The members of the Parlement returned from their exile as contumacious
as ever. Against the express command of the king, they persisted in
occupying themselves with religious questions and manifesting a spirit
of opposition to the pretensions of the Papacy. The public excitement
was so great that a wretch named Damiens attempted to assassinate the
king, in 1757, but only wounded him slightly. In 1770, the Duc
d'Aiguillon, Governor of Brittany, having been relieved of his post and
formally accused by the parlement of that province, was brought to trial
before the Parlement of Paris in his quality of peer of the realm. He
was about to be condemned when the king, in a bed of justice, quashed
the proceedings. To the indignant protests of the magistrates, who
suspended their sittings, Louis XV replied by dismissing his minister,
Choiseul, and giving his post to D'Aiguillon. On the night of the 19th
and 20th of January, 1771, a hundred and sixty-nine of the members of
the Parlement were each awakened by two musketeers, who required them to
sign _yes_ or _no_ on the order to resume their official functions.
Thirty-eight signed _yes_, but retracted this consent two days later;
on the following night a huissier notified the members of their
suspension from office, and the musketeers brought them lettres de
cachet which banished them all in different directions. At the end of
the year there were more than seven hundred magistrates in exile. The
king transformed his council into a parlement, under the presidency of
M. Maupeou, from whom it took its name, but it was received with a storm
of popular insult and ridicule. Public opinion throughout the nation was
aroused; all the princes of the blood, excepting one, and thirteen peers
protested to the king "against the reversal of the laws of the State,"
and the name of the _États Généraux_ was openly pronounced in the
parlements of Toulouse, Besançon, Rouen, and even in Paris. "Richelieu
and Louis XIV had destroyed the political importance of the nobility;
Louis XV destroyed the great institution of the magistracy,--what was
there remaining to prop up the ancient edifice and to cover the
monarchy?"
The ribald Parisians circulated this _Pater_, and found amusement in it:
"Our Father who art at Versailles, your name be glorified, your reign is
shaken, your will is executed no more on the earth than in heaven; give
us our daily bread, which you have taken from us; pardon your
parlements, which have sustained your interests, as you pardon your
ministers who have sold them: do not succumb any longer to the
temptations of the Du Barry, but deliver us from the devil of the
chancellor."
In the midst of the general decadence, which affected alike royalty, the
clergy, and the nobles, in the general confusion and inequality of all
laws and procedure, a formidable spirit of investigation began to stir.
The nation had no written constitution, everything depended upon custom,
and was maintained only by a sort of public opinion, which constantly
varied. The contradictions and anomalies in all branches of the public
administration were rendered even more hopeless by the general
corruption and clashing of individual interests: "France has no general,
positive, written law ... which defines all the powers," said Lally
Tollendal in the chambre de la noblesse in 1789. Both the civil and the
penal law bristled with the most flagrant injustice, the accused was
frequently allowed no defence; torture, mutilations, and the
death-penalty were awarded with the most shocking facility and for the
most inadequate crimes,--the complete innocence of the victim was but
too frequently recognized after his execution. "If I were accused of
having stolen the towers of Notre-Dame," said one, "I would consider it
prudent to run away." The right of asylum was still maintained in Paris
in the enclosure of the Temple, as in the Middle Ages; in 1768, "poor
devils were sent to the galleys for having sold certain books, among
them the innocent satire of Voltaire: _L'homme aux quarante écus_."
[Illustration: THE NEW HOTEL DE VILLE, AND THE PONT D'ARCOLE. After a
drawing by Libonis.]
The details of the trial and execution of Damiens, for his attempt on
the life of the king, give a better picture of the times than any
general description. Immediately after his arrest, his legs were torn
with red-hot pinchers, and these wounds were not allowed to heal. He was
confined in the Tour de Montgommery, in a circular chamber twelve feet
in diameter, almost without light and air, strapped down, without the
power of movement, to a mattress, the bottom of which was alternately
pushed up and let down by a jack underneath. His examination lasted
fifty-seven days; he was put to the question, "ordinary and
extraordinary," to discover the names of his accomplices, and finally
condemned to death by torture in very nearly the same phrases as those
which we have quoted in the sentence of Ravaillac. An enclosure was
arranged in the Place de Grève, surrounded by a strong barricade of
planks, pointed at the top, with elongations at the four corners for the
four horses who were to _écarteler_ the criminal; in the centre was a
very solid wooden table, six feet long, four feet wide, and about three
feet high, on which he was to be placed, fastened down with iron plates
over his chest, stomach, and between his thighs, in such a manner that
his body should be perfectly immovable while his limbs were at liberty.
"The roofs of all the houses in the Grève," says the contemporary
_Journal de Barbier_, "and even the chimneys, were covered with people.
There was a man and a woman who fell in a certain locality, and who
injured others. It was remarked that there were very many women, and
even some of distinction, and that they sustained the horror of this
execution better than the men, which did not do them any honor."
