To fly or not to fly.
The truth is Royalism sees itself verging towards sad
extremities; nearer and nearer daily. From over the Rhine it
comes asserted that the King in his Tuileries is not free: this
the poor King may contradict, with the official mouth, but in his
heart feels often to be undeniable. Civil Constitution of the
Clergy; Decree of ejectment against Dissidents from it: not even
to this latter, though almost his conscience rebels, can he say
“Nay; but, after two months’ hesitating, signs this also. It was
on January 21st,” of this 1790, that he signed it; to the sorrow
of his poor/ heart yet, on _another_ Twenty-first of January!
Whereby come Dissident ejected Priests; unconquerable Martyrs
according to some, incurable chicaning Traitors according to
others. And so there has arrived what we once foreshadowed: with
Religion, or with the Cant and Echo of Religion, all France is
rent asunder in a new rupture of continuity; complicating,
embittering all the older;—to be cured only, by stern surgery, in
La Vendée!
Unhappy Royalty, unhappy Majesty, Hereditary (Representative),
_Représentant Héréditaire_, or however they can name him; of whom
much is expected, to whom little is given! Blue National Guards
encircle that Tuileries; a Lafayette, thin constitutional Pedant;
clear, thin, inflexible, as water, turned to thin ice; whom no
Queen’s heart can love. National Assembly, its pavilion spread
where we know, sits near by, keeping continual hubbub. From
without nothing but Nanci Revolts, sack of Castries Hotels, riots
and seditions; riots, North and South, at Aix, at Douai, at
Béfort, Usez, Perpignan, at Nismes, and that incurable Avignon of
the Pope’s: a continual crackling and sputtering of riots from
the whole face of France;—testifying how electric it grows. Add
only the hard winter, the famished _strikes_ of operatives; that
continual running-bass of Scarcity, ground-tone and basis of all
other Discords!
The plan of Royalty, so far as it can be said to have any fixed
plan, is still, as ever, that of flying towards the frontiers. In
very truth, the only plan of the smallest promise for it! Fly to
Bouillé; bristle yourself round with cannon, served by your
“forty-thousand undebauched Germans:” summon the National
Assembly to follow you, summon what of it is Royalist,
Constitutional, gainable by money; dissolve the rest, by
grapeshot if need be. Let Jacobinism and Revolt, with one wild
wail, fly into Infinite Space; driven by grapeshot. Thunder over
France with the cannon’s mouth; commanding, not entreating, that
this riot cease. And then to rule afterwards with utmost possible
Constitutionality; doing justice, loving mercy; _being_ Shepherd
of this indigent People, not Shearer merely, and
Shepherd’s-similitude! All this, if ye dare. If ye dare not, then
in Heaven’s name go to sleep: other handsome alternative seems
none.
Nay, it were perhaps possible; with a man to do it. For if such
inexpressible whirlpool of Babylonish confusions (which our Era
is) cannot be stilled by man, but only by Time and men, a man may
moderate its paroxysms, may balance and sway, and keep himself
unswallowed on the top of it,—as several men and Kings in these
days do. Much is possible for a man; men will obey a man that
_kens_ and _cans_, and name him reverently their _Ken-ning_ or
King. Did not Charlemagne rule? Consider too whether he had
smooth times of it; hanging “thirty-thousand Saxons over the
Weser-Bridge,” at one dread swoop! So likewise, who knows but, in
this same distracted fanatic France, the right man may verily
exist? An olive-complexioned taciturn man; for the present,
Lieutenant in the Artillery-service, who once sat studying
Mathematics at Brienne? The same who walked in the morning to
correct proof-sheets at Dôle, and enjoyed a frugal breakfast with
M. Joly? Such a one is gone, whither also famed General Paoli his
friend is gone, in these very days, to see old scenes in native
Corsica, and what Democratic good can be done there.
Royalty never executes the evasion-plan, yet never abandons it;
living in variable hope; undecisive, till fortune shall decide.
