FLIGHT OF THE KING.
Riot at Nancy.--Prosecution of Mirabeau.--Issue of
Assignats.--Mirabeau's Interview with the Queen.--Four
political Parties.--Bishops refuse to take the Oath to the
Constitution.--Character of the Emigrants.--The King's Aunts attempt
to leave France.--Debates upon Emigration.--Embarrassment of the
Assembly.--Death of Mirabeau.--His Funeral.--The King prevented
from visiting St. Cloud.--Duplicity of the King.--Conference of the
Allies.--Their Plan of Invasion.--Measures for the Escape of the
King.--The Flight.
The grand gala days, in the Field of Mars, celebrating the formation of
the Constitution, soon passed. The twenty thousand delegates, having
been fêted even to satiety, returned to their homes; the Constituent
Assembly resumed its labors.[258] The cares and toils of life again
pressed heavily upon the tax-exhausted and impoverished millions of
France.
The Belgians, in imitation of France, had commenced a struggle for
freedom. The King of France permitted Austria to send her troops across
the French territory into Belgium to crush the patriots. Many of the
most influential of the opponents of the Revolution were still leaving
France and uniting with the armed emigrants on the frontiers. England,
Austria, Sardinia, and Prussia were manifestly forming an alliance to
punish the French patriots, and to restore the tyranny of the execrable
old régime. The court, emboldened by these proceedings, were boasting
of the swift destruction which was to overwhelm the advocates of
reform, and commenced a prosecution of Mirabeau, the Duke of Orleans,
and others of the popular party, for instigating the movement of
the 5th and 6th of October, when the royal family were taken from
Versailles to Paris. These movements created much alarm, and even the
royal troops at Metz and Nancy, who were mostly composed of Swiss and
Germans, fraternized with the populace.
A new issue of eight hundred millions of bonds or _assignats_ was
decreed, which quite abundantly replenished the treasury. There was
never a paper currency created upon so valuable a pledge, or sustained
by security more ample and undoubted. The assignats represented the
whole public domain, and could at any time be exchanged for the most
valuable landed property. Still, Talleyrand with singular precision
predicted the confusion which eventually resulted from these issues.
In the majestic march of events, Necker had for some time been passing
into oblivion. The king had been forced to recall him. Hated by the
court, neglected by the Assembly, forgotten by the people, he soon
found his situation insupportable, and, sending in his resignation,
retired to Switzerland, from which safe retreat he watched the
terrific gatherings of the revolutionary storm.
Civil war was sure to break out the moment the court could obtain
possession of the person of the king. The pliant nature of the monarch
would immediately yield to the influences which surrounded him, and the
court, under such circumstances, could find no difficulty in inducing
him to sanction any acts of violence to regain their power. But while
the king was in Paris, in the hands of the Assembly, he would sanction
the decrees of the Assembly, and thus the aristocrats could not wage
war against the patriots without at the same time waging war against
the king. Foreign monarchies could not be induced to take this step.
Thus the retention of the king was peace; his escape, civil war.
The court were plotting innumerable plans to effect his escape. La
Fayette, at the head of the National Guard, was fully awake to the
responsibility of guarding him with the utmost vigilance. The king was
apparently left at perfect liberty, but he was continually watched.
The queen was exceedingly anxious for flight. The king was ever
vacillating, but generally, influenced by such advisers as Mirabeau
and La Fayette, inclined to accept the Revolution. He was also haunted
with the idea that his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, wished to frighten
him into flight, that the Assembly might declare the throne vacant, and
place the sceptre in the duke's hand as the sworn friend and supporter
of the Revolution.
Mirabeau had commenced his career as one of the most ardent
advocates of reform, but he now wished to arrest the progress of the
revolutionary chariot, as he affirmed that it had passed beyond its
proper goal. His course was attributed by some to bribery on the part
of the court. His friends say that he was only influenced by his own
patriotic intelligence. At St. Cloud there is a retired summer-house,
embowered in foliage, at the summit of a hill which crowns the highest
part of the park. The queen appointed an interview with Mirabeau at
this secluded spot.
