The Whites and the Blues (44 page)

"But why do you not open fire, general?" asked the president, carelessly. "There is a fine range for cannon be tween the garden of the Infanta and the Pont-Neuf—scarce ly a hundred feet.''

"The general, wishing to place all responsibility of blood shed upon the Sectionists, has forbidden us to open fire.''

1 ' What general ? Barras ?''

"No. General Bonaparte."

"Why, is that your little officer of Toulon? So he has made his way up until now he is a general like you."

"More of a general than I am," replied Cartaux, "since I am under his orders.''

"How disagreeable that must be for you, citizen, and what a piece of injustice! You who are six feet tall to have to obey a young man of twenty-four, who, they say, is only five feet one.''

"Do you know him ?" asked Cartaux.

*' No, I have not the honor.''

"Well, open fire, and this evening—"

"This evening?"

"This evening you will know him, I promise you."

At that moment the drums were heard beating a salute, and a group of staff-officers emerged through the gate of the Louvre, among whom Barras was noticeable for the splen dor of his uniform and Bonaparte for the simplicity of his.

He was, as we have said, short and thin, and as, from where Morgan stood, it was impossible to distinguish the fine lines of his face, he looked insignificant, riding as he was behind Barras.

"Ah," said Morgan, "that is something new!"

"Yes," replied Garat. "See! there is General Barras and General Bonaparte; they are going to visit the out posts. ''

"And which of the two is General Bonaparte?" asked Morgan.

"The one on the black horse."

"Why! he is a child who has not yet had time to grow," said Morgan, shrugging his shoulders.

"Don't worry," said Cartaux, laying his hand on Mor gan's shoulder, "he will grow."

Barras, Bonaparte, and the rest of the staff continued to advance toward General Cartaux.

''I will stay,'' said Morgan; "I should like to see this Bonaparte close at hand."

"Then hide behind me, or, rather, behind Cartaux," said Garat; "you will have more room."

Morgan drew back and the cavalcade approached the general. Barras drew rein before General Cartaux, but Bonaparte rode forward a few steps further, and remained alone in the middle of the quay. As he was only half a musket shot from the Sectionisfc ranks, several muskets were aimed at him; whereupon Morgan sprang forward, and, with one bound, placed himself between the Section-ists and the general's body. Then, with a wave of his hat, he commanded them to lower their muskets.

Bonaparte rose in his stirrups, apparently unmindful of what had just taken place before him. The Pont-Neuf, the Eue de la Monnaie, the Quai de la Yallee, the Eue de Thionville, and the Quai Conti as far as the Institute, were thronged with armed men. As far as the eye could reach along the Quai de 1'Ecole, the Quai de la Megisserie, and the Quai des Morfondus, muskets gleamed in the sun, thick as spears of wheat in a wheat field.

"How many men do you think there are before you, citizen Cartaux," asked Bonaparte.

"I could not say exactly," replied Cartaux. "In open country I could guess within a thousand men, but here in the streets and quays I cannot make even an approximate guess."

"General, if you want to know the exact number," said Garat, "ask the citizen who has just prevented those men from firing upon you. He can tell you."

THE WHITES AND THE BLUES

Bonaparte glanced at the young man as if tie now saw him for the first time.

"Citizen," said he with a slight bow, "will you be good enough to give me the information I desire?"

"I think, monsieur," said Morgan, taking care to address the Kepublican general in the manner used before the Ke vo lution, "you asked the number of men opposed to you ?"

"Yes," replied Bonaparte, fixing a penetrating eye upon his interlocutor.

"Before you, monsieur," resumed Morgan, "there are, visible or invisible, some thirty or thirty-two thousand men; ten thousand men in the direction of the Kue Saint-Koch; ten thousand between the Place des Filles de Saint-Thomas and the Barriere des Sergents. In the neighbor hood of fifty-six thousand, as you see."

"Is that all?" asked Bonaparte.

"Do you not think that is enough to oppose to your five thousand?"

"You say you are sure of the number?" asked Bonaparte without replying to the other's question.

"Perfectly so, since I am one of their principal leaders."

A flash gleamed in the young general's eye, and he stared at Cartaux.

"How comes it that the citizen-Sectionist is here?" he asked; "is he your prisoner?"

