PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.
Its History--Louis XV.--Fireworks--The Catastrophe in 1770--Place de la
Révolution--Louis XVI.--The Directory.
The Rue Royale, a continuation of the Boulevard de la Madeleine,
leading to the Place de la Concorde, was the scene of some of the most
violent outrages on the part of the Communists in May, 1871. Here, as
in the neighbouring Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, a number of houses
were deliberately set on fire, when some thirty persons perished in
the flames. It was said, at the time, that the firemen employed to
extinguish the conflagration were bribed by members of the Commune to
replace the water in their pumps by petroleum.
The Place de la Concorde, the finest of the many fine squares and open
spaces in Paris, covers an area of 400 yards in length, by 235 yards
in width. It is bounded on the south by the Seine, on the west by the
Champs Élysées, on the north by the Rue de Rivoli (at right angles with
the Rue Royale), and on the east by the Tuileries Gardens. From the
centre of the Place may be seen the Madeleine at the further end of
the Rue Royale; the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies just across the
river, which is here traversed by the Pont de la Concorde; the Louvre on
the one hand, and on the other, at the end of the Champs Élysées, the
Triumphal Arch (Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile).
At night the views from the Place de la Concorde are more striking
even than by day; the Avenue of the Champs Élysées, more than a mile
in length, leading in a straight line from the Place de la Concorde to
the Triumphal Arch, presenting, with its seemingly interminable rows of
lamps, a fairy-like spectacle.
The history of the Place de la Concorde is quite modern. Its present
name dates only from the Revolution; its creation from no further back
than the year 1748.
Louis XV., called _le bien-aimé_, had fallen ill at Metz, and the people
regarding him, after the ruinously extravagant reign of his predecessor,
Louis XIV., as a merciful sovereign, hurried in crowds to the churches,
imploring heaven for the King's recovery. "What have I done to be thus
beloved?" asked the young monarch, with astonishment; and his eyes
moistened with tears--"the only ones," says an apparently well-informed
historian, "he ever let fall."
Louis XV. recovered and came back to Paris; and it was then that the
Town Council voted with enthusiasm an equestrian statue to the sovereign
whom it had pleased heaven to spare. The King, on his side, presented
to the city a large open piece of ground at the end of the Tuileries
Gardens, and in the centre of this plain the first stone was laid of the
monument which was to celebrate the virtues of Louis the Well-beloved.
This statue, according to the fashion of the time, represented the King
in Roman costume with a crown of laurels on his head; and, among other
devices, personifications of Strength, Wisdom, Justice, and Peace were
made to figure at the corners of the pedestal, which gave rise to the
following epigram:--
"Oh! la belle statue! oh! le beau piédestal!
Les vertus sont à pied, le vice est à cheval;"
which may be thus turned into English:--
"Fit statue, fitter pedestal! with laughter burst your sides,
The virtues all below on foot, while vice triumphant rides!"
Another satirist wrote:--
"Il est ici comme à Versailles;
Il est sans coeur et sans entrailles."
or, to give something like an equivalent in English:--
"Here have set up the builders with their trowels
A King of brass who's neither heart nor bowels."
A philosopher who seems to have foreseen what he fancied was by no
means apparent to Louis XV.--that the ancient _régime_ was coming to
an end--placed a bandage round the eyes of the statue with these words
inscribed on it:--
"Have pity on a poor blind man!"
This, however, is inconsistent with the tradition which attributes to
him the saying, more generally believed to have been Metternich's,
"Après moi le déluge!"
[Illustration: THE MADELEINE.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MADELEINE.]
The open space was now to be marked in by ornamental limits; and
the architects were working at the railings and walls, when, on the
night of the 30th of May, 1770, a frightful catastrophe took place.
To celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XVI., with
the Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, the town of Paris had
prepared a magnificent fête, of which the principal attraction was to
be a display of fireworks under the direction of the famous Italian
pyrotechnist, Ruggieri, perfecter of an art first introduced into France
(like so many others) by his ingenious countrymen. Three centuries
earlier, in 1465, it should be said, when fireworks were for the first
time seen in France, much excitement and some accidents, though no
fatal ones, were in like manner caused. After the battle of Montléhry,
when the troops of Louis XI. retired to Corbeil, and the great noblemen
who had been leagued against him to Étampes, the Duke of Berri and the
Comte de Charolais took their places at the window of a house in the
last-named town and looked out together on the soldiers and the mob
who filled the streets. Suddenly a dart of fire was seen flashing and
curling in the air, which, taking the direction of the window where
the prince and the count were seated, struck against it with a violent
explosion. The two noblemen were filled with alarm, and the Comte de
Charolais in his fright ordered the Seigneur Contay to call out all the
troops of the household, the archers of his body-guard, and others. The
Duke of Berri gave like orders to all the troops under his command;
and in a few minutes two or three bodies of armed men, with a great
number of archers, were seen in front of the residence, making every
endeavour to find out whence the marvellous and terrible apparition
of fire could have proceeded. It was regarded as a diabolical device
magically directed against the persons of the Comte de Charolais and
the Duke of Berri. After close investigation it was discovered that the
author of the marvel productive of so much alarm was a Breton known as
Jean Boute-Feu, otherwise Jean des Serpents, so called from his having
invented the kind of firework which still bears the name of "serpent."
Jean threw himself at the feet of the princes, confessed to them that he
had indeed fired rockets into the air, but added that his intention had
been to amuse, not injure, them. Then, to prove that his fireworks were
harmless, he let off three or four of them in presence of the princes,
which quite destroyed the suspicions formed against him. Everyone now
began to laugh. Much trepidation had meanwhile been caused by a very
trifling incident.
But let us return to the year 1770 and the fête on the Place Louis XV.
All was going well, when suddenly a gust of wind blew down among the
crowd some rockets only partially exploded. Fireworks, like so many
inventions of Italian origin, were still, to the mass of the French
public, a comparative novelty; and this, together with the positive
inconvenience and even danger of a fall of blazing missiles in the midst
of thousands of excited and closely-packed spectators, was quite enough
to account for the terrible confusion, resulting in many hundreds of
fatal accidents, which now ensued.
There was, in the first place, a general rush towards the Rue Royale,
far too narrow to receive such an invasion; and in the crush numbers
of women fainted, fell, and were trampled to death. To make matters
worse the stream of persons pressing into the Rue Royale was met by a
counter-stream, advancing, in ignorance of what had taken place, to the
Place de la Concorde. Even these, who were not in imminent peril, were
now affected by a panic which soon became universal. In the midst of
shrieks and groans some desperate men drew their swords and endeavoured
to cut for themselves a passage through the dense mass by which they
were surrounded. "I know many persons," says Mercier, in his "Tableau
de Paris," "who thirty months after these frightful scenes still bore
the marks of objects which had been crushed into them. Some lingered on
for ten years and then died. I may say without exaggeration that in the
general panic and crush more than twelve hundred unfortunate persons
lost their lives. One entire family disappeared; and there was scarcely
a household which had not to lament the death of a relative or friend."
On the other hand the official returns put down the deaths at 133,
already an immense number.
Seven years later, in 1777, the Place Louis XV. was the scene of
a further mishap. Certain strolling players, jugglers, and other
mountebanks had established in the open space an annual fair known as
the Fair of St. Ovid, which became such a nuisance to the aristocratic
residents in the neighbourhood that a petition was presented to the
Government for its suppression; when suddenly one evening the booths and
theatres took fire. The conflagration became general, and the Fair of
St. Ovid perished in the flames.
The next incident of importance which took place on the great Place
was important indeed. It was nothing less than the destruction of
Louis XV.'s statue, which on the 11th of August, 1792, the day after
the capture of the Tuileries, was removed by order of the Legislative
Assembly, melted down, and converted into pieces of two sous. The
statue of the king was replaced by a statue of Liberty, which, being
made in terra-cotta, was called by the anti-Revolutionists the "Liberty
of Mud." The Place was now named Place de la Révolution. Place de la
Guillotine it might more fitly have been called, for it was here that
the instrument of punishment, of vengeance, and often of simple hatred,
was erected, to begin its horrid work, on the 21st of January, 1793, by
the decapitation of Louis XVI.
The unhappy monarch had been brought along the whole line of boulevards
from the prison of the Temple, close to the Place de la Bastille, at
one extremity, to the Place de la Révolution at the other. These two
opposite points mark in a certain way the beginning and the end of the
Revolution. Its first heroic act was the taking of the Bastille; the
cruel deeds which marked its close had for their scene the former Place
Louis XV., which the Revolution had now named after itself.
