Massacres Of The South

A >> Alexandre Dumas, Pere >> Massacres Of The South


The marshal set out at a gallop, and passed the town gates unmolested,
except by the howlings of the populace, who, however, made no attempt to
stop him. He thought he had left all his enemies behind, but when he
reached the Rhone bridge he found a group of men armed with muskets
waiting there, led by Farges and Roquefort. They all raised their guns
and took aim at the marshal, who thereupon ordered the postillion to
drive back. The order was obeyed, but when the carriage had gone about
fifty yards it was met by the crowd from the "Palais Royal," which had
followed it, so the postillion stopped. In a moment the traces were cut,
whereupon the marshal, opening the door, alighted, followed by his valet,
and passing on foot through the Loulle gate, followed by a second
carriage in which were his aides-de-camp, he regained the "Palais Royal,"
the doors of which were opened to him and his suite, and immediately
secured against all others.

The marshal asked to be shown to a room, and M. Moulin gave him No. 1, to
the front. In ten minutes three thousand people filled the square; it
was as if the population sprang up from the ground. Just then the
carriage, which the marshal had left behind, came up, the postillion
having tied the traces, and a second time the great yard gates were
opened, and in spite of the press closed again and barricaded by the
porter Vernet, and M. Moulin himself, both of whom were men of colossal
strength. The aides-de-camp, who had remained in the carriage until
then, now alighted, and asked to be shown to the marshal; but Moulin
ordered the porter to conceal them in an outhouse. Vernet taking one in
each hand, dragged them off despite their struggles, and pushing them
behind some empty barrels, over which he threw an old piece of carpet,
said to them in a voice as solemn as if he were a prophet, "If you move,
you are dead men," and left them. The aides-de-camp remained there
motionless and silent.

At that moment M. de Saint-Chamans, prefect of Avignon, who had arrived
in town at five o'clock in the morning, came out into the courtyard. By
this time the crowd was smashing the windows and breaking in the street
door. The square was full to overflowing, everywhere threatening cries
were heard, and above all the terrible zaou, which from moment to moment
became more full of menace. M. Moulin saw that if they could not hold out
until the troops under Major Lambot arrived, all was lost; he therefore
told Vernet to settle the business of those who were breaking in the
door, while he would take charge of those who were trying to get in at
the window. Thus these two men, moved by a common impulse and of equal
courage, undertook to dispute with a howling mob the possession of the
blood for which it thirsted.

Both dashed to their posts, one in the hall, the other in the
dining-room, and found door and windows already smashed, and several men
in the house. At the sight of Vernet, with whose immense strength they
were acquainted, those in the hall drew back a step, and Vernet, taking
advantage of this movement, succeeded in ejecting them and in securing
the door once more. Meantime M. Moulin, seizing his double-barrelled
gun, which stood in the chimney-corner, pointed it at five men who had
got into the dining-room, and threatened to fire if they did not
instantly get out again. Four obeyed, but one refused to budge;
whereupon Moulin, finding himself no longer outnumbered, laid aside his
gun, and, seizing his adversary round the waist, lifted him as if he were
a child and flung him out of the window. The man died three weeks later,
not from the fall but from the squeeze.

Moulin then dashed to the window to secure it, but as he laid his hand on
it he felt his head seized from behind and pressed violently down on his
left shoulder; at the same instant a pane was broken into splinters, and
the head of a hatchet struck his right shoulder. M. de Saint-Chamans, who
had followed him into the room, had seen the weapon thrown at Moulin's
head, and not being able to turn aside the iron, had turned aside the
object at which it was aimed. Moulin seized the hatchet by the handle
and tore it out of the hands of him who had delivered the blow, which
fortunately had missed its aim. He then finished closing the window, and
secured it by making fast the inside shutters, and went upstairs to see
after the marshal.

Him he found striding up and down his room, his handsome and noble face
as calm as if the voices of all those shouting men outside were not
demanding his death. Moulin made him leave No. 1 for No. 3, which, being
a back room and looking out on the courtyard, seemed to offer more
chances of safety than the other. The marshal asked for writing
materials, which Moulin brought, whereupon the marshal sat down at a
little table and began to write.

