RETURN OF THE ROYAL FAMILY FROM VARENNES.
Proclamation of Marat.--Three Commissioners sent to meet the
King.--Address to the Nation from the Assembly.--The slow and painful
Return.--Conversation between Barnave and the Queen.--Brutality of
Pétion.--Sufferings of the Royal Family.--Reception of the King in
Paris.--Conduct of the Queen.--Noble Avowal of La Fayette.--Statement
of the King.--Menace of Bouillé.
Almost immediately after the flight of the king the club of the
Jacobins became the most formidable power in France. It embraced all
the desperate and the reckless advocates of reform. Marat, one of its
most popular and energetic members, the morning after the flight of the
king, issued the following proclamation to the populace of Paris:[279]
"People! behold the loyalty, the honor, the religion of kings. Remember
Henry III. and the Duke of Guise. At the same table with his enemy
did Henry receive the sacrament, and swear on the same altar eternal
friendship. Scarcely had he quit the table than he distributed poniards
to his followers, summoned the duke to his cabinet, and there saw him
fall, pierced with wounds. Trust then to the oaths of princes!
"On the morning of the 19th, Louis XVI. laughed at his oath and enjoyed
beforehand the alarm his flight would cause you. The Austrian woman has
seduced La Fayette. Louis XVI., disguised in a priest's robe, fled with
the dauphin, his wife, his brother, and all the family. He now laughs
at the folly of the Parisians, and will soon swim in their blood.
Citizens! this escape has been long prepared by the traitors of the
National Assembly. You are on the brink of ruin; hasten to provide for
your safety. Instantly choose a dictator. Let your choice fall upon the
citizen who has, up to the present, displayed most zeal, activity, and
intelligence, and do all he bids you to do to strike at your foes. This
is the time to lop off the heads of Bailly, La Fayette, and all the
scoundrels of the staff, all the traitors of the Assembly. A tribune, a
military tribune, or you are lost without hope."
Similar impassioned appeals were issued from all the Jacobin journals,
and the nation was roused to phrensy. The popularity of the king was
now gone, and he was almost universally regarded as a traitor, plotting
to deluge the kingdom in blood.
At ten o'clock in the evening of the 22d of June a courier arrived
in Paris with a letter from the municipality of Varennes announcing
the arrest of the king. The cry resounded from street to street, "He
is arrested! he is arrested!" Three commissioners were immediately
appointed, Latour Maubourg, Pétion, and Barnave, invested with
authority to secure the return of the king and the royal family, and
they were enjoined to observe all the respect due to their rank. The
Assembly also issued an address to the French nation, containing the
following sentiments:
"The king swore, on the 14th of July, to protect the Constitution;
he has therefore consented to perjure himself. The changes made in
the Constitution of the kingdom are attributed to a _few_ of the
factious. We are _twenty-six millions_ of factious. We have preserved
the monarchy because we believe it useful to France. We have doubtless
reformed it, but it was to save it from its abuses and its excesses. We
have granted the yearly sum of fifty millions of francs ($10,000,000)
to maintain the legitimate splendor of the throne. We have reserved to
ourselves the right of declaring war, because we would not that the
blood of the people should belong to the ministers.[280] Frenchmen, all
is organized. Every man is at his post. The Assembly watches over all.
You have naught to fear save from yourselves, should your just emotion
lead you to commit any violence or disorders. The people who seek to be
free should remain unmoved in great crises.
"Behold Paris, and imitate the example of the capital. All goes on
as usual. The tyrants will be deceived. Before they can bend France
beneath their yoke, the whole nation must be annihilated. Should
despotism venture to attempt it, it will be vanquished; or even though
it triumph, it will triumph over naught but ruins."
Let us now return to Varennes, and accompany the royal family on their
melancholy route to Paris. We left the royal carriages, under the
escort of the National Guard, just starting from Varennes on their
return. It was eight o'clock in the morning. The progress toward
Chalons was slow, for the carriages could only keep pace with the
guards. The heat was intense, and clouds of dust almost suffocated
the captives. For a time emotions were too deep for utterance, and
not a word was spoken. But often torrents of abuse fell upon the ears
of the king from the crowds who seemed to line the way. At times the
crowd was so dense that with some difficulty the guards forced their
way through. But for the protection of their bayonets, the whole royal
family would probably have fallen victims to the popular fury.