The last moments of Louis XVI. have often been described, but never in
so simple, touching, and direct a manner as by the Abbé Edgeworth, who
accompanied the king to the scaffold, and at the fatal moment was by his
side. He afterwards wrote in the French language an account of what he
had witnessed, from which some of the most striking passages may here be
reproduced.
"The fate of the king," he says, "was as yet undecided, when M. de
Malesherbes, to whom I had not the honour of being personally known and
who could neither ask me to his house nor come to mine, requested me
to meet him at Mme. de Senosan's house, where I accordingly waited on
him. There M. de Malesherbes delivered to me a message from the king
signifying the wish of that unfortunate monarch that I should attend
him in his last moments, if the atrocity of his subjects should be
contented with nothing less than his death. This message was conveyed
in terms which I should have thought it my duty to suppress if they did
not demonstrate the excellence of the prince whose end I am going to
relate. He carried the delicacy of his expressions so far as to ask as
a _favour_ the services he had a right to demand from me as a duty. He
claimed them as the last proof of my attachment. He hoped that I would
not refuse him. He added that if the danger to which I must be exposed
should appear to me too great he would beg me to name another clergyman.
This was not to be thought of, and on being admitted to the prison I
fell at the king's feet without the power of utterance. The king was
much moved, but soon began to answer my tears with his own."
A high official from whom the Abbé Edgeworth had requested permission
to administer the Sacrament replied that he deemed the request of the
Abbé and that of Louis Capet conformable to the law, which declared
all forms of worship to be free. "Nevertheless," added the official,
"there are two conditions. The first is that you draw up instantly an
address containing your demand signed by yourself; the second, that your
religious ceremonies be concluded by 7 o'clock to-morrow at latest, for
at 8 precisely Louis Capet must set out for the place of execution."
"These last words," writes the Abbé, "were said, like all the rest, with
a degree of cold-blooded indifference which characterised an atrocious
mind. I put my request in writing and left it on the table. They
re-conducted me to the King, who awaited with anxiety the conclusion of
this affair. The summary account which I gave him, in which I suppressed
all particulars, pleased him extremely. It was now past ten o'clock,
and I remained with the King till the night was far advanced, when,
perceiving he was fatigued, I requested him to take some repose. He
replied with his accustomed kindness, and charged me to lie down also.
I went, by his desire, into a little closet which Cléry occupied, and
which was separated from the King's chamber only by a thin partition;
and while I was occupied with the most overwhelming thoughts I heard
the King tranquilly giving directions for the next day, after which
he lay down on his bed. At five o'clock he rose and dressed as usual.
Soon afterwards he sent for me, and I attended him for nearly an hour
in the cabinet, where he had received me the evening before. I found
an altar completely prepared in the King's apartment. The commissaries
had executed to the letter everything that I had required of them.
They had even done more than I had asked, I having only demanded what
was indispensable. The King heard Mass. He knelt on the ground without
cushion or desk. He then received the Sacrament, after which ceremony I
left him for a short time at his prayers. He soon sent for me again, and
I found him seated near his stove, where he could scarcely warm himself.
'My God,' said he, 'how happy I am in the possession of my religious
principles! Without them what should I now be? But with them how sweet
death appears to me! Yes, there dwells on high an uncorruptible Judge
from Whom I shall receive the justice refused to me on earth!' The
sacred offices I performed at this time prevent my relating more than
a few sentences out of many interesting conversations which the King
held with me during the last sixteen hours of his life; but by the
little that I have told it may be seen how much might be added if it
were consistent with my duty to say more. Day began to dawn, and the
drums sounded in all the quarters of Paris. An extraordinary movement
was heard in the tower--it seemed to freeze the blood in my veins. But
the King, more calm than I was, after listening to it for a moment, said
to me without emotion: 'It is probably the National Guard beginning to
assemble.' In a short time detachments of cavalry entered the court of
the Temple, and the voices of officers and the trampling of horses were
distinctly heard. The King listened again and said to me with the same
composure: 'They seem to be approaching.' On taking leave of the Queen
the evening before he had promised to see her again next day, and he
wished earnestly to keep his word; but I entreated him not to put the
Queen to a trial under which she must sink. He hesitated a moment, and
then, with an expression of profound grief, said: 'You are right, sir,
it would kill her. I must deprive myself of this melancholy consolation
and let her indulge in hope a few moments longer.' From seven o'clock
till eight various persons came frequently, under different pretences,
to knock at the door of the cabinet, and each time I trembled lest it
should be the last. But the King, with more firmness, rose without
emotion, went to the door and quietly answered the people who thus
interrupted us. I do not know who these men were; but amongst them
was one of the greatest monsters that the Revolution had produced. I
heard him say to his King, in a tone of mockery, I know not on what
subject: 'Oh, that was very well once, but you are not on the throne
now.' His Majesty did not answer a word, but returned to me, contenting
himself with saying, 'See how these people treat me. But I know how
to endure everything.' Another time, after having answered one of the
commissaries who came to interrupt us, he returned and said, with a
smile, 'These people see poignards and poison everywhere; they fear
that I shall destroy myself. Alas! they little know me. To kill myself
would indeed be weakness. No, since it is necessary, I know how I ought
to die!' We heard another knock at the door--destined to be the last.