From the memoirs of H. Sanson, one of the public executioners, the
following details are quoted by M. de Genouillac. "The _tortionnaire_,
who had charge of the pinchers, and who, by a singular mockery of
circumstances, bore the name of a great seigneur of the time, Soubise,
had assured his chief that he had procured all the implements indicated
in the sentence. When he arrived at the scaffold, Gabriel Sanson
immediately perceived that the miserable Soubise was drunk, and quite
incapable of fulfilling his appointed task. Filled with violent
apprehension, he demanded to be shown the lead, the sulphur, the wax,
and the rosin which Soubise was to have purchased; everything was
lacking, and it was recognized at the same moment that the 'patient'
might arrive immediately, that the pile which was to consume his body
was composed of damp and ill-chosen wood that would be very difficult to
light.
"In contemplating the consequences of the drunkenness of the
_tortionnaire_, Gabriel Sanson lost his head. For some moments the
scaffold presented a spectacle of inexpressible confusion; the valets
ran about distracted, everybody cried out at once, and the unhappy
executioner of the _prévôté de l'hôtel_ tore his hair while deploring
the terrible responsibility which he had brought down upon his head. The
arrival of the lieutenant of the short robe, who had finished disposing
his men in the enclosure, the presence of the procureur général, who
had been sent for, put an end to this disorder.
"The magistrate severely reprimanded Gabriel Sanson.... During this
interval, the valets went into the shops of the grocers of the
neighborhood to provide themselves with what was necessary; but when
they issued from the enclosure, the crowd followed them,--in all the
shops which they entered their purpose was made known and the merchants
refused to sell them, or pretended not to have what they desired; it was
necessary for the lieutenant to send with them an officer to demand, _in
the king's name_, the objects of which they had need."
"This scene was prolonged for such a length of time," says M. de
Genouillac, continuing the narration, "that everything was not yet ready
when the patient arrived on the Place de Grève, and they were obliged to
seat him on one of the steps of the scaffold whilst they proceeded,
under his very eyes, with the final preparations for his death. Damiens
had remained three hours in the chapel; he had prayed continually, with
a fervor and a contrition that had touched the hearts of all those
present. When four o'clock struck from the clock of the Palais, Gabriel
Sanson approached MM. Gueret and De Marsilly, and said to them that the
hour to set out had arrived.
"Although he had spoken in a low voice, Damiens had heard him, for he
murmured, in a feverish voice: 'Yes, it will soon be night;' and after a
pause he added: 'Alas! to-morrow it will be day for them!'
"They raised him up to take him away; he made the motion of a kiss
toward the crucifix; he was put into the tumbril, which took its way
toward Notre-Dame. Before the porch of the church they endeavored to
force him to kneel, but his legs were so broken that he uttered a
piercing cry in endeavoring to stoop; he was obliged to pronounce while
standing the words which the greffier dictated to him.
[Illustration: THE "FORMES ACERBES." After a drawing by Lafitte.
Expression used by Barère in his defence of Joseph Le Bon: "If Le Bon
had employed _formes acerbes_, he had at least shown his devotion to the
Republic." Le Bon caused the execution of more than fifteen hundred
persons; it was he who installed an orchestra at the foot of the
guillotine.]
"He was replaced in the cart and all returned to the Place de Grève,
which was literally full of people belonging to all classes of society.
Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, Damiens asked to speak to the
commissioners; he was carried to the Hôtel de Ville, there he retracted
again the accusation he had made against Gautier, which had been wrung
from him by torture, recommended his wife and his children to M.
Pasquier, and at five o'clock he was set down again on the Place and
they lifted him on the scaffold.
"The braziers in which was burning the sulphur mingled with burning
coals were ready; his arm was attached to a bar in such a manner that
the wrist extended beyond the outside plank of the platform. The
executioner brought up the brazier. Damiens uttered a frightful cry and
writhed; then, that movement over, he lifted his head and watched his
hand burning without manifesting his pain in any other manner than by
the chattering of his teeth. It was one of Sanson's valets, André
Legris, who, for the sum of a hundred livres, undertook the tearing with
pinchers. He carried his instrument over the arms, over the chest, and
over the thighs of the patient, and brought away shreds of flesh; then
he poured into the gaping wounds boiling oil, flaming rosin, sulphur
fused, or melted lead, with which the other valets supplied him.
"Damiens, mad with pain, his eyes immeasurably out of their orbits, the
hair standing on his head, cried, in a voice that made every one
tremble: 'More! more!'
"But he was taken down from the platform, the traces of the horses were
attached to each one of his limbs. Each horse was held by the bridle by
an aid; another was placed behind with a whip in his hand; the
executioner, standing on the platform, gave the signal.
"The four horses sprang violently forward, one of them fell, but the
body of the unfortunate wretch was not dismembered.
"Three times the horses recommenced their efforts, and three times the
resistance of the body made them fall back. Only the arms and legs of
the patient, who was still living, were immeasurably elongated.
