The Countess De Charny - Volume II by Alexandre Dumas Page A
Authors: Alexandre Dumas
Tags: Historical, Classics
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‘92, to die, prematurely cut down, in ‘93, loved the fair sex.
It was in tliis apparently frivolous head — which Madame Roland considered entirely too handsome — that the idea of the 10th of August first originated.
There was a storm in the air. Formidable clouds were scurrying wildly to and fro; but it was Barbaroux who first conceived the idea of concentrating them over the tiled roof of the Tuileries.
Before any one else had made any plan, ho wrote to Rebecqui, “Send me five hundred men who know how to die!”
56 LA COMTESSE DE CIIARNY.
Ah, the real King of France now was the King of the Revolution, who wrote for five hundred men who knew how to die, and to whom they were sent as artlessly and freely as he had sent for them.
Eebecqui had selected them himself from the French faction at Avignon. They had been fighting only two years, but they had been hating for ten generations. They had fought at Toulouse, at Nîmes, and at Aries; so they were accustomed to bloodshed, and did not consider fatigue even worth talking about.
On the appointed day they set out upon this long, tire-some march of two hundred and twenty leagues as if it were a slight jaunt. And why not? They were stalwart sailors, and sturdy peasants with faces burned by the sirocco or the mistral, and with hands blackened with tar and callous from labour.
During a halt made near Orgon, in the department of Aries they received the words and music of Rouget de I’Isle’s hymn. Barbaroux had sent it to them to make their journey seem shorter.
One of them deciphered the music and sang the words; then with a great outburst of enthusiasm they all joined in the terrible chant, — much more terrible than Rouget himself had imagined ; for, in passing through the mouths of these sons of Marseilles, the song seemed to have undergone an entire change of character. It was no longer a fraternal hymn, an appeal to resist the invader, but a wild chant of extermination and death.
The little band marched through one town after another, electrifying France by the ardour with which they sang this new song.
When he knew they had reached Montereau, Barbaroux informed Santerre, and Santerre promised to meet them at Charenton with forty thousand men. With Santerre ‘s forty thousand men, headed by his own five hundred, Barbaroux intended to carry the city-hall and the Assembly by storm, then capture the Tuileries, as the
BARBAROUX’S FIVE HUNDRED. 57
people had captured the Bastille on the 14th of July, and then establish a republic on the ruins of that Florentine palace.
Barbaroux and Eebecqui went to Charenton to await the coming of Santerre and his forty thousand men.
He arrived with two hundred.
Possibly he did not propose to give outsiders the glory of such an achievement.
The little band marched through the city to the Champs Elysees, where they were to encamp, singing the Marseillaise. A banquet was to be given to them the next day, and the banquet took place ; but between the Champs Elysees and the revolving bridge — a few rods distant — were stationed several battalions of grenadiers which the palace had placed as a safeguard between the new-comers and itself.
The Marseillais and the grenadiers displayed unmistakable animosity from the very first. They began with an interchange of opprobrious epithets, which speedily led to blows. At the first show of blood the Marseillais sounded the call to arms, seized their guns, and charged with their bayonets. The grenadiers succumbed under the first attack; but fortunately the palace, with its massive iron gates, was behind them, and the revolving bridge protected their flight and served as a protection from their foes.
The fugitives found a shelter in the king’s apartments. Tradition says that one of the wounded was even cared for by the queen’s own hands.
The confederates, the Marseillais, and the Bretons numbered five thousand men; and these five thousand men were a power, — not by
It was in tliis apparently frivolous head — which Madame Roland considered entirely too handsome — that the idea of the 10th of August first originated.
There was a storm in the air. Formidable clouds were scurrying wildly to and fro; but it was Barbaroux who first conceived the idea of concentrating them over the tiled roof of the Tuileries.
Before any one else had made any plan, ho wrote to Rebecqui, “Send me five hundred men who know how to die!”
56 LA COMTESSE DE CIIARNY.
Ah, the real King of France now was the King of the Revolution, who wrote for five hundred men who knew how to die, and to whom they were sent as artlessly and freely as he had sent for them.
Eebecqui had selected them himself from the French faction at Avignon. They had been fighting only two years, but they had been hating for ten generations. They had fought at Toulouse, at Nîmes, and at Aries; so they were accustomed to bloodshed, and did not consider fatigue even worth talking about.
On the appointed day they set out upon this long, tire-some march of two hundred and twenty leagues as if it were a slight jaunt. And why not? They were stalwart sailors, and sturdy peasants with faces burned by the sirocco or the mistral, and with hands blackened with tar and callous from labour.
During a halt made near Orgon, in the department of Aries they received the words and music of Rouget de I’Isle’s hymn. Barbaroux had sent it to them to make their journey seem shorter.
One of them deciphered the music and sang the words; then with a great outburst of enthusiasm they all joined in the terrible chant, — much more terrible than Rouget himself had imagined ; for, in passing through the mouths of these sons of Marseilles, the song seemed to have undergone an entire change of character. It was no longer a fraternal hymn, an appeal to resist the invader, but a wild chant of extermination and death.
The little band marched through one town after another, electrifying France by the ardour with which they sang this new song.
When he knew they had reached Montereau, Barbaroux informed Santerre, and Santerre promised to meet them at Charenton with forty thousand men. With Santerre ‘s forty thousand men, headed by his own five hundred, Barbaroux intended to carry the city-hall and the Assembly by storm, then capture the Tuileries, as the
BARBAROUX’S FIVE HUNDRED. 57
people had captured the Bastille on the 14th of July, and then establish a republic on the ruins of that Florentine palace.
Barbaroux and Eebecqui went to Charenton to await the coming of Santerre and his forty thousand men.
He arrived with two hundred.
Possibly he did not propose to give outsiders the glory of such an achievement.
The little band marched through the city to the Champs Elysees, where they were to encamp, singing the Marseillaise. A banquet was to be given to them the next day, and the banquet took place ; but between the Champs Elysees and the revolving bridge — a few rods distant — were stationed several battalions of grenadiers which the palace had placed as a safeguard between the new-comers and itself.
The Marseillais and the grenadiers displayed unmistakable animosity from the very first. They began with an interchange of opprobrious epithets, which speedily led to blows. At the first show of blood the Marseillais sounded the call to arms, seized their guns, and charged with their bayonets. The grenadiers succumbed under the first attack; but fortunately the palace, with its massive iron gates, was behind them, and the revolving bridge protected their flight and served as a protection from their foes.
The fugitives found a shelter in the king’s apartments. Tradition says that one of the wounded was even cared for by the queen’s own hands.
The confederates, the Marseillais, and the Bretons numbered five thousand men; and these five thousand men were a power, — not by
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