It was Santerre and his crew. The King opened the door as usual. They
announced to him (I could not hear in what terms) that he must prepare
for death. 'I am occupied,' said he, with an air of authority. 'Wait
for me. In a few minutes I will return to you.' Then, having shut
the door, he knelt at my feet. 'It is finished, sir,' he said. 'Give
me your last benediction, and pray that it may please God to support
me to the end.' He soon arose, and, leaving the cabinet, advanced
towards the wretches who were in his bedchamber. Their countenances
were embarrassed, yet their hats were not taken off. And the King,
perceiving it, asked for his own. Whilst Cléry, bathed in tears, ran for
it, the King said, 'Are there amongst you any members of the Commune?
I charge them to take care of this paper.' It was his will. One of the
party took it from the King. 'I recommend also to the Commune Cléry my
valet. I can only congratulate myself on having had his services. Give
him my watch and clothes, not only these I have here, but those that
have been deposited at the Commune. I also desire that, in return for
the attachment he has shown me, he may be allowed to enter into the
Queen's--into my wife's service.' He used both expressions. The King
then cried out in a firm tone: 'Let us proceed.' At these words they
all moved on. The King crossed the first court, formerly the garden,
on foot. He turned back once or twice towards the tower as if to bid
adieu to all most dear to him on earth; and by his gestures it was plain
that he was then trying to summon his utmost strength and firmness.
At the entrance to the second court a carriage waited. Two gendarmes
stood at the door. On the King's approach one of these men entered the
carriage, and took up his position in front. The King followed and
placed me by his side. Then the other gendarme jumped in and shut the
door. It is said that one of these men was a priest in disguise. For
the honour of religion I hope this may be false. It is also said that
they had orders to assassinate the King on the smallest murmurs from the
people. I do not know whether this might have been their design, but it
seems to me that unless they possessed different arms than those that
appeared it would have been difficult to accomplish their purpose, for
their muskets only were visible, which it would have been impossible
for them to have used. These apprehended murmurs were not imaginary. A
great number of people devoted to the King had resolved on tearing him
from the hands of his guards, or, at least, of making the attempt. Two
of the principal actors, young men whose names are well known, found
means to inform me, the night before, of their intentions; and though
my hopes were not sanguine, I yet did not despair of rescue even at
the foot of the scaffold. I have since heard that the orders for this
dreadful morning had been planned with so much art, and executed with
so much precision, that, of four or five hundred people thus devoted
to their prince twenty-five only succeeded in reaching the appointed
rendezvous. In consequence of the measures taken before daybreak in all
the streets of Paris, none of the rest were able to get out of their
houses. The King, finding himself seated in a carriage where he could
neither speak to me nor be spoken to without witness, kept a profound
silence. I presented him with my breviary, the only book I had with
me, and he seemed to accept it with pleasure. He appeared anxious that
I should point out to him the psalms that were best suited to his
situation, and he recited them attentively with me. The gendarmes,
without speaking, seemed astonished and confounded at the tranquil piety
of their monarch, to whom, doubtless, they had never before approached
so near. The procession lasted almost two hours. The streets were
lined with citizens, all armed, some with pikes and some with guns,
and the carriage was surrounded by a body of troops formed from the
most desperate people of Paris. As another precaution, they had placed
before the horses a great number of drums intended to drown any noise
or murmurs in favour of the King. But how could such demonstrations be
heard, since nobody appeared either at the doors or windows, and in the
street nothing was to be seen but armed citizens--citizens all rushing
to the commission of a crime which, perhaps, they detested in their
hearts. The carriage proceeded thus in silence to the Place Louis XV.,
and stopped in a large space that had been left round the scaffold. This
space was protected on all sides with cannon, and, beyond, an armed
multitude extended as far as the eye could reach. As soon as the King
perceived that the carriage was stopping, he turned and whispered to
me: 'We have arrived, if I mistake not.' My silence answered that we
had. One of the guards came to open the carriage door, and the gendarmes
would have jumped out; but the King stopped them, and laying his hand on
my knee, said to them in a tone of majesty: 'Gentlemen, I recommend to
you this good man. Take care that after my death no insult be offered
to him. I charge you to prevent it.' The two men answered not a word.