The statesman of gigantic genius, who seemed to hold in his hand
the destinies of France, left Paris on horseback one evening, under
pretense of visiting a friend. Avoiding observation, he turned aside
into a by-path until he reached a back gate of the park. Here he
was met in the dark by a nobleman, who conducted him to the retreat
of the queen, who was waiting to receive him. His constitution was
already undermined by dissipation and unintermitted labors. His cheeks
were sunken, his eyes inflamed, his complexion sallow, and a flabby
corpulency announced the ravages of disease; but, notwithstanding all
these defects, his genial spirit and courtly bearing made him one of
the most fascinating of men.[259]
The queen was then thirty-five years of age. Care and grief had sadly
marred her marvelous beauty. Her proud spirit was chagrined in being
compelled to look for support to one of the leaders of the people. But
little is known respecting what passed at this private interview. At
its close Mirabeau said to the queen,
"Madam, when your august mother admitted one of her subjects to the
honor of her presence, she never dismissed him without allowing him to
kiss her hand."
The queen, responding to the gallantry, graciously presented her hand.
Mirabeau, bowing profoundly, kissed it, and then, raising his head,
said proudly,
"Madam, the monarchy is saved."[260]
Suddenly Mirabeau became rich, set up a carriage, furnished his house
sumptuously, and gave magnificent entertainments. He immediately
commenced a course of cautious but vigorous measures to overthrow the
Constitution and establish one less democratic, which should give more
stability and efficiency to the royal power. He affirmed that this was
essential to the peace and prosperity of France, and that, instead of
being bought over by the court, he had bought the court over to his
views.
"But suppose the court refuses," said one of his friends, "to adopt
your plans?"
"They have promised me every thing," Mirabeau replied.
"But suppose they should not keep their word?" it was rejoined.
"Then," said Mirabeau, "I will overthrow the throne and establish a
republic."
It can hardly be denied that the Constitution was too democratic for a
monarchy and hardly democratic enough for a republic. In the natural
course of events public opinion would sway either to strengthening
the throne or to diminish still more its prerogatives. There were now
four parties in France. The first consisted of the old aristocratic
classes of the clergy and the nobles, now mostly emigrants, and busy
in effecting a coalition of surrounding monarchies to quell the
Revolution, and by fire and sword to reinstate the rejected despotism
of the Bourbons.
The second class was composed of the king and Mirabeau, with the queen
reluctantly assenting to its principles, and others of the nobles
and priests who were disposed, some from choice and others from the
consciousness of necessity, partially to accept the Revolution. They
were willing to adopt a constitution which should seriously limit
the old prerogatives of the crown. But they wished to repudiate the
constitution now adopted, and to form one less democratic, which would
still grant many prerogatives to the king.
The third party consisted of the great majority of the Assembly, headed
by sincere and guileless patriots like La Fayette, and sustained
probably by the great majority of the purest and best men in the
kingdom, who were in favor of the constitution which the nation had
accepted. While they did not regard it as perfect, they felt that it
was a noble advance in the right direction, and that the salvation
of the liberties of France now depended upon allegiance to this
constitution.
There was a fourth class, restless, tumultuous, uninformed, composed of
the lowest portion of the populace, who could ever be roused to phrensy
by the cry of "Aristocracy," who were ripe for any deeds of violence,
and who regarded that firmness of law which protected order, property,
and life as tyranny. They occupied the lowest possible platform of
democracy.
Such was the condition of France as the Constituent Assembly now
endeavored to consolidate the new institutions and to bring harmony
from the chaos into which the nation had been plunged. While in these
circumstances of unparalleled peril, combined Europe was watching for
an opportunity to pounce upon the distracted nation.
All public functionaries were required to take oath to the new
constitution. The clergy, as bound by the laws of the Romish Church,
appealed to the Pope for instructions. At the same time the opposing
bishops and nobles wrote to the Pope urging him to withhold his
assent.[261] The king had sanctioned the decrees. The Pope, under
various pretexts, postponed an answer. Many of the bishops and curates
consequently refused to take the oath. The Assembly was not disposed
to wait for the decision of a foreign potentate, and, accepting those
bishops and curates who took the oath, immediately nominated new
bishops and curates to take the place of those who refused. Justly
and frankly the Assembly declared that it wished to do no violence to
conscience, but that it could not appoint as public functionaries those
men who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Constitution
of the kingdom. This increased exasperation, and enabled many of the
bishops to appeal to the fanatic populace to rise in defense of the
endangered Church.
