CHAPTER IV.

THE TUILERIES.

"How do you feel yourself to-day, Mr Bagsby?" said I, as I entered the apartment of that heroic individual on the following morning; "you made a very close shave of it, I can tell you. Eugene Sue wanted to have you stretched upon a shutter, and carried in procession as a victim through all the streets of Paris."

"Victim indeed!" replied Bagsby, manipulating the small of his back, "I've been quite enough victimised already. Hanged if I don't get that villain Albert impeached when I reach England, that's all! I worked among them with the pickaxe till my arms were nearly broken, and the only thanks I got was to be shot at like a popinjay."

"Nay, Mr Bagsby, you have covered yourself with glory. Every one says that but for you the barricade would inevitably have been carried."

"They might have carried it to the infernal regions for aught that I cared," replied Bagsby. "Catch me fraternising again with any of them; a disreputable set of scoundrels with never a shirt to their back."

"You forget, my dear sir," said I: "Mr Cobden is of opinion that they are the most affectionate and domesticated people on the face of the earth."

"Did Cobden say that?" cried Bagsby: "then he's a greater humbug than I took him to be, and that is saying not a little. He'll never get another testimonial out of me, I can tell you. But pray, how did I come here?"

"Why, you were just about to be treated to a public funeral, when very fortunately you exhibited some symptoms of resuscitation, and a couple of hairy patriots carried you to my lodgings. Your exertions had been too much for you. I must confess, Mr Bagsby, I had no idea that you were so bloodthirsty a personage."

"Me bloodthirsty!" cried Bagsby; "Lord bless you! I am like to faint whenever I cut myself in shaving. Guns and swords are my perfect abomination, and I don't think I could bring myself to fire at a sparrow."

"Come, come! you do yourself injustice. I shall never forget the brilliant manner in which you charged down the barricade."

"All I can tell you is, that I was deucedly glad to hide myself in one of the empty coaches. But when a bullet came splash through the panel within two inches of my ear, I found the place was getting too hot to hold me, and scrambled out. I had covered myself with one of their red rags by way of concealment, and I suppose I brought it out with me. As to jumping down, you will allow it was full time to do that, when fifty fellows were taking a deliberate aim with their guns."

"You are too modest, Mr Bagsby; and, notwithstanding all your disclaimers, you have gained a niche in history as a hero. But come; this may be a busy day, and it is already late. Do you think you can manage any breakfast?"

"I'll try," said Bagsby; and, to do him justice, he did.

Our meal concluded, I proposed a ramble, in order to ascertain the progress of events, of which both of us were thoroughly ignorant. Bagsby, however, was extremely adverse to leaving the house. He had a strong impression that he would be again kidnapped, and pressed into active service; in which case he affirmed that he would incontinently give up the ghost.

"Can't you stay comfortably here," said he, "and let's have a little bottled porter? These foreign chaps can surely fight their own battles without you or me; and that leads me to ask if you know the cause of all this disturbance. Hanged if I understand anything about it!"

"I believe it mainly proceeds from the King having forbidden some of the deputies to dine together in public."

"You don't say so!" cried Bagsby: "what an old fool he must be! Blowed if I wouldn't have taken the chair in person, and sent them twelve dozen of champagne to drink my health."

"Kings, Mr Bagsby, are rarely endowed with a large proportion of such sagacity as yours. But really we must go forth and look a little about us. It is past mid-day, and I cannot hear any firing. You may rely upon it that the contest has been settled in one way or another--either the people have been appeased, or, what is more likely, the troops have sided with them. We must endeavour to obtain some information."

"You may do as you like," said Bagsby, "but my mind is made up. I'm off for Havre this blessed afternoon."

"My dear sir, you cannot. No passports can be obtained just now, and the mob has taken up the railroads."

"What an idiot I was ever to come here!" groaned Bagsby. "Mercy on me! must I continue in this den of thieves, whether I will or no?"

"I am afraid there is no alternative. But you judge the Parisians too hastily, Mr Bagsby. I perceive they have respected your watch."

