During July the correspondence of M. Bertrand de Molleville with the King
and Queen was most active. M. de Marsilly, formerly a lieutenant of the
Cent-Suisses of the Guard, was the bearer of the letters.
[I received by night only the King's answer, written with his own hand, in
the margin of my letter. I always sent him back with the day's letter
that to which he had replied the day before, so that my letters and his
answers, of which I contented myself with taking notes only, never
remained with me twenty-four hours. I proposed this arrangement to his
Majesty to remove all uneasiness from his mind; my letters were generally
delivered to the King or the Queen by M. de Marsilly, captain of the
King's Guard, whose attachment and fidelity were known to their Majesties.
I also sometimes employed M. Bernard de Marigny, who had left Brest for
the purpose of sharing with his Majesty's faithful servants the dangers
which threatened the King.--"Memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville," vol.
ii., p. 12.]
He came to me the first time with a note from the Queen directed to M.
Bertrand himself. In this note the Queen said: "Address yourself with
full confidence to Madame Campan; the conduct of her brother in Russia has
not at all influenced her sentiments; she is wholly devoted to us; and if,
hereafter, you should have anything to say to us verbally, you may rely
entirely upon her devotion and discretion."
The mobs which gathered almost nightly in the faubourgs alarmed the
Queen's friends; they entreated her not to sleep in her room on the ground
floor of the Tuileries. She removed to the first floor, to a room which
was between the King's apartments and those of the Dauphin. Being awake
always from daybreak, she ordered that neither the shutters nor the
window-blinds should be closed, that her long sleepless nights might be
the less weary. About the middle of one of these nights, when the moon
was shining into her bedchamber, she gazed at it, and told me that in a
month she should not see that moon unless freed from her chains, and
beholding the King at liberty. She then imparted to me all that was
concurring to deliver them; but said that the opinions of their intimate
advisers were alarmingly at variance; that some vouched for complete
success, while others pointed out insurmountable dangers. She added that
she possessed the itinerary of the march of the Princes and the King of
Prussia: that on such a day they would be at Verdun, on another day at
such a place, that Lille was about to be besieged, but that M. de J-----,
whose prudence and intelligence the King, as well as herself, highly
valued, alarmed them much respecting the success of that siege, and made
them apprehensive that, even were the commandant devoted to them, the
civil authority, which by the constitution gave great power to the mayors
of towns, would overrule the military commandant. She was also very
uneasy as to what would take place at Paris during the interval, and spoke
to me of the King's want of energy, but always in terms expressive of her
veneration for his virtues and her attachment to himself.--"The King,"
said she, "is not a coward; he possesses abundance of passive courage, but
he is overwhelmed by an awkward shyness, a mistrust of himself, which
proceeds from his education as much as from his disposition. He is afraid
to command, and, above all things, dreads speaking to assembled numbers.
He lived like a child, and always ill at ease under the eyes of Louis XV.,
until the age of twenty-one. This constraint confirmed his timidity.
"Circumstanced as we are, a few well-delivered words addressed to the
Parisians, who are devoted to him, would multiply the strength of our
party a hundredfold: he will not utter them. What can we expect from
those addresses to the people which he has been advised to post up?
Nothing but fresh outrages. As for myself, I could do anything, and would
appear on horseback if necessary. But if I were really to begin to act,
that would be furnishing arms to the King's enemies; the cry against the
Austrian, and against the sway of a woman, would become general in France;
and, moreover, by showing myself, I should render the King a mere nothing.
A queen who is not regent ought, under these circumstances, to remain
passive and prepare to die."
The garden of the Tuileries was full of maddened men, who insulted all who
seemed to side with the Court. "The Life of Marie Antoinette" was cried
under the Queen's windows, infamous plates were annexed to the book, the
hawkers showed them to the passersby. On all sides were heard the
jubilant outcries of a people in a state of delirium almost as frightful
as the explosion of their rage. The Queen and her children were unable to
breathe the open air any longer. It was determined that the garden of the
Tuileries should be closed: as soon as this step was taken the Assembly
decreed that the whole length of the Terrace des Feuillans belonged to it,
and fixed the boundary between what was called the national ground and the
Coblentz ground by a tricoloured ribbon stretched from one end of the
terrace to the other. All good citizens were ordered, by notices affixed
to it, not to go down into the garden, under pain of being treated in the
same manner as Foulon and Berthier. A young man who did not observe this
written order went down into the garden; furious outcries, threats of la
lanterne, and the crowd of people which collected upon the terrace warned
him of his imprudence, and the danger which he ran. He immediately pulled
off his shoes, took out his handkerchief, and wiped the dust from their
soles. The people cried out, "Bravo! the good citizen for ever!" He was
carried off in triumph. The shutting up of the Tuileries did not enable
the Queen and her children to walk in the garden. The people on the
terrace sent forth dreadful shouts, and she was twice compelled to return
to her apartments.
