Chapter 3: 1.ii

Danton.

But better than rasing of Longwi, or rebuking poor dusty soldiers
or soldiers’ wives, Danton had come over, last night, and
demanded a Decree to _search_ for arms, since they were not
yielded voluntarily. Let “Domiciliary visits,” with rigour of
authority, be made to this end. To search for arms; for
horses,—Aristocratism rolls in its carriage, while Patriotism
cannot trail its cannon. To search generally for munitions of
war, “in the houses of persons suspect,”—and even, if it seem
proper, to seize and imprison the suspect persons themselves! In
the Prisons, their plots will be harmless; in the Prisons, they
will be as hostages for us, and not without use. This Decree the
energetic Minister of Justice demanded, last night, and got; and
this same night it is to be executed; it is being executed, at
the moment when these dusty soldiers get saluted with _Mourir_.
Two thousand stand of arms, as they count, are foraged in this
way; and some four hundred head of new Prisoners; and, on the
whole, such a terror and damp is struck through the Aristocrat
heart, as all but Patriotism, and even Patriotism were it out of
this agony, might pity. Yes, Messieurs! if Brunswick blast Paris
to ashes, he probably will blast the Prisons of Paris too: pale
Terror, if we have got it, we will also give it, and the depth of
horrors that lie in it; the same leaky bottom, in these wild
waters, bears us all.

One can judge what stir there was now among the “thirty thousand
Royalists:” how the Plotters, or the accused of Plotting, shrank
each closer into his lurking-place,—like Bertrand Moleville,
looking eager towards Longwi, hoping the weather would keep fair.
Or how they dressed themselves in valet’s clothes, like Narbonne,
and “got to England as Dr. Bollman’s famulus:” how Dame de Staël
bestirred herself, pleading with Manuel as a Sister in
Literature, pleading even with Clerk Tallien; a pray to nameless
chagrins![520] Royalist Peltier, the Pamphleteer, gives a
touching Narrative (not deficient in height of colouring) of the
terrors of that night. From five in the afternoon, a great City
is struck suddenly silent; except for the beating of drums, for
the tramp of marching feet; and ever and anon the dread thunder
of the knocker at some door, a Tricolor Commissioner with his
blue Guards (_black_-guards!) arriving. All Streets are vacant,
says Peltier; beset by Guards at each end: all Citizens are
ordered to be within doors. On the River float sentinal barges,
lest we escape by water: the Barriers hermetically closed.
Frightful! The sun shines; serenely westering, in smokeless
mackerel-sky: Paris is as if sleeping, as if dead:—Paris is
holding its breath, to see what stroke will fall on it. Poor
Peltier! _Acts of Apostles_, and all jocundity of
Leading-Articles, are gone out, and it is become bitter earnest
instead; polished satire changed now into coarse pike-points
(hammered out of railing); all logic reduced to this one
primitive thesis, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth!—Peltier, dolefully aware of it, ducks low; escapes
unscathed to England; to urge there the inky war anew; to have
Trial by Jury, in due season, and deliverance by young Whig
eloquence, world-celebrated for a day.

Of “thirty thousand,” naturally, great multitudes were left
unmolested: but, as we said, some four hundred, designated as
“persons suspect,” were seized; and an unspeakable terror fell on
all. Wo to him who is guilty of Plotting, of Anticivism,
Royalism, Feuillantism; who, guilty or not guilty, has an enemy
in his Section to call him guilty! Poor old M. de Cazotte is
seized, his young loved Daughter with him, refusing to quit him.
Why, O Cazotte, wouldst thou quit romancing, and _Diable
Amoureux_, for such reality as this? Poor old M. de Sombreuil, he
of the _Invalides_, is seized: a man seen askance, by Patriotism
ever since the Bastille days: whom also a fond Daughter will not
quit. With young tears hardly suppressed, and old wavering
weakness rousing itself once more—O my brothers, O my sisters!

