gates of the Tuileries, all who came to see the Queen were insulted with
impunity. Menacing cries were uttered aloud even in the Tuileries; they
called for the destruction of the throne, and the murder of the sovereign;
the grossest insults were offered by the very lowest of the mob.
About this time the King fell into a despondent state, which amounted
almost to physical helplessness. He passed ten successive days without
uttering a single word, even in the bosom of his family; except, indeed,
when playing at backgammon after dinner with Madame Elisabeth. The Queen
roused him from this state, so fatal at a critical period, by throwing
herself at his feet, urging every alarming idea, and employing every
affectionate expression. She represented also what he owed to his family;
and told him that if they were doomed to fall they ought to fall
honourably, and not wait to be smothered upon the floor of their
apartment.
About the 15th of June, 1792, the King refused his sanction to the two
decrees ordaining the deportation of priests and the formation of a camp
of twenty thousand men under the walls of Paris. He himself wished to
sanction them, and said that the general insurrection only waited for a
pretence to burst forth. The Queen insisted upon the veto, and reproached
herself bitterly when this last act of the constitutional authority had
occasioned the day of the 20th of June.
A few days previously about twenty thousand men had gone to the Commune to
announce that, on the 20th, they would plant the tree of liberty at the
door of the National Assembly, and present a petition to the King
respecting the veto which he had placed upon the decree for the
deportation of the priests. This dreadful army crossed the garden of the
Tuileries, and marched under the Queen’s windows; it consisted of people
who called themselves the citizens of the Faubourgs St. Antoine and St.
Marceau. Clothed in filthy rags, they bore a most terrifying appearance,
and even infected the air. People asked each other where such an army
could come from; nothing so disgusting had ever before appeared in Paris.
On the 20th of June this mob thronged about the Tuileries in still greater
numbers, armed with pikes, hatchets, and murderous instruments of all
kinds, decorated with ribbons of the national colours, Shouting, “The
nation for ever! Down with the veto!” The King was without guards. Some
of these desperadoes rushed up to his apartment; the door was about to be
forced in, when the King commanded that it should be opened. Messieurs de
Bougainville, d’Hervilly, de Parois, d’Aubier, Acloque, Gentil, and other
courageous men who were in the apartment of M. de Septeuil, the King’s
first valet de chambre, instantly ran to his Majesty’s apartment. M. de
Bougainville, seeing the torrent furiously advancing, cried out, “Put the
King in the recess of the window, and place benches before him.” Six
royalist grenadiers of the battalion of the Filles Saint Thomas made their
way by an inner staircase, and ranged themselves before the benches. The
order given by M. de Bougainville saved the King from the blades of the
assassins, among whom was a Pole named Lazousky, who was to strike the
first blow. The King’s brave defenders said, “Sire, fear nothing.” The
King’s reply is well known: “Put your hand upon my heart, and you will
perceive whether I am afraid.” M. Vanot, commandant of battalion, warded
off a blow aimed by a wretch against the King; a grenadier of the Filles
Saint Thomas parried a sword-thrust made in the same direction. Madame
Elisabeth ran to her brother’s apartments; when she reached the door she
heard loud threats of death against the Queen: they called for the head of
the Austrian. “Ah! let them think I am the Queen,” she said to those
around her, “that she may have time to escape.”
The Queen could not join the King; she was in the council chamber, where
she had been placed behind the great table to protect her, as much as
possible, against the approach of the barbarians. Preserving a noble and
becoming demeanour in this dreadful situation, she held the Dauphin before
her, seated upon the table. Madame was at her side; the Princesse de
Lamballe, the Princesse de Tarente, Madame de la Roche-Aymon, Madame de
Tourzel, and Madame de Mackau surrounded her. She had fixed a tricoloured
cockade, which one of the National Guard had given her, upon her head.
The poor little Dauphin was, like the King, shrouded in an enormous red
cap.
[One of the circumstances of the 20th of June which most vexed the King’s
friends being that of his wearing the bonnet rouge nearly three hours, I
ventured to ask him for some explanation of a fact so strikingly in
contrast with the extraordinary intrepidity shown by his Majesty during
that horrible day. This was his answer: “The cries of ‘The nation for
ever!’ violently increasing around me, and seeming to be addressed to me,
I replied that the nation had not a warmer friend than myself. Upon this
an ill-looking man, making his way through the crowd, came up to me and
said, rather roughly, ‘Well, if you speak the truth, prove it by putting
on this red cap.’ ‘I consent,’ replied I. One or two of them immediately
came forward and placed the cap upon my hair, for it was too small for my
head. I was convinced, I knew not why, that his intention was merely to
place the cap upon my head for a moment, and then to take it off again;
and I was so completely taken up with what was passing before me that I
did not feel whether the cap did or did not remain upon my hair. I was so
little aware of it that when I returned to my room I knew only from being
told so that it was still there. I was very much surprised to find it
upon my head, and was the more vexed at it because I might have taken it
off immediately without the smallest difficulty. But I am satisfied that
if I had hesitated to consent to its being placed upon my head the drunken
fellow who offered it to me would have thrust his pike into my
stomach.”--“Memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville.”]
The horde passed in files before the table;the sort of standards which
they carried were symbols of the most atrocious barbarity. There was
one representing a gibbet, to which a dirty doll was suspended; the
words “Marie Antoinette a la lanterne” were written beneath it. Another
was a board, to which a bullock’s heart was fastened, with “Heart of
Louis XVI.” written round it. And a third showed the horn of an ox,
with an obscene inscription.
One of the most furious Jacobin women who marched with these wretches
stopped to give vent to a thousand imprecations against the Queen. Her
Majesty asked whether she had ever seen her. She replied that she had
not. Whether she had done her any, personal wrong? Her answer was the
same; but she added:
“It is you who have caused the misery of the nation.”
“You have been told so,” answered the Queen; “you are deceived. As the
wife of the King of France, and mother of the Dauphin, I am a
French-woman; I shall never see my own country again, I can be happy or
unhappy only in France; I was happy when you loved me.”
The fury began to weep, asked her pardon, and said, “It was because I did
not know you; I see that you are good.”
Santerre, the monarch of the faubourgs, made his subjects file off as
quickly as he could; and it was thought at the time that he was ignorant
of the object of this insurrection, which was the murder of the royal
family. However, it was eight o’clock in the evening before the palace
was completely cleared. Twelve deputies, impelled by attachment to the
King’s person, ranged themselves near him at the commencement of the
insurrection; but the deputation from the Assembly did not reach the
Tuileries until six in the evening; all the doors of the apartments were
broken. The Queen pointed out to the deputies the state of the King’s
palace, and the disgraceful manner in which his asylum had been violated
under the very eyes of the Assembly; she saw that Merlin de Thionville was
so much affected as to shed tears while she spoke.
“You weep, M. Merlin,” said she to him, “at seeing the King and his family
so cruelly treated by a people whom he always wished to make happy.”
“True, Madame,” replied Merlin; “I weep for the misfortunes of a beautiful
and feeling woman, the mother of a family; but do not mistake, not one of
my tears falls for either King or Queen; I hate kings and queens,--it is
my religion.”
The Queen could not appreciate this madness, and saw all that was to be
apprehended by persons who evinced it.