In the early part of August many zealous persons offered the King money;
he refused considerable sums, being unwilling to injure the fortunes of
individuals. M. de la Ferte, intendant of the 'menus plaisirs', brought
me a thousand louis, requesting me to lay them at the feet of the Queen.
He thought she could not have too much money at so perilous a time, and
that every good Frenchman should hasten to place all his ready money in
her hands. She refused this sum, and others of much greater amount which
were offered to her.
[M. Auguie, my brother-in-law, receiver-general of the finances, offered
her, through his wife, a portfolio containing one hundred thousand crowns
in paper money. On this occasion the Queen said the most affecting things
to my sister, expressive of her happiness at having contributed to the
fortunes of such faithful subjects as herself and her husband, but
declined her offer.--MADAME CAMPAN.]
However, a few days afterwards, she told me she would accept M. de la
Ferte's twenty-four thousand francs, because they would make up a sum
which the King had to expend. She therefore directed, me to go and
receive those twenty-four thousand francs, to add them to the one hundred
thousand francs she had placed in my hands, and to change the whole into
assignats to increase their amount. Her orders were executed, and the
assignats were delivered to the King. The Queen informed me that Madame
Elisabeth had found a well-meaning man who had engaged to gain over Petion
by the bribe of a large sum of money, and that deputy would, by a
preconcerted signal, inform the King of the success of the project. His
Majesty soon had an opportunity of seeing Petion, and on the Queen asking
him before me if he was satisfied with him, the King replied, "Neither
more nor less satisfied than usual; he did not make the concerted signal,
and I believe I have been cheated." The Queen then condescended to
explain the whole of the enigma to me. "Petion," said she, "was, while
talking to the King, to have kept his finger fixed upon his right eye for
at least two seconds."--"He did not even put his hand up to his chin,"
said the King; "after all, it is but so much money stolen: the thief will
not boast of it, and the affair will remain a secret. Let us talk of
something else." He turned to me and said, "Your father was an intimate
friend of Mandat, who now commands the National Guard; describe him to me;
what ought I to expect from him?" I answered that he was one of his
Majesty's most faithful subjects, but that with a great deal of loyalty he
possessed very little sense, and that he was involved in the
constitutional vortex. "I understand," said the King; "he is a man who
would defend my palace and my person, because that is enjoined by the
constitution which he has sworn to support, but who would fight against
the party in favour of sovereign authority; it is well to know this with
certainty."
On the next day the Princesse de Lamballe sent for me very early in the
morning. I found her on a sofa facing a window that looked upon the Pont
Royal. She then occupied that apartment of the Pavilion of Flora which
was on a level with that of the Queen. She desired me to sit down by her.
Her Highness had a writing-desk upon her knees. "You have had many
enemies," said she; "attempts have been made to deprive you of the Queen's
favour; they have been far from successful. Do you know that even I
myself, not being so well acquainted with you as the Queen, was rendered
suspicious of you; and that upon the arrival of the Court at the Tuileries
I gave you a companion to be a spy upon you; and that I had another
belonging to the police placed at your door! I was assured that you
received five or six of the most virulent deputies of the Tiers Etat; but
it was that wardrobe woman whose rooms were above you.
"In short," said the Princess, "persons of integrity have nothing to fear
from the evil-disposed when they belong to so upright a prince as the
King. As to the Queen, she knows you, and has loved you ever since she
came into France. You shall judge of the King's opinion of you: it was
yesterday evening decided in the family circle that, at a time when the
Tuileries is likely to be attacked, it was necessary to have the most
faithful account of the opinions and conduct of all the individuals
composing the Queen's service. The King takes the same precaution on his
part respecting all who are about him. He said there was with him a
person of great integrity, to whom he would commit this inquiry; and that,
with regard to the Queen's household, you must be spoken to, that he had
long studied your character, and that he esteemed your veracity."
The Princess had a list of the names of all who belonged to the Queen's
chamber on her desk. She asked me for information respecting each
individual. I was fortunate in having none but the most favourable
information to give. I had to speak of my avowed enemy in the Queen's
chamber; of her who most wished that I should be responsible for my
brother's political opinions. The Princess, as the head of the chamber,
could not be ignorant of this circumstance; but as the person in question,
who idolised the King and Queen, would not have hesitated to sacrifice her
life in order to save theirs, and as possibly her attachment to them,
united to considerable narrowness of intellect and a limited education,
contributed to her jealousy of me, I spoke of her in the highest terms.
