THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY. (continued 4)

Some individuals mistake Madame Elisabeth for Marie Antoinette. Her equerry, M. de Saint-Pardoux, throws himself between her and the furious wretches, who cry: "Ah! there is the Austrian woman; we must have the Austrian!" and undeceives them by naming her.—"Why did you not allow them to believe I am the Queen?" says the courageous Princess; "perhaps you might have averted a greater crime." And, putting aside a bayonet which almost touches her breast, "Take care, Monsieur," she says gently, "you might hurt somebody, and I am sure you would be sorry to do that." The shouts redouble. The confusion becomes terrible. It is with great difficulty that some grenadiers of the National Guard defend the embrasure of the window where Louis XVI. still stands immovable on his bench. Mingled with the crowd there are inoffensive persons, who have come merely out of curiosity, and even honest men who sincerely pity the King. But there are tigers and assassins as well. One of them, armed with a club ending in a sword-blade, tries to thrust it into the King's heart. The grenadiers parry the blow with their bayonets. A market porter struggles long to reach Louis XVI., against whom he brandishes a sabre. Several times the wretched monarch seeks to address the crowd. His voice is lost in the uproar. A municipal official, M. Mouchet, hoisting himself on the shoulders of two persons, demands by voice and gesture a moment's silence for the King and for himself. Vain efforts. The vociferations of the crowd only increase. Here comes a long pole on the end of which is a Phrygian cap, a bonnet rouge. The pole is inclined towards M. Mouchet. M. Mouchet takes the cap and presents it to the King, who, to please the crowd, puts it on his head.

Is it possible? That man on a bench, with the ignoble cap of a galley-slave on his head, surrounded by a drunken and tattered rabble who vomit filthy language, that man the King of France and Navarre, the most Christian King, Louis XVI.? Go back to the day of the coronation, June 11, 1775. It is just seventeen years and nine days ago! Do you remember the Cathedral of Rheims, luminous, glittering; the cardinals, ministers, and marshals of France, the red ribbons, the blue ribbons, the lay peers with their vests of cloth-of-gold, their violet ducal mantles lined with ermine; the clerical peers with cope and cross? Do you remember the King taking Charlemagne's sword in his hand, and then prostrating himself before the altar on a great kneeling-cushion of velvet sown with golden lilies? Do you see him vested by the grand-chamberlain with the tunic, the dalmatica, and the ermine-lined mantle which represent the vestments of a sub-deacon, deacon, and priest, because the King is not merely a sovereign, but a pontiff? Do you see him seizing the royal sceptre, that golden sceptre set with oriental pearls, and carvings representing the great Carlovingian Emperor on a throne adorned with lions and eagles? Do you remember the pealing of the bells, the chords of the organ, the blare of trumpets, the clouds of incense, the birds flying in the nave?

And now, instead of the coronation the pillory; instead of the crown the hideous red cap; instead of hymns and murmurs of admiration and respect,—insults, the buffoonery of the fish-market, shouts of contempt and hatred, threats of murder. Ah! the time is not far distant when a Conventionist will break the vial containing the sacred oil on the pavement of the Abbey of Saint Remi. How slippery is the swift descent, the fatal descent by which a sovereign who disarms himself glides down from the heights of power and glory to the depths of opprobrium and sorrow! There he is! Not content with putting the red bonnet on his head, he keeps it there, and mumming in the Jacobin coiffure, he cries: "Long live the nation!" The crowd find the spectacle amusing. A National Guard, to whom some one has passed a bottle of wine, offers the complaisant King a drink. Perhaps the wine is poisoned. No matter; Louis XVI. takes a glass of it.

While all this is going on, two deputies, Isnard and Vergniaud, present themselves. "Citizens," says the first, "I am Isnard, a deputy. If what you demand were at once granted, it might be thought you extorted it by force. In the name of the law and the National Assembly, I ask you to respect the constituted authorities and retire. The National Assembly will do justice; I will aid thereto with all my power. You shall obtain satisfaction; I answer for it with my head; but go away." Vergniaud follows him with similar remarks. Neither is listened to. Nobody departs.

It is six in the evening. For two hours, one man, exposed to every insult, has held his own against a multitude. At last Pétion arrives wearing his mayor's scarf. The crowd draws back. "Sire," says he, "I have just this instant learned the situation you were in."—"That is very astonishing," returns Louis XVI.; "for it has lasted two hours."—"Sire, truly, I was ignorant that there was trouble at the palace. As soon as I was informed, I hastened to your side. But you have nothing to fear; I answer for it that the people will respect you."—"I fear nothing," replies the King. "Moreover, I have not been in any danger, since I was surrounded by the National Guard."

Pétion, like Pontius Pilate, pretends indifference. A municipal officer, M. Champion, reminds him of his duties, and says with firmness: "Order the people to retire; order them in the name of the law; we are threatened with great danger, and you must speak." At last Pétion decides to intervene. "Citizens," he says, "all you who are listening to me, came to present legally your petition to the hereditary representative of the nation, and you have done so with the dignity and majesty of a free people; return now to your homes, for you can desire nothing further. Your demand will doubtless be reiterated by all the eighty-three departments, and the King will grant your prayer. Retire, and do not, by remaining longer, give occasion to the public enemies to impugn your worthy intentions."

At first this discourse of the mayor of Paris produces but slight effect. The cries and threats continue. But, after a while, the crowd, worn out with shouting, and hungry and thirsty as well, begin to quiet down a little. The most excited cry: "We are waiting for an answer from the King. Nothing has been asked of him yet." Others say: "Listen to the mayor, he is going to speak again; we will hear him." Pétion repeats what he said before: "If you do not wish your magistrates to be unjustly accused, withdraw."

M. Sergent, administrator of police, who had come with the mayor, asked if any one has ordered the doors leading from the Grand Cabinet to the Gallery of Diana to be opened, so as to allow the crowd to pass out by the small staircase into the Court of the Princes. Louis XVI. overheard this question. "I have had the apartments opened," said he; "the people, marching out on the gallery side, will like to see them." A sentiment of curiosity hastened the movements of the crowd. In order to go out, they had to pass through the State Bedchamber, the Grand Cabinet, and the Gallery of Diana. Sergent, standing in front of the door, leading from the OEil-de-Boeuf to the State Bedchamber, unfastens his scarf and waving it over his head, cries: "Citizens, this is the badge of the law; in its name we invite you to retire and follow us." Pétion says: "The people have done what they ought to do. You have acted with the pride and dignity of freemen. But there has been enough of it; let all retire." A double row of National Guards is formed, and the people pass between them. The return march begins. A few recalcitrants want to remain, and keep up a cry of "Down with the veto! Recall the ministers!" But they are swept on by the stream, and follow the march like all the rest. While they are going out through the door between the OEil-de-Boeuf and the State Bed-chamber, the National Guard prevents any one from entering on the other side, through the door connecting the OEil-de-Boeuf with the Hall of the Guards.

At this moment, a deputation of twenty-four members of the Assembly present themselves. Roused by the public clamor announcing that the King's life is in danger, the National Assembly has called an extraordinary evening session. The president of the deputation, M. Brunk, says to the King: "Sire, the National Assembly sends us to assure ourselves of your situation, to protect the constitutional liberty you should enjoy, and to share your danger." Louis XVI. replies: "I am grateful for the solicitude of the Assembly; I am undisturbed in the midst of Frenchmen." At the same time, Pétion goes to turn back the crowd, who are constantly ascending the great staircase, and who threaten another invasion. The sentry at the doorway of the OEil-de-Boeuf is replaced, and the crowd ceases to flock thither. The circle of National Guards about the sovereign is increased. A space is formed, and he is surrounded by the deputation from the Assembly. Acloque, seeing that the tumult is lessening and the room no longer encumbered by the crowd, proposes to the King that he should retire, and Louis XVI. decides to do so. Surrounded by deputies and National Guards, he passes into the State Bedchamber, and notwithstanding the throng, he manages to reach a secret door at the right of the bed, near the chimney, which communicates with his bedroom. He goes through this little door, and some one closes it behind him.

It is not far from eight o'clock in the evening. The peril and humiliation of Louis XVI. have lasted nearly four hours, and the unhappy King is not yet at the end of his sufferings, for he does not know what has become of his wife and children. While these sad scenes had been enacting in the palace, a furious populace had been in incessant commotion beneath the windows, in the garden and the courtyards. People desiring to establish communication between those down stairs and those above, had been heard to cry: "Have they been struck down? Are they dead? Throw us down their heads!"

A slender young man, with the profile of a Roman medal, a pale complexion, and flashing eyes, was looking at all this from the upper part of the terrace beside the water. Unable to comprehend the long-suffering of Louis XVI., he said in an indignant tone: "How could they have allowed this rabble to enter? They should have swept out four or five hundred of them with cannon, and the rest would have run." The man who spoke thus, obscure and hidden in the crowd, opposite that palace where he was to play so great a part, was the "straight-haired Corsican," the future Emperor Napoleon.

XX.

MARIE ANTOINETTE ON JUNE TWENTIETH.

Louis XVI. had just entered his bedchamber. The crowd, after leaving the hall of the OEil-de-Boeuf, had departed through the State Bedchamber, and the King's Great Cabinet, called also the Council Hall. On entering this last apartment, an unexpected scene had surprised them. Behind the large table they saw the Queen, Madame Elisabeth, the Dauphin, and Madame Royale.