The King was continuing in a louder tone, but one of them stopped him,
saying: 'Yes, yes, we will see to it; leave him to us;' and I ought to
add that these words were spoken in a tone which would have frozen me if
at such a moment it had been possible for me to have thought of myself.
As soon as the King had left the carriage, three guards surrounded him
and would have taken off his garments, but he repelled them haughtily.
He undressed himself, untied his neckcloth, opened his shirt and
arranged it himself. The guards, whom the determined countenance of the
King had for a moment disconcerted, seemed to recover their audacity.
They surrounded him again, and would have seized his hands. 'What are
you attempting?' said the King, drawing back his hands. 'To bind you,'
answered the wretches. 'To bind me?' said the King with an indignant
air. 'No, I shall never consent to that. Do what you have been ordered;
but you shall never bind me.' The guards insisted; they raised their
voices, and seemed to wish to call on others to aid them.
[Illustration: PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.]
"Perhaps this was the most terrible moment of the direful morning;
another instant and the best of kings would have received from his
rebellious subjects indignities too horrid to mention--indignities that
would have been to him more insupportable than death. Such was the
feeling expressed on his countenance. Turning towards me, he looked at
me steadily, as if to ask my advice. Alas! it was impossible for me
to give any, and I only answered by silence; but as he continued this
fixed look of inquiry I replied, 'Sir, in this new insult I only see
another trait of resemblance between your Majesty and the Saviour who is
about to recompense you.' At these words he raised his eyes to heaven
with an expression that can never be described. 'You are right,' he
said, 'nothing less than His example should make me submit to such a
degradation.' Then, turning to the guards, he added: 'Do what you will.
I will drink of the cup even to the dregs.' The path leading to the
scaffold was extremely rough and difficult to pass. The king was obliged
to lean on my arm, and from the slowness with which he proceeded I
feared for a moment that his courage might fail; so that my astonishment
was extreme when, arrived at the last step, he suddenly let go my arm
and I saw him cross with a firm foot the breadth of the whole scaffold;
silence, by his look alone, fifteen or twenty drums that were placed
opposite to him; and in a voice so loud, that it must have been heard
at the Pont Tournant, pronounce distinctly these memorable words: 'I
die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I pardon those who
have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are
now going to shed may never be visited on France.' He was proceeding,
when a man on horseback, in the national uniform, waved his sword, and
with a ferocious cry ordered the drums to beat. Many voices were at
the same time heard encouraging the executioners. They seemed to have
re-animated themselves, and seizing with violence the most virtuous of
kings, they dragged him under the axe of the guillotine, which with one
stroke severed his head from his body. All this passed in a moment. The
youngest of the guards, who seemed about eighteen, immediately seized
the head and showed it to the people, as he walked round the scaffold.
He accompanied this monstrous ceremony with the most atrocious and
indecent gestures. At first an awful silence prevailed; at length some
cries of '_Vive la République!_' were heard. By degrees the voices
multiplied, and in less than ten minutes this cry, a thousand times
repeated, became the universal shout of the multitude, and every hat was
in the air."
"It is remarkable," writes Mr. Sneyd Edgeworth, the Abbé's brother,
"that in this account of the last moments of Louis XVI., the Abbé
Edgeworth has omitted to relate that fine apostrophe, which everyone has
heard, and which everyone believes that he addressed to his king at the
moment of execution--
"'Fils de St. Louis, montez au ciel!'
"The Abbé Edgeworth has been asked if he recollected to have made this
exclamation. He replied that he could neither deny nor affirm that he
had spoken the words. It was possible, he added, that he might have
pronounced them without afterwards recollecting the fact, for that he
retained no memory of anything which happened relative to himself at
that awful instant. His not recollecting or recording the words is
perhaps the best proof that they were spoken from the impulse of the
moment."
