Wake Of Liberty: 11 – Off With Their Heads
Paris is in great upheaval. In a square called Place de la Revolution, by the Louvre, justice is being served.
‘Down with the tyrants! Down with the tyrants! Vive la liberté!’
The square is shaking under the chants of a hot-blooded crowd. Tensions run high. Emotions are simmering, ready to explode.
‘Down with the tyrants! Vive la liberté!
‘DEATH to the tyrants!’ proclaims someone on a pedestal, pointing to a disheveled woman on a scaffolding.
‘DEATH TO THE TYRANTS,’ erupts the crowd in unison, wielding clubs and pikes, swearing and spitting at the prisoner. Blood is in the air. The air is thick with it.
The executioner, a man in a red cap and long pantaloon trousers, moves forward, toward the blade. He grabs the woman by the hair and forces her to lean into the guillotine. She resists, but he is experienced, steps on her toes with his wooden clogs. She buckles. Her head is pushed into the sockets of a blood-covered stock. The top part is ready to fall in place and lock her in. She lashes out, trying to escape the fatal grip. Her screams excite the crowd.
‘How does it feel now, rich whore?’
‘Hurt, does it? Not such a beautiful day today, precious!’
‘Get ready for the party of your life, aristocrat. It will take your head away!’
The crowd erupts in loud laughter, heckling and jeering, hands pointing towards her menacingly, hats tipped at her mockingly. Everything seems to be part of a big-budget historical movie production – with one slight difference: the date is December 8, 1793, and cinema has not been invented yet. Everything is happening for real.
The woman looks around in panic, realizing her life was a fairytale, once a given, not anymore. She has fallen asleep to a splendid life and woken up to the screams of a very angry mob. For the first time in her dreamy life she is forced to confront her mortality, the death about to meet her most demeaning and morbid. She will be executed in public, by her subordinates.
Her mind folds. Why is this happening anyway? Those people facing her, they are glaring at her as if she is their worst enemy. She recognizes none of them. Those faces, they belong to strangers. How could she have wronged these people? She cannot understand. She is being charged with crimes against the people and the Republic of France, yet all she ever did was marry into a noble family. How wrong was that? Reason enough to be executed? Has everyone gone crazy? Does no one actually care she used to be courteous to commoners, more courteous than her peers were, as courteous as her status and position allowed her to be?
Madame du Barry pleaded and begged for her life
‘This cannot be happening to me. It cannot!’ she screams inside her head. She wants to shout this out but cannot gather her breath, it’s too erratic. Despair takes over and her chest deflates, she cannot utter a single word. She just wants this over with. She recalls that the Lord makes those He is about to claim insane so that they may handle their demise, which makes her feel better for a moment, warming up her heart. Relieved, she holds back and waits for insanity to calm her down.
The insanity never comes. Everything seems as absurd and terrifying as ever. In front of her, someone is waving a mannequin dressed like an aristocrat. It is hung on a pike and has no head. She closes her eyelids, praying through gritted teeth, wishing to wake up, in her room, safe and sound. Images of silk drapes and children and pets come to her, wrapped in the scent of lavender, and for a moment it feels like she is home.
She opens her eyes to face an ugly, frenzied crowd, jeering and taunting her.
She goes hysterical and tries to run away but the hooded executioner presses her down and locks her in.
The crowd cheers excitedly. The end is imminent. She can see it in their glowing eyes.
Tears emerge on her face.
‘Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment,’ she pleads.
‘Encore un moment, boo-hoo-hoo!’ the crowd taunts back.
The man on the pedestal nods.
The executioner steps to the side of the guillotine and reaches for a handle. He pulls it, and a lever clacks, unleashing a thousand harpies. The blade begins to fall, sliding through the wooden frame swiftly, accelerating toward the woman’s neck – she can feel its vibrations through the stock – she can hear it coming closer and sees it, she sees it in the faces of the crowd, their eyes widening, their mouths opening, impact imminent – she closes her eyes – clenches her fists – grits her teeth – something cracks loudly inside her head – the Place de la Révolution erupts in a loud cheer.
‘Death to the tyrants,’ shouts the man on the pedestal, pointing to the head on the floor.
‘Death to the tyrants!’ repeats the crowd, waving their hats.
‘Death to the tyrants,’ the man on the pedestal shouts again, pointing to the guillotine, where another prisoner is being mounted. ‘Vive la liberté.’
‘Vive la liberté!’ the crowd screams.
The anger shifts to the next victim. No one is paying attention to the severed head anymore. No one considers it is still alive, that the woman is still inside that head, watching out, observing the crowd’s feet. They are filthy, but she cannot smell them, she cannot smell a thing, or move, or do anything. All she can do is blink her eyes.
Then someone kicks her. She rolls over, facing the guillotine. The rest of her body is sprawled there, bloodied and headless. The sight fills her with horror and her mind folds in on itself, trying to understand what she sees. It’s the last thing she registers. She begins to drift out of consciousness, into an ineffable state of being, the busy guillotine disappearing into a morphing, melting awareness. Everything is blending into a single feeling now, a sense of falling asleep, going home. She knows. She –
Madame du Barry / Citoyenne Marie-Jeanne Bécu
‘What did she say?’ asks an alien-looking fellow to the other bystanders.
‘I didn’t hear you.’
‘What did she say, the woman up there?’
‘She said, encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment. One more moment, Mr. Executioner, a small moment. Ha!’
‘He didn’t grant her her wish.’
‘Of course he did not! She was Citoyenne Marie-Jeanne Bécu, an illegitimate child, once known as Madame du Barry, or Marie-Jeanne, Countess du Barry – a courtesan, or in common words, a high-class prostitute. And a close friend of that wretched whore, Marie Antoinette.’
The bystander wipes his beard with his hand, eyeing the alien-looking fellow. No reaction from him.
‘They say she’s been funding the émigré army that will invade la France,’ he continues. ‘Where did she get the money to do this, huh? I’ll tell you. From jewelry given to her by her royal lovers. The lords and counts and viscounts.’
The bystander spits on the floor and grabs the alien by the shoulder.
‘Well, no more titles, sir. No more lies. Citizen Marie-Jeanne belonged to a corrupt part of our society, and, by the power of general will, she got what she deserved. Without a moment to lose.’
The alien sighs. He reaches inside his jacket pocket, grabs a leather flask, takes a long sip from it, and begins to make his way through the crowd. He stops and turns round, looking the bystander in the eye, his eyes gleaming.
‘My friend. You say this aristocrat got what she deserved without a moment to lose. But you are wrong. Everyone deserves a small moment, even the convicted members of the corrupt nobility and clergy. Small moments are all we have in this world.’
The crowd erupts in cheers as another head rolls. The alien looks up at the stage, then at the bystander.
‘Small moments, my friend. Because the blade never stays in one place. It likes to move around.’
FOR MORE: Wake Of Liberty
Images:
Decapitate by Gavin Denman
http://guillotine.cultureforum.net/t1586-madame-du-barry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_du_Barry
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