All hope was gone, and nothing was thought of but succour from abroad. The
Queen appealed to her family and the King’s brothers; her letters probably
became more pressing, and expressed apprehensions upon the tardiness of
relief. Her Majesty read me one to herself from the Archduchess
Christina, Gouvernante of the Low Countries: she reproached the Queen for
some of her expressions, and told her that those out of France were at
least as much alarmed as herself at the King’s situation and her own; but
that the manner of attempting to assist her might either save her or
endanger her safety; and that the members of the coalition were bound to
act prudently, entrusted as they were with interests so dear to them.
The 14th of July, 1792, fixed by the constitution as the anniversary of
the independence of the nation drew near. The King and Queen were
compelled to make their appearance on the occasion; aware that the plot of
the 20th of June had their assassination for its object, they had no doubt
but that their death was determined on for the day of this national
festival. The Queen was recommended, in order to give the King’s friends
time to defend him if the attack should be made, to guard him against the
first stroke of a dagger by making him wear a breastplate. I was directed
to get one made in my apartments: it was composed of fifteen folds of
Italian taffety, and formed into an under-waistcoat and a wide belt. This
breastplate was tried; it resisted all thrusts of the dagger, and several
balls were turned aside by it. When it was completed the difficulty was
to let the King try it on without running the risk of being surprised. I
wore the immense heavy waistcoat as an under-petticoat for three days
without being able to find a favourable moment. At length the King found
an opportunity one morning to pull off his coat in the Queen’s chamber and
try on the breastplate.
The Queen was in bed; the King pulled me gently by the gown, and drew me
as far as he could from the Queen’s bed, and said to me, in a very low
tone of voice: “It is to satisfy her that I submit to this inconvenience:
they will not assassinate me; their scheme is changed; they will put me to
death another way.” The Queen heard the King whispering to me, and when
he was gone out she asked me what he had said. I hesitated to answer; she
insisted that I should, saying that nothing must be concealed from her,
and that she was resigned upon every point.
When she was informed of the King’s remark she told me she had guessed it,
that he had long since observed to her that all which was going forward in
France was an imitation of the revolution in England in the time of
Charles I., and that he was incessantly reading the history of that
unfortunate monarch in order that he might act better than Charles had
done at a similar crisis. “I begin to be fearful of the King’s being
brought to trial,” continued the Queen; “as to me, I am a foreigner; they
will assassinate me. What will become of my poor children?”
These sad ejaculations were followed by a torrent of tears. I wished to
give her an antispasmodic; she refused it, saying that only happy women
could feel nervous; that the cruel situation to which she was reduced
rendered these remedies useless. In fact, the Queen, who during her
happier days was frequently attacked by hysterical disorders, enjoyed more
uniform health when all the faculties of her soul were called forth to
support her physical strength.
I had prepared a corset for her, for the same purpose as the King’s
under-waistcoat, without her knowledge; but she would not make use of it;
all my entreaties, all my tears, were in vain. “If the factions
assassinate me,” she replied, “it will be a fortunate event for me; they
will deliver me from a most painful existence.” A few days after the King
had tried on his breastplate I met him on a back staircase. I drew back
to let him pass. He stopped and took my hand; I wished to kiss his; he
would not suffer it, but drew me towards him by the hand, and kissed both
my cheeks without saying a single word.
The fear of another attack upon the Tuileries occasioned scrupulous search
among the King’s papers.
I burnt almost all those belonging to the Queen. She put her family
letters, a great deal of correspondence which she thought it necessary to
preserve for the history of the era of the Revolution, and particularly
Barnave’s letters and her answers, of which she had copies, into a
portfolio, which she entrusted to M. de J----. That gentleman was unable
to save this deposit, and it was burnt. The Queen left a few papers in
her secretaire. Among them were instructions to Madame de Tourzel,
respecting the dispositions of her children and the characters and
abilities of the sub-governesses under that lady’s orders. This paper,
which the Queen drew up at the time of Madame de Tourzel’s appointment,
with several letters from Maria Theresa, filled with the best advice and
instructions, was printed after the 10th of August by order of the
Assembly in the collection of papers found in the secretaires of the King
and Queen.
Her Majesty had still, without reckoning the income of the month, one
hundred and forty thousand francs in gold. She was desirous of depositing
the whole of it with me; but I advised her to retain fifteen hundred
louis, as a sum of rather considerable amount might be suddenly necessary
for her. The King had an immense quantity of papers, and unfortunately
conceived the idea of privately making, with the assistance of a locksmith
who had worked with him above ten years, a place of concealment in an
inner corridor of his apartments. The place of concealment, but for the
man’s information, would have been long undiscovered? The wall in which
it was made was painted to imitate large stones, and the opening was
entirely concealed among the brown grooves which formed the shaded part of
these painted stones. But even before this locksmith had denounced what
was afterwards called the iron closet to the Assembly, the Queen was aware
that he had talked of it to some of his friends; and that this man, in
whom the King from long habit placed too much confidence, was a Jacobin.
She warned the King of it, and prevailed on him to fill a very large
portfolio with all the papers he was most interested in preserving, and
entrust it to me. She entreated him in my presence to leave nothing in
this closet; and the King, in order to quiet her, told her that he had
left nothing there. I would have taken the portfolio and carried it to my
apartment, but it was too heavy for me to lift. The King said he would
carry it himself; I went before to open the doors for him. When he placed
the portfolio in my inner closet he merely said, “The Queen will tell you
what it contains.” Upon my return to the Queen I put the question to her,
deeming, from what the King had said, that it was necessary I should know.
“They are,” the Queen answered me, “such documents as would be most
dangerous to the King should they go so far as to proceed to a trial
against him. But what he wishes me to tell you is, that the portfolio
contains a ‘proces-verbal’ of a cabinet council, in which the King gave
his opinion against the war. He had it signed by all the ministers, and,
in case of a trial, he trusts that this document will be very useful to
him.” I asked the Queen to whom she thought I ought to commit the
portfolio. “To whom you please,” answered she; “you alone are answerable
for it. Do not quit the palace even during your vacation months: there
may be circumstances under which it would be very desirable that we should
be able to have it instantly.”
At this period M. de La Fayette, who had probably given up the idea of
establishing a republic in France similar to that of the United States,
and was desirous to support the first constitution which he had sworn to
defend, quitted his army and came to the Assembly for the purpose of
supporting by his presence and by an energetic speech a petition signed by
twenty thousand citizens against the late violation of the residence of
the King and his family. The General found the constitutional party
powerless, and saw that he himself had lost his popularity. The Assembly
disapproved of the step he had taken; the King, for whom it, was taken,
showed no satisfaction at it, and he saw himself compelled to return to
his army as quickly as he could. He thought he could rely on the National
Guard; but on the day of his arrival those officers who were in the King’s
interest inquired of his Majesty whether they were to forward the views of
Gendral de La Fayette by joining him in such measures as he should pursue
during his stay at Paris. The King enjoined them not to do so. From this
answer M. de La Fayette perceived that he was abandoned by the remainder
of his party in the Paris guard.
On his arrival a plan was presented to the Queen, in which it was proposed
by a junction between La Fayette’s army and the King’s party to rescue the
royal family and convey them to Rouen. I did not learn the particulars of
this plan; the Queen only said to me upon the subject that M. de La
Fayette was offered to them as a resource; but that it would be better for
them to perish than to owe their safety to the man who had done them the
most mischief, or to place themselves under the necessity of treating with
him.
