to happen? What will the insurrectionary column do? Glance for an
instant at the topography of the Assembly and its environs. The
session-chamber is the Hall of the Riding School, which extends to the
terrace of the Feuillants, and occupies the site where the rue de
Rivoli was opened later on, almost at the corner of the future rue de
Castiglione. It is a building about one hundred and fifty feet long.
In front of it is a long and {189} narrow courtyard beginning very near
the rue de Dauphin. It is entered through this courtyard, which a
wall, afterwards replaced by a grating, separates from the terrace of
the Feuillants. It may be entered at the other extremity, also, at the
spot where the flight of steps facing the Place Vendome was afterwards
built. From the side of the courtyard it can be approached by
carriages, but from the other, only by pedestrians who cross the narrow
passage of the Feuillants, which starts from the rue Saint-Honore,
opposite the Place Vendome, and leads to the garden of the Tuileries.
This passage is bordered on the right by the convent of the Capuchins;
on the left is the Riding School, almost at the spot where the passage
opens into the Tuileries Garden by a door which had just been closed,
and before which had been placed a cannon and a battalion of National
Guards.
On reaching the rue Saint-Honore, the crowd had taken good care not to
enter the court of the Riding School, where they might have been
arrested and disarmed. They preferred to follow the rue Saint-Honore
and take the passage conducting thence to the Assembly and the terrace
of the Feuillants. Three municipal officers who had gone to the
Tuileries Garden, passed through this passage before the crowd, and met
the advancing column at the door of the Assembly, just as M. Ramond was
in the tribune discussing Vergniaud's proposition. While the head of
the column was awaiting the issue of this discussion, the rank and file
were constantly advancing. The {190} passage became so thronged that
people were in danger of stifling. Part of them withdrew from the
crowd and went into the garden of the Capuchin convent, where they
amused themselves by planting the Liberty tree in the classic ground of
monkish ignorance and idleness, as was said in those days. The
remainder, which was in front of the door and the grating of the
terrace of the Feuillants, became exasperated. The sight of the
glittering bayonets, and the cannon placed in front of this grating,
roused them to fury.
Meanwhile, a letter from Santerre reached the president of the National
Assembly: "Gentlemen," said he, "I have received a letter from the
commandant of the National Guard, which announces that the gathering
amounts to eight thousand men, and that they demand admission to the
bar of the chamber."--"Since there are eight thousand of them," cried a
deputy, "and since we are only seven hundred and forty-five, I move
that we adjourn the session and go away."
Santerre's letter is thus expressed: "Mr. President, the inhabitants of
the Faubourg Saint-Antoine are celebrating to-day the anniversary of
the oath of the _Jeu de Paume_. They have been calumniated before you;
they ask to be admitted to the bar; they will confound their cowardly
detractors for the second time, and prove that they are still the men
of July 14." It was applauded by a large number of the Assembly. On
the other side murmurs rose against it. M. Ramond {191} went on with
his speech: "Eight thousand men, they say, are awaiting your decision.
You owe it to twenty-five millions of other men who await it with no
less interest.... Certainly, I shall never fear to see the citizens of
Paris in our midst, nor the entire French people around us. No one
could behold with greater pleasure than I the weapons which are a
terror to the enemies of liberty; but the law and the authorities have
spoken. Let the petitioners, therefore, lay down at the entrance of
the sanctuary the arms they are forbidden to bear within it. You ought
to insist on this. They ought to obey."
M. Ramond's courage did not last long. Passing to Vergniaud's proposal
to send sixty members of the Assembly to the Tuileries, he said: "I
applaud the motive which prompted this proposition. But, convinced
that there is nothing to be feared by any person from the citizens of
Paris, I regard the motion as insulting to them."
Meanwhile, the noise at the door redoubles; the petitioners are growing
impatient. Guadet rises to demand that they shall come in with their
arms. It is plain that the Gironde has taken the riot under its
patronage. After some disorderly and violent debate, it is resolved
that the president shall put the question: Are the petitioners to be
admitted to the bar? They do not yet decide this other: Shall the
armed citizens defile before the Assembly after they have been heard?
The first question is answered in the affirmative. The delegates of
the crowd are {192} admitted to the bar. They make their entry into
the Assembly between one and two in the afternoon.
