"
Against all which the Mountain and atrocious Marat must
even make head as they can.
Against all which the Mountain and atrocious Marat must
even make head as they can.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 - Cal to Chr
More ravenous than
famishing lions over dead prey, the multitude, with clangor and
vociferation, pounces on them; struggling, dashing, clutching,-to
the jamming-up, to the pressure, fracture, and probable extinc-
tion of the weaker Patriot. And so, with such protracted crash
of deafening, most discordant Orchestra-music, the Scene is
changed; and eight-and-twenty thousand sufficient firelocks are
on the shoulders of as many National Guards, lifted thereby out
of darkness into fiery light.
Let Besenval look at the glitter of these muskets as they
flash by! Gardes Françaises, it is said, have cannon leveled on
him; ready to open, if need were, from the other side of the
## p. 3283 (#257) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3283
river. Motionless sits he; "astonished," one may flatter one's
self, "at the proud bearing (fière contenance) of the Parisians. ”
And now to the Bastille, ye intrepid Parisians! There grape-
shot still threatens; thither all men's thoughts and steps are now
tending.
Old De Launay, as we hinted, withdrew into his interior »
soon after midnight of Sunday. He remains there ever since,
hampered, as all military gentlemen now are, in the saddest con-
flict of uncertainties. The Hôtel-de-Ville "invites" him to admit
National Soldiers, which is a soft name for surrendering. On the
other hand, his Majesty's orders were precise. His garrison is
but eighty-two old Invalides, reinforced by thirty-two young
Swiss; his walls, indeed, are nine feet thick; he has cannon and
powder, but alas! only one day's provision of victuals. The
city, too, is French, the poor garrison mostly French. Rigorous
old De Launay, think what thou wilt do!
All morning, since nine, there has been a cry everywhere:
To the Bastille! Repeated "deputations of citizens" have been
here, passionate for arms, whom De Launay has got dismissed
by soft speeches through port-holes. Towards noon, Elector
Thuriot de la Rosière gains admittance, finds De Launay indis-
posed for surrender, nay, disposed for blowing up the place,
rather. Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements; heaps of
paving-stones, old iron, and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly lev-
eled;
in every embrasure a cannon, only drawn back a little!
But outwards, behold, O Thuriot, how the multitude flows on,
welling through every street, tocsin furiously pealing, all drums
beating the générale; the suburb Saint-Antoine rolling hither-
ward wholly as one man!
Such vision (spectral, yet real) thou,
0 Thuriot, as from thy Mount of Vision, beholdest in this mo-
ment: prophetic of what other Phantasmagories and loud-gibber-
ing Spectral Realities which thou yet beholdest not, but shalt!
"Que voulez-vous? " said De Launay, turning pale at the sight,
with
an air of reproach, almost of menace. "Monsieur," said
Thuriot, rising into the moral-sublime, "what mean you? Con-
sider if I could not precipitate both of us from this height," -
say only a hundred feet, exclusive of the walled ditch! Where-
De Launay fell silent. Thuriot shows himself from some
pinnacle to comfort the multitude becoming suspicious, fremes-
cent, then descends, departs with protest, with warning addressed
also to the Invalides, on whom however it produces but a mixed,
upon
-
## p. 3284 (#258) ###########################################
3284
THOMAS CARLYLE
indistinct impression. The old heads are none of the clearest;
besides, it is said, De Launay has been profuse of beverages.
(prodigue des buissons). They think they will not fire if not
fired on if they can help it; but must, on the whole, be ruled
considerably by circumstances.
- -
Wo to thee, De Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not,
taking some one firm decision, rule circumstances! Soft speeches
will not serve, hard grape-shot is questionable, but hovering
between the two is unquestionable. Ever wilder swells the tide
of men; their infinite hum waxing ever louder, into imprecations,
perhaps into crackle of stray musketry,- which latter, on walls
nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The Outer Drawbridge has
been lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citizens (it is the
third and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the Outer
Court; soft speeches producing no clearance of these, De Launay
gives fire; pulls up his drawbridge. A slight sputter, which has
kindled the too combustible chaos, made it a roaring fire-chaos!
Bursts forth Insurrection, at sight of its own blood (for there
were deaths by that sputter of fire), into endless, rolling explos-
ion of musketry, distraction, execration; - and over head, from
the fortress, let one great gun, with its grape-shot, go booming,
to show what we could do. The Bastille is besieged!
On, then, all Frenchmen that have hearts in your bodies!
Roar with all your throats of cartilage and metal, ye Sons of
Liberty; stir spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in
you, soul, body, or spirit; for it is the hour! Smite thou, Louis
Tournay, cartwright of the Marais, old-soldier of the Regiment
Dauphiné; smite at that Outer Drawbridge chain, though the
fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over nave or felloe, did
thy axe strike such a stroke. Down with it, man; down with it
to Orcus: let the whole accursed edifice sink thither, and tyr-
anny be swallowed up forever! Mounted, some say, on the roof
of the guard-room, some "on bayonets stuck into joints of the
wall," Louis Tournay smites, brave Aubin Bonnemère (also an
old soldier) seconding him; the chain yields, breaks; the huge
Drawbridge slams down, thundering (avec fracas). Glorious! and
yet, alas! it is still but the outworks. The Eight Grim Towers,
with their Invalide musketry, their paving-stones and cannon-
mouths, still soar aloft intact; - Ditch yawning impassable, stone-
faced; the inner Drawbridge with its back toward us; the Bastille
is still to take!
## p. 3285 (#259) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3285
To describe this Siege of the Bastille (thought to be one of
the most important in History) perhaps transcends the talent
of mortals. Could one but, after infinite reading, get to under-
stand so much as the plan of the building! But there is open
Esplanade at the end of the Rue Saint-Antoine; there are such
Forecourts (Cour Avancé), Cour de l'Orme, arched gateway (where
Louis Tournay now fights); then new drawbridges, dormant-
bridges, rampart-bastions, and the grim Eight Towers: a laby-
rinthic Mass, high-frowning there, of all ages from twenty years
to four hundred and twenty; — beleaguered, in this its last hour, as
we said, by mere Chaos come again! Ordnance of all calibres;
throats of all capacities; men of all plans, every man his own
engineer; seldom since the war of Pygmies and Cranes was, there
seen so anomalous a thing. Half-pay Elie is home for a suit of
regimentals; no one would heed him in colored clothes; half-pay
Hulin is haranguing Gardes Françaises in the Place de Grève.
Frantic patriots pick up the grape-shots; bear them, still hot (or
seemingly so), to the Hôtel-de-Ville: - Paris, you perceive, is to
be burnt! Flesselles is "pale to the very lips," for the roar of
the multitude grows deep. Paris wholly has got to the acme
of its frenzy; whirled, all ways, by panic madness.
At every
street-barricade, there whirls simmering a minor whirlpool,-
strengthening the barricade, since God knows what is coming;
and all minor whirlpools play distractedly into that grand Fire-
Maelstrom which is lashing round the Bastille.
non.
non
And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat the wine-merchant
has become an impromptu cannoneer. See Georget of the
marine service, fresh from Brest, ply the King of Siam's can-
Singular (if we were not used to the like). Georget lay,
last night, taking his ease at his inn; the King of Siam's can-
also lay, knowing nothing of him, for a hundred years;
yet now, at the right instant, they have got together, and dis-
course eloquent music. For hearing what was toward, Georget
sprang from the Brest Diligence, and ran. Gardes Françaises,
also,
will be here, with real artillery: were not the walls so
thick! Upward from the Esplanade, horizontally from all neigh-
boring roofs and windows, flashes one irregular deluge of
musketry, without effect. The Invalides lie flat, firing com-
paratively at their ease from behind stone; hardly through
port-holes show the tip of a nose. We fall, shot; and make
no impression!
-
## p. 3286 (#260) ###########################################
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THOMAS CARLYLE
Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible! Guard-
rooms are burnt, Invalides mess-rooms. A distracted "Peruke-
maker with two fiery torches" is for burning "the saltpetres of
the Arsenal," had not a woman run screaming; had not a Patriot,
with some tincture of Natural Philosophy, instantly struck the
wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach), overturned
barrels, and stayed the devouring element. A young beautiful
lady, seized, escaping, in these Outer Courts, and thought
falsely to be De Launay's daughter, shall be burnt in De Lau-
nay's sight; she lies, swooned, on a paillasse; but again a
Patriot it is brave Aubin Bonnemère, the old soldier-dashes
in, and rescues her. Straw is burnt; three cartloads of it,
hauled hither, go up in white smoke, almost to the choking
of Patriotism itself; so that Elie had, with singed brows, to
drag back one cart, and Réole the "gigantic haberdasher "
another. Smoke as of Tophet; confusion as of Babel; noise as
of the Crack of Doom!
-
Blood flows; the ailment of new madness. The wounded are
carried into houses of the Rue Cerisaie; the dying leave their
last mandate not to yield till the accursed Stronghold fall. And
yet, alas! how fall? The walls are so thick! Deputations, three
in number, arrive from the Hôtel-de-Ville; Abbé Fauchet (who
was of one) can say with what almost superhuman courage of
benevolence. These wave their Town-flag in the arched Gateway,
and stand, rolling their drum, but to no purpose. In such Crack
of Doom, De Launay cannot hear them, dare not believe them;
they return, with justified rage, the whew of lead still singing
in their ears. What to do? The Firemen are here, squirting
with their fire-pumps on the Invalides cannon, to wet the touch-
holes; they unfortunately cannot squirt so high; but produce
only clouds of spray. Individuals of classical knowledge pro-
pose catapults. Santerre, the sonorous Brewer of the Suburb
Saint-Antoine, advises rather that the place be fired by a "mix-
ture of phosphorus and oil of turpentine spouted up through
forcing-pumps. " O Spinola-Santerre, hast thou the mixture
ready? Every man his own engineer! And still the fire-
deluge abates not; even women are firing, and Turks; at least
one woman (with her sweetheart), and one Turk. Gardes Fran-
çaises have come; real cannon, real cannoneers. Usher Maillard
is busy; half-pay Elie, half-pay Hulin, rage in the midst of
thousands.
## p. 3287 (#261) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3287
How the great Bastille clock ticks (inaudible) in its Inner
Court, there, at its ease, hour after hour; as if nothing special,
for it or the world, were passing! It tolled One when the firing
began, and is now pointing toward Five, and still the firing
slakes not. — Far down, in their vaults, the seven Prisoners hear
muffled din as of earthquakes; their Turnkeys answer vaguely.
Woe to thee, De Launay, with thy poor hundred Invalides!
