She started to answer, but at that moment the front door opened. The publisher walked in, his face anguished.
“What’s going on?” Evan asked.
“Remember I told you the Saint Antoine district demanded that the Assembly order the King to give up his powers?”
“Yes?”
“The deadline passed. At midnight, section leaders began massing with delegates from the countryside. Danton demanded the arrest of the head of the National Guard, who was massacred by the mob on his way to prison. Now the National Guard has all but defected, and the mob is storming the Tuileries Palace with the intent of murdering the King and Queen.”
Evan stood there, stunned. He could barely register the enormity of what he was hearing.
The idea that a mob would attack the royal family in London… it was beyond comprehension.
Dardanelle began to wring his hands.
“This is it… this is the end… my God, they know I am a royalist… you heard that lieutenant at the salon,” he whispered to Evan, just outside the earshot of his family. “I will be denounced, they will have my head… my wife, my children, what will become of them?”
Evan’s thoughts flew to Marian, but then he remembered what she had said last night:
They’re not going to kill anyone, least of all me. I’m one of them.
I hope you are right, Marian,
he thought worriedly.
As far as he knew, she would reject his help if he offered it. So right now, his first duty was to help Dardanelle.
“We have to get you and your family out of Paris until things calm down,” Evan said. “Do you have someplace you can go nearby, someplace safe you can get to quickly? Family, friends, anyone you trust?”
Dardanelle wrung his hands as he thought. “My uncle has a house in Meudon, which is southwest of Paris… but there are no carriages today, and we do not have our own!”
“Then you will have to walk.”
Dardanelle looked shocked. “It is more than eight miles from here to there!”
“Then we should start as soon as possible. Tell the cook to pack some bread and water. Did you deliver the papers I gave you?”
“Just now – that is where I have come from.”
“Good. Burn any other incriminating letters you have in your possession – anything you have received from Pemberly in the past.”
“I can’t do that!” Dardanelle said in horror.
“If you care for your family, you will,” Evan instructed him grimly. “Believe me, whatever is in those papers is not worth the lives of your wife and children.”
“But – ”
“If England does not declare war after today, they never will, and nothing in those letters will change that. Go, make your preparations.”
Unfortunately, things went from bad to worse.
Dardanelle’s servant, a man named Alain, went out to inquire in the street about the attack on the palace.
“What did you find out?” Dardanelle asked when he returned.
“The King and Queen and their children escaped to the Assembly. They are safe, for the moment.”
“Thank God for that,” Dardanelle breathed.
“But the Swiss Guard…”
“The what?” Evan asked.
“The king’s personal guards, they guard the royal family,” Dardanelle explained, then turned back to Alain. “What of them?”
“They have been massacred, Monsieur,” Alain said in anguish. “Hundreds of men lie dead in the palace. Hundreds more flee for their lives and are butchered in the streets.”
Evan and Dardanelle looked at him in shock. Madame Dardanelle cried out and covered her children’s ears.
“They will begin searching tonight for survivors… and collaborators,” Alain continued. “Door to door, house to house.”
Evan turned to Dardanelle. The publisher’s face was the sickly color of parchment.
“We must get you out as soon as possible,” Evan said firmly.
Alain shook his head. “Monsieur, the barriers are all closed. No one is being permitted to leave Paris – on foot or by carriage.”
“We are done for,” Dardanelle moaned.
“There is no way over the wall?” Evan asked in desperation.
Alain shrugged apologetically. “Perhaps for a strong man such as yourself, but not for a woman and two small children. And even if you could make it alone, the soldiers would shoot you if they caught you.”
Evan ran his hand through his hair. This was getting worse and worse by the minute.
The maid, who was standing in the doorway, had been listening to everything. “Madame,” she ventured timidly.
“Yes?” Mrs. Dardanelle asked, her nerves frayed, her voice quivering.
“Do you know Madame Elliott, the Englishwoman who lives nearby?”
