The Memoirs of Victor Hugo Part 25

"Yes, and dead, too."

A gloomy silence followed. I rose. "You have no doubt some measures to take?" I said.

"What measures?" answered Lamartine. "This morning we resolved to decree what you have already been able to do on a small scale in your quarter: the organization of the citizen's National Guard--every Frenchman a soldier as well as a voter. But time is required, and meanwhile--"

he pointed to the waves and eddies of heads surging on the square outside--"look, it is the sea!"

A boy wearing an ap.r.o.n entered and spoke to him in low tones.

"Ah! very good!" said Lamartine, "it is my luncheon. Will you share it with me, Hugo?"

"Thanks, I have already lunched."

"I haven't and I am dying of hunger. At least come and look on at the feast; I will let you go, afterwards."

He showed me into a room that gave on to an interior court-yard. A gentle faced young man who was writing at a table rose and was about to withdraw. He was the young workman whom Louis Blanc had had attached to the Provisional Government.

"Stay where you are, Albert," said Lamartine, "I have nothing of a private nature to say to Victor Hugo."

We saluted each other, M. Albert and I.

The little waiter showed Lamartine a table upon which were some mutton cutlets in an earthenware dish, some bread, a bottle of wine and a gla.s.s. The whole came from a wine-shop in the neighbourhood.

"Well," exclaimed Lamartine, "what about a knife and fork?"

"I thought you had knives and forks here," returned the boy. "I had trouble enough to bring the luncheon, and if I have got to go and fetch knives and forks--"

"Pshaw!" said Lamartine, "one must take things as they come!"

He broke the bread, took a cutlet by the bone and tore the meat with his teeth. When he had finished he threw the bone into the fireplace. In this manner he disposed of three cutlets, and drank two gla.s.ses of wine.

"You will agree with me that this is a primitive repast!" he said. "But it is an improvement on our supper last night. We had only bread and cheese among us, and we all drank water from the same chipped sugar-bowl. Which didn't, it appears, prevent a newspaper this morning from denouncing the great orgy of the Provisional Government!"

I did not find Victor in the room where he was to have waited for me.

I supposed that, having become tired of waiting, he had returned home alone.

When I issued on to the Place de Greve the crowd was still excited and in a state of consternation at the inexplicable collision that had occurred an hour before. The body of a wounded man who had just expired was carried past me. They told me that it was the fifth. It was taken, as the other bodies had been taken, to the Salle Saint Jean, where the dead of the previous day to the number of over a hundred had been exposed.

Before returning to the Place Royale I made a tour for the purpose of visiting our guard-houses. Outside the Minimes Barracks a boy of about fifteen years, armed with the rifle of a soldier of the line, was proudly mounting guard. It seemed to me that I had seen him there in the morning or the day before.

"What!" I said, "are you doing sentry duty again?"

"No, not again; I haven't yet been relieved."

"You don't say so. Why, how long have you been here?"

"Oh, about seventeen hours!"

"What! haven't you slept? Haven't you eaten?"

"Yes, I have had something to eat."

"You went to get it, of course?"

"No, I didn't, a sentry does not quit his post! This morning I shouted to the people in the shop across the way that I was hungry, and they brought me some bread."

I hastened to have the brave child relieved from duty.

On arriving in the Place Royale I inquired for Victor. He had not returned. I was seized with a shudder of fear. I do not know why the vision of the dead who had been transported to the Salle Saint Jean should have come into my mind. What if my Victor had been caught in that b.l.o.o.d.y affray? I gave some pretext for going out again. Vacquerie was there; I told him of my anguish in a whisper, and he offered to accompany me.

First of all we called upon M. Froment-Meurice, whose establishment was in the Rue Lobau, next to the Hotel de Ville, and I asked him to have me admitted to the Salle Saint Jean. At first he sought to dissuade me from seeing the hideous sight; he had seen it the previous day and was still under the impression of the horror it inspired. I fancied his reluctance was a bad sign, that he was trying to keep something from me. This made me insist the more, and we went.

In the large Salle Saint Jean, transformed into a vast morgue, lay the long line of corpses upon camp bedsteads. For the most part they were unrecognisable. And I held the dreadful review, quaking in my shoes when one of the dead was young and slim with chestnut hair. Yes, the spectacle of the poor blood-stained dead was horrible indeed! But I could not describe it; all that I saw of each body was that it was not that of my child. At length I reached the last one, and breathed freely once more.

As I issued from the lugubrious place I saw Victor, very much alive, running towards me. When he heard the firing he had left the room where he was waiting for me, and not being able to find his way back, had been to see a friend.

II. EXPULSIONS AND ESCAPES.

May 3, 1848.

On February 24 the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess Decazes were literally driven from the Luxembourg. And by whom? By the very denizens of the palace, all employes of the Chamber of Peers, all appointed by the grand referendary. A rumour was circulated in the quarter that during the night the peers would commit some anti-revolutionary act, publish a proclamation, etc. The entire Faubourg Saint Jacques prepared to march against the Luxembourg. Hence, great terror. First the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess were begged, then pressed, then constrained to leave the palace.

"We will leave to-morrow. We do not know where to go. Let us pa.s.s the night here," they said.

They were driven out.

They slept in a lodging-house. Next day they took up their abode at 9, Rue Verneuil.

M. Decazes was very ill. A week before he had undergone an operation.

Mme. Decazes bore it all with cheerfulness and courage. This is a trait of character that women often display in trying situations brought about through the stupidity of men.

The ministers escaped, but not without difficulty. M. Duchatel, in particular, had a great fright.

M. Guizot, three days previously, had quitted the Hotel des Capucines and installed himself at the Ministry of the Interior. He lived there _en famille_ with M. Duchatel.

On February 24, MM. Duchatel and Guizot were about to sit down to luncheon when an usher rushed in with a frightened air. The head of the column of rioters was debouching from the Rue de Bourgogne. The two ministers left the table and managed to escape just in time by way of the garden. Their families followed them: M. Duchatel's young wife, M.

Guizot's aged mother, and the children.

A notable thing about this flight was that the luncheon of M. Guizot became the supper of M. Ledru-Rollin. It was not the first time that the Republic had eaten what had been served to the Monarchy.

Meanwhile the fugitives had taken the Rue Bellecha.s.se. M. Guizot walked first, giving his arm to Mme. Duchatel. His fur-lined overcoat was b.u.t.toned up and his hat as usual was stuck on the back of his head.