The emigrants now made a general rendezvous at Coblentz, in the
territory of the Elector of Treves, and at other points of the
frontier.[262] These men, composing what was called the court,
consisted mainly of the higher nobles who had long been pampered with
the favors of the monarchy, and who looked with contempt upon the
nobles of the rural districts. Haughty, dissolute, and frivolous, they
scorned any appeal to the popular arm, even to popular fanaticism for
support. The only recourse to which they would condescend were the
armies of England, Austria, and Prussia. The rural nobles, on the
other hand, and the rural bishops, were secretly organizing their
friends within the kingdom to fall fiercely in civil war upon the
patriots so soon as the solid battalions of the allies should cross the
frontiers.[263]
In this state of things the king's aunts decided to leave France.
They had proceeded in their carriage on the way to Rome as far as
Arnay-le-Duc, when they were arrested. The feverish state of the public
mind led to suspicions that their emigration might accelerate impending
perils. The Assembly took the matter into deliberation whether the
ladies should be permitted to depart. The question was settled by a
keen sally of Menou.
[Illustration: MOB OPPOSING THE FLIGHT OF THE KING'S AUNTS.]
"All Europe," said he, "will be astonished to learn that a great
Assembly has spent several days in deciding whether two old ladies
shall hear mass at Paris or at Rome."
The worthy ladies continued the journey without interruption. The
king's next elder brother, usually called Monsieur, subsequently Louis
XVIII., remained with the king in Paris. The next brother, however, the
Count d'Artois, subsequently Charles X., was actively participating
with the emigrants at Coblentz. The very difficult question respecting
emigration was now brought forward in the Assembly. It seemed to be a
gross act of tyranny to prohibit French citizens from withdrawing from
or entering France at their pleasure. On the other hand the enemies
of regenerated France were daily leaving the kingdom with all the
resources they could collect; and from the frontier, where they were
plotting foreign and civil war, they were continually entering the
kingdom to make preparations for the invasion.
Mirabeau, who was at this time conspiring for the escape of the king,
with his accustomed vehemence and his overpowering audacity, opposed
any law against emigration.[264]
"I admit," said he, "that a bad use is made of this liberty at the
present moment. But that by no means authorizes this absurd tyranny. I
beg you to remember that I have all my life combated against tyranny,
and that I will combat it wherever I find it. That popularity to which
I have aspired, and which I have enjoyed, is not a feeble reed. I will
thrust it deep into the earth, and will make it shoot up in the soil
of justice and of reason. And I now solemnly swear, if a law against
emigration is voted, I swear to disobey you."[265]
The Assembly was truly in a dilemma. They could not prohibit emigration
without grossly violating that declaration of rights which they had
just adopted with solemnities which had arrested the attention of the
world. They could not permit this flood of emigration without exposing
France to ruin; for it was well known that the nobles, with all the
wealth they could accumulate, were crossing the frontiers merely to
organize themselves into armies for the invasion of France.
Mirabeau never displayed more power than on this occasion, in overawing
and commanding the Assembly. He succeeded in arresting the measure.
This, however, was his last triumph. Disease was making rapid ravages,
his frame was exhausted, and death approached. A sudden attack of
colic confined him to his chamber, and soon all hope of recovery was
relinquished. He was still the idol of the people, and crowds, in
breathless silence, thronged around his abode, anxious to receive
bulletins of his health. The king and the people alike mourned, for
both were leaning upon that vigorous arm.
He could not repress an expression of satisfaction in view of his
labors and his accomplishments. To his servants he said, "Support this
head, the greatest in France." "William Pitt," he remarked, "is the
minister of preparations. He governs with threats. I would give him
some trouble if I should live."[266] On the morning of his death he
said to an attendant,
"Open the window. I shall die to-day. All that can now be done is to
envelop one's self in perfumes, to crown one's self with flowers,
to surround one's self with music, that one may sink quietly into
everlasting sleep."
Soon, in a paroxysm of extreme agony, he called for opium, saying, "You
promised to save me from needless suffering."
To quiet him a cup was presented, and he was deceived with the
assurance that it contained the desired fatal opiate. He swallowed
the draught, and in a moment expired, in the forty-second year of his
age. It was the 2d of April, 1791. His death caused profound grief.
