Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 342, April, 1844

"The prisoner," said he, in a dictatorial tone, "is now in my charge. He is a prisoner of state—an Englishman—an agent of the monster Pitt"—(he paused, and was answered with a general shudder;) "and, above all, has actually been in arms with the fiend Brunswick, (a general groan,) and with those worse than fiends, those parricides, those emigrant nobles, who have come to burn our harvests, slay our wives and children, and destroy the proudest monument of human wisdom, the grandest triumph of human success, and the most illustrious monument of the age of regeneration—the Republic of France." Loud acclamations followed this popular rhetoric; and the panegyrist, firmly grasping me by the arm, walked with me rapidly out of court. All made way for him, and, before another word could be uttered by the astounded bench, we were in one of the covered carriages reserved for prisoners of the higher rank, and on our way, at full gallop, through the intricate streets of Paris.

All this was done with such hurried action, that I had scarcely time to know what my own emotions were; but the relief from immediate death, or rather from those depressing and overwhelming sensations which perhaps make its worst bitterness, was something, and hope dawned in me once more. Still, it was wholly in vain that I attempted to make my man of mystery utter a word. Nothing could extort a syllable from him, and he was evidently unwilling that I should even see his face, imperfect as the chance was among the few lamps which Paris then exhibited to enlighten the dismal darkness of her thoroughfares. Yet the idea that my rescue was not without a purpose predominated; and I was beginning even to imagine that I already felt the fresh air of the fields, and that our journey would terminate outside the walls of Paris, when the carriage came to a full stop, and, by the light of a torch streaming on the wind in front, I saw the gate of the St Lazare. All was now over—resistance or escape was equally beyond me. The carriage was surrounded by the guard, who ordered me to descend; their officer received the rescript for my safe custody, and I had nothing before me but the dungeon. But at the moment when my foot was on the step of the vehicle, my companion stooped forward, and uttered in my ear, with a pressure of my hand, the word "Mordecai." I was hurried onward, and the carriage drove away.

My surprise was excessive. This talismanic word changes the current of my thoughts at once. It had so often and so powerfully operated in my favour, that I could scarcely doubt its effect once more; yet before me were the stern realities of confinement. What spell was equal to those stonewalls, what dexterity of man or friendship, or even the stronger love of woman, could make my dungeon free, or my chains vanish into "thin air?" Still there had been a interposition, and to that interposition, whether for future good or ill, it certainly was due that I was not already mounting the scaffold, or flung, headless trunk, into the miserable and nameless grave.

As I passed again through the cloisters, my ears were caught with the sound of music and dancing. The contrast was sufficiently strong to the scene from which I had just returned; yet this was the land of contrasts. To my look of surprise, the turnkey who attended me answered "Perhaps you have forgotten that this is Decadi, and on this night we always have our masquerade. If you have not got a dress, I shall supply you; my wife is a fripier in the Antoine; she supplies all the civic fêtes with costumes, and you may have any dress you like, from a grand signor with his turban, down to a colporteur with his pack, or a watchman with his nightcap."

My mind was still too unsettled to enjoy masquerading, notwithstanding the temptation of the turnkey's wardrobe; and I felt all that absence of accommodation to circumstances, that want of plasticity, that failure of grasping at every hair's-breadth of enjoyment, which is declared by foreigners to form the prodigious deficiency of John Bull. If I could have taken refuge, for that night at least, in the saddest cell of the old convent, or in the deepest dungeon of the new prison, I should have gone to either with indulgence. I longed to lay down my aching brains upon my pillow, and forget the fever of the time. But prisoners have no choice; and the turnkey, after repeating his recommendations that I should not commit an act of such profound offence as to appear in the assembly without a domino, if I should take nothing else from the store of the most popular marchande in Paris, the wife of his bosom, at last, with a shake of his head and a bending of his heavy brows at my want of taste, unlocked the gate, and thrust me into the midst of my old quarters, the chapel.