The commissioners from the Assembly met the carriages between Dormans
and Epernay, and immediately assumed the command of the troops, and
took the royal family under their charge. The whole populace, excited
as it was, respected the orders of the Assembly. Latour Maubourg, a
gentleman of noble character and an intimate friend of La Fayette, was
ardently attached to the Constitution, while at the same time he was
anxious to save the monarchy. The tendencies of both of his colleagues
were to a more radical democracy. Hoping to excite their sympathy in
behalf of fallen greatness, he yielded to his companions the honor of
being with the royal family in their carriage, while he took the second
coach, with Madame de Tourzel and some other ladies of the party.
Barnave and Pétion entered the king's carriage to share his danger and
to shield him from insult. Barnave sat on the back seat, between the
king and the queen. Pétion sat in front, between Maria Theresa, the
daughter of the king, and Madame Elizabeth, his sister. The little
dauphin, seven years of age, sat on the lap now of one, then of another.
Barnave was a young lawyer of distinguished abilities and generous
impulses. He was a man of polished manners, of attractive person, and
of accomplished education. His generous heart was saddened by the
pitiable condition of his captives. He did every thing he could, by
kindness and respectful attentions, to mitigate their woe. An obnoxious
priest at one time approached the carriage with an ostentatious
demonstration of his attachment to the court party, now threatening
France with invasion. The exasperated people fell upon him, and he
would probably have been massacred but for the energetic interposition
of Barnave.
"Frenchmen!" he exclaimed, "will you, a nation of brave men, become a
nation of murderers?"
He would have sprung out of the carriage to have rescued the priest
had not Madame Elizabeth, who had already appreciated his noble
character, held him in by the skirt of his coat. She feared that he
also, now almost their sole defender, might be torn in pieces. At
first the queen sat closely veiled and maintained unbroken silence.
But gradually the character of Barnave won the esteem of the whole
party. The king entered calmly into conversation with Barnave upon
the momentous questions of the day. Barnave replied with courtesy and
sympathy, though still faithful in his devotion to liberty and sincere
in his advocacy of a constitutional throne. The queen, much mollified,
at length withdrew her veil and gradually became social and almost
confiding.
Barnave spoke of the great mistakes which the Royalists had made in
refusing to accept a _constitutional monarchy_, thus exposing the
throne to entire overthrow and the nation to democratic anarchy.
"What were the means," inquired the queen, "which you would have
advised me to resort to?"
"Popularity, madam," was the reply.
"But how," continued the queen, "could I have obtained popularity? It
was all taken from me."
"Ah, madam," said Barnave, "it was much easier for you to conquer it
than for me to obtain it."[281]
The queen subsequently remarked to Madame Campan that Barnave "was a
young man full of intelligence and noble sentiments, and one every way
worthy to inspire esteem. A feeling of pride," she continued, with
candor which honors her memory, "has caused him to applaud all that
tends to smooth the way to honors and glory for the class in which he
was born. If power should ever again fall into our hands the pardon of
Barnave is written before in our hearts."
The royal family only occasionally alighted for a moment at an inn as
the horses were being changed. By day and by night they continued their
slow progress, taking all their refreshments in the carriage. Barnave,
with that delicacy which is instinctive in noble natures, never for a
moment forgot the rank of his august captives. Being pressed by the
queen to take some refreshment, he replied,
"Madam, the deputies of the National Assembly, under circumstances so
solemn, ought to trouble your majesty solely with their mission, and by
no means with their wants."
Pétion was a very different character. He was one of those coarse and
vulgar demagogues who have done so much to cast dishonor upon the
word _democracy_. His brutality disgusted the whole party. Equality
of rights was with him but social insolence. He affected a rude
familiarity with the royal family, munching his food like a boor and
throwing the rind of fruit and the bones of fowls out of the window,
at the risk of hitting the king in the face. The king made a slight
attempt, by introducing conversation with him, to awaken some sympathy.
"It was my wish," said the king, "to increase the force of the
executive power. I did not think that this constitutional act could
be maintained without more power being placed in the hands of the
sovereign, since France does not wish to be a republic."
