was manifest along the whole line of the thoroughfare by which the fatal procession would advance, with this difference alone, that many of the houses in that quarter belonging to the high nobility, and all with few exceptions being the dwellings of opulent persons, the windows, instead of being let like seats at the opera, to any who would pay the price, were occupied by the inhabitants, coming and going from their ordinary avocations to look out upon the noisy throng, when any louder outbreak of voices called their attention to the busy scene.
Among the latter, in a large and splendid mansion, not far from the Porte St. Antoine, and commanding a direct view of the Place de la Bastille, with its esplanade, drawbridge, and principal entrance, a group was collected at one of the windows, nearly overlooking the gate itself, which seemed to take the liveliest interest in the proceedings of the day, although that interest was entirely unmixed with any thing like the brutal expectation, and morbid love of horrible excitement which characterized the temper of the multitude.
The most prominent person of this group was a singularly noble-looking man, fast verging to his fiftieth year, if he had not yet attained it. His countenance, though resolute and firm, with a clear, piercing eye, lighted up at times, for a moment, by a quick, fiery flash, was calm, benevolent, and pensive in its ordinary mood, rather than energetical or active. Yet it was easy to perceive that the mind, which informed it, was of the highest capacity both of intellect and imagination.
The figure and carriage of this gentleman would have sufficiently indicated that, at some period of his life, he had borne arms and led the life of a camp – which, indeed, at that day was only to say that he was a nobleman of France – but a long scar on his right brow, a little way above the eye, losing itself among the thick locks of his fine waving hair, and a small round cicatrix in the centre of his cheek, showing where a pistol ball had found entrance, proved that he had been where blows were falling thickest, and that he had not spared his own person in the melée.
His dress was very rich, according to the fashion of the day, though perhaps a fastidious eye might have objected that it partook somewhat of the past mode of the Regency, which had just been brought to a conclusion as my tale commences, by the resignation of the witty and licentious Philip of Orleans.
If, however, this fine-looking gentleman was the most prominent, he certainly was not the most interesting person of the company, which consisted, beside himself, of an ecclesiastic of high rank in the French church, a lady, now somewhat advanced in years, but showing the remains of beauty which, in its prime, must have been extraordinary, and of a boy in his fifteenth or sixteenth year.
For notwithstanding the eminent distinction, and high intellect of the elder nobleman, the dignity of the abbé, not unsupported by all which men look for as the outward and visible signs of that dignity, and the grace and beauty of the lady, it was upon the boy alone that the eye of every spectator would have dwelt, from the instant of its first discovering him.
He was tall of his age, and very finely made, of proportions which gave promise of exceeding strength when he should arrive at maturity, but strength uncoupled to any thing of weight or clumsiness. He was unusually free, even at this early period, from that heavy and ungraceful redundance of flesh which not unfrequently is the forerunner of athletic power in boys just bursting into manhood; for he was already as conspicuous for the thinness of his flanks, and the shapely hollow of his back, as for the depth and roundness of his chest, the breadth of his shoulders, and the symmetry of his limbs.
His head was well set on, and his whole bearing was that of one who had learned ease, and grace, and freedom, combined with dignity of carriage, in no school of practice and mannerism, but from the example of those with whom he had been brought up, and by familiar intercourse from his cradle upward with the high-born and gently nurtured of the land.
His long rich chestnut hair fell down in natural masses, undisfigured as yet by the hideous art of the court hair-dresser, on either side his fine broad forehead, and curled, untortured by the crisping-irons, over the collar of his velvet jerkin. His eyes were large and very clear, of the deepest shade of blue, with dark lashes, yet full of strong, tranquil light. All his features were regular and shapely, but it was not so much in the beauty of their form, or in the harmony of their coloring that the attractiveness of his aspect consisted, as in the peculiarity and power of his expression.
For a boy of his age, the pensiveness and composure of that expression were indeed almost unnatural, and they combined with a calm firmness and immobility of feature, which promised, I know not what of resolution and tenacity of purpose. It was not gravity, much less sternness, or sadness, that lent so powerful an expression to that young face; nor was there a single line which indicated coldness or hardness of heart, or which would have led to a suspicion that he had been schooled by those hard monitors, suffering and sorrow. No, it was pure thoughtfulness, and that of the highest and most intellectual order, which characterized the boy's expression.
Yet, though it was so thoughtful, there was nothing in the aspect whence to forebode a want of the more masculine qualifications. It was the thoughtfulness of a worker, not of a dreamer – the thoughtfulness which prepares, not unfits a man for action.
If the powers portrayed in that boy's countenance were not deceptive to the last degree, high qualities were within, and a high destiny before him.
But who, from the foreshowing and the bloom of sixteen years, may augur of the finish and the fruit of the three-score and ten, which are the sum of human toil and sorrow?
It was now nearly noon, when the outer drawbridge of the Bastile was lowered and its gate opened, and forth rode, two a-breast, a troop of the mousquetaires, or life-guard, in the bright steel casques and cuirasses, with the musquetoons, from which they derived their name, unslung and ready for action. As they issued into the wider space beyond the bridge, the troopers formed themselves rapidly into a sort of hollow column, the front of which, some eight file deep, occupied the whole width of the street, two files in close order composing each flank, and leaving an open space in the centre completely surrounded by the horsemen.
Into this space, without a moment's delay, there was driven a low black cart, or hurdle as it was technically called, of the rudest construction, drawn by four powerful black horses, a savage-faced official guiding them by the ropes which supplied the place of reins. On this ill-omened vehicle there stood three persons, the prisoner, and two of the armed wardens of the Bastile, the former ironed very heavily, and the latter bristling with offensive weapons.
Immediately in the rear of this car followed another troop of the life-guard, which closed up in the densest and most serried order around and behind the victim of the law, so as to render any attempt at rescue useless.
The person, to secure whose punishment so strong a military force had been produced, and to witness whose execution so vast a multitude was collected, was a tall, noble-looking man of forty or forty-five years, dressed in a rich mourning-habit of the day, but wearing neither hat nor mantle. His dark hair, mixed at intervals with thin lines of silver, was cut short behind, contrary to the usage of the times, and his neck was bare, the collar of his superbly laced shirt being folded broadly back over the cape of his pourpoint.
His face was very pale, and his complexion being naturally of the darkest, the hue of his flesh, from which all the healthful blood had receded, was strangely livid and unnatural in its appearance. Still it did not seem that it was fear which had blanched his cheeks, and stolen all the color from his compressed lip, for his eye was full of a fierce, scornful light, and all his features were set and steady with an expression of the calmest and most iron resolution.
As the fatal vehicle which bore him made its appearance on the esplanade without the gates of the prison, a deep hum of satisfaction ran through the assembled concourse, rising and deepening gradually into a savage howl like that of a hungry tiger.
Then, then blazed out the haughty spirit, the indomitable pride of the French noble! Then shame, and fear, and death itself, which he was looking even now full in the face, were all forgotten, all absorbed in his overwhelming scorn of the people!
The blood rushed in a torrent to his brow, his eye seemed to lighten forth actual fire, as he raised his right hand aloft, loaded although it was with such a mass of iron, as a Greek Athlete might have shunned to lift, and shook it at the clamorous mob, with a glare