Thus, when Comminges marched into the house to arrest him, he was sitting at dinner, eating his bouillon, in dressing-gown and slippers. His daughter cried out that he was not fit to leave the house. At the same time, an old maid-servant put her head out at a window, screaming that her master was going to be carried off.
He was much beloved, and a host of people ran together, trying to break the carriage and cut the traces. Comminges, seeing that no time was to be lost, forced the poor old lawyer down to the carriage just as he was, in his dressing-gown and slippers, and drove off. But the mob thickened every moment, in spite of the guards, and a very few yards beyond where they had taken refuge at Madame Darpent's, a large wooden bench had been thrown across the street, and the uproar redoubled round it-the yells, shrieks, and cries ringing all down the road. However, the carriage passed that, and dashed on, throwing down and crushing people right and left; so that Madame Darpent was first in terror for her son, and then would fain have rushed out to help the limping, crying sufferers.
They heard another horrible outcry, but could see no more, except the fluctuating heads of the throng below them, and loud yells, howls, and maledictions came to their ears. By and by, however, Clement returned, having lost his hat in the crowd; with blood on his collar, and with one of his lace cuffs torn, though he said he was not hurt.
'They have him!' he said bitterly; 'the tyranny has succeeded!'
'Oh, hush, my son! Take care!' cried his mother.
'M. le Baron and I understand one another, Madame,' he said, smiling.
He went on to tell that the carriage had been overturned on the Quai des Orfevres, just opposite the hotel of the First President. Comminges sprang out, sword in hand, drove back the crowd, who would have helped out Broussel, and shouted for the soldiers, some of whom kept back those who would have succoured the prisoner with their drawn swords. Clement himself had been slightly touched, but was forced back in the scuffle; while the good old man called out to him not to let any one be hurt on his behalf.
Other soldiers were meantime seizing a passing carriage, and taking out a poor lady who occupied it. Before it could be brought near, the raging crowd had brought axes and hacked it to pieces. Comminges and his soldiers, well-armed, still dragged their victim along till a troop of the Queen's guards came up with another carriage, in which the poor old President was finally carried off.
'And this is what we have to submit to from a Spaniard and an Italian!' cried Clement Darpent.
He had come back to reassure his mother and his guests, but the tumult was raging higher than ever. The crowd had surrounded the Tuileries, filling the air with shouts of 'Broussel! Broussel!' and threatening to tear down the doors and break in, overwhelming the guards. Eustace and his host went out again, and presently reported that the Marshal de Meileraye had been half killed, but had been rescued by the Coadjutor, who was giving the people all manner of promises. This was verified by shouts of 'Vive le Roi!' and by and by the crowd came past once more, surrounding the carriage, on the top of which was seated the Coadjutor, in his violet robes, but with his skull cap away, and his cheek bleeding from the blow of a stone. He was haranguing, gesticulating, blessing, doing all in his power to pacify the crowd, and with the hope of the release of the councilors all was quieting down; and Clement, after reconnoitering, thought it safe to order the carriage to take home his guests.
'No one can describe,' said my sister, 'how good and sweet Madame was, though she looked so like a Puritan dame. Her face was so wonderfully calm and noble, like some grand old saint in a picture; and it lighted up so whenever her son came near her, I wanted to ask her blessing! And I think she gave it inwardly. She curtsied, and would have kissed my hand, as being only bourgeois, while I was noble; but I told her I would have no such folly, and I made her give me a good motherly embrace!'
'I hope she gave you something to eat,' I said, laughing.
'Oh, yes; we had an excellent meal. She made us eat before sending us home, soup, and ragout, and chocolate-excellent chocolate. She had it brought as soon as possible, because Eustace looked so pale and tired. Oh, Meg! She is the very best creature I have seen in France. Your Rambouillets are nothing to her! I hope I may see her often again!'
And while Eustace marveled if this were a passing tumult or the beginning of a civil war, my most immediate wonder was what my mother would say to this adventure.
CHAPTER XVI. THE BARRICADES
My mother did not come home till the evening, when the streets had become tolerably quiet. She had a strange account to give, for she had been at the palace all the time in attendance on Queen Henrietta, who tried in vain to impress her sister-in-law with a sense that the matter was serious. Queen Anne of Austria was too proud to believe that a parliament and a mob could do any damage to the throne of France, whatever they might effect in England.
There she sat in her grand cabinet, and with her were the Cardinal, the Duke of Longueville, and many other gentlemen, especially Messieurs de Nogent and de Beautru, who were the wits, if not the buffoons of the Court, and who turned all the reports they heard into ridicule. The Queen-Regent smiled in her haughty way, but the Queen of England laid her hand sadly on my mother's arm and said, 'Alas, my dear friend, was it not thus that once we laughed?'
Presently in came Marshal de la Meilleraye and the Coadjutor, and their faces and gestures showed plainly that they were seriously alarmed; but M. de Beautru, nothing daunted, turned to the Regent, saying, 'How ill Her Majesty must be, since M. le Coadjutor is come to bring her extreme unction,' whereupon there was another great burst of applause and laughter.
The Coadjutor pretended not to hear, and addressing the Queen told her that he had come to offer his services to her at a moment of pressing danger. Anne of Austria only vouchsafed a little nod with her head, by way at once of thanks, and showing how officious and superfluous she thought him, while Nogent and Beautru continued to mimic the dismay of poor Broussel, seized in his dressing-gown and slippers, and the shrieks of his old housekeeper from the window.
'Did no one silence them for being so unmanly?' cried Annora, as she heard this.
'Child, thou art foolish!' said my mother with dignity. 'Why should the resistance of canaille like that be observed at all, save to make sport?'
For my poor mother, since she had been dipped again into the Court atmosphere, had learned to look on whatever was not noble, as not of the same nature with herself. However, she said that Marshal de la Meilleraye, a thorough soldier, broke in by assuring the Queen that the populace were in arms, howling for Broussel, and the Coadjutor began to describe the fierce tumult through which he had made his way, but the Cardinal only gave his dainty provoking Italian smile, and the Queen-Regent proudly affirmed that there neither was nor could be a revolt.
'We know,' added Mazarin, in his blandest tone of irony, 'that M. le Coadjuteur is so devoted to the Court, and so solicitous for his flock, that a little over-anxiety must be pardoned to him!'
This was while shouts of 'BROUSSEL! BROUSSEL!' were echoing through the palace, and in a few moments came the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Guards to say that the populace were threatening to overpower the soldiers at the gates; and next came the Chancellor, nearly frightened out of his wits, saying that he had seen the people howling like a pack of wolves, carrying all sorts of strange weapons, and ready to force their way in all sorts of strage wa a pack of wolv and next came the Chancellor, nearly frightened out of his wits, saying that . Then old Monsieur Guitauet, the Colonel of the Guards, declared 'that the old rogue Broussel must be surrendered, dead or alive.'