The Reign of Terror had now begun. Foreign armies were marching towards
Paris in order to liberate the King from prison and replace him on his
throne. The Republican Government replied by removing the head of the
monarch whom it was prepared to restore.
During the Reign of Terror the Place de la Concorde, as it was
afterwards to be called, might fitly have been named, not merely the
Place of the Revolution, the title it bore, but the Place of Blood.
In the terrible year of 1793 Charlotte Corday was guillotined on the
17th of July; Brissot, leader of the Girondists, with twenty-one of
his followers, on the 2nd of October; Queen Marie Antoinette on the
16th of October; and Philippe Égalité, Duke of Orleans (father of
Louis Philippe), on the 14th of November. Among the victims of the
year 1794 may be mentioned Madame Élizabeth, sister of Louis XVI., who
was guillotined on the 12th of May; Hébert and several of his most
bloodthirsty associates, who, at the instigation of Robespierre and
Danton, lost their heads on the 14th of March; Marat and members of his
party, who followed a few days afterwards; Danton himself and a number
of his adherents, with the heroic Camille Desmoulins among them, on the
8th of April; Chaumette and Anacharsis Cloots, together with the wives
of some previous victims on April 16th; Robespierre, Saint-Just, and
other members of the Committee of Public Safety, on July 28th; seventy
members of the Commune who had acted under Robespierre's direction on
July 29th; and twelve other members of the same body the day afterwards.
One of the most eminent figures in the Girondist party, Lasource,
exclaimed to his sanguinary judges, on receiving his sentence: "I die at
a moment when the people have lost their reason; you will die the day
they regain it."
In reference to Saint-Just's arrogance, Camille Desmoulins had said:
"He carries his head with as much veneration as though he were bearing
the Church Sacrament on his shoulders;" to which Saint-Just playfully
replied: "And I will make him carry _his_ head as St. Denis carried
his." St. Denis, the martyr, it will be remembered, is said, after
decapitation, to have marched some distance with his head under his arm.
In the course of the two years over which the Reign of Terror extended
(though its duration is variously estimated according to the political
principles of the calculator) nearly 3,000 persons are declared to have
perished on the Place de la Révolution; though this estimate would
certainly be regarded by some as excessive, by others as inadequate.
In reference to the Reign of Terror, Victor Hugo calls upon the world
"not to criticise too closely the bursting of the thunder-cloud which
had been slowly gathering for eighteen centuries;" as though, from
the earliest period, France had always been grossly misgoverned, to
be suddenly governed in perfection from the time of the Revolution.
It is the simple truth, however, that the Reign of Terror was the
result, not of the natural development of the Revolutionary forces, but
of threats from abroad, the presence, real and imaginary, of foreign
agents in Paris, and the advance of the German armies with a view to the
liberation of the king and the suppression of the Republic. It ought
also in fairness to be remembered that if the Revolutionists made a free
use of the guillotine, they abolished torture and the cruel methods of
executions (such as beating to death with an iron bar) in use under
the ancient monarchy until the moment of the outbreak. Nor can it be
forgotten that at various periods of French history (the Massacre of St.
Bartholomew is an instance) life has been sacrificed more copiously,
more recklessly, and more wantonly, than during the worst excesses of
the French Revolution. When many years afterwards it was proposed to
erect a fountain on the spot where the scaffold of Louis XVI. had stood,
Chateaubriand declared that all the water in the world would not suffice
to remove the blood-stains which had sullied the Place.
Of those who suffered under the Revolution, many, such as Robespierre,
Danton, and Marat, well deserved their fate, and none more so than the
infamous Philippe Égalité, who, after playing the part of a democrat,
and democratically voting for the death of his cousin the king, was
himself, on democratic grounds, brought to the guillotine.
Writing in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ four years after Louis Philippe's
election to the throne, Chateaubriand reproached the reigning king with
being the son of a regicide. Arguing that since the execution of Louis
XVI., and as a punishment for that crime, it had become impossible to
establish monarchy in France, Chateaubriand added: "Napoleon saw the
diadem fall from his brow in spite of his victories; Charles X. in spite
of his piety. To discredit the crown finally in the eyes of the nations,
it has been permitted to the son of the regicide to be for one moment
in the blood-stained bed of the murderer." That Louis Philippe suffered
this outburst to be published unchallenged has been regarded as a proof
of his extreme tolerance in press matters.