All parties vied alike in conferring honor upon his remains. The
nation went into mourning, a magnificent funeral was arranged, and the
body was deposited in the tomb with pomp surpassing that which had
accompanied the burial of the ancient kings of France. Suspicions are
still cherished that Mirabeau died the victim of poison.[267]
The funeral of Mirabeau was the most imposing, popular, and extensive
of any recorded in history, always excepting that unparalleled display
of a nation's gratitude and grief which accompanied the transfer of the
remains of Napoleon from St. Helena to the Invalides. It is estimated
that four hundred thousand men took a part in the funeral pageant of
Mirabeau. The streets were draped in mourning, and pavements, windows,
balconies, and house-tops were thronged with sad and silent spectators.
La Fayette headed the immense procession, and was followed by the
whole Constituent Assembly, and by the whole club of Jacobins, who,
in a dense mass, assumed to be chief mourners on the occasion, though
Mirabeau had for some time held himself aloof from their tumultuous
meetings. It was eight o'clock in the evening before the procession
arrived at the Church of Saint Eustache, where a funeral oration was
pronounced by Cérutti. The arms of twenty thousand of the National
Guard were then discharged at once. The crash caused the very walls of
the church to rock, shivering to atoms every pane of glass.
It was now night, and, by the light of a hundred thousand torches,
the procession resumed its course. New instruments of music had been
invented, which were then heard for the first time--the trombone and
the tamtam. As the vast procession traversed the streets through the
gloomy shades of night, illumined by the glare of flickering torches,
with the tolling of bells, blending, now with the wail of the chant and
now with the pealing requiems of martial bands, all the elements of
sublimity seemed combined to affect the heart and overawe the soul. It
was near midnight when the sarcophagus was deposited in its tomb at the
Church of Saint Geneviève, over whose portal was inscribed these words,
"AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE."
Mirabeau was the master-spirit of the Revolution. After his death
there were multitudes struggling for the leadership, with no man of
sufficient prominence to attain and retain it. The funeral of Mirabeau
was the funeral of emancipated France. From that hour the Revolution
was on the rush to ruin.
"Time," writes Michelet, "which reveals every thing, has revealed
nothing that really proves the reproach of treason to be well founded.
Mirabeau's real transaction was an error, a serious, fatal error, but
one that was then shared by all in different degrees. At that time all
men, of every party, from Cazalès and Maury down to Robespierre, and
even to Marat, believed France to entertain Royalist opinions. All
men wanted a king. The number of Republicans was truly imperceptible.
Mirabeau believed that it was necessary to have a king with power,
or no king at all. It is true that Mirabeau appears to have received
sums to defray the expense of his immense correspondence with the
Departments--a sort of ministry that he was organizing at his own
house. He makes use of this subtle expression--this excuse which does
not excuse him--that he had not been bought; _that he was paid, not
sold_."[268]
[Illustration: FUNERAL OF MIRABEAU.]
The death of Mirabeau seemed to paralyze the hopes of the king, and
he now resolved to spare no endeavors to secure his escape. On the
18th of April the king took his carriage at Versailles, intending
to ride to St. Cloud. A rumor spread through the city that he was
contemplating flight. The populace collected and stopped the horses. La
Fayette immediately hastened to the spot with a company of the guards,
dispersed the mob, who offered no other violence than to obstruct
the departure of the king, and cleared a passage. The king, however,
who now wished to have it appear that he was held a prisoner, as most
certainly he virtually was, refused to go, and returned indignantly
into the palace.
By the advice of his ministers he repaired to the Assembly, and
complained warmly of the insult he had encountered. The king was
received with the utmost kindness by the Assembly, cordially greeted,
and was assured that every thing should be done to prevent the possible
occurrence of another similar outrage.