How came the Queen to be there? What had happened? At a quarter of four, when Louis XVI. had left his room to go into the hall of the Bull's-Eye and meet the rioters, Marie Antoinette, as we have already said, made desperate efforts to follow him. M. Aubier, placing himself before the door of the King's chamber, prevented the Queen from going out. In vain she cried: "Let me pass; my place is beside the King; I will join him and perish with him if it must be." M. Aubier, through devotion, disobeyed her. Nevertheless, the Queen, whose courage redoubled her strength, would have borne down this faithful servant if M. Rougeville, a chevalier of Saint-Louis, had not aided him to block up the passage. Imploring Marie Antoinette in the name of her own safety and that of the King, not to expose herself needlessly to poniards, and aided by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, they drew her almost by force into the chamber of the Dauphin, which was near the King's. MM. de Choiseul, d'Haussonville, and de Saint-Priest, assisted by several grenadiers of the National Guard, afterwards induced her to go with her children into the Grand Cabinet of the King, called also the Council Hall, because the ministers were accustomed to assemble there.

The Princess de Lamballe, the Princess of Tarento, the Marchioness de Tourzel, the Duchesses de Luynes, de Duras, de Maillé, the Marchioness de Laroche-Aymon, Madame de Soucy, the Baroness de Mackau, the Countess de Ginestous, remained with the Queen. So also did the Minister Chambonas, the Duke de Choiseul, Counts d'Haussonville and de Montmorin, Viscount de Saint-Priest, Marquis de Champcenetz, and General de Wittenghoff, commander of the 17th military division. The Queen and her children occupied the embrasure of a window, and the large and heavy table used by the ministerial council was placed in front of them as a sort of barricade.

Meanwhile, Marie Antoinette's apartments and her bedroom on the ground-floor were invaded. Some National Guards tried vainly to defend them. "You are cutting your own throats!" shouted the people. Overwhelmed by numbers, they saw the door of the first apartment broken down by hatchets. It contained the beds of the Queen's servants, ranged behind screens. Afterwards they saw the invaders go into Marie Antoinette's sleeping-room, tear the clothes off her bed, and loll upon it, crying as they did so, "We will have the Austrian woman, dead or alive!"

The Queen, however, remained in the Council Hall, where she could hear the echo of the cries resounding in that of the OEil-de-Boeuf, where Louis XVI. was, and from which she was separated only by the State Bedchamber. Toward seven in the evening she beheld Madame Elisabeth, who, after heroically sharing the dangers of the King, had now found means to rejoin her. "The deputies who came to us," she wrote to Madame de Raigecourt, July 3, "had come out of good will. A veritable deputation arrived and persuaded the King to go back to his own apartments. As I was told this, and as I was unwilling to be left in the crowd, I went away about an hour before he did, and rejoined the Queen: you can imagine with what pleasure I embraced her." In their perils, therefore, Madame Elisabeth was near both Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.

After having voluntarily exposed herself to all the anguish of the invasion of the OEil-de-Boeuf, the courageous Princess was with the Queen in the Council Hall, when the crowd, coming through the State Bed-chamber, arrived there. The horde marched through it, carrying their barbarous inscriptions like so many ferocious standards. "One of these," says Madame Campan in her Memoirs, "represented a gibbet from which an ugly doll was hanging; below it was written: 'Marie Antoinette to the lamp-post!' Another was a plank to which a bullock's heart had been fastened, surrounded by the words: 'Heart of Louis XVI.' Finally, a third presented a pair of bullock's horns with an indecent motto." Some royalist grenadiers belonging to the battalion called the Filles-Saint-Thomas, were near the council-table and protected the Queen. Marie Antoinette was standing, and held her daughter's hand. The Dauphin sat on the table in front of her. At the moment when the march began, a woman threw a red cap on this table and cried out that it must be placed on the Queen's head. M. de Wittenghoff, his hand trembling with indignation, took the cap and after holding it for a moment over Marie Antoinette's head, put it back on the table. Then a cry was raised: "The red cap for the Prince Royal! Tri-colored ribbons for little Veto!" Ribbons were thrown down beside the Phrygian cap. Some one shouted: "If you love the nation, set the red cap on your son's head." The Queen made an affirmative sign, and the revolutionary coiffure was set on the child's fair head.

What humiliations were these for the unhappy mother! What anguish for so haughty, so magnanimous a queen! The galley-slave's cap has touched the head of the daughter of Cæsars, and now soils the forehead of her son! The slang of the fish-markets resounds beneath the venerable arches of the palace. How bitterly the unfortunate sovereign expiates her former triumphs! Where are the ovations and the apotheoses, the carriages of gold and crystal, the solemn entries into the city in its gala dress, to the sound of bells and trumpets? What trace remains of those brilliant days when, more goddess than woman, the Queen of France and Navarre appeared through a cloud of incense, in the midst of flowers and light? This good and beautiful sovereign, whose least smile, or glance, or nod, had been regarded as a precious recompense, a supreme favor by the noble lords and ladies who bent respectfully before her, behold how she is treated now! Consider the costumes and the language of her new courtiers! And yet, Marie Antoinette is majestic still. Even in this horrible scene, in presence of these drunken women and ragged suburbans, she does not lose that gift of pleasing which is her special dower. At a distance they curse her; but when they come near they are subjugated by her spell. Her most ferocious enemies are touched in their own despite. A young girl had just called her "Autrichienné." "You call me an Austrian woman," replied she, "but I am the wife of the King of France, I am the mother of the Dauphin; I am a Frenchwoman by my sentiments as wife and mother. I shall never again see the land where I was born. I can be happy or unhappy nowhere but in France. I was happy when you loved me." Confused by this gentle reproach, the young girl softened. "Pardon me," she said; "it was because I did not know you; I see very well now that you are not wicked." A woman, passing, stopped before the Queen and began to sob. "What is the matter with her?" asked Santerre; "what is she crying about?" And he shook her by the arm, saying: "Make her pass on, she is drunk." Even Santerre himself felt Marie Antoinette's influence. "Madame," he said to her, "the people wish you no harm. Your friends deceive you; you have nothing to fear, and I am going to prove it by serving as your shield." It was he who took pity on the Dauphin whom the heat was stifling, and said: "Take the red cap off the child; he is too hot." He too, it was, that hastened the march of the procession and pointed out to the people the different members of the royal family by name, saying: "This is the Queen, this is her son, this her daughter, this Madame Elisabeth."

At last the crowd is gone. The hall is empty. It is eight o'clock. The Queen and her children enter the King's chamber. Louis XVI., who finds them once more after so many perils and emotions, covers them with kisses. In the midst of this pathetic scene some deputies arrive. Marie Antoinette shows them the traces of violence which the people have left behind them,—locks broken, hinges forced off, wainscoting burst through, furniture ruined. She speaks of the dangers that have threatened the King and the insults offered to herself. Perceiving that Merlin de Thionville, an ardent Jacobin, has tears in his eyes, she says: "You are weeping to see the King and his family so cruelly treated by people whom he has always desired to render happy." The republican answered: "Yes, Madame, I weep, but it is for the misfortunes of the mother of a family, not for the King and Queen; I hate kings and queens." A deputy accosted Marie Antoinette, saying in a familiar tone: "You were very much afraid, Madame, you must admit." "No, Monsieur," she replied, "I was not at all afraid; but I suffered much in being separated from the King at a moment when his life was in danger. At least, I had the consolation of being with my children and performing one of my duties." "Without pretending to excuse everything, agree, Madame, that the people showed themselves very good-natured." "The King and I, Monsieur, are convinced of the natural goodness of the people; it is only when they are misled that they are wicked."—"How old is Mademoiselle?" went on the deputy, pointing to Madame Royale.—"She is at that age, Monsieur, when one feels only too great a horror of such scenes."

Other deputies surround the Dauphin. They question him on different subjects, especially concerning the geography of France and its new territorial division into departments and districts, and are enchanted by the correctness of his replies.

An officer of Chasseurs of the National Guard enters the King's chamber. This officer had shown the utmost zeal in protecting his sovereign and had had the honor of being wounded at his side. He is congratulated. The Dauphin perceives him. "What is the name of that guard who defended my father so bravely?" he asks.—"Monseigneur," replies M. Hue, "I do not know; he will be flattered if you ask him." The Prince runs to put his question to the officer, but the latter, in respectful terms, declines to answer. Then M. Hue insists. "I beg you," he cries, "tell us your name."—"I ought to conceal my name," replies the officer; "unfortunately for me, it is the same as that of an execrable man." The faithful royalist bore the same name as the man who had caused the arrest of the royal family at Varennes the previous year. He was called Drouot.

The hour for repose has come at last. It is ten o'clock. Certain individuals still complain: "They took us there for nothing; but we will go back and have what we want." Still, the storm is over. The crowd has evacuated the palace, the courtyards, and the garden. The Assembly closes its sessions at half-past ten. Pétion said there: "The King has no cause of complaint against the citizens who marched before him. He has said as much to the deputies and magistrates." Finally, as the deputies were about to separate after this exciting day, one of them, M. Guyton-Morveau, remarked: "The deputation which preceded us, has doubtless announced to you that all is now tranquil. We remained with the King for some time, and saw nothing which could inspire the least alarm. We invited the King to seek some repose. He sent an officer of the National Guard to visit the posts, and the officer reported that there was nobody in the palace. His Majesty assured us that he desired to remain alone; we left him; and we can certify to you that all is quiet."

XXI.

THE MORROW OF JUNE TWENTIETH.