In utmost secrecy, a brisk Correspondence goes on with Bouillé;
there is also a plot, which emerges more than once, for carrying
the King to Rouen:[335] plot after plot, emerging and submerging,
like “_ignes fatui_ in foul weather, which lead no whither. About
“ten o’clock at night,” the Hereditary Representative, in _partie
quarrée_, with the Queen, with Brother Monsieur, and Madame, sits
playing “_wisk_,” or whist. Usher Campan enters mysteriously,
with a message he only half comprehends: How a certain Compte
d’Inisdal waits anxious in the outer antechamber; National
Colonel, Captain of the watch for this night, is gained over;
post-horses ready all the way; party of Noblesse sitting armed,
determined; will His Majesty, before midnight, consent to go?
Profound silence; Campan waiting with upturned ear. ‘Did your
Majesty hear what Campan said?’ asks the Queen. ‘Yes, I heard,’
answers Majesty, and plays on. ‘’Twas a pretty couplet, that of
Campan’s,’ hints Monsieur, who at times showed a pleasant wit:
Majesty, still unresponsive, plays wisk. ‘After all, one must say
something to Campan,’ remarks the Queen. ‘Tell M. d’Inisdal,’
said the King, and the Queen puts an emphasis on it, ‘that the
King cannot _consent_ to be forced away.’—‘I see!’ said
d’Inisdal, whisking round, peaking himself into flame of
irritancy: ‘we have the risk; we are to have all the blame if it
fail,’[336]—and vanishes, he and his plot, as will-o’-wisps do.
The Queen sat till far in the night, packing jewels: but it came
to nothing; in that peaked frame of irritancy the Will-o’-wisp
had gone _out_.
Little hope there is in all this. Alas, with whom to fly? Our
loyal _Gardes-du-Corps_, ever since the Insurrection of Women,
are disbanded; gone to their homes; gone, many of them, across
the Rhine towards Coblentz and Exiled Princes: brave Miomandre
and brave Tardivet, these faithful Two, have received, in
nocturnal interview with both Majesties, their _viaticum_ of gold
louis, of heartfelt thanks from a Queen’s lips, though unluckily
“his Majesty stood, back to fire, not speaking;”[337] and do now
dine through the Provinces; recounting hairsbreadth escapes,
insurrectionary horrors. Great horrors; to be swallowed yet of
greater. But on the whole what a falling off from the old
splendour of Versailles! Here in this poor Tuileries, a National
Brewer-Colonel, sonorous Santerre, parades officially behind her
Majesty’s chair. Our high dignitaries, all fled over the Rhine:
nothing now to be gained at Court; but hopes, for which life
itself must be risked! Obscure busy men frequent the back stairs;
with hearsays, wind projects, unfruitful fanfaronades. Young
Royalists, at the _Théâtre de Vaudeville_, “sing couplets;” if
that could do any thing. Royalists enough, Captains on furlough,
burnt-out Seigneurs, may likewise be met with, “in the Café de
Valois, and at Méot the Restaurateur’s.” There they fan one
another into high loyal glow; drink, in such wine as can be
procured, confusion to Sansculottism; shew purchased dirks, of an
improved structure, made to order; and, greatly daring,
dine.[338] It is in these places, in these months, that the
epithet _Sansculotte_ first gets applied to indigent Patriotism;
in the last age we had Gilbert _Sansculotte_, the indigent
Poet.[339] Destitute-of-Breeches: a mournful Destitution; which
however, if Twenty millions share it, may become more effective
than most Possessions!