I passed the whole month of July without going to bed; I was fearful of
some attack by night. There was one plot against the Queen’s life which
has never been made known. I was alone by her bedside at one o’clock in
the morning; we heard somebody walking softly down the corridor, which
passes along the whole line of her apartments, and which was then locked
at each end. I went out to fetch the valet de chambre; he entered the
corridor, and the Queen and myself soon heard the noise of two men
fighting. The unfortunate Princess held me locked in her arms, and said
to me, “What a situation! insults by day and assassins by night!” The
valet de chambre cried out to her from the corridor, “Madame, it is a
wretch that I know; I have him!”--“Let him go,” said the Queen; “open the
door to him; he came to murder me; the Jacobins would carry him about in
triumph to-morrow.” The man was a servant of the King’s toilet, who had
taken the key of the corridor out of his Majesty’s pocket after he was in
bed, no doubt with the intention of committing the crime suspected. The
valet de chambre, who was a very strong man, held him by the wrists, and
thrust him out at the door. The wretch did not speak a word. The valet
de chambre said, in answer to the Queen, who spoke to him gratefully of
the danger to which he had exposed himself, that he feared nothing, and
that he had always a pair of excellent pistols about him for no other
purpose than to defend her Majesty. The next day M. de Septeuil had all
the locks of the King’s inner apartments changed. I did the same by those
of the Queen.
We were every moment told that the Faubourg St. Antoine was preparing to
march against the palace. At four o’clock one morning towards the latter
end of July a person came to give me information to that effect. I
instantly sent off two men, on whom I could rely, with orders to proceed
to the usual places for assembling, and to come back speedily and give me
an account of the state of the city. We knew that at least an hour must
elapse before the populace or the faubourgs assembled on the site of the
Bastille could reach the Tuileries. It seemed to me sufficient for the
Queen’s safety that all about her should be awakened. I went softly into
her room; she was asleep; I did not awaken her. I found General de
W----in the great closet; he told me the meeting was, for this once,
dispersing. The General had endeavoured to please the populace by the
same means as M. de La Fayette had employed. He saluted the lowest
poissarde, and lowered his hat down to his very stirrup. But the populace,
who had been flattered for three years, required far different homage to
its power, and the poor man was unnoticed. The King had been awakened,
and so had Madame Elisabeth, who had gone to him. The Queen, yielding to
the weight of her griefs, slept till nine o’clock on that day, which was
very unusual with her. The King had already been to know whether she was
awake; I told him what I had done, and the care I had taken not to disturb
her. He thanked me, and said, “I was awake, and so was the whole palace;
she ran no risk. I am very glad to see her take a little rest. Alas! her
griefs double mine!” What was my chagrin when, upon awaking and learning
what had passed, the Queen burst into tears from regret at not having been
called, and began to upbraid me, on whose friendship she ought to have
been able to rely, for having served her so ill under such circumstances!
In vain did I reiterate that it had been only a false alarm, and that she
required to have her strength recruited. “It is not diminished,” said she;
“misfortune gives us additional strength. Elisabeth was with the King,
and I was asleep,--I who am determined to perish by his side! I am his
wife; I will not suffer him to incur the smallest risk without my sharing
it.”
CHAPTER VIII.
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, that man loaded with
his master’s bounties?”
[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.]
“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.
CHAPTER IX.
The Queen having been robbed of her purse as she was passing from the
Tuileries to the Feuillans, requested my sister to lend her twenty-five
louis.
[On being interrogated the Queen declared that these five and twenty louis
had been lent to her by my sister; this formed a pretence for arresting
her and me, and led to her death.--MADAME CAMPAN.]
I spent part of the day at the Feuillans, and her Majesty told me she
would ask Potion to let me be with her in the place which the Assembly
should decree for her prison. I then returned home to prepare everything
that might be necessary for me to accompany her.
On the same day (11th August), at nine in the evening, I returned to the
Feuillans. I found there were orders at all the gates forbidding my being
admitted. I claimed a right to enter by virtue of the first permission
which had been given to me; I was again refused. I was told that the
Queen had as many people as were requisite about her. My sister was with
her, as well as one of my companions, who came out of the prisons of the
Abbaye on the 11th. I renewed my solicitations on the 12th; my tears and
entreaties moved neither the keepers of the gates, nor even a deputy, to
whom I addressed myself.
I soon heard of the removal of Louis XVI. and his family to the Temple. I
went to Potion accompanied by M. Valadon, for whom I had procured a place
in the post-office, and who was devoted to me. He determined to go up to
Potion alone; he told him that those who requested to be confined could
not be suspected of evil designs, and that no political opinion could
afford a ground of objection to these solicitations. Seeing that the
well-meaning man did not succeed, I thought to do more in person; but
Petion persisted in his refusal, and threatened to send me to La Force.
Thinking to give me a kind of consolation, he added I might be certain
that all those who were then with Louis XVI. and his family would not stay
with them long. And in fact, two or three days afterwards the Princesse
de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, the Queen’s first woman, the
first woman of the Dauphin and of Madame, M. de Chamilly, and M. de Hue
were carried off during the night and transferred to La Force. After the
departure of the King and Queen for the Temple, my sister was detained a
prisoner in the apartments their Majesties had quitted for twenty-four
hours.
From this time I was reduced to the misery of having no further
intelligence of my august and unfortunate mistress but through the medium
of the newspapers or the National Guard, who did duty at the Temple.
The King and Queen said nothing to me at the Feuillans about the portfolio
which had been deposited with me; no doubt they expected to see me again.
The minister Roland and the deputies composing the provisional government
were very intent on a search for papers belonging to their Majesties.
They had the whole of the Tuileries ransacked. The infamous Robespierre
bethought himself of M. Campan, the Queen’s private secretary, and said
that his death was feigned; that he was living unknown in some obscure
part of France, and was doubtless the depositary of all the important
papers. In a great portfolio belonging to the King there had been found a
solitary letter from the Comte d’Artois, which, by its date, and the
subjects of which it treated, indicated the existence of a continued
correspondence. (This letter appeared among the documents used on the
trial of Louis XVI.) A former preceptor of my son’s had studied with
Robespierre; the latter, meeting him in the street, and knowing the
connection which had subsisted between him and the family of M. Campan,
required him to say, upon his honour, whether he was certain of the death
of the latter. The man replied that M. Campan had died at La Briche in
1791, and that he had seen him interred in the cemetery of Epinay. “well,
then,” resumed Robespierre, “bring me the certificate of his burial at
twelve to-morrow; it is a document for which I have pressing occasion.”
Upon hearing the deputy’s demand I instantly sent for a certificate of M.
Campan’s burial, and Robespierre received it at nine o’clock the next
morning. But I considered that, in thinking of my father-in-law, they
were coming very near me, the real depositary of these important papers.
I passed days and nights in considering what I could do for the best under
such circumstances.