Broglie is distant, and his ears heavy; Besenval hears, but can
send no help. One poor troop of Hussars has crept, reconnoi-
tring, cautiously along the Quais, as far as the Pont Neuf. « We
are come to join you," said the Captain; for the crowd seems
shoreless. A large-headed dwarfish individual, of smoke-bleared
aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips, for there is sense
in him; and croaks, "Alight then, and give up your arms! " The
Hussar-Captain is too happy to be escorted to the barriers and
dismissed on parole. Who the squat individual was? Men
answer, It is M. Marat, author of the excellent pacific Avis au
Peuple'! Great, truly, O thou remarkable Dogleech, is this thy
day of emergence and new-birth; and yet this same day come
four years! But let the curtains of the Future hang.
What shall De Launay do? One thing only De Launay could
have done: what he said he would do. Fancy him sitting, from
the first, with lighted taper, within arm's-length of the Powder-
Magazine; motionless, like old Roman Senator, or Bronze Lamp-
holder; coldly apprising Thuriot, and all men, by a slight motion
of his eye, what his resolution was:- Harmless he sat there,
while unharmed; but the King's Fortress, meanwhile, could, might,
would, or should in nowise be surrendered save to the King's
Messenger; one old man's life is worthless, so it be lost with
honor; but think, ye brawling canaille, how will it be when a
whole Bastille springs skyward? In such statuesque, taper-holding
attitude, one fancies De Launay might have left Thuriot, the red
clerks of the Basoche, Curé of Saint-Stephen, and all the tagrag
and bobtail of the world, to work their will.
of
And, yet, withal, he could not do it. Hast thou considered
how each man's heart is so tremulously responsive to the hearts
of all men? Hast thou noted how omnipotent is the very sound
many men ? How their shriek of indignation palsies the
strong soul; their howl of contumely withers with unfelt pangs?
The Ritter Gluck confessed that the ground-tone of the noblest
passage in one of his noblest Operas was the voice of the
## p. 3288 (#262) ###########################################
3288
THOMAS CARLYLE
populace he had heard at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser, Bread!
Bread! Great is the combined voice of men, the utterance of
their instincts, which are truer than their thoughts; it is the
greatest a man encounters, among the sounds and shadows which
make up this World of Time. He who can resist that, has his
footing somewhere beyond Time. De Launay could not do it.
Distracted, he hovers between two; hopes in the middle of
despair; surrenders not his Fortress; declares that he will blow it
up, seizes torches to blow it up, and does not blow it. Unhappy
old De Launay, it is the death-agony of thy Bastille and thee!
Jail, Jailoring, and Jailor, all three, such as they may have been,
must finish.
For four hours now has the World-Bedlam roared; call it the
World-Chimæra, Llowing fire! The poor Invalides have sunk under
their battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets; they have
made a white flag of napkins; go beating the chamade, or seem-
ing to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss at the
Portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened in the fire-deluge; a
port-hole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak.
See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man! On his plank swinging.
over the abyss of that stone Ditch; plank resting on parapet,
balanced by weight of Patriots, he hovers perilous; such a Dove
toward such an Ark! Deftly, thou shifty Usher; one man already
fell; and lies smashed, far down there, against the masonry!
Usher Maillard falls not; deftly, unerring, he walks, with out-
spread palm. The Swiss holds a paper through his port-hole;
the shifty Usher snatches it and returns. Terms of surrender,
Pardon, immunity to all! Are they accepted? "Foi d'officier,
On the word of an officer," answers half-pay Hulin, or half-pay
Elie for men do not agree on it "they are! " Sinks the .
drawbridge, Usher Maillard bolting it when down; rushes in
the living deluge; the Bastille is fallen! Victoire! La Bastille
est prise!
-
-
Why dwell on what follows? Hulin's foi d'officier should have
been kept, but could not. The Swiss stand drawn up, disguised
in white canvas smocks; the Invalides without disguise, their
arms all piled against the wall. The first rush of victors, in
ecstasy that the death peril is passed, "leaps joyfully on their
necks"; but new victors rush, and ever new, also in ecstasy not
wholly of joy. As we said, it was a living deluge, plunging
## p. 3289 (#263) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3289
headlong; had not the Gardes Françaises, in their cool military
way, "wheeled round with arms leveled," it would have plunged
suicidally, by the hundred or the thousand, into the Bastille-ditch.
And so it goes plunging through court and corridor; billowing
uncontrollable, firing from windows-on itself; in hot frenzy of
triumph, of grief and vengeance for its slain. The poor Invalides
will fare ill; one Swiss, running off in his white smock, is driven
back, with a death-thrust. Let all prisoners be marched to the
Town-hall to be judged! Alas, already one poor Invalide has his
right hand slashed off him; his maimed body dragged to the
Place de Grève, and hanged there. This same right hand, it is
said, turned back De Launay from the Powder-Magazine, and
saved Paris.
De Launay, "discovered in gray frock with poppy-colored rib-
and," is for killing himself with the sword of his cane.
He
shall to the Hôtel-de-Ville; Hulin, Maillard, and others escorting
him, Elie marching foremost, "with the capitulation-paper on
his sword's point. " Through roarings and cursings; through
hustlings, clutchings, and at last through strokes! Your escort
is hustled aside, fell down; Hulin sinks exhausted on a heap of
stones. Miserable De Launay! He shall never enter the Hôtel-
de-Ville; only his "bloody hair-queue, held up in a bloody
hand"; that shall enter, for a sign. The bleeding trunk lies on
the steps there; the head is off through the streets, ghastly,
aloft on a pike.
Rigorous De Launay has died; crying out, "O friends, kill
me fast! " Merciful De Losme must die; though Gratitude em-
braces him, in this fearful hour, and will die for him, it avails.
not. Brothers, your wrath is cruel! Your Place de Grève is
become a Throat of the Tiger, full of mere fierce bellowings, and
thirst of blood. One other officer is massacred; one other Inva-
lide is hanged on the Lamp-iron; with difficulty, with generous.
perseverance, the Gardes Françaises will save the rest. Provost
Flesselles, stricken long since with the paleness of death, must
descend from his seat, "to be judged at the Palais Royal";
alas, to be shot dead by an unknown hand at the turning of the
first street!
O evening sun of July, how, at this hour, thy beams fall
slant on reapers amid peaceful woody fields; on old women spin-
ning in cottages; on ships far out on the silent main; on Balls
at the Orangerie of Versailles, where high-rouged Dames of the
## p. 3290 (#264) ###########################################
3290
THOMAS CARLYLE
Palace are even now dancing with double-jacketed Hussar-
Officers; and also on this roaring Hell-porch of a Hôtel-de-Ville!
Babel Tower, with the confusion of tongues, were not Bedlam
added with the conflagration of thoughts, was no type of it. One
forest of distracted steel bristles, endless, in front of an Electoral
Committee; points itself, in horrid radii, against this and the
other accused breast. It was the Titans warring with Olym-
pus; and they, scarcely crediting it, have conquered; prodigy of
prodigies; delirious, as it could not but be. Denunciation,
vengeance; blaze of triumph on a dark ground of terror; all
outward, all inward things fallen into one general wreck of
madness!
-
-
CHARLOTTE CORDAY
From The French Revolution'
N THE leafy months of June and July, several French Depart-
ments germinate a set of rebellious paper-leaves, named Pro-
clamations, Resolutions, Journals, or Diurnals, "of the Union
for Resistance to Oppression. " In particular, the Town of Caen,
in Calvados, sees its paper-leaf of Bulletin de Caen suddenly bud,
suddenly establish itself as Newspaper there; under the Editor-
ship of Girondin National Representatives!
For among the proscribed Girondins are certain of a more
desperate humor. Some, as Vergniaud, Valazé, Gensonné, "ar-
rested in their own houses," will await with stoical resignation
what the issue may be. Some, as Brissot, Rabaut, will take to
flight, to concealment; which, as the Paris Barriers are opened
again in a day or two, is not yet difficult. But others there are
who will rush, with Buzot, to Calvados; or far over France, to
Lyons, Toulon, Nantes and elsewhither, and then rendezvous at
Caen to awaken as with war-trumpet the respectable Depart-
ments; and strike down an anarchic Mountain Faction; at least
not yield without a stroke at it. Of this latter temper we count
some score or more, of the Arrested, and of the Not-yet-arrested:
a Buzot, a Barbaroux, Louvet, Guadet, Pétion, who have escaped
from Arrestment in their own homes; a Salles, a Pythagorean
Valady, a Duchâtel, the Duchâtel that came in blanket and
night-cap to vote for the life of Louis, who have escaped from
danger and likelihood of Arrestment. These, to the number at
## p. 3291 (#265) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3291
one time of Twenty-seven, do accordingly lodge here, in the
"Intendance," or Departmental Mansion, of the town of Caen
in Calvados; welcomed by Persons in Authority; welcomed and
defrayed, having no money of their own. And the Bulletin de
Caen comes forth, with the most animating paragraphs: How the
Bordeaux Department, the Lyons Department, this Department
after the other is declaring itself; sixty, or say sixty-nine, or
seventy-two respectable Departments either declaring, or ready to
declare. Nay, Marseilles, it seems, will march on Paris by itself,
if need be. So has Marseilles Town said that she will march.
But on the other hand, that Montélimart Town has said, No
thoroughfare; and means even to "bury herself" under her own
stone and mortar first,- of this be no mention in Bulletin de
Caen.
Such animating paragraphs we read in this new Newspaper;
and fervors and eloquent sarcasm: tirades against the Mountain,
from the pen of Deputy Salles; which resemble, say friends,
Pascal's "Provincials. " What is more to the purpose, these
Girondins have got a General in chief, one Wimpfen, formerly
under Dumouriez; also a secondary questionable General Puisaye,
and others; and are doing their best to raise a force for war.
National Volunteers, whosoever is of right heart: gather in, ye
National Volunteers, friends of Liberty; from our Calvados
Townships, from the Eure, from Brittany, from far and near:
forward to Paris, and extinguish Anarchy! Thus at Caen, in the
early July days, there is a drumming and parading, a perorating
and consulting: Staff and Army; Council; Club of Carabots,
Anti-jacobin friends of Freedom, to denounce atrocious Marat.
With all which, and the editing of Bulletins, a National Repre-
sentative has his hands full.