"Ay, but you heard what that chap said about the slaughter-house lane. I declare he almost frightened me into fits. But where are you going?"

"Out, to be sure. If you choose to remain--"

"Not I. Who knows but they may take a fancy to seek for me here, and carry me away again! I won't part with the only Englishman I know in Paris, though I think it would be more sensible to remain quietly where we are."

We threw ourselves into the stream of people which was rapidly setting in towards the Tuileries. Great events seemed to have happened, or at all events to be on the eve of completion. The troops were nowhere to be seen. They had vanished from the city like magic.

"_Bon jour_, Citoyen Bagsby," said a harsh voice, immediately behind us. "I hear high accounts of your valour yesterday at the barricades. Allow me to congratulate you on your first revolutionary experiment."

I turned round, and encountered the sarcastic smile of M. Albert the ouvrier. He was rather better dressed than on the previous evening, and had a tricolored sash bound around his waist. With him was a crowd of persons evidently in attendance.

"Should you like, Mr Bagsby, to enter the service of the Republic? for such, I have the honour to inform you, France is now," continued the ouvrier. "We shall need a few practical heads--"

"Oh dear! I knew what it would all come to!" groaned Bagsby.

"Don't misapprehend me--I mean heads to assist us in our new commercial arrangements. Now, as free-trade has succeeded so remarkably well in Britain, perhaps you would not object to communicate some of your experiences to M. Cremieux, who is now my colleague?"

"Your colleague, M. Albert?" said I.

"Exactly so. I have the honour to be one of the members of the Provisional Government of France."

"Am I in my senses or not?" muttered Bagsby. "Oh, sir, whoever you are, do be a good fellow for once, and let me get home! I promise you, I shall not say a word about this business on the other side of the Channel."

"Far be it from me to lay any restraint upon your freedom of speech, Mr Bagsby. So, then, I conclude you refuse? Well, be it so. After all, I daresay Cremieux will get on very well without you."

"But pray, M. Albert--one word," said I. "You mentioned a republic--"

"I did. It has been established for an hour. Louis Philippe has abdicated, and in all probability is by this time half a league beyond the barrier. The Duchess of Orleans came down with her son to the Chamber of Deputies, and I really believe there would have been a regency; for the gallantry of France was moved, and Barrot was determined on the point. Little Ledru Rollin, however, saved us from half measures. Rollin is a clever fellow, with the soul of a Robespierre; and, seeing how matters were likely to go, he quietly slipped to the door, and admitted a select number of our friends from the barricades. That put a stop to the talking. You have no idea how quiet gentlemen become in the presence of a mob with loaded muskets. Their hearts failed them; the deputies gradually withdrew, and a republic was proclaimed by the sovereign will of the people. I am just on my way to the Hotel de Ville, to assist in consolidating the government."

"_Bon voyage_, M. Albert!"

"Oh, we shall do it, sure enough! But here we are near the Tuileries. Perhaps, gentlemen, you would like to enjoy the amusements which are going on yonder, and to drink prosperity to the new Republic in a glass of Louis Philippe's old Clos Vougeot. If so, do not let me detain you. Adieu!" And, with a spasmodic twitch of his nose, the eccentric ouvrier departed.

"Well! what things one does see abroad, to be sure!" said Bagsby: "I recollect him quite well at the time of the Reform Bill--"

"Hush, my dear Bagsby!" said I, "this is not the moment nor the place for any reminiscences of the kind."

