The French Revolution A History Chapter 1.7.X. - The Grand Entries.
by Thomas Carlyle
The dull dawn of a new morning, drizzly and chill, had but broken over
Versailles, when it pleased Destiny that a Bodyguard should look out of
window, on the right wing of the Chateau, to see what prospect there was in
Heaven and in Earth. Rascality male and female is prowling in view of him.
His fasting stomach is, with good cause, sour; he perhaps cannot forbear a
passing malison on them; least of all can he forbear answering such.
Ill words breed worse: till the worst word came; and then the ill deed.
Did the maledicent Bodyguard, getting (as was too inevitable) better
malediction than he gave, load his musketoon, and threaten to fire; and
actually fire? Were wise who wist! It stands asserted; to us not
credibly. Be this as it may, menaced Rascality, in whinnying scorn, is
shaking at all Grates: the fastening of one (some write, it was a chain
merely) gives way; Rascality is in the Grand Court, whinnying louder still.
The maledicent Bodyguard, more Bodyguards than he do now give fire; a man's
arm is shattered. Lecointre will depose (Deposition de Lecointre (in Hist.
Parl. iii. 111-115.) that 'the Sieur Cardaine, a National Guard without
arms, was stabbed.' But see, sure enough, poor Jerome l'Heritier, an
unarmed National Guard he too, 'cabinet-maker, a saddler's son, of Paris,'
with the down of youthhood still on his chin,--he reels death-stricken;
rushes to the pavement, scattering it with his blood and brains!--Allelew!
Wilder than Irish wakes, rises the howl: of pity; of infinite revenge. In
few moments, the Grate of the inner and inmost Court, which they name Court
of Marble, this too is forced, or surprised, and burst open: the Court of
Marble too is overflowed: up the Grand Staircase, up all stairs and
entrances rushes the living Deluge! Deshuttes and Varigny, the two sentry
Bodyguards, are trodden down, are massacred with a hundred pikes. Women
snatch their cutlasses, or any weapon, and storm-in Menadic:--other women
lift the corpse of shot Jerome; lay it down on the Marble steps; there
shall the livid face and smashed head, dumb for ever, speak.
Wo now to all Bodyguards, mercy is none for them! Miomandre de Sainte-
Marie pleads with soft words, on the Grand Staircase, 'descending four
steps:'--to the roaring tornado. His comrades snatch him up, by the skirts
and belts; literally, from the jaws of Destruction; and slam-to their Door.
This also will stand few instants; the panels shivering in, like potsherds.
Barricading serves not: fly fast, ye Bodyguards; rabid Insurrection, like
the hellhound Chase, uproaring at your heels!
The terrorstruck Bodyguards fly, bolting and barricading; it follows.
Whitherward? Through hall on hall: wo, now! towards the Queen's Suite of
Rooms, in the furtherest room of which the Queen is now asleep. Five
sentinels rush through that long Suite; they are in the Anteroom knocking
loud: "Save the Queen!" Trembling women fall at their feet with tears;
are answered: "Yes, we will die; save ye the Queen!"
Tremble not, women, but haste: for, lo, another voice shouts far through
the outermost door, "Save the Queen!" and the door shut. It is brave
Miomandre's voice that shouts this second warning. He has stormed across
imminent death to do it; fronts imminent death, having done it. Brave
Tardivet du Repaire, bent on the same desperate service, was borne down
with pikes; his comrades hardly snatched him in again alive. Miomandre and
Tardivet: let the names of these two Bodyguards, as the names of brave men
should, live long.
Trembling Maids of Honour, one of whom from afar caught glimpse of
Miomandre as well as heard him, hastily wrap the Queen; not in robes of
State. She flies for her life, across the Oeil-de-Boeuf; against the main
door of which too Insurrection batters. She is in the King's Apartment, in
the King's arms; she clasps her children amid a faithful few. The
Imperial-hearted bursts into mother's tears: "O my friends, save me and my
children, O mes amis, sauvez moi et mes enfans!" The battering of
Insurrectionary axes clangs audible across the Oeil-de-Boeuf. What an
hour!
Yes, Friends: a hideous fearful hour; shameful alike to Governed and
Governor; wherein Governed and Governor ignominiously testify that their
relation is at an end. Rage, which had brewed itself in twenty thousand
hearts, for the last four-and-twenty hours, has taken fire: Jerome's
brained corpse lies there as live-coal. It is, as we said, the infinite
Element bursting in: wild-surging through all corridors and conduits.
Meanwhile, the poor Bodyguards have got hunted mostly into the Oeil-de-
Boeuf. They may die there, at the King's threshhold; they can do little to
defend it. They are heaping tabourets (stools of honour), benches and all
moveables, against the door; at which the axe of Insurrection thunders.--
But did brave Miomandre perish, then, at the Queen's door? No, he was
fractured, slashed, lacerated, left for dead; he has nevertheless crawled
hither; and shall live, honoured of loyal France. Remark also, in flat
contradiction to much which has been said and sung, that Insurrection did
not burst that door he had defended; but hurried elsewhither, seeking new
bodyguards. (Campan, ii. 75-87.)