At Caen it is most animated; and, as one hopes, more or less
animated in the "Seventy-two Departments that adhere to us. "
And in a France begirt with Cimmerian invading Coalitions, and
torn with an internal La Vendée, this is the conclusion we have
arrived at: To put down Anarchy by Civil War! Durum et
durum, the Proverb says, non faciunt murum. La Vendée burns;
Santerre can do nothing there; he may return home and brew
beer. Cimmerian bombshells fly all along the North. That Siege
of Mentz is become famed;-lovers of the Picturesque (as Goethe
will testify), washed country-people of both sexes, stroll thither
on Sundays, to see the artillery work and counter-work; “you
## p. 3292 (#266) ###########################################
3292
THOMAS CARLYLE
only duck a little while the shot whizzes past. >>>> Condé is capitu-
lating to the Austrians; Royal Highness of York, these several
weeks, fiercely batters Valenciennes. For, alas, our fortified Camp
of Famars was stormed; General Dampierre was killed; General
Custine was blamed,- and indeed is now come to Paris to give
"explanations.
"
Against all which the Mountain and atrocious Marat must
even make head as they can. They, anarchic Convention as they
are, publish Decrees, expostulatory, explanatory, yet not without
severity: they ray-forth Commissioners, singly or in pairs, the
olive-branch in one hand, yet the sword in the other. Commis-
sioners come even to Caen; but without effect. Mathematical
Romme, and Prieur named of the Côte d'Or, venturing thither,
with their olive and sword, are packed into prison: there may
Romme lie, under lock and key, "for fifty days"; and meditate
his New Calendar, if he please. Cimmeria, La Vendée, and Civil
War! Never was Republic One and Indivisible at a lower
ebb.
Amid which dim ferment of Caen and the World, History
specially notices one thing: in the lobby of the Mansion de
l'Intendance, where busy Deputies are coming and going, a young
Lady with an aged valet, taking grave graceful leave of Deputy
Barbaroux. She is of stately Norman figure: in her twenty-fifth
year; of beautiful still countenance: her name is Charlotte Cor-
day, heretofore styled D'Armans, while Nobility still was. Bar-
baroux has given her a Note to Deputy Duperret,-him who
once drew his sword in the effervescence. Apparently she will
to Paris on some errand?
«She was a Republican before the
Revolution, and never wanted energy. " A completeness, a decis-
ion is in this fair female Figure: "By energy she means the
spirit that will prompt one to sacrifice himself for his country. "
What if she, this fair young Charlotte, had emerged from her
secluded stillness, suddenly like a Star; cruel-lovely, with half-
angelic, half-demonic splendor; to gleam for a moment, and in a
moment be extinguished: to be held in memory, so bright com-
plete was she, through long centuries! -Quitting Cimmerian
Coalitions without, and the dim-simmering twenty-five million
within, History will look fixedly at this one fair Apparition of
a Charlotte Corday; will note whither Charlotte moves, how the
little Life burns forth so radiant, then vanishes swallowed of the
Night.
## p. 3293 (#267) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3293
With Barbaroux's Note of Introduction, and slight stock of
luggage, we see Charlotte on Tuesday the 9th of July seated in
the Caen Diligence, with a place for Paris. None takes farewell
of her, wishes her Good-journey: her Father will find a line left,
signifying that she is gone to England, that he must pardon her,
and forget her. The drowsy Diligence lumbers along; amid
drowsy talk of Politics, and praise of the Mountain; in which
she mingles not: all night, all day, and again all night. On
Thursday, not long before noon, we are at the bridge of Neuilly;
here is Paris with her thousand black domes, the goal and
purpose of thy journey! Arrived at the Inn de la Providence in
the Rue des Vieux Augustins, Charlotte demands a room;
hastens to bed; sleeps all afternoon and night, till the morrow
morning.
On the morrow morning, she delivers her Note to Duperret.
It relates to certain Family Papers which are in the Minister of
the Interior's hands; which a Nun at Caen, an old Convent
friend of Charlotte's, has need of; which Duperret shall assist
her in getting: this then was Charlotte's errand to Paris? She
finished this, in the course of Friday:-yet says nothing of
returning. She has seen and silently investigated several things.
The Convention, in bodily reality, she has seen; what the Mount-
ain is like. The living physiognomy of Marat she could not see;
he is sick at present, and confined to home.
About eight on the Saturday morning, she purchases a large
sheath-knife in the Palais Royal; then straightway, in the Place
des Victoires, takes a hackney-coach: "To the Rue de l'École de
Médecine, No. 44. " It is the residence of the Citoyen Marat! -
The Citoyen Marat is ill, and cannot be seen; which seems to
disappoint her much. Her business is with Marat, then? Hap-
less beautiful Charlotte; hapless squalid Marat! From Caen in
the utmost West, from Neuchâtel in the utmost East, they two
drawing nigh each other; they two have, very strangely,
business together. -Charlotte, returning to her Inn, dispatches a
Note to Marat; signifying that she is from Caen, the seat
of rebellion; that she desires earnestly to see him, and "will put
his power to do France a great service. " No answer.
Charlotte writes another Note, still more pressing; sets out with
it by coach, about seven in the evening, herself. Tired day-
laborers have again finished their Week; huge Paris is circling
and simmering, manifold according to its vague wont; this one
short
it in
## p. 3294 (#268) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3294
fair Figure has decision in it; drives straight,― toward a pur-
pose.
It is yellow July evening, we say, the 13th of the month; eve
of the Bastille day,-when "M. Marat," four years ago, in the
crowd of the Pont Neuf, shrewdly required of that Besenval
Hussar-party, which had such friendly dispositions, "to dismount,
and give up their arms, then "; and became notable among
Patriot men. Four years: what a road he has traveled:— and
sits now, about half-past seven of the clock, stewing in slipper-
bath; sore afflicted; ill of Revolution Fever, of what other
malady this History had rather not name. Excessively sick and
worn, poor man: with precisely eleven-pence-half-penny of
ready-money, in paper; with slipper-bath; strong three-footed
stool for writing on, the while; and a squalid - Washer-woman,
one may call her: that is his civic establishment in Medical-
School Street; thither and not elsewhither has his road led him.
Not to the reign of Brotherhood and Perfect Felicity: yet surely
on the way toward that? - Hark, a rap again!
rap again! A musical
woman's voice, refusing to be rejected: it is the Citoyenne who
would do France a service. Marat, recognizing from within,
cries, Admit her. Charlotte Corday is admitted.
Citoyen Marat, I am from Caen the seat of rebellion, and
wished to speak with you. -Be seated, mon enfant. Now what
are the Traitors doing at Caen? What Deputies are at Caen? —
Charlotte names some Deputies.
"Their heads shall fall within
a fortnight," croaks the eager People's-friend, clutching his
tablets to write: Barbaroux, Pétion, writes he with bare shrunk
arm, turning aside in the bath: Pétion, and Louvet, and-Char-
lotte has drawn her knife from the sheath; plunges it with one
sure stroke, into the writer's heart. "À moi, chère amie (Help,
dear)! " no more could the Death-choked say or shriek. The
helpful Washer-woman running in-there is no Friend of the
People, or Friend of the Washer-woman, left; but his life with a
groan gushes out, indignant, to the shades below!
And so Marat, People's-friend, is ended; the lone Stylites has
got hurled down suddenly from his pillar-whither ward He that
made him knows. Patriot Paris may sound triple and tenfold, in
dole and wail; re-echoed by patriot France; and the Convention,
"Chabot pale with terror, declaring that they are to be all assas-
sinated," may decree him Pantheon Honors, Public Funeral,
Mirabeau's dust making way for him; and Jacobin Societies, in
## p. 3295 (#269) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3295
lamentable oratory, summing up his character, parallel him to
One, whom they think it honor to call "the good Sans-culotte, "-
whom we name not here; also a Chapel may be made, for the
urn that holds his Heart, in the Place du Carrousel; and new-
born children be named Marat; and Lago-di-Como Hawkers bake
mountains of stucco into unbeautiful Busts; and David paint his
Picture, or Death-Scene; and such other Apotheosis take place
as the human genius, in these circumstances, can devise: but
Marat returns no more to the light of this Sun. One sole cir-
cumstance we have read with clear sympathy, in the old Moni-
teur Newspaper: how Marat's Brother comes from Neuchâtel to
ask of the Convention, "that the deceased Jean-Paul Marat's
musket be given to him. " For Marat too had a brother and
natural affections; and was wrapped once in swaddling-clothes,
and slept safe in a cradle like the rest of us. Ye children of
men! —A sister of his, they say, lives still to this day in Paris.
As for Charlotte Corday, her work is accomplished; the
recompense of it is near and sure. The chère amie, and the
neighbors of the house, flying at her, she "overturns some
movables," intrenches herself till the gendarmes arrive; then
quietly surrenders; goes quietly to the Abbaye Prison: she alone
quiet, all Paris sounding, in wonder, in rage or admiration,
round her. Duperret is put in arrest, on account of her; his
Papers sealed,-which may lead to consequences. Fauchet, in
like manner; though Fauchet had not so much as heard of her.
Charlotte, confronted with these two Deputies, praises the grave
firmness of Duperret, censures the dejection of Fauchet.
On Wednesday morning the thronged Palais de Justice and
Revolutionary Tribunal can see her face; beautiful and calm:
she dates it "fourth day of the Preparation of Peace. " A strange
murmur ran through the Hall, at sight of her; you could not
say of what character. Tinville has his indictments and tape-
papers: the cutler of the Palais Royal will testify that he sold
her the sheath-knife; "All these details are needless," interrupted
Charlotte; "it is I that killed Marat. " By whose instigation? —
"By no one's. " "What tempted you, then? " "His crimes. I
killed
one man," added she, raising her voice extremely (ex-
trêmement),
as they went on with their questions, "I killed one
man to save a hundred thousand; a villain to save innocents; a
savage wild-beast to give repose to my country. I was a Repub-
before the Revolution; I never wanted energy. " There is
lican
## p. 3296 (#270) ###########################################
3296
THOMAS CARLYLE
therefore nothing to be said. The public gazes astonished: the
hasty limners sketch her features, Charlotte not disapproving:
the men of law proceed with their formalities. The doom is
Death as a murderess. To her Advocate she gives thanks; in
gentle phrase, in high-flown classical spirit. To the Priest they
send her she gives thanks; but needs not any shriving, any
ghostly or other aid from him.