To disarm suspicion and appease the public mind the king, on the 23d of
April, sent a letter to the foreign embassadors declaring that he had
no intention of leaving France, that he was resolved to be faithful to
the oath which he had taken to the Constitution, and that all those who
intimated any thing to the contrary were his enemies and the enemies
of the country. He soon after, however, declared to an envoy sent to
him from the Emperor Leopold, that this letter by no means contained
his real sentiments, but that it was wrung from him by the peril of his
situation.[269]
A conference of the foreign powers was held on the 20th of May, 1791,
at Mantua, in Italy, where Leopold, Emperor of Austria, and brother of
Marie Antoinette, then chanced to be. At this conference Count d'Artois
appeared in behalf of the emigrants. Prussia was represented by Major
Bischofverder, England by Lord Elgin, and Louis XVI. by the Count de
Durfort. Several other of the kingdoms and principalities of Europe
were represented on the occasion. The Count de Durfort returned from
this conference to Louis XVI. in Paris, and brought him the following
secret declaration in the name of the Emperor Leopold:[270]
Austria engaged to assemble thirty-five thousand men on the frontiers
of Flanders. At the same time fifteen thousand men from the smaller
German States would attack Alsace. Fifteen thousand Swiss troops were
to be marched on Lyons, and the King of Sardinia, whose daughter
the Count d'Artois had married, was to assail Dauphiné. The king of
Spain, cousin of Louis XVI., was to gather twenty thousand troops
upon the slopes of the Pyrenees, to fall like an avalanche down upon
southern France. Prussia engaged to co-operate cordially. The King of
England, notwithstanding the eloquence of Burke's pamphlet, could not
yet venture to call upon the liberty-loving English to engage in this
infamous crusade against the independence and the liberty of a sister
kingdom. But the king, as Elector of Hanover, engaged to take an active
part in the war. A protest against the Revolution was to be drawn up
in the name of the whole house of Bourbon, whose _divine right_ to
despotism in France had been questioned by the French people, and this
protest was to be signed by those branches of the Bourbons who were
occupying the thrones of Spain, Naples, and Parma.[271]
Plans for the invasion having been thus arranged, Louis XVI. resolved
immediately to effect his escape to the frontier. He could then place
himself at the head of these foreign armies, and lash France into
obedience, and consign those patriots who had been toiling for liberty
to the dungeon and the scaffold.
Never was the condition of a nation more full of peril, or apparently
more hopeless. This impending destruction was enough to drive any
people into the madness of despair. It is hard to wear the fetters of
bondage even when one has never known any thing better. But, after
having once broken those chains and tasted the sweets of liberty, then
to have the shackles riveted anew is what few human spirits can endure.
It was not the intention of the king immediately to leave France.
He arranged to go to Montmedy, about two hundred miles from Paris,
taking the very retired Chalons road through Clermont and Varennes.
The Marquis of Bouillé, a general entirely devoted to the court party,
formed a camp at Montmedy to receive the king, under the pretense of
watching hostile movements on the frontiers. Small detachments of
cavalry were also very quietly posted at different points on the road
to aid in the flight. All the arrangements were made for starting on
the 20th of June.[272]
The king, though on the whole a worthy man, and possessing some
excellent traits of character, was in some points weak almost to
imbecility. All the energy of the family was with the queen, and she,
with the Marquis of Bouillé, planned the escape. They were often
thwarted, however, in their wishes by the obstinacy of the king. La
Fayette was entirely deceived, and but few even of the court were
intrusted with the secret. Still, rumors of flight had been repeatedly
circulated, and the people were in a state of constant anxiety lest
the court should carry off the king. They hardly believed that the
king himself wished to join the emigrants, and to urge war against the
Constitution which he had sworn to accept.
The Swiss Guards still surrounded the Tuileries. They were stationed,
however, only at the exterior posts. The interior of the palace, the
staircases, and the communications between the rooms were occupied by
the National Guard, in whom the nation could place more reliance. It
was a long-established custom that troops should be thus stationed
throughout the palace, that the royal family might be protected from
impertinence or from any irruption of popular violence. Since the
terrible scenes of the 5th and 6th of October it became more important
than ever that a strong guard should encircle the royal family. But
while the ostensible duty of this guard was only to protect the king
from insult, it had also a secret mission to prevent the king's escape.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 258: "I have read many histories of revolutions, and can
affirm what a Royalist avowed in 1791, that never had any great
revolution cost less bloodshed and weeping. In reality, only one
class, the clergy, was able, with any appearance of truth, to call
itself robbed; and, nevertheless, the result of that spoliation was,
that the great bulk of the clergy, starved under the old system
for the emolument of a few prelates, had at length a comfortable
livelihood."--_Michelet_, p. 417.]