The Princess wrote as I dictated, and occasionally looked at me with
astonishment. When I had done I entreated her to write in the margin that
the lady alluded to was my declared enemy. She embraced me, saying, "Ah!
do not write it! we should not record an unhappy circumstance which ought
to be forgotten." We came to a man of genius who was much attached to the
Queen, and I described him as a man born solely to contradict, showing
himself an aristocrat with democrats, and a democrat among aristocrats;
but still a man of probity, and well disposed to his sovereign. The
Princess said she knew many persons of that disposition, and that she was
delighted I had nothing to say against this man, because she herself had
placed him about the Queen.
The whole of her Majesty's chamber, which consisted entirely of persons of
fidelity, gave throughout all the dreadful convulsions of the Revolution
proofs of the greatest prudence and self-devotion. The same cannot be
said of the antechambers. With the exception of three or four, all the
servants of that class were outrageous Jacobins; and I saw on those
occasions the necessity of composing the private household of princes of
persons completely separated from the class of the people.
The situation of the royal family was so unbearable during the months
which immediately preceded the 10th of August that the Queen longed for
the crisis, whatever might be its issue. She frequently said that a long
confinement in a tower by the seaside would seem to her less intolerable
than those feuds in which the weakness of her party daily threatened an
inevitable catastrophe.
[A few days before the 10th of August the squabbles between the royalists
and the Jacobins, and between the Jacobins and the constitutionalists,
increased in warmth; among the latter those men who defended the
principles they professed with the greatest talent, courage, and constancy
were at the same time the most exposed to danger. Montjoie says: "The
question of dethronement was discussed with a degree of frenzy in the
Assembly. Such of the deputies as voted against it were abused, ill
treated, and surrounded by assassins. They had a battle to fight at every
step they took; and at length they did not dare to sleep in their own
houses. Of this number were Regnault de Beaucaron, Froudiere, Girardin,
and Vaublanc. Girardin complained of having been struck in one of the
lobbies of the Assembly. A voice cried out to him, 'Say where were you
struck.' 'Where?' replied Girardin, 'what a question! Behind. Do
assassins ever strike otherwise?"]
Not only were their Majesties prevented from breathing the open air, but
they were also insulted at the very foot of the altar. The Sunday before
the last day of the monarchy, while the royal family went through the
gallery to the chapel, half the soldiers of the National Guard exclaimed,
"Long live the King!" and the other half, "No; no King! Down with the
veto!" and on that day at vespers the choristers preconcerted to use loud
and threatening emphasis when chanting the words, "Deposuit potentes de
sede," in the "Magnificat." Incensed at such an irreverent proceeding,
the royalists in their turn thrice exclaimed, "Et reginam," after the
"Domine salvum fac regem." The tumult during the whole time of divine
service was excessive.
At length the terrible night of the 10th of August, 1792, arrived. On the
preceding evening Potion went to the Assembly and informed it that
preparations were making for an insurrection on the following day; that
the tocsin would sound at midnight; and that he feared he had not
sufficient means for resisting the attack which was about to take place.
Upon this information the Assembly passed to the order of the day. Petion,
however, gave an order for repelling force by force.
[Petion was the Mayor of Paris, and Mandat on this day was commandant of
the National Guard. Mandat was assassinated that night.--"Thiers," vol.
i., p. 260.]
M. Mandat was armed with this order; and, finding his fidelity to the
King's person supported by what he considered the law of the State, he
conducted himself in all his operations with the greatest energy. On the
evening of the 9th I was present at the King's supper. While his Majesty
was giving me various orders we heard a great noise at the door of the
apartment. I went to see what was the cause of it, and found the two
sentinels fighting. One said, speaking of the King, that he was hearty in
the cause of the constitution, and would defend it at the peril of his
life; the other maintained that he was an encumbrance to the only
constitution suitable to a free people. They were almost ready to cut one
another's throats. I returned with a countenance which betrayed my
emotion. The King desired to know what was going forward at his door; I
could not conceal it from him. The Queen said she was not at all
surprised at it, and that more than half the guard belonged to the Jacobin
party.
The tocsin sounded at midnight. The Swiss were drawn up like walls; and
in the midst of their soldierlike silence, which formed a striking
contrast with the perpetual din of the town guard, the King informed M. de
J-----, an officer of the staff, of the plan of defence laid down by
General Viomenil. M. de J----- said to me, after this private conference,
"Put your jewels and money into your pockets; our dangers are unavoidable;
the means of defence are nil; safety might be obtained by some degree of
energy in the King, but that is the only virtue in which he is deficient."
An hour after midnight the Queen and Madame Elisabeth said they would lie
down on a sofa in a room in the entresols, the windows of which commanded
the courtyard of the Tuileries.