There a new scene indeed awaited me. The place which I had left filled with trembling clusters of people, whole families clinging to each other in terror, loud or mute, but all in the deepest dread of their next summons, I found in a state of the most extravagant festivity—the chapel lighted up from floor to root—bouquets planted wherever it was possible to fix an artificial flower—gaudy wreaths depending from the galleries—and all the genius of this country of extremes lavished on attempts at decoration. Rude as the materials were, they produced at first sight a remarkably striking effect. More striking still was the spectacle of the whole multitude in every grotesque dress of the world, dancing away as if life was but one festival.

As I stood aloof for a while, wholly dazzled by the glare, the movement, and the multitude, I was recognised by some of my "old" acquaintance—the acquaintance of twenty-four hours—but here time, like every thing else, had changed its meaning, and a new influx had recruited the hall. Cassini and some others came forward and welcomed me, like one who had returned from the tomb—the news of the day was given and exchanged—a bottle of champagne was prescribed as the true medicine for my lowness of pulse—and I gradually gave myself up to the spirit of the hour.

As I wandered through the crowd, a mask dressed as a sylph bent its head over my shoulder, and I heard the words, "Why are you not in a domino?" I made some careless answer. "Go and get one immediately," was the reply. "Take this card, fasten it on your robe, and meet me here again." The mask put a card marked with a large rose into my hand, and was gone waltzing away among the crowd. I still lingered, leaning against one of the pillars of the aisle. The mask again approached me. "Monsieur Anglais," was the whisper, "you do not know your friends. Go and furnish yourself with a domino. It is essential to your safety." "Who are my friends, and why do you give me this advice?" was my enquiry. The mask lightly tripped round me, laid its ungloved hand on mine, as if in the mere sport of the dance; and I saw that it was the hand of a female from its whiteness and delicacy. I was now more perplexed than ever. As the form floated round me with the lightness of a zephyr, it whispered the word "Mordecai," and flew off into an eddy of the moving multitude. I now obeyed the command; went to the little shrine where the turnkey's wife had opened her friperie, and equipped myself with the dress appointed; and, with the card fixed upon my bosom, returned to take my station beside the pillar. But no sylph came again; no form rivaled the zephyr before me. I listened for that soft, low voice; but listened in vain. Yet what was all this but the common sport of a masquerade?

However, an object soon drew the general attention so strongly, as to put an end to private curiosity for the time. This was a mask in the uniform of a national guard, but so outrageously fine that his entrée excited an universal burst of laughter. But when, after a few displays of what was apparently all but intoxication, he began a detail of his own exploits, it was evident that the whole was a daring caricature; and as nothing could be less popular among us than the heroes of the shops, the Colonels Calicot, and Mustaches au comptoir, all his burlesque told incomparably. The old officers among us, the Vendéans, and all the ladies—for the sex are aristocrats under every government and in every region of the globe—were especially delighted. "Alexandre Jules Cæsar," colonel of the "brave battalion of the Marais," was evidently worth a dozen field-marshals in his own opinion; and his contempt for Vendôme, Marlborough, and Frederick le Grand, was only less piquant than the perfect imitation and keen burlesque of Santerre, Henriot, and our municipal warriors. At length when his plaudits and popularity were at their height, he proposed a general toast to the "young heroism," of the capital, and prefaced it by a song, in great repute in the old French service.

"AVANCEZ, BRAVE GUERRIERS." "Shoulder arms—brave regiment! Hark, the bugle sounds 'advance.' Pile the baggage—strike the tent; France demands you—fight for France. If the hero gets a ball, His accounts are closed—that's all! "Who'd stay wasting time at home, Made for women to despise; When, where'er we choose to roam, All the world before us lies, Following our bugle's call, Life one holiday—that's all! "When the soldier's coin is spent, He has but to fight for more; He pays neither tax nor rent, He's but where he was before. If he conquer, if he fall— Fortune de la guerre—that's all! "Let the pedant waste his oil, With the soldier all is sport; Let your blockheads make a coil In the cloister or the court; Let them fatten in their stall, We can fatten too—that's all! "What care we for fortune's frown, All that comes is for the best; What's the noble's bed of down To the soldier's evening rest On the heath or in the hall, All alike to him—that's all! "When the morn is on the sky, Hark the gay reveillé rings! Glory lights the soldier's eye, To the gory breach he springs, Plants his colours on the wall Wins and wears the croix—that's all!"

