France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
Why dwell on what follows? Hulin’s _foi d’officier_ should have
been kept, but could not. The Swiss stand drawn up; disguised in
white canvas smocks; the Invalides without disguise; their arms
all piled against the wall. The first rush of victors, in ecstacy
that the death-peril is passed, “leaps joyfully on their necks;”
but new victors rush, and ever new, also in ecstacy not wholly of
joy. As we said, it was a living deluge, plunging headlong; had
not the Gardes Françaises, in their cool military way, “wheeled
round with arms levelled,” it would have plunged suicidally, by
the hundred or the thousand, into the Bastille-ditch.
And so it goes plunging through court and corridor; billowing
uncontrollable, firing from windows—on itself: in hot frenzy of
triumph, of grief and vengeance for its slain. The poor Invalides
will fare ill; one Swiss, running off in his white smock, is
driven back, with a death-thrust. Let all prisoners be marched to
the Townhall, to be judged!—Alas, already one poor Invalide has
his right hand slashed off him; his maimed body dragged to the
Place de Grève, and hanged there. This same right hand, it is
said, turned back de Launay from the Powder-Magazine, and saved
Paris.
De Launay, “discovered in gray frock with poppy-coloured riband,”
is for killing himself with the sword of his cane. He shall to
the Hôtel-de-Ville; Hulin Maillard and others escorting him; Elie
marching foremost “with the capitulation-paper on his sword’s
point.” Through roarings and cursings; through hustlings,
clutchings, and at last through strokes! Your escort is hustled
aside, felled down; Hulin sinks exhausted on a heap of stones.
Miserable de Launay! He shall never enter the Hotel de Ville:
only his “bloody hair-queue, held up in a bloody hand;” that
shall enter, for a sign. The bleeding trunk lies on the steps
there; the head is off through the streets; ghastly, aloft on a
pike.
Rigorous de Launay has died; crying out, ‘O friends, kill me
fast!’ Merciful de Losme must die; though Gratitude embraces him,
in this fearful hour, and will die for him; it avails not.
Brothers, your wrath is cruel! Your Place de Grève is become a
Throat of the Tiger; full of mere fierce bellowings, and thirst
of blood. One other officer is massacred; one other Invalide is
hanged on the Lamp-iron: with difficulty, with generous
perseverance, the Gardes Françaises will save the rest. Provost
Flesselles stricken long since with the paleness of death, must
descend from his seat, “to be judged at the Palais Royal:”—alas,
to be shot dead, by an unknown hand, at the turning of the first
street!—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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