Their orator is a person named Huguenin, who will preside a few weeks
later at the Council of the Commune during the September massacres. In
his declamatory harangue he includes every tirade, threat, and insult
current in the streets. "We demand," said he, "that you should find
out why our armies are inactive. If the executive power is the cause,
let it be abolished. The blood of patriots must not flow to satisfy
the pride and ambition of the perfidious palace of the Tuileries."
Here the galleries burst into enthusiastic applause. The orator goes
on: "We complain of the delays of the Superior National Court. Why is
it so slow in bringing down the sword of the law upon the heads of the
guilty? ... Do the enemies of the country imagine that the men of July
14 are sleeping? If they appear to be so, their awakening will be
terrible.... There is no time to dissimulate; the hour is come, blood
will flow, and the tree of Liberty we are about to plant will flourish
in peace." The applause from the galleries redoubles. Huguenin
excites himself to fury: "The image of the country," he shouts, "is the
sole divinity which it shall be permitted to adore. Ought this
divinity, so dear to Frenchmen, to find in its own temple those who
rebel against its worship? Are there any such? Let them show
themselves, these friends of arbitrary power; let them make themselves
known! This is not their {193} place! Let them depart from the land
of liberty! Let them go to Coblentz and rejoin the _emigres_. There,
their hearts will expand, they will distil their venom, they will
machinate, they will conspire against their country." The orator
concludes by demanding that the armed citizens shall be passed in
review by the Assembly. It was in vain that Stanislas de Girardin
cries, "Do the laws exist no longer, then?" The Assembly capitulates.
Armed citizens are introduced. Twenty thousand men are about to pass
through the session hall. The march is opened by a dozen musicians,
who stop in front of the president's armchair. Then the two leaders of
the manifestation make their appearance: Santerre, king of the fish
markets, idol of the faubourgs, and Saint-Huruge, the deserter from the
aristocracy, the marquis demagogue; Saint-Huruge, cast into the
Bastille for his debts and scandalous behavior, and liberated by the
Revolution; Saint-Huruge, the man of gigantic stature and the strength
of a Hercules, who is the rioter _par excellence_, and whose stentorian
voice rises above the bellowing of the crowd.
The spectators in the galleries tremble with joy; they stamp on
perceiving both Santerre and Saint-Huruge, sabre in hand and pistols at
the belt. The band plays the _Ca ira_, the national hymn of the red
caps. Is this an orgy, a masquerade? Look at these rags, these
bizarre costumes, these butcher-boys brandishing their knives, these
tattered women, these drunken harlots who dance and shout; inhale this
{194} odor of wine and eau-de-vie; behold the ensigns, the banners of
insurrection, the ambulating trophies, the stone table on which are
inscribed the Rights of Man; the placards wherein one reads: "Down with
the veto!" "The people are tired of suffering!" "Liberty or Death!"
"Tremble, tyrant!"; the gibbet from which hangs a doll representing
Marie Antoinette; the ragged breeches surmounting the fashionable
motto: "Live the Sans-Culottes!"; the bleeding heart set upon a pike,
with the inscription, "Heart of an aristocrat!" The procession, which
began about two in the afternoon, is not over until nearly four
o'clock. At this time Santerre repairs to the bar, where he says: "The
citizens of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine came here to express to you
their ardent wishes for the welfare of the country. They beg you to
accept this flag in gratitude for the good will you have shown towards
them." The president responds: "The National Assembly receives your
offering; it invites you to continue to march under the protection of
the law, the safeguard of the country." And then, heedless of the
dangers the King was about to incur, he adjourns the session at
half-past four in the afternoon.
What is going to happen? Will the armed citizens return peaceably to
their homes? Or, not content with their promenade to the Assembly,
will they make another to the palace of the Tuileries? What
preparations have been made for its defence? Ten battalions line the
terrace facing the palace. Two {195} others are on the terrace at the
water side, four on the side of the Carrousel. There are two companies
of gendarmes before the door of the Royal Court; four on the Place
Louis XVI., to guard the passage of the Orangery, opposite rue
Saint-Florentin. Here, there might have been serious means of defence.
But Louis XVI. is a sovereign who does not defend himself. Two
municipal officers, MM. Boucher-Saint-Sauveur and Mouchet, had just
approached him: "My colleagues and myself," said M. Mouchet to him,
"have observed with pain that the Tuileries were closed the very
instant the cortege made its appearance. The people, crowded into the
passage of the Feuillants, were all the more dissatisfied because they
could see through the wicket that there were persons in the garden. We
ourselves, Sire, were very much affected at seeing cannon pointed at
the people. It is urgent that Your Majesty should order the gates of
the Tuileries to be opened."
