On the morning of the 26th October, 1884, as his Majesty Louis Philippe was at breakfast reading the Debats newspaper, and wishing that what the journal said about "Cholera Morbus in the Camp of the Pretender Henri,"--"Chicken-pox raging in the Forts of the Traitor Bonaparte,"--might be true, what was his surprise to hear the report of a gun; and at the same instant--whiz! came an eighty-four-pound ball through the window and took off the head of the faithful Monsieur de Montalivet, who was coming in with a plate of muffins.
"Three francs for the window," said the monarch; "and the muffins of course spoiled!" and he sat down to breakfast very peevishly.
Ah, King Louis Philippe, that shot cost thee more than a window-pane--more than a plate of muffins--it cost thee a fair kingdom and fifty millions of tax-payers.
The shot had been fired from Fort Potato. "Gracious heavens!" said the commander of the place to the Irish Prince, in a fury, "What has your Highness done?" "Faix," replied the other, "Donegal and Isaw a sparrow on the Tuileries, and we thought we'd have a shot at it, that's all." "Hurroo! look out for squalls," here cried the intrepid Hibernian; for at this moment one of Paixhans' shells fell into the counterscarp of the demilune on which they were standing, and sent a ravelin and a couple of embrasures flying about their ears.
Fort Twenty-three, which held out for Louis Philippe, seeing Fort Twenty-four, or Potato, open a fire on the Tuileries, instantly replied by its guns, with which it blazed away at the Bourbonite fort. On seeing this, Fort Twenty-two) occupied by the Imperialists, began pummelling Twenty-three; Twenty-one began at Twenty-two; and in a quarter of an hour the whole of this vast line of fortification was in a blaze of flame, flashing, roaring, cannonading, rocketing, bombing, in the most tremendous manner. The world has never perhaps, before or since, heard such an uproar. Fancy twenty-four thousand guns thundering at each other. Fancy the sky red with the fires of hundreds of thousands of blazing, brazen meteors; the air thick with impenetrable smoke--the universe almost in a flame! for the noise of the cannonading was heard on the peaks of the Andes, and broke three windows in the English factory at Canton. Boom, boom, boom!
for three days incessantly the gigantic--I may say, Cyclopean battle went on: boom, boom, boom, bong! The air was thick with cannon-balls: they hurtled, they jostled each other in the heavens, and fell whizzing, whirling, crashing, back into the very forts from which they came. Boom, boom, boom, bong--brrwrrwrrr!
On the second day a band might have been seen (had the smoke permitted it) assembling at the sally-port of Fort Potato, and have been heard (if the tremendous clang of the cannonading had allowed it) giving mysterious signs and countersigns. "Tom," was the word whispered, "Steele" was the sibilated response. (It is astonishing how, in the roar of elements, THE HUMAN WHISPER hisses above all!)It was the Irish Brigade assembling. "Now or never, boys!" said their leaders; and sticking their doodeens into their mouths, they dropped stealthily into the trenches, heedless of the broken glass and sword-blades; rose from those trenches; formed in silent order;and marched to Paris. They knew they could arrive there unobserved--nobody, indeed, remarked their absence.
The frivolous Parisians were, in the meanwhile, amusing themselves at their theatres and cafes as usual; and a new piece, in which Arnal performed, was the universal talk of the foyers: while a new feuilleton by Monsieur Eugene Sue, kept the attention of the reader so fascinated to the journal, that they did not care in the least for the vacarme without the walls.
CHAPTER IX.
LOUIS XVII.
The tremendous cannonading, however, had a singular effect upon the inhabitants of the great public hospital of Charenton, in which it may be remembered Louis XVII. had been, as in mockery, confined.
His majesty of demeanor, his calm deportment, the reasonableness of his pretensions, had not failed to strike with awe and respect his four thousand comrades of captivity. The Emperor of China, the Princess of the Moon, Julius Caesar, Saint Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, the Pope of Rome, the Cacique of Mexico, and several singular and illustrious personages who happened to be confined there, all held a council with Louis XVII.; and all agreed that now or never was the time to support his legitimate pretensions to the Crown of France. As the cannons roared around them, they howled with furious delight in response. They took counsel together: Dr. Pinel and the infamous jailers, who, under the name of keepers, held them in horrible captivity, were pounced upon and overcome in a twinkling. The strait-waistcoats were taken off from the wretched captives languishing in the dungeons; the guardians were invested in these shameful garments, and with triumphant laughter plunged under the Douches. The gates of the prison were flung open, and they marched forth in the blackness of the storm!
. . . . . .
On the third day, the cannonading was observed to decrease; only a gun went off fitfully now and then.
. . . . . .
On the fourth day, the Parisians said to one another, "Tiens! ils sont fatigues, les cannoniers des forts!"--and why? Because there was no more powder?--Ay, truly, there WAS no more powder.
There was no more powder, no more guns, no more gunners, no more forts, no more nothing. THE FORTS HAD BLOWN EACH OTHER UP. The battle-roar ceased. The battle-clouds rolled off. The silver moon, the twinkling stars, looked blandly down from the serene azure,--and all was peace--stillness--the stillness of death.
Holy, holy silence!
Yes: the battle of Paris was over. And where were the combatants?