The famed and named go; the nameless, if they have an accuser.
Necklace Lamotte’s Husband is in these Prisons (_she_ long since
squelched on the London Pavements); but gets delivered. Gross de
Morande, of the _Courier de l’Europe_, hobbles distractedly to
and fro there: but they let him hobble out; on right nimble
crutches;—his hour not being yet come. Advocate Maton de la
Varenne, very weak in health, is snatched off from mother and
kin; Tricolor Rossignol (journeyman goldsmith and scoundrel
lately, a risen man now) remembers an old Pleading of Maton’s!
Jourgniac de Saint-Méard goes; the brisk frank soldier: he was in
the Mutiny of Nancy, in that “effervescent Regiment du Roi,”—on
the wrong side. Saddest of all: Abbé Sicard goes; a Priest who
could not take the Oath, but who could teach the Deaf and Dumb:
in his Section one man, he says, had a grudge at him; one man, at
the fit hour, launches an arrest against him; which hits. In the
Arsenal quarter, there are dumb hearts making wail, with signs,
with wild gestures; he their miraculous healer and speech-bringer
is rapt away.

What with the arrestments on this night of the Twenty-ninth, what
with those that have gone on more or less, day and night, ever
since the Tenth, one may fancy what the Prisons now were.
Crowding and Confusion; jostle, hurry, vehemence and terror! Of
the poor Queen’s Friends, who had followed her to the Temple and
been committed elsewhither to Prison, some, as Governess de
Tourzelle, are to be let go: one, the poor Princess de Lamballe,
is not let go; but waits in the strong-rooms of La Force there,
what will betide further.

Among so many hundreds whom the launched arrest hits, who are
rolled off to Townhall or Section-hall, to preliminary Houses of
detention, and hurled in thither, as into cattle-pens, we must
mention one other: Caron de Beaumarchais, Author of _Figaro;_
vanquisher of Maupeou Parlements and Goezman helldogs; once
numbered among the demigods; and now—? We left him in his
culminant state; what dreadful decline is this, when we again
catch a glimpse of him! “At midnight” (it was but the 12th of
August yet), “the servant, in his shirt,” with wide-staring eyes,
enters your room:—Monsieur, rise; all the people are come to seek
you; they are knocking, like to break in the door! “And they were
in fact knocking in a terrible manner (_d’une façon terrible_). I
fling on my coat, forgetting even the waistcoat, nothing on my
feet but slippers; and say to him”—And _he_, alas, answers mere
negatory incoherences, panic interjections. And through the
shutters and crevices, in front or rearward, the dull
street-lamps disclose only streetfuls of haggard countenances;
clamorous, bristling with pikes: and you rush distracted for an
outlet, finding none;—and have to take refuge in the
crockery-press, down stairs; and stand there, palpitating in that
imperfect costume, lights dancing past your key-hole, tramp of
feet overhead, and the tumult of Satan, “for four hours and
more!” And old ladies, of the quarter, started up (as we hear
next morning); rang for their _bonnes_ and cordial-drops, with
shrill interjections: and old gentlemen, in their shirts, “leapt
garden-walls;” flying, while none pursued; one of whom
unfortunately broke his leg.[521] Those sixty thousand stand of
Dutch arms (which never arrive), and the bold stroke of trade,
have turned out so ill!—

Beaumarchais escaped for this time; but not for the next time,
ten days after. On the evening of the Twenty-ninth he is still in
that chaos of the Prisons, in saddest, wrestling condition;
unable to get justice, even to get audience; “Panis scratching
his head” when you speak to him, and making off. Nevertheless let
the lover of Figaro know that Procureur Manuel, a Brother in
Literature, found him, and delivered him once more. But how the
lean demigod, now shorn of his splendour, had to lurk in barns,
to roam over harrowed fields, panting for life; and to wait under
eavesdrops, and sit in darkness “on the Boulevard amid
paving-stones and boulders,” longing for one word of any
Minister, or Minister’s Clerk, about those accursed Dutch
muskets, and getting none,—with heart fuming in spleen, and
terror, and suppressed canine-madness: alas, how the swift sharp
hound, once fit to be Diana’s, breaks his old teeth now, gnawing
mere whinstones; and must “fly to England;” and, returning from
England, must creep into the corner, and lie quiet, toothless
(moneyless),—all this let the lover of Figaro fancy, and weep
for. We here, without weeping, not without sadness, wave the
withered tough fellow-mortal our farewell. His Figaro has
returned to the French stage; nay is, at this day, sometimes
named the best piece there. And indeed, so long as Man’s Life can
ground itself only on artificiality and aridity; each new Revolt
and Change of Dynasty turning up only a new stratum of
_dry-rubbish_, and no _soil_ yet coming to view,—may it not be
good to protest against such a Life, in many ways, and even in
the Figaro way?