the trouillasse tower
now lescuyer, the man of the ropes, the patriot who had torn down the decrees of the holy father, the quondam picard notary, was secretary to the municipality. his name was thrown to the crowds as not only having participated in the crimes already mentioned, but as having signed the order to the keeper at the mont-de-piété to allow the property to be taken away.
four men were sent out to seize lescuyer and to bring him to the church. they found him in the street on his way to the municipality. the four men threw themselves upon him, and amid ferocious cries they dragged him to the church.
in the church, lescuyer realized from the flaming eyes fixed upon him, the outstretched hands which menaced him, and the cries demanding his death, that he was in one of those circles of hell forgotten by dante. his only idea was that this hatred was inspired because of the ropes which had been taken forcibly from his shop, and the destruction of the pontifical decrees.
he ascended the pulpit, thinking to convert it into a tribunal of justice, and in the voice of a man who is not only not ashamed of what he has done, but who would repeat it, he began: "citizens, i believed the revolution necessary, and i have acted accordingly."
[pg 427]
the whites knew that if lescuyer, whose death they desired, should explain, lescuyer was saved. that was not what they wanted. obeying a sign from the comte de fargas, they threw themselves upon him, tore him from the pulpit, and thrust him into the midst of the howling mob, which dragged him toward the altar, uttering that terrible cry, which combines the hiss of the serpent and the roar of the tiger—that murderous "zou! zou! zou!" peculiar to the populace of avignon.
lescuyer knew that sinister cry. he tried to take refuge at the foot of the altar. he fell there. a laborer, armed with a club, dealt him such a blow on the head that the weapon was broken in two.
then they flung themselves upon the poor body, and with that awful mixture of ferocity and gayety peculiar to southern people, the men sang as they danced upon his body, while the women, that he might the more fitly atone for the blasphemies which he had uttered against the pope, cut off his lips, or rather scalloped them with their scissors. then from the midst of that terrible group came a cry, or rather a death-rattle. it said: "in the name of heaven, in the name of the virgin, in the name of humanity, kill me at once!"
this groan was heard and understood. with one accord the crowd drew back. they left the wretched, mangled, bleeding man to taste his death-agony. it lasted five hours, during which, amid bursts of laughter, jeers, insults and mockeries, the poor body lay quivering on the steps of the altar. that is how they kill at avignon.
stay, and you will see that there is still another way.
while lescuyer was undergoing his mortal agony, it occurred to one of the french party to go to the mont-de-piété (a thing they might well have done at first), to see if the story of the theft were true. he found everything in order there; not the smallest article had been removed.
it was therefore not as an accomplice of theft, but as a patriot, that lescuyer had been murdered.
[pg 428]
there was at that time a man in avignon who ruled the destinies of that party which in times of revolution is neither white nor blue, but blood-hued. all these terrible leaders of the south have acquired such fatal celebrity that it suffices to name them for every one, even the least educated, to recognize them. this was the famous jourdan. braggart and liar, he had made the common people believe that it was he who had cut off the head of the governor of the bastille; and so they called him "jourdan coupe-tête." this was not his real name; it was mathieu jouve. he was not a proven?al; he came from puy-en-velay. he had once been a muleteer on the steep heights which surrounded his native town; afterward he became a soldier, without seeing war (war might have perhaps humanized him), then an innkeeper at paris. at avignon he dealt in madder.
he assembled three hundred men, took possession of the gates of the city, left half his troops there, and with the rest marched upon the church of the cordeliers, preceded by two pieces of artillery. he set the battery up in front of the church and fired at random. the assassins dispersed like a flock of frightened birds, some escaping through the windows, others by way of the sacristy, leaving several dead upon the church steps. jourdan and his men stepped over these corpses and entered the sacred precincts.
there was nothing there save the statue of the virgin and the unfortunate lescuyer. he was still breathing, and when they asked him who had assassinated him, he gave the name, not of those who had dealt the blows, but of the man who had given the order to strike.
it was the comte de fargas.
jourdan and his men were careful not to despatch the dying man, for his agony was a most potent means of exciting the people. they took this remnant of pulsating life, which was three-fourths dead, and carried it along, bleeding, panting, with the death-rattle in its throat. they shouted: "fargas! fargas! we must have fargas!"
