Dodger of the revolution, p.27
Dodger of the Revolution, page 27
‘If we were ever going to win this revolution,’ Brendan muttered in a miserable voice, as he too noted the dejection of the people, ‘we would have done so by now.’
I was sat in the back of the cart with him as we trundled across the blasted terrain of the city, both of us covering our uniforms with those smocks so as to avoid getting killed by any snipers still occupying the high windows. These districts was populated with many armed and unhappy insurgents, still marching towards a battle what by now they must all be able to see they was bound to lose. There was a bunch of riflemen walking with their heads down towards the sound of a supportive drum, but whereas before the beat had been rousing and quick, now it just sounded like the slow rhythm of a funeral dirge.
‘Look, Celeste,’ I patted her on the shoulder and pointed ahead as we turned onto one street. ‘It’s the old boy from the hostelry, remember? The one who told us to remember Rouen!’
But if Celeste did recall the ageing firebrand, what had woken us all up that morning with his loud and fiery rhetoric, then she did not show it. She just kept her eyes fixed ahead as she drove past a smoking wreckage what was once a building, her horses picking up speed. As we passed the weary countryman I stood up and raised my musket in the air to salute him.
‘Rappelez Rouen!’ I shouted, hoping to stir his subversive heart. He did not acknowledge me. He just kept on marching forward in a slumped and defeated way, as if he could not rappelez anywhere anymore.
Celeste had dressed in an attractive way that morning, without making it seem too obvious that she had done this in order to charm those who she needed to. Every so often we’d have to draw up the horses at various blockades, where truculent men with weapons questioned her about where we was headed and why. When it seemed that they was detaining her longer than most, Brendan and myself would have to lay behind in the cart, groaning and clutching the bloody parts of our costumes so that they could see we needed medical attention and must be waved through fast. But Celeste took the opportunity offered by the delay to ask some subtle questions about what we could expect at the Tuileries.
The Tuileries palace was a former royal residence situated on the right bank of the Seine. The Second Republic was then employing it as some sort of military garrison and it had spent the last few days under a sustained attack. On this desperate day, when the revolution was on its knees and making its last stabs at victory, such buildings had become the focus of the struggle. Celeste was told by the men at the blockades that the revolutionaries thought that if they could take the palace, this would be such a triumph that it could topple things their way again. There was already thousands there, she was told, laying siege to the place.
‘Do you not consider that a problem?’ asked Brendan, our leading pessimist, once our vehicle had been waved through.
‘I consider it good news,’ I replied as we emerged somewhere along the left bank. We saw the beleaguered palace on the other side of the river and heard the raging musket-fire what surrounded it. ‘What better distraction for a crack than an entire revolution happening outside? It’ll mean fewer guards down in the cells too, I reckon. Now stop fretting and help me learn these French phrases. How do you say ‘I am wounded!’ again?’
‘On m’a blessé!’ he answered, taking care with the accent.
We remained, for now, on the other side of the river to the palace and, as Celeste continued driving westwards, I was able to get another look at the long exterior wall what ran along the gardens all the way to Place de la Concorde. That was where the Egyptian obelisk what Jerome had spat at on our arrival was standing and the gates to the palace garden was also there. Cracking into a palace was always going to be a difficult proposition, but breaking into palace gardens was less problematic. From this side of the river it was apparent that there was a siege underway near the garden gates too. But Celeste’s friend Victor had revealed to her that there was a hidden entrance close by, where the wives of the men inside had been delivering food to sustain the republican volunteers who was guarding the prisoners. The hungry guards would no doubt be keeping an eye out for such women.
Before our carriage crossed the bridge to approach these gates, Brendan removed his smock to reveal his blue guard uniform and put on his plumed helmet. He then climbed onto the front next to Celeste, took the reins from her and I passed her the pot of stew. I kept my smock on for now, as before I left the two of them to worry about getting to the garden gate without incident, I alighted the carriage on the left bank.
My job was to steal a boat.
It would need to be sturdy and reliable, but also, the plainer and less noticeable it could be, the better. The embankment on this part of the river was crowded with small vessels, many of them abandoned, but a lot of these looked untrustworthy, so I ignored them and kept searching for something more robust. Further along the bank I saw a lone fat man wearing a beret, sitting on a stool with a paintbrush what was touching the canvas of an easel. In front of him was a wooden dinghy and two long sculls what would serve my needs very well. I wondered, as I approached him, whose side he might be on. Should I leave my smock on and appeal to his revolutionary sympathies, or reveal my uniform in the hope that he sided with the government. Either way, it did not matter, as by the time I’d got close enough I saw that he was dead. He was slumped on his stool with his paintbrush pressed up against the canvas. It appeared that he had been killed by a passing shot from behind him at some earlier point in the day, and had died mid-stroke. I shook my head at the tragedy of it as I untied the rope from its moorings, jumped in and began rowing over to the other side of the Seine as fast as I could.
