It was a strange and horrifying procession that took its way through palace rooms which had looked upon many scenes of vice but none so awful as this.
Dangeau, a guard or two, six filthy, reeking creatures, drawn from the lowest slums, steeped in wickedness as in blood; the exquisite head, lovely to the last, set on a dripping pike; the white, insulted body, stripped to the dust and mire of Paris; the frightful odour of gore diffused by all, made up a total effect of horror unparalleled in any age.
To the last day of Dangeau's life it remained a recurrent nightmare. He was young, he had lived a clean, honest life, he had respected women, nourished his soul on ideals, and now——
At the time he felt nothing—neither disgust nor horror, nausea nor shame. It was afterwards that two things contended for possession of his being—sheer physical sickness, and a torment of outraged sensibility. He had vowed himself to the service of Humanity, and he had seen Humanity desecrate its own altar, offering upon it a shameful and bloody sacrifice. Just now it was fortunate that feeling was in abeyance, and that it was the brain in Dangeau, and not the conscience, that held sway. All of him, except that lucid brain, lay torpid, stunned, asleep; but in its cells thought flashed on thought, seizing here an impulse, there an instinct, bending them to the will, absorbing them in its designs.
All the way the butchers talked. One of them fancied himself a wit. Fortunately for posterity his jests have not been preserved. Another gave a detailed and succinct account of every person murdered by him. A third sang filthy songs. Dangeau's brain ordered him not to offend these bestial companions, and in obedience to it he nodded, questioned, appeared to commend.
Arrived at the garden, the whole company took up the chorus of the song, and began to march round the Tower, holding the head aloft and calling on the Queen to come and look at it.
Those of the workmen who still remained at their posts came gaping forward—some of them joined the tune; the excitement rose, and cries of "The Austrian, the Austrian; give us the Austrian!" began to be heard.
Within there was a dead silence. The little group of prisoners were huddled together at the farther side of the room. Mme. Elizabeth held her rosary, and her pale lips moved incessantly. One of the Commissioners, Renault, a strong, heavy-featured man, stood impassively by the window watching the progress of events, whilst Cléry, his eager young face flushed with excitement, was trying to keep up a conversation with the Princesses in order to prevent the terrifying voices from without reaching their ears. Although no one could be ignorant of what was passing, they seconded his attempts bravely. Marie Antoinette was the most successful. She preserved that social instinct which covers under an airy web the grimmest and most evident facts. Death was such a fact—vastly impolite, entirely to be ignored; and so the Queen conversed smilingly, even whilst the mother's eye rested in anguish upon her children.
Suddenly even her composure was shattered.
There was a loud shout of "Come out, Austrian! Look, Austrian!" and a shape appeared at the window—a head, omen of imminent tragedy. That head had shared the Queen's pillow, those drawn lips had smiled for her, those heavy lids closed over eyes whose beauty to her had been the lovely, frank affection which beamed from them. Thus, in this fearful shape, came the intimation of that friendship's close.
Cléry sprang up with a cry of "Don't look!" but he was too late. With a hoarse sound, half cry, half strained release of breath too frantically held, the Queen shrank back.
In that moment her face went grey and hollow, her death-mask showed prophetic, but after that one movement, that one cry, she sat quite still and made no sound. Mme. Royale had fainted, and Elizabeth knelt beside her shuddering and weeping.
Renault's great shoulders blocked the window, and even as he pressed forward the head was withdrawn.
Down below a second crisis was being fought through. Dangeau began to feel the strain of that scene by the Temple gates; his nervous energy was diminished, and the dreadful six were straining at the leash. They howled for the Austrian, they bellowed forth threats, they vociferated. One of them caught Dangeau by the shoulder and levelled a red pike at his head; but for a moment the steely composure of the eyes held him, and the next a friendly hand struck down the weapon.
"It is Dangeau, our Dangeau, the people's friend!" shouted his rescuer, a powerful workman. "I am of his section," and he squeezed him in a grimy embrace.
Dangeau, released, sprang on a heap of rubble, and made his final effort.
"Hé, mes braves!" he cried, "it is growing late; half Paris knows your deeds, it is true, but how many are still ignorant? Will you let darkness overtake you with your trophies yet undisplayed? Away, let the other quarters hear of your triumphs. Vaunt them before the Palais Royal, and let the Tuileries, so often defiled by the Tyrant's presence, be purified now by these relics, evidence of the people's power!"
As he ceased, his words were taken up by all present.
"To the Palais Royal! To the Tuileries!" they howled.
Dangeau, not only saved, but a hero—so fickle a thing is the mood of the sovereign people—was cheered, embraced, carried across the court-yard, and with difficulty permitted to remain behind; whilst the whole mob, singing, shouting, and dancing, took its frenzied course towards the royal palaces.
CHAPTER VI
A DOUBTFUL SAFETY
Mlle. de Rochambeau knelt by her open window. She had been praying, but for a long time her lips had not moved, and now it seemed as if their numbness had invaded her heart, and lay there deadening fear, emotion, sorrow, all—all except that heavy beating, to which she listened half unconsciously, as though it were a sound from some world which hardly concerned her.
She had not left the little room at all. On the first day she had been put off civilly enough.
"Rest a little, Ma'mselle, rest a little; to-morrow I will make my sister a little visit, and you shall accompany me. To-day I am busy, and without me you would not be admitted to the prison."
But when to-morrow came, there were at first black looks, then impatient words, and finally the key turned in the lock and hours of terrifying solitude. The one small window overlooked a dark and squalid street where the refuse of the neighbourhood festered. It was noisy and malodorous, and she sickened at every sense. The sounds, the smells, the sight of the wizened, wicked-looking children, who fought, and swore, and scrabbled in the noisome gutter below, all added to her growing apprehension.
Closing the cracked pane she retreated to the farther corner of the attic, and again slow hours went by.
About noon a distant roar startled her to the window once more. Nothing was to be seen, but the sound came again, and yet again; increasing each time in violence, and becoming at last a heavy, continuous boom.
There is scarcely anything so immediately terrifying as that dull mutter of a city in tumult. Mlle. de Rochambeau's smooth years supplied her with no experience by which to measure the threat of that far uproar, and yet every nerve in her body thrilled to it and cried danger! It was then that she began to pray. The afternoon wore on, and she grew faint as well as frightened. Rosalie Leboeuf had set coffee and coarse bread before her in the early morning, but that was now many hours since.
The sun was near to setting when a loud shouting arose in the street below, shocking her from the dizzy quiescence into which she had fallen. Looking out, she saw that the children had scattered, pushed aside by rapidly gathering groups of their elders. Every house appeared to be disgorging an incredible number of people, and in their midst swayed