Tales from Blackwood Volume V Part 16

"_Tete de Brissot!_" exclaimed I, in return, thinking it no unwise plan to invoke the Manes of some of the earlier heroes. This was a slight mistake.

"_Quoi? Girondin?_" cried the butcher, with a ferocious scowl.

"_Non; corps de Marat!_" I shouted.

"_Bon! embra.s.se-moi donc, camarade!_" said the butcher, and so we reached the barricade.

Here the game was going on in earnest. The barricade had been thrown up hastily and imperfectly, and a considerable body of the Munic.i.p.al Guard--who, by the way, behaved throughout with much intrepidity--was attempting to dislodge the rioters. In fact, they had almost succeeded.

Some ten of the insurgents, who were perched upon the top of the pile, had been shot down, and no one seemed anxious to supply their place on that bad eminence. In vain my friend the butcher waved his axe, and shouted, "_En avant!_" A considerable number of voices, indeed, took up the cry, but a remarkable reluctance was exhibited in setting the salutary example. A few minutes more, and the pa.s.sage would have been cleared; when all of a sudden, from the interior of a cabriolet, which formed a sort of parapet to the embankment, emerged a ghastly figure, streaming with gore, and grasping the _drapeau rouge_. I never was more petrified in my life--there could be no doubt of the man--it was Hutton Bagsby!

For a moment he stood gazing upon the tossing mult.i.tude beneath. There was a brief pause, and even the soldiers, awed by his intrepidity, forbore to fire. At last, however, they raised their muskets; when, with a hoa.r.s.e scream, Bagsby leaped from the barricade, and alighted uninjured on the street. Had Mars descended in person to lead the insurrection, he could not have done better.

"_Ah, le brave Anglais! Ah, le depute intrepide! A la rescousse!_" was the cry, and a torrent of human beings rushed headlong over the barricade.

No power on earth could have resisted that terrific charge. The Munic.i.p.al Guards were scattered like chaff before the wind; some were cut down, and others escaped under cover of the ranks of the Nationals.

Like the rest, I had leaped the embankment; but not being anxious to distinguish myself in single combat, I paused at the spot where Bagsby had fallen. There I found the ill.u.s.trious delegate stretched upon the ground, still grasping the glorious colours. I stooped down and examined the body, but I could discover no wound. The blood that stained his forehead was evidently not his own.

I loosened his neckcloth to give him air, but still there were no signs of animation. A crowd soon gathered around us--the victors were returning from the combat.

"He will never fight more!" said the author of the _Mysteries of Paris_, whom I now recognised among the combatants. "He has led us on for the last time to victory! Alas for the adopted child of France! _Un vrai heros! II est mort sur le champ de bataille!_ Messieurs, I propose that we decree for our departed comrade the honours of a public funeral!"

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 s.h.i.+rt 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 pa.s.sports 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 a.s.sist 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--"