[Footnote 259: "If I had never lived with Mirabeau," says Dumont, "I
should never have known what a man can make of one day--what things may
be placed within the interval of twelve hours. A day for this man is
more than a week or a month is for others. The mass of things he guided
on together was prodigious; from the scheming to the executing, not a
moment lost."--_Dumont_, p. 311.]
[Footnote 260: Michelet, p. 333.]
[Footnote 261: Thiers, vol. i., p. 166. Ferrières, t. ii., p. 198.]
[Footnote 262: "Many of the emigrants had joined the army in a state
of complete destitution. Others were spending improvidently the last
relics of their fortunes. All were in good spirits, for the camp life
was free and joyous. They confidently believed that the end of autumn
would find them restored to their splendid homes, to their groves, to
their forests, and to their dove-cots."--_Chateaubriand's Memoirs of
the Duke de Berri._]
[Footnote 263: See Recueil de divers Ecrits relatif à la Revolution, p.
62; also Chateaubriand's Memoirs of the Duke de Berri.
In reference to England Michelet remarks, with much truth: "The
first power is aristocracy, the second aristocracy, and the third
aristocracy. This aristocracy goes on incessantly recruiting its body
with all those who grow rich. To be rich in order to be noble is the
absorbing thought of the Englishman. Property, specially territorial
and feudal, is the religion of the country."--_Michelet's French
Revolution_, p. 432.]
[Footnote 264: "The meeting ended at half past five, and Mirabeau went
to the house of his sister, his intimate and dear confidante, and said
to her, 'I have pronounced my death-warrant. It is now all over with
me, for they will kill me.'"--_Michelet_, p. 461.]
[Footnote 265: The peculiar character of Mirabeau is illustrated by
the following well-authenticated anecdote. He was, on one occasion,
reading a report to the Assembly upon some riots in Marseilles, which
he affirmed were fomented by the partisans of the court. He was
incessantly interrupted by the aristocratic party with such abusive
epithets as "calumniator, liar, assassin, scoundrel." He stopped
a moment, looked at them with an imperturbable smile, and, in his
most honeyed tones, said, "Gentlemen, I wait till these amenities be
exhausted."--_Dumont, Souvenirs_, p. 278.]
[Footnote 266: The English _people_ were at this time generally in
sympathy with the Revolution. The aristocratic _government_ of England
was in deadly hostility to it. In 1792, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, then
head scholar in Jesus College, Cambridge, wrote an Ode to France,
commencing with the words,
"When France, in wrath, her giant limbs upreared,
And, with that oath which smote air, earth, and sea,
Stamped her strong foot, and said she would be free,
Bear witness for me how I hoped and feared."
In consequence of this ode, and his avowed attachment to the
principles of the Revolution, he became so obnoxious to his superiors
that he was constrained to leave the college abruptly, without a
degree.--_Cyclopædia of English Literature, Article S.T. Coleridge._]
[Footnote 267: M. Thiers, in the impetuosity of his narrative, is not
always accurate in details. He gives the 20th of April as the date of
Mirabeau's death. Mignet assigns it to the 2d of March. Nearly all
other authorities agree upon the 2d of April. It is indeed wonderful
that upon such a subject there should be such a diversity of statement.
The event at the time was deemed so momentous, that the Jacobin Club
voted that the anniversary of his death should, through all future
time, be celebrated with funereal pomp.]
[Footnote 268: Mirabeau claims, and his friends claim for him, and
probably with justice, that he wished to be the mediator between the
Revolution and the monarchy--to save royalty and liberty, believing
that, under the circumstances, royalty was essential to liberty. But
the folly of the court thwarted every endeavor. They would not accede
to any measure of justice and moderation. The court wished only to make
him unpopular. Mirabeau saw his position, from which no struggles could
extricate him, and he died of disappointment and grief. Had he not then
died, he would, in a few months, have inevitably perished upon the
scaffold. See _Mémoires de Mirabeau_, vol. viii.]
[Footnote 269: Bertrand de Moleville.]
[Footnote 270: Mignet, p. 101. Villiaumé, p. 91.]
[Footnote 271: Fox and others of the most illustrious of the English
commoners had in the parliament expressed their sympathy for the French
patriots. A very strenuous effort was made to unite the Whig party
in opposition to liberty in France. A meeting was held at Burlington
House. Mr. Burke was the organ of the aristocracy. The animated
discussion was continued from ten o'clock at night until three in the
morning. But the differences of opinion were found irreconcilable,
and only resulted in the permanent alienation of Fox and Burke.--_See
Lectures on the French Revolution, by Prof. Wm. Smyth_, vol. i., p.
