Part 39

"To the Bastille! to the Bastille!" was the cry. Paris surged with an ungovernable mob. Month by month, week by week, day by day, since the meeting of the States-General,--called into being chiefly to provide money for the king and kept in being to provide government for the people,--the revolutionary feeling had grown, alike among the delegates and among the citizens. Now the population of Paris was aroused, the unruly element of the city was in the streets, their wrath directed against the prison-fortress, the bulwark of feudalism, the stronghold of oppression, the infamous keeper of the dark secrets of the kings of France. The people had always feared, always hated it, and now against its sullen walls was directed the torrent of their wrath.

The surging throng besieged the Hotel de Ville, demanding arms. Gaining no satisfaction there, they rushed to the Invalides, where they knew that arms were stored. The governor wished to parley. "He asks for time to make us lose ours!" cried a voice in the crowd. A rush was made, the iron gates gave way, the cellar-doors were forced open, and in a short time thirty thousand guns were distributed among the people.

Minute by minute the tumult increased. Messengers came with threatening tidings. "The troops are marching to attack the Faubourgs; Paris is about to be put to fire and sword; the cannon of the Bastille are about to open fire upon us," were the startling cries. The people grew wild with rage.

This scene was the first of those frightful outbreaks of mob violence of which Paris was in the coming years to see so many. It was the 14th of July, 1789. As yet no man dreamed of the horrors which the near future was to bring forth. The Third Estate was at war with the king, and fancied itself the power in France. But beneath it, unseen by it, almost undreamed of by it, was rousing from sleep the wild beast of popular fury and revenge. Centuries of oppression were about to be repaid by years of a wild carnival of slaughter.

The Bastille was the visible emblem of that oppression. It was an armed fortress threatening Paris. The cannon on its walls frowned defiance to the people. Momentarily the wrath of the multitude grew stronger. The electors of the Third Estate sent a message to Delaunay, governor of the Bastille, asking him to withdraw the cannons, the sight of which infuriated the people, and promising, if he would do this, to restrain the mob.

The advice was wise; the governor was not. The messengers were long absent; the electors grew uneasy; the tumult in the street increased. At length the deputation returned, bringing word that the governor pledged himself not to fire on the people, unless forced to do so in self-defence. This message the electors communicated to the crowd around the Hotel de Ville, hoping that it would satisfy them. Their words were interrupted by a startling sound, the roar of a cannon,--even while they were reporting the governor's evasive message the cannon of the Bastille were roaring defiance to the people of Paris! An attack had been made by the people on the fortress and this was the governor's response.

That shot was fatal to Delaunay. The citizens heard it with rage. "Treason!" was the cry. "To the Bastille! to the Bastille!" again rose the shout. Surging onward in an irresistible mass, the furious crowd poured through the streets, and soon surrounded the towering walls of the detested prison-fortress. A few bold men had already cut the chains of the first drawbridge, and let it fall. Across it rushed the multitude to attack the second bridge.

The fortress was feebly garrisoned, having but thirty Swiss soldiers and eighty invalids for its defence. But its walls were massive; it was well provided; it had resisted many attacks in the past; this disorderly and badly-armed mass seemed likely to beat in vain against those century-old bulwarks and towers. Yet there come times in which indignation grows strong, even with bare hands, oppression waxes weak behind its walls of might, and this was one of those times.

A chance shot was fired from the crowd; the soldiers answered with a volley; several men were wounded; other shots came from the people; the governor gave orders to fire the cannon; the struggle had begun.

It proved a short one. Companies of the National Guard were brought up to restrain the mob,--the soldiers broke from their ranks and joined it. Two of their sub-officers, Elie and Hullin by name, put themselves at the head of the furious crowd and led the people to the assault on the fortress. The fire of the garrison swept through their dense ranks; many of them fell; one hundred and fifty were killed or wounded; but now several pieces of cannon were dragged up by hand and their threatening muzzles turned against the gates.

The assault was progressing; Delaunay waited for succor which did not arrive; the small garrison could not withstand that mighty mob; in the excitement of the moment the governor attempted to blow up the powder magazine, and would have done so had not one of his attendants held his arms by force.

And now deputations arrived from the electors, two of them in succession, demanding that the fortress should be given up to the citizen guard. Delaunay proposed to capitulate, saying that he would yield if he and his men were allowed to march out with arms and honor. The proposition was received with shouts of sarcastic laughter.

"Life and safety are all we can promise you," answered Elie. "This I engage on the word of an officer."

Delaunay at this ordered the second drawbridge to be lowered and the gates to be opened. In poured the mass, precipitating themselves in fury upon that hated fortress, rushing madly through all its halls and passages, breaking its cell-doors with hammer blows, releasing captives some of whom had been held there in hopeless misery for half a lifetime, unearthing secrets which added to their revengeful rage.

Elie and Hullin had promised the governor his life. They miscalculated their power over their savage followers. Before they had gone far they were fighting hand to hand with the multitude for the safety of their prisoner. At the Place de Greve, Hullin seized the governor in his strong arms and covered his bare head with a hat, with the hope of concealing his features from the people. In a moment more he was hurled down and trodden under foot, and on struggling to his feet saw the head of Delaunay carried on a pike. The major and lieutenant were similarly massacred. Flesselles, the mayor of Paris, shared their fate. The other prisoners were saved by the soldiers, who surrounded and protected them from the fury of the mob.