“Yes, of course! What of it?”
“She has a porter who has taken a small house behind the Invalides, near the Military School.”
“And? Why do you bother me with this now?”
“I am friends with his wife. Their property is next to the wall… and I have heard her say on several occasions that there is a gap nearby that the smugglers use.”
Everyone in the room stared at one another.
Finally, a tiny ray of hope.
Evan addressed the maid. “Do you know where they live, this porter and his wife?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Can you take us there?”
“Yes.”
“What if he will not help us?” Dardanelle asked frantically. “If he is caught with us on his property, trying to escape – ”
“Take every cent you have in the house,” Evan ordered. “We will make the risk worth his while.”
They set off around four o’clock in the afternoon – Evan, Dardanelle, his wife and children, and the house maid. They all dressed simply, in the plainest clothes they owned, and carried only a small bundle of bread and two bottles of water. Dardanelle’s pockets were stuffed with money. In a bag slung over his shoulder, Evan carried the dueling pistols he had smuggled into the country, plus a bottle of ink, a quill for writing, several pieces of paper, and a box of matches. Both men wore red caps on their heads to try to blend into the crowd running wild in the streets.
There was one major problem: they had to cross the Seine River to get to their destination. The nearest bridge within the city gates, the Pont Royal, was very close to the palace and the scene of the battle. To avoid the tumult, they settled on the Pont Neuf, even though that meant adding an extra half mile to their journey.
The closer they got to the Tuileries Palace, the more people who ran through the streets, shouting and roaring. By the time they got approached the Palace, the streets were a scene of slaughter and mayhem.
Evan had never seen the ravages of war before, but he got a firsthand look as they walked along the boulevards. Dead soldiers in long red jackets – the Swiss Guard – lay in the road and gutters. Most of them had been stabbed repeatedly by knives or bayonets. A few appeared to have been shot. Twice Evan saw Swiss Guards running through the streets, trying to escape, only to be hounded down by mobs and stabbed or beaten to death.
What was even more shocking to him was that soldiers in blue coats – the National Guard, in which Villars was an officer – were helping the rabble run down and murder the soldiers in red.
There were a handful of dead aristocrats, too, identifiable by their fine clothes, now soaked in blood. Whether they had been set upon by mobs in the street or had been dragged from the Tuileries, there was no way to tell.
Wounded commoners rested on the ground, perhaps having withdrawn from the fight at the palace. Women in ragged dresses and bonnets tended their injuries, bandaging them as best they could.
In the distance, thick smoke boiled up from the palace.
Evan carried Dardanelle’s daughter, who was no older than five years old. He kept the weeping girl’s head pressed tight to his shoulder as the group walked past the carnage, murmuring, “Don’t look, child, don’t look,” into her ear.
Once they were over the bridge and across the Seine, the insanity quickly abated. People still ran singing and screaming through the streets, but there were no more dead bodies.
The journey took several hours. The mayhem in the streets slowed their progress to a crawl, and they had to pause every so often for Dardanelle, his wife, and the maid to rest.
It was dusk when they reached their destination, a little house nestled in a tree-lined lane in a less-developed portion of the city. The house’s property bordered on the twelve-foot wall that encircled the city; beyond it lay the forest.
Not once did the group ever notice the ragged, bearded little man who followed far behind them, all the way from the Dardanelles’ home.
The porter was not happy to see them. When the maid explained why they were there, he protested, “I am a good citizen – I do want any trouble!” The entire time he looked frantically about, as though he were afraid armed soldiers might suddenly appear and bear him off to the guillotine.
The porter, his wife, and the Dardanelles’ maid argued for several minutes, with the women imploring him to think of the children. Finally Dardanelle produced a large sum of cash, at which point the porter became decidedly more helpful. He took them to a partial break in the wall where the masonry had cracked, and the barrier was only five feet tall instead of the normal twelve.