84.]
La Fayette, to whom the whole business was intrusted, oppressed with
the responsibility of his office, was continually, by night and by day,
visiting the posts. To the officers who had charge of the night-watch
he had given secret orders that the king was not to be permitted to
leave the palace after midnight. Thus the king was truly a prisoner,
and he was fully conscious of it, though every possible effort was
adopted to conceal from him the humiliating fact.
M. Bouillé and the queen were compelled to yield to the whims of the
king, and to adopt measures which threatened to frustrate the plan. The
king insisted upon having an immense carriage constructed which could
take the whole party, though the unusual appearance of the carriage
would instantly attract all eyes; he insisted upon traveling a very
unfrequented route, which would excite the curiosity of every one who
should see the carriage pass; he insisted upon stationing military
detachments along the route, though Bouillé urged that such detachments
if small could render no service, and if large would excite suspicion;
he insisted upon taking the governess of the children, because the
governess said that she loved the children too much to be separated
from them, though Bouillé urged that instead of the incumbrance of a
governess they should take in the carriage an officer accustomed to
traveling, and who could aid in any unexpected emergency. The king,
though fickle as the wind upon questions of great moment, was, like all
weak men, inflexible upon trifles.[273]
At midnight of the 20th of June, the king, the queen, Madame Elizabeth,
the sister of the king, the two royal children, and Madame Tourzel
their governess, carefully disguised themselves in one of the interior
rooms of the Tuileries. Creeping cautiously down, in three successive
parties, an obscure flight of stairs, and emerging by a gate which
was contrived to be left unguarded, the fugitives, mingling with the
groups of people who ever at that time were leaving the chateau,
crossed the Carrousel, and, taking different streets, groped along
through the darkness until they all met on the Quai des Théatins, where
two hackney-coaches awaited them. In breathless silence they took
their seats. The Count de Fersen, a Prussian noble, young, handsome,
enthusiastic, who was inspired with a chivalric admiration of Marie
Antoinette, had made all the arrangements for the escape from the
city. Disguised as a coachman, he conducted the king, who led the
young dauphin by the hand. The count immediately mounted the box of
the coach which contained the royal family, and drove rapidly some
twelve miles to the little town of Bondy, where the capacious carriage
constructed for the king was waiting before the door of an Englishman,
Mr. Crawford. At the same hour in a similar manner the king's brother,
Monsieur the Count of Provence, subsequently Louis XVIII., left the
Palace of the Luxembourg, and with his family traveled all night toward
Flanders, where he crossed the frontiers in safety.
At Bondy the king, the queen, Madame Elizabeth, the two children,
Maria Theresa being about ten years of age and Louis seven, with
their governess, took their seats in the large carriage. One of the
body-guard of the king, disguised as a servant, sat on the box, and
another, as footman, sat behind. M. de Vallory rode on horseback, that
he might gallop forward and order the relays of horses. The waiting
women of the queen, who, by the strangest infatuation, had been
included in the party, took the other carriage.
The Marquis of Bouillé, an energetic, heroic man, finding that he could
not control the arrangements of the king, did every thing in his power
to avert the suspicion which the strange-looking cortège would be
likely to excite. He had a passport prepared, in which the governess
was represented as a German baroness, Madame de Korff, traveling
with her two children. The king was her valet-de-chambre, the queen
her waiting-maid. The proverbial wealth of the German barons and the
peculiar style of the equipage to which they were accustomed happily
favored this idea.[274]
The morning was just beginning to dawn as Count Fersen kissed the
hands of the king and queen and left them to prosecute their perilous
journey, while he took flight for the frontier through Flanders. The
coach was drawn by six horses, who were driven at the utmost speed,
relays of horses having been established at short stages. The sun at
length rose bright and cheerful. The country was smiling in all the
verdure of blooming June. Every revolution of the wheels was bearing
them farther from Paris. It was hardly possible that their flight
could be discovered until a late hour in the morning. There were no
telegraphs in those days to send intelligence with lightning speed
to arrest their flight. Having six or eight hours the start of their
pursuers, and being abundantly supplied with fresh horses, escape
seemed now almost certain. Hope began to cheer their hearts.