I was thus situated when the order to inform against those who had been
denounced as suspected on the 10th of August led to domiciliary visits. My
servants were told that the people of the quarter in which I lived were
talking much of the search that would be made in my house, and came to
apprise me of it. I heard that fifty armed men would make themselves
masters of M. Auguies house, where I then was. I had just received this
intelligence when M. Gougenot, the King’s maitre d’hotel and
receiver-general of the taxes, a man much attached to his sovereign, came
into my room wrapped in a ridingcloak, under which, with great difficulty,
he carried the King’s portfolio, which I had entrusted to him. He threw
it down at my feet, and said to me, “There is your deposit; I did not
receive it from our unfortunate King’s own hands; in delivering it to you
I have executed my trust.” After saying this he was about to withdraw. I
stopped him, praying him to consult with me what I ought to do in such a
trying emergency. He would not listen to my entreaties, or even hear me
describe the course I intended to pursue. I told him my abode was about
to be surrounded; I imparted to him what the Queen had said to me about
the contents of the portfolio. To all this he answered, “There it is;
decide for yourself; I will have no hand in it.” Upon that I remained a
few seconds thinking, and my conduct was founded upon the following
reasons. I spoke aloud, although to myself; I walked about the room with
agitated steps; M. Gougenot was thunderstruck. “Yes,” said I, “when we
can no longer communicate with our King and receive his orders, however
attached we may be to him, we can only serve him according to the best of
our own judgment. The Queen said to me, ‘This portfolio contains scarcely
anything but documents of a most dangerous description in the event of a
trial taking place, if it should fall into the hands of revolutionary
persons.’ She mentioned, too, a single document which would, under the
same circumstances, be useful. It is my duty to interpret her words, and
consider them as orders. She meant to say, ‘You will save such a paper,
you will destroy the rest if they are likely to be taken from you.’ If it
were not so, was there any occasion for her to enter into any detail as to
what the portfolio contained? The order to keep it was sufficient.
Probably it contains, moreover, the letters of that part of the family
which has emigrated; there is nothing which may have been foreseen or
decided upon that can be useful now; and there can be no political thread
which has not been cut by the events of the 10th of August and the
imprisonment of the King. My house is about to be surrounded; I cannot
conceal anything of such bulk; I might, then, through want of foresight,
give up that which would cause the condemnation of the King. Let us open
the portfolio, save the document alluded to, and destroy the rest.” I
took a knife and cut open one side of the portfolio. I saw a great number
of envelopes endorsed by the King’s own hand. M. Gougenot found there the
former seals of the King, such as they were before the Assembly had
changed the inscription.
[No doubt it was in order to have the ancient seals ready at a moment’s
notice, in case of a counter-revolution, that the Queen desired me not to
quit the Tuileries. M. Gougenot threw the seals into the river, one from
above the Pont Neuf, and the other from near the Pont Royal.--MADAME
CAMPAN.]
At this moment we heard a great noise; he agreed to tie up the portfolio,
take it again under his cloak, and go to a safe place to execute what I
had taken upon me to determine. He made me swear, by all I held most
sacred, that I would affirm, under every possible emergency, that the
course I was pursuing had not been dictated to me by anybody; and that,
whatever might be the result, I would take all the credit or all the blame
upon myself. I lifted up my hand and took the oath he required; he went
out. Half an hour afterwards a great number of armed men came to my
house; they placed sentinels at all the outlets; they broke open
secretaires and closets of which they had not the keys; they ‘searched the
flower-pots and boxes; they examined the cellars; and the commandant
repeatedly said, “Look particularly for papers.” In the afternoon M.
Gougenot returned. He had still the seals of France about him, and he
brought me a statement of all that he had burnt.
The portfolio contained twenty letters from Monsieur, eighteen or nineteen
from the Comte d’Artois, seventeen from Madame Adelaide, eighteen from
Madame Victoire, a great many letters from Comte Alexandre de Lameth, and
many from M. de Malesherbes, with documents annexed to them. There were
also some from M. de Montmorin and other ex-ministers or ambassadors.
Each correspondence had its title written in the King’s own hand upon the
blank paper which contained it. The most voluminous was that from
Mirabeau. It was tied up with a scheme for an escape, which he thought
necessary. M. Gougenot, who had skimmed over these letters with more
attention than the rest, told me they were of so interesting a nature that
the King had no doubt kept them as documents exceedingly valuable for a
history of his reign, and that the correspondence with the Princes, which
was entirely relative to what was going forward abroad, in concert with
the King, would have been fatal to him if it had been seized. After he
had finished he placed in my hands the proces-verbal, signed by all the
ministers, to which the King attached so much importance, because he had
given his opinion against the declaration of war; a copy of the letter
written by the King to the Princes, his brothers, inviting them to return
to France; an account of the diamonds which the Queen had sent to Brussels
(these two documents were in my handwriting); and a receipt for four
hundred thousand francs, under the hand of a celebrated banker. This sum
was part of the eight hundred thousand francs which the Queen had
gradually saved during her reign, out of her pension of three hundred
thousand francs per annum, and out of the one hundred thousand francs
given by way of present on the birth of the Dauphin.
This receipt, written on a very small piece of paper, was in the cover of
an almanac. I agreed with M. Gougenot, who was obliged by his office to
reside in Paris, that he should retain the proces-verbal of the Council
and the receipt for the four hundred thousand francs, and that we should
wait either for orders or for the means of transmitting these documents to
the King or Queen; and I set out for Versailles.
The strictness of the precautions taken to guard the illustrious prisoners
was daily increased. The idea that I could not inform the King of the
course I had adopted of burning his papers, and the fear that I should not
be able to transmit to him that which he had pointed out as necessary,
tormented me to such a degree that it is wonderful my health endured the
strain.
The dreadful trial drew near. Official advocates were granted to the
King; the heroic virtue of M. de Malesherbes induced him to brave the most
imminent dangers, either to save his master or to perish with him. I hoped
also to be able to find some means of informing his Majesty of what I had
thought it right to do. I sent a man, on whom I could rely, to Paris, to
request M. Gougenot to come to me at Versailles he came immediately. We
agreed that he should see M. de Malesherbes without availing himself of
any intermediate person for that purpose.
M. Gougenot awaited his return from the Temple at the door of his hotel,
and made a sign that he wished to speak to him. A moment afterwards a
servant came to introduce him into the magistrates’ room. He imparted to
M. de Malesherbes what I had thought it right to do with respect to the
King’s papers, and placed in his hands the proces-verbal of the Council,
which his Majesty had preserved in order to serve, if occasion required
it, for a ground of his defence. However, that paper is not mentioned in
either of the speeches of his advocate; probably it was determined not to
make use of it.
I stop at that terrible period which is marked by the assassination of a
King whose virtues are well known; but I cannot refrain from relating what
he deigned to say in my favour to M. de Malesherbes:
“Let Madame Campan know that she did what I should myself have ordered her
to do; I thank her for it; she is one of those whom I regret I have it not
in my power to recompense for their fidelity to my person, and for their
good services.” I did not hear of this until the morning after he had
suffered, and I think I should have sunk under my despair if this
honourable testimony had not given me some consolation.
SUPPLEMENT TO CHAPTER IX.
MADAME CAMPAN’S narrative breaking off abruptly at the time of the painful
end met with by her sister, we have supplemented it by abridged accounts
of the chief incidents in the tragedy which overwhelmed the royal house
she so faithfully served, taken from contemporary records and the best
historical authorities.
The Royal Family in the Temple.
The Assembly having, at the instance of the Commune of Paris, decreed that
the royal family should be immured in the Temple, they were removed
thither from the Feuillans on the 13th of August, 1792, in the charge of
Potion, Mayor of Paris, and Santerre, the commandant-general. Twelve
Commissioners of the general council were to keep constant watch at the
Temple, which had been fortified by earthworks and garrisoned by
detachments of the National Guard, no person being allowed to enter
without permission from the municipality.