In the morning of June 21 there were still some disorderly gatherings in front of the Tuileries. On awaking, the Dauphin put this artless question to the Queen: "Mamma, is it yesterday still?" Alas! yes, it was still yesterday, it was always to be yesterday until the catastrophes at the end of the drama. It was just a year to a day since the royal family had furtively quitted Paris to begin the fatal journey which terminated at Varennes. This souvenir occurred to Marie Antoinette, and, recalling the first stations of her Calvary, the unfortunate sovereign told herself that her humiliations had but just begun. Her lips had touched only the brim of the chalice, and it must be drained to the dregs.

Meanwhile, visitors were arriving at the Tuileries one after another to condole with and protest their fidelity to the King and his family. When Marshal de Mouchy made his appearance, the worthy old man was received with the honors due to his noble conduct on the previous day. When the invasion began, Louis XVI., in order not to irritate the rabble, had given his gentlemen a formal order to withdraw, but the old marshal, hoping that his great age (he was seventy-seven) would excuse his presence in the palace, had refused to leave his master. More than once, with a strength rejuvenated by devotion, he had succeeded in repulsing persons whose violence made him tremble for the King's life. As soon as she saw the marshal, Marie Antoinette made haste to say: "I have learned from the King how courageously you defended him yesterday. I share his gratitude."—"Madame," he replied, alluding to those of his relatives who had figured among the promoters of the Revolution, "I did very little in comparison with the injuries I should like to repair. They were not mine, but they touch me very nearly."—"My son," said the Queen, calling the Dauphin, "repeat before the marshal, the prayer you addressed to God this morning for the King." The child, kneeling down, put his hands together, and looking up to heaven, began to sing this refrain from the opera of Pierre le Grand:—

After the Marshal de Mouchy came M. de Malesherbes. Contrary to his usual custom, the ex-first president wore his sword. "It is a long time," some one said to him, "since you have worn a sword."—"True," replied the old man, "but who would not arm when the King's life is in danger?" Then, looking with emotion at the little Prince, he said to Marie Antoinette: "I hope, Madame, that at least our children will see better days!"

And yet, even for the present there still remained a glimmer of hope. Hardly had the invaders left the palace than invectives against them rose from all classes of society. The calmness and courage of the King and his family found admirers on every side. The departments sent addresses demanding the punishment of those who had been guilty. Royalist sentiments woke to life anew. One might almost believe that the indignation caused by the recent scandals would produce an immediate reaction in favor of Louis XVI. Possibly, with an energetic sovereign, something might have been attempted. On the whole, the insurrection had obtained nothing. Even the Girondins perceived the dangerous character of revolutionary passions. Honest men stigmatized the criminal tendencies which had just displayed themselves. It was the moment for the King to show himself and strike a great blow. But Louis XVI. had neither will nor energy. Letting the last chance of safety which fortune offered him escape, he was unable to profit by the turn in public opinion. Nothing could shake him out of that easy patience which was the chief cause of his ruin.

Marie Antoinette herself was opposed to vigorous measures. She still desired to try the effects of kindness. Learning that a legal inquiry was proposed into the events of June 20, and foreseeing that M. Hue would be called as a witness, she said to this loyal servant: "Say as little in your deposition as truth will permit. I recommend you, on the King's part and my own, to forget that we were the objects of these popular movements. Every suspicion that either the King or myself feel the least resentment for what happened must be avoided; it is not the people who are guilty, and even if it were, they would always obtain pardon and forgetfulness of their errors from us."

During this time the Assembly maintained an attitude more than equivocal. It contained a great number of honest men. But, terrorized already, it no longer possessed the courage of indignation. It grew pale before the menaces of the public. By cringing to the rabble it had attained that hypocritical optimism which is the distinctive mark of moderate revolutionists, and which makes them in turn the dupes and the victims of those who are more zealous.

If the majority of the deputies had said openly what they silently thought, they would not have hesitated to stigmatize the invasion of the Tuileries as it deserved. But in that case, what would have become of their popularity with the pikemen? And then, must they not take into account the ambitions of the Girondins, the hatreds of the Mountain party, and the rancor of Madame Roland and her friends? Was it not, moreover, a real satisfaction to the bourgeoisie to give power a lesson and humiliate a sovereign? Ah! how cruelly this pleasure will be expiated by those who take delight in it, and how they will repent some day for having permitted justice, law, and authority to be trampled under foot!

When the session of June 21 opened, Deputy Daverhoult denounced in energetic terms the violence of the previous day. Thuriot exclaimed: "Are we expected to press an inquiry against forty thousand men?" Duranton, the Minister of Justice, then read a letter from the King, dated that day, and worded thus: "Gentlemen, the National Assembly is already acquainted with the events of yesterday. Paris is doubtless in consternation; France will hear the news with astonishment and grief. I was much affected by the zeal shown for me by the National Assembly on this occasion. I leave to its prudence the task of investigating the causes of this event, weighing its circumstances, and taking the necessary measures to maintain the Constitution and assure the inviolability and constitutional liberty of the hereditary representative of the nation. For my part, nothing can prevent me, at all times and under all circumstances, from performing the duties imposed on me by the Constitution, which I have accepted in the true interests of the French nation."

A few moments after this letter had been read, the session was disturbed by a warning from the municipal agent of the department, to the effect that an armed crowd were marching towards the palace. This was soon followed by tidings that Pétion had hindered their further advance, and the mayor himself came to the Assembly to receive the laudations of his friends. "Order reigns everywhere," said he; "all precautions have been taken. The magistrates have done their duty; they will always do so, and the hour approaches when justice will be rendered them."

Pétion then went to the Tuileries, where he addressed the King nearly in these terms:—

"Sire, we learn that you have been warned of the arrival of a crowd at the palace. We come to announce that this crowd is composed of unarmed citizens who wish to set up a may-pole. I know, Sire, that the municipality has been calumniated; but its conduct will be understood by you."—"It ought to be by all France," responded Louis XVI.; "I accuse no one in particular, I saw everything."—"It will be," returned the mayor; "and but for the prudent measures taken by the municipality, much more disagreeable events might have occurred." The King attempted to reply, but Pétion, without listening to him, went on: "Not to your own person; you may well understand that it will always be respected." The King, unaccustomed to interruption when speaking, said in a loud voice: "Be silent!" There was silence for an instant, and then Louis XVI. added: "Is it what you call respecting my person to enter my house in arms, break down my doors and use force to my guards?"—"Sire," answered Pétion, "I know the extent of my duties and of my responsibility."—"Do your duty!" replied Louis XVI.; "You are answerable for the tranquillity of Paris. Adieu!" And the King turned his back on the mayor.

Pétion revenged himself that very evening, by circulating a rumor that the royal family were preparing to escape; in consequence, he requested the commanders of the National Guard to re-enforce the sentries and redouble their vigilance. The revolutionists, who had been disconcerted for a moment by popular indignation, raised their heads again. Prudhomme wrote in the Révolutions de Paris: "The Parisian people—yes, the people, not the aristocratic class of citizens—have just set a grand example to France. The King, at the instigation of Lafayette, discharged his patriotic ministers; he paralyzed by his veto the decree relative to the camp of twenty thousand men, and that on the banishment of priests. Very well! the people rose and signified to him their sovereign will that the ministers should be reinstated and these two murderous vetoes recalled.... Doubtless it will not be long before Europe will be full of a caricature representing Louis XVI. of the big paunch, covered with orders, crowned with a red cap, and drinking out of the same bottle with the sans-culottes, who are crying: 'The King is drinking, the King has drunk. He has the liberty cap on his head.' Would he might have it in his heart!"

Apropos of this red bonnet which remained for three hours on the sovereign's head, Bertrand de Molleville ventured to put some questions to Louis XVI. on the evening of June 21. According to the Memoirs of the former Minister of Marine, this is what the King replied: "The cries of 'Long live the Nation' increasing in violence and seeming to be addressed to me, I answered that the nation had no better friend than I. Then an ill-looking man, thrusting himself through the crowd, came close to me and said in a rude tone: 'Very well! if you are telling the truth, prove it to us by putting on this red cap.' 'I consent,' said I. Instantly one or two of these people advanced and placed the cap on my hair, for it was too small for my head to enter it. I was convinced, I don't know why, that their intention was simply to place this cap on my head and then retire, and I was so preoccupied with what was going on before my eyes, that I did not notice whether it was there or not. So little did I feel it that after I had returned to my chamber I did not observe that I still wore it until I was told. I was greatly astonished to find it on my head, and was all the more displeased because I could have taken it off at once without the least difficulty. But I am convinced that if I had hesitated to receive it, the drunken man by whom it was presented would have thrust his pike into my stomach."

During the same interview Bertrand de Molleville congratulated the King upon his almost miraculous escape from the dangers of the previous day. Louis XVI. replied: "All my anxieties were for the Queen, my children and my sister; because I feared nothing for myself."—"But it seems to me," rejoined his interlocutor, "that this insurrection was aimed chiefly against Your Majesty."—"I know it very well," returned Louis XVI.; "I saw clearly that they wanted to assassinate me, and I don't know why they did not do it; but I shall not escape them another day. So I have gained nothing; it is all the same whether I am assassinated now or two months from now!"—"Great God!" cried Bertrand de Molleville, "does Your Majesty believe that you will be assassinated?"—"I am convinced of it," replied the King; "I have expected it for a long time and have accustomed myself to the thought. Do you think I am afraid of death?"—"Certainly not, but I would desire Your Majesty to take vigorous measures to protect yourself from danger."—"It is possible," went on the King after a moment of reflection, "that I may escape. There are many odds against me, and I am not lucky. If I were alone I would risk one more attempt. Ah! if my wife and children were not with me, people should see that I am not so weak as they fancy. What would be their fate if the measures you propose to me did not succeed?"—"But if they assassinate Your Majesty, do you think that the Queen and her children would be in less danger?"—"Yes, I think so, and even were it otherwise, I should not have to reproach myself with being the cause."

