last drop of their blood for their King. Hence it was necessary to
remove them from his person. What means of doing so could be found?
Calumny. Fable on fable was spread among an always credulous public,
imaginary conspiracies invented, and the wretched monarch constrained
to deprive himself of his last resource, in order to deliver him, weak
and disarmed, into the hands of his enemies.
The Constitution provided a guard for Louis XVI. One third of it was
composed of soldiers of the line, and the remainder of National Guards,
chosen by the Departments themselves from among their best-formed,
richest, and best-bred citizens. It was commanded by one of the
greatest lords of the old regime, the Duke de Cosse-Brissac. Born in
1734, the son of a marshal of France, the Duke had been governor of
Paris, grand steward of France, and colonel of the Hundred-Switzers.
He had never been willing to leave the King since the beginning of the
Revolution. When his regiment was {138} disbanded he might have fled,
and Louis XVI. begged him to do so; but the heart of a subject so
faithful had been deaf to the entreaties of the unfortunate sovereign.
"Sire," he had answered, "if I fly, they will say that I am guilty, and
you will be considered my accomplice: my flight would be your
accusation; I would rather die." And, in fact, he did die. He had a
real devotion to the former mistress of Louis XV., the Countess du
Barry, and this latest conquest is not the least important of the
favorite's adventures. Probably Count d'Allonville exaggerates when,
in his Memoirs, he extols in Madame du Barry "that decency of tone,
that nobility of manners, that bearing equally removed from pride and
humility, from license and from prudery, that countenance which was
enough to refute all the pamphlets." Nevertheless, it is certain that
the society of the Duke de Brissac inspired the former favorite with
generous sentiments. After the October Days, she took the wounded
body-guards into her own house, and when the Queen sent to thank her
for it, she replied: "These wounded young men regret nothing except not
having died for a princess so worthy of all homage as Your Majesty....
Luciennes[1] is yours, Madame; did not your benevolence give it back to
me? ... The late King, by a sort of presentiment, forced me to accept a
thousand precious objects {139} before sending me away from his person.
I already had the honor of offering you this treasure in the time of
the Notables; I offer it again, Madame, with eagerness. You have so
many expenses to provide for, and so many favors to confer. Permit me,
I entreat you, to render to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar."
An enthusiastic royalist, a gentleman of the old nobility, chivalrous
and full of courtesy, bred in notions of romantic susceptibility like
those of _Clelie_ and _Astree_, the Duke de Brissac, like a
knight-errant of former times, represented at the court of Louis XVI. a
whole past which was crumbling to decay. If the unhappy monarch had
been a man of action, he would have turned to good advantage a guard
commanded by such a champion. He could have made it the nucleus of
resistance by grouping the Swiss regiments and the well-inclined
battalions of the National Guard around it. Unfortunately, there was
nothing warlike in Louis XVI. "Among the deplorable causes which
ruined him," says the Count de Vaublanc in his Memoirs, "must be
counted the wretched education which kept him apart from every sort of
military action. I remember that in the early days of the Consulate,
after a review held on the Place of the Tuileries by Bonaparte, when
talking about this to M. Suard, of the French Academy, I said that
Bonaparte walked as if he were always ready to defend himself sword in
hand. 'Ah, well!' responded M. Suard, naively, {140} 'we used to think
differently; we wanted the King to have nothing military about him, and
never to wear a uniform.'"
To this anecdote, M. de Vaublanc adds another. "We had in 1792," he
says, "a forcible proof of the despondency under which a royal soul,
spoiled by a detestable education, can labor. M. de Narbonne, the
Minister of War, with great difficulty induced the King to review three
excellent battalions of the Paris National Guard. He was on foot, in
silk breeches and white silk stockings, and wearing his hair in a black
bag. After the review a notary, named Chandon, I think, left the ranks
and said to the King: 'Sire, the National Guard would be greatly
honored to see Your Majesty in its uniform.' 'Sire,' said M. de
Narbonne, at once, 'have the goodness to promise to do so. At the head
of these three battalions of heroes you could destroy the Jacobins'
den.' After a minute's reflection, the King replied: 'I will inquire
of my Council whether the Constitution permits me to wear the uniform
of the National Guard.'" Louis XVI. allowed the last resources
accorded by fortune to slip away, and elements which in other hands
would have produced notable results, remained sterile in his.