The Temple, formerly the headquarters of the Knights Templars in Paris,
consisted of two buildings,--the Palace, facing the Rue de Temple, usually
occupied by one of the Princes of the blood; and the Tower, standing
behind the Palace.
[Clery gives a more minute description of this singular building: “The
small tower of the Temple in which the King was then confined stood with
its back against the great tower, without any interior communication, and
formed a long square, flanked by two turrets. In one of these turrets
there was a narrow staircase that led from the first floor to a gallery on
the platform; in the other were small rooms, answering to each story of
the tower. The body of the building was four stories high. The first
consisted of an antechamber, a dining-room, and a small room in the
turret, where there was a library containing from twelve to fifteen
hundred volumes. The second story was divided nearly in the same manner.
The largest room was the Queen’s bedchamber, in which the Dauphin also
slept; the second, which was separated from the Queen’s by a small
antechamber almost without light, was occupied by Madame Royale and Madame
Elisabeth. The King’s apartments were on the third story. He slept in
the great room, and made a study of the turret closet. There was a
kitchen separated from the King’s chamber by a small dark room, which had
been successively occupied by M. de Chamilly and M. de Hue. The fourth
story was shut up; and on the ground floor there were kitchens of which no
use was made.”--“Journal,” p. 96.]
The Tower was a square building, with a round tower at each corner and a
small turret on one side, usually called the Tourelle. In the narrative
of the Duchesse d’Angouleme she says that the soldiers who escorted the
royal prisoners wished to take the King alone to the Tower, and his family
to the Palace of the Temple, but that on the way Manuel received an order
to imprison them all in the Tower, where so little provision had been made
for their reception that Madame Elisabeth slept in the kitchen. The royal
family were accompanied by the Princesse de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel
and her daughter Pauline, Mesdames de Navarre, de Saint-Brice, Thibaut,
and Bazire, MM. de Hug and de Chamilly, and three men-servants--An order
from the Commune soon removed these devoted attendants, and M. de Hue
alone was permitted to return. “We all passed the day together,” says
Madame Royale. “My father taught my brother geography; my mother history,
and to learn verses by heart; and my aunt gave him lessons in arithmetic.
My father fortunately found a library which amused him, and my mother
worked tapestry . . . . We went every day to walk in the garden, for
the sake of my brother’s health, though the King was always insulted by
the guard. On the Feast of Saint Louis ‘Ca Ira’ was sung under the walls
of the Temple. Manuel that evening brought my aunt a letter from her
aunts at Rome. It was the last the family received from without. My
father was no longer called King. He was treated with no kind of respect;
the officers always sat in his presence and never took off their hats.
They deprived him of his sword and searched his pockets . . . . Petion
sent as gaoler the horrible man--[Rocher, a saddler by trade] who had
broken open my father’s door on the 20th June, 1792, and who had been near
assassinating him. This man never left the Tower, and was indefatigable
in endeavouring to torment him. One time he would sing the ‘Caramgnole,’
and a thousand other horrors, before us; again, knowing that my mother
disliked the smoke of tobacco, he would puff it in her face, as well as in
that of my father, as they happened to pass him. He took care always to be
in bed before we went to supper, because he knew that we must pass through
his room. My father suffered it all with gentleness, forgiving the man
from the bottom of his heart. My mother bore it with a dignity that
frequently repressed his insolence.” The only occasion, Madame Royale
adds, on which the Queen showed any impatience at the conduct of the
officials, was when a municipal officer woke the Dauphin suddenly in the
night to make certain that he was safe, as though the sight of the
peacefully sleeping child would not have been in itself the best
assurance.
Clery, the valet de chambre of the Dauphin, having with difficulty
obtained permission to resume his duties, entered the Temple on the 24th
August, and for eight days shared with M. de Hue the personal attendance;
but on the 2d September De Hue was arrested, seals were placed on the
little room he had occupied, and Clery passed the night in that of the
King. On the following morning Manuel arrived, charged by the Commune to
inform the King that De Hue would not be permitted to return, and to offer
to send another person. “I thank you,” answered the King. “I will manage
with the valet de chambre of my son; and if the Council refuse I will
serve myself. I am determined to do it.” On the 3d September Manual
visited the Temple and assured the King that Madame de Lamballe and all
the other prisoners who had been removed to La Force were well, and safely
guarded. “But at three o’clock,” says Madame Royale, “just after dinner,
and as the King was sitting down to ‘tric trac’ with my mother (which he
played for the purpose of having an opportunity of saying a few words to
her unheard by the keepers), the most horrid shouts were heard. The
officer who happened to be on guard in the room behaved well. He shut the
door and the window, and even drew the curtains to prevent their seeing
anything; but outside the workmen and the gaoler Rocher joined the
assassins and increased the tumult. Several officers of the guard and the
municipality now arrived, and on my father’s asking what was the matter, a
young officer replied, ‘Well, since you will know, it is the head of
Madame de Lamballe that they want to show you.’ At these words my mother
was overcome with horror; it was the only occasion on which her firmness
abandoned her. The municipal officers were very angry with the young man;
but the King, with his usual goodness, excused him, saying that it was his
own fault, since he had questioned the officer. The noise lasted till
five o’clock. We learned that the people had wished to force the door,
and that the municipal officers had been enabled to prevent it only by
putting a tricoloured scarf across it, and allowing six of the murderers
to march round our prison with the head of the Princess, leaving at the
door her body, which they would have dragged in also.”
Clery was not so fortunate as to escape the frightful spectacle. He had
gone down to dine with Tison and his wife, employed as servants in the
Temple, and says: “We were hardly seated when a head, on the end of a
pike, was presented at the window. Tison’s wife gave a great cry; the
assassins fancied they recognised the Queen’s voice, and responded by
savage laughter. Under the idea that his Majesty was still at table, they
placed their dreadful trophy where it must be seen. It was the head of
the Princesse de Lamballe; although bleeding, it was not disfigured, and
her light hair, still in curls, hung about the pike.”
At length the immense mob that surrounded the Temple gradually withdrew,
“to follow the head of the Princess de Lamballe to the Palais Royal.”
[The pike that bore the head was fixed before the Duc d’Orleans’s window
as he was going to dinner. It is said that he looked at this horrid sight
without horror, went into the dining-room, sat down to table, and helped
his guests without saying a word. His silence and coolness left it
doubtful whether the assassins, in presenting him this bloody trophy,
intended to offer him an insult or to pay him homage.--DE MOLLEVILLE’S
“Annals of the French Revolution,” vol. vii., p. 398.]
Meanwhile the royal family could scarcely believe that for the time their
lives were saved. “My aunt and I heard the drums beating to arms all
night,” says Madame Royale; “my unhappy mother did not even attempt to
sleep. We heard her sobs.”
In the comparative tranquillity which followed the September massacres,
the royal family resumed the regular habits they had adopted on entering
the Temple. “The King usually rose at six in the morning,” says Clery.