"Not yet, to be sure," Pétion brutally replied; "the French are not yet
quite ripe enough for a republic."
No more conversation was held with Pétion. The movement of the
carriages, encumbered by the escort and the immense crowds who thronged
the way, was very slow. Four days were occupied in the return. It was
seven o'clock in the evening of the 25th when the long procession
entered Paris. As the carriages approached the suburbs the crowd
increased in density. It had been a day of intense heat. The blaze
of the sun, reflected by the pavements and by the bayonets which
surrounded the carriage, was almost intolerable. The carriages were
continually enveloped in a dense cloud of dust. The inmates panted for
breath and were bathed in perspiration. One of the children suffered so
much that the queen, alarmed, appealed to the compassion of the crowd.
"See, gentlemen," she said, letting down one of the windows, "in what a
state my poor children are; one is choking."
A brutal wretch exclaimed, in an under tone, "We will soon choke you,
after another fashion."
Generally the crowd looked on in amazement and silence. Feelings of
pity and humanity triumphed over indignation. Great eagerness was
of course manifested to catch a sight of the king and queen, but
well-armed guards on horseback surrounded the carriages. La Fayette
came out of the city to meet the cortège at a few miles distance and
to assume the command. Apprehensive of violence from the infuriate
populace of Paris, if the immense cortège, now numbering nearly three
hundred thousand and rapidly increasing, were to pass through the
narrow streets of the city, the carriages were ordered to take a
circuit and enter by the broad avenue of the Elysian Fields, which
conducted directly to the Tuileries. As an additional precaution he
placed troops in a deep line on both sides of the avenue from the
Barrier de l'Etoile to the palace.
It was resolved that the king should be received in silence, without
applause and without abuse. Placards were posted every where with the
laconic announcement,
"Whoever applauds the king shall be flogged; whoever insults him shall
be hanged."[282]
The procession now entered the city amid the clashing of sabres, the
trampling of horses, and the confused, suppressed murmurs of half
a million of men. It was another sublime act in that most terrible
tragedy of time. It can not be described; it can not be fully
conceived; it has never been paralleled.
The crowd-encompassed, dust-enveloped carriages entered the city at the
close of one of the most lovely of June afternoons. The cloudless sun,
still an hour above the horizon, shone brilliantly upon the spectacle,
gilding steeples and domes as with rejoicing light. The whole military
array of Paris, horsemen, artillery, and infantry, lined that majestic
avenue. Behind them the whole population of Paris seemed to flood the
field, filling windows, balconies, house-tops, steeples, trees, and
every point of observation.
La Fayette and his staff first made their appearance as the vast
procession commenced its entrance. A numerous cavalcade of mounted
guards then succeeded. These were followed by the two royal carriages,
each drawn by six horses, and surrounded by dragoons whose sabres
gleamed in the rays of the setting sun. Several regiments of artillery
and infantry, in compact order, ensued, and then came a motley mass of
three hundred thousand stragglers, men, women, and children, whom the
strange event had gathered from all the suburbs of the metropolis.
Almost perfect silence reigned. It was like a procession of the shades
of the departed in the spirit land. There was no ringing of bells, no
explosion of cannon, no plaudits of the multitude, no bursts of martial
bands in requiems or jubilata. The king, humiliated, sunk back in his
carriage, and concealed himself as far as possible from observation.
The bayonets of the soldiers held in check the ferocious and brutal
wretches who would gladly have assailed the monarch with execrations.
The same power closed the lips of the Royalists, who would have greeted
their sovereign with applause.
Thousands gazed upon the scene in silent sympathy, with their eyes
bathed in tears. They loved the cause of constitutional liberty; they
wept over the infatuation and folly of the king. The reception was
sublime in its appropriateness. No honors were conferred upon the king,
for surely he deserved none. No abuse assailed him, for that would but
have degraded those who offered it.
[Illustration: RETURN OF THE ROYAL FAMILY FROM VARENNES.]