The river was busy with ships ferrying people away from the danger of the city, but I had crossed the Thames enough times in small boats to be confident that I could make it to where I was supposed to meet the others. Halfway across, I looked over my shoulder to see what was occurring on the Tuileries side. Compared to the eerie quiet of the left bank I was rowing away from, the right side of the river was a sweeping panorama of mob rule, violent action, rising smoke of gunfire and pulsing, panicking crowds. Once I was closer to the other side I rode upstream, as there was too much activity along the bank to moor up anywhere safe. At last I saw Brendan in his soldiers uniform, waving to me and yelling in French from a discreet part of the bank. For appearance’s sake he was pretending to arrest me, so that other soldiers wouldn’t want to bother me in my smock. I made a gesture of surrender as I let him pull me into the bank.
‘Celeste is in the palace kitchen,’ he whispered, once I’d thrown him the rope to tie up on the tight mooring between some others. ‘The men who took her in are unsophisticated oafs. I bet I’ve had more military training than they have. They had their sweaty paws all over her posterior as they led her through their small door. It almost made me wish we were poisoning them, God help me.’
We walked up the bank to where the horses was tied to a tree and waited for her to return, while keeping an eye on the boat. He kept a gun trained on me the whole time so it would not look strange to see a soldier and a revolutionary in each other’s company.
‘La bas!’ I checked again. ‘It means ‘over there,’ right?’
‘Yes, but you must stop pronouncing the final letters.’
We spent the rest of our short time there with him going over other helpful phrases and I was quite the linguist by the time Celeste reappeared. She was walking down the embankment towards us, her movements very slow and unsteady. She was using a wooden rail to help her move along and her face showed an expression of strong concentration. It looked to me like she had been punched in the stomach, and just as I was about to call out to ask if she was alright, she stumbled to the ground. We ran up to help her, but as we drew close we saw that she was giggling.
‘I congratulate you on your culinary excellence, Jack,’ she said as I helped her up, ‘your stew tastes formidable!’
‘You had some?’ I asked as we helped her back to where we’d left the cart and horses. ‘Could you taste the opium?’
‘Oui,’ she sniggered as she began stroking Milady’s nose in a slow and sensual way. ‘And I begin to see why it is so popular!’
‘Did the guards have any?’
‘All ten of them!’ Celeste said, and held up eight fingers. ‘Eight of them!’ Then she raised her arms up to the sky and began rocking her hips as if readying to dance. ‘They made me have some with them after I shared it all out. They are such imbeciles.’
‘Clearly your potion is strong, Dodger,’ Brendan observed. ‘But that’s her first taste of the stuff. The men may have stronger constitutions.’
‘Then I’d best get to work,’ I said as I helped Celeste into the back of the cart. She looked like she would be grateful for a lie down. ‘She’s done her bit for now.’
I collected my military musket from the back of the cart and, using a small fishing hook, let it dangle from my trouser belt. Then I threw the knotted rope over my shoulder and headed back to the stolen boat with Brendan as we left Celeste with the horses.
All of the Tuileries gardens was surrounded by a high wall. I had already scouted these walls and had seen mobs of men try to climb up from the roadside to gain access to the gardens, only to be shot down by guards positioned in windows on the opposite street.
But mobs only become mobs because none of them think for themselves and I knew that a riverside approach would be the thief’s best way in. Brendan rowed the boat to the part of the riverside wall what I’d selected as the best place to make my ascent. It was chosen as it was just close enough to the guards what was patrolling a nearby bridge, but far enough away from them that they would be unable to shoot me as I climbed. Then Brendan and I ran up through the short sloping patch of trees what led to the foot of the wall.
‘Is all this worth the money, Jack?’ asked Brendan then, using my first name for the first time in our acquaintance. I had just swung the rope upwards and hooked the noose part over the top of a wall post. I was tugging on it so it would tighten. ‘I mean, I owe Hugo my life but you don’t. And you’re the one taking the biggest risk.’
‘I’m the Artful Dodger, Brendan,’ I said and glanced over to towards the Pont Royal where I was surprised to see the guards had not yet noticed us. ‘Taking risks is what I’m all about. Now stop fretting and give me a leg up, can’t you?’
‘Best of luck then,’ he nodded in his sombre way and knelt down to give me a strong heave up the palace wall.
INTRUDER
Exploring a once royal residence
It was a high wall, but in my extensive career as a burglar I had climbed higher. I scrambled upwards using the rope and my every movement was assured and swift. Soon my hands grabbed hold of the top of the wall and, with great exertion, I hauled my body onto it.
Once safe at the top I was able to breathe easier and I looked down over the Tuileries gardens what I had heard so much about. They was every bit as glorious and as symmetrical as Celeste had said they would be. There was fountains, statues, neat curved hedges and tree-lined avenues and, best of all, plenty of tall, strong trees what would be easy for me reach and climb down. So I scurried like a squirrel along the wall until I reached a bushy spot and then I turned my head back to the riverside. Brendan was already rowing back towards Celeste, and the National Guard stationed on the Pont Royal had still not spotted me. They was all occupying themselves with blocking anyone from approaching the palace, so my fast climb had gone unmarked. It was time to rectify that. I placed some fingers into my mouth and whistled loud.