“He shaved himself, and I dressed his hair; he then went to his
reading-room, which, being very small, the municipal officer on duty
remained in the bedchamber with the door open, that he might always keep
the King in sight. His Majesty continued praying on his knees for some
time, and then read till nine. During that interval, after putting his
chamber to rights and preparing the breakfast, I went down to the Queen,
who never opened her door till I arrived, in order to prevent the
municipal officer from going into her apartment. At nine o’clock the
Queen, the children, and Madame Elisabeth went up to the King’s chamber to
breakfast. At ten the King and his family went down to the Queen’s
chamber, and there passed the day. He employed himself in educating his
son, made him recite passages from Corneille and Racine, gave him lessons
in geography, and exercised him in colouring the maps. The Queen, on her
part, was employed in the education of her daughter, and these different
lessons lasted till eleven o’clock. The remaining time till noon was
passed in needlework, knitting, or making tapestry. At one o’clock, when
the weather was fine, the royal family were conducted to the garden by
four municipal officers and the commander of a legion of the National
Guard. As there were a number of workmen in the Temple employed in pulling
down houses and building new walls, they only allowed a part of the
chestnut-tree walk for the promenade, in which I was allowed to share, and
where I also played with the young Prince at ball, quoits, or races. At
two we returned to the Tower, where I served the dinner, at which time
Santerre regularly came to the Temple, attended by two aides-de-camp. The
King sometimes spoke to him,--the Queen never.
“After the meal the royal family came down into the Queen’s room, and
their Majesties generally played a game of piquet or tric-trac. At four
o’clock the King took a little repose, the Princesses round him, each with
a book . . . . When the King woke the conversation was resumed, and I
gave writing lessons to his son, taking the copies, according to his
instructions, from the works of, Montesquieu and other celebrated authors.
After the lesson I took the young Prince into Madame Elisabeth’s room,
where we played at ball, and battledore and shuttlecock. In the evening
the family sat round a table, while the Queen read to them from books of
history, or other works proper to instruct and amuse the children. Madame
Elisabeth took the book in her turn, and in this manner they read till
eight o’clock. After that I served the supper of the young Prince, in
which the royal family shared, and the King amused the children with
charades out of a collection of French papers which he found in the
library. After the Dauphin had supped, I undressed him, and the Queen
heard him say his prayers. At nine the King went to supper, and
afterwards went for a moment to the Queen’s chamber, shook hands with her
and his sister for the night, kissed his children, and then retired to the
turret-room, where he sat reading till midnight. The Queen and the
Princesses locked themselves in, and one of the municipal officers
remained in the little room which parted their chamber, where he passed
the night; the other followed his Majesty. In this manner was the time
passed as long as the King remained in the small tower.”
But even these harmless pursuits were too often made the means of further
insulting and thwarting the unfortunate family. Commissary Le Clerc
interrupted the Prince’s writing lessons, proposing to substitute
Republican works for those from which the King selected his copies. A
smith, who was present when the Queen was reading the history of France to
her children, denounced her to the Commune for choosing the period when
the Connstable de Bourbon took arms against France, and said she wished to
inspire her son with unpatriotic feelings; a municipal officer asserted
that the multiplication table the Prince was studying would afford a means
of “speaking in cipher,” so arithmetic had to be abandoned. Much the same
occurred even with the needlework, the Queen and Princess finished some
chairbacks, which they wished to send to the Duchesse de Tarente; but the
officials considered that the patterns were hieroglyphics, intended for
carrying on a correspondence, and ordered that none of the Princesses work
should leave the Temple. The short daily walk in the garden was also
embittered by the rude behaviour of the military and municipal gaolers;
sometimes, however, it afforded an opportunity for marks of sympathy to be
shown. People would station themselves at the windows of houses
overlooking the Temple gardens, and evince by gestures their loyal
affection, and some of the sentinels showed, even by tears, that their
duty was painful to them.
On the 21st September the National Convention was constituted, Petion
being made president and Collot d’Herbois moving the “abolition of
royalty” amidst transports of applause. That afternoon a municipal
officer attended by gendarmes a cheval, and followed by a crowd of people,
arrived at the Temple, and, after a flourish of trumpets, proclaimed the
establishment of the French Republic. The man, says Clery, “had the voice
of a Stentor.” The royal family could distinctly hear the announcement of
the King’s deposition. “Hebert, so well known under the title of Pere
Duchesne, and Destournelles were on guard. They were sitting near the
door, and turned to the King with meaning smiles. He had a book in his
hand, and went on reading without changing countenance. The Queen showed
the same firmness. The proclamation finished, the trumpets sounded
afresh. I went to the window; the people took me for Louis XVI. and I was
overwhelmed with insults.”
After the new decree the prisoners were treated with increased harshness.
Pens, paper, ink, and pencils were taken from them. The King and Madame
Elisabeth gave up all, but the Queen and her daughter each concealed a
pencil. “In the beginning of October,” says Madame Royale, “after my
father had supped, he was told to stop, that he was not to return to his
former apartments, and that he was to be separated from his family. At
this dreadful sentence the Queen lost her usual courage. We parted from
him with abundance of tears, though we expected to see him again in the
morning.
[At nine o’clock, says Clery, the King asked to be taken to his family,
but the municipal officers replied that they had “no orders for that.”
Shortly afterwards a boy brought the King some bread and a decanter of
lemonade for his breakfast. The King gave half the bread to Clery,
saying, “It seems they have forgotten your breakfast; take this, the rest
is enough for me.” Clery refused, but the King insisted. “I could not
contain my tears,” he adds; “the King perceived them, and his own fell
also.”]
They brought in our breakfast separately from his, however. My mother
would take nothing. The officers, alarmed at her silent and concentrated
sorrow, allowed us to see the King, but at meal-times only, and on
condition that we should not speak low, nor in any foreign language, but
loud and in ‘good French.’ We went down, therefore, with the greatest joy
to dine with my father. In the evening, when my brother was in bed, my
mother and my aunt alternately sat with him or went with me to sup with my
father. In the morning, after breakfast, we remained in the King’s
apartments while Clery dressed our hair, as he was no longer allowed to
come to my mother’s room, and this arrangement gave us the pleasure of
spending a few moments more with my father.”
[When the first deputation from the Council of the Commune visited the
Temple, and formally inquired whether the King had any complaint to make,
he replied, “No; while he was permitted to remain with his family he was
happy.”]
The royal prisoners had no comfort except their affection for each other.
At that time even common necessaries were denied them. Their small stock
of linen had been lent them; by persons of the Court during the time they
spent at the Feuillans. The Princesses mended their clothes every day,
and after the King had gone to bed Madame Elisabeth mended his. “With
much trouble,” says Clrry, “I procured some fresh linen for them. But the
workwomen having marked it with crowned letters, the Princesses were
ordered to pick them out.” The room in the great tower to which the King
had been removed contained only one bed, and no other article of
furniture. A chair was brought on which Clery spent the first night;
painters were still at work on the room, and the smell of the paint, he
says, was almost unbearable. This room was afterwards furnished by
collecting from various parts of the Temple a chest of drawers, a small
bureau, a few odd chairs, a chimney-glass, and a bed hung with green
damask, which had been used by the captain of the guard to the Comte
d’Artois. A room for the Queen was being prepared over that of the King,
and she implored the workmen to finish it quickly, but it was not ready
for her occupation for some time, and when she was allowed to remove to it
the Dauphin was taken from her and placed with his father. When their
Majesties met again in the great Tower, says Clery, there was little
change in the hours fixed for meals, reading, walking and the education of
their children. They were not allowed to have mass said in the Temple,
and therefore commissioned Clery to get them the breviary in use in the
diocese of Paris. Among the books read by the King while in the Tower
were Hume’s “History of England” (in the original), Tasso, and the “De
Imitatione Christi.” The jealous suspicions of the municipal officers led
to the most absurd investigations; a draught-board was taken to pieces
lest the squares should hide treasonable papers; macaroons were broken in
half to see that they did not contain letters; peaches were cut open and
the stones cracked; and Clery was compelled to drink the essence of soap
prepared for shaving the King, under the pretence that it might contain
poison.