The dashing style in which this hereditary song of the French camp was given by "Colonel Alexandre Jules Cæsar" of the "brave battalion of the Marais," his capitally awkward imitation of the soldier of the old régime, and his superb affectation of military nonchalance, were so admirable, that his song excited actual raptures of applause. His performance was encored, and he was surrounded by a group of nymphs and graces, among whom his towering figure looked like a grenadier of Brobdignag in the circle of a Liliputian light company. He carried on the farce for a while with great adroitness and animation; but at length he put the circle of tinsel and tiffany aside, and rushing up to me, insisted on making me a recruit for the "brave battalion of the Marais." But I had no desire to play a part in this pantomime, and tried to disengage myself. One word again made me a captive: that word was now "Lafontaine;" and at the same moment I saw the sylph bounding to my side. What was I to think of this extraordinary combination? All was as strange as a midsummer night's dream. The "colonel," as if fatigued, leaned against the pillar, and slightly removing his mask, I saw, with sudden rejoicing, the features of that gallant young friend, whom I had almost despaired of ever seeing again. "Wait in this spot until I return," was all that I heard, before he and the sylph had waltzed away far down the hall.

I waited for some time in growing anxiety; but the pleasantry of the night went on as vividly as ever, and some clever tableaux vivants had varied the quadrilles. While the dancers gave way to a well-performed picture of Hector and Andromache from the Iliad, and the hero was in the act of taking the plumed helmet from his brow, with a grace which enchanted our whole female population, an old Savoyard and his daughter came up, one playing the little hand-organ of their country, and the other dancing to her tamborine. This was pretty, but my impatience was ill disposed to look or listen; when I was awakened by a laugh, and the old man's mask being again half turned aside, I again saw my friend: the man moved slowly through the crowd, and I followed. We gradually twined our way through the labyrinth of pillars, leaving the festivity further and further behind, until he came to a low door, at which the Savoyard tapped, and a watchword being given, the cell was opened. There our robes and masks were laid aside; we found peasant dresses, for which we exchanged them; and following a muffled figure who carried a lantern, we began our movements again through the recesses of the endless building. At length we came to a stop, and our guide lifting up a ponderous stone which covered the entrance to a deep and dark staircase, we began to descend. I now for the first time heard the cheerful voice of Lafontaine at my side. "I doubt," said he, "whether a hundred years ago any one of us would have ventured on a night march of this kind; for, be it known to you, that we are now in the vaults of the convent, and shall have to go through a whole regiment of monks and abbots in full parade." I observed that, "if we were to meet them at all, they would be less likely to impede our progress dead than alive;" but I still advised Lafontaine to allude as little as he could to the subject, lest it might have the effect of alarming our fair companion. "There is no fear of that," said he, "for little Julie is in love with M. le Comte, our gallant guide; and a girl of eighteen desperately in love, is afraid of nothing. You Englishmen are not remarkable for superstition; and as for me and my compatriots, we have lost our reverence for monks in any shape since the taking of the Bastile."

