Part 45 (1/2)
”Well, Monsieur Admiral----”
”Shut up with your 'Monsieurs', spy,” called Hache. ”Do you want us hunted for aristocrats?”
”Well, Citizen Admiral then, you know how things have been going since last spring. In May there was the holding of States-General; in June the National a.s.sembly confront the n.o.bles and swear never to disperse; in July the Court menaces to suppress the Parisians by the army; on the eleventh the people slaughtered by the Dragoons; on the fourteenth----”
”The Bastille taken--I was there.”
Exultation lit the ring of faces.
”Ragmen, we have had good times since the 14th of July,” said the Admiral. ”It is now becoming our turn. I always told you it was coming, but I am going to give you better still. You are going to learn to love the sight of red blood better than red wine.”
”The aristocrats,” Jude continued, ”have been skipping over the frontiers; the people starving and rising to their rights; we hung Councillor Foulon to the lantern----”
”And put gra.s.s in his mouth, the old animal!” exclaimed Wife Gougeon with vicious hate.
”The King----” proceeded Jude.
”The Big Hog,” shouted a Councillor savagely.
”The Big Hog, then, has had his bristles singed with all this: the people despise him. Orleans is the people's favourite. What if the Galley-on-Land should put Orleans on the throne?”
”Good!” cried the Admiral.
The Big Bench broke into excited comment.
”Citizen Jude is admirable.” Their leader went on, ”Nothing could be more acceptable than the money of a friend to the people. I tell you, ragmen, our time has come. There is nothing we cannot try.”
”Let us garrott every gendarme.”
”They keep well out of our way now, at least when single,” another boasted.
”We don't loot enough houses,” a third grumbled. ”What is the good of belonging to the nation?”
”It is the sacred right of the citizen to oppress the oppressor,” chimed Jude.
”Ragmen, you don't know what I mean,” vociferated the Admiral sharply.
”We are to be the great men--the Government. I have seen this ever since our sack of Reveillon's paper-factory. Everything belongs to the boldest. You will yet see our Big Bench legislators of Paris and me a Minister of France.”
”Bravo; bravo the Admiral!”
The man who last entered, the Versailles beggar, now came to the centre.
”Listen, friends. You know that what I learn at Versailles is worth something to the Galley-on-Land.”
”Invariably,” said the Admiral.
”The Big Sow, you know, she they call Madame Veto, has been cursedly working to keep the Big Hog with the cursed hogs. The people are afraid of more Dragoons, and are crying, 'The King to Paris!' Well, now, this is the third of October. Yesterday afternoon the Bodyguard, as they call them--all fat hogs, mark you--gave a dinner in the theatre to the Flemish Dragoons. They were so glad to have Flemings to sabre Paris that the Big Sow came in, and they all spat on the people's c.o.c.kade, and put on the White Hog colour, and also a black one, and vowed they were c.o.c.ksure of shutting us up. They brought in the Big Hog from his hunting, and he is in the mess, too. At the end they all followed Madame Veto home, shouting everything to vex us patriots. _I_ am a _patriot_,”
he added winking. ”It is an outrage on the nation. We must go to Versailles. We must bring the Big Hog into our bosoms, away from the Bad Hogs. Do you see?”