In November the King and all the family had feverish colds, and Clery had
an attack of rheumatic fever. On the first day of his illness he got up
and tried to dress his master, but the King, seeing how ill he was,
ordered him to lie down, and himself dressed the Dauphin. The little
Prince waited on Clery all day, and in the evening the King contrived to
approach his bed, and said, in a low voice, “I should like to take care of
you myself, but you know how we are watched. Take courage; tomorrow you
shall see my doctor.” Madame Elisabeth brought the valet cooling
draughts, of which she deprived herself; and after Clery was able to get
up, the young Prince one night with great difficulty kept awake till
eleven o’clock in order to give him a box of lozenges when he went to make
the King’s bed.
On 7th December a deputation from the Commune brought an order that the
royal family should be deprived of “knives, razors, scissors, penknives,
and all other cutting instruments.” The King gave up a knife, and took
from a morocco case a pair of scissors and a penknife; and the officials
then searched the room, taking away the little toilet implements of gold
and silver, and afterwards removing the Princesses’ working materials.
Returning to the King’s room, they insisted upon seeing what remained in
his pocket-case. “Are these toys which I have in my hand also cutting
instruments?” asked the King, showing them a cork-screw, a turn-screw,
and a steel for lighting. These also were taken from him. Shortly
afterwards Madame Elisabeth was mending the King’s coat, and, having no
scissors, was compelled to break the thread with her teeth.
“What a contrast!” he exclaimed, looking at her tenderly. “You wanted
nothing in your pretty house at Montreuil.”
“Ah, brother,” she answered, “how can I have any regret when I partake
your misfortunes?”
The Queen had frequently to take on herself some of the humble duties of a
servant. This was especially painful to Louis XVI. when the anniversary
of some State festival brought the contrast between past and present with
unusual keenness before him.
“Ah, Madame,” he once exclaimed, “what an employment for a Queen of
France! Could they see that at Vienna! Who would have foreseen that, in
uniting your lot to mine, you would have descended so low?”
“And do you esteem as nothing,” she replied, “the glory of being the wife
of one of the best and most persecuted of men? Are not such misfortunes
the noblest honours?”--[Alison’s “History of Europe,” vol. ii., p. 299.]
Meanwhile the Assembly had decided that the King should be brought to
trial. Nearly all parties, except the Girondists, no matter how bitterly
opposed to each other, could agree in making him the scapegoat; and the
first rumour of the approaching ordeal was conveyed to the Temple by
Clery’s wife, who, with a friend, had permission occasionally to visit
him. “I did not know how to announce this terrible news to the King,” he
says; “but time was pressing, and he had forbidden my concealing anything
from him. In the evening, while undressing him, I gave him an account of
all I had learnt, and added that there were only four days to concert some
plan of corresponding with the Queen. The arrival of the municipal
officer would not allow me to say more. Next morning, when the King rose,
I could not get a moment for speaking with him. He went up with his son
to breakfast with the Princesses, and I followed. After breakfast he
talked long with the Queen, who, by a look full of trouble, made me
understand that they were discussing what I had told the King. During the
day I found an opportunity of describing to Madame Elisabeth how much it
had cost me to augment the King’s distresses by informing him of his
approaching trial. She reassured me, saying that the King felt this as a
mark of attachment on my part, and added, ‘That which most troubles him is
the fear of being separated from us.’ In the evening the King told me how
satisfied he was at having had warning that he was to appear before the
Convention. ‘Continue,’ he said, ‘to endeavour to find out something as
to what they want to do with me. Never fear distressing me. I have
agreed with my family not to seem pre-informed, in order not to compromise
you.’”
On the 11th December, at five o’clock in the morning, the prisoners heard
the generale beaten throughout Paris, and cavalry and cannon entered the
Temple gardens. At nine the King and the Dauphin went as usual to
breakfast with the Queen. They were allowed to remain together for an
hour, but constantly under the eyes of their republican guardians. At
last they were obliged to part, doubtful whether they would ever see each
other again. The little Prince, who remained with his father, and was
ignorant of the new cause for anxiety, begged hard that the King would
play at ninepins with him as usual. Twice the Dauphin could not get
beyond a certain number. “Each time that I get up to sixteen,” he said,
with some vexation, “I lose the game.” The King did not reply, but Clery
fancied the words made a painful impression on him.
At eleven, while the King was giving the Dauphin a reading lesson, two
municipal officers entered and said they had come “to take young Louis to
his mother.” The King inquired why, but was only told that such were the
orders of the Council. At one o’clock the Mayor of Paris, Chambon,
accompanied by Chaumette, Procureur de la Commune, Santerre, commandant of
the National Guard, and others, arrived at the Temple and read a decree to
the King, which ordered that “Louis Capet” should be brought before the
Convention. “Capet is not my name,” he replied, “but that of one of my
ancestors. I could have wished,” he added, “that you had left my son with
me during the last two hours. But this treatment is consistent with all I
have experienced here. I follow you, not because I recognise the
authority of the Convention, but because I can be compelled to obey it.”
He then followed the Mayor to a carriage which waited, with a numerous
escort, at the gate of the Temple. The family left behind were
overwhelmed with grief and apprehension. “It is impossible to describe
the anxiety we suffered,” says Madame Royale. “My mother used every
endeavour with the officer who guarded her to discover what was passing;
it was the first time she had condescended to question any of these men.
He would tell her nothing.”
Trial of the King.--Parting of the Royal Family.--Execution.
The crowd was immense as, on the morning of the 11th December, 1792, Louis
XVI. was driven slowly from the Temple to the Convention, escorted by
cavalry, infantry, and artillery. Paris looked like an armed camp: all
the posts were doubled; the muster-roll of the National Guard was called
over every hour; a picket of two hundred men watched in the court of each
of the right sections; a reserve with cannon was stationed at the
Tuileries, and strong detachments patroled the streets and cleared the
road of all loiterers. The trees that lined the boulevards, the doors and
windows of the houses, were alive with gazers, and all eyes were fixed on
the King. He was much changed since his people last beheld him. The beard
he had been compelled to grow after his razors were taken from him covered
cheeks, lips, and chin with light-coloured hair, which concealed the
melancholy expression of his mouth; he had become thin, and his garments
hung loosely on him; but his manner was perfectly collected and calm, and
he recognised and named to the Mayor the various quarters through which he
passed. On arriving at the Feuillans he was taken to a room to await the
orders of the Assembly.
It was about half-past two when the King appeared at the bar. The Mayor
and Generaux Santerre and Wittengoff were at his side. Profound silence
pervaded the Assembly. All were touched by the King’s dignity and the
composure of his looks under so great a reverse of fortune. By nature he
had been formed rather to endure calamity with patience than to contend
against it with energy. The approach of death could not disturb his
serenity.
