In saying that the storm was rising Count Hannibal had said no more than
the truth. A new mob had a minute before burst from the eastward into
the Rue St. Honore; and the roar of its thousand voices swelled louder
than the importunate clangour of the bells. Behind its moving masses the
dawn of a new day--Sunday, the 24th of August, the feast of St.
Bartholomew--was breaking over the Bastille, as if to aid the crowd in
its cruel work. The gabled streets, the lanes, and gothic courts, the
stifling wynds, where the work awaited the workers, still lay in
twilight; still the gleam of the torches, falling on the house-fronts,
heralded the coming of the crowd. But the dawn was growing, the sun was
about to rise. Soon the day would be here, giving up the lurking
fugitive whom darkness, more pitiful, had spared, and stamping with
legality the horrors that night had striven to hide.
And with day, with the full light, killing would grow more easy, escape
more hard. Already they were killing on the bridge where the rich
goldsmiths lived, on the wharves, on the river. They were killing at the
Louvre, in the courtyard under the King's eyes, and below the windows of
the Medicis. They were killing in St. Martin and St. Denis and St.
Antoine; wherever hate, or bigotry, or private malice impelled the hand.
From the whole city went up a din of lamentation, and wrath, and
foreboding. From the Cour des Miracles, from the markets, from the
Boucherie, from every haunt of crime and misery, hordes of wretched
creatures poured forth; some to rob on their own account, and where they
listed, none gainsaying; more to join themselves to one of the armed
bands whose business it was to go from street to street, and house to
house, quelling resistance, and executing through Paris the high justice
of the King.
It was one of these swollen bands which had entered the street while
Tavannes spoke; nor could he have called to his aid a more powerful
advocate. As the deep "A bas! A bas!" rolled like thunder along the
fronts of the houses, as the more strident "Tuez! Tuez!" drew nearer and
nearer, and the lights of the oncoming multitude began to flicker on the
shuttered gables, the fortitude of the servants gave way. Madame Carlat,
shivering in every limb, burst into moaning; the tiring-maid, Javette,
flung herself in terror at Mademoiselle's knees, and, writhing herself
about them, shrieked to her to save her, only to save her! One of the
men moved forward on impulse, as if he would close the shutters; and only
old Carlat remained silent, praying mutely with moving lips and a stern,
set face.
And Count Hannibal? As the glare of the links in the street grew
brighter, and ousted the sickly daylight, his form seemed to dilate. He
stilled the shrieking woman by a glance.