"No, citizen-general," replied Cartaux.

"Did he come under a flag of truce?"

"No."

Bonaparte frowned. "But there must be some reason why he is in your ranks,'' he said.

"Citizen-general," said Grarat, advancing, "I was with one hundred and fifty men, whom I had recruited in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, when we fell in with citizen Mor gan and his troops. In order that neither I nor my men should suffer harm, he himself brought me here with a gen erosity and loyalty deserving of the utmost gratitude. Citi zen Morgan, I thank you for the service you have rendered

me, and I assert that not only have we no pretext for de taining you here, but that if we did so it would be in flagrant violation of honor and the rights of man. Citizen-general Bonaparte, I therefore ask your permission for the-citizen to retire.''

And Grarat, advancing toward Morgan, clasped his hand, while Bonaparte, waving his hand toward the Sectionist out posts, made a sign to Morgan to return to his men. The latter bowed courteously to Bonaparte and walked slowly off, whistling the air of "La Belle Gabrielle."

CHAPTER XXI

THE STEPS OF SAINT-ROCH

AS SOON as Morgan had joined the Sectionists, and stood facing Bonaparte, the latter saluted him by drawing his sword, and then, turning to Cartaux, he said:

"You did well, general, to abandon the Pont-Neuf, in spite of the order which I gave you. You could not hold it with three hundred men against thirty-two thousand. But here you have more than a thousand men, and this is the Thermopylse of the Convention; you must die rather than yield a single step. Corne, Barras!"

Barras saluted General Cartaux and followed Bonaparte as though he were already accustomed to receiving orders from him. Then, continuing along the Quai, the young general ordered two guns to be placed a little below the balcony of Charles IX., to command the flank of the Quai Conti. Then, continuing to follow the Quai, he entered the court of the Carrousel. He had left by the swing-bridge at the extreme end of the Tuileries, had crossed the Place de la Revolution—where there was a strong reserve force of men and artillery—had followed the line of the Feuillants, the Place Vendome, the Cul-de-sac du Dauphin, the Rue

THE WHITES AND THE BLUES

Saint-Honore, and had then returned by way of the Louvre and re-entered by the Carrousel.

Just as Bonaparte and Barras disappeared within the gate of the Carrousel, a messenger bearing a flag of truce was introduced to them with all the ceremonial customary among men all over the civilized world when treating with fortified towns. The bearer approached them through the gate of L'Echelle, on the opposite side of the Carrousel, and was preceded by a trumpeter. Questioned as to his errand, he said that he came with proposals from citizen Danican, general-in-chief of the Sectionists.

The two generals led him to the hall of the Convention, where the bandage covering his eyes was removed. Then, in a threatening voice, he offered peace on condition that the battalion of the Patriots should be disarmed and the decrees of Fructidor repealed. Then the Convention gave way to a weakness, which, to their shame, is often manifest in large assemblies. And the strangest part of all was that this weakness emanated from a quarter where the greatest strength had been looked for.

Boissy d'Anglas, so grand, so firm, so like the ancients on the 1st Prairial, now descended from the tribune, and offered the Sectionists, not what they had demanded, but a conference with Danican, in which they might come to an understanding. Another deputy proposed to disarm all those patriots of '89 whose conduct during the Revolution had been reprehensible. Finally a third proposed a more reprehensible measure than the preceding ones; namely, to trust to the good faith of the Sections. Lanjuinais, who had so resolutely withstood the Jacobins and who had dared to oppose the massacres of September, yielded to fear, and suggested that it would be well to accept the proposals of these "good citizens." Now the ( 'good citizens" were none other than the Sectionists.

One of the Conventionals went even further, crying: "I am told that some assassins have crept into the battalion of the patriots of '89. I demand that they be shot."

But then Che'nier sprang to the tribune. The poet's head was conspicuous among all that throng of heads. His brow was inspired, not by the muse of drama, but by the genius of patriotism.

"I am in truth amazed," he cried, "that you should dare to consider the demands of the revolted Sections. There can be no middle course for the Convention. Vic tory or death! When the Convention has conquered, it will be time enough to separate the guilty from those who are only misguided. Talk of assassins," he continued; "what of the assassins in the revolted parties!"