The Constitutional Guard, which according to regulation should have
numbered eighteen hundred men, really amounted, says Dumouriez, to six
thousand fit for duty. The royalist element predominated in it. But a
certain number of "false {141} brethren" had found their way into the
ranks, who managed by the aid of bribery to spy upon their officers,
and made reports to the committee of public safety. Undoubtedly the
King's guards did not approve of all that was going on. But how could
devoted royalists and men accustomed to discipline be expected to
approve the fete of the Swiss of Chateauvieux, for example? How could
they help being indignant when, while on duty at the Tuileries, they
heard the populace insult the royal family under the very windows of
the palace?
When they returned to their barracks at the Military School, they
expressed this indignation too forcibly, and their words, hawked about
in all quarters by ill-will, were represented as the preliminary
symptoms of a reactionary plot. A guard commanded by a Duke de Brissac
was intolerable to the Jacobins. Their sole idea was to drive it from
the Tuileries, where its presence appeared to insure order,--a thing
they held in utmost horror. A 20th of June would not have been
possible with a constitutional guard, and ever since May, the 20th of
June had been in course of preparation. Its organizers had their plan
completely laid already. An adroit rumor was started of a so-called
plot, some Saint-Bartholomew or other, which they pretended was on foot
against the patriots, and of which the Ecole Militaire was the centre.
The white flag, which was to be the signal for the assassins to
assemble, was said to be hidden there. Petion, the mayor of Paris,
{142} under pretext of preventing troubles, sent municipal officers to
make a search. They could not lay their hands on the white flag which
was the pretended object of their visit, but they did find monarchical
hymns and ballads, and counter-revolutionary writings.
An unlucky incident still further increased suspicion. The famous
Countess de La Motte had just published in London some new particulars
concerning the affair of the necklace. In order to avert scandal, the
Queen had caused Laporte, intendant of the civil list, to buy up the
whole edition, and he had burned every copy of it at the manufactory of
Sevres. That very evening the committee of surveillance were in
possession of the fact that Laporte had gone to Sevres with three
unknown persons, and that thirty bales of paper had been put into the
fire in his presence. There was at this time a great deal of talk
concerning a pretended Austrian committee, in which a complete plan of
restoration by foreign aid was being elaborated. It was claimed that
the papers burned at the manufactory were the archives of this
committee, with which popular imagination was extremely busy.
Denunciations fell in showers. Laporte and several others were
summoned before the committee of surveillance. Petion declared that
the people were surrounded by conspiracies. Bazire demanded the
disbanding of the King's guard, which, according to him, was made up of
servants of the _emigres_, and refractory priests. It was claimed
{143} that the soldiers, to whom the Duke de Brissac had given sabres
with hilts representing a cock surmounted by a royal crown, used
insulting language concerning the Assembly and the nation in their
barracks. They were said to rejoice in the reverses which the French
troops had just sustained on the northern frontier, and it was added
that they meant to march twenty leagues under a white flag to meet the
Austrians. The masses, always so easily deceived, were convinced that
the conspiracy was on the brink of discovery.
The National Assembly took up the question, and a stormy debate on it
occupied the evening session of May 29. "What will become of the
individual liberty of citizens," cried M. Daverhoute, "if the dominant
party, merely by alleging suspicions, can decree the impeachment of all
who displease it, and if the different parties, coming successively
into power, overthrow, by means of this unchecked right of impeachment,
both ministers and all functionaries by the torrent of their intrigues?
In that case you would see proscriptions like those of Marius and
Sylla." In fact, this was what the near future was about to show.
Vergniaud responded by evoking a souvenir of the praetorian guards of
Caligula and Nero. At the close of his speech the Assembly passed the
following decree:--
"ARTICLE 1. The existing hired guard of the King is disbanded, and
will be replaced immediately in conformity with the laws.
{144}
"ART. 2. Until the formation of the new guard, the National Guard of
Paris will be on duty near the King's person, in the same manner as
before the establishment of the King's guard."
A discussion ensued on the subject of Brissac's impeachment. The
struggle between the two opposing parties was of unheard-of vivacity.
One of the most courageous members of the right, M. Calvet, gave free
vent to his indignation. "The informer," said he, "is a scoundrel who
makes a thrust with a poniard and hides himself; he was unknown at Rome
until the times of Sejanus and Tiberius; times, gentlemen, of which you
remind me often." "To the Abbey! to the Abbey!" retorted the left,
with fury. Said Guadet: "I demand that M. Calvet should be sent to the
Abbey for three days, for having dared to say that the representatives
of the French people remind him of the Roman Tiberius and Sejanus."
