AGITATION IN PARIS, AND COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES.
Death of Leopold.--Assassination of Gustavus.--Interview between
Dumouriez and the Queen.--Discussion in the Assembly.--The Duke
of Brunswick.--Interview of Barnave with the Queen.--Interview
between Dumouriez and the King.--Dismissal of M. Roland.--The Palace
invaded.--Fortitude of the King.--Pétion, the Mayor.--Affecting
Interview of the Royal Family.--Remarks of Napoleon.
On the 1st of March, 1792, the Emperor Leopold died. His son, Francis
II., a young man twenty-four years of age, ascended the throne. The
court of Leopold had been a harem of unblushing sensuality and sin. He
did not condescend to spread any veil over his amours. His attachments
were numerous and fugitive, and his guilty favorites associated with
each other and braved the frowns of the humiliated queen amid the
voluptuousness of the palace. At the time of his death there dwelt with
him Donna Maria, a young girl from Tuscany, whose surpassing charms had
given her celebrity throughout Europe as "the beautiful Florentine;"
a Polish girl of great attractions, Mademoiselle Prokache; and the
Countess of Walkenstein, whose charms of person and fascination of
manners gave her celebrity through all the European courts. Upon this
latter favorite alone he lavished gifts, in drafts on the Bank of
Vienna, to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. There were also
various other of these favorites of infamy, inferior in notoriety
and rank. The annals of Roman story may be searched in vain to find a
monarch more utterly profligate. Immediately after his death his widow
said to her son Francis,
"My son, you have before you the sad proofs of your father's disorderly
life and of my long afflictions. Remember nothing of them except my
forgiveness and his virtues. Imitate his great qualities, but beware
lest you fall into the same vices, in order that you may not, in your
turn, put to the blush those who scrutinize your life."
Marie Antoinette doubted not that her cousin Francis would be as
devoted to her interests as her brother Leopold had been. Fifteen days
after the death of Leopold, Gustavus III. of Sweden was assassinated
at a masked ball by the nobles of his court. His death momentarily
embarrassed the movements of the emigrants, for he was actively engaged
in raising an army for the invasion of France.[317]
The allies were now vigorously raising troops and directing their march
towards the frontiers of France. Some hoped that the demonstration
would overawe the French and frighten them into submission. Others were
eager, by prompt invasion, to submit the question to the arbitrament
of battle. The Assembly speedily dispatched to the threatened frontier
three armies of defense. Rochambeau was placed in command of the army
of the north, at Flanders, consisting of 63,000 men; La Fayette was
sent to the army of the centre, at Metz, which was 52,000 strong;
Luckner occupied Alsace, with 48,000 troops.[318]
In calling the Girondists into the ministry, General Dumouriez, a brave
and veteran soldier, was appointed to the ministry of foreign affairs.
With great vigor he prosecuted arrangements for the defense of France.
In addition to the troops, amounting to 163,000, stationed along the
northwestern frontier from Dunkirk to Besançon, he raised a fourth army
to repel invasion from Spain through the passes of the Pyrenees.
Dumouriez had acquired great popularity in the club of the Jacobins
by frequenting their meetings, and by wearing the red cap of liberty,
an emblem borrowed from the Phrygians. The queen was highly indignant
that one in sympathy with the Jacobins should be called into the
ministry, and, as she was now heartily in sympathy with the emigrants
and the allies, she was provoked by the vigorous measures adopted to
repel them. Dumouriez was a soldier, not a statesman; a man of heroic
character, brave, impulsive, and generous. He had great power over
the mind of the king; and the queen, anxious to see him, appointed
an audience. In the memoirs of Dumouriez we find a narrative of this
interview. Upon being ushered into her apartment, he found the queen,
with flushed cheeks, rapidly pacing the floor, and giving every
indication of extreme excitement. Dumouriez, embarrassed by this aspect
of affairs, advanced in silence to a corner of the fire-place, when
the queen turned toward him and abruptly said, with an air and tone of
anger,
"Sir, you are all-powerful at this moment, but it is through the favor
of the people, who soon break their idols in pieces. Your existence
depends upon your conduct. It is said that you possess great abilities.
