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Updated: October 3, 2025
In spite of the fact that wearisome vigils had been kept in every home that night, and that hundreds of men and women had stood about for hours in the vicinity of the Gayole Fort, no sooner was the joyful news known, than all lassitude was forgotten and everyone set to with a right merry will to make the great fete-day a complete success.
Then came the awful cataclysm. A woman a stranger had been arrested and imprisoned in the Fort Gayole and the town-crier publicly proclaimed that if she escaped from jail, one member of every family in the town rich or poor, republican or royalist, Catholic or free-thinker would be summarily guillotined. That member, the bread-winner!
He was arrested, shut up in Fort Gayole, tried as a traitor and publicly guillotined. The consternation in Boulogne was appalling. The one little spark had found its way to a barrel of blasting powder and caused a terrible explosion. Within twenty-four hours of Jean-Marie's execution the whole town was in the throes of the Revolution.
"A woman name unknown found in possession of a forged passport in the name of Celine Dumont, maid to the Citizeness Desiree Candeille attempted to land was interrogated and failed to give satisfactory explanation of herself detained in room No. 6 of the Gayole prison." This was one of the last names on the list, the only one of any importance to Citizen Chauvelin.
The chronicles tell us that twenty-four hours after he left Paris, half-dazed with fatigue, but ferocious and eager still, he is borne to the gates of Boulogne by an old cart horse requisitioned from some distant farm, and which falls down, dead, at the Porte Gayole, whilst its rider, with a last effort, loudly clamours for admittance into the town "in the name of the Republic."
And gradually all noises died away around the old Fort Gayole. The shouts and laugher of the merrymakers, who had quickly recovered from their fright, now came only as the muffled rumble of a distant storm, broken here and there by the shrill note of a girl's loud laughter, or a vigorous fanfare from the brass trumpets.
Having once realized that it was his wife who was incarcerated in Fort Gayole, was it not natural that he would go and prowl around the prison, and along the avenue on the summit of the southern ramparts, which was accessible to every passer-by? No doubt he had lain in hiding among the trees, had perhaps caught snatches of Chauvelin's recent talk with Collot.
He had very hard elbows, and soon he managed, by dint of pushing and cursing to reach the gateway of Gayole. "Voyons! enlevez-moi ca," he commanded in stentorian tones, pointing to the proclamation. The fellows of the municipal guard fell to and tore the parchment away from the door whilst the crowd looked on with stupid amazement. What did it all mean?
The merrymakers of Boulogne, having started from the Place de la Senechaussee, were making the round of the town by the wide avenue which tops the ramparts. They were coming past the Fort Gayole, shouting, singing, brass trumpets in front, big drum ahead, drenched, hot, and hoarse, but supremely happy.
He did not even think of calling to his picked guard, so completely taken aback was he by this unforeseen move on the part of Sir Percy. Yet, obviously, he should have been ready for this eventuality. Had he not caused the town-crier to loudly proclaim throughout the city that if ONE female prisoner escaped from Fort Gayole the entire able-bodied population of Boulogne would suffer?
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