Just then the cries outside became still more uproarious. M. de
Saint-Chamans had gone out and ordered the crowd to disperse, whereupon a
thousand people had answered him with one voice, asking who he was that
he should give such an order. He announced his rank and authority, to
which the answer was, "We only know the prefect by his clothes." Now it
had unfortunately happened that M. de Chamans having sent his trunks by
diligence they had not yet arrived, and being dressed in a green coat;
nankeen trousers, and a pique vest, it could hardly be expected that in
such a suit he should overawe the people under the circumstances; so,
when he got up on a bench to harangue the populace, cries arose of "Down
with the green coat! We have enough of charlatans like that!" and he was
forced to get down again. As Vernet opened the door to let him in,
several men took advantage of the circumstance to push in along with him;
but Vernet let his fist fall three times, and three men rolled at his
feet like bulls struck by a club. The others withdrew. A dozen
champions such as Vernet would have saved the marshal. Yet it must not
be forgotten that this man was a Royalist, and held the same opinions as
those against whom he fought; for him as for them the marshal was a
mortal enemy, but he had a noble heart, and if the marshal were guilty he
desired a trial and not a murder. Meantime a certain onlooker had heard
what had been said to M. de Chamans about his unofficial costume, and had
gone to put on his uniform. This was M. de Puy, a handsome and venerable
old man, with white hair, pleasant expression, and winning voice. He
soon came back in his mayor's robes, wearing his scarf and his double
cross of St. Louis and the Legion of Honour. But neither his age nor his
dignity made the slightest impression on these people; they did not even
allow him to get back to the hotel door, but knocked him down and
trampled him under foot, so that he hardly escaped with torn clothes and
his white hair covered with dust and blood. The fury of the mob had now
reached its height.

At this juncture the garrison of Avignon came in sight; it was composed
of four hundred volunteers, who formed a battalion known as the Royal
Angouleme. It was commanded by a man who had assumed the title of
Lieutenant-General of the Emancipating Army of Vaucluse. These forces
drew up under the windows of the "Palais Royal." They were composed
almost entirely of Provenceaux, and spoke the same dialect as the people
of the lower orders. The crowd asked the soldiers for what they had
come, why they did not leave them to accomplish an act of justice in
peace, and if they intended to interfere. "Quite the contrary," said one
of the soldiers; "pitch him out of the window, and we will catch him on
the points of our bayonets." Brutal cries of joy greeted this answer,
succeeded by a short silence, but it was easy to see that under the
apparent calm the crowd was in a state of eager expectation. Soon new
shouts were heard, but this time from the interior of the hotel; a small
band of men led by Forges and Roquefort had separated themselves from the
throng, and by the help of ladders had scaled the walls and got on the
roof of the house, and, gliding down the other side, had dropped into the
balcony outside the windows of the rooms where the marshal was writing.

Some of these dashed through the windows without waiting to open them,
others rushed in at the open door. The marshal, thus taken by surprise,
rose, and not wishing that the letter he was writing to the Austrian
commandant to claim his protection should fall into the hands of these
wretches, he tore it to pieces. Then a man who belonged to a better
class than the others, and who wears to-day the Cross of the Legion of
Honour, granted to him perhaps for his conduct on this occasion, advanced
towards the marshal, sword in hand, and told him if he had any last
arrangements to make, he should make them at once, for he had only ten
minutes to live.

"What are you thinking of?" exclaimed Forges. "Ten minutes! Did he give
the Princesse de Lamballe ten minutes?" and he pointed his pistol at the
marshal's breast; but the marshal striking up the weapon, the shot missed
its aim and buried itself in the ceiling.

"Clumsy fellow!" said the marshal, shrugging his shoulders, "not to be
able to kill a man at such close range."

"That's true," replied Roquefort in his patois. "I'll show you how to do
it"; and, receding a step, he took aim with his carbine at his victim,
whose back was partly towards him. A report was heard, and the marshal
fell dead on the spot, the bullet which entered at the shoulder going
right through his body and striking the opposite wall.

