Children and war -- Juvenile fiction; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Juvenile fiction
Far at the end of the Place du Carrousel grenadiers, pikemen, and
gendarmes lay dead and dying. Floating mists of smoke drifted with the
sudden, freakish changing of the wind, and through it all the battle cry
of “Death or Liberty” floated back to the watching thousands in the
Champs Élysées gardens and in the surrounding streets.
“The Marseillais have the Cour Royale!” was the word passed from lip to
lip, and then the cry of “Vive la Nation” swelled like the storm tide of
a sea.
“The Swiss have given way! The Swiss can no longer stand!”
This last cry roused Lisle as he stood on the spinner’s cart, and the
meaning of it caught his heart. The gallant Swiss guard who had fought,
like the brave fellows that they were, to guard the palace and the royal
family—the Swiss were vanquished!
“The men of the Faubourg de Gloire have the Cour des Princes! Hurrah for
the Faubourg de Gloire!” Again a mighty roar shook the very roofs of the
houses.
Another court of the palace had fallen!
The sun caught the bronze of the cannons in the square and they flashed
like scarlet fire through the iron-grey smoke clouds.
“The men of the Faubourg Saint-Marceau have taken over the Cour des
Suisses!”
The last court of the Tuileries was in the hands of the people.
Lisle stood still in the sunshine watching the end of all that had made
up his life. He was too young and inexperienced to realize very much
beyond the things that he had always known, quiet cherishing of old
traditions handed down, riches, beauty, unthinking narrowness. His king
and queen were in hiding in the back confines of the Tuileries. The
great palace itself was given over to the people who had taken it with
bayonet and gun. The roar of the cannons and of the thousands of voices
meant a good-by to the old ways. Lisle stood there like a statue, his
hands clenched at his sides, tears stinging his eyelids, his gold hair
ablaze in the sun. Then, suddenly, almost without knowing it, he raised
his voice and cried with all his might:
“God save King Louis!”
He had hardly cried the last word before he was seized from the cart and
half dragged, half carried at a swift pace down a side street off the
rue Royale, opposite which the cart had been standing. His captor turned
a corner swiftly, and then another, and puffing and gasping for breath,
he finally pushed Lisle under a gabled doorway where they could not be
seen from the street. Lisle’s blue eyes flashed fire into quiet brown
ones. His captor was a short, fat man in a snuff-colored cloak and wide
hat. He had a round, kindly face and, in spite of the situation, he was
smiling.
“Take your hand off me. You are not to touch me!”
Lisle was so angry that he spoke with difficulty and his companion was
so blown that he could only puff and pant. He looked furtively around
the arched doorway of the deserted shop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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