On this same evening, therefore, about half-past seven o'clock,
from the gate of the Conciergerie, to a City all on tip-toe, the
fatal Cart issues; seated on it a fair young creature, sheeted in
red smock of Murderess; so beautiful, serene, so full of life;
journeying toward death,-alone amid the World. Many take
off their hats, saluting reverently; for what heart but must be
touched? Others growl and howl. Adam Lux, of Mentz, de-
clares that she is greater than Brutus; that it were beautiful to
die with her; the head of this young man seems turned. At the
Place de la Révolution, the countenance of Charlotte wears the
same still smile. The executioners proceed to bind her feet; she
resists, thinking it meant as an insult; on a word of explanation,
she submits with cheerful apology. As the last act, all being
now ready, they take the neckerchief from her neck, a blush of
maidenly shame overspreads her fair face and neck; the cheeks
were still tinged with it when the executioner lifted the severed
head, to show it to the people. "It is most true," says Forster,
"that he struck the cheek insultingly; for I saw it with my eyes;
the Police imprisoned him for it. "
In this manner have the Beautifulest and the Squalidest come
in collision, and extinguished one another. Jean-Paul Marat and
Marie-Anne Charlotte Corday both, suddenly, are no more. "Day
of the Preparation of Peace"? Alas, how were peace possible or
preparable, while for example, the hearts of lovely Maidens, in
their convent-stillness, are dreaming not of Love-paradises and the
light of Life, but of Codrus's-sacrifices and Death well-earned?
That twenty-five million hearts have got to such temper, this is
the Anarchy; the soul of it lies in this, whereof not peace can be
the embodiment! The death of Marat, whetting old animosities
tenfold, will be worse than any life. O ye hapless Two, mutually
extinctive, the Beautiful and the Squalid, sleep ye well,- in the
Mother's bosom that bore you both!
This is the History of Charlotte Corday; most definite, most
complete: angelic-demonic: like a Star!
## p. 3297 (#271) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3297
TE
4
D
*
THE SCAPEGOAT
From the French Revolution>
T
THIS conclusion, then, hast thou come, O hapless Louis!
The Son of Sixty Kings is to die on the Scaffold by form.
of Law. Under Sixty Kings this same form of Law, form
of Society, has been fashioning itself together these thousand
years; and has become, one way and other, a most strange
Machine. Surely, if needful, it is also frightful, this Machine;
dead, blind; not what it should be; which, with swift stroke, or
by cold slow torture, has wasted the lives and souls of innumer-
And behold now a King himself, or say rather King-
hood in his person, is to expire here in cruel tortures, — like a
Phalaris shut in the belly of his own red-heated Brazen Bull! It
is ever so; and thou shouldst know it, O haughty tyrannous man;
injustice breeds injustice; curses and falsehoods do verily return
"always home," wide as they may wander. Innocent Louis bears
the sins of many generations: he too experiences that man's tri-
bunal is not in this Earth; that if he had no Higher one, it were
not well with him.
able men.
A King dying by such violence appeals impressively to the
imagination; as the like must do, and ought to do. And yet at
bottom it is not the King dying, but the man! Kingship is a
coat: the grand loss is of the skin. The man from whom you
take his Life, to him can the whole combined world do more?
Lally went on his hurdle; his mouth filled with a gag. Miser-
ablest mortals, doomed for picking pockets, have a whole five-act
Tragedy in them, in that dumb pain, as they go to the gallows,
unregarded; they consume the cup of trembling down to the
lees.
For Kings and for Beggars, for the justly doomed and
the unjustly, it is a hard thing to die. Pity them all: thy ut-
most pity, with all aids and appliances and throne-and-scaffold
contrasts, how far short is it of the thing pitied!
A Confessor has come; Abbé Edgeworth, of Irish extraction,
whom the King knew by good report, has come promptly on this
solemn mission. Leave the Earth alone, then, thou hapless King;
it with its malice will go its way, thou also canst go thine. A
hard scene yet remains: the parting with our loved ones.
hearts, environed in the same grim peril with us; to be left here!
Let the Reader look with the eyes of Valet Cléry through these
Kind
VI-207
## p. 3298 (#272) ###########################################
3298
THOMAS CARLYLE
glass-doors, where also the Municipality watches; and see the
cruelest of scenes:
―――――
"At half-past eight, the door of the ante-room opened: the
Queen appeared first, leading her Son by the hand; then Madame
Royale and Madame Elizabeth: they all flung themselves into the
arms of the King. Silence reigned for some minutes; interrupted
only by sobs. The Queen made a movement to lead his Majesty
towards the inner room, where M. Edgeworth was waiting un-
known to them: 'No,' said the King, 'let us go into the dining-
room; it is there only that I can see you. ' They entered there;
I shut the door of it, which was of glass. The King sat down,
the Queen on his left hand, Madame Elizabeth on his right,
Madame Royale almost in front; the young Prince remained stand-
ing between his Father's legs. They all leaned toward him, and
often held him embraced. This scene of woe lasted an hour and
three-quarters; during which we could hear nothing; we could see
only that always when the King spoke, the sobbing of the Prin-
cesses redoubled, continued for some minutes; and that then the
King began again to speak. " And so our meetings and our part-
ings do now end! The sorrows we gave each other; the poor
joys we faithfully shared, and all our lovings and our sufferings,
and confused toilings under the earthly Sun, are over. Thou
good soul, I shall never, never through all ages of Time, see
thee any more! - NEVER! O Reader, knowest thou that hard.
word?
For nearly two hours this agony lasts; then they tear them-
selves asunder. "Promise that you will see us on the morrow. "
He promises: -Ah yes, yes; yet once; and go now, ye loved
ones; cry to God for yourselves and me! — It was a hard scene,
but it is over. He will not see them on the morrow. The
Queen, in passing through the ante-room, glanced at the Cerberus
Municipals; and with woman's vehemence, said through her tears,
"Vous êtes tous des scélérats. "
King Louis slept sound, till five in the morning, when Cléry,
as he had been ordered, awoke him. Cléry dressed his hair:
while this went forward, Louis took a ring from his watch, and
kept trying it on his finger; it was his wedding-ring, which he is
now to return to the Queen as a mute farewell.
At half-past
six, he took the Sacrament; and continued in devotion, and con-
ference with Abbé Edgeworth. He will not see his Family: it
were too hard to bear.
## p. 3299 (#273) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3299
At eight, the Municipals enter: the King gives them his Will,
and messages and effects; which they at first brutally refuse to
take charge of: he gives them a roll of gold pieces, 125 louis;
these are to be returned to Malesherbes, who had lent them. At
nine, Santerre says the hour is come. The King begs yet to
retire for three minutes. At the end of three minutes, Santerre
again says the hour is come. "Stamping on the ground with his
right foot, Louis answers: 'Partons' (Let us go). ". How the
rolling of those drums comes in, through the Temple bastions
and bulwarks, on the heart of a queenly wife; soon to be a
widow !
He is gone, then, and has not seen
us? A Queen
weeps bitterly; a King's Sister and Children. Over all these
Four does Death also hover: all shall perish miserably save one;
she, as Duchesse d'Angoulême, will live,-not happily.
shut.
At the Temple gate were some faint cries, perhaps from
voices of pitiful women: "Grâce! Grâce! » Through the rest of
the streets there is silence as of the grave. No man not armed
is allowed to be there: the armed, did any even pity, dare not
express it, each man overawed by all his neighbors. All win-
dows are down, none seen looking through them. All shops are
No wheel-carriage rolls, this morning, in these streets, but
one only. Eighty thousand armed men stand ranked, like armed
statues of men; cannons bristle, cannoneers with match burning,
but no word or movement: it is as a city enchanted into silence
and stone: one carriage with its escort, slowly rumbling, is the
only sound. Louis reads, in his Book of Devotion, the Prayers
of the Dying: clatter of this death-march falls sharp on the ear
in the great silence; but the thought would fain struggle heaven-
ward, and forget the Earth.
As the clocks strike ten, behold the Place de la Révolution,
once Place de Louis Quinze: the Guillotine, mounted near the
old Pedestal where once stood the Statue of that Louis! Far
round, all bristles with cannons and armed men: spectators
crowding in the rear; D'Orléans
D'Orléans Égalité there in cabriolet.
Swift messengers, hoquetons, speed to the Town-hall, every
three minutes: near by is the Convention sitting, vengeful for
Lepelletier. Heedless of all, Louis reads his Prayers of the
Dying; not till five minutes yet has he finished; then the Car-
riage opens.
Ten different witnesses
What temper he is in?
He is in the collision of
I will give ten different accounts of it.
all tempers; arrived now at the black Maelstrom and descent of
――
## p. 3300 (#274) ###########################################
3300
THOMAS CARLYLE
Death in sorrow, in indignation, in resignation struggling to be
resigned. "Take care of M. Edgeworth," he straitly charges the
Lieutenant who is sitting with them: then they two descend.
The drums are beating: "Taisez-vous (Silence)! " he cries "in
a terrible voice (d'une voix terrible). " He mounts the scaffold,
not without delay; he is in puce coat, breeches of gray, white
stockings. He strips off the coat; stands disclosed in a sleeve-
waistcoat of white flannel. The Executioners approach to bind
him: he spurns, resists; Abbé Edgeworth has to remind him
how the Savior, in whom men trust, submitted to be bound.
His hands are tied, his head bare; the fatal moment is come.
He advances to the edge of the Scaffold, "his face very red,"
and says: "Frenchmen, I die innocent: it is from the Scaffold
and near appearing before God that I tell you so. I pardon
my enemies; I desire that France-» A General on horseback,
Santerre or another, prances out, with uplifted hand: "Tam-
bours! » The drums drown the voice. "Executioners, do your
duty! " The Executioners, desperate lest themselves be mur-
dered (for Santerre and his Armed Ranks will strike, if they do
not), seize the hapless Louis: six of them desperate, him singly
desperate, struggling there; and bind him to their plank. Abbé
Edgeworth, stooping, bespeaks him: "Son of Saint Louis, ascend
to Heaven. " The Axe clanks down; a King's Life is shorn away.
It is Monday, the 21st of January, 1793. He was aged Thirty-
eight years four months and twenty-eight days.
Executioner Samson shows the Head: fierce shout of Vive la
République rises, and swells; caps raised on bayonets, hats
waving students of the College of Four Nations take it up, on
the far Quais; fling it over Paris. D'Orléans drives off in his
cabriolet: the Town-hall Councillors rub their hands, saying, "It
is done, It is done. " There is dipping of handkerchiefs, of pike-
points in the blood. Headsman Samson, though he afterward
denied it, sells locks of the hair: fractions of the puce coat are
long after worn in rings. And so, in some half-hour it is done;
and the multitude has all departed. Pastry-cooks, coffee-sellers,
milkmen sing out their trivial quotidian cries, the world wags
on, as if this were a common day. In the coffee-houses that
evening, says Prudhomme, Patriot shook hands with Patriot in
a more cordial manner than usual. Not till some days after,
according to Mercier, did public men see what a grave thing
it was.