The Queen told me the King had just refused to put on his quilted
under-waistcoat; that he had consented to wear it on the 14th of July
because he was merely going to a ceremony where the blade of an assassin
was to be apprehended, but that on a day on which his party might fight
against the revolutionists he thought there was something cowardly in
preserving his life by such means.
During this time Madame Elisabeth disengaged herself from some of her
clothing which encumbered her in order to lie down on the sofa: she took a
cornelian pin out of her cape, and before she laid it down on the table
she showed it to me, and desired me to read a motto engraved upon it round
a stalk of lilies. The words were, "Oblivion of injuries; pardon for
offences."--"I much fear," added that virtuous Princess, "this maxim has
but little influence among our enemies; but it ought not to be less dear
to us on that account."
[The exalted piety of Madame Elisabeth gave to all she said and did a
noble character, descriptive of that of her soul. On the day on which
this worthy descendant of Saint Louis was sacrificed, the executioner, in
tying her hands behind her, raised up one of the ends of her handkerchief.
Madame Elisabeth, with calmness, and in a voice which seemed not to belong
to earth, said to him, "In the name of modesty, cover my bosom." I
learned this from Madame de Serilly, who was condemned the same day as the
Princess, but who obtained a respite at the moment of the execution,
Madame de Montmorin, her relation, declaring that her cousin was
enceinte.-MADAME CAMPAN.]
The Queen desired me to sit down by her; the two Princesses could not
sleep; they were conversing mournfully upon their situation when a musket
was discharged in the courtyard. They both quitted the sofa, saying,
"There is the first shot, unfortunately it will not be the last; let us go
up to the King." The Queen desired me to follow her; several of her women
went with me.
At four o'clock the Queen came out of the King's chamber and told us she
had no longer any hope; that M. Mandat, who had gone to the Hotel de Ville
to receive further orders, had just been assassinated, and that the people
were at that time carrying his head about the streets. Day came. The
King, the Queen, Madame Elisabeth, Madame, and the Dauphin went down to
pass through the ranks of the sections of the National Guard; the cry of
"Vive le Roi!" was heard from a few places. I was at a window on the
garden side; I saw some of the gunners quit their posts, go up to the
King, and thrust their fists in his face, insulting him by the most brutal
language. Messieurs de Salvert and de Bridges drove them off in a
spirited manner. The King was as pale as a corpse. The royal family came
in again. The Queen told me that all was lost; that the King had shown no
energy; and that this sort of review had done more harm than good.
I was in the billiard-room with my companions; we placed ourselves upon
some high benches. I then saw M. d'Hervilly with a drawn sword in his
hand, ordering the usher to open the door to the French noblesse. Two
hundred persons entered the room nearest to that in which the family were;
others drew up in two lines in the preceding rooms. I saw a few people
belonging to the Court, many others whose features were unknown to me, and
a few who figured technically without right among what was called the
noblesse, but whose self-devotion ennobled them at once. They were all so
badly armed that even in that situation the indomitable French liveliness
indulged in jests. M. de Saint-Souplet, one of the King's equerries, and
a page, carried on their shoulders instead of muskets the tongs belonging
to the King's antechamber, which they had broken and divided between them.
Another page, who had a pocket-pistol in his hand, stuck the end of it
against the back of the person who stood before him, and who begged he
would be good enough to rest it elsewhere. A sword and a pair of pistols
were the only arms of those who had had the precaution to provide
themselves with arms at all. Meanwhile, the numerous bands from the
faubourgs, armed with pikes and cutlasses, filled the Carrousel and the
streets adjacent to the Tuileries. The sanguinary Marseillais were at
their head, with cannon pointed against the Chateau. In this emergency
the King's Council sent M. Dejoly, the Minister of Justice, to the
Assembly to request they would send the King a deputation which might
serve as a safeguard to the executive power. His ruin was resolved on;
they passed to the order of the day. At eight o'clock the department
repaired to the Chateau. The procureur-syndic, seeing that the guard
within was ready to join the assailants, went into the King's closet and
requested to speak to him in private. The King received him in his
chamber; the Queen was with him. There M. Roederer told him that the
King, all his family, and the people about them would inevitably perish
unless his Majesty immediately determined to go to the National Assembly.
The Queen at first opposed this advice, but the procureur-syndic told her
that she rendered herself responsible for the deaths of the King, her
children, and all who were in the palace. She no longer objected. The
King then consented to go to the Assembly. As he set out, he said to the
minister and persons who surrounded him, "Come, gentlemen, there is
nothing more to be done here."
["The King hesitated, the Queen manifested the highest dissatisfaction.
'What!' said she,' are we alone; is there nobody who can act?'--'Yes,
Madame, alone; action is useless--resistance is impossible.' One of the
members of the department, M. Gerdrot, insisted on the prompt execution of
the proposed measure. 'Silence, monsieur,' said the Queen to him;
'silence; you are the only person who ought to be silent here; when the
mischief is done, those who did it should not pretend to wish to remedy
it.' . . .