A sort of Christian fanaticism had taken possession of the King's soul. Resigned to his fate, he ceased to struggle, and wrote to his confessor: "Come to see me to-day; I have done with men; I want nothing now but heaven."

XXII.

LAFAYETTE IN PARIS.

One of the greatest griefs of a political career is disenchantment. To pass from devout optimism to profound discouragement; to have treated as alarmists or cowards whoever perceived the least cloud on the horizon, and then to see the most formidable tempests unchained; to be obliged to recognize at one's proper cost that one has carried illusion to the verge of simplicity and has judged neither men nor things aright; to have heard distressed passengers saying that a pilot without experience or prudence is responsible for the shipwreck; to have promised the age of gold and suddenly found one's self in the age of iron, is a veritable torture for the pride and the conscience of a statesman. And this torture is still more cruel when to disappointment is added the loss of a popularity laboriously acquired; when, having been accustomed to excite nothing but enthusiasm and applause, one is all at once greeted with criticism, howls, and curses, and when, having long strutted about triumphantly on the summits of the Capitol, one sees yawning before him the gulf at the foot of the Tarpeian rock.

Such was the fate of Lafayette. A few months had sufficed to throw down the popular idol from his pedestal, and the same persons who had once almost burned incense before him, now thought of nothing but flinging him into the gutter. Stunned by his fall, Lafayette could not believe it. To familiarize himself with the fickleness, the caprices, and the inconsequence of the multitude was impossible. For him the Constitution was the sacred ark, and he did not believe that the very men who had constructed this edifice at such a cost had now nothing so much at heart as to destroy it. He would not admit that the predictions of the royalists were about to be accomplished in every point, and still desired to hold aloof from the complicities into which revolutions drag the most upright minds and the most honest characters. He who, in July, 1789, had not been able to prevent the assassination of Foulon and Berthier; who, on October 5, had marched, despite himself, against Versailles; who, on April 18, 1791, had been unable to protect the departure of the royal family to Saint Cloud; who, on the following June 21, had thought himself obliged to say to the Jacobins in their club: "I have come to rejoin you, because I think the true patriots are here," nevertheless imagined that just a year later, all that was necessary to vanquish the same Jacobins was for him to show himself and say like Cæsar: "Veni, vidi, vici."

It was only a later illusion of the generous but imprudent man who had already dreamed many dreams. He thought the popular tiger could be muzzled by persuasion. He was going to make a coup d'état, not in deeds, but in words, forgetting that the Revolution neither esteems nor fears anything but force. As M. de Larmartime has said: "One gets from factions only what one snatches." Instead of striking, Lafayette was going to speak and write. The Jacobins might have feared his sword; they despised his words and pen. But though it was not very wise, the noble audacity with which the hero of America came spontaneously to throw himself into the heat of the struggle and utter his protest in the name of right and honor, was none the less an act of courage. While with the army, that asylum of generous ideas, the sentiments on which his ancestors had prided themselves rekindled in his heart. Memories of his early youth revived anew. Doubtless he also recalled his personal obligations to Louis XVI. On his return from the United States, had he not been created major-general over the heads of a multitude of older officers? Had not the Queen accorded him at that epoch the most flattering eulogies? Had he not been received at the great receptions of May 29, 1785, when any other officer unless highly born would have remained in the OEil-de-Boeuf or paid his court in the passage of the chapel? Had he not accepted the rank of lieutenant-general from the King, on June 30, 1791? The gentleman reappeared beneath the revolutionist. The humiliation of a throne for which his ancestors had so often shed their blood caused him a real grief, and it is perhaps regrettable that Louis XVI. should have refused the hand which his recent adversary extended loyally though late.

Lafayette was encamped near Bavay with the Army of the North when the first tidings of June 20 reached him. His soul was roused to indignation, and he wanted to start at once for Paris to lift his voice against the Jacobins. Old Marshal Luckner tried in vain to restrain him by saying that the sans-culottes would have his head. Nothing could stop him. Placing his army in safety under the cannon of Maubeuge, he started with no companion but an aide-de-camp. At Soissons some persons tried to dissuade him from going further by painting a doleful picture of the dangers to which he would expose himself. He listened to nobody and went on his way. Reaching Paris in the night of June 27-28, he alighted at the house of his intimate friend, the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, who was about to play so honorable a part. As soon as morning came, Lafayette was at the door of the National Assembly, asking permission to offer the homage of his respect. This authorization having been granted, he entered the hall. The right applauded; the left kept silence. Being allowed to speak, he declared that he was the author of the letter to the Assembly of June 16, whose authenticity had been denied, and that he openly avowed responsibility for it. He then expressed himself in the sincerest terms concerning the outrages committed in the palace of the Tuileries on June 20. He said he had received from the officers, subalterns, and soldiers of his army a great number of addresses expressive of their love for the Constitution, their respect for the authorities, and their patriotic hatred against seditious men of all parties. He ended by imploring the Assembly to punish the authors or instigators of the violences committed on June 20, as guilty of treason against the nation, and to destroy a sect which encroached upon National Sovereignty, and terrorized citizens, and by their public debates removed all doubts concerning the atrocity of their projects. "In my own name and that of all honest men in the kingdom," said he in conclusion, "I entreat you to take efficacious measures to make all constitutional authorities respected, particularly your own and that of the King, and to assure the army that the Constitution will receive no injury from within, while so many brave Frenchmen are lavishing their blood to defend it on the frontiers."

Applause from the right and from some of those in the galleries began anew. The president said: "The National Assembly has sworn to maintain the Constitution. Faithful to its oath, it will be able to guarantee it against all attacks. It accords to you the honors of the session." The general went to take his seat on the right. Deputy Kersaint observed that his place was on the petitioners' bench. The general obeyed this hint and sat down modestly on the bench assigned him. Renewed applause ensued. Thereupon Guadet ascended the tribune and said in an ironic tone: "At the moment when M. Lafayette's presence in Paris was announced to me, a most consoling idea presented itself. So we have no more external enemies, thought I; the Austrians are conquered. This illusion did not last long. Our enemies remain the same. Our exterior situation is not altered, and yet M. Lafayette is in Paris! What powerful motives have brought him hither? Our internal troubles? Does he fear, then, that the National Assembly is not strong enough to repress them? He constitutes himself the organ of his army and of honest men. Where are these honest men? How has the army been able to deliberate?" Guadet concluded thus: "I demand that the Minister of War be asked whether he gave leave of absence to M. Lafayette, and that the extraordinary Committee of Twelve make a report to-morrow on the danger of granting the right of petition to generals." Ramond, one of the most courageous members of the right, was the next speaker: "Four days ago," said he, "an armed multitude asked to appear before you. Positive laws forbade such a thing, and a proclamation made by the department on the previous day recalled this law and demanded that it should be put into execution. You paid no attention, but admitted armed men into your midst. To-day M. Lafayette presents himself; he is known only by reason of his love of liberty; his life is a series of combats against despotisms of every sort; he has sacrificed his life and fortune to the Revolution. It is against this man that pretended suspicions are directed and every passion unchained. Has the National Assembly two weights and measures, then? Certainly, if respect is to be had to persons, it should be shown to this eldest son of French liberty." This eulogy exasperated the left. Deputy Saladin exclaimed: "I ask M. Ramond if he is making M. Lafayette's funeral oration?" However, the right was still in the majority. After a long tumult Guadet's motion against Lafayette was rejected by 339 votes against 234. The general left the Assembly surrounded by a numerous cortège of deputies and National Guards, and went directly to the palace of the Tuileries.

It is the decisive moment. The vote just taken may serve as the starting-point of a conservative reaction if the King will trust himself to Lafayette. But how will he receive him? The sovereign's greeting will be polite, but not cordial. The King and Queen say they are persuaded that there is no safety but in the Constitution. Louis XVI. adds that he would consider it a very fortunate thing if the Austrians were beaten without delay. Lafayette is treated with a courtesy through which suspicion pierces. When he leaves the palace, a large crowd accompany him to his house and plant a may-pole before the door. On the next day Louis XVI. was to review four thousand men of the National Guard. Lafayette had proposed to appear at this review beside the King and make a speech in favor of order. But the court does not desire the general's aid, and takes what measures it can to defeat this project. Pétion, whom it had preferred to Lafayette as mayor of Paris, countermands the review an hour before daybreak.