The crowd grew more and more dense as the carriages entered the garden
of the Tuileries, and the way became so obstructed by the throng that
it was with no little difficulty that a passage was secured. As soon as
the carriages arrived at the door of the palace, near the end of the
terrace, the royal family alighted and passed through a double file
of the National Guard drawn up for their protection. In this hour of
misfortune, those who had been most hostile to the despotism of the
court vied with each other in their endeavors to protect fallen royalty
from indignities. The Viscount of Noailles, a warm friend of reform,
and a humane, magnanimous man, approached the queen, who was the
last to alight from the carriage, and offered her his arm to conduct
her into the palace. The queen, with imprudent but perhaps pardonable
pride, haughtily rejected the aid of the friend of the people, and,
seeing one of the partisans of the court near by, asked his arm.
The hall of the Assembly, since destroyed, looked out upon the garden
of the Tuileries. The excitement of the hour suspended the sitting, but
it was immediately resumed when the king had safely entered the palace.
The king seemed perfectly calm. La Fayette, with profound respect and
with his sympathies most deeply moved, presented himself at the king's
apartment, and, making no allusion to the unprecedented scene which had
transpired, said, "Has your majesty any orders to give me?"
"It appears to me," replied the king with a smile, "that I am much more
under your orders than you are under mine." The conduct of the queen
in this trying hour was peculiarly unfortunate. The royal family then
needed every friend it could win. But the queen, losing the control of
her passions, seemed to bid defiance to all who were not the partisans
of the court, and endeavored to gratify her resentment in goading those
she deemed her foes by those taunts of action which are even more
exasperating than words.
Assuming that La Fayette was her jailer, she approached that noble
patriot, who was willing to shed the last drop of his blood to save her
from indignities, and handed him the keys of her trunks. La Fayette,
wounded by conduct so ungenerous, and commiserating the condition of
the queen, bowed, refusing to receive them, and, in tones saddened by
pity and sorrow, declared that no one would think of interfering with
her private property.
The unhappy queen so far forgot herself as peevishly to throw the keys
into La Fayette's hat, which was upon the table. This was the conduct
of a spoiled child. Such was Marie Antoinette. It was this spirit which
accelerated her passage to the scaffold. The compassion of La Fayette
triumphed over resentment. Overlooking the insult, he calmly replied,
"Madam, you must pardon me the trouble I give you in returning these
keys. I certainly can not touch them."
"Well, then," replied the queen, pettishly, "I shall find other persons
less scrupulous than you are."[283]
Such conduct on the part of the queen was ever adding to her
unpopularity. The king was much more considerate. Though by no means
equal to the queen in energy, he had a far more comprehensive view
of the real attitude of affairs. Had the spirit of the queen been
dominant, it is possible that the Revolution in its infancy might
have been crushed with an iron hand. All the disciplined armies of
Europe were ready to fall upon the unorganized and unarmed populace
of France, and to chastise them into submission. Had the moderate
and humane spirit of the king prevailed, the Constitution might have
been accepted; the king might have been revered and beloved as a
constitutional monarch, and France might have passed from despotism to
free institutions without bloodshed. But the discordant union of the
defiant energies of the one and the yielding moderation of the other
rendered ruin inevitable.
The king entered into a brief conversation with La Fayette, in which
the devoted patriot said to his monarch,
"Your majesty is well aware of my attachment to your royal person, but
at the same time, you were not ignorant that, if you separated yourself
from the cause of the people, I should side with the people."
"This is true," replied the king. "You follow your principles. And I
tell you frankly that until lately I had believed you had surrounded
me by a turbulent faction of persons of your own way of thinking, but
that yours was not the real opinion of France. I have learned during my
journey that I was deceived, and that the general wish is in accordance
with your views."
The conduct of the Assembly in this momentous crisis, when the
liberties of France were so fearfully imperiled, was firm and noble. On
the day of the king's return they passed decrees suspending him from
his functions, until they should have heard, through a committee of
three, the declarations of the king and queen. With that delicacy which
had ever, thus far, characterized the action of the Assembly, these
decrees were passed in terms of studied decorum, and the king and queen
were shielded from answering before the whole Assembly, which would
have been required of any offenders of less exalted rank. A guard was
placed over the royal family, and was made responsible for its safe
custody.[284]
Barnave, covered with the dust of his journey, hastened to the
Assembly, and gave the official announcement of the return of the king.