The two shots, which had been heard in the street, made the howling mob
dance for joy. One cowardly fellow, called Cadillan, rushed out on one
of the balconies which looked on the square, and, holding a loaded pistol
in each hand, which he had not dared to discharge even into the dead body
of the murdered man, he cut a caper, and, holding up the innocent
weapons, called out, "These have done the business!" But he lied, the
braggart, and boasted of a crime which was committed by braver cutthroats
than he.

Behind him came the general of the "Emancipating Army of Vaucluse," who,
graciously saluting the crowd, said, "The marshal has carried out an act
of justice by taking his own life." Shouts of mingled joy, revenge, and
hatred rose from the crowd, and the king's attorney and the examining
magistrate set about drawing up a report of the suicide.

Now that all was over and there was no longer any question of saving the
marshal, M. Moulin desired at least to save the valuables which he had in
his carriage. He found in a cash box 40,000 francs, in the pockets a
snuff-box set with diamonds, and a pair of pistols and two swords; the
hilt of one of these latter was studded with precious stones, a gift from
the ill-starred Selim. M. Moulin returned across the court, carrying
these things. The Damascus blade was wrenched from his hands, and the
robber kept it five years as a trophy, and it was not until the year 1820
that he was forced to give it up to the representative of the marshal's
widow. Yet this man was an officer, and kept his rank all through the
Restoration, and was not dismissed the army till 1830. When M. Moulin
had placed the other objects in safety, he requested the magistrate to
have the corpse removed, as he wished the crowds to disperse, that he
might look after the aides-de camp. While they were undressing the
marshal, in order to certify the cause of death, a leathern belt was
found on him containing 5536 francs. The body was carried downstairs by
the grave-diggers without any opposition being offered, but hardly had
they advanced ten yards into the square when shouts of "To the Rhone! to
the Rhone!" resounded on all sides. A police officer who tried to
interfere was knocked down, the bearers were ordered to turn round; they
obeyed, and the crowd carried them off towards the wooden bridge. When
the fourteenth arch was reached, the bier was torn from the bearers'
hands, and the corpse was flung into the river. "Military honours!"
shouted some one, and all who had guns fired at the dead body, which was
twice struck. "Tomb of Marshal Brune" was then written on the arch, and
the crowd withdrew, and passed the rest of the day in holiday-making.

Meanwhile the Rhone, refusing to be an accomplice in such a crime, bore
away the corpse, which the assassins believed had been swallowed up for
ever. Next day it was found on the sandy shore at Tarascon, but the news
of the murder had preceded it, and it was recognised by the wounds, and
pushed back again into the waters, which bore it towards the sea.

Three leagues farther on it stopped again, this time by a grassy bank,
and was found by a man of forty and another of eighteen. They also
recognised it, but instead of shoving it back into the current, they drew
it up gently on the bank and carried it to a small property belonging to
one of them, where they reverently interred it. The elder of the two was
M. de Chartruse, the younger M. Amedee Pichot.

The body was exhumed by order of the marshal's widow, and brought to her
castle of Saint-Just, in Champagne; she had it embalmed, and placed in a
bedroom adjoining her own, where it remained, covered only by a veil,
until the memory of the deceased was cleansed from the accusation of
suicide by a solemn public trial and judgment. Then only it was finally
interred, along with the parchment containing the decision of the Court
of Riom.

The ruffians who killed Marshal Brune, although they evaded the justice
of men, did not escape the vengeance of God: nearly every one of them
came to a miserable end. Roquefort and Farges were attacked by strange
and hitherto unknown diseases, recalling the plagues sent by God on the
peoples whom He desired to punish in bygone ages. In the case of Farges,
his skin dried up and became horny, causing him such intense irritation,
that as the only means of allaying it he had to be kept buried up to the
neck while still alive. The disease under which Roquefort suffered
seemed to have its seat in the marrow, for his bones by degrees lost all
solidity and power of resistance, so that his limbs refused to bear his
weight, and he went about the streets crawling like a serpent. Both died
in such dreadful torture that they regretted having escaped the scaffold,
which would have spared them such prolonged agony.