Perhaps Louis XVI. might have succeeded in overcoming his repugnance to Lafayette and submitted to be rescued by him. But the Queen absolutely refused to trust the man whom she considered her evil genius. She had seen him rise like a spectre at every hapless hour. He had brought her back to Paris a prisoner on the 6th of October. He had been her jailer. His apparition amid the glare of torches in the Court of the Carrousel had frozen her with terror when she was flying from her prison, the Tuileries, to begin the fatal journey to Varennes. His aides-de-camp had pursued her. He was responsible for her arrest; he was present at her humiliating and sorrowful return; the sight of his face, the sound of his voice, made her tremble; she could not hear his name without a shudder. In vain Madame Elisabeth exclaimed: "Let us forget the past and throw ourselves into the arms of the only man who can save the King and his family!" Marie Antoinette's pride revolted at the thought of owing anything to her former persecutor. Moreover, in his latest confidential communications with her, Mirabeau had said: "Madame, be on your guard against Lafayette; if ever he commands the army, he would like to keep the King in his tent." In the Queen's opinion, to rely on Lafayette would be to accept him as regent of the palace under a sluggard King. Protector for protector, she preferred Danton. Danton, who, subsidized from the civil list, accepts money without knowing whether he will fairly earn it; Danton, who, while awaiting events, had made the cynical remark that he would "save the King or kill him." Strange that the orator of the faubourgs inspired the daughter of Cæsars with less repugnance than the gentleman, the marquis. "They propose M. de Lafayette as a resource," she said to Madame Campan; "but it would be better to perish than owe our safety to the man who has done us most harm."

However, Lafayette was not yet discouraged. He wished to save the royal family in spite of themselves. He assembled several officers of the National Guard at his house. He represented to them the dangers into which the apathy of each plunged the affairs of all; he showed the urgent necessity of combining against the avowed enterprises of the anarchists, of inspiring the National Assembly with the firmness required to repress the intended attacks, and foretold the inevitable calamities which would result from the weakness and disunion of honest men. He wanted to march against the Jacobin Club and close it. But, in consequence of the instructions issued by the court, the royalists of the National Guard were indisposed to second him in this measure. Lafayette, having no one on his side but the constitutionals, an honest but scanty group who were suspected by both of the extreme parties, gave up the struggle. The next day, June 30, he beat a hasty retreat to the army, after writing to the Assembly another letter which was merely an echo of the first one. A moment since, the Jacobins were trembling. Now, they are reassured, they triumph. In his Chronique des Cinquante Jours, Roederer says: "If M. de Lafayette had had the will and ability to make a bold stroke and seize the dictatorship, reserving the power to relinquish it after the re-establishment of order, one could comprehend his coming to the Assembly with the sword of a dictator at his side; but, to show it only, without resolving to draw it from the scabbard, was a fatal imprudence. In civil commotions it will not answer to dare by halves."

XXIII.

THE LAMOURETTE KISS.

France had still its moments of enthusiasm and illusion before plunging into the abyss of woes. It seemed under an hallucination, or suffering from a sort of vertigo. A nameless frenzy, both in good and evil, agitated and disturbed it beyond measure in 1792, that year so fertile in surprises and dramas of every kind. Strange and bizarre epoch, full of love and hatred, launching itself from one extreme to the other with frightful inconstancy, now weeping with tenderness, and now howling with rage! Society resembled a drunken man who is sometimes amiable in his cups, and sometimes cruel. There were sudden halts on the road of fury, oases in the midst of scorching sands, beneath a sun whose fire consumed. But the caravan does not rest long beneath the shady trees. Quickly it resumes its course as if urged by a mysterious force, and soon the terrible simoom overwhelms and destroys it.

Madame Elisabeth wrote to Madame de Raigecourt, July 8, 1792: "It would need all Madame de Sévigné's eloquence to describe properly what happened yesterday; for it was certainly the most surprising thing, the most extraordinary, the greatest, the smallest, etc., etc. But, fortunately, experience may aid comprehension. In a word, here were Jacobins, Feuillants, republicans, and monarchists, abjuring all their discords and assembling near the tree of the Constitution and of liberty, to promise sincerely that they will act in accordance with law and not depart from it. Luckily, August is coming, the time when, the leaves being well grown, the tree of liberty will afford a more secure shelter."

What had happened on the day before Madame Elisabeth wrote this letter? There had been a very singular session of the Legislative Assembly. In the morning, a woman named Olympe de Gouges, whose mother was a dealer in second-hand clothing at Montauban, being consumed with a desire to be talked about, had caused an emphatic placard to be posted up, in which she preached concord between all parties. This placard was like a prologue to the day's session.

Among the deputies there was a certain Abbé Lamourette, the constitutional bishop of Lyons, who played at religious democracy. He was an ex-Lazarist who had been professor of theology at the Seminary at Toul. Weary of the conventual yoke, he had left his order, and at the beginning of the Revolution was the vicar-general of the diocese of Arras. He had published several works in which he sought to reconcile philosophy and religion. Mirabeau was one of his acolytes and adopted him as his theologian in ordinary. Finding him fit to "bishopize" (à evêquailler), to use his own expression, the great tribune recommended him to the electors of the Rhone department. It was thus that the Abbé Lamourette became the constitutional bishop of Lyons. After his consecration, he issued a pastoral instruction in such agreement with current ideas that Mirabeau, his protector, induced the Constituent Assembly to have it sent as a model to every department in France. In 1792, the Abbé Lamourette was fifty years old. Affable, unctuous, his mouth always full of pacific and gentle words, he naïvely preached moderation, concord, and fraternity in conversations which were like so many sermons.

For several days the discussions in the Assembly had been of unparalleled violence. Suspicion, hatred, rancor, wrath, were unchained in a fury that bordered on delirium. Right and left emulated each other in outrages and invectives. Lafayette's appearance and the fear of a foreign invasion had disturbed all minds. The National Assembly, sitting both day and night, was like an arena of gladiators fighting without truce or pity. It was this moment which the good Abbé Lamourette chose for delivering his most touching sermon from the tribune.

During the session of July 7, Brissot was about to ascend the tribune and propose new measures of public safety. Lamourette, getting before him, asked to be heard on a motion of order. He said that of all the means proposed for arresting the divisions which were destroying France, but one had been forgotten, and that the only one which could be efficacious. It was the union of all Frenchmen in one mind, the reconciliation of all the deputies, without exception. What was to prevent this? The only irreconcilable things are crime and virtue. What do all our mistrust and suspicions amount to? One party in the Assembly attributes to the other a seditious desire to destroy the monarchy. The others attribute to their colleagues a desire to destroy constitutional equality and to establish the aristocratic government known as that of the Two Chambers. These are the disastrous suspicions which divide the empire. "Very well!" cried the abbé, "let us crush both the republic and the Two Chambers." The hall rang with unanimous applause from the Assembly and the galleries. From all sides came shouts of "Yes, yes, we want nothing but the Constitution." Lamourette went on: "Let us swear to have but one mind, one sentiment. Let us swear to sink all our differences and become a homogeneous mass of freemen formidable both to the spirit of anarchy and that of feudalism. The moment when foreigners see that we desire one settled thing, and that we all desire it, will be the moment when liberty will triumph and France be saved. I ask the president to put to vote this simple proposition: That those who equally abjure and execrate the republic and the Two Chambers shall rise." At once, as if moved by the same impulse, the members of the Assembly rose as one man, and swore enthusiastically never to permit, either by the introduction of the republican system or by that of the Two Chambers, any alteration whatsoever in the Constitution.

By a spontaneous movement, the members of the extreme left went towards the deputies of the right. They were received with open arms, and, in their turn, the right advanced toward the ranks of the left. All parties blended. Jaucourt and Merlin, Albite and Ramond, Gensonné and Calvet, Chabot and Genty, men who ordinarily opposed each other relentlessly, could be seen sitting on the same bench. As if by miracle, the Assembly chamber became the temple of Concord. The moved spectators mingled their acclamations with the oaths of the deputies. According to the expressions of the Moniteur, serenity and joy were on all faces, and unction in every heart.

M. Emmery was the next speaker. "When the Assembly is reunited," said he, "all the powers ought to be so. I ask, therefore, that the Assembly at once send the King the minutes of its proceedings by a deputation of twenty-four members." The motion was adopted.

A few minutes later, Louis XVI., followed by the deputation and surrounded by his ministers, entered the hall. Cries of "Long live the nation! Long live the King!" resounded from every side. The sovereign placed himself near the president, and in a voice that betrayed emotion, made the following address: "Gentlemen, the spectacle most affecting to my heart is that of the reunion of all wills for the sake of the country's safety. I have long desired this salutary moment; my desire is accomplished. The nation and the King are one. Each of them has the same end in view. Their reunion will save France. The Constitution should be the rallying-point for all Frenchmen. We all ought to defend it. The King will always set the example of so doing." The president replied: "Sire, this memorable moment, when all constituted authorities unite, is a signal of joy to the friends of liberty, and of terror to its enemies. From this union will issue the force necessary to combat the tyrants combined against us. It is a sure warrant of liberty."

After prolonged applause a great silence followed. "I own to you, M. the President," presently said the complaisant Louis XVI., "that I was longing for the deputation to finish, so that I might hasten to the Assembly." Applause and cries of "Long live the nation! Long live the King!" redoubled. What! this monarch now acclaimed is the same prince against whom Vergniaud hurled invectives a few days ago with the enthusiastic approbation of the same Assembly! He is the sovereign whom the Girondin thus addressed: "O King, who doubtless have believed with Lysander the tyrant that truth is no better than a lie, and that men must be amused with oaths like children with rattles; who have pretended to love the laws only to preserve the power that will enable you to defy them; the Constitution only that it may not cast you from the throne where you must remain in order to destroy it; the nation only to assure the success of your perfidy by inspiring it with confidence,—do you think you can impose upon us to-day by hypocritical protestations?" What has occurred since the day when Vergniaud, uttering such words as these, was frantically cheered? Nothing. That day, the weather-cock pointed to anger; to-day to concord. Why? No one knows. Tired of hating, the Assembly doubtless needed an instant of relaxation. Violent sentiments end by wearying the souls that experience them. They must rest and renew their energies in order to hate better to-morrow. And why say to-morrow? This very evening the quarrelling, anger, and fury will begin anew.