"The King remained mute; nobody spoke. It was reserved for me to give the
last piece of advice. I had the firmness to say, 'Let us go, and not
deliberate; honour commands it, the good of the State requires it. Let us
go to the National Assembly; this step ought to have been taken long ago:
'Let us go,' said the King, raising his right hand; 'let us start; let us
give this last mark of self-devotion, since it is necessary.' The Queen
was persuaded. Her first anxiety was for the King, the second for her
son; the King had none. 'M. Roederer--gentlemen,' said the Queen, 'you
answer for the person of the King; you answer for that of my
son.'--'Madame,' replied M. Roederer, 'we pledge ourselves to die at your
side; that is all we can engage for.'"--MONTJOIE, "History of Marie
Antoinette."]
The Queen said to me as she left the King's chamber, "Wait in my
apartments; I will come to you, or I will send for you to go I know not
whither." She took with her only the Princesse de Lamballe and Madame de
Tourzel. The Princesse de Tarente and Madame de la Roche-Aymon were
inconsolable at being left at the Tuileries; they, and all who belonged to
the chamber, went down into the Queen's apartments.
We saw the royal family pass between two lines formed by the Swiss
grenadiers and those of the battalions of the Petits-Peres and the Filles
Saint Thomas. They were so pressed upon by the crowd that during that
short passage the Queen was robbed of her watch and purse. A man of great
height and horrible appearance, one of such as were to be seen at the head
of all the insurrections, drew near the Dauphin, whom the Queen was
leading by the hand, and took him up in his arms. The Queen uttered a
scream of terror, and was ready to faint. The man said to her, "Don't be
frightened, I will do him no harm;" and he gave him back to her at the
entrance of the chamber.
I leave to history all the details of that too memorable day, confining
myself to recalling a few of the frightful scenes acted in the interior of
the Tuileries after the King had quitted the palace.
The assailants did not know that the King and his family had betaken
themselves to the Assembly; and those who defended the palace from the
aide of the courts were equally ignorant of it. It is supposed that if
they had been aware of the fact the siege would never have taken place.
[In reading of the events of the 10th of August, 1792, the reader must
remember that there was hardly any armed force to resist the mob. The
regiments that had shown signs of being loyal to the King had been removed
from Paris by the Assembly. The Swiss had been deprived of their own
artillery, and the Court had sent one of their battalions into Normandy at
a time when there was an idea of taking refuge there. The National Guard
were either disloyal or disheartened, and the gunners, especially of that
force at the Tuileries, sympathised with the mob. Thus the King had about
800 or 900 Swiss and little more than one battalion of the National Guard.
Mandat, one of the six heads of the legions of the National Guard, to
whose turn the command fell on that day, was true to his duty, but was
sent for to the Hotel de Ville and assassinated. Still the small force,
even after the departure of the King, would have probably beaten off the
mob had not the King given the fatal order to the Swiss to cease firing.
(See Thiers's "Revolution Francaise," vol. i., chap. xi.) Bonaparte's
opinion of the mob may be judged by his remarks on the 20th June, 1792,
when, disgusted at seeing the King appear with the red cap on his head, he
exclaimed, "Che coglione! Why have they let in all that rabble? Why
don't they sweep off 400 or 500 of them with the cannon? The rest would
then set off." ("Bourrienne," vol. i., p.13, Bentley, London, 1836.)
Bonaparte carried out his own plan against a far stronger force of
assailants on the Jour des Sections, 4th October, 1795.]
The Marseillais began by driving from their posts several Swiss, who
yielded without resistance; a few of the assailants fired upon them; some
of the Swiss officers, seeing their men fall, and perhaps thinking the
King was still at the Tuileries, gave the word to a whole battalion to
fire. The aggressors were thrown into disorder, and the Carrousel was
cleared in a moment; but they soon returned, spurred on by rage and
revenge. The Swiss were but eight hundred strong; they fell back into the
interior of the Chateau; some of the doors were battered in by the guns,
others broken through with hatchets; the populace rushed from all quarters
into the interior of the palace; almost all the Swiss were massacred; the
nobles, flying through the gallery which leads to the Louvre, were either
stabbed or shot, and the bodies thrown out of the windows.