## p. 3301 (#275) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3301
A grave thing it indisputably is; and will have consequences.
famishing lions over dead prey, the multitude, with clangor and
vociferation, pounces on them; struggling, dashing, clutching,-to
the jamming-up, to the pressure, fracture, and probable extinc-
tion of the weaker Patriot. And so, with such protracted crash
of deafening, most discordant Orchestra-music, the Scene is
changed; and eight-and-twenty thousand sufficient firelocks are
on the shoulders of as many National Guards, lifted thereby out
of darkness into fiery light.
Let Besenval look at the glitter of these muskets as they
flash by! Gardes Françaises, it is said, have cannon leveled on
him; ready to open, if need were, from the other side of the
## p. 3283 (#257) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3283
river. Motionless sits he; "astonished," one may flatter one's
self, "at the proud bearing (fière contenance) of the Parisians. ”
And now to the Bastille, ye intrepid Parisians! There grape-
shot still threatens; thither all men's thoughts and steps are now
tending.
Old De Launay, as we hinted, withdrew into his interior »
soon after midnight of Sunday. He remains there ever since,
hampered, as all military gentlemen now are, in the saddest con-
flict of uncertainties. The Hôtel-de-Ville "invites" him to admit
National Soldiers, which is a soft name for surrendering. On the
other hand, his Majesty's orders were precise. His garrison is
but eighty-two old Invalides, reinforced by thirty-two young
Swiss; his walls, indeed, are nine feet thick; he has cannon and
powder, but alas! only one day's provision of victuals. The
city, too, is French, the poor garrison mostly French. Rigorous
old De Launay, think what thou wilt do!
All morning, since nine, there has been a cry everywhere:
To the Bastille! Repeated "deputations of citizens" have been
here, passionate for arms, whom De Launay has got dismissed
by soft speeches through port-holes. Towards noon, Elector
Thuriot de la Rosière gains admittance, finds De Launay indis-
posed for surrender, nay, disposed for blowing up the place,
rather. Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements; heaps of
paving-stones, old iron, and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly lev-
eled;
in every embrasure a cannon, only drawn back a little!
But outwards, behold, O Thuriot, how the multitude flows on,
welling through every street, tocsin furiously pealing, all drums
beating the générale; the suburb Saint-Antoine rolling hither-
ward wholly as one man!
Such vision (spectral, yet real) thou,
0 Thuriot, as from thy Mount of Vision, beholdest in this mo-
ment: prophetic of what other Phantasmagories and loud-gibber-
ing Spectral Realities which thou yet beholdest not, but shalt!
"Que voulez-vous? " said De Launay, turning pale at the sight,
with
an air of reproach, almost of menace. "Monsieur," said
Thuriot, rising into the moral-sublime, "what mean you? Con-
sider if I could not precipitate both of us from this height," -
say only a hundred feet, exclusive of the walled ditch! Where-
De Launay fell silent. Thuriot shows himself from some
pinnacle to comfort the multitude becoming suspicious, fremes-
cent, then descends, departs with protest, with warning addressed
also to the Invalides, on whom however it produces but a mixed,
upon
-
## p. 3284 (#258) ###########################################
3284
THOMAS CARLYLE
indistinct impression. The old heads are none of the clearest;
besides, it is said, De Launay has been profuse of beverages.
(prodigue des buissons). They think they will not fire if not
fired on if they can help it; but must, on the whole, be ruled
considerably by circumstances.
- -
Wo to thee, De Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not,
taking some one firm decision, rule circumstances! Soft speeches
will not serve, hard grape-shot is questionable, but hovering
between the two is unquestionable. Ever wilder swells the tide
of men; their infinite hum waxing ever louder, into imprecations,
perhaps into crackle of stray musketry,- which latter, on walls
nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The Outer Drawbridge has
been lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citizens (it is the
third and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the Outer
Court; soft speeches producing no clearance of these, De Launay
gives fire; pulls up his drawbridge. A slight sputter, which has
kindled the too combustible chaos, made it a roaring fire-chaos!
Bursts forth Insurrection, at sight of its own blood (for there
were deaths by that sputter of fire), into endless, rolling explos-
ion of musketry, distraction, execration; - and over head, from
the fortress, let one great gun, with its grape-shot, go booming,
to show what we could do. The Bastille is besieged!
On, then, all Frenchmen that have hearts in your bodies!
Roar with all your throats of cartilage and metal, ye Sons of
Liberty; stir spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in
you, soul, body, or spirit; for it is the hour! Smite thou, Louis
Tournay, cartwright of the Marais, old-soldier of the Regiment
Dauphiné; smite at that Outer Drawbridge chain, though the
fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over nave or felloe, did
thy axe strike such a stroke. Down with it, man; down with it
to Orcus: let the whole accursed edifice sink thither, and tyr-
anny be swallowed up forever! Mounted, some say, on the roof
of the guard-room, some "on bayonets stuck into joints of the
wall," Louis Tournay smites, brave Aubin Bonnemère (also an
old soldier) seconding him; the chain yields, breaks; the huge
Drawbridge slams down, thundering (avec fracas). Glorious! and
yet, alas! it is still but the outworks. The Eight Grim Towers,
with their Invalide musketry, their paving-stones and cannon-
mouths, still soar aloft intact; - Ditch yawning impassable, stone-
faced; the inner Drawbridge with its back toward us; the Bastille
is still to take!
## p. 3285 (#259) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3285
To describe this Siege of the Bastille (thought to be one of
the most important in History) perhaps transcends the talent
of mortals. Could one but, after infinite reading, get to under-
stand so much as the plan of the building! But there is open
Esplanade at the end of the Rue Saint-Antoine; there are such
Forecourts (Cour Avancé), Cour de l'Orme, arched gateway (where
Louis Tournay now fights); then new drawbridges, dormant-
bridges, rampart-bastions, and the grim Eight Towers: a laby-
rinthic Mass, high-frowning there, of all ages from twenty years
to four hundred and twenty; — beleaguered, in this its last hour, as
we said, by mere Chaos come again! Ordnance of all calibres;
throats of all capacities; men of all plans, every man his own
engineer; seldom since the war of Pygmies and Cranes was, there
seen so anomalous a thing. Half-pay Elie is home for a suit of
regimentals; no one would heed him in colored clothes; half-pay
Hulin is haranguing Gardes Françaises in the Place de Grève.
Frantic patriots pick up the grape-shots; bear them, still hot (or
seemingly so), to the Hôtel-de-Ville: - Paris, you perceive, is to
be burnt! Flesselles is "pale to the very lips," for the roar of
the multitude grows deep. Paris wholly has got to the acme
of its frenzy; whirled, all ways, by panic madness.
At every
street-barricade, there whirls simmering a minor whirlpool,-
strengthening the barricade, since God knows what is coming;
and all minor whirlpools play distractedly into that grand Fire-
Maelstrom which is lashing round the Bastille.
non.
non
And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat the wine-merchant
has become an impromptu cannoneer. See Georget of the
marine service, fresh from Brest, ply the King of Siam's can-
Singular (if we were not used to the like). Georget lay,
last night, taking his ease at his inn; the King of Siam's can-
also lay, knowing nothing of him, for a hundred years;
yet now, at the right instant, they have got together, and dis-
course eloquent music. For hearing what was toward, Georget
sprang from the Brest Diligence, and ran. Gardes Françaises,
also,
will be here, with real artillery: were not the walls so
thick! Upward from the Esplanade, horizontally from all neigh-
boring roofs and windows, flashes one irregular deluge of
musketry, without effect. The Invalides lie flat, firing com-
paratively at their ease from behind stone; hardly through
port-holes show the tip of a nose. We fall, shot; and make
no impression!
-
## p. 3286 (#260) ###########################################
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THOMAS CARLYLE
Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible! Guard-
rooms are burnt, Invalides mess-rooms. A distracted "Peruke-
maker with two fiery torches" is for burning "the saltpetres of
the Arsenal," had not a woman run screaming; had not a Patriot,
with some tincture of Natural Philosophy, instantly struck the
wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach), overturned
barrels, and stayed the devouring element. A young beautiful
lady, seized, escaping, in these Outer Courts, and thought
falsely to be De Launay's daughter, shall be burnt in De Lau-
nay's sight; she lies, swooned, on a paillasse; but again a
Patriot it is brave Aubin Bonnemère, the old soldier-dashes
in, and rescues her. Straw is burnt; three cartloads of it,
hauled hither, go up in white smoke, almost to the choking
of Patriotism itself; so that Elie had, with singed brows, to
drag back one cart, and Réole the "gigantic haberdasher "
another. Smoke as of Tophet; confusion as of Babel; noise as
of the Crack of Doom!
-
Blood flows; the ailment of new madness. The wounded are
carried into houses of the Rue Cerisaie; the dying leave their
last mandate not to yield till the accursed Stronghold fall. And
yet, alas! how fall? The walls are so thick! Deputations, three
in number, arrive from the Hôtel-de-Ville; Abbé Fauchet (who
was of one) can say with what almost superhuman courage of
benevolence. These wave their Town-flag in the arched Gateway,
and stand, rolling their drum, but to no purpose. In such Crack
of Doom, De Launay cannot hear them, dare not believe them;
they return, with justified rage, the whew of lead still singing
in their ears. What to do? The Firemen are here, squirting
with their fire-pumps on the Invalides cannon, to wet the touch-
holes; they unfortunately cannot squirt so high; but produce
only clouds of spray. Individuals of classical knowledge pro-
pose catapults. Santerre, the sonorous Brewer of the Suburb
Saint-Antoine, advises rather that the place be fired by a "mix-
ture of phosphorus and oil of turpentine spouted up through
forcing-pumps. " O Spinola-Santerre, hast thou the mixture
ready? Every man his own engineer! And still the fire-
deluge abates not; even women are firing, and Turks; at least
one woman (with her sweetheart), and one Turk. Gardes Fran-
çaises have come; real cannon, real cannoneers. Usher Maillard
is busy; half-pay Elie, half-pay Hulin, rage in the midst of
thousands.
## p. 3287 (#261) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3287
How the great Bastille clock ticks (inaudible) in its Inner
Court, there, at its ease, hour after hour; as if nothing special,
for it or the world, were passing! It tolled One when the firing
began, and is now pointing toward Five, and still the firing
slakes not. — Far down, in their vaults, the seven Prisoners hear
muffled din as of earthquakes; their Turnkeys answer vaguely.
Woe to thee, De Launay, with thy poor hundred Invalides!
