The History of a Crime Part 27

Meanwhile my driver became uneasy. He turned round to me and said, "It looks as though we should find barricades out there, sir; shall we turn back?"

"Keep on," I replied.

He continued to drive straight on.

Suddenly it became impossible to do so. A company of infantry ranged three deep occupied the whole of the street from one pavement to the other. On the right there was a small street. I said to the driver,--

"Take that turning."

He turned to the right and then to the left. We turned into a labyrinth of streets.

Suddenly I heard a shot.

The driver asked me,--

"Which way are we to go, sir?"

"In the direction in which you hear the shots."

We were in a narrow street; on my left I saw the inscription above a door, "Grand Lavoir," and on my right a square with a central building, which looked like a market. The square and the street were deserted. I asked the driver,--

"What street are we in?"

"In the Rue de Cotte."

"Where is the Cafe Roysin?"

"Straight before us."

"Drive there."

He drove on, but slowly. There was another explosion, this time close by us, the end of the street became filled with smoke; at the moment we were pa.s.sing No. 22, which has a side-door above which I read, "Pet.i.t Lavoir."

Suddenly a voice called out to the driver, "Stop!"

The driver pulled up, and the window of the _fiacre_ being down, a hand was stretched towards mine. I recognized Alexander Rey.

This daring man was pale.

"Go no further," said he; "all is at an end."

"What do you mean, all at an end?"

"Yes, they must have antic.i.p.ated the time appointed; the barricade is taken: I have just come from it. It is a few steps from here straight before us."

And he added,--

"Baudin is killed."

The smoke rolled away from the end of the street.

"Look," said Alexander Rey to me.

I saw, a hundred steps before us, at the junction of the Rue de Cotte and the Rue Ste. Marguerite, a low barricade which the soldiers were pulling down. A corpse was being borne away.

It was Baudin.

CHAPTER III.

THE ST. ANTOINE BARRICADE

This is what had happened.

During that same night, and as early as four o'clock in the morning, De Flotte was in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He was anxious, in case any movement took place before daylight, that a Representative of the People should be present, and he was one of those who, when the glorious insurrection of Right should burst forth, wished to unearth the paving-stones for the first barricade.

But nothing was stirring. De Flotte, alone in the midst of this deserted and sleeping Faubourg, wandered from street to street throughout the night.

Day breaks late in December. Before the first streaks of dawn De Flotte was at the rendezvous opposite the Lenoir Market.

This spot was only weakly guarded. The only troops in the neighborhood were the post itself of the Lenoir Market, and another post at a short distance which occupied the guard-house at the corner of the Faubourg and the Rue de Montreuil, close to the old Tree of Liberty planted in 1793 by Santerre. Neither of these posts were commanded by officers.

De Flotte reconnoitred the position. He walked some time up and down the pavement, and then seeing no one coming as yet, and fearing to excite attention, he went away, and returned to the side-streets of the Faubourg.

For his part Aubry (du Nord) got up at five o'clock. Having gone home in the middle of the night, on his return from the Rue Popincourt, he had only taken three hours' rest. His porter told him that some suspicious persons had inquired for him during the evening of the 2d, and that they had been to the house opposite, No. 12 of the same street, Rue Racine, to arrest Huguenin. This determined Aubry to leave his house before daylight.

He walked to the Faubourg St. Antoine. As he reached the place of rendezvous he met Cournet and the others from the Rue Popincourt. They were almost immediately joined by Malardier.

It was dawn. The Faubourg was solitary. They walked along wrapt in thought and speaking in a low voice. Suddenly an impetuous and singular procession pa.s.sed them.

They looked round. It was a detachment of Lancers which surrounded something which in the dim light they recognized to be a police-van. The vehicle rolled noiselessly along the macadamized road.

They were debating what this could mean, when a second and similar group appeared, then a third, and then a fourth. Ten police vans pa.s.sed in this manner, following each other very closely, and almost touching.

"Those are our colleagues!" exclaimed Aubry (du Nord).

In truth the last batch of the Representatives, prisoners of the Quai d'Orsay, the batch destined for Vincennes, was pa.s.sing through the Faubourg. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. Some shops were being opened and were lighted inside, and a few pa.s.sers-by came out of the houses.

Three carriages defiled one after the other, closed, guarded, dreary, dumb; no voice came out, no cry, no whisper. They were carrying off in the midst of swords, of sabres, and of lances, with the rapidity and fury of the whirlwind, something which kept silence; and that something which they were carrying off, and which maintained this sinister silence, was the broken Tribune, the Sovereignty of the a.s.semblies, the supreme initiative whence all civilization is derived; it was the word which contains the future of the world, it was the speech of France!

A last carriage arrived, which by some chance had been delayed. It was about two or three hundred yards behind the princ.i.p.al convoy, and was only escorted by three Lancers. It was not a police-van, it was an omnibus, the only one in the convoy. Behind the conductor, who was a police agent, there could distinctly be seen the Representatives heaped up in the interior. It seemed easy to rescue them.

Cournet appealed to the pa.s.sers-by; "Citizens," he cried, "these are your Representatives, who are being carried off! You have just seen them pa.s.s in the vans of convicts! Bonaparte arrests them contrary to every law. Let us rescue them! To arms!"

A knot formed of men in blouses and of workmen going to work. A shout came from the knot, "Long live the Republic!" and some men rushed towards the vehicle. The carriage and the Lancers broke into a gallop.