After hesitating slightly, Louis XVI. ended by replying: "I consent
that the door of the Feuillants shall be opened; but on condition that
you make the procession march across the length of the terrace and go
out by the courtyard gate of the Riding School, without descending into
the garden."
This was one of the King's illusions. While he was parleying with the
two municipal officers the armed citizens had passed in review before
the Assembly. They had just left the session hall by a door leading
into the courtyard. Once in this {196} courtyard, the intervention of
some municipal officers caused the entrance known as the Dauphin's
door, opposite the street of the same name, to be opened for them. It
was by this that they entered the Tuileries Garden, while it was the
wish of Louis XVI. that they should pass out through it from the
terrace of the Feuillants. There they are, then, in the garden, having
made an irruption there instead of continuing their route through rue
Saint-Honore. Here they come along the terrace in front of the palace,
on which several battalions of the National Guard are stationed. The
crowd passes quickly before these battalions. Some of the guards unfix
their bayonets; others present arms, as if to do honor to the riot.
Having passed through the garden, the columns of the people go out
through the gate before the Pont-Royal. They pass up the quay, and
through the Louvre wickets, and so into the Place Carrousel, which is
cut up by a multitude of streets, a sort of covered ways very suitable
to facilitate the attack.
Certain municipal officers make some slight efforts to quiet the
assailants; others, on the contrary, do what they can to embolden and
excite them. The four battalions at the entrance of the Carrousel, and
the two companies of gendarmes posted before the door of the Royal
Court, make no resistance. The rioters, who have invaded the
Carrousel, find their march obstructed by the closing of this door.
Santerre and Saint-Huruge, who had been the last to leave the National
Assembly, make their appearance, {197} raging with anger. They rail at
the people for not having penetrated into the palace. "That is all we
came for," say they. Santerre, before the door of the Royal Court--one
of the three courtyards in front of the palace, opposite the
Carrousel--summons his cannoneers. "I am going," he cries, "to open
the doors with cannon-balls."
Some royalist officers of the National Guard seek vainly to defend the
palace. No one heeds them. The door of the Royal Court opens its two
leaves. The crowd presses through. No more dike to the torrent; the
gendarmes set their caps on the ends of their sabres, and cry: "Live
the nation!" The thing is done; the palace is invaded.
{198}
XIX.
THE INVASION OF THE TUILERIES.
It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. The invasion of the
Tuileries is beginning. Let us glance at the palace and get a notion
of the apartments through which the crowd are about to rush. On
approaching it by way of the Carrousel, one comes first to three
courtyards: that of the Princes, in front of the Pavilion of Flora; the
Royal Court, before the Pavilion of the Horloge; and the Swiss Court,
before the Pavilion of Marsan. The assailants enter by the Royal
Court, pass into the palace through the vestibule of the Horloge
Pavilion, and climb the great staircase. On the left of this are the
large apartments of the first story:--
1. The Hall of the Hundred Swiss (the future Hall of the Marshals);
2. The Hall of the Guards (the future Hall of the First Consul);
3. The King's Antechamber (the future Salon d'Apollon);
4. The State Bedchamber (the future Throne-room);
{199}
5. The King's Grand Cabinet (called later the Salon of Louis XIV.);
6. The Gallery of Diana.
There are a battalion and two companies of gendarmes in the palace, as
well as the guards then on duty and those they had relieved. But as no
orders are given to these troops, they either break their ranks or
fraternize with the enemy. No obstacle, no resistance, is offered, and
nobody defends the apartments. The assailants, who have taken a cannon
as far as the first story, enter the Hall of the Hundred Swiss, whose
doors are neither locked nor barricaded. They penetrate into the Hall
of the Guards with the same ease. But when they try to make their way
into the OEil-de-Boeuf, or King's Antechamber, the locked door of this
apartment arrests their progress. This exasperates them, and one of
the panels is soon broken.