Broglie is distant, and his ears heavy; Besenval hears, but can
send no help. One poor troop of Hussars has crept, reconnoi-
tring, cautiously along the Quais, as far as the Pont Neuf. « We
are come to join you," said the Captain; for the crowd seems
shoreless. A large-headed dwarfish individual, of smoke-bleared
aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips, for there is sense
in him; and croaks, "Alight then, and give up your arms! " The
Hussar-Captain is too happy to be escorted to the barriers and
dismissed on parole. Who the squat individual was? Men
answer, It is M. Marat, author of the excellent pacific Avis au
Peuple'! Great, truly, O thou remarkable Dogleech, is this thy
day of emergence and new-birth; and yet this same day come
four years! But let the curtains of the Future hang.
What shall De Launay do? One thing only De Launay could
have done: what he said he would do. Fancy him sitting, from
the first, with lighted taper, within arm's-length of the Powder-
Magazine; motionless, like old Roman Senator, or Bronze Lamp-
holder; coldly apprising Thuriot, and all men, by a slight motion
of his eye, what his resolution was:- Harmless he sat there,
while unharmed; but the King's Fortress, meanwhile, could, might,
would, or should in nowise be surrendered save to the King's
Messenger; one old man's life is worthless, so it be lost with
honor; but think, ye brawling canaille, how will it be when a
whole Bastille springs skyward? In such statuesque, taper-holding
attitude, one fancies De Launay might have left Thuriot, the red
clerks of the Basoche, Curé of Saint-Stephen, and all the tagrag
and bobtail of the world, to work their will.
of
And, yet, withal, he could not do it. Hast thou considered
how each man's heart is so tremulously responsive to the hearts
of all men? Hast thou noted how omnipotent is the very sound
many men ? How their shriek of indignation palsies the
strong soul; their howl of contumely withers with unfelt pangs?
The Ritter Gluck confessed that the ground-tone of the noblest
passage in one of his noblest Operas was the voice of the
## p. 3288 (#262) ###########################################
3288
THOMAS CARLYLE
populace he had heard at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser, Bread!
Bread! Great is the combined voice of men, the utterance of
their instincts, which are truer than their thoughts; it is the
greatest a man encounters, among the sounds and shadows which
make up this World of Time. He who can resist that, has his
footing somewhere beyond Time. De Launay could not do it.
Distracted, he hovers between two; hopes in the middle of
despair; surrenders not his Fortress; declares that he will blow it
up, seizes torches to blow it up, and does not blow it. Unhappy
old De Launay, it is the death-agony of thy Bastille and thee!
Jail, Jailoring, and Jailor, all three, such as they may have been,
must finish.
For four hours now has the World-Bedlam roared; call it the
World-Chimæra, Llowing fire! The poor Invalides have sunk under
their battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets; they have
made a white flag of napkins; go beating the chamade, or seem-
ing to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss at the
Portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened in the fire-deluge; a
port-hole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak.
See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man! On his plank swinging.
over the abyss of that stone Ditch; plank resting on parapet,
balanced by weight of Patriots, he hovers perilous; such a Dove
toward such an Ark! Deftly, thou shifty Usher; one man already
fell; and lies smashed, far down there, against the masonry!
Usher Maillard falls not; deftly, unerring, he walks, with out-
spread palm. The Swiss holds a paper through his port-hole;
the shifty Usher snatches it and returns. Terms of surrender,
Pardon, immunity to all! Are they accepted? "Foi d'officier,
On the word of an officer," answers half-pay Hulin, or half-pay
Elie for men do not agree on it "they are! " Sinks the .
drawbridge, Usher Maillard bolting it when down; rushes in
the living deluge; the Bastille is fallen! Victoire! La Bastille
est prise!
-
-
Why dwell on what follows? Hulin's foi d'officier should have
been kept, but could not. The Swiss stand drawn up, disguised
in white canvas smocks; the Invalides without disguise, their
arms all piled against the wall. The first rush of victors, in
ecstasy that the death peril is passed, "leaps joyfully on their
necks"; but new victors rush, and ever new, also in ecstasy not
wholly of joy. As we said, it was a living deluge, plunging
## p. 3289 (#263) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3289
headlong; had not the Gardes Françaises, in their cool military
way, "wheeled round with arms leveled," it would have plunged
suicidally, by the hundred or the thousand, into the Bastille-ditch.
And so it goes plunging through court and corridor; billowing
uncontrollable, firing from windows-on itself; in hot frenzy of
triumph, of grief and vengeance for its slain. The poor Invalides
will fare ill; one Swiss, running off in his white smock, is driven
back, with a death-thrust. Let all prisoners be marched to the
Town-hall to be judged! Alas, already one poor Invalide has his
right hand slashed off him; his maimed body dragged to the
Place de Grève, and hanged there. This same right hand, it is
said, turned back De Launay from the Powder-Magazine, and
saved Paris.
De Launay, "discovered in gray frock with poppy-colored rib-
and," is for killing himself with the sword of his cane.
He
shall to the Hôtel-de-Ville; Hulin, Maillard, and others escorting
him, Elie marching foremost, "with the capitulation-paper on
his sword's point. " Through roarings and cursings; through
hustlings, clutchings, and at last through strokes! Your escort
is hustled aside, fell down; Hulin sinks exhausted on a heap of
stones. Miserable De Launay! He shall never enter the Hôtel-
de-Ville; only his "bloody hair-queue, held up in a bloody
hand"; that shall enter, for a sign. The bleeding trunk lies on
the steps there; the head is off through the streets, ghastly,
aloft on a pike.
Rigorous De Launay has died; crying out, "O friends, kill
me fast! " Merciful De Losme must die; though Gratitude em-
braces him, in this fearful hour, and will die for him, it avails.
not. Brothers, your wrath is cruel! Your Place de Grève is
become a Throat of the Tiger, full of mere fierce bellowings, and
thirst of blood. One other officer is massacred; one other Inva-
lide is hanged on the Lamp-iron; with difficulty, with generous.
perseverance, the Gardes Françaises will save the rest. Provost
Flesselles, stricken long since with the paleness of death, must
descend from his seat, "to be judged at the Palais Royal";
alas, to be shot dead by an unknown hand at the turning of the
first street!
O evening sun of July, how, at this hour, thy beams fall
slant on reapers amid peaceful woody fields; on old women spin-
ning in cottages; on ships far out on the silent main; on Balls
at the Orangerie of Versailles, where high-rouged Dames of the
## p. 3290 (#264) ###########################################
3290
THOMAS CARLYLE
Palace are even now dancing with double-jacketed Hussar-
Officers; and also on this roaring Hell-porch of a Hôtel-de-Ville!
Babel Tower, with the confusion of tongues, were not Bedlam
added with the conflagration of thoughts, was no type of it. One
forest of distracted steel bristles, endless, in front of an Electoral
Committee; points itself, in horrid radii, against this and the
other accused breast. It was the Titans warring with Olym-
pus; and they, scarcely crediting it, have conquered; prodigy of
prodigies; delirious, as it could not but be. Denunciation,
vengeance; blaze of triumph on a dark ground of terror; all
outward, all inward things fallen into one general wreck of
madness!
-
-
CHARLOTTE CORDAY
From The French Revolution'
N THE leafy months of June and July, several French Depart-
ments germinate a set of rebellious paper-leaves, named Pro-
clamations, Resolutions, Journals, or Diurnals, "of the Union
for Resistance to Oppression. " In particular, the Town of Caen,
in Calvados, sees its paper-leaf of Bulletin de Caen suddenly bud,
suddenly establish itself as Newspaper there; under the Editor-
ship of Girondin National Representatives!
For among the proscribed Girondins are certain of a more
desperate humor. Some, as Vergniaud, Valazé, Gensonné, "ar-
rested in their own houses," will await with stoical resignation
what the issue may be. Some, as Brissot, Rabaut, will take to
flight, to concealment; which, as the Paris Barriers are opened
again in a day or two, is not yet difficult. But others there are
who will rush, with Buzot, to Calvados; or far over France, to
Lyons, Toulon, Nantes and elsewhither, and then rendezvous at
Caen to awaken as with war-trumpet the respectable Depart-
ments; and strike down an anarchic Mountain Faction; at least
not yield without a stroke at it. Of this latter temper we count
some score or more, of the Arrested, and of the Not-yet-arrested:
a Buzot, a Barbaroux, Louvet, Guadet, Pétion, who have escaped
from Arrestment in their own homes; a Salles, a Pythagorean
Valady, a Duchâtel, the Duchâtel that came in blanket and
night-cap to vote for the life of Louis, who have escaped from
danger and likelihood of Arrestment. These, to the number at
## p. 3291 (#265) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3291
one time of Twenty-seven, do accordingly lodge here, in the
"Intendance," or Departmental Mansion, of the town of Caen
in Calvados; welcomed by Persons in Authority; welcomed and
defrayed, having no money of their own. And the Bulletin de
Caen comes forth, with the most animating paragraphs: How the
Bordeaux Department, the Lyons Department, this Department
after the other is declaring itself; sixty, or say sixty-nine, or
seventy-two respectable Departments either declaring, or ready to
declare. Nay, Marseilles, it seems, will march on Paris by itself,
if need be. So has Marseilles Town said that she will march.
But on the other hand, that Montélimart Town has said, No
thoroughfare; and means even to "bury herself" under her own
stone and mortar first,- of this be no mention in Bulletin de
Caen.
Such animating paragraphs we read in this new Newspaper;
and fervors and eloquent sarcasm: tirades against the Mountain,
from the pen of Deputy Salles; which resemble, say friends,
Pascal's "Provincials. " What is more to the purpose, these
Girondins have got a General in chief, one Wimpfen, formerly
under Dumouriez; also a secondary questionable General Puisaye,
and others; and are doing their best to raise a force for war.
National Volunteers, whosoever is of right heart: gather in, ye
National Volunteers, friends of Liberty; from our Calvados
Townships, from the Eure, from Brittany, from far and near:
forward to Paris, and extinguish Anarchy! Thus at Caen, in the
early July days, there is a drumming and parading, a perorating
and consulting: Staff and Army; Council; Club of Carabots,
Anti-jacobin friends of Freedom, to denounce atrocious Marat.
With all which, and the editing of Bulletins, a National Repre-
sentative has his hands full.
