “you are avaricious, my good fellow.”
The mendicant sighed and threw down the bag.
“Must I always be the same?” said he, “and shall I never succeed in
overcoming the old leaven? Oh, misery, oh, vanity!”
“You take it, however.”
“Yes, but I make hereby a vow in your presence, to employ all that
remains to me in pious works.”
His face was pale and drawn, like that of a man who had just undergone
some inward struggle.
“Singular man!” muttered Gondy, taking his hat to go away; but on
turning around he saw the beggar between him and the door. His first
idea was that this man intended to do him some harm, but on the
contrary he saw him fall on his knees before him with his hands
clasped.
“Your blessing, your holiness, before you go, I beseech you!” he cried.
“Your holiness!” said Gondy; “my friend, you take me for some one
else.”
“No, your holiness, I take you for what you are, that is to say, the
coadjutor; I recognized you at the first glance.”
Gondy smiled. “And you want my blessing?” he said.
“Yes, I have need of it.”
The mendicant uttered these words in a tone of such humility, such
earnest repentance, that Gondy placed his hand upon him and gave him
his benediction with all the unction of which he was capable.
“Now,” said Gondy, “there is a communion between us. I have blessed you
and you are sacred to me. Come, have you committed some crime, pursued
by human justice, from which I can protect you?”
The beggar shook his head. “The crime which I have committed, my lord,
has no call upon human justice, and you can only deliver me from it by
blessing me frequently, as you have just done.”
“Come, be candid,” said the coadjutor, “you have not all your life
followed the trade which you do now?”
“No, my lord. I have pursued it for six years only.”
“And previously, where were you?”
“In the Bastile.”
“And before you went to the Bastile?”
“I will tell you, my lord, on the day when you are willing to hear my
confession.”
“Good! At whatsoever hour of the day or night you may present yourself,
remember that I shall be ready to give you absolution.”
“Thank you, my lord,” said the mendicant in a hoarse voice. “But I am
not yet ready to receive it.”
“Very well. Adieu.”
“Adieu, your holiness,” said the mendicant, opening the door and
bending low before the prelate.
Chapter XLVII.
The Riot.
It was about eleven o’clock at night. Gondy had not walked a hundred
steps ere he perceived the strange change which had been made in the
streets of Paris.
The whole city seemed peopled with fantastic beings; silent shadows
were seen unpaving the streets and others dragging and upsetting great
wagons, whilst others again dug ditches large enough to ingulf whole
regiments of horsemen. These active beings flitted here and there like
so many demons completing some unknown labor; these were the beggars of
the Court of Miracles—the agents of the giver of holy water in the
Square of Saint Eustache, preparing barricades for the morrow.
Gondy gazed on these deeds of darkness, on these nocturnal laborers,
with a kind of fear; he asked himself, if, after having called forth
these foul creatures from their dens, he should have the power of
making them retire again. He felt almost inclined to cross himself when
one of these beings happened to approach him. He reached the Rue Saint
Honoré and went up it toward the Rue de la Ferronnerie; there the
aspect changed; here it was the tradesmen who were running from shop to
shop; their doors seemed closed like their shutters, but they were only
pushed to in such a manner as to open and allow the men, who seemed
fearful of showing what they carried, to enter, closing immediately.
These men were shopkeepers, who had arms to lend to those who had none.
One individual went from door to door, bending under the weight of
swords, guns, muskets and every kind of weapon, which he deposited as
fast as he could. By the light of a lantern the coadjutor recognized
Planchet.
The coadjutor proceeded onward to the quay by way of the Rue de la
Monnaie; there he found groups of bourgeois clad in black cloaks or
gray, according as they belonged to the upper or lower bourgeoisie.
They were standing motionless, while single men passed from one group
to another. All these cloaks, gray or black, were raised behind by the
point of a sword, or before by the barrel of an arquebuse or a musket.
On reaching the Pont Neuf the coadjutor found it strictly guarded and a
man approached him.
“Who are you?” asked the man. “I do not know you for one of us.”
“Then it is because you do not know your friends, my dear Monsieur
Louvières,” said the coadjutor, raising his hat.
Louvières recognized him and bowed.
Gondy continued his way and went as far as the Tour de Nesle. There he
saw a lengthy chain of people gliding under the walls. They might be
said to be a procession of ghosts, for they were all wrapped in white
cloaks. When they reached a certain spot these men appeared to be
annihilated, one after the other, as if the earth had opened under
their feet. Gondy, edged into a corner, saw them vanish from the first
until the last but one. The last raised his eyes, to ascertain,
doubtless, that neither his companions nor himself had been watched,
and, in spite of the darkness, he perceived Gondy. He walked straight
up to him and placed a pistol to his throat.
“Halloo! Monsieur de Rochefort,” said Gondy, laughing, “are you a boy
to play with firearms?”
Rochefort recognized the voice.
“Ah, it is you, my lord!” said he.
“The very same. What people are you leading thus into the bowels of the
earth?”
“My fifty recruits from the Chevalier d’Humières, who are destined to
enter the light cavalry and who have only received as yet for their
equipment their white cloaks.”
“And where are you going?”
“To the house of one of my friends, a sculptor, only we enter by the
trap through which he lets down his marble.”
“Very good,” said Gondy, shaking Rochefort by the hand, who descended
in his turn and closed the trap after him.
It was now one o’clock in the morning and the coadjutor returned home.
He opened a window and leaned out to listen. A strange,
incomprehensible, unearthly sound seemed to pervade the whole city; one
felt that something unusual and terrible was happening in all the
streets, now dark as ocean’s most unfathomable caves. From time to time
a dull sound was heard, like that of a rising tempest or a billow of
the sea; but nothing clear, nothing distinct, nothing intelligible; it
was like those mysterious subterraneous noises that precede an
earthquake.
The work of revolt continued the whole night thus. The next morning, on
awaking, Paris seemed to be startled at her own appearance. It was like
a besieged town. Armed men, shouldering muskets, watched over the
barricades with menacing looks; words of command, patrols, arrests,
executions, even, were encountered at every step. Those bearing plumed
hats and gold swords were stopped and made to cry, “Long live
Broussel!” “Down with Mazarin!” and whoever refused to comply with this
ceremony was hooted at, spat upon and even beaten. They had not yet
begun to slay, but it was well felt that the inclination to do so was
not wanting.
The barricades had been pushed as far as the Palais Royal. From the Rue
de Bons Enfants to that of the Ferronnerie, from the Rue Saint
Thomas-du-Louvre to the Pont Neuf, from the Rue Richelieu to the Porte
Saint Honoré, there were more than ten thousand armed men; those who
were at the front hurled defiance at the impassive sentinels of the
regiment of guards posted around the Palais Royal, the gates of which
were closed behind them, a precaution which made their situation
precarious. Among these thousands moved, in bands numbering from one
hundred to two hundred, pale and haggard men, clothed in rags, who bore
a sort of standard on which was inscribed these words: “BEHOLD THE
MISERY OF THE PEOPLE!” Wherever these men passed, frenzied cries were
heard; and there were so many of these bands that the cries were to be
heard in all directions.
The astonishment of Mazarin and of Anne of Austria was great when it
was announced to them that the city, which the previous evening they
had left entirely tranquil, had awakened to such feverish commotion;
nor would either the one or the other believe the reports that were