Where is Louis XVI. when the invasion begins? In his bedroom with his
family. It communicates with the Grand Cabinet, and has windows
commanding a view of the garden. M. Acloque, chief of the second
legion of the National Guard, and a faithful royalist, hastens to the
King by way of the little staircase leading from the Princes' Court to
the royal chamber, in order to tell him what has happened. He finds
the door locked; he knocks, gives his name, urgently demands
admittance, and obtains it. He advises Louis XVI. to show himself to
the people. {200} The King, whom no peril has ever frightened, does
not hesitate to follow this advice. The Queen wishes to accompany her
husband; but she is opposed in this and forcibly drawn into the
Dauphin's chamber, which is near that of Louis XVI. Happier than the
Queen,--these are her own words,--Madame Elisabeth finds nobody to tear
her from the King. She takes hold of the skirts of her brother's coat.
Nothing could separate them.
Louis XVI. passes into the Great Cabinet, thence into the State
Bedchamber, and through it into the OEil-de-Boeuf, where he will
presently receive the crowd. He is surrounded at this moment by Madame
Elisabeth, three of his ministers (MM. de Beaulieu, de Lajard, and
Terrier de Montciel), the old Marshal de Mouchy, Chevalier de Canolle,
M. d'Hervilly, M. Guinguerlet, lieutenant-colonel of the unmounted
gendarmes, and M. de Vainfrais, also an officer of gendarmes. Some
grenadiers of the National Guard afterwards arrive through the Great
Cabinet and the State Bedchamber. "Come here! four grenadiers of the
National Guard!" cries the King. One of them says, "Sire, do not be
afraid."--"I am not afraid," replies the King; "put your hand on my
heart; it is pure and tranquil." And taking the grenadier's hand he
presses it forcibly against his breast. The grenadier is a tailor
named Jean Lalanne. Later, under the Terror, by a decree of the 12th
Messidor, Year II., he will be condemned to death for having--so runs
the sentence--"displayed the character of a {201} cringing valet of the
tyrant, in boasting before several citizens that Capet, taking his hand
and laying it on his heart, had said to him, 'Feel, my friend, whether
it palpitates.'"
"Gentlemen, save the King!" cries Madame Elisabeth. Meanwhile, the
crowd is still in the next apartment, the Hall of the Guards. They are
battering away with hatchets and gun-stocks at the door which opens
into the King's Antechamber. Nothing but a partition separates Louis
XVI. from the assailants. He orders the door to be opened. The crowd
rush in. "Here I am," says Louis XVI. calmly; "I have never deviated
from the Constitution."
"Citizens," says Acloque, "recognize your King and respect him; the law
commands you to do so. We will all perish rather than suffer him to
receive the slightest harm." M. de Canolle cries: "Long live the
nation! Long live the King!" This cry is not repeated. Some one begs
Madame Elisabeth to retire. "I will not leave the King," she replies,
"I will not leave him." Those who surround Louis XVI. make a rampart
for him of their bodies. The crowd becomes immense. It is proposed to
the King that he stand on a bench in the embrasure of the central
window, from which there is a view of the courtyard. Other benches and
a table are placed in front of him. Madame Elisabeth takes a bench in
the next window with M. de Marsilly. The hall is full. Groans,
atrocious threats, and gross insults resound on every side. Some one
shouts: "Down with the {202} veto! To the devil with the veto! Recall
the patriot ministers! Let him sign, or we will not go out of here!"
The butcher Legendre comes forward. He asks permission to speak.
Silence is obtained, and, addressing the King, he says: "Monsieur." At
this unusual title, Louis XVI. make a gesture of surprise. "Yes,
Monsieur," goes on Legendre, "listen to us; it is your duty to listen
to us.... You are a traitor. You have always deceived us, and you
deceive us still; the measure is full, and the people are tired of
being made your laughing-stock." The insolent butcher, who calls
himself the agent of the people, then reads a pretended petition which
is a mere tissue of recriminations and threats. Louis XVI. listens
with imperturbable sang-froid. He answers simply: "I will do what the
Constitution and the decrees ordain that I shall do." The noise begins
anew. It is a rain, a hail of insults.
