“Not very good,” said Lucas. “These new citizens have become very conscious of their new positions. If anyone’s got any business being in there, they’re known to the guards. It’s like an ‘old boy’ network. It’s doubtful that we could bluff our way in and if we tried to force our way in without the right equipment, we’d have a whole garrison down on us before we got halfway up the tower.”
“Okay, so forget storming the Bastille,” said Finn. “That leaves us with the option of trying to take him when they bring him out.”
“Which should be anytime between ten o’clock and noon tomorrow, when he’s scheduled to be executed,” Lucas said. “They’ll bring him down into the courtyard in the prison, put him in a tumbrel, and take him out under guard along the most direct route to the Place de la Revolution. The entire route should be packed with spectators, since Leforte is so well loved. That means that the tumbrel won’t be going very fast.”
Finn nodded. “I’d guess a little faster than a walking pace, just to give everyone a chance to spit at the marquis. If we’re going to put the snatch on him, it’ll have to be then, somewhere between the Place de la Revolution and here.”
Lucas pursed his lips thoughtfully. “The crowd’s going to be the main problem,” he said. “We won’t be able to seize control of the cart and drive him away, because we’ll never make it through the crowd. If we try to pull him out of the tumbrel, they’ll tear us to pieces before we can go several yards.”
“Scratch that idea,” Finn said. “That leaves us the Place de la Revolution. The crowd’s going to be thicker there than anywhere else along the route.”
“That could work for us,” said Lucas. “They’ll be at a fever pitch by the time Leforte gets there. What we need is mass hysteria, confusion. Something to drive them crazy enough so that they’ll be running in all directions. If we can create some kind of a diversion in the square, we might be able to grab Leforte and get lost in the crowd. All we need to do is to get him out of that square. Then we can take him to the safehouse, knock him out with that trick ring of yours, and have Fitzroy clock us to Boulogne-sur-Mer. But we’ll need something to disguise Leforte until we can get him out of the square.”
“No big deal,” said Finn. “We can throw a shawl and a cloak over him. Now all we need to do is figure out some sort of a diversion. How about a fire?”
“It would be risky,” Lucas said. “We don’t want to get anyone killed inadvertently.”
“We can take steps to minimize that possibility,” said Finn. “Don’t forget, we’ve got some extra manpower. We’ve got league members Barrett, Moore, Smythe-Peters and the Byrne brothers standing by. All we have to do is pick a likely building, get one of the boys to start a small fire that’ll make a lot of smoke, then torch the place but good. We’ll need a healthy blaze to steal the show. There’s enough time to pick a site, get instructions to the boys, and start them off making Molotov cocktails. It should do the trick.”
“I hope so,” Lucas said. “Well, I can’t think of a better idea at the moment, anyway. Come on, let’s pick our spot.”
At ten-thirty in the morning, Leforte’s jailors opened up his cell and led the stunned marquis downstairs to the courtyard of the Bastille. The aristocrat had not slept at all that night. He spent what he believed to be his last night on earth praying. A man who had never paid more than lip service to religion Leforte found faith in the last hours of his life. He had no hope, none whatsoever. He knew only too well how much the people hated him and how justified that hate was, he knew that he could expect no mercy. He had known it when they had arrested him, just as he thought that he was going to make good his escape. Ironically, on the day before he was scheduled to die, he had learned that the man who was responsible for his arrest would soon be following him up the steps leading to the guillotine. One of the guards had told him that Sergeant Bibot had also been thrown into a cell in the north tower, for allowing the Duc de Chalis to escape. The guard, a bloodthirsty old peasant, had found the irony amusing, but the fact that Bibot was to die brought little comfort to Leforte. Instead of dwelling on the thought that the man who had brought him to this fate would share it, Leforte thought about de Chalis, an old man who had won his freedom. It seemed monstrously unfair. De Chalis was in the twilight of his years; he could not have long to live. Leforte was thirty-seven and in the prime of life.
He had been very much afraid, but now the fear had spent itself. Leforte felt numb. He found that singularly puzzling. Over and over, he kept thinking to himself, “I’m going to die. Why don’t I feel anything?”
They put him in the tumbrel, a crude, two-wheeled wooden cart, and a small escort of soldiers of the Republic formed up on either side. The driver, who reeked of garlic, looked at him only once, dispassionately spat upon his shirt, then turned his back on him and flapped the reins up and down several times to get the horses moving. The tumbrel moved forward with a jerk, going through the gate with Leforte as its sole piece of human cargo. The marquis took a deep and shuddering breath, resolving that he would not give the peasants the satisfaction of seeing him cower in fear. In point of fact, he was not afraid. He had accepted death with a deep despondency and he had run the gamut of all possible emotions. There was nothing left.
I will go to my death with dignity, he thought. To the very end, I will show this rabble that I am better than they are.
The street was lined with people. He was surprised to see how many of them had turned out to see him off. The noise was deafening. They laughed, they screamed, they jeered and rushed the tumbrel, trying to grab a piece of his clothing, to touch him, strike him, spit upon him, or throw garbage at him.
They followed the tumbrel as it proceeded down the street toward the Place de la Revolution and the soldiers made only the most token efforts to hold them back. The cart turned down another street and an old woman tried to clamber up onto the tumbrel. Leforte stared through
her as she screamed unintelligibly at him. One of the soldiers pulled her off the cart, then turned to look at Leforte with a mixture of disgust and irritation. A hole appeared in the middle of the soldier’s forehead.
Leforte stared at it and frowned. The cart lurched forward and the soldier fell, being left behind as the procession continued. Puzzled, Leforte turned around to stare at the fallen soldier and then another soldier fell. This time, he heard the shot. Almost immediately, another shot rang out and the driver pitched forward off the tumbrel to fall in a lifeless heap upon the street. Another shot, another soldier fell.
The mob went wild.
“What the hell?” said Finn. “Someone’s picking off the soldiers!”
“Did you tell them to-”
“I didn’t tell them to shoot anybody!” Finn said. “They’re not even supposed to be here! I sent word to them to wait in the square until Leforte arrived!”
All around them, the crowd was surging in all directions as people ran in panic from the shooting, shoving each other and trampling those unfortunate enough to have lost their balance in the melee and to have fallen. Only one soldier remained from the small squad assigned to escort the Marquis de Leforte, and he had no desire to join the others. He dropped his musket and ran for the shelter of a building across the street. The horses, wearing blinders and by now long used to such cacophony, remained standing where they were, but they sensed the fear around them and pawed at the cobblestones skittishly. Leforte stood in the tumbrel helplessly, his hands bound, not knowing what to do.
“Up there,” said Lucas, pointing to a window on the second floor of a house across the street.
“Let’s go,” said Finn.
They pushed their way through the mob and rushed toward the house from which the shots were coming. By now, however, they were not the only ones who had marked the room on the second floor and they made it through the doorway of the house just ahead of several other men, one of whom was brandishing a pistol. The door to the room they sought was open and they all burst into the room to find not a gunman, but a small boy of about twelve or thirteen years with jet black hair and piercing dark eyes. He sat slumped against the wall beside a man’s corpse and as they entered, he began to cry.
“My father!” he wailed. “That man killed my father!”
At the same moment, a cry went up outside and they heard the sound of horses hooves upon the cobblestones. One of the men who had rushed into the room behind them ran over to the window, with Lucas just behind him.
“It’s Leforte!” the man shouted. “Leforte is escaping!”