M. Pallas and M. de Marchais, ushers of the King's chamber, were killed in
defending the door of the council chamber; many others of the King's
servants fell victims to their fidelity. I mention these two persons in
particular because, with their hats pulled over their brows and their
swords in their hands, they exclaimed, as they defended themselves with
unavailing courage, "We will not survive!--this is our post; our duty is
to die at it." M. Diet behaved in the same manner at the door of the
Queen's bedchamber; he experienced the same fate. The Princesse de
Tarente had fortunately opened the door of the apartments; otherwise, the
dreadful band seeing several women collected in the Queen's salon would
have fancied she was among us, and would have immediately massacred us had
we resisted them. We were, indeed, all about to perish, when a man with a
long beard came up, exclaiming, in the name of Potion, "Spare the women;
don't dishonour the nation!" A particular circumstance placed me in
greater danger than the others. In my confusion I imagined, a moment
before the assailants entered the Queen's apartments, that my sister was
not among the group of women collected there; and I went up into an
'entresol', where I supposed she had taken refuge, to induce her to come
down, fancying it safer that we should not be separated. I did not find
her in the room in question; I saw there only our two femmes de chambre
and one of the Queen's two heyducs, a man of great height and military
aspect. I saw that he was pale, and sitting on a bed. I cried out to
him, "Fly! the footmen and our people are already safe."--"I cannot," said
the man to me; "I am dying of fear." As he spoke I heard a number of men
rushing hastily up the staircase; they threw themselves upon him, and I
saw him assassinated.
I ran towards the staircase, followed by our women. The murderers left
the heyduc to come to me. The women threw themselves at their feet, and
held their sabres. The narrowness of the staircase impeded the assassins;
but I had already felt a horrid hand thrust into my back to seize me by my
clothes, when some one called out from the bottom of the staircase, "What
are you doing above there? We don't kill women." I was on my knees; my
executioner quitted his hold of me, and said, "Get up, you jade; the
nation pardons you."
The brutality of these words did not prevent my suddenly experiencing an
indescribable feeling which partook almost equally of the love of life and
the idea that I was going to see my son, and all that was dear to me,
again. A moment before I had thought less of death than of the pain which
the steel, suspended over my head, would occasion me. Death is seldom
seen so close without striking his blow. I heard every syllable uttered
by the assassins, just as if I had been calm.
Five or six men seized me and my companions, and, having made us get up on
benches placed before the windows, ordered us to call out, "The nation for
ever!"
I passed over several corpses; I recognised that of the old Vicomte de
Broves, to whom the Queen had sent me at the beginning of the night to
desire him and another old man in her name to go home. These brave men
desired I would tell her Majesty that they had but too strictly obeyed the
King's orders in all circumstances under which they ought to have exposed
their own lives in order to preserve his; and that for this once they
would not obey, though they would cherish the recollection of the Queen's
goodness.
Near the grille, on the side next the bridge, the men who conducted me
asked whither I wished to go. Upon my inquiring, in my turn, whether they
were at liberty to take me wherever I might wish to go, one of them, a
Marseillais, asked me, giving me at the same time a push with the butt end
of his musket, whether I still doubted the power of the people? I
answered "No," and I mentioned the number of my brother-in-law's house. I
saw my sister ascending the steps of the parapet of the bridge, surrounded
by members of the National Guard. I called to her, and she turned round.
"Would you have her go with you?" said my guardian to me. I told him I did
wish it. They called the people who were leading my sister to prison; she
joined me.
Madame de la Roche-Aymon and her daughter, Mademoiselle Pauline de
Tourzel, Madame de Ginestoux, lady to the Princesse de Lamballe, the other
women of the Queen, and the old Comte d'Affry, were led off together to
the Abbaye.
Our progress from the Tuileries to my sister's house was most distressing.
We saw several Swiss pursued and killed, and musket-shots were crossing
each other in all directions. We passed under the walls of the Louvre;
they were firing from the parapet into the windows of the gallery, to hit
the knights of the dagger; for thus did the populace designate those
faithful subjects who had assembled at the Tuileries to defend the King.
The brigands broke some vessels of water in the Queen's first antechamber;
the mixture of blood and water stained the skirts of our white gowns. The
poissardes screamed after us in the streets that we were attached to the
Austrian. Our protectors then showed some consideration for us, and made
us go up a gateway to pull off our gowns; but our petticoats being too
short, and making us look like persons in disguise, other poissardes began
to bawl out that we were young Swiss dressed up like women. We then saw a
tribe of female cannibals enter the street, carrying the head of poor
Mandat. Our guards made us hastily enter a little public-house, called
for wine, and desired us to drink with them. They assured the landlady
that we were their sisters, and good patriots. Happily the Marseillais
had quitted us to return to the Tuileries. One of the men who remained
with us said to me in a low voice: "I am a gauze-worker in the faubourg.
I was forced to march; I am not for all this; I have not killed anybody,
and have rescued you. You ran a great risk when we met the mad women who
are carrying Mandat's head. These horrible women said yesterday at
midnight, upon the site of the Bastille, that they must have their revenge
for the 6th of October, at Versailles, and that they had sworn to kill the
Queen and all the women attached to her; the danger of the action saved
you all."