The motion was adopted, and the Assembly decided that M. Calvet should
pass three days in prison. M. de Jaucourt threatened to cudgel Chabot,
and the ex-friar, ascending the tribune, said: "I think it was very
cowardly on the part of a colonel to offer to cane a Capuchin." The
Assembly, having passed an order of the day concerning this incident,
decreed that "there was reason for an accusation against M. Cosse,
styled Brissac, and that his papers should be sealed up at once."
The King and Queen, awakened in the middle of the night by these
tidings, besought Brissac to make {145} his escape, and provided him
with the means. The Duke refused, and instead of trying to assure his
safety, sat down to write a long letter to Madame du Barry. At first
Louis XVI. wished to veto this decree, as was his duty, but his
ministers dissuaded him. They reminded him of the October Days, and
the weak monarch, alarmed on account of his family, if not on his own,
sacrificed his Constitutional Guard and also the brave servitor who
commanded it. Speaking to M. d'Aubier, one of the ordinary gentlemen
of the King's bedchamber, the Queen said: "I tremble lest the King's
guard should think the honor of the corps compromised by their
disarmament."--"Doubtless, Madame, that corps would have preferred to
die at the feet of Your Majesties."--"Yes," replied the Queen, "but the
few partisans who still adhere to the King in the Assembly counsel him
to sanction the decree disbanding them, and to disregard their advice
is to run the risk of losing them." While the Queen was yet speaking,
a man approached under pretence of asking alms. "You see," said she to
M. d'Aubier, "there is no place and no time when I am free from spies."
The Constitutional Guard were sent as prisoners to the Ecole Militaire
between a double file of National Guards, and forced to surrender their
weapons. By a sort of fatality Louis XVI. was led to disarm himself,
to spike his cannons, tear down his flags, and dismantle his
fortresses. By dint of approaching too near the fatal declivity of
concessions, {146} he ended by losing even his dignity as man and King.
He was paralyzed, annihilated by the Assembly, which treated him like a
hostage, a conquered man, and which struck down, one after another, the
last defenders of the monarchy and of public order. The fate of the
Constitutional Guard might well discourage honest men who only sought
to devote themselves. How was it possible to remain faithful to a
chief who was false to himself, who was more like a victim than a king?
Finding themselves unsupported by the Tuileries, the royalists began to
look across the frontier, and many men who would have flocked around an
energetic monarch, fled from a feeble king and sorrowfully went to
swell the ranks of the emigration.
In spite of the advice of Dumouriez, Louis XVI. would not make use of
his right to form another guard. He preferred to put himself in the
hands of the National Guard, who were his jailors rather than his
servants. As to the Duke de Brissac, even the formality of an
interrogatory was dispensed with, and he was sent before the Superior
Court of Orleans. When he bade adieu to Louis XVI., the King said to
him: "You are going to prison; I should be much more afflicted if you
were not leaving me there myself." What was to be the fate of the
loyal and devoted servant, thus sacrificed to his master's inexcusable
weakness? He left the dungeons of Orleans only to be transferred to
Versailles by the Marseillais, and there, on September 9, 1792, was
assaulted by a {147} furious throng surrounding the carriages
containing the prisoners. The brave old man struggled long against the
assassins, but, after losing two fingers and receiving several other
wounds, he was killed by a sabre-thrust which broke his jaw, and his
head was set on one of the spikes of the palace gate.
[1] The magnificent mansion built for Madame du Barry by Louis XV., and
restored to her after her banishment to Meaux by Marie Antoinette.
{148}
XIV.
THE SUFFERINGS OF LOUIS XVI.
Dissatisfied with men and things, dissatisfied with others and himself,
the mind and heart of Louis XVI. were the prey of moral tortures which
left him no repose. He began to be ashamed of his concessions, and to
repent of having accepted pusillanimous advice. Why had he not
succeeded in being a king? Why had he garrisoned Paris insufficiently
ever since the outbreak of the Revolution? Why had he suffered the
Bastille to be taken, encouraged the emigration, and disbanded his
bodyguards? Why had he not opposed the first persecutions aimed at the
Church? Why had he pretended to approve acts and ideas which horrified
him? Why, by resorting to deplorable equivocations which cast a shadow
over his policy and his character, had he reduced his most devoted
followers to doubt and despair? Such thoughts as these assailed him
like so many stings of conscience. The sentiments of monarchy and of
military honor awoke in him once more, and he sounded with bitterness
the whole depth of the abyss into which his irresolution had plunged
him. In seeing what he was, he recalled sorrowfully {149} what he had
been, and comprehended by cruel experience what feebleness could make
of a Most Christian King and eldest son of the Church, an heir of Louis
XIV. He thought of the many brave men, victims of his political
errors, who on his account had suffered exile and ruin; of the faithful
royalists menaced, because of him, with prison and death. He thought
of the incessantly repeated crimes, the massacres of the Glaciere, the
impunity of the brigands of "headsman" Jourdan, of Brissac's
incarceration. This is what it is, he said within himself, to have
suffered religion to be persecuted and to have believed that, were the
altar once overthrown, the throne might rest secure. He reproached
himself bitterly for having sanctioned the civil organization of the
clergy at the close of 1790, and thus drawn upon himself the censure of
the Sovereign Pontiff. He wanted to be done with concessions, but he
understood perfectly that it was too late now to resist, and that he
was irrevocably lost in consequence of events undesired and unforeseen.