‘Balls to Napoleon!’ I hollered.
That got their attention. The guards all began calling out to each other about the revolutionary on the wall. I unhooked my musket and waved it high in the air.
‘Remember Waterloo! Down with General Cavaignac! Oh, and your cheese stinks!’
Then, before they could test if their rifles could shoot this far, I blew them a kiss, grabbed one of the trees and began my descent into the Tuileries gardens.
Gravity did most of the work as I climbed down using branches, falling most of the last part into a hedge in a concealed part of the gardens. I had selected this spot as there was a long lane of neat, high hedgerows what helped me to vanish from sight. I was much closer to the palace, where the prisoners was, than I was to the garden gates and I knew that the soldiers on the bridge would soon be informing the palace about the British intruder who was dressed like an insurgent and brandishing a gun. I removed the smock, hid it deep in a hedge and I lay down onto the gravel in my blood-splattered soldiers uniform, waiting to see how many guards would come to apprehend me.
From this position I had a good view of the huge fountain what occupied much of the space between myself and the palace. It took longer for my would-be captors to appear than I’d given them credit for but I soon heard disordered shouting approach. At last, six or seven rifle-bearing uniforms hoved into view. They seemed to all be quarreling with one another and few of them was running in a straight line. One of them did not even appear to be running at all, just moving in a slow plod as if readying to collapse.
It looked as though my stew had done its job. I called out again, only this time in my practised French.
‘Intru!’ I shouted, taking care with the pronunciation of this word for intruder. ‘Intru!’
Pointing my weapon in the other direction, through a grove of chestnut trees and towards the far gate, I fired random shots what hit only tree bark. I looked back at the approaching guards and saw them cowering at the sound of sudden gunfire. A number of them even looked as if they was ready to turn and head back to the safety of the palace.
‘Merde!’ I screamed out in an agonized voice and hid my now empty musket under some earth, beneath a hedge. I then staggered to my feet and appeared to them from behind a thick tree, clutching the wounded part of my blood-soaked uniform, crashing over some lower hedges and shouting other phrases.
‘On m’a blessé!’ said as I reached the opposite side of the big fountain. I dropped to my knees and nodded my head behind towards the cluster of trees. ‘La bas! Intru!’
Then I collapsed face down as most of the guards rounded the fountain, raced past me and headed off to catch the imaginary culprit. Some of them had even started firing, as if they could see something. Two of the slower ones reached me then as I writhed on the floor, swearing every French curse word I’d learnt in the past few days – which was a lot. As I’d hoped, they treated me as though I was one of them and they tried to get me to roll over so that they could see my wound better. Instead, I began yelling ‘Aidez moi!’ and ‘Medic!’ until they was forced to grab me under each shoulder and help me back to where they’d come from. I kept my hands pressed tight over the uniforms bullet-hole and continued with my performance as I was led up the stone steps towards the palace.
Whether or not these volunteer soldiers would have believed my ruse without having been made foggy-minded from the stew is a question that shall never be answered. But, when I was shoved inside the small tradesmen’s entrance what led down below the palace and into a rotten little kitchen, I saw that the big pot Celeste had delivered had been licked clean. There was three more soldiers in that kitchen when I was brought in still screaming and cursing. Two of them jumped up from wooden chairs as if I’d woken them. The guards carrying me shouted orders and so they grabbed a couple of rifles from an upright rack and bustled their way outside to help in the search for the intruder. I collapsed into one of the vacated chairs and leaned over, still clutching the bullet hole in my uniform and refusing to let the remaining soldiers inspect it. The bullet what had killed the uniform’s previous owner had done enough bloody damage to the garment to suggest that I was done for and so the guards left me there to suffer alone. They ran over to a door, opened it and began calling down for more help.
Two more musket-wielding guards emerged from the dark staircase then in answer to the call and, as they entered the kitchen, I heard terrible screams coming from below. I could tell from their more assured movements that these two prison guards had not been at the stew, but still they exited into the garden along with the woozier pair what had brought me in.
The only guard left with me in that kitchen was one elderly man and he was enjoying a deep snooze in a corner chair, so I knew he would not prove to be much of an obstacle. Practically alone, I straightened myself up, crossed over to the wooden rifle rack and selected one of the three long weapons what rested upon it and held it as if it was loaded. I then moved over to the door, from which that horrendous screaming could be heard and I peered into the dark. A narrow and winding staircase led downwards and there was a riot of voices calling up in desperation. One voice though could be heard louder than all the others, so commanding and threatening was it. I stepped down just two or three steps before the sudden cracks of gunshots rang out, the sounds ricocheting off every wall, almost deafening me.
The cries from below became even more outraged and hysterical. Every step I took down there just increased my dread as to what terrors I would find there. I got to the final step, with my gun pointed ahead, and saw what the dreadful scene that was unfolding in that torch-lit dungeon.
There was four arched cells to the right of me and far too many men barred up behind them. To see so many cramped up in so small and confined a space, so tight that it was hard to imagine how they could breathe, let alone move, was to see a great barbarism being committed.
