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.Do as the people ask.Let us have justice.I speak for them.I act for them.I am nothing.But I am God’s servant.God has given me this sword.I warn you.Do as the people ask.And do it now.The chamber was silent as a church.I stared down at the heads of the lawmakers as they watched this slight, boyish figure turn from the Speaker’s podium and make his way down the chamber.No one moved to stop him or to follow him.The flunkies guarding the doors threw them open.Jeannot walked out.At once, the silence ended in pandemonium.Manes Planchon drew his revolver and fired it, bringing a momentary pause in which he shouted, ‘You heard? You heard? Who is the violent one? He is!’Nöl and I were already on our feet.We hurried towards the exit and down the stairs to the ground floor.When we ran outside we saw, driving through the main gateway, a black Mercedes flying the presidential colours.‘I’m going to the palace,’ I said.‘Will I drop you off?’He nodded.‘What will you do there?’‘I must talk to him.’‘Too late.Remember Diderot.“Between fanaticism and barbarism there’s only one step.” Jeannot’s just taken that step.’‘You don’t understand.’‘No, I don’t,’ Nöl said.‘Do you?’9I dropped Nöl off at the residence and drove directly to the palace.There was no sign of anything unusual in the great square surrounding it but when I passed through the gates I saw a phalanx of Jeannot’s picked ‘soldiers’ stationed at all approaches to the presidential offices.I was recognised by one of his aides, who told me he was not in the building but had left for Radio Libre a few minutes ago.‘What time is the broadcast?’The aide said no one knew.I left the palace and drove through the market area hoping to catch up with Jeannot at the radio station.As I did, I saw an unusually large number of people in the streets.On Avenue Domville a traffic jam evolved and slowed my passage to a crawl.I had no radio in my car.While I sat stalled in traffic Jeannot was broadcasting to the nation.And so I did not hear the most fateful speech of his career.It was the ‘machete’ speech, a version of what he had already said in parliament that morning.But now he spoke to the possessors of that ‘humble sword’, telling them that, with it, they, the people, could rule.The elite and the politicians wanted to install a prime minister who was their creature.The people must say no.I never did get to speak to Jeannot that day.He had left the radio station by the time I reached it.Within an hour of his speech, Port Riche became a city in crisis.The voices heard on the radio and blaring from army trucks were the voices of General Hemon and his aides appealing for calm, threatening looters, denying reports of violence.But there was violence.That afternoon Father Duchamp saw the bodies of four people shot by soldiers in the mud-clotted lanes of La Rotonde.Six dead rioters were brought to the morgue of Charité Hospital and the nuns there treated some thirty wounded.Four soldiers were hacked to pieces when they tried to stop a mob which broke into the parliament yard and overturned official limousines.Violence was not confined to the capital.The radio station in Papanos said that Senator Lutyens, his wife and two sons, had been butchered by machetes and their bodies placed on a burning pyre in the city’s main square.Senator Lutyens was a former ambassador to Washington, a Doumerguist and Papanos’s leading businessman.After supper that night I passed by Father Bourque’s study.The door was open and he called out to me.‘Is that you, Paul?’He was sitting in his old rattan armchair facing a window that looked out on the nearby roofs of La Rotonde.The window was open and in the distance we heard the sound of shouts and chanting.Clouds of smoke from bonfires rose above the tin roofs of the slums.‘The Archbishop just called me,’ Father Bourque said.‘As you know, he and I haven’t been friends over the years so he’s the last person in the world to ask for my help.But he did.He wanted to know if I could do anything to stop Jeannot.Or if you could.I said I’d speak to you but I didn’t have much hope.’‘Both sides are doing the killing,’ I said.‘That’s not the point.You heard about Senator Lutyens and his family.It’s terrible.Terrible.Has Jeannot no conscience at all?’‘Jeannot didn’t order these things.I imagine he’s as distressed as we are.’‘Is he? I wonder.Machetes! Machetes! I’m sick when I think of it.’As he was speaking, the telephone rang.It was an enquiry from a parent.Would the college be open tomorrow? There were reports of attacks on mulâtre children.I listened as Father Bourque tried to reassure the caller.When he put down the phone he asked me, ‘Have you heard anything about these attacks?’I said, and it was true, that the city was filled with rumours, most of them false.I said if I could be excused from classes in the morning I would go to the palace and try to find out what was going on.‘I’d be grateful if you would,’ Father Bourque said.‘And Paul? If you still have any influence with Jeannot, now is the time to use it.’My room, the same room I have today, is on the side of the residence facing La Rotonde.At night because of the heat I keep the windows open.I have long been accustomed to night noises and normally I sleep soundly.But that night I was wakened shortly after two a.m.by police sirens and gunfire.When I got up and looked out of my window, I saw a gang of about twenty youths coming from La Rotonde into Rue Pelikan.They were carrying machetes and running at full tilt.The sirens grew louder and two riot trucks loaded with armed police careened into sight in pursuit of the youths, who split up, running in differing directions.The police trucks stalled, sirens wailing to a standstill as the officer in charge searched for the best route to continue the pursuit.After some minutes the police drove off, their chase abandoned.Next morning I was due to say the eight o’clock Mass at the college.At seven-fifteen, while I was shaving, Hyppolite knocked and said, ‘Pe Destouts on telephone, wants you now.’Nöl Destouts was due to say the seven o’clock Mass.Perhaps he had been taken ill? When I picked up the phone Nöl spoke in a low voice as though he might be overheard.‘Paul, can you come over to the chapel at once? I’m just going to start Mass.Wait for me in the sacristy.It’s urgent
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