“Louis, you may be seated,” said Barere. “Answer the questions that shall
be put to you.” The King seated himself and listened to the reading of
the ‘acte enonciatif’, article by article. All the faults of the Court
were there enumerated and imputed to Louis XVI. personally. He was charged
with the interruption of the sittings of the 20th of June, 1789, with the
Bed of Justice held on the 23d of the same month, the aristocratic
conspiracy thwarted by the insurrection of the 14th of July, the
entertainment of the Life Guards, the insults offered to the national
cockade, the refusal to sanction the Declaration of Rights, as well as
several constitutional articles; lastly, all the facts which indicated a
new conspiracy in October, and which were followed by the scenes of the
5th and 6th; the speeches of reconciliation which had succeeded all these
scenes, and which promised a change that was not sincere; the false oath
taken at the Federation of the 14th of July; the secret practices of Talon
and Mirabeau to effect a counter-revolution; the money spent in bribing a
great number of deputies; the assemblage of the “knights of the dagger” on
the 28th of February, 1791; the flight to Varennes; the fusilade of the
Champ de Mars; the silence observed respecting the Treaty of Pilnitz; the
delay in the promulgation of the decree which incorporated Avignon with
France; the commotions at Nimes, Montauban, Mende, and Jales; the
continuance of their pay to the emigrant Life Guards and to the disbanded
Constitutional Guard; the insufficiency of the armies assembled on the
frontiers; the refusal to sanction the decree for the camp of twenty
thousand men; the disarming of the fortresses; the organisation of secret
societies in the interior of Paris; the review of the Swiss and the
garrison of the palace on the 10th August; the summoning the Mayor to the
Tuileries; and lastly, the effusion of blood which had resulted from these
military dispositions. After each article the President paused, and said,
“What have you to answer?” The King, in a firm voice, denied some of the
facts, imputed others to his ministers, and always appealed to the
constitution, from which he declared he had never deviated. His answers
were very temperate, but on the charge, “You spilt the blood of the people
on the 10th of August,” he exclaimed, with emphasis, “No, monsieur, no; it
was not I.”
All the papers on which the act of accusation was founded were then shown
to the King, and he disavowed some of them and disputed the existence of
the iron chest; this produced a bad impression, and was worse than
useless, as the fact had been proved.
[A secret closet which the King had directed to be constructed in a wall
in the Tuileries. The door was of iron, whence it was afterwards known by
the name of the iron chest. See Thiers, and Scott.]
Throughout the examination the King showed great presence of mind. He was
careful in his answers never to implicate any members of the constituent,
and legislative Assemblies; many who then sat as his judges trembled lest
he should betray them. The Jacobins beheld with dismay the profound
impression made on the Convention by the firm but mild demeanour of the
sovereign. The most violent of the party proposed that he should be
hanged that very night; a laugh as of demons followed the proposal from
the benches of the Mountain, but the majority, composed of the Girondists
and the neutrals, decided that he should be formally tried.
After the examination Santerre took the King by the arm and led him back
to the waiting-room of the Convention, accompanied by Chambon and
Chaumette. Mental agitation and the length of the proceedings had
exhausted him, and he staggered from weakness. Chaumette inquired if he
wished for refreshment, but the King refused it. A moment after, seeing a
grenadier of the escort offer the Procureur de la Commune half a small
loaf, Louis XVI. approached and asked him, in a whisper, for a piece.
“Ask aloud for what you want,” said Chaumette, retreating as though he
feared being suspected of pity.
“I asked for a piece of your bread,” replied the King.
“Divide it with me,” said Chaumette. “It is a Spartan breakfast. If I
had a root I would give you half.”--[Lamartine’s “History of the
Girondists,” edit. 1870, vol. ii., p. 313.]
Soon after six in the evening the King returned to the Temple. “He seemed
tired,” says Clery, simply, “and his first wish was to be led to his
family. The officers refused, on the plea that they had no orders. He
insisted that at least they should be informed of his return, and this was
promised him. The King ordered me to ask for his supper at half-past
eight. The intervening hours he employed in his usual reading, surrounded
by four municipals. When I announced that supper was served, the King
asked the commissaries if his family could not come down. They made no
reply. ‘But at least,’ the King said, ‘my son will pass the night in my
room, his bed being here?’ The same silence. After supper the King again
urged his wish to see his family. They answered that they must await the
decision of the Convention. While I was undressing him the King said, ‘I
was far from expecting all the questions they put to me.’ He lay down
with perfect calmness. The order for my removal during the night was not
executed.” On the King’s return to the Temple being known, “my mother
asked to see him instantly,” writes Madame Royale. “She made the same
request even to Chambon, but received no answer. My brother passed the
night with her; and as he had no bed, she gave him hers, and sat up all
the night in such deep affliction that we were afraid to leave her; but
she compelled my aunt and me to go to bed. Next day she again asked to
see my father, and to read the newspapers, that she might learn the course
of the trial. She entreated that if she was to be denied this indulgence,
his children, at least, might see him. Her requests were referred to the
Commune. The newspapers were refused; but my brother and I were to be
allowed to see my father on condition of being entirely separated from my
mother. My father replied that, great as his happiness was in seeing his
children, the important business which then occupied him would not allow
of his attending altogether to his son, and that his daughter could not
leave her mother.”
[During their last interview Madame Elisabeth had given Clery one of her
handkerchiefs, saying, “You shall keep it so long as my brother continues
well; if he becomes ill, send it to me among my nephew’s things.”]
The Assembly having, after a violent debate, resolved that Louis XVI.
should have the aid of counsel, a deputation was sent to the Temple to
ask whom he would choose. The King named Messieurs Target and Tronchet.
The former refused his services on the ground that he had discontinued
practice since 1785; the latter complied at once with the King’s
request; and while the Assembly was considering whom to, nominate in
Target’s place, the President received a letter from the venerable
Malesherbes, then seventy years old, and “the most respected magistrate
in France,” in the course of which he said: “I have been twice called to
be counsel for him who was my master, in times when that duty was
coveted by every one. I owe him the same service now that it is a duty
which many people deem dangerous. If I knew any possible means of
acquainting him with my desires, I should not take the liberty of
addressing myself to you.”
[Christian Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, an eminent French
statesman, son of the Chancellor of France, was born at Paris in 1721. In
1750 he succeeded his father as President of the Court of Aids, and was
also made superintendent of the press. On the banishment of the
Parliaments and the suppression of the Court of Aids, Malesherbes was
exiled to his country-seat. In 1775 he was appointed Minister of State.
On the decree of the Convention for the King’s trial, he emerged from his
retreat to become the voluntary advocate of his sovereign. Malesherbes
was guillotined in 1794, and almost his whole family were extirpated by
their merciless persecutors.]
Other citizens made similar proposals, but the King, being made
acquainted with them by a deputation from the Commune, while expressing
his gratitude for all the offers, accepted only that of Malesherbes.
[The Citoyenne Olympia Degonges, calling herself a free and loyal
Republican without spot or blame, and declaring that the cold and selfish
cruelty of Target had inflamed her heroism and roused her sensibility,
asked permission to assist M, de Malesherbes in defending the King. The
Assembly passed to the order of the day on this request.--BERTRAND DE
MOLLEVILLE, “Annals,” edit. 1802, vol, viii., p. 254.]
On 14th December M. Tronchet was allowed to confer with the King, and
later in the same day M. de Malesherbes was admitted to the Tower. “The
King ran up to this worthy old man, whom he clasped in his arms,” said
Clery, “and the former minister melted into tears at the sight of his
master.”
[According to M. de Hue, “The first time M. de Malesherbes entered the
Temple, the King clasped him in his arms and said, ‘Ah, is it you, my
friend? You fear not to endanger your own life to save mine; but all will
be useless. They will bring me to the scaffold. No matter; I shall gain
my cause if I leave an unspotted memory behind me.’”]