Pointu was condemned to death, in his absence, at the Assizes Court of La
Drome, for having murdered five people, and was cast off by his own
faction. For some time his wife, who was infirm and deformed, might be
seen going from house to house asking alms for him, who had been for two
months the arbiter of civil war and assassination. Then came a day when
she ceased her quest, and was seen sitting, her head covered by a black
rag: Pointu was dead, but it was never known where or how. In some
corner, probably, in the crevice of a rock or in the heart of the forest,
like an old tiger whose talons have been clipped and his teeth drawn.

Naudaud and Magnan were sentenced to the galleys for ten years. Naudaud
died there, but Magnan finished his time and then became a scavenger,
and, faithful to his vocation as a dealer of death, a poisoner of stray
dogs.

Some of these cut-throats are still living, and fill good positions,
wearing crosses and epaulets, and, rejoicing in their impunity, imagine
they have escaped the eye of God.

We shall wait and see!




CHAPTER IX

It was on Saturday that the white flag was hoisted at Nimes. The next
day a crowd of Catholic peasants from the environs marched into the city,
to await the arrival of the Royalist army from Beaucaire. Excitement was
at fever heat, the desire of revenge filled every breast, the hereditary
hatred which had slumbered during the Empire again awoke stronger than
ever. Here I may pause to say that in the account which follows of the
events which took place about this time, I can only guarantee the facts
and not the dates: I relate everything as it happened; but the day on
which it happened may sometimes have escaped my memory, for it is easier
to recollect a murder to which one has been an eye-witness, than to
recall the exact date on which it happened.

The garrison of Nimes was composed of one battalion of the 13th Regiment
of the line, and another battalion of the 79th Regiment, which not being
up to its full war-strength had been sent to Nimes to complete its
numbers by enlistment. But after the battle of Waterloo the citizens had
tried to induce the soldiers to desert, so that of the two battalions,
even counting the officers, only about two hundred men remained.

When the news of the proclamation of Napoleon II reached Nimes,
Brigadier-General Malmont, commandant of the department, had him
proclaimed in the city without any disturbance being caused thereby. It
was not until some days later that a report began to be circulated that a
royal army was gathering at Beaucaire, and that the populace would take
advantage of its arrival to indulge in excesses. In the face of this
two-fold danger, General Malmont had ordered the regular troops, and a
part of the National Guard of the Hundred Days, to be drawn up under arms
in the rear of the barracks upon an eminence on which he had mounted five
pieces of ordnance. This disposition was maintained for two days and a
night, but as the populace remained quiet, the troops returned to the
barracks and the Guards to their homes.

But on Monday a concourse of people, who had heard that the army from
Beaucaire would arrive the next day, made a hostile demonstration before
the barracks, demanding with shouts and threats that the five cannons
should be handed over to them. The general and the officers who were
quartered in the town, hearing of the tumult, repaired at once to the
barracks, but soon came out again, and approaching the crowd tried to
persuade it to disperse, to which the only answer they received was a
shower of bullets. Convinced by this, as he was well acquainted with the
character of the people with whom he had to deal, that the struggle had
begun in earnest and must be fought out to the bitter end, the general
retreated with his officers, step by step, to the barracks, and having
got inside the gates, closed and bolted them.

He then decided that it was his duty to repulse force by force, for
everyone was determined to defend, at no matter what cost, a position
which, from the first moment of revolt, was fraught with such peril. So,
without waiting for orders, the soldiers, seeing that some of their
windows had been broken by shots from without, returned the fire, and,
being better marksmen than the townspeople, soon laid many low. Upon
this the alarmed crowd retired out of musket range, and entrenched
themselves in some neighbouring houses.

About nine o'clock in the evening, a man bearing something resembling a
white flag approached the walls and asked to speak to the general. He
brought a message inquiring on what terms the troops would consent to
evacuate Nimes. The general sent back word that the conditions were,
that the troops should be allowed to march out fully armed and with all
their baggage; the five guns alone would be left behind. When the forces
reached a certain valley outside the city they would halt, that the men
might be supplied with means sufficient to enable them either to rejoin
the regiments to which they belonged, or to return to their own homes.