At half-past three Louis XVI. left the Hall of the Manège, in the midst of joyful applause from the Assembly and the galleries. During the evening session discord reappeared. The following letter from the King was read: "I have just been handed the departmental decree which provisionally suspends the mayor and the procureur of the Commune of Paris. As this decree is based on facts which personally concern me, the first impulse of my heart is to beg the Assembly to decide upon it." Does any one believe that the Assembly will have the courage to condemn Pétion and the 20th of June? Not a bit of it. It makes no decision, but passes unanimously from the King's letter to the order of the day. And what occurs at the clubs? Listen to Billaud-Varennes at the Jacobins: "They embrace each other at the Assembly," he exclaims; "it is the kiss of Judas, it is the kiss of Charles IX., extending his hand to Coligny. They were embracing like this while the King was preparing for flight on October 6. They were embracing like this before the massacres of the Champ-de-Mars. They embrace, but are the court conspiracies coming to an end? Have our enemies ceased their advance against our frontiers? Is Lafayette the less a traitor?" And thereupon the cry broke out: "Pétion or death!" The next day, June 8, at the Assembly, loud applause greeted the orator from a section who said, concerning the department: "It openly serves the sinister projects and disastrous conspiracies of a perfidious court. It is the first link in the immense chain of plots formed against the people. It is an accomplice in the extravagant projects of this general, who, not being able to become the hero of liberty, has preferred to make himself the Don Quixote of the court." A deputy exclaimed: "The acclamations with which the Assembly has listened to this petition authorize me to ask its publication: I make an express motion to that effect." And the publication was decreed.

O poor Lamourette! humanitarian abbé, rose-water revolutionist, of what avail is your democratic holy water? What have you gained by your sentimental jargon? what do your dreams of evangelical philosophy and universal brotherhood amount to? Poor constitutional abbé, people are scoffing already at your sacerdotal unction, your soothing homily! The very men who, to please you, have sworn to destroy the republic, will proclaim it two and a half months later. Your famous reunion of parties, people are already shrugging their shoulders at and calling it the "baiser d'Amourette, la réconciliation normande": the calf-love kiss, the pretended reconciliation. They accuse you of having sold yourself to the court. They ridicule, they flout, and they will kill you. January 11, 1794, Fouquier-Tinville's prosecuting speech will punish you for your moderatism. You will carry your head to the scaffold, and, optimist to the end, you will say: "What is the guillotine? only a rap on the neck."

XXIV.

THE FÉTE OF THE FEDERATION IN 1792.

The fête of the Federation, which was to be celebrated July 14, was awaited with anxiety. The federates came into Paris full of the most revolutionary projects. Anxiety and anguish reigned at the Tuileries. Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, who were to be present in the Champ-de-Mars, feared to be assassinated there. The Queen's importunities decided the King to have a plastron made, to ward off a poniard thrust. Composed of fifteen thicknesses of Italian taffeta, this plastron consisted of a vest and a large belt. Madame Campan secretly tried it on the King in the chamber where Marie Antoinette was lying. Pulling Madame Campan by the dress as far as possible from the Queen's bed, Louis XVI. whispered: "It is to satisfy her that I yield; they will not assassinate me; their plan is changed; they will put me to death in another way." When the King had gone out, the Queen forced Madame Campan to tell her what he had just said. "I had divined it!" she exclaimed. "He has said this long time that all that is going on in France is an imitation of the revolution in England under Charles I. I begin to dread an impeachment for him. As for me, I am a foreigner, and they will assassinate me. What will become of my poor children?" And she fell to weeping. Madame Campan tried to administer a nervine, but the Queen refused it. "Nervous maladies," said she. "are the ailments of happy women; I no longer have them." Without her knowledge a sort of corset, in the style of her husband's plastron, had been made for her. Nothing could induce her to wear it. To those who implored her with tears to put it on, she replied: "If seditious persons assassinate me, so much the better; they will deliver me from a most sorrowful life."

The fête of the Federation was celebrated in 1792 amidst extremely tragical preoccupations. Things had changed very greatly since the fête which had excited such enthusiasm two years earlier. On July 14, 1790, the Champ-de-Mars was filled at four o'clock in the morning by a crowd delirious with joy. At eight o'clock in the morning of July 14, 1792, it was still empty. The people were said to be at the Bastille witnessing the laying of the first stone of the column to be erected on the ruins of the famous fortress. On the Champ-de-Mars there was no magnificent altar served by three hundred priests, no side benches covered by an innumerable crowd, none of that sincere and ardent joy which throbbed in every heart two years before. For the fête of 1792, eighty-three little tents, representing the departments of the kingdom, had been erected on hillocks of sand. Before each tent stood a poplar, so frail that it seemed as if a breath might blow away the tree and its tri-colored pendant. In the middle of the Champ-de-Mars were four stretchers covered with canvas painted gray which would have made a miserable decoration for a boulevard theatre. It was a so-called tomb, an honorary monument to those who had died or were about to die on the frontiers. On one side of it was the inscription: "Tremble, tyrants; we will avenge them!" The Altar of the Country could hardly be seen. It was formed of a truncated column placed on the top of the altar steps raised in 1790. Perfumes were burned on the four small corner altars. Two hundred yards farther off, near the Seine, a large tree had been set up and named the Tree of Feudalism. From its branches depended escutcheons, helmets, and blue ribbons interwoven with chains. This tree rose out of a wood-pile on which lay a heap of crowns, tiaras, cardinals' hats, Saint Peter's keys, ermine mantles, doctors' caps, and titles of nobility. A royal crown was among them, and beside it the escutcheons of the Count de Provence, the Count d'Artois, and the Prince de Condé. The organizers of the fête hoped to induce the King himself to set fire to this pile, covered with feudal emblems. A figure representing Liberty, and another representing Law, were placed on casters by the aid of which the two divinities were to be rolled about. Fifty-four pieces of cannon bordered the Champ-de-Mars on the side next the Seine, and the Phrygian cap crowned every tree.

At eleven in the morning the King and his cortège arrived at the Military School. A detachment of cavalry opened the march. There were three carriages. In the first were the Prince de Poix, the Marquis de Brézé, and the Count de Saint-Priest; in the second, the Queen's ladies, Mesdames de Tarente, de la Roche-Aymon, de Maillé, and de Mackau; in the third, the King, the Queen, their two children, and Madame Elisabeth. The trumpets sounded and the drums beat a salute. A salvo of artillery announced the arrival of the royal family. The sovereign's countenance was mild and benevolent. Marie Antoinette appeared still more majestic than usual. The dignity of her demeanor, the grace of her children, and the angelic charm of Madame Elisabeth inspired a tender respect. The little Dauphin wore the uniform of a National Guard. "He has not deserved the cap yet," said the Queen to the grenadiers.

The royal family took their places on the balcony of the Military School, which was covered with a red velvet carpet embroidered with gold, and watched the popular procession, entering the Champ-de-Mars by the gate of the rue de Grenelle, and marching towards the Altar of the Country. What a strange procession! Men, women, children, armed with pikes, sticks, and hatchets; bands singing the Ça ira; drunken harlots, adorned with flowers; people from the faubourgs with the inscription, "Long live Pétion!" chalked on their head-gear; six legions of National Guards marching pell-mell with the sans-culottes; red caps; placards with devices either ferocious or stupid, like this one: "Long live the heroes who died in the siege of the Bastille!" a plan in relief of the celebrated fortress; a travelling printing-press throwing off copies of the revolutionary manifesto, which the crowd at first mistook for a little guillotine; a great deal of noise and shouting,—and there you have the popular cortège. By way of compensation, the troops of the line and the grenadiers of the National Guard displayed extremely royalist sentiments. The 104th regiment of infantry having halted under the balcony, its band played the air: Où peut-on être mieux qu'au sein de sa famille? (Where is one better off than in the bosom of his family?)

The moment when Louis XVI. left the Military School to walk to the Altar of the Country with the National Assembly was not without solemnity. A certain anxiety was felt by all as to what might happen. Would Louis XVI. be struck by a ball or by a poniard? What might not be feared from so many demoniacs, howling like cannibals? The King, the deputies, the soldiers, the crowd, all pressed against each other in a solid mass that left no vacant spaces; all was in continual undulation. Louis XVI. could only advance slowly and with difficulty. The intervention of the troops was necessary to enable him to reach the Altar of the Country, where he was to swear allegiance for the second time to the Constitution whose fragments were to overwhelm his throne. "It needed the character of Louis XVI.," Madame de Staël has said, "it needed that martyr character which he never belied, to support such a situation as he did. His gait, his countenance, had something peculiar to himself; on other occasions one might have wished he had more grandeur; but at this moment it was enough for him to remain what he was in order to appear sublime. From a distance I watched his powdered head in the midst of all those black ones; his coat, still embroidered as it had been in former days, stood out against the costumes of the common people who pressed around him. When he ascended the steps of the altar, one seemed to behold the sacred victim offering himself in voluntary sacrifice."

The Queen had remained on the balcony of the Military School. From there she watched through a lorgnette the dangerous progress of the King. A prey to inexpressible emotion, she remained motionless during an entire hour, hardly able to breathe on account of excessive anguish. She used the lorgnette steadily, but at one moment she cried out: "He has come down two steps!" This cry made all those about her shudder. The King could not, in fact, reach the summit of the altar, because a throng of suspicious-looking persons had already taken possession of it.