We now went on drearily and wearily through a range of catacombs, stopping from time to time to ascertain whether we were pursued; and occasionally not a little startled by the sudden burst of sound that came from the revelry above, through the ventilators of these enormous vaults. But the Count had well prepared his measures, had evidently traced his way before, and led us on without hinderance, until we approached a species of sallyport, which, once opened, would have let us out into the suburb. Here misfortune first met us; none of the keys which the Count had brought with him would fit the lock. It was now concluded by our alarmed party, either that the design of escape had been discovered, or that the lock had been changed since the day before. Here was an insurmountable difficulty. To break down the gate, or break through it, was palpably impossible, for it was strongly plated with iron, and would have resisted every thing but a six-pounder. What was to be done? To remain where we were was starvation and death; to return, would be heart-breaking; yet escape was clearly out of the question. The Count was furious, as he tried in vain to shake the solid obstacle; Lafontaine was in despair. I, rather more quietly, took it for granted that the guillotine would settle all our troubles in the course of the next day; and the pretty Julie, in a deluge of tears, charging herself with having undone us all, hung upon the neck of her cavalier, and pledged herself, by all the hopes and fears of passion, to die along with him. While the lovers were exchanging their last vows, Lafontaine, in all the vexation of his soul, was explaining to me the matchless excellence of the plot, which had been thus defeated in the very moment of promised success.

"You perhaps remember," said he, "the letter which the father of Mariamne, that dearest girl whom I shall now never see again in this world, gave you for one of his nation in Paris. On the night when I last saw you, I had found it lying on your table; and in the confusion of the moment, when I thought you killed, and rushed into the street to gain some tidings of you, I took charge of the letter, to assist me in the enquiry. Unlucky as usual, I fell into the hands of a rabble returning from the plunder of the palace, was fired on, was wounded, and carried to the St Lazare. The governor was a man of honour and a royalist, and he took care of me during a dangerous illness and a slow recovery. But to give me liberty was out of his power. I had lost sight of the world so long, that the world lost sight of me, and I remained, forgetting and forgotten; until, within these two days—when I received a note from the head of the family to whom your letter was directed, informing me that you had been arrested and sent to the very prison in which I was—my recollection of the world suddenly revived, and I determined to save you if possible. I had grown familiar with the proceedings of that tribunal of demons, the Revolutionary committee; and as I had no doubt of your condemnation, through the mere love of bloodshed, I concerted with my Jewish friend the plan of having you claimed as a British agent, who had the means of making important disclosures to the government. If this succeeded, your life was saved for the day, and your escape was prepared for the night. This weeping girl is the daughter of the late governor, who has engaged in our plot to save the life of her affianced husband; and now, within an hour of daylight, when escape will be impossible, all our plans are thrown away—we are brought to a dead stand by the want of one miserable key, and shall have nothing more to do than to make up our minds to die with what composure we can."

Having finished his story, the narrator wrapt up his head in his cloak, and laid himself down like one determined never to rise again. The Count and his Julie were so engaged in recapitulating their sorrows, sitting side by side on a tombstone, like a pair of monumental figures, that they had neither ear nor eye for any thing else; but my English nature was made of sterner stuff, and thinking that at the last I could but die, I took the lantern and set sturdily to work to examine the gate. It was soon evident that it could be neither undermined nor broken down by any strength of ours; but it was also evident that the lock was the old one which had closed it perhaps for the last century, and that the right key was the only thing wanting. Leaving Lafontaine in his despair lying at the foot of the monument, on which the lovers sat murmuring like a pair of turtle doves, I determined to make a thorough search for the missing key, and made my way back through all the windings of the catacomb, tracing the ground step by step. Still no key was to be found. At last I reached the cell where we had changed our dresses, and examined table, floor, and chair. Still nothing was to be found; but, unluckily, the light of the lantern glancing through the loop-hole of the cell, caught the eye of the sentinel on the outside, and he challenged. The sound made me start; and I took up one of the robes to cover the light. Something hard struck my hand. It was in the gown of the Savoyard's daughter. I felt its pockets, and, to my infinite astonishment and delight, produced the key. The pretty Julie, who had procured it, had forgotten every thing in the rapture of meeting her lover, and had left it behind her when she threw off her masquerading costume.

I now hastened back with the rapid step becoming the bearer of good tidings, and revived the group of despair. The key was applied to the lock, but it refused to move, and we had another pang of disappointment. Lafontaine uttered a groan, and Julie poured another gush of tears upon her companion's shoulder. I made the experiment again; the rust of the lock was now found to have been our only hinderance; and with a strong turn the bolt flew back, and the door was open.