Once the porter left, Evan helped Dardanelle cross the gap first, whereupon he handed over the children. Then he helped Mrs. Dardanelle and the maid climb over as well.
After everyone but Evan was safely on the other side of the wall, Evan peered through the gap. “Will you be all right from here?”
Dardanelle looked stunned. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
Evan shook his head. “I have to go back to get Marian.”
“Will she come with you?”
“I don’t know, but I have to try. Will you be all right?”
The publisher looked grim. “With God’s help. There are sometimes bandits in these woods, but that cannot be helped.”
Evan loaded one of the dueling pistols, then handed it across the gap to Dardanelle. “Be careful. You only have one shot, so if you have to use it, make it count.”
Dardanelle nodded. “Do you know the way back?”
Evan produced the bottle, the pen, the paper, and the matches. “I can get back to the Seine, but I was hoping you would draw me a map from there.”
Dardanelle shook his head in wonder. “You came prepared.”
“I didn’t want to waste time arguing about it back at the house.”
Dardanelle drew a rough map of Paris with the street names Evan would need. “Shall I draw a map to Meudon, as well?”
“No. If I am caught, I do not want to be carrying anything that will compromise you or your family.”
“If…
when
you make it back here, head in that direction,” Dardanelle said as he pointed into the dark woods. “After several miles, you will eventually come to a steep hill; at the top is the Chateau de Meudon. My uncle has a small house near the Chateau. You may ask anyone you see for Jacques Dardanelle, they will know where he lives.”
The two men shook hands across the gap.
“Thank you for everything,” Evan said.
“Thank
you.
Thank God for you. If you had not been here with us, I do not know what would have befallen my family.”
“Godspeed on your way to your uncle’s.”
“And to you on your way to Marian. Once you have retrieved her, bring her to Meudon.”
“I will.”
Evan said his goodbyes to the wife, maid, and children, and then set off back into Paris.
He did not see the ragged, bearded man step out from behind a tree and follow him through the shadows.
Without the women or children to slow him down, Evan made much better time. Plus, the streets were beginning to thin out as twilight turned to dusk.
The dead bodies, though, still littered the cobblestones.
Please God, let me reach her safely, and make her come home with me.
Evan darted into a dark alley to light a match and take a look at Dardanelle’s map. When he was sure he knew the next leg of the journey, Evan stepped back out into the street.
There was a man far behind him who stopped abruptly, as though he had not meant Evan to see him.
As Evan watched, the man turned away and disappeared into the shadows.
Has someone been following me?
he wondered.
Or is my imagination playing tricks on me?
But if he HAS been following me… how much has he seen?
Suddenly, a voice behind him yelled and made him jump.
“Be sure to be indoors by ten o’clock, Citizen!”
Evan turned around, his heart thumping in his chest. This new person was an older fellow in simple clothes. He looked happy, rather than threatening.
“Why?” Evan asked.
“They are imposing a curfew – all the houses will be searched for the Swiss Guards who escaped!
Vive la Nation!”
the man shouted, and went merrily on his way.
Ten o’clock.
There was no way he would make it in time.
Evan stared down the street at the shadows where the dark figure had disappeared.
And even if I do… what will happen to me when I get there?
Marian stood at her window and watched her world crumble away in front of her.
It started innocently enough. After her heartbreak from the night before, it was like watching a play unfold on the streets below – something to take her mind away from her own pain. People flowed through the streets, carrying pikes and rifles and swords, shouting and singing songs of national unity.
At first she cheered them silently, unsure of what they were doing – but it was evident it was something huge. In the background, cannons fired. Something monumental was occurring! History in the making!
Liberty, equality, fraternity! Everything that the philosophers had written about – Rousseau, Voltaire, Paine – everything that Jefferson and Franklin had strived to achieve in America – was coming to fruition here in France.
No more would the people be held prisoner by the aristocrats! No longer would kings and queen and lords sneer down at the common-born!