Deputy Dumas had the presence of mind to cry out: "Attention, Grenadiers! present arms!" The intimidated sans-culottes remained quiet, and Louis XVI. took the oath amid the thundering of the cannon ranged beside the Seine.

It was then proposed to the King that he should set fire to the Tree of Feudalism; it was close to the river and the arms of France were hung upon it. Louis XVI. spared himself that shame, exclaiming, "There is no more feudalism!" He returned to the Military School by the way he came. The 6th legion of the National Guard had not yet marched past when the cavalry announced the King's approach. This legion, quickening its pace, was intercepted by the royal escort, and invaded, not to say routed, by the populace, which from all sides pressed into its ranks.

Meanwhile the anguish of Marie Antoinette redoubled. "The expression of the Queen's face," Madame de Staël says again, "will never be effaced from my memory. Her eyes were drowned in tears; the splendor of her toilette, the dignity of her demeanor, contrasted with the throng that surrounded her. Nothing separated her from the populace but a few National Guards; the armed men assembled in the Champ-de-Mars seemed more as if they had come together for a riot than for a festival." Pétion, who had been reinstated in his functions as mayor of Paris on the previous day, was the hero of the occasion. They called him King Pétion, and the cheers which resounded in honor of this revolutionist were like a funeral knell in the ears of Marie Antoinette.

At last Louis XVI. appeared in front of the Military School. The Queen experienced a momentary joy in seeing him approach. Rising hastily, she ran down the stairs to meet him. Always calm, the King tenderly clasped his wife's hand. At once royalist sentiment took fire. All who were present—National Guards, troops of the line, Switzers, people in the courts, at the windows, on balconies and gates—all cried: "Long live the King! Long live the Queen!" The royal family regained the Tuileries in the midst of acclamations. At the entrance of the palace enthusiasm deepened. From the Royal Court to the great stairway of the Horloge Pavilion, the grenadiers of the National Guard, who had escorted and saved the King, formed into line with shouts of joy.

"All former souvenirs," says the Count de Vaublanc in his Memoirs, "all former habits of respect then awoke.... Yes, I saw and observed this multitude; it was animated with the best sentiments; at heart it was faithful to its King and crowned him with sincere benedictions. But do popular love and fidelity afford any support to a tottering throne? He is mad who can think so. The people will be spectators of the latest combat and will applaud the victor. And let no one blame them! What can they do if they are not united, encouraged, and led? The people behold a few seditious individuals attack a throne, and a few courageous men defend it; they fear one party and desire the success of the other. When the struggle is over, they submit and obey. The most honest of them weep in silence, the timid force themselves to display a guilty joy in order to escape the hatred of the victors whom they see bathing themselves in blood. They think about their families, their affairs, their means of support. They were not expected to lead themselves; that duty was imposed on others; have they fulfilled it?"

It is said that during the fête those who were friendly to the King, amongst the crowd, were awaiting a signal they expected from him. They hoped that, by the assistance of the Swiss, they could force their way to the royal family during the confusion of a hand-to-hand affray, and get them safely out of Paris. But Louis XVI. neither spoke nor acted. He returned to his palace without having dared anything. And, nevertheless, there were still many chances of safety open. Imagine the effect of a haughty bearing, a commanding gesture in place of the inert attitude habitual to the unfortunate sovereign. Fancy the Most Christian King, the heir of Louis XIV., on horseback, haranguing the people in the style of his witty and valiant ancestor, Henry IV.! He is still King. The troops of the line are faithful. The great majority of the National Guard are well-disposed towards him. Luckner, Lafayette, Dumouriez himself, would ask nothing better than to defend him if he would show a little energy.

The day after the ceremony of July 14, Lafayette was still anxious that Louis XVI. should leave Paris openly and go to Compiègne, so as to show France and Europe that he was free. In case of resistance, the general demanded only fifty loyal cavaliers to take the royal family away. From Compiègne, picked squadrons would conduct them to the midst of the French army, the asylum of devotion and honor. But Louis XVI. refused. The last resources remaining to him were to evaporate between his hands. He will profit neither by the sympathies of all European courts, which ardently desire his safety; by his civil list, which might be such an efficacious means of action; nor by the loyalty of his brave soldiers, who are ready to shed their last drop of blood in his defence. A large party in the Legislative Assembly would ask nothing but a signal, providing it were seriously given, to rally with vigor to the royal cause. He had intrepid champions there whom no menace could affright, and who on every occasion, no matter how violent or tumultuous the galleries might be, had braved the storm with heroic constancy. Public opinion was changing for the better. The schemes and language of the Jacobins exasperated the mass of honest people. The provinces were sending addresses of fidelity to the King.

What was lacking to the monarch to enable him to combine so many scattered elements into a solid group? A little will, a little of that essential quality, audacity, which, according to Danton, is the last word of politics. But Louis XVI. has a timorous soul. If he makes one step forward, he is in haste to make another back. He is scrupulous, hesitating; he has no confidence in himself or any one else. This prince, so incontestably courageous, acts as if he were a coward. He has made so many concessions already that the idea of any manner of resistance seems to him chimerical. Does the fate of Charles I. make him dread the beginning of civil war as the supreme danger? Does he fear to imperil the lives of his wife and children by an energetic deed? Is he expecting foreign aid? Does he think to prove his wisdom by his patience, and that success will crown delay? Is he so benevolent, so gentle, that the least thought of repression is repugnant to him? Does he wish to carry to extremes that pardon of injuries which is recommended by the Gospel? What is plain is, that he rejects every firm resolution.

Palliatives, expedients, half-measures, were what suited this honest but feeble nature. Disturbed by contradictory councils, and no longer knowing what to desire or what to hope, he looked on at his own destruction like an unmoved spectator. He was no longer a sovereign full of the sentiment of his power and his rights, but an almost unconscious victim of fatality. Example full of startling lessons for all leaders of state who adopt weakness as a system, and who, under pretext of benevolence or moderation, no longer know how to foresee, to will, or to strike!

XXV.

THE LAST DAYS AT THE TUILERIES.

During one of the last nights of July, at one o'clock, Madame Campan was alone near the Queen's bed, when she heard some one walking softly in the adjoining corridor, which was ordinarily locked at both ends. Madame Campan summoned the valet-de-chambre, who went into the corridor; presently the noise of two men fighting reached the ears of Marie Antoinette. "What a position!" cried the unfortunate Queen. "Insults by day and assassins by night!" The valet cried: "Madame, it is a scoundrel whom I know; I am holding him."—"Let him go," said the Queen. "Open the door for him; he came to assassinate me; he will be carried in triumph by the Jacobins to-morrow."

People were constantly saying that the Faubourg Saint-Antoine was getting ready to march against the palace. Marie Antoinette was so badly guarded, and it was so easy to force an entrance to her apartment on the ground-floor, opposite the garden, that Madame de Tourzel, her children's governess, begged her to sleep in the Dauphin's room on the first floor. The Queen was averse to this step, as she was unwilling to have any one suspect her uneasiness. But Madame de Tourzel having shown her that it would be easy to keep the secret of this change by using the Dauphin's private staircase, she ended by accepting the proposal so long as the trouble should last. She was so thoughtful of all those in her service that it cost her much to incommode them in the least. Finally, she consented to use the bed of the governess, and a pallet was laid for the latter every evening. Mademoiselle Pauline de Tourzel slept on a sofa in an adjoining closet. As no one in the house suspected that the Queen might have changed her apartment for the night, Madame de Tourzel and her daughter took precautionary measures. When the Queen had gone to bed, they rose, and after making sure that the doors were locked, they shot the inside bolts. "The closet I occupied served as a passage for the royal family when they went to supper," says Mademoiselle de Tourzel, afterwards Madame de Béarn, in her Souvenirs de Quarante Ans; "I went to bed early; sometimes I pretended to be asleep when the Princes were passing through, and I saw them approach my sofa, one after another; I heard their expressions of kindness and good will toward me, and noticed what care they took not to disturb my slumber."

Poor Marie Antoinette! Could one believe that a Queen of France would be reduced to keeping a little dog in her bedroom to warn her of the least noise in her apartment? The Dauphin, delighted to have his mother sleep so near him, used to run to her as soon as he awoke, and clasping her in his little arms would say the most affectionate things. This was the only moment of the day that brought her any consolation.

By the end of July, both the Queen and her children were obliged to give up walking in the garden. She had gone out to take the air with her daughter in the Dauphin's small parterre at the extreme end of the Tuileries, close to the Place Louis XV. Some federates grossly insulted her. Four Swiss officers made their way through the crowd, and placing the Queen and the young Princess between them, brought them back to the palace. When she reached her apartments, Marie Antoinette thanked her defenders in the most affecting terms, but she never went out again.

After June 20, the garden, excepting the terrace of the Feuillants, which, by a decree of the Assembly, had become a part of its precincts, had been forbidden to the populace. Posters warned the people to remain on the terrace and not go down into the garden. The terrace was called National Ground, and the garden the Land of Coblentz. Inscriptions apprised passers-by of this novel topography. Tri-colored ribbons had been tied to the banisters of the staircases by way of barriers. Placards were fastened at intervals to the trees bordering the terrace, whereon could be read: "Citizens, respect yourselves; give the force of bayonets to this feeble barrier. Citizens, do not go into this foreign land, this Coblentz, abode of corruption." The leaders had such an empire over the crowd that no one disobeyed. And yet it was the height of summer, the trees offered their verdant shade, and the King had withdrawn all his guards and opened every gate. Nobody dared infringe the revolutionary mandate. One young man, paying no attention, went down into the garden. Furious clamors broke out on all sides. "To the lamp-post with him!" cried some one on the terrace. Thereupon the young man, taking off his shoes, drew out his handkerchief and began to wipe the dust from their soles. People cried bravo, and he was carried in triumph.