Meanwhile, amid this vague dim whirl of fanfaronades,
wind-projects, poniards made to order, there does disclose itself
one _punctum-saliens_ of life and feasibility: the finger of
Mirabeau! Mirabeau and the Queen of France have met; have parted
with mutual trust! It is strange; secret as the Mysteries; but it
is indubitable. Mirabeau took horse, one evening; and rode
westward, unattended,—to see Friend Clavière in that country
house of his? Before getting to Clavière’s, the much-musing
horseman struck aside to a back gate of the Garden of
Saint-Cloud: some Duke d’Aremberg, or the like, was there to
introduce him; the Queen was not far: on a “round knoll, _rond
point_, the highest of the Garden of Saint-Cloud,” he beheld the
Queen’s face; spake with her, alone, under the void canopy of
Night. What an interview; fateful secret for us, after all
searching; like the colloquies of the gods![340] She called him
“a Mirabeau:” elsewhere we read that she “was charmed with him,”
the wild submitted Titan; as indeed it is among the honourable
tokens of this high ill-fated heart that no mind of any
endowment, no Mirabeau, nay no Barnave, no Dumouriez, ever came
face to face with her but, in spite of all prepossessions, she
was forced to recognise it, to draw nigh to it, with trust. High
imperial heart; with the instinctive attraction towards all that
had any height! ‘You know not the Queen,’ said Mirabeau once in
confidence; ‘her force of mind is prodigious; she is a man for
courage.’[341]—And so, under the void Night, on the crown of that
knoll, she has spoken with a Mirabeau: he has kissed loyally the
queenly hand, and said with enthusiasm: ‘Madame, the Monarchy is
saved!’—Possible? The Foreign Powers, mysteriously sounded, gave
favourable guarded response;[342] Bouillé is at Metz, and could
find forty-thousand sure Germans. With a Mirabeau for head, and a
Bouillé for hand, something verily is possible,—if Fate intervene
not.
But figure under what thousandfold wrappages, and cloaks of
darkness, Royalty, meditating these things, must involve itself.
There are men with “Tickets of Entrance;” there are chivalrous
consultings, mysterious plottings. Consider also whether, involve
as it like, plotting Royalty can escape the glance of Patriotism;
lynx-eyes, by the ten thousand fixed on it, which see in the
dark! Patriotism knows much: know the dirks made to order, and
can specify the shops; knows Sieur Motier’s legions of mouchards;
the Tickets of _Entrée_, and men in black; and how plan of
evasion succeeds plan,—or may be supposed to succeed it. Then
conceive the couplets chanted at the _Théâtre de Vaudeville;_ or
worse, the whispers, significant nods of traitors in moustaches.
Conceive, on the other hand, the loud cry of alarm that came
through the Hundred-and-Thirty Journals; the Dionysius’-Ear of
each of the Forty-eight Sections, wakeful night and day.
Patriotism is patient of much; not patient of all. The _Café de
Procope_ has sent, visibly along the streets, a Deputation of
Patriots, “to expostulate with bad Editors,” by trustful word of
mouth: singular to see and hear. The bad Editors promise to
amend, but do not. Deputations for change of Ministry were many;
Mayor Bailly joining even with Cordelier Danton in such: and they
have prevailed. With what profit? Of Quacks, willing or
constrained to be Quacks, the race is everlasting: Ministers
Duportail and Dutertre will have to manage much as Ministers
Latour-du-Pin and Cicé did. So welters the confused world.
But now, beaten on for ever by such inextricable contradictory
influences and evidences, what is the indigent French Patriot, in
these unhappy days, to believe, and walk by? Uncertainty all;
except that he is wretched, indigent; that a glorious Revolution,
the wonder of the Universe, has hitherto brought neither Bread
nor Peace; being marred by traitors, difficult to discover.
Traitors that dwell in the dark, invisible there;—or seen for
moments, in pallid dubious twilight, stealthily vanishing
thither! Preternatural Suspicion once more rules the minds of
men.
“Nobody here,” writes Carra of the _Annales Patriotiques_, so
early as the first of February, “can entertain a doubt of the
constant obstinate project these people have on foot to get the
King away; or of the perpetual succession of manœuvres they
employ for that.” Nobody: the watchful Mother of Patriotism
deputed two Members to her Daughter at Versailles, to examine how
the matter looked there. Well, and there? Patriotic Carra
continues: “The Report of these two deputies we all heard with
our own ears last Saturday. They went with others of Versailles,
to inspect the King’s Stables, also the stables of the whilom
_Gardes du Corps;_ they found there from seven to eight hundred
horses standing always saddled and bridled, ready for the road at
a moment’s notice. The same deputies, moreover, saw with their
own two eyes several Royal Carriages, which men were even then
busy loading with large well-stuffed luggage-bags,” leather cows,
as we call them, “_vaches de cuir;_ the Royal Arms on the panels
almost entirely effaced.” Momentous enough! Also, “on the same
day the whole _Maréchaussée_, or Cavalry Police, did assemble
with arms, horses and baggage,”—and disperse again. They want the
King over the marches, that so Emperor Leopold and the German
Princes, whose troops are ready, may have a pretext for
beginning: “this,” adds Carra, “is the word of the riddle: this
is the reason why our fugitive Aristocrats are now making levies
of men on the frontiers; expecting that, one of these mornings,
the Executive Chief Magistrate will be brought over to them, and
the civil war commence.”[343]
If indeed the Executive Chief Magistrate, bagged, say in one of
these leather _cows_, were once brought safe over to them! But
the strangest thing of all is that Patriotism, whether barking at
a venture, or guided by some instinct of preternatural sagacity,
is actually barking _aright_ this time; at something, not at
nothing. Bouillé’s Secret Correspondence, since made public,
testifies as much.