At Caen it is most animated; and, as one hopes, more or less
animated in the "Seventy-two Departments that adhere to us. "
And in a France begirt with Cimmerian invading Coalitions, and
torn with an internal La Vendée, this is the conclusion we have
arrived at: To put down Anarchy by Civil War! Durum et
durum, the Proverb says, non faciunt murum. La Vendée burns;
Santerre can do nothing there; he may return home and brew
beer. Cimmerian bombshells fly all along the North. That Siege
of Mentz is become famed;-lovers of the Picturesque (as Goethe
will testify), washed country-people of both sexes, stroll thither
on Sundays, to see the artillery work and counter-work; “you
## p. 3292 (#266) ###########################################
3292
THOMAS CARLYLE
only duck a little while the shot whizzes past. >>>> Condé is capitu-
lating to the Austrians; Royal Highness of York, these several
weeks, fiercely batters Valenciennes. For, alas, our fortified Camp
of Famars was stormed; General Dampierre was killed; General
Custine was blamed,- and indeed is now come to Paris to give
"explanations.
"
Against all which the Mountain and atrocious Marat must
even make head as they can. They, anarchic Convention as they
are, publish Decrees, expostulatory, explanatory, yet not without
severity: they ray-forth Commissioners, singly or in pairs, the
olive-branch in one hand, yet the sword in the other. Commis-
sioners come even to Caen; but without effect. Mathematical
Romme, and Prieur named of the Côte d'Or, venturing thither,
with their olive and sword, are packed into prison: there may
Romme lie, under lock and key, "for fifty days"; and meditate
his New Calendar, if he please. Cimmeria, La Vendée, and Civil
War! Never was Republic One and Indivisible at a lower
ebb.
Amid which dim ferment of Caen and the World, History
specially notices one thing: in the lobby of the Mansion de
l'Intendance, where busy Deputies are coming and going, a young
Lady with an aged valet, taking grave graceful leave of Deputy
Barbaroux. She is of stately Norman figure: in her twenty-fifth
year; of beautiful still countenance: her name is Charlotte Cor-
day, heretofore styled D'Armans, while Nobility still was. Bar-
baroux has given her a Note to Deputy Duperret,-him who
once drew his sword in the effervescence. Apparently she will
to Paris on some errand?
«She was a Republican before the
Revolution, and never wanted energy. " A completeness, a decis-
ion is in this fair female Figure: "By energy she means the
spirit that will prompt one to sacrifice himself for his country. "
What if she, this fair young Charlotte, had emerged from her
secluded stillness, suddenly like a Star; cruel-lovely, with half-
angelic, half-demonic splendor; to gleam for a moment, and in a
moment be extinguished: to be held in memory, so bright com-
plete was she, through long centuries! -Quitting Cimmerian
Coalitions without, and the dim-simmering twenty-five million
within, History will look fixedly at this one fair Apparition of
a Charlotte Corday; will note whither Charlotte moves, how the
little Life burns forth so radiant, then vanishes swallowed of the
Night.
## p. 3293 (#267) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3293
With Barbaroux's Note of Introduction, and slight stock of
luggage, we see Charlotte on Tuesday the 9th of July seated in
the Caen Diligence, with a place for Paris. None takes farewell
of her, wishes her Good-journey: her Father will find a line left,
signifying that she is gone to England, that he must pardon her,
and forget her. The drowsy Diligence lumbers along; amid
drowsy talk of Politics, and praise of the Mountain; in which
she mingles not: all night, all day, and again all night. On
Thursday, not long before noon, we are at the bridge of Neuilly;
here is Paris with her thousand black domes, the goal and
purpose of thy journey! Arrived at the Inn de la Providence in
the Rue des Vieux Augustins, Charlotte demands a room;
hastens to bed; sleeps all afternoon and night, till the morrow
morning.
On the morrow morning, she delivers her Note to Duperret.
It relates to certain Family Papers which are in the Minister of
the Interior's hands; which a Nun at Caen, an old Convent
friend of Charlotte's, has need of; which Duperret shall assist
her in getting: this then was Charlotte's errand to Paris? She
finished this, in the course of Friday:-yet says nothing of
returning. She has seen and silently investigated several things.
The Convention, in bodily reality, she has seen; what the Mount-
ain is like. The living physiognomy of Marat she could not see;
he is sick at present, and confined to home.
About eight on the Saturday morning, she purchases a large
sheath-knife in the Palais Royal; then straightway, in the Place
des Victoires, takes a hackney-coach: "To the Rue de l'École de
Médecine, No. 44. " It is the residence of the Citoyen Marat! -
The Citoyen Marat is ill, and cannot be seen; which seems to
disappoint her much. Her business is with Marat, then? Hap-
less beautiful Charlotte; hapless squalid Marat! From Caen in
the utmost West, from Neuchâtel in the utmost East, they two
drawing nigh each other; they two have, very strangely,
business together. -Charlotte, returning to her Inn, dispatches a
Note to Marat; signifying that she is from Caen, the seat
of rebellion; that she desires earnestly to see him, and "will put
his power to do France a great service. " No answer.
Charlotte writes another Note, still more pressing; sets out with
it by coach, about seven in the evening, herself. Tired day-
laborers have again finished their Week; huge Paris is circling
and simmering, manifold according to its vague wont; this one
short
it in
## p. 3294 (#268) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3294
fair Figure has decision in it; drives straight,― toward a pur-
pose.
It is yellow July evening, we say, the 13th of the month; eve
of the Bastille day,-when "M. Marat," four years ago, in the
crowd of the Pont Neuf, shrewdly required of that Besenval
Hussar-party, which had such friendly dispositions, "to dismount,
and give up their arms, then "; and became notable among
Patriot men. Four years: what a road he has traveled:— and
sits now, about half-past seven of the clock, stewing in slipper-
bath; sore afflicted; ill of Revolution Fever, of what other
malady this History had rather not name. Excessively sick and
worn, poor man: with precisely eleven-pence-half-penny of
ready-money, in paper; with slipper-bath; strong three-footed
stool for writing on, the while; and a squalid - Washer-woman,
one may call her: that is his civic establishment in Medical-
School Street; thither and not elsewhither has his road led him.
Not to the reign of Brotherhood and Perfect Felicity: yet surely
on the way toward that? - Hark, a rap again!
rap again! A musical
woman's voice, refusing to be rejected: it is the Citoyenne who
would do France a service. Marat, recognizing from within,
cries, Admit her. Charlotte Corday is admitted.
Citoyen Marat, I am from Caen the seat of rebellion, and
wished to speak with you. -Be seated, mon enfant. Now what
are the Traitors doing at Caen? What Deputies are at Caen? —
Charlotte names some Deputies.
"Their heads shall fall within
a fortnight," croaks the eager People's-friend, clutching his
tablets to write: Barbaroux, Pétion, writes he with bare shrunk
arm, turning aside in the bath: Pétion, and Louvet, and-Char-
lotte has drawn her knife from the sheath; plunges it with one
sure stroke, into the writer's heart. "À moi, chère amie (Help,
dear)! " no more could the Death-choked say or shriek. The
helpful Washer-woman running in-there is no Friend of the
People, or Friend of the Washer-woman, left; but his life with a
groan gushes out, indignant, to the shades below!
And so Marat, People's-friend, is ended; the lone Stylites has
got hurled down suddenly from his pillar-whither ward He that
made him knows. Patriot Paris may sound triple and tenfold, in
dole and wail; re-echoed by patriot France; and the Convention,
"Chabot pale with terror, declaring that they are to be all assas-
sinated," may decree him Pantheon Honors, Public Funeral,
Mirabeau's dust making way for him; and Jacobin Societies, in
## p. 3295 (#269) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3295
lamentable oratory, summing up his character, parallel him to
One, whom they think it honor to call "the good Sans-culotte, "-
whom we name not here; also a Chapel may be made, for the
urn that holds his Heart, in the Place du Carrousel; and new-
born children be named Marat; and Lago-di-Como Hawkers bake
mountains of stucco into unbeautiful Busts; and David paint his
Picture, or Death-Scene; and such other Apotheosis take place
as the human genius, in these circumstances, can devise: but
Marat returns no more to the light of this Sun. One sole cir-
cumstance we have read with clear sympathy, in the old Moni-
teur Newspaper: how Marat's Brother comes from Neuchâtel to
ask of the Convention, "that the deceased Jean-Paul Marat's
musket be given to him. " For Marat too had a brother and
natural affections; and was wrapped once in swaddling-clothes,
and slept safe in a cradle like the rest of us. Ye children of
men! —A sister of his, they say, lives still to this day in Paris.
As for Charlotte Corday, her work is accomplished; the
recompense of it is near and sure. The chère amie, and the
neighbors of the house, flying at her, she "overturns some
movables," intrenches herself till the gendarmes arrive; then
quietly surrenders; goes quietly to the Abbaye Prison: she alone
quiet, all Paris sounding, in wonder, in rage or admiration,
round her. Duperret is put in arrest, on account of her; his
Papers sealed,-which may lead to consequences. Fauchet, in
like manner; though Fauchet had not so much as heard of her.
Charlotte, confronted with these two Deputies, praises the grave
firmness of Duperret, censures the dejection of Fauchet.
On Wednesday morning the thronged Palais de Justice and
Revolutionary Tribunal can see her face; beautiful and calm:
she dates it "fourth day of the Preparation of Peace. " A strange
murmur ran through the Hall, at sight of her; you could not
say of what character. Tinville has his indictments and tape-
papers: the cutler of the Palais Royal will testify that he sold
her the sheath-knife; "All these details are needless," interrupted
Charlotte; "it is I that killed Marat. " By whose instigation? —
"By no one's. " "What tempted you, then? " "His crimes. I
killed
one man," added she, raising her voice extremely (ex-
trêmement),
as they went on with their questions, "I killed one
man to save a hundred thousand; a villain to save innocents; a
savage wild-beast to give repose to my country. I was a Repub-
before the Revolution; I never wanted energy. " There is
lican
## p. 3296 (#270) ###########################################
3296
THOMAS CARLYLE
therefore nothing to be said. The public gazes astonished: the
hasty limners sketch her features, Charlotte not disapproving:
the men of law proceed with their formalities. The doom is
Death as a murderess. To her Advocate she gives thanks; in
gentle phrase, in high-flown classical spirit. To the Priest they
send her she gives thanks; but needs not any shriving, any
ghostly or other aid from him.