As I crossed the Carrousel, I saw my house in flames; but as soon as the
first moment of affright was over, I thought no more of my personal
misfortunes. My ideas turned solely upon the dreadful situation of the
Queen.
On reaching my sister's we found all our family in despair, believing they
should never see us again. I could not remain in her house; some of the
mob, collected round the door, exclaimed that Marie Antoinette's
confidante was in the house, and that they must have her head. I
disguised myself, and was concealed in the house of M. Morel, secretary
for the lotteries. On the morrow I was inquired for there, in the name of
the Queen. A deputy, whose sentiments were known to her, took upon
himself to find me out.
I borrowed clothes, and went with my sister to the Feuillans--[A former
monastery near the Tuileries, so called from the Bernardines, one of the
Cistercian orders; later a revolutionary club.]--We got there at the same
time with M. Thierry de Ville d'Avray, the King's first valet de chambre.
We were taken into an office, where we wrote down our names and places of
abode, and we received tickets for admission into the rooms belonging to
Camus, the keeper of the Archives, where the King was with his family.
As we entered the first room, a person who was there said to me, "Ah! you
are a brave woman; but where is that Thierry,
[M. Thierry, who never ceased to give his sovereign proofs of unalterable
attachment, was one of the victims of the 2d of September.--MADAME
CAMPAN.]
that man loaded with his master's bounties?"--"He is here," said I; "he is
following me. I perceive that even scenes of death do not banish jealousy
from among you."
Having belonged to the Court from my earliest youth, I was known to many
persons whom I did not know. As I traversed a corridor above the
cloisters which led to the cells inhabited by the unfortunate Louis XVI.
and his family, several of the grenadiers called me by name. One of them
said to me, "Well, the poor King is lost! The Comte d'Artois would have
managed it better."--"Not at all," said another.
The royal family occupied a small suite of apartments consisting of four
cells, formerly belonging to the ancient monastery of the Feuillans. In
the first were the men who had accompanied the King: the Prince de Poix,
the Baron d'Aubier, M. de Saint-Pardou, equerry to Madame Elisabeth, MM.
de Goguelat, de Chamilly, and de Hue. In the second we found the King; he
was having his hair dressed; he took two locks of it, and gave one to my
sister and one to me. We offered to kiss his hand; he opposed it, and
embraced us without saying anything. In the third was the Queen, in bed,
and in indescribable affliction. We found her accompanied only by a stout
woman, who appeared tolerably civil; she was the keeper of the apartments.
She waited upon the Queen, who as yet had none of her own people about
her. Her Majesty stretched out her arms to us, saying, "Come, unfortunate
women; come, and see one still more unhappy than yourselves, since she has
been the cause of all your misfortunes. We are ruined," continued she;
"we have arrived at that point to which they have been leading us for
three years, through all possible outrages; we shall fall in this dreadful
revolution, and many others will perish after us. All have contributed to
our downfall; the reformers have urged it like mad people, and others
through ambition, for the wildest Jacobin seeks wealth and office, and the
mob is eager for plunder. There is not one real patriot among all this
infamous horde. The emigrant party have their intrigues and schemes;
foreigners seek to profit by the dissensions of France; every one has a
share in our misfortunes."
The Dauphin came in with Madame and the Marquise de Tourzel. On seeing
them the Queen said to me, "Poor children! how heartrending it is,
instead of handing down to them so fine an inheritance, to say it ends
with us!" She afterwards conversed with me about the Tuileries and the
persons who had fallen; she condescended also to mention the burning of my
house. I looked upon that loss as a mischance which ought not to dwell
upon her mind, and I told her so. She spoke of the Princesse de Tarente,
whom she greatly loved and valued, of Madame de la Roche-Aymon and her
daughter, of the other persons whom she had left at the palace, and of the
Duchesse de Luynes, who was to have passed the night at the Tuileries.
Respecting her she said, "Hers was one of the first heads turned by the
rage for that mischievous philosophy; but her heart brought her back, and
I again found a friend in her."
[During the Reign of Terror I withdrew to the Chateau de Coubertin, near
that of Dampierre. The Duchesse de Luynes frequently came to ask me to
tell her what the Queen had said about her at the Feuillans. She would
say as she went away, "I have often need to request you to repeat those
words of the Queen."--MADAME CAMPAN.]
I asked the Queen what the ambassadors from foreign powers had done under
existing circumstances. She told me that they could do nothing; and that
the wife of the English ambassador had just given her a proof of the
personal interest she took in her welfare by sending her linen for her
son.