Nay, it is undeniable, visible to all, that _Mesdames_ the King’s
Aunts are taking steps for departure: asking passports of the
Ministry, safe-conducts of the Municipality; which Marat warns
all men to beware of. They will carry gold with them, “these old
_Béguines;_” nay they will carry the little Dauphin, “having
nursed a changeling, for some time, to leave in his stead!”
Besides, they are as some light substance flung up, to shew how
the wind sits; a kind of proof-kite you fly off to ascertain
whether the grand paper-kite, Evasion of the King, may mount!
In these alarming circumstances, Patriotism is not wanting to
itself. Municipality deputes to the King; Sections depute to the
Municipality; a National Assembly will soon stir. Meanwhile,
behold, on the 19th of February 1791, Mesdames, quitting Bellevue
and Versailles with all privacy, are off! Towards Rome,
seemingly; or one knows not whither. They are not without King’s
passports, countersigned; and what is more to the purpose, a
serviceable Escort. The Patriotic Mayor or Mayorlet of the
Village of Moret tried to detain them; but brisk Louis de
Narbonne, of the Escort, dashed off at hand-gallop; returned soon
with thirty dragoons, and victoriously cut them out. And so the
poor ancient women go their way; to the terror of France and
Paris, whose nervous excitability is become extreme. Who else
would hinder poor _Loque_ and _Graille_, now grown so old, and
fallen into such unexpected circumstances, when gossip itself
turning only on terrors and horrors is no longer pleasant to the
mind, and you cannot get so much as an orthodox confessor in
peace,—from going what way soever the hope of any solacement
might lead them?
They go, poor ancient dames,—whom the heart were hard that does
not pity: they go; with palpitations, with unmelodious suppressed
screechings; all France, screeching and cackling, in loud
_un_suppressed terror, behind and on both hands of them: such
mutual suspicion is among men. At Arnay le Duc, above halfway to
the frontiers, a Patriotic Municipality and Populace again takes
courage to stop them: Louis Narbonne must now back to Paris, must
consult the National Assembly. National Assembly answers, not
without an effort, that Mesdames may go. Whereupon Paris rises
worse than ever, screeching half-distracted. Tuileries and
precincts are filled with women and men, while the National
Assembly debates this question of questions; Lafayette is needed
at night for dispersing them, and the streets are to be
illuminated. Commandant Berthier, a Berthier before whom are
great things unknown, lies for the present under blockade at
Bellevue in Versailles. By no tactics could he get Mesdames’
Luggage stirred from the Courts there; frantic Versaillese women
came screaming about him; his very troops cut the waggon-traces;
he retired to the interior, waiting better times.[344]
Nay, in these same hours, while Mesdames hardly cut out from
Moret by the sabre’s edge, are driving rapidly, to foreign parts,
and not yet stopped at Arnay, their august nephew poor Monsieur,
at Paris has dived deep into his cellars of the Luxembourg for
shelter; and according to Montgaillard can hardly be persuaded up
again. Screeching multitudes environ that Luxembourg of his:
drawn thither by report of his departure: but, at sight and sound
of Monsieur, they become crowing multitudes; and escort Madame
and him to the Tuileries with vivats.[345] It is a state of
nervous excitability such as few Nations know.