Some slight interruptions had retarded their progress, and it was about
three o'clock in the afternoon when they entered Chalons, some ninety
miles from Paris. The queen, with an exultant smile, exclaimed, "All
goes well. If we were to have been stopped at all it would have been
before now."
At Chalons they exchanged horses. The king now felt that he was safe,
for the Marquis of Bouillé had posted detachments of troops at every
important point between Chalons and Montmedy. With characteristic
imprudence, as the carriage was surrounded with idlers at Chalons, the
king put his head out of the window, showing his well-known face to the
crowd. The postmaster instantly recognized the king, but, being himself
an ardent Royalist, divulged not his secret, but aided in putting in
the fresh horses, and ordered the postillions to drive on.
About ten miles from Chalons is the bridge of Sommeville, which crosses
a narrow stream, where the Duke of Choiseul and M. Goguelat were
stationed with fifty hussars. They were to secure the king's passage,
and then to remain and block up the road against all pursuers. Faithful
to the plan, they were at the bridge, with the mounted hussars, at the
appointed hour. The strange assemblage of a military force at that spot
excited the curiosity of the peasants, and a great crowd was gathered.
Every mind throughout France was then in a very sensitive state. The
crowd increased, and in the adjoining villages the alarm-bells were
beginning to ring. As the royal carriages did not appear for five or
six hours later than they were expected, the Duke of Choiseul, to
appease the ferment, left the spot, and the people then dispersed.
Soon after the detachment had left the king arrived, and was surprised
to find no troops. It was then between four and five o'clock in the
evening. In great perplexity and anxiety he drove rapidly on two hours
farther to St. Menehould, where he was to find another detachment of
troops; but the Duke of Choiseul had sent forward to St. Menehould and
Chalons, informing the detachments there that he had waited six hours
for the arrival of the king; that the plan had probably miscarried;
that excitement was rapidly rising among the people; and that the
detachments had better retire.
The king, unaware of all this, was astonished and bewildered in still
finding no troops, and naturally, but imprudently, again looked out of
the window. The excited crowd which was gathered around the carriages
suspected that they contained the royal family. A young man named
Drouet, son of the postmaster, instantly recognized the king, from
his resemblance to the imprint on the coins in circulation. Without
communicating his discovery to any one, he mounted a horse, and, taking
a cross road, galloped some twelve or fifteen miles to Varennes, to
inform the municipality and cause the arrest of the party.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 272: "The princes," writes M. Fromont, "conceived the plan
of forming legions of all the loyal subjects of the king. Desiring
to be at the head of those Royalists whom I had commanded in 1789, I
wrote to Count d'Artois, begging his royal highness to grant me the
commission of colonel, worded so that every Royalist who would raise a
legion might hope for a like favor. The members of his council thought
it so strange that a _commoner_ should aspire to a military commission,
that one of them said to me angrily, 'Why did you not ask for a
bishopric?'"--_Recueil de divers Ecrits relatifs à la Revolution_, p.
62.]
[Footnote 273: "What grieves us, moreover, among other things, in
this journey to Varennes, and lessens the idea we would like to
entertain of the king's goodness of heart, is the indifference with
which he sacrificed, by his departure, and abandoned to death men
who were sincerely attached to him. By the force of circumstances La
Fayette found himself to be the involuntary guardian of the king, and
responsible to the nation for his person. He had shown in various ways,
and sometimes even in compromising the Revolution, that he desired,
beyond every thing else, the restoration of the kingly power, as the
guarantee of order and tranquillity. There was every reason to suppose
that, at the startling news of the king's departure, La Fayette would
be torn to pieces.
"La Fayette, receiving warnings from several quarters, would believe
nobody but the king himself. He went to him and asked him whether there
was any truth in the reports. Louis XVI. gave such a decided, simple
answer, and in such a good-natured manner, that La Fayette went away
completely satisfied, and it was merely to calm the anxiety of the
public that he doubled his guard."--_Michelet_, p. 573.]
[Footnote 274: The passport was made out as follows: "De par le roi.
Mandons de laisser passer Madame le Baron de Korff, se rendant à
Franckfort avec ses deux enfants, une femme de chambre, un valet de
chambre, et trois domestiques."]