On this same evening, therefore, about half-past seven o'clock,
from the gate of the Conciergerie, to a City all on tip-toe, the
fatal Cart issues; seated on it a fair young creature, sheeted in
red smock of Murderess; so beautiful, serene, so full of life;
journeying toward death,-alone amid the World. Many take
off their hats, saluting reverently; for what heart but must be
touched? Others growl and howl. Adam Lux, of Mentz, de-
clares that she is greater than Brutus; that it were beautiful to
die with her; the head of this young man seems turned. At the
Place de la Révolution, the countenance of Charlotte wears the
same still smile. The executioners proceed to bind her feet; she
resists, thinking it meant as an insult; on a word of explanation,
she submits with cheerful apology. As the last act, all being
now ready, they take the neckerchief from her neck, a blush of
maidenly shame overspreads her fair face and neck; the cheeks
were still tinged with it when the executioner lifted the severed
head, to show it to the people. "It is most true," says Forster,
"that he struck the cheek insultingly; for I saw it with my eyes;
the Police imprisoned him for it. "
In this manner have the Beautifulest and the Squalidest come
in collision, and extinguished one another. Jean-Paul Marat and
Marie-Anne Charlotte Corday both, suddenly, are no more. "Day
of the Preparation of Peace"? Alas, how were peace possible or
preparable, while for example, the hearts of lovely Maidens, in
their convent-stillness, are dreaming not of Love-paradises and the
light of Life, but of Codrus's-sacrifices and Death well-earned?
That twenty-five million hearts have got to such temper, this is
the Anarchy; the soul of it lies in this, whereof not peace can be
the embodiment! The death of Marat, whetting old animosities
tenfold, will be worse than any life. O ye hapless Two, mutually
extinctive, the Beautiful and the Squalid, sleep ye well,- in the
Mother's bosom that bore you both!
This is the History of Charlotte Corday; most definite, most
complete: angelic-demonic: like a Star!
## p. 3297 (#271) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3297
TE
4
D
*
THE SCAPEGOAT
From the French Revolution>
T
THIS conclusion, then, hast thou come, O hapless Louis!
The Son of Sixty Kings is to die on the Scaffold by form.
of Law. Under Sixty Kings this same form of Law, form
of Society, has been fashioning itself together these thousand
years; and has become, one way and other, a most strange
Machine. Surely, if needful, it is also frightful, this Machine;
dead, blind; not what it should be; which, with swift stroke, or
by cold slow torture, has wasted the lives and souls of innumer-
And behold now a King himself, or say rather King-
hood in his person, is to expire here in cruel tortures, — like a
Phalaris shut in the belly of his own red-heated Brazen Bull! It
is ever so; and thou shouldst know it, O haughty tyrannous man;
injustice breeds injustice; curses and falsehoods do verily return
"always home," wide as they may wander. Innocent Louis bears
the sins of many generations: he too experiences that man's tri-
bunal is not in this Earth; that if he had no Higher one, it were
not well with him.
able men.
A King dying by such violence appeals impressively to the
imagination; as the like must do, and ought to do. And yet at
bottom it is not the King dying, but the man! Kingship is a
coat: the grand loss is of the skin. The man from whom you
take his Life, to him can the whole combined world do more?
Lally went on his hurdle; his mouth filled with a gag. Miser-
ablest mortals, doomed for picking pockets, have a whole five-act
Tragedy in them, in that dumb pain, as they go to the gallows,
unregarded; they consume the cup of trembling down to the
lees.
For Kings and for Beggars, for the justly doomed and
the unjustly, it is a hard thing to die. Pity them all: thy ut-
most pity, with all aids and appliances and throne-and-scaffold
contrasts, how far short is it of the thing pitied!
A Confessor has come; Abbé Edgeworth, of Irish extraction,
whom the King knew by good report, has come promptly on this
solemn mission. Leave the Earth alone, then, thou hapless King;
it with its malice will go its way, thou also canst go thine. A
hard scene yet remains: the parting with our loved ones.
hearts, environed in the same grim peril with us; to be left here!
Let the Reader look with the eyes of Valet Cléry through these
Kind
VI-207
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THOMAS CARLYLE
glass-doors, where also the Municipality watches; and see the
cruelest of scenes:
―――――
"At half-past eight, the door of the ante-room opened: the
Queen appeared first, leading her Son by the hand; then Madame
Royale and Madame Elizabeth: they all flung themselves into the
arms of the King. Silence reigned for some minutes; interrupted
only by sobs. The Queen made a movement to lead his Majesty
towards the inner room, where M. Edgeworth was waiting un-
known to them: 'No,' said the King, 'let us go into the dining-
room; it is there only that I can see you. ' They entered there;
I shut the door of it, which was of glass. The King sat down,
the Queen on his left hand, Madame Elizabeth on his right,
Madame Royale almost in front; the young Prince remained stand-
ing between his Father's legs. They all leaned toward him, and
often held him embraced. This scene of woe lasted an hour and
three-quarters; during which we could hear nothing; we could see
only that always when the King spoke, the sobbing of the Prin-
cesses redoubled, continued for some minutes; and that then the
King began again to speak. " And so our meetings and our part-
ings do now end! The sorrows we gave each other; the poor
joys we faithfully shared, and all our lovings and our sufferings,
and confused toilings under the earthly Sun, are over. Thou
good soul, I shall never, never through all ages of Time, see
thee any more! - NEVER! O Reader, knowest thou that hard.
word?
For nearly two hours this agony lasts; then they tear them-
selves asunder. "Promise that you will see us on the morrow. "
He promises: -Ah yes, yes; yet once; and go now, ye loved
ones; cry to God for yourselves and me! — It was a hard scene,
but it is over. He will not see them on the morrow. The
Queen, in passing through the ante-room, glanced at the Cerberus
Municipals; and with woman's vehemence, said through her tears,
"Vous êtes tous des scélérats. "
King Louis slept sound, till five in the morning, when Cléry,
as he had been ordered, awoke him. Cléry dressed his hair:
while this went forward, Louis took a ring from his watch, and
kept trying it on his finger; it was his wedding-ring, which he is
now to return to the Queen as a mute farewell.
At half-past
six, he took the Sacrament; and continued in devotion, and con-
ference with Abbé Edgeworth. He will not see his Family: it
were too hard to bear.
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THOMAS CARLYLE
3299
At eight, the Municipals enter: the King gives them his Will,
and messages and effects; which they at first brutally refuse to
take charge of: he gives them a roll of gold pieces, 125 louis;
these are to be returned to Malesherbes, who had lent them. At
nine, Santerre says the hour is come. The King begs yet to
retire for three minutes. At the end of three minutes, Santerre
again says the hour is come. "Stamping on the ground with his
right foot, Louis answers: 'Partons' (Let us go). ". How the
rolling of those drums comes in, through the Temple bastions
and bulwarks, on the heart of a queenly wife; soon to be a
widow !
He is gone, then, and has not seen
us? A Queen
weeps bitterly; a King's Sister and Children. Over all these
Four does Death also hover: all shall perish miserably save one;
she, as Duchesse d'Angoulême, will live,-not happily.
shut.
At the Temple gate were some faint cries, perhaps from
voices of pitiful women: "Grâce! Grâce! » Through the rest of
the streets there is silence as of the grave. No man not armed
is allowed to be there: the armed, did any even pity, dare not
express it, each man overawed by all his neighbors. All win-
dows are down, none seen looking through them. All shops are
No wheel-carriage rolls, this morning, in these streets, but
one only. Eighty thousand armed men stand ranked, like armed
statues of men; cannons bristle, cannoneers with match burning,
but no word or movement: it is as a city enchanted into silence
and stone: one carriage with its escort, slowly rumbling, is the
only sound. Louis reads, in his Book of Devotion, the Prayers
of the Dying: clatter of this death-march falls sharp on the ear
in the great silence; but the thought would fain struggle heaven-
ward, and forget the Earth.
As the clocks strike ten, behold the Place de la Révolution,
once Place de Louis Quinze: the Guillotine, mounted near the
old Pedestal where once stood the Statue of that Louis! Far
round, all bristles with cannons and armed men: spectators
crowding in the rear; D'Orléans
D'Orléans Égalité there in cabriolet.
Swift messengers, hoquetons, speed to the Town-hall, every
three minutes: near by is the Convention sitting, vengeful for
Lepelletier. Heedless of all, Louis reads his Prayers of the
Dying; not till five minutes yet has he finished; then the Car-
riage opens.
Ten different witnesses
What temper he is in?
He is in the collision of
I will give ten different accounts of it.
all tempers; arrived now at the black Maelstrom and descent of
――
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THOMAS CARLYLE
Death in sorrow, in indignation, in resignation struggling to be
resigned. "Take care of M. Edgeworth," he straitly charges the
Lieutenant who is sitting with them: then they two descend.
The drums are beating: "Taisez-vous (Silence)! " he cries "in
a terrible voice (d'une voix terrible). " He mounts the scaffold,
not without delay; he is in puce coat, breeches of gray, white
stockings. He strips off the coat; stands disclosed in a sleeve-
waistcoat of white flannel. The Executioners approach to bind
him: he spurns, resists; Abbé Edgeworth has to remind him
how the Savior, in whom men trust, submitted to be bound.
His hands are tied, his head bare; the fatal moment is come.
He advances to the edge of the Scaffold, "his face very red,"
and says: "Frenchmen, I die innocent: it is from the Scaffold
and near appearing before God that I tell you so. I pardon
my enemies; I desire that France-» A General on horseback,
Santerre or another, prances out, with uplifted hand: "Tam-
bours! » The drums drown the voice. "Executioners, do your
duty! " The Executioners, desperate lest themselves be mur-
dered (for Santerre and his Armed Ranks will strike, if they do
not), seize the hapless Louis: six of them desperate, him singly
desperate, struggling there; and bind him to their plank. Abbé
Edgeworth, stooping, bespeaks him: "Son of Saint Louis, ascend
to Heaven. " The Axe clanks down; a King's Life is shorn away.
It is Monday, the 21st of January, 1793. He was aged Thirty-
eight years four months and twenty-eight days.
Executioner Samson shows the Head: fierce shout of Vive la
République rises, and swells; caps raised on bayonets, hats
waving students of the College of Four Nations take it up, on
the far Quais; fling it over Paris. D'Orléans drives off in his
cabriolet: the Town-hall Councillors rub their hands, saying, "It
is done, It is done. " There is dipping of handkerchiefs, of pike-
points in the blood. Headsman Samson, though he afterward
denied it, sells locks of the hair: fractions of the puce coat are
long after worn in rings. And so, in some half-hour it is done;
and the multitude has all departed. Pastry-cooks, coffee-sellers,
milkmen sing out their trivial quotidian cries, the world wags
on, as if this were a common day. In the coffee-houses that
evening, says Prudhomme, Patriot shook hands with Patriot in
a more cordial manner than usual. Not till some days after,
according to Mercier, did public men see what a grave thing
it was.
## p. 3301 (#275) ###########################################
THOMAS CARLYLE
3301
A grave thing it indisputably is; and will have consequences.