We had all been so much exhausted by agitation, and the dreary traverse of the catacomb, that the first gush of fresh air conveyed a sensation almost of new life. The passage had probably been formed in the period when every large building in Paris was a species of fortress; and we had still a portcullis to pass. When we first pushed against it, we felt another momentary pang; but age had made it an unfaithful guardian, and a few stout attacks on its decayed bars gave us free way. We were now under the open sky; but, to our consternation, a new and still more formidable difficulty presented itself. The moat was still to be passed. To attempt the drawbridge was hopeless; for we could hear the sentinel pacing up and down its creaking planks. The moment was critical; for a streak of grey light in the far east showed that the day was at hand. After resolving all imaginable plans, and abandoning them all as fruitless; determining, at all events, never to return, and yet without the slightest prospect of escape, except in the bottom of that sullen pool which lay at our feet—the thought occurred to me, that in my return through the vault I had stumbled over the planks which covered a vault lately dug for a prisoner. Communicating my idea to Lafontaine, we returned to the spot, loaded ourselves with the planks, and fortunately found them of the length that would reach across the narrowest part of the fosse. Our little bridge was made without delay, and Lafontaine led the way, followed by the count and Julie, I waiting to see them safe across, before I added my weight to the frail structure. But I was not yet fated to escape. The sentinel, whose vigilance I had startled by my lantern in the cell, had given the alarm; and, as I was setting my foot on the plank, a discharge of fire-arms came from the battlement above. I felt that I was struck, and a stunning sensation seized me. I made an attempt to spring forward, but suddenly found myself unable to move. The patrol from the drawbridge now surrounded me, and in this helpless state, bleeding, and as I thought dying, I was hurried back into the St Lazare.

After a fortnight's suffering in the hospital of the prison, which alone probably saved me from the guillotine, then almost the natural death of all the suspected, I was enabled to get on my feet again. I found the prison as full as ever, but nearly all its inmates had been changed except the Vendéans, whom the crooked policy of the time kept alive, partly to avoid raising the whole province in revolt, partly as hostages for their countrymen.

On my recovery, I had expected to be put down once more in the list for trial; but it reached even the prison, that the government were in a state of alarm for themselves, which prevented them from indulging their friends in the streets with the national amusement. The chance of mounting the scaffold themselves had put the guillotine out of fashion; and two or three minor attempts at the seizure of the Jacobin sceptre by the partisans of the Girondists and Cordeliers, had been put down with such difficulty, that even the Jacobin Club had begun to protest against bloodshed, through the prospect of a speedy retaliation. Thus we were suffered to linger on. But, "disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, thou art a bitter draught," and the suspense was heart-sickening. At length, however, a bustle outside the walls, the firing of alarm guns, and the hurrying of the national guard through the streets, told us that some new measure of atrocity was at hand, and we too soon learned the cause.

The army under Dumourier had been attacked by the Austrians under Clairfait, and had been defeated with heavy loss; despatches had been received from their favourite general, in all the rage of failure, declaring that the sole cause of the disaster was information conveyed from the capital to the Austrian headquarters, and demanding a strict enquiry into the intrigues which had thus tarnished the colours of the Republic. No intelligence could have been more formidable to a government, which lived from day to day on the breath of popularity; and, to turn the wrath of the rabble from themselves, an order was given to examine the prisons, and send the delinquents to immediate execution. It may be easily believed that the briefest enquiry was enough for vengeance, and the prisoners of St Lazare were the first to furnish the spectacle. A train of carts rattled over the pavement of our cloisters, and we were ordered to mount them without delay. The guard was so strong as to preclude all hope of resistance; and with all the pomp of a military pageant, drums beating, trumpets sounding, and bands playing Ça Ira and the Marseillaise, we left our dreary dwelling, which habit had now almost turned into a home, and moved through the principal streets of the capital, for the express purposes of popular display, in the centre of a large body of horse and foot, and an incalculable multitude of spectators, until in the distance we saw the instrument of death.