Certainly the aspect of what was going forward in front of the Tuileries was enough to drive all minor memories from the head of any man. A huge bonfire was blazing in the midst of the Square opposite the Place du Carrousel, and several thousands of the populace were dancing round it like demons. It was fed by the royal carriages, the furniture of the state-rooms, and every combustible article which could in any way be identified with the fallen dynasty. The windows of the palace were flung open, and hangings, curtains, and tapestries of silk and golden tissue, were pitched into the square amidst shouts of glee that would have broken the heart of an upholsterer. It was the utter recklessness of destruction. Yet, with all this, there was a certain appearance of honesty preserved. The people might destroy to any amount they pleased, but they were not permitted to appropriate. The man who smashed a mirror or shattered a costly vase into flinders was a patriot,--he who helped himself to an inkstand was denounced as an ignominious thief. I saw one poor devil, whose famished appearance bore miserable testimony to his poverty, arrested and searched; a pair of paste buckles was found upon him, and he was immediately conducted to the gardens, and shot by a couple of gentlemen who, five minutes before, had deliberately slit some valuable pictures into ribbons! Every moment the crowd was receiving accession from without, and the bonfire materials from within. At last, amidst tremendous acclamations, the throne itself was catapulted into the square, and the last symbol of royalty reduced to a heap of ashes.

The whole scene was so extremely uninviting that I regretted having come so far, and suggested to Bagsby the propriety of an immediate retreat. This, however, was not so easy. Several of the citizens who were now dancing democratic polkas round the embers, had been very active partisans at the barricade on the evening before, and, as ill-luck would have it, recognised their revivified champion.

"_Trois mille rognons!_" exclaimed my revolutionary friend the butcher; "here's the brave little Englishman that led us on so gallantly against the Municipal Guard! How is it with thee, my fire-eater, my stout swallower of bullets? Art thou sad that there is no more work for thee to do? Cheer up, citizen! we shall be at the frontiers before long; and then who knows but the Republic may reward thee with the baton of a marshal of France!"

"_Plus de marechaux!_" cried a truculent chiffonier, who was truculently picking a marrow-bone with his knife. "Such fellows are worth nothing except to betray the people. I waited to have a shot at old Soult yesterday, but the rascal would not show face!"

"Never mind him, citizen," said the butcher, "we all know Pere Pomme-de-terre. But thou lookest pale! Art thirsty? Come with me, and I will show thee where old Macaire keeps his cellar. France will not grudge a flask to so brave a patriot as thyself."

"Ay, ay! to the cellar--to the cellar!" exclaimed some fifty voices.

"_Silence, mes enfants!_" cried the butcher, who evidently had already reconnoitred the interior of the subterranean vaults. "Let us do all things in order. As Citizen Lamartine remarked, let virtue go hand in hand with liberty, and let us apply ourselves seriously to the consummation of this great work. We have now an opportunity of fraternising with the world. We see amongst us an Englishman who last night devoted his tremendous energies to France. We thought he had fallen, and were about to give him public honours. Let us not be more unmindful of the living than the dead. Here he stands, and I now propose that he be carried on the shoulders of the people to the royal--_peste_!--I mean the republican cellar, and that we there drink to the confusion of all rank, and the union of all nations in the bonds of universal brotherhood!"

"Agreed! agreed!" shouted the mob; and for the second time Bagsby underwent the ceremony of entire fraternisation. He was then hoisted upon the shoulders of some half-dozen patriots, notwithstanding a melancholy howl, by which he intended to express disapprobation of the whole proceeding. I was pressed into the service as interpreter, and took care to attribute his disclaimer solely to an excess of modesty.

"Thou also wert at the barricade last night," said the butcher. "Thou, too, hast struck a blow for France. Come along. Let us cement with wine the fraternity that originated in blood!"

So saying, he laid hold of my arm, and we all rushed towards the Tuileries. I would have given a trifle to have been lodged at that moment in the filthiest tenement of the Cowcaddens; but anything like resistance was of course utterly out of the question. In we thronged, a tumultuous rabble of men and women, through the portal of the Kings of France, across the halls, and along the galleries, all of them bearing already lamentable marks of violence, outrage, and desecration. Here was a picture of Louis Philippe, a masterpiece by Horace Vernet, literally riddled with balls; there a statue of some prince, decapitated by the blow of a hammer; and in another place the fragments of a magnificent vase, which had been the gift of an emperor. Crowds of people were sitting or lying in the state apartments, eating, drinking, smoking, and singing obscene ditties, or wantonly but deliberately pursuing the work of dismemberment. And but a few hours before, this had been the palace of the King of the Barricades!

