We have said that Barbaroux had written to a friend in the south to send him five hundred men willing to die.
Who was the man who could write such lines? and what influence had he over his friends?
Charles Barbaroux was a very handsome young man of barely twenty-five, who was reproached for his beauty, and considered by Mme. Roland as frivolous and too generally amorous. On the contrary, he loved his country alone, or must have loved her best, for he died for her.
Son of a hardy sea-faring man, he was a poet and orator when quite young--at the breaking out of trouble in his native town during the election of Mirabeau. He was then appointed secretary to the Marseilles town board. Riots at Arles drew him into them; but the seething caldron of Paris claimed him; the immense furnace which needed perfume, the huge crucible hissing for purest metal.
He was Roland's correspondent at the south, and Mme. Roland had pictured from his regular, precise, and wise letters, a man of forty, with his head bald from much thinking, and his forehead wrinkled with vigils. The reality of her dream was a young man, gay, merry, light, fond of her sex, the type of the rich and brilliant generation flourishing in '92, to be cut down in '93.
It was in this head, esteemed too frivolous by Mme. Roland, that the first thought of the tenth of August was conceived, perhaps.
The storm was in the air, but the clouds were tossing about in all directions for Barbaroux to give them a direction and pile them up over the Tuileries.
When nobody had a settled plan, he wrote for five hundred determined men.
The true ruler of France was the man who could write for such men and be sure of their coming.
Rebecqui chose them himself out of the revolutionists who had fought in the last two years' popular affrays, in Avignon and the other fiery towns; they were used to blood; they did not know what fatigue was by name.
On the appointed day they set out on the two hundred league tramp, as if it were a day's strolling. Why not? They were hardy seamen, rugged peasants, sunburned by the African simoom or the mountain gale, with hands callous from the spade or tough with tar.
Wherever they passed along they were hailed as brigands.
In a halt they received the words and music of Rouget de l'Isle's "Hymn to Liberty," sent as a viaticum by Barbaroux to shorten the road. The lips of the Marseilles men made it change in character, while the words were altered by their new emphasis. The song of brotherhood became one of death and extermination--forever "the Marseillaise."
Barbaroux had planned to head with the Marseilles men some forty thousand volunteers Santerre was to have ready to meet them, overwhelm the City Hall and the House, and then storm the palace. But Santerre went to greet them with only two hundred men, not liking to let the strangers have the glory of such a rush.
With ardent eyes, swart visages, and shrill voices, the little band strode through all Paris to the Champs Elysees, singing the thrilling song. They camped there, awaiting the banquet on the morrow.
It took place, but some grenadiers were arrayed close to the spot, a Royalist guard set as a rampart between them and the palace.
They divined they were enemies, and commencing by insults, they went on to exchanging fisticuffs. At the first blood the Marseillaise shouted "To arms!" raided the stacks of muskets, and sent the grenadiers flying with their own bayonets. Luckily, they had the Tuileries at their backs and got over the draw-bridge, finding shelter in the royal apartments. There is a legend that the queen bound up the wounds of one soldier.
The Federals numbered five thousand--Marseilles men, Bretons, and Dauphinois. They were a power, not from their number, but their faith. The spirit of the revolution was in them.
They had fire-arms but no ammunition; they called for cartridges, but none were supplied. Two of them went to the mayor and demanded powder, or they would kill themselves in the office.
Two municipal officers were on duty--Sergent, Danton's man, and Panis, Robespierre's.
Sergent had artistic imagination and a French heart; he felt that the young men spoke with the voice of the country.
"Look out, Panis," he said; "if these youths kill themselves, the blood will fall on our heads."
"But if we deliver the powder without authorization, we risk our necks."
"Never mind. I believe the time has come to risk our necks. In that case, everybody for himself," replied Sergent. "Here goes for mine; you can do as you like."
He signed the delivery note, and Panis put his name to it.
Things were easier now; when the Marseilles men had powder and shot they would not let themselves be butchered without hitting back.
As soon as they were armed, the Assembly received their petition, and allowed them to attend the session. The Assembly was in great fear, so much so as to debate whether it ought not to transfer the meetings to the country. For everybody stood in doubt, feeling the ground to quake underfoot and fearing to be swallowed.
This wavering chafed the southerners. No little disheartened, Barbaroux talked of founding a republic in the south.
He turned to Robespierre, to see if he would help to set the ball rolling. But the Incorruptible's conditions gave him suspicions, and he left him, saying:
"We will no more have a dictator than a king."