Part 52 (2/2)

Each soldier had three days' provisions and six packets of cartridges.

It has since transpired that at this moment 10,000 francs were daily spent in brandy for each brigade.

Towards one o'clock, Magnan went to the Hotel de Ville, had the reserve limbered under his own eyes, and did not leave until all the batteries were ready to march.

Certain suspicious preparations grew more numerous. Towards noon the State workmen and the hospital corps had established a species of huge ambulance at No. 2, Faubourg Montmartre. A great heap of litters was piled up there. ”What is all this for?” asked the crowd.

Dr. Deville, who had attended Espina.s.se when he had been wounded, noticed him on the boulevard, and asked him, ”Up to what point are you going?”

Espina.s.se's answer is historical.

He replied, ”To the end.”

At two o'clock five brigades, those of Cotte, Bourgon, Canrobert, Dulac, and Reybell, five batteries of artillery, 16,400 men,[23] infantry and cavalry, lancers, cuira.s.siers, grenadiers, gunners, were ech.e.l.loned without any ostensible reason between the Rue de la Paix and the Faubourg Poissonniere. Pieces of cannon were pointed at the entrance of every street; there were eleven in position on the Boulevard Poissonniere alone.

The foot soldiers had their guns to their shoulders, the officers their swords drawn. What did all this mean? It was a curious sight, well worth the trouble of seeing, and on both sides of the pavements, on all the thresholds of the shops, from all the stories of the houses, an astonished, ironical, and confiding crowd looked on.

Little by little, nevertheless, this confidence diminished, and irony gave place to astonishment; astonishment changed to stupor. Those who have pa.s.sed through that extraordinary minute will not forget it. It was evident that there was something underlying all this. But what?

Profound obscurity. Can one imagine Paris in a cellar? People felt as though they were beneath a low ceiling. They seemed to be walled up in the unexpected and the unknown. They seemed to perceive some mysterious will in the background. But after all they were strong; they were the Republic, they were Paris; what was there to fear! Nothing. And they cried, ”Down with Bonaparte!” The troops continued to keep silence, but the swords remained outside their scabbards, and the lighted matches of the cannon smoldered at the corners of the streets. The cloud grew blacker every minute, heavier and more silent. This thickening of the darkness was tragical. One felt the coming crash of a catastrophe, and the presence of a villain; snake-like treason writhed during this night, and none can foresee where the downward slide of a terrible design will stop when events are on a steep incline.

What was coming out of this thick darkness?

[23] 16,410 men, the figures taken from the Ministry of War.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE Ma.s.sACRE

Suddenly a window was opened.

Upon h.e.l.l.

Dante, had he leaned over the summit of the shadow, would have been able to see the eighth circle of his poem; the funereal Boulevard Montmartre.

Paris, a prey to Bonaparte; a monstrous spectacle. The gloomy armed men ma.s.sed together on this boulevard felt an appalling spirit enter into them; they ceased to be themselves, and became demons.

There was no longer a single French soldier, but a host of indefinable phantoms, carrying out a horrible task, as though in the glimmering light of a vision.

There was no longer a flag, there was no longer law, there was no longer humanity, there was no longer a country, there was no longer France; they began to a.s.sa.s.sinate.

The Schinderhannes division, the brigades of Mandrin, Cartouche, Poulailler, Trestaillon, and Tropmann appeared in the gloom, shooting down and ma.s.sacring.

No; we do not attribute to the French army what took place during this mournful eclipse of honor.

There have been ma.s.sacres in history, abominable ones a.s.suredly, but they have possessed some show of reason; Saint Bartholomew and the Dragonnades are explained by religion, the Sicilian Vespers and the butcheries of September are explained by patriotism; they crush the enemy or annihilate the foreigner; these are crimes for a good cause; but the carnage of the Boulevard Montmartre is a crime without an ostensible reason.

The reason exists, however. It is hideous.

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