Poor Bodyguards, with their Thyestes' Opera-Repast! Well for them, that
Insurrection has only pikes and axes; no right sieging tools! It shakes
and thunders. Must they all perish miserably, and Royalty with them?
Deshuttes and Varigny, massacred at the first inbreak, have been beheaded
in the Marble Court: a sacrifice to Jerome's manes: Jourdan with the
tile-beard did that duty willingly; and asked, If there were no more?
Another captive they are leading round the corpse, with howl-chauntings:
may not Jourdan again tuck up his sleeves?
And louder and louder rages Insurrection within, plundering if it cannot
kill; louder and louder it thunders at the Oeil-de-Boeuf: what can now
hinder its bursting in?--On a sudden it ceases; the battering has ceased!
Wild rushing: the cries grow fainter: there is silence, or the tramp of
regular steps; then a friendly knocking: "We are the Centre Grenadiers,
old Gardes Francaises: Open to us, Messieurs of the Garde-du-Corps; we
have not forgotten how you saved us at Fontenoy!" (Toulongeon, i. 144.)
The door is opened; enter Captain Gondran and the Centre Grenadiers: there
are military embracings; there is sudden deliverance from death into life.
Strange Sons of Adam! It was to 'exterminate' these Gardes-du-Corps that
the Centre Grenadiers left home: and now they have rushed to save them
from extermination. The memory of common peril, of old help, melts the
rough heart; bosom is clasped to bosom, not in war. The King shews
himself, one moment, through the door of his Apartment, with: "Do not hurt
my Guards!"--"Soyons freres, Let us be brothers!" cries Captain Gondran;
and again dashes off, with levelled bayonets, to sweep the Palace clear.
Now too Lafayette, suddenly roused, not from sleep (for his eyes had not
yet closed), arrives; with passionate popular eloquence, with prompt
military word of command. National Guards, suddenly roused, by sound of
trumpet and alarm-drum, are all arriving. The death-melly ceases: the
first sky-lambent blaze of Insurrection is got damped down; it burns now,
if unextinguished, yet flameless, as charred coals do, and not
inextinguishable. The King's Apartments are safe. Ministers, Officials,
and even some loyal National deputies are assembling round their Majesties.
The consternation will, with sobs and confusion, settle down gradually,
into plan and counsel, better or worse.
But glance now, for a moment, from the royal windows! A roaring sea of
human heads, inundating both Courts; billowing against all passages:
Menadic women; infuriated men, mad with revenge, with love of mischief,
love of plunder! Rascality has slipped its muzzle; and now bays, three-
throated, like the Dog of Erebus. Fourteen Bodyguards are wounded; two
massacred, and as we saw, beheaded; Jourdan asking, "Was it worth while to
come so far for two?" Hapless Deshuttes and Varigny! Their fate surely
was sad. Whirled down so suddenly to the abyss; as men are, suddenly, by
the wide thunder of the Mountain Avalanche, awakened not by them, awakened
far off by others! When the Chateau Clock last struck, they two were
pacing languid, with poised musketoon; anxious mainly that the next hour
would strike. It has struck; to them inaudible. Their trunks lie mangled:
their heads parade, 'on pikes twelve feet long,' through the streets of
Versailles; and shall, about noon reach the Barriers of Paris,--a too
ghastly contradiction to the large comfortable Placards that have been
posted there!
The other captive Bodyguard is still circling the corpse of Jerome, amid
Indian war-whooping; bloody Tilebeard, with tucked sleeves, brandishing his
bloody axe; when Gondran and the Grenadiers come in sight. "Comrades, will
you see a man massacred in cold blood?"--"Off, butchers!" answer they; and
the poor Bodyguard is free. Busy runs Gondran, busy run Guards and
Captains; scouring at all corridors; dispersing Rascality and Robbery;
sweeping the Palace clear. The mangled carnage is removed; Jerome's body
to the Townhall, for inquest: the fire of Insurrection gets damped, more
and more, into measurable, manageable heat.
Transcendent things of all sorts, as in the general outburst of
multitudinous Passion, are huddled together; the ludicrous, nay the
ridiculous, with the horrible. Far over the billowy sea of heads, may be
seen Rascality, caprioling on horses from the Royal Stud. The Spoilers
these; for Patriotism is always infected so, with a proportion of mere
thieves and scoundrels. Gondran snatched their prey from them in the
Chateau; whereupon they hurried to the Stables, and took horse there. But
the generous Diomedes' steeds, according to Weber, disdained such
scoundrel-burden; and, flinging up their royal heels, did soon project most
of it, in parabolic curves, to a distance, amid peals of laughter: and
were caught. Mounted National Guards secured the rest.
Now too is witnessed the touching last-flicker of Etiquette; which sinks
not here, in the Cimmerian World-wreckage, without a sign, as the house-
cricket might still chirp in the pealing of a Trump of Doom. "Monsieur,"
said some Master of Ceremonies (one hopes it might be de Breze), as
Lafayette, in these fearful moments, was rushing towards the inner Royal
Apartments, "Monsieur, le Roi vous accorde les grandes entrees, Monsieur,
the King grants you the Grand Entries,"--not finding it convenient to
refuse them!" (Toulongeon, 1 App. 120.)