Down we went to the cellars, which by this time were tolerably clear, as most of the previous visitors had preferred the plan of enjoying the abstracted fluid in the upper and loftier apartments. But such was not the view of Monsieur Destripes the butcher, or of his friend Pomme-de-terre. These experienced bacchanals preferred remaining at headquarters, on the principle that the _seance_ ought to be declared permanent. Bagsby, as the individual least competent to enforce order, was called to the chair, and seated upon a kilderkin of Bordeaux, with a spigot as the emblem of authority. Then began a scene of brutal and undisguised revelry. Casks were tapped for a single sample, and their contents allowed to run out in streams upon the floor. Bottles were smashed in consequence of the exceeding scarcity of cork-screws, and the finest vintage of the Cote d'Or and of Champagne were poured like water down throats hitherto unconscious of any such generous beverage.

I need not dwell upon what followed--indeed I could not possibly do justice to the eloquence of M. Pomme-de-terre, or the accomplishments of several _poissardes_, who had accompanied us in our expedition, and now favoured us with sundry erotic ditties, popular in the Faubourg St Antoine. With these ladies Bagsby seemed very popular; indeed, they had formed themselves into a sort of body-guard around his person.

Sick of the whole scene, I availed myself of the first opportunity to escape from that tainted atmosphere; and, after traversing most of the state apartments and several corridors, I found myself in a part of the palace which had evidently been occupied by some of those who were now fleeing as exiles towards a foreign land. The hand of the spoiler also had been here, but he was gone. It was a miserable thing to witness the desolation of these apartments. The bed whereon a princess had lain the night before, was now tossed and tumbled by some rude ruffian, the curtains were torn down, the gardes-de-robe broken open, and a hundred articles of female apparel and luxury were scattered carelessly upon the floor. The setting sun of February gleamed through the broken windows, and rendered the heartless work of spoliation more distinct and apparent. I picked up one handkerchief, still wet, it might be with tears, and on the corner of it was embroidered a royal cypher.

I, who was not an insurgent, almost felt that, in penetrating through these rooms, I was doing violence to the sanctity of misfortune. Where, on the coming night, might rest the head of her who, a few hours before, had lain upon that pillow of down? For the shelter of what obscure and stifling hut might she be forced to exchange the noble ceiling of a palace? This much I had gathered, that all the royal family had not succeeded in making their escape. Some of the ladies had been seen, with no protectors by their side, shrieking in the midst of the crowd; but the cry of woe was that day too general to attract attention, and it seemed that the older chivalry of France had passed away. Where was the husband at the hour when the wife was struggling in that rout of terror?

I turned into a side-passage, and opened another door. It was a small room which apparently had escaped observation. Everything here bore token of the purity of feminine taste. The little bed was untouched: there were flowers in the window, a breviary upon the table, and a crucifix suspended on the wall. The poor young inmate of this place had been also summoned from her sanctuary, never more to enter it again. As I came in, a little bird in a cage raised a loud twittering, and began to beat itself against the wires. The seed-box was empty, and the last drop of water had been finished. In a revolution such as this, it is the fate of favourites to be neglected.

The poor thing was perishing of hunger. I had no food to give it, but I opened the cage and the window, and set it free. With a shrill note of joy, it darted off to the trees, happier than its mistress, now thrown upon the mercy of a rude and selfish world. I looked down upon the scene beneath. The river was flowing tranquilly to the sea; the first breezes of spring were moving through the trees, just beginning to burgeon and expand; the sun was sinking amidst the golden clouds tranquilly--no sign in heaven or earth betokened that on that day a mighty monarchy had fallen. The roar of Paris was hushed; the work of desolation was over; and on the morrow, its first day would dawn upon the infant Republic.

"May Heaven shelter the unfortunate!" I exclaimed; "and may my native land be long preserved from the visitation of a calamity like this!"