Probably, however, he thought it prudent not to invite general attention
to words which by a large portion of his subjects would have been
accepted as true. It has been said by the defenders of the "regicide"
that Philippe Égalité did his best not to be present at the sitting of
the Convention when sentence had to be passed on the unfortunate king;
and that he was threatened by his friends of the Left with assassination
unless he voted with them for the "death of the tyrant." However that
may be, he took his seat among the judges by whom the fate of his royal
kinsman was to be decided; and when it came to his turn to deliver
his opinion, he did so in these words: "Occupied solely with my duty,
convinced that all those who have attacked or might afterwards attack
the sovereignty of the people deserve death, I pronounce the death of
Louis." Philippe Égalité had looked for general approval, and had voted
in fear of that death which awaited him nevertheless, and which came to
him in the very form in which a few months before it had been inflicted
on the unhappy Louis. When his vote was made known, cries of indignation
from all sides warned him that he had transgressed one of the great
moral laws which are observed even by men who violate all others. A
former soldier of the king's body-guard, hearing of Philippe Égalité's
unnatural offence, resolved to kill him; but not being able to find him,
killed another less guilty "regicide" in his place.
Very different was the feeling excited by the conduct of Philippe
Égalité in the breast of the king himself. "I don't know by what
chance," says the Abbé Edgeworth in his "Relation sur les derniers
Moments du Roi," "the conversation fell upon Philippe. The king seemed
to be well acquainted with his intrigues, and with the horrid part he
had taken at the Convention. But he spoke of him without any bitterness,
and with pity rather than anger. 'What have I done to my cousin,' he
exclaimed, 'that he should so persecute me? What object could he have?
Oh, he is more to be pitied than I am. My lot is melancholy, no doubt,
but his is much more so.'"
Under the Directory, when the worst period of the Revolution was at
an end, and the Republic itself was disappearing, the Place de la
Révolution was called Place de la Concorde, and this name was preserved
under the Consulate and the Empire.
[Illustration: PLACE DE LA CONCORDE, FROM THE TERRACE OF THE TUILERIES.]
At the time of the Restoration, when endeavours were made to revive in
every form the associations of the old French monarchy, the name of
Place de la Concorde was set aside for the original one of Place Louis
XV., which, however, in obvious reference to the execution of Louis XV's
successor, was changed in 1826 to Place Louis XVI. It was at the same
time decreed that a monument should be erected to the memory of the
unfortunate monarch, but the decree was never acted upon.
Soon afterwards, in 1828, an order signed by Charles X. gave the place
of many names to the town of Paris on condition that it should spend
within five years, in completing the architectural and other decorations
of the square, a sum of at least 2,230,000 francs.
After the Revolution of 1830 the name of Place de la Concorde was
re-adopted; and the Municipality was proceeding as rapidly as possible
with the works ordered under the previous reign, when the cholera broke
out, causing to the town an expenditure which rendered it necessary to
stop the completion of the improvements.
[Illustration: TRIAL OF LOUIS XVI.]
The sum to be applied to the purpose was afterwards reduced to 1,500,000
francs; and this sum was conscientiously spent, but without by any means
finishing the design contemplated by the architects.
The fountains, with the Naiads and Tritons, and the eight statues
representing in personification the principal sights of Paris, had been
duly placed; and in 1836 the Obelisk of Luxor, a present from the Pasha
of Egypt, was made the central ornament on the spot which had been
successively occupied by the statue of Louis XVI. and the figure of
Liberty.
It was not until 1852, under the Empire, that the objects which still
on one side mark the limits of the Place were set up. A large number of
bronze candelabra which were at the same time fixed in various parts
of the square greatly increased at night its picturesqueness and its
beauty. For the last forty years the Place de la Concorde has remained
as it was under the Empire. The Republic of 1871 could scarcely think
it necessary to return to the truly Republican name of Place de la
Révolution, which had been preserved for some two or three years during
the worst period of the Revolution; and to the embellishment of the
Place there was nothing to add. It remains what our Trafalgar Square
was once, with or without reason, declared to be--"the finest site in
Europe;" less admirable, however, as a mere site, than for the admirable
views of such varied kinds that it commands in every direction.
The history of the Place de la Concorde would not be complete without a
record of the fact that it has been successively occupied by Russian and
Prussian troops (1814); by English troops (1815); and again by Prussian
troops (1871). It was the scene, too, in 1871 of a desperate struggle
between the Communards and the troops advancing against them from
Versailles.
[Illustration]