"Alexandre Dumas. Twenty Years After." - читать интересную книгу автора

considered the bravest in France-had been attacked in his turn. The people
threatened to hold him responsible for the evils that hung over them. But
the chief president had replied with his habitual coolness, without
betraying either disturbance or surprise, that should the agitators refuse
obedience to the king's wishes he would have gallows erected in the public
squares and proceed at once to hang the most active among them. To which
the others had responded that they would be glad to see the gallows
erected; they would serve for the hanging of those detestable judges who
purchased favor at court at the price of the people's misery.
Nor was this all. On the eleventh the queen in going to mass at Notre
Dame, as she always did on Saturdays, was followed by more than two hundred
women demanding justice. These poor creatures had no bad intentions. They
wished only to be allowed to fall on their knees before their sovereign,
and that they might move her to compassion; but they were prevented by the
royal guard and the queen proceeded on her way, haughtily disdainful of
their entreaties.
At length parliament was convoked; the authority of the king was to be
maintained.
One day-it was the morning of the day my story begins-the king, Louis
XIV., then ten years of age, went in state, under pretext of returning
thanks for his recovery from the small-pox, to Notre Dame. He took the
opportunity of calling out his guard, the Swiss troops and the musketeers,
and he had planted them round the Palais Royal, on the quays, and on the
Pont Neuf. After mass the young monarch drove to the Parliament House,
where, upon the throne, he hastily confirmed not only such edicts as he had
already passed, but issued new ones, each one, according to Cardinal de
Retz, more ruinous than the others-a proceeding which drew forth a strong
remonstrance from the chief president, Mole-whilst President Blancmesnil
and Councillor Broussel raised their voices in indignation against fresh
taxes.
The king returned amidst the silence of a vast multitude to the Palais
Royal. All minds were uneasy, most were foreboding, many of the people used
threatening language.
At first, indeed, they were doubtful whether the king's visit to the
parliament had been in order to lighten or increase their burdens; but
scarcely was it known that the taxes were to be still further increased,
when cries of "Down with Mazarin!" "Long live Broussel!" "Long live
Blancmesnil!" resounded through the city. For the people had learned that
Broussel and Blancmesnil had made speeches in their behalf, and, although
the eloquence of these deputies had been without avail, it had none the
less won for them the people's good-will. All attempts to disperse the
groups collected in the streets, or silence their exclamations, were in
vain. Orders had just been given to the royal guards and the Swiss guards,
not only to stand firm, but to send out patrols to the streets of Saint
Denis and Saint Martin, where the people thronged and where they were the
most vociferous, when the mayor of Paris was announced at the Palais Royal.
He was shown in directly; he came to say that if these offensive
precautions were not discontinued, in two hours Paris would be under arms.
Deliberations were being held when a lieutenant in the guards, named
Comminges, made his appearance, with his clothes all torn, his face