Both the king and the queen had learned to repose great confidence in
this noble young man, and Barnave assisted the king in composing the
declaration to be presented to the commissioners of the Assembly in
extenuation of his flight.[285] The king could hardly have expected
that the assertions which he made in this document could be credited
by the Assembly. "Never was it my intention," said he, "to leave
the kingdom. I had no concert either with foreign powers, or with
my relatives, or with any of the French emigrants. I had selected
Montmedy, because, being near the frontiers, I should have been better
able to oppose every kind of invasion of France, had a disposition been
shown to attempt any. One of my principal motives for quitting Paris
was to set at rest the argument of my non-freedom, which was likely to
furnish occasion for disturbances."
He concluded this declaration in words characteristic of his whole
course. "I have ascertained during my journey that public opinion
is decidedly in favor of the Constitution. I did not conceive that
I could fully judge of this public opinion in Paris. As soon as I
had ascertained the general will, I hesitated not, as I have never
hesitated, to make a sacrifice of every thing that is personal to me.
I will gladly forget all the crosses that I have experienced, if I can
but ensure the peace and felicity of the nation."[286]
Thus the king pledged himself anew to support the Constitution. The
Assembly received these asseverations in respectful silence, though it
was no longer possible for them to give the king credit for sincerity.
While the king was thus apologizing, Bouillé, who had fled to the
protection of foreign armies, sent a menacing letter to the Assembly,
in the name of the allied sovereigns of Europe, containing the
following declarations:
"I know your means of defense," he wrote. "They are nothing; and your
chastisement shall be an example to other people. Listen to the words
of a man who regards you and your people but with indignation and
horror. I know the roads. I will guide the foreign armies which will
assail you. There shall not rest one stone upon another in Paris, if
you dare to touch a hair of the head of my king."[287]
If Bouillé had wished to provoke the nation to throw down the head of
the king as a gauntlet of defiance to the foes of the liberties of
France, he could have done nothing more effectual than the utterance of
such a menace. Both parties were now preparing vigorously for war. The
emigrants at Coblentz, proclaiming that the king was a prisoner, and
could no longer have any will of his own, declared monsieur the king's
elder brother (Louis XVIII.) to be Regent of France. The most vigorous
measures were adopted for accumulating troops and munitions of war for
the great invasion.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 279: Marat, who edited "The Friend of the People," was, says
Lamartine, "the fury of the Revolution. He had the clumsy tumblings of
the brute in his thought and its gnashings of teeth in his style. His
journal smelt of blood in every line."--_History of the Girondists_,
vol. i., p. 115.]
[Footnote 280: The Constitution conferred upon _the king and the
Assembly_ the right of making peace and war. The king complained
bitterly that he was no longer authorized alone to declare war and make
peace.]
[Footnote 281: Mémoires de Madame de Campan, t. ii., p. 150.]
[Footnote 282: "Quiconque applaudira le roi sera bâttonné; quiconque
l'insultera sera pendu."]
[Footnote 283: La Fayette's Memoirs.]
[Footnote 284: Robespierre was opposed to this act of special respect,
and exclaimed,
"What means this obsequious exception? Do you fear to degrade royalty
by handing over the king and queen to ordinary tribunals? A citizen,
a _citoyenne_, any man, any dignity, however elevated, can never be
degraded by the law."]
[Footnote 285: Thiers, vol. i., p. 185.]
[Footnote 286: Even Lamartine says, "The king addressed to the
commissioners of the Assembly a reply, the bad faith of which called
for the smile rather than the indulgence of his enemies."--_Lamartine's
Hist. of the Girondists_, vol. i., p. 105.
"The Assembly accepted the declaration of the king, although it
was evident to them that the king did not intend merely to go to
Montmedy, where no preparations had been made to receive him, but
that he intended to go to the magnificent monastery of Orval, three
leagues beyond the frontier, in Luxembourg, then occupied by the
Austrians. Troops, commanded by the Prince of Condé, were there
awaiting his arrival. The flight of the king was the signal for the
loyalist officers to desert. All those of a regiment in garrison at
Dunkirk fled to the Austrians, carrying with them the banners of the
regiment."--_Hist. de la Rev. Française, par Villiaumé_.]