What was to be done? How could he sail against the stream? Where find
a point of vantage? Ought he to take violent measures? If the unhappy
King had been alone, perhaps he might have tried to do so. But he
feared to endanger his wife and children by thus acting.
As if to push the wretched monarch to extremities, the National
Assembly passed two decrees which struck him to the heart. According
to the first of {150} these, voted May 19, any ecclesiastic having
refused the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, could be
transported at the simple request of twenty citizens of the canton in
which he resided. According to the second, voted June 8, a camp of
twenty thousand federates, recruited from every canton of the realm,
were to be assembled before Paris, in order, as was said in one of the
preambles, "to take every hope from the enemies of the common weal who
are scheming in the interior."
They had counted too much on the King's patience. He could not resolve
to sanction the two decrees, and banish the ecclesiastics whose
behavior he honored. Dumouriez afflicted him still further, when, in
entreating him to yield, he asked why he had sanctioned, at the close
of 1790, the decree obliging the clergy to take oath to the civil
constitution of the clergy. "Sire," said he, "you sanctioned the
decree for the priests' oath, and it is to that your veto must be
applied. If I had been one of your counsellors at the time, I would,
at the risk of my life, have advised you to refuse your sanction. Now
my opinion is that having, as I dare to say, committed the fault of
approving this decree, which has produced enormous evils, your veto, if
you apply it to the second decree, which may arrest the deluge of blood
ready to flow, will burden your conscience with all the crimes to which
the people are tending." Never had a sovereign's conscience been a
prey to similar perplexities. Louis XVI. seemed crushed beneath an
irresistible {151} fatality. The Tuileries, haunted night and day by
the spectre of Charles I., assumed a dismal air. At this period a sort
of stupor characterized the countenance, the gait, and even the silence
of the future victim of January 21. He no longer spoke; one might say
he no longer thought. He seemed prostrated, petrified.
A rumor got about that he had become almost imbecile through care and
trouble, so much so that he did not recognize his son, but on seeing
him approach, had asked: "What child is that?" It was added that while
out walking he caught sight of the steeple of Saint Denis from the top
of the hill, and cried out: "That is where I shall be on my birthday."
He had been so calumniated, so misunderstood, so outraged, that not
merely his crown but his existence had become an intolerable burden to
him. His throne and his life alike disgusted him. He was no longer a
King, but only the ghost of one.
Madame Campan thus describes him: "At this period the King fell into a
discouragement amounting to physical prostration. For ten days
together he never uttered a word, even in the bosom of his family,
except when the game of backgammon, which he played with Madame
Elisabeth after dinner, obliged him to pronounce some indispensable
words. The Queen drew him out of this condition, so fatal at a
critical time when every minute may necessitate action, by throwing
herself at his feet and addressing him sometimes in words intended only
to frighten him, {152} and at others expressing her affection for him.
She demanded, also, what he owed to his family, and went so far as to
say that if they must perish, it ought to be with honor, and without
waiting to be strangled one after another on the floor of their
apartment."
While Louis XVI. assisted unmoved, not merely like Charles V. at his
own obsequies, but at those of royalty, the blood of Maria Theresa was
boiling in the veins of Marie Antoinette. The scenes she had witnessed
sometimes extorted sobs and cries of anguish from her. Her pride
revolted at seeing the royal mantle, crown, and sceptre dragged through
the mire. She wanted to struggle to the last, to hope against all
hope, to cling to the last chances of safety like a shipwrecked sailor
to the fragments of his ship. Who could say? She might find defenders
where she least expected them. It was for this reason that she wished
to meet Dumouriez, as she had met Mirabeau and Barnave. Dumouriez has
preserved the details of this interview in his Memoirs.