At two o'clock A. M. the same envoy returned, and announced to the
general that the conditions had been accepted with one alteration, which
was that the troops, before marching out, should lay down their arms.
The messenger also intimated that if the offer he had brought were not
quickly accepted--say within two hours--the time for capitulation would
have gone by, and that he would not be answerable for what the people
might then do in their fury. The general accepted the conditions as
amended, and the envoy disappeared.

When the troops heard of the agreement, that they should be disarmed
before being allowed to leave the town, their first impulse was to refuse
to lay down their weapons before a rabble which had run away from a few
musket shots; but the general succeeded in soothing their sense of
humiliation and winning their consent by representing to them that there
could be nothing dishonourable in an action which prevented the children
of a common fatherland from shedding each other's blood.

The gendarmerie, according to one article of the treaty, were to close in
at, the rear of the evacuating column; and thus hinder the populace from
molesting the troops of which it was composed. This was the only
concession obtained in return for the abandoned arms, and the farce in
question was already drawn up in field order, apparently waiting to
escort the troops out of the city.

At four o'clock P.M. the troops got ready, each company stacking its arms
in the courtyard before: marching out; but hardly had forty or fifty men
passed the gates than fire was opened on them at such close range that
half of them were killed or disabled at the first volley. Upon this,
those who were still within the walls closed the courtyard gates, thus
cutting off all chance of retreat from their comrades. In the event;
however, it turned out that several of the latter contrived to escape
with their lives and that they lost nothing through being prevented from
returning; for as soon as the mob saw that ten or twelve of their victims
had slipped through their hands they made a furious attack on the
barracks, burst in the gates, and scaled the walls with such rapidity,
that the soldiers had no time to repossess themselves of their muskets,
and even had they succeeded in seizing them they would have been of
little use, as ammunition was totally wanting. The barracks being thus
carried by assault, a horrible massacre ensued, which lasted for three
hours. Some of the wretched men, being hunted from room to room, jumped
out of the first window they could reach, without stopping to measure its
height from the ground, and were either impaled on the bayonets held in
readiness below, or, falling on the pavement, broke their limbs and were
pitilessly despatched.

The gendarmes, who had really been called out to protect the retreat of
the garrison, seemed to imagine they were there to witness a judicial
execution, and stood immovable and impassive while these horrid deeds
went on before their eyes. But the penalty of this indifference was
swiftly exacted, for as soon as the soldiers were all done with, the mob,
finding their thirst for blood still unslacked, turned on the gendarmes,
the greater number of whom were wounded, while all lost their horses, and
some their lives.

The populace was still engaged at its bloody task when news came that the
army from Beaucaire was within sight of the town, and the murderers,
hastening to despatch some of the wounded who still showed signs of life,
went forth to meet the long expected reinforcements.

Only those who saw the advancing army with their own eyes can form any
idea of its condition and appearance, the first corps excepted. This
corps was commanded by M. de Barre, who had put himself at its head with
the noble purpose of preventing, as far as he could, massacre and
pillage. In this he was seconded by the officers under him, who were
actuated by the same philanthropic motives as their general in
identifying themselves with the corps. Owing to their exertions, the men
advanced in fairly regular order, and good discipline was maintained.
All the men carried muskets.

But the first corps was only a kind of vanguard to the second, which was
the real army, and a wonderful thing to see and hear. Never were brought
together before or since so many different kinds of howl, so many threats
of death, so many rags; so many odd weapons, from the matchlock of the
time of the Michelade to the steel-tipped goad of the bullock drovers of
La Camargue, so that when the Nimes mob; which in all conscience was
howling and ragged enough, rushed out to offer a brotherly welcome to the
strangers, its first feeling was one of astonishment and dismay as it
caught sight of the motley crew which held out to it the right hand of
fellowship.

The new-comers soon showed that it was through necessity and not choice
that their outer man presented such a disreputable appearance; for they
were hardly well within the gates before demanding that the houses of the
members of the old Protestant National Guard should be pointed out to
them.

This being done, they promptly proceeded to exact from each household a
musket, a coat, a complete kit, or a sum of money, according to their
humour, so that before evening those who had arrived naked and penniless
were provided with complete uniforms and had money in their pockets.
These exactions were levied under the name of a contribution, but before
the day was ended naked and undisguised pillage began.