"The curé had fainted; the executioners no longer knew what to do. The
spectators, at first dumb with stupor and fright, now uttered
exclamations of horror.
"It was then that the surgeon, Boyer, ascended to the Hôtel de Ville to
ask of the commissioners permission to cut the joints; this was at first
refused, on the pretext that the longer the execution lasted the more
would the criminal suffer, and that this was what was necessary; but the
surgeon having affirmed that the tearing asunder could not be effected
without aid, it was resolved to permit the necessary amputation.
"But there was no instrument.
"André Legris performed the operation with blows of a hatchet, he cut
the arm-pits and the joints of the thighs. The two thighs were first
dismembered, then a shoulder, and it was not till after this that the
wretched Damiens expired.
"A sigh of relief escaped from all breasts.
"But it was not finished: the four members and the trunk were gathered
up and all placed upon the pile of fagots, and the flames arose. The
execution of Damiens had lasted an hour and a quarter....
[Illustration: ROBESPIERRE GUILLOTINING THE EXECUTIONER.
From an engraving in the collection of M. Félix Perin.
"Robespierre, after having had all the French guillotined, beheads the
executioner with his own hand." This caricature cost the engraver his
life.]
"It was observed, when they picked up the body of Damiens to throw it
on the pyre, that his hair, which was brown when he arrived on the Place
de Grève, had become white as snow."
The judgment rendered by the Parlement in the famous case of the diamond
necklace, in the following reign, was received with very different
emotions by the court and the people. It may be remembered that the
Bishop of Strasbourg, Cardinal de Rohan, a member of one of the most
arrogant families of the nobility, anxious to regain the favor of the
Queen Marie Antoinette, had fallen into the snares of a clever
adventuress, Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois, Comtesse de la Motte. The
latter was aware that the crown-jewelers, MM. Boehmer and Bassenge, had
offered the queen a necklace of diamonds for the price of one million
six hundred thousand livres, but that she had declined it, saying that
the money would be better applied in the purchase of a vessel of war.
Madame de la Motte proceeded to open fictitious negotiations with the
jewelers in the name of the queen, pretending that the latter had
changed her mind but did not wish the affair to become public, that the
purchase would be made by instalments and through the hands of a great
seigneur of the court. This was the Cardinal Rohan, upon whom she
imposed, by means of forged letters from the queen, skilfully prepared
by her secretary, one Sieur Rétaux de Villette. She even arranged a
brief nocturnal interview in the gardens of Versailles for him, as
related in the last chapter, with a demoiselle from the Palais-Royal
disguised as Marie-Antoinette. A few days later, the cardinal remitted
to the comtesse the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand livres on a
pretended letter; but when she proposed to him, later, to purchase the
necklace himself on the strength of the queen's promise to indemnify
him, he had so many doubts that he went to consult the adventurer
Cagliostro, then in great favor in Paris. The magician pronounced
favorably upon the enterprise; in January, 1785, the cardinal received
the jewels from the merchants in return for a paper signed and sealed by
him but bearing on the margin the words: "_Approuvé_, MARIE-ANTOINETTE
_de France_" in which it was agreed that they were to be paid for in
four instalments of four hundred thousand livres each, the first payment
to be made on the 1st of August following. The queens of France were
never in the habit of adding anything to the signature of their
Christian names. On the first of February the cardinal delivered the
necklace in a casket, in the apartments of Madame de la Motte at
Versailles, to an assumed valet in the royal livery, whom he thought he
recognized, but who was no other than the crafty Rétaux de Villette. The
stones were immediately separated, the comtesse kept the small ones for
herself and sold the larger ones in England. Naturally, the affair came
to light a few months later, and on the 15th of August the cardinal was
lodged in the Bastille.
Great was the excitement; the Papacy even interfered to prevent the
trial of so eminent a churchman by the Parlement, before whom the king
brought the _procès_ in the following month, but the latter maintained
its rights, and on the 31st of May, 1786, pronounced judgment. M. de la
Motte (who had escaped to England) was condemned to the galleys for
life; his wife, to be publicly flogged, branded on both shoulders with
the letter "V," a rope around her neck, and imprisoned for life; Rétaux
de Villette banished for life, without branding or flogging; the
demoiselle D'Olivia discharged; Cagliostro and the cardinal discharged
from all accusation. The acquittal of the prelate was hailed with
applause by the people, and viewed with great displeasure by the court
and the nobility; the blow to the royal prestige was felt to be very
serious, the publicity given to the fact that a cardinal, Grand Almoner
to the Court, had mistaken a courtesan for the Queen of France was
recognized as most unfortunate. Louis XVI banished him to his abbey of
the Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne, ordered him to resign his post of Grand
Aumônier de France, and to return his order of the Saint-Esprit.
[Illustration: LAST EVENT OF THE REIGN OF TERROR: THE CLOSING OF THE
JACOBIN CLUB.