Lanjuinais ascended the tribune and said: "I foresee civil war."

Twenty voices cried out at the same time: "Civil war! It is you who are bringing it about."

Lanjuinais endeavored to reply, but cries of "Down! Down!" came from all parts of the hall.

It is true that just then they had seen General Bonaparte receive some stacks of arms.

"For whom are these arms ?" they cried.

"For the Convention, if it is worthy of them," replied he.

The inspiration breathed by the young general's reply thrilled every heart.

'' Arms! Give us arms!'' cried the Conventionals. '' We will die together!"

The Convention, humiliated for a moment, had recovered itself. The lives of its representatives were not yet saved, but their honor was. Bonaparte profited by the spark of enthusiasm which he had just kindled. Each deputy re ceived a musket and a packet of cartridges. Barras ex claimed: "We are going to die in the streets in defence of the Convention. It is for you to die here, if need be, in defence of liberty."

Che'nier, who had been the hero of the session, ascended the tribune again, and, with that eloquence which is akin to grandeur, he raised his arms to heaven, saying: "0 Thou, who for the last six years hath guided the ship of

the Revolution through the most frightful tempests, amid the rocks of contending parties; Thou, through whose aid we have conquered Europe without a government and with out rulers, without generals, and with soldiers without pay, O thou, Grenius of Liberty, watch over us Thy last de fenders!"

At that moment, as though in answer to Che'nier's prayer, the first shots were heard. Every deputy seized his musket, and, biting off his cartridge, loaded it. It was a solemn moment, during which nothing but the sound of ramrods in the musket barrels was heard.

Ever since early morning the Republicans, provoked by the grossest insults and even by occasional shots, had obeyed with heroic patience the order not to fire. But attacked this time by a volley from a court which the Sectionists had captured, and seeing one Republican drop dead, and others, wounded, totter and even fall, they re plied by a volley.

Bonaparte at the first shot hastened into the court of the Tuileries.

"Who fired first?" he asked.

"The Sectionists," came the answer from all sides.

"Then all is well," he said. "And it will not be my fault if our uniforms are reddened with French blood."

He listened; it seemed to him that the firing was heaviest in the direction of Saint-Roch. He set out at a gallop, and found two pieces of artillery at the Feuillants, which he ordered to be limbered up, and advanced with them to the head of the Rue du Dauphin.

The Rue du Dauphin was a furnace. The Republicans held the street and were defending it. But the Sectionists occupied all the windows, and stood in groups upon the steps of the church of Saint-Roch, whence they were rain ing a hail of,bullets upon their adversaries.

Bonaparte arrived at this moment, followed by his two pieces of artillery and the battalion of '89. He ordered the two officers of the battalion to advance into the Rue Saint-

Honors', amid and in spite of the terrible fusillade, and wheel one to the right and the other to the left.

The officers called their men, executed the requisite manoeuvre, and fired in the direction designated, one toward the Palais Eoyal and the other toward the Place Yendome. At the same moment a hurricane of fire swept along behind them. It was caused by General Bonaparte's two cannon, which vomited fire simultaneously and covered the steps of the church of Saint-Koch with corpses and blood.

CHAPTEE XXII

THE ROUT

WHEN the smoke from the cannon had cleared, the Sectionists who remained standing could see, not fifty paces from them, Bonaparte on horseback in the midst of his gunners, who were reloading their guns. They replied to the cannonade by a heavy fire. Seven or eight of the gunners fell, and Bonaparte's black horse sank to the ground, shot dead by a bullet in the forehead.

"Fire!" cried Bonaparte as he fell.

The cannon thundered a second time. Bonaparte had time to rise. He had concealed the battalion of '89 in the Cul-de-sac de Dauphine, which they had reached through, the stables.

"This way, volunteers!" he cried, drawing his sword.

The battalion of volunteers rushed toward him with drawn swords. They were tried men who had seen all the first battles of the Eevolution. Bonaparte noticed an old drummer standing in a corner.

"Come here," he said, "and beat the charge."

"The charge, my boy," said the old drummer, who saw that he had to do with a young man of twenty-five; "you want the charge ? well, you shall have it ; and a warm one.' '