[pg 429]
every one fled at the sight, shutting doors and windows. at the end of an hour jourdan and his men were masters of the city. lescuyer died, and no one knew when he drew his last breath; but it mattered little, for they no longer needed his agony.
jourdan took advantage of the terror he had inspired; and in order to assure the victory to his party, he arrested, or had arrested, eighty persons, assassins or alleged assassins, of lescuyer, and, in consequence, accomplices of fargas. as for the latter, he was not arrested as yet; but they were sure that he would be, since all the gates of the city were carefully guarded and the comte de fargas was known to everybody.
of the eighty persons arrested, more than thirty had not even set foot within the church; but when chance affords such an excellent opportunity of ridding one's self of enemies, it should be accepted. these eighty persons were thrust into the trouillasse tower.
this was the tower in which the inquisition was wont to put its victims to the torture. the greasy soot from the funereal pyre which consumed human flesh can still be seen to this very day along the walls, and also all the implements of torture, which have been carefully preserved—the caldron, the oven, the wooden horses, the chains, the oubliettes, yes, even to the old bones—nothing is wanting.
it was in this tower, built by clement iv., that they confined the eighty prisoners. when they were safely lodged there, their captors were much embarrassed.
who should try them? there were no legally appointed courts save those of the pope. should they kill these wretches as they had killed lescuyer? as we have said, there was at least a third of them, possibly half, who not only had taken no part in the assassination, but who had not even set foot in the church. to make an end of them was the only safe way; the slaughter would pass under the head of reprisals.
but executioners were needed to kill these eighty people.
[pg 430]
a sort of tribunal organized by jourdan sat in one of the halls of the palace. they had a clerk named raphel; a president, half italian, half french, an orator in the popular dialect, named barbe savournin de la roua; then there were three or four poor devils, a baker, a charcoal-burner (their names have been lost, because they were of low estate). these were the ones who exclaimed: "we must kill them all! if any escape they will bear witness against us."
executioners were wanting; there were scarcely twenty men in the courtyard, all belonging to the lowest classes in avignon—a wig-maker, a women's-shoemaker, a cobbler, a mason, a carpenter, all with weapons caught up at haphazard. one had a sword, another a bayonet, this one a bar of iron, that one a piece of wood that had been hardened in the fire. they were all shivering in a fine october rain. it would be difficult to make assassins of such creatures. nonsense! is there anything difficult for the devil? there is a moment in such events when providence seems to abandon its followers; then it is satan's turn.
satan in person entered this cold and muddy court disguised in the appearance, form and face of an apothecary of the neighborhood, named mende. he set up a table, lighted by two lanterns. upon it he placed glasses, pitchers, jugs, and bottles. what was the infernal beverage that was contained in these mysterious receptacles? no one knows; but its effect is well-known. all those who drank of that diabolical liquor were seized with a sudden fever that raged through their veins—the lust of blood and murder. after that they needed only to be shown the door, and they hurled themselves into the cells.
the massacre lasted all night. all night cries, shrieks and moans echoed through the darkness. they killed them all, men and women. it took a long time, for, as we have said, the executioners were drunk and poorly armed. however, the task was finished after a time. as soon as the victims were killed they were thrown, dead and wounded together, into the pit of the trouillasse tower, a distance[pg 431] of some sixty feet down. the men were thrown first, and then the women. at nine o'clock in the morning, after the massacre had lasted twelve hours, a voice cried out from the depths of the sepulchre: "for god's sake, come and finish me!"
one man, the armorer bouffier, leaned over the hole; the others did not dare.
"who called?" they asked him.
"it was lami," he replied, drawing back.
"well," asked the assassins, "what do you see down there?"
"a queer marmalade," he replied; "all pell-mell, men and women, priests and pretty girls. it is enough to make one die of laughing."
at that moment cries of grief and shouts of triumph made themselves heard, and the name of fargas was repeated by a thousand voices. it was indeed the count whom they were bringing to jourdan coupe-tête. he had just been found hidden in a cask in the h?tel palais-royal. he was half naked, and covered with such immense quantities of blood that they did not know but what he would fall dead when they loosened their grip.