Some individuals mistake Madame Elisabeth for Marie Antoinette. Her
equerry, M. de Saint-Pardoux, throws himself between her and the
furious wretches, who cry: "Ah! there is the Austrian woman; we must
have the Austrian!" and undeceives them by naming her.--"Why did you
not allow them to believe I am the Queen?" says the courageous
Princess; "perhaps you might have averted a greater crime." And,
putting aside a bayonet which almost touches her breast, "Take care,
Monsieur," she says gently, "you might hurt somebody, and I am sure you
would be sorry to do that." {203} The shouts redouble. The confusion
becomes terrible. It is with great difficulty that some grenadiers of
the National Guard defend the embrasure of the window where Louis XVI.
still stands immovable on his bench. Mingled with the crowd there are
inoffensive persons, who have come merely out of curiosity, and even
honest men who sincerely pity the King. But there are tigers and
assassins as well. One of them, armed with a club ending in a
sword-blade, tries to thrust it into the King's heart. The grenadiers
parry the blow with their bayonets. A market porter struggles long to
reach Louis XVI., against whom he brandishes a sabre. Several times
the wretched monarch seeks to address the crowd. His voice is lost in
the uproar. A municipal official, M. Mouchet, hoisting himself on the
shoulders of two persons, demands by voice and gesture a moment's
silence for the King and for himself. Vain efforts. The vociferations
of the crowd only increase. Here comes a long pole on the end of which
is a Phrygian cap, a _bonnet rouge_. The pole is inclined towards M.
Mouchet. M. Mouchet takes the cap and presents it to the King, who, to
please the crowd, puts it on his head.
Is it possible? That man on a bench, with the ignoble cap of a
galley-slave on his head, surrounded by a drunken and tattered rabble
who vomit filthy language, that man the King of France and Navarre, the
most Christian King, Louis XVI.? Go back to the day of the coronation,
June 11, 1775. It is {204} just seventeen years and nine days ago! Do
you remember the Cathedral of Rheims, luminous, glittering; the
cardinals, ministers, and marshals of France, the red ribbons, the blue
ribbons, the lay peers with their vests of cloth-of-gold, their violet
ducal mantles lined with ermine; the clerical peers with cope and
cross? Do you remember the King taking Charlemagne's sword in his
hand, and then prostrating himself before the altar on a great
kneeling-cushion of velvet sown with golden lilies? Do you see him
vested by the grand-chamberlain with the tunic, the dalmatica, and the
ermine-lined mantle which represent the vestments of a sub-deacon,
deacon, and priest, because the King is not merely a sovereign, but a
pontiff? Do you see him seizing the royal sceptre, that golden sceptre
set with oriental pearls, and carvings representing the great
Carlovingian Emperor on a throne adorned with lions and eagles? Do you
remember the pealing of the bells, the chords of the organ, the blare
of trumpets, the clouds of incense, the birds flying in the nave?
And now, instead of the coronation the pillory; instead of the crown
the hideous red cap; instead of hymns and murmurs of admiration and
respect,--insults, the buffoonery of the fish-market, shouts of
contempt and hatred, threats of murder. Ah! the time is not far
distant when a Conventionist will break the vial containing the sacred
oil on the pavement of the Abbey of Saint Remi. How slippery is the
swift descent, the fatal descent by which a {205} sovereign who disarms
himself glides down from the heights of power and glory to the depths
of opprobrium and sorrow! There he is! Not content with putting the
red bonnet on his head, he keeps it there, and mumming in the Jacobin
coiffure, he cries: "Long live the nation!" The crowd find the
spectacle amusing. A National Guard, to whom some one has passed a
bottle of wine, offers the complaisant King a drink. Perhaps the wine
is poisoned. No matter; Louis XVI. takes a glass of it.
While all this is going on, two deputies, Isnard and Vergniaud, present
themselves. "Citizens," says the first, "I am Isnard, a deputy. If
what you demand were at once granted, it might be thought you extorted
it by force. In the name of the law and the National Assembly, I ask
you to respect the constituted authorities and retire. The National
Assembly will do justice; I will aid thereto with all my power. You
shall obtain satisfaction; I answer for it with my head; but go away."
Vergniaud follows him with similar remarks. Neither is listened to.
Nobody departs.
It is six in the evening. For two hours, one man, exposed to every
insult, has held his own against a multitude. At last Petion arrives
wearing his mayor's scarf. The crowd draws back. "Sire," says he, "I
have just this instant learned the situation you were in."--"That is
very astonishing," returns Louis XVI.; "for it has lasted two
hours."--"Sire, truly, I was ignorant that there was trouble at the
palace. {206} As soon as I was informed, I hastened to your side. But
you have nothing to fear; I answer for it that the people will respect
you."--"I fear nothing," replies the King. "Moreover, I have not been
in any danger, since I was surrounded by the National Guard."