Marie Antoinette could not become resigned to this hatred. Often she frightened her women by wishing to go out of the palace and address the people. "Yes," she would cry, her voice trembling, as she walked quickly to and fro in her chamber, "yes, I will say to them: Frenchmen, they have had the cruelty to persuade you that I do not love France, I, the wife of its King and the mother of a Dauphin!" Then, this brief moment of generous exaltation over, the illusion of being able to move a nation of insulters quickly vanished. Her life was a daily, hourly struggle. The wife, the mother, the queen, never ceased to contend against destiny. She hardly slept or ate; but from the very excess of danger she drew additional energy, and moral and material force. As she awoke at daybreak, she required that the shutters should not be closed, so that her sleepless nights might be sooner consoled by the light of morning. The most widely diverse sentiments occupied her soul. A captive in her palace, she sometimes believed herself irrevocably condemned by fate, and sometimes hoped for deliverance.

Toward the middle of one of the last nights preceding the 10th of August, the moon shone into her bedchamber. "In a month," she said to Madame Campan, "I shall not see that moon unless I am freed from my chains." But she was not free from anxiety concerning all that might happen before that. "The King is not a poltroon," she added; "he has very great passive courage, but he is crushed by a false shame, a doubt of himself, which arises from his education quite as much as from his character. He is afraid of commanding; he dreads above everything to speak to assemblages of men. He lived uneasily and like a child, under the eyes of Louis XV. until he was twenty, and this constraint has had an effect on his timidity. In our circumstances, a few clearly spoken words addressed to the Parisians who are devoted to us would immensely strengthen our party, but he will not say them." Then Marie Antoinette explained why she did not put herself forward more: "For my part," said she, "I could act, and mount a horse if need were; but, if I acted, it would put weapons into the hands of King's enemies; a general outcry would be raised in France against the Austrian woman, against female domination; moreover, I should reduce the King to nothingness by showing myself. A queen who is not regent must in such circumstances remain inactive and prepare to die."

The danger constantly increased. At four in the morning of one of the last days of July, warning was given at the palace that the faubourgs were threatening, and would doubtless march against the Tuileries. Madame Campan went very softly into the Queen's room. For a wonder, Marie Antoinette was sleeping peacefully and profoundly. Madame Campan did not rouse her. "You were right," said Louis XVI.; "it is good to see her take a little rest. Oh! her griefs redouble mine!" At her waking the Queen, on being informed of what had passed, began to weep, and said: "Why was I not called?" Madame Campan excused herself by saying: "It was only a false alarm. Your Majesty needed to repair your prostrate strength."—"It is not prostrate," quickly replied the courageous sovereign; "misfortune makes it all the greater. Elisabeth was with the King, and I was sleeping! I, who wish to perish beside him! I am his wife; I am not willing that he should incur the least danger without me!"

On Sunday, August 5,—the last Sunday the royal family were to spend at the Tuileries,—as they were going to the chapel to hear Mass, half the National Guards on duty cried: "Long live the King!" The others said: "No, no; no King, down with the veto!" The same day, at Vespers, the chanters had agreed to swell their tones greatly, and in a menacing way, when reciting this versicle of the Magnificat: Deposuit potentes de sede—"He hath put down the mighty from their seat." In their turn the royalists, after the Dominum salvum fac regem, cried thrice, turning as they did so toward the Queen: Et reginam. There was a continual murmuring all through the divine office. Five days later, the same chapel was to be a pool of blood.

And yet Madame Elisabeth, always calm and always angelic, still had illusions. One morning of this terrible month of August, while in her room in the Pavilion of Flora, she thought she heard some one humming her favorite air, Pauvre Jacques, beneath her windows. Attracted by this refrain, which in the midst of sorrow renewed the souvenir of happier times, she half opened her window and listened attentively. The words sung were not those of the ballad she loved, yet they were royalist in sentiment and adapted to the same air. The poor people had been substituted for poor Jack—the poor people who were pitied for having a king no longer and for knowing nothing but wretchedness. Such marks of attachment consoled the virtuous Princess, and made her hope against all hope. She wrote, August 8, to her friend Madame de Raigecourt: "They say that the King is going to be turned out of here somewhat forcibly, and made to lodge in the Hôtel-de-Ville. They say that there will be a very strong movement to that effect in Paris. Do you believe it? For my part, I do not. I believe in rumors, but not in their resulting in anything. That is my profession of faith. For the rest, everything is perfectly quiet to-day. Yesterday passed in the same way, and I think this one will be like it." On August 9, the eve of the fatal day, Madame Elisabeth again addressed a reassuring letter to one of her friends, Madame de Bombelles. Curiously enough she dated this letter August 10, no doubt by accident, and when Madame de Bombelles received it, she read these lines, which seem like the irony of fate: "This day of the 10th, which was to have been so exciting, so terrible, is as calm as possible; the Assembly has decreed neither deposition nor suspension."

XXVI.

THE PROLOGUE TO THE TENTH OF AUGUST.

The first rumblings of the storm began. People quarrelled and fought in the Palais Royal, the cafés, and the theatres. Half of the National Guard sided with the court, and the other half with the people. To seditious speeches were added songs full of insults to the King and Queen. These songs, sold on every corner, applauded in every tavern, and repeated by the wives and children of the people, propagated revolutionary fury. There was a constant succession of gatherings, brawls, and riots. The Assembly had declared the country in danger. Rumors of every sort excited popular imagination. It was said that priests who refused the oath were in hiding at the Tuileries, which was, moreover, full of arms and munitions. The Duke of Brunswick's manifesto exasperated national sentiment. It was read aloud in every street. The leaders neglected nothing likely to excite the populace, and prepared their last attack on the throne, their afterpiece of June 20, with as much audacity as skill.

In order to subdue the court, it was necessary to destroy its only remaining means of defence. To leave plenty of elbow-room for the riot, the Assembly, on July 15, ordered the troops of the line to be sent some thirty-five miles beyond Paris and kept there. A singular means was devised for breaking up the choice troops of the National Guard, who were royalists. They were told that it was contrary to equality for certain citizens to be more brilliantly equipped than others; that a bearskin cap humiliated those who were entitled only to a felt one; and that there was a something aristocratic about the name of grenadier which was really intolerable to a simple foot-soldier. The choice troops were dissolved in consequence, and the grenadiers came to the Assembly like good patriots to lay down their epaulettes and bearskin caps and assume the red cap. On July 30, the National Guard was reconstructed, by taking in all the vagabonds and bandits that the clubs could muster.

The famous federates of Marseilles, who were to take such an active part in the coming insurrection, arrived in Paris the same day. The Girondins, having failed to obtain their camp of twenty thousand men before Paris, had devised instead of it a reunion of federate volunteers, summoned from every part of France. The roads were at once thronged by future rioters whom the Assembly allowed thirty cents a day.

The Jacobins of Brest and Marseilles distinguished themselves. Instead of a handful of volunteers they sent two battalions. That of Marseilles, recruited by Barbaroux, comprised five hundred men and two pieces of artillery. Starting July 5, it entered Paris July 30. Excited to fanaticism by the sun and the declamations of the southern clubs, it had run over France, been received under triumphal arches, and chanted in a sort of frenzy the terrible stanzas of Rouget de l'Isle's new hymn, the Marseillaise. It was at this time that Blanc Gilli, deputy from the Bouches du Rhone department to the Legislative Assembly, wrote: "These pretended Marseillais are the scum of the jails of Genoa, Piedmont, Sicily, and of all Italy, Spain, the Archipelago, and Barbary. I run across them every day." Rouget de l'Isle received from his old mother, a royalist and Catholic at heart, a letter in which she said: "What is this revolutionary hymn which a horde of brigands are singing as they pass through France, and in which your name is mixed up?" At Paris the accents of that terrible melody sounded like strokes of the tocsin. The men who sang it filled the conservatives with terror. They wore woollen cockades and insulted as aristocrats those who wore silk ones.

There was no longer any dike to the torrent. August 1, Louis XVI. nominated a cabinet composed of loyal men: Joly was Minister of Justice; Champion de Villeneuve, of the Interior; Bigot de Sainte-Croix, of Foreign Affairs; Du Bouchage, of the Marine; Leroux de la Ville, of Public Taxes; and D'Abancourt, of War. But this ministry was to last only ten days. Certain petitioners at the bar of the Assembly asked for the deposition of the King in most violent language. "This measure," says Barbaroux in his Memoirs, "would have carried Philippe of Orléans to the regency, and therefore his party violently clamored for it. His creditors, his hirelings, and boon-companions, Marat and his Cordeliers, all manner of swindlers and insolvent debtors, thronged public places and incited to this deposition because they were hungry for money and positions under a regent who was their tool and their accomplice."

In vain did Louis XVI. display those sentiments of paternal kindness which had hitherto availed him so little. August 3, he sent a message to the Assembly, in which he said: "I will uphold national independence to my latest breath. Personal dangers are nothing compared to public ones. Oh! what are personal dangers to a King whom men are seeking to deprive of his people's love? This is the real plague-spot in my heart. Perhaps the people will some day know how dear their welfare is to me. How many of my sorrows could be obliterated by the least evidence of a return to right feeling!"