I informed her that, in the pillaging of my house, all my accounts with
her had been thrown into the Carrousel, and that every sheet of my month's
expenditure was signed by her, sometimes leaving four or five inches of
blank paper above her signature, a circumstance which rendered me very
uneasy, from an apprehension that an improper use might be made of those
signatures. She desired me to demand admission to the committee of
general safety, and to make this declaration there. I repaired thither
instantly and found a deputy, with whose name I have never become
acquainted. After hearing me he said that he would not receive my
deposition; that Marie Antoinette was now nothing more than any other
Frenchwoman; and that if any of those detached papers bearing her
signature should be misapplied, she would have, at a future period, a
right to lodge a complaint, and to support her declaration by the facts
which I had just related. The Queen then regretted having sent me, and
feared that she had, by her very caution, pointed out a method of
fabricating forgeries which might be dangerous to her; then again she
exclaimed, "My apprehensions are as absurd as the step I made you take.
They need nothing more for our ruin; all has been told."
She gave us details of what had taken place subsequently to the King's
arrival at the Assembly. They are all well known, and I have no occasion
to record them; I will merely mention that she told us, though with much
delicacy, that she was not a little hurt at the King's conduct since he
had quitted the Tuileries; that his habit of laying no restraint upon his
great appetite had prompted him to eat as if he had been at his palace;
that those who did not know him as she did, did not feel the piety and the
magnanimity of his resignation, all which produced so bad an effect that
deputies who were devoted to him had warned him of it; but no change could
be effected.
I still see in imagination, and shall always see, that narrow cell at the
Feuillans, hung with green paper, that wretched couch whence the
dethroned, Queen stretched out her arms to us, saying that our
misfortunes, of which she was the cause, increased her own. There, for
the last time, I saw the tears, I heard the sobs of her whom high birth,
natural endowments, and, above all, goodness of heart, had seemed to
destine to adorn any throne, and be the happiness of any people! It is
impossible for those who lived with Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette not to
be fully convinced, while doing full justice to the King's virtues, that
if the Queen had been from the moment of her arrival in France the object
of the care and affection of a prince of decision and authority, she would
have only added to the glory of his reign.
What affecting things I have heard the Queen say in the affliction caused
her by the belief of part of the Court and the whole of the people that
she did not love France! How did that opinion shock those who knew her
heart and her sentiments! Twice did I see her on the point of going from
her apartments in the Tuileries into the gardens, to address the immense
throng constantly assembled there to insult her. "Yes," exclaimed she, as
she paced her chamber with hurried steps, "I will say to them Frenchmen,
they have had the cruelty to persuade you that I do not love France!--I!
the mother of a Dauphin who will reign over this noble country!--I! whom
Providence has seated upon the most powerful throne of Europe! Of all the
daughters of Maria Theresa am I not that one whom fortune has most highly
favoured? And ought I not to feel all these advantages? What should I
find at Vienna? Nothing but sepulchres! What should I lose in France?
Everything which can confer glory!"
I protest I only repeat her own words; the soundness of her judgment soon
pointed out to her the dangers of such a proceeding. "I should descend
from the throne," said she, "merely, perhaps, to excite a momentary
sympathy, which the factious would soon render more injurious than
beneficial to me."
Yes, not only did Marie Antoinette love France, but few women took greater
pride in the courage of Frenchmen. I could adduce a multitude of proofs
of this; I will relate two traits which demonstrate the noblest
enthusiasm: The Queen was telling me that, at the coronation of the
Emperor Francis II., that Prince, bespeaking the admiration of a French
general officer, who was then an emigrant, for the fine appearance of his
troops, said to him, "There are the men to beat your sans culottes!" "That
remains to be seen, Sire," instantly replied the officer. The Queen
added, "I don't know the name of that brave Frenchman, but I will learn
it; the King ought to be in possession of it." As she was reading the
public papers a few days before the 10th of August, she observed that
mention was made of the courage of a young man who died in defending the
flag he carried, and shouting, "Vive la Nation!"--"Ah! the fine lad!" said
the Queen; "what a happiness it would have been for us if such men had
never left off crying, 'Vive de Roi!'"
In all that I have hitherto said of this most unfortunate of women and of
queens, those who did not live with her, those who knew her but partially,
and especially the majority of foreigners, prejudiced by infamous libels,
may imagine I have thought it my duty to sacrifice truth on the altar of
gratitude. Fortunately I can invoke unexceptionable witnesses; they will
declare whether what I assert that I have seen and heard appears to them
either untrue or improbable.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A man born solely to contradict
Alas! her griefs double mine!
He is afraid to command
His ruin was resolved on; they passed to the order of the day
King (gave) the fatal order to the Swiss to cease firing
La Fayette to rescue the royal family and convey them to Rouen
Prevent disorder from organising itself
The emigrant party have their intrigues and schemes
There is not one real patriot among all this infamous horde
Those who did it should not pretend to wish to remedy it