The fall of the Bastille was celebrated by two processions that moved through the streets; one blood-stained and horrible, carrying the heads of the victims on pikes; the other triumphant and pathetic, bearing on their shoulders the prisoners released from its cells. Of these, two had been incarcerated so long that they were imbecile, and no one could tell whence they came. On the pathway of this procession flowers and ribbons were scattered. The spectators looked on with silent horror at the other.

Meanwhile, the king was at Versailles, in ignorance of what was taking place at Paris. The courts were full of soldiers, drinking and singing; wine had been distributed among them; there were courtiers and court intrigues still; the lowering cloud of ruin had yet scarcely cast a shadow on the palace. Louis XVI. went to bed and to sleep, in blissful ignorance of what had taken place. The Duke of Lioncourt entered and had him awakened, and informed him of the momentous event.

"But that is a revolt!" exclaimed the king, with startled face, sitting up on his couch.

"No, sire," replied the duke; "it is a revolution!"

That was the true word. It was a revolution. With the taking of the Bastille the Revolution of France was fairly inaugurated. As for that detested fortress, its demolition began on the next day, amid the thunder of cannon and the singing of the Te Deum. It had dominated Paris, and served as a state-prison for four hundred years. Its site was henceforward to be kept as a monument to liberty.

THE STORY OF THE SAINTE AMPOULE.

Sad years were they for kings and potentates in France--now a century ago--when the cup of civilization was turned upside-down and the dregs rose to the top. For once in the history of mankind the anarchist was lord--and a frightful use he made of his privileges. Not only living kings were at a discount, but the very bones of kings were scattered to the winds, and the sacred oil, the "Sainte Ampoule," which for many centuries had been used at the coronation of the kings of France, became an object of detestation, and was treated with the same lack of ceremony and consideration as the royal family itself.

Thereby hangs a tale. But before telling what desecration came to the Sainte Ampoule through the impious hands of the new lords of France, it may be well to trace briefly the earlier history of this precious oil. Christianity came to France when Clovis, its first king, was baptized. And although we cannot say much for the Christian virtues of the worthy king Clovis, we are given to understand that Heaven smiled on his conversion, for the story goes that a dove came down from the realm of the blessed, bearing a small vial of holy oil, which was placed in the hands of St. Remy to be used in anointing the king at his coronation. Afterwards the saint placed this vial in his own tomb, where it was after many years discovered by miracle. It is true, St. Remy tells us none of this. Our authority for it is Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, who flourished four centuries after Clovis and his converter had been gathered to their fathers. But as Hincmar defied those who doubted the story of the dove and the vial to prove the contrary, and produced a vial of oil from the saint's tomb in further proof of his statement, no reasonable person--at that day--could longer deny it, though the first mention of it is by a chronicler who lived a century and a half after the saint.

From the days of Hincmar forward the monarchs of France, at their coronation, were anointed with this holy oil. And as the dove was said to have descended at Rheims, and St. Remy was buried there, this became the city of the coronation. An order of knighthood was founded to take part in the coronation,--the "Knights of the Sainte Ampoule,"--but the worthy incumbents held their office for a day only,--that of the crowning of the king. They were created for that purpose, received the precious vial from the archbishop, and after the ceremony returned it to that high dignitary of the church and saw it restored to its abiding-place. This done, they ceased to exist as knights of the holy oil, the order dying while the king lived.

But these short-lived chevaliers made the most of their opportunity, and crowded all the splendor and dignity into their one day that it would well bear. The sacred vial was kept in the abbey of St. Remy, and from that place to the cathedral they moved in a stately procession that almost threw the cortege of the king into the shade. The Grand Prior of St. Remy bore the vial, in its case or shrine, which hung from his neck by a golden chain. He rode always on a white horse, being covered by a magnificent canopy, upheld by the knights of the Sainte Ampoule. The cathedral reached, the prior placed the vial in the hands of the archbishop, who pledged himself by a solemn oath to restore it at the end of the ceremony. And to make this doubly sure a number of barons were given to the knights as hostages, the restoration of the vial to be their ransom. The ceremony over, back to the abbey they went, through streets adorned with rich tapestries, and surrounded by throngs of admiring lookers-on, to whom the vial was of as much interest as the king's crown.

For many centuries this honor came at intervals to the city of Rheims, and the St. Remy vial figured as an indispensable element of every kingly coronation. It figured thus in the mission of Joan of Arc, whose purpose was to drive the English from Orleans and open the way to Rheims, that the new king might be crowned with the old ceremony. The holy oil continued to play a leading part in the coronation of the kings until the reign of Louis XVI. Then came the Revolution, that mighty overturner of all things sacred and time-honored, and a new chapter was written in the story of the Sainte Ampoule. It is this chapter which we have now to give.

The Revolution had gone on, desecrating things sacred and beheading things royal, through years of terror, and now had arrived the 6th of October, 1793, a day fatal in the history of the holy oil. On that day Citizen Rhul, one of the new sovereigns of France, entered the room of Philippe Hourelle, chief marguillier of the Cathedral of Rheims, and demanded of him the vial of coronation oil of which he had charge. Horror seized Monsieur Philippe; but Master Rhul was imperative, and the guillotine stood in the near perspective. There was nothing to do but to obey.

"It is not in my care," declared the trembling Philippe. "It is in the keeping of the cure, Monsieur Seraine. I will instantly apply to him for it."