You must be aware that neither the king nor myself can endure these
innovations, nor the Constitution. This I tell you frankly. Choose your
side."
"Madame," Dumouriez replied, "I am deeply pained by the secret which
your majesty has just imparted to me. I will not betray it. But I
stand between the king and my nation, and I belong to my country.
Permit me to say that the welfare of the king, your own, and that of
your children, are linked with the Constitution. You are surrounded
by enemies who are sacrificing you to their private interests. The
Constitution, when once in vigor, so far from bringing misery upon
the king, will constitute his happiness and glory. It is absolutely
necessary that he should concur in establishing it solidly and
speedily."
The queen could never endure contradiction. Losing all self-control,
she exclaimed, in a loud and angry tone, "The Constitution will not
last. Take care of yourself."
Dumouriez quietly and firmly replied, "Madame, I am past fifty; my life
has been crossed by many perils; and, in accepting the ministry, I was
thoroughly sensible that _responsibility_ was not the greatest of my
dangers."
The queen, in the blindness of her passion, saw fit to interpret this
remark as an insinuation that she might cause him to be assassinated.
With inflamed cheeks and tears gushing into her eyes, she replied,
"Nothing more was wanting but to calumniate me. You seem to think me
capable of causing you to be murdered."
The scene had now become painful in the extreme, and Dumouriez, greatly
agitated, answered,
"God preserve me, madame, from doing you so cruel an injury. The
character of your majesty is great and noble. You have given heroic
proofs of it which I have admired, and which have attached me to you.
Believe me, I have no interest in deceiving you. I abhor anarchy and
crime as much as you do. But this is not a transient popular movement,
as you seem to think. It is an almost unanimous insurrection of a
mighty nation against inveterate abuses. Great factions fan this flame.
In all of them there are villains and madmen. In the Revolution I keep
in view only the king and the entire nation; all that tends to part
them leads to their mutual ruin. I strive as much as possible to unite
them. If I am an obstacle to your designs, tell me so. I will instantly
send my resignation to the king, and hide myself in some corner to
mourn over your fate and that of my country."[319]
This conversation restored Dumouriez to the confidence of the queen,
and she conversed frankly and with a friendly spirit with him upon her
griefs and perils.
"You see me," she said, "very sad. I dare not approach the window which
looks into the garden. Yesterday evening I went to the window toward
the court just to take a little air. A gunner of the guard addressed me
in terms of vulgar abuse, adding, 'How I should like to see your head
on the point of my bayonet!' In this horrid garden you see on one side
a man, mounted on a chair, reading aloud the most abominable calumnies
against us; on the other, a military man or an abbé dragged through
one of the basins, overwhelmed with abuse, and beaten, while others
are playing at ball, or quietly walking about. What an abode! what a
people!"
The Austrian monarchy, supported by the other powers of Europe, now
sent to France the insolent demand that the French monarchy should
be restored almost to its pristine despotic power; that the three
estates of the realm--the clergy, the nobles, and the _tiers état_,
should be re-established, and that there should be the restitution of
Church property. It is not surprising that an independent nation of
twenty-five millions should have resented such impertinence. There was
a general cry of indignation from the Assembly, which was re-echoed
by the people, and new vigor was infused on both sides into the
preparations for the war.
The king was sorely perplexed. In the event of war, victory would but
strengthen the Revolutionary party; defeat would expose him to the
charge of treason in feebly conducting hostilities. But France would
not yield to this insulting foreign dictation, and the pressure of
public opinion fell so strong upon the king that he was constrained,
much against his will, to issue a declaration of war. Pale and
care-worn the king entered the Assembly, and, after presenting through
his minister a report of the demands of Austria, with a faltering voice
read his speech.
"Gentlemen," said he, "you have heard the result of the negotiation in
which I have been engaged with the court of Vienna. The conclusions of
the report have been unanimously adopted by my council. I have myself
adopted them. All would rather have war than see the dignity of the
French people any longer insulted and the national security threatened.
Having employed all possible means to obtain peace, I come now,
agreeably to the terms of the Constitution, to propose to the National
Assembly war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia."[320]
The proposal was received with shouts of "_Vive le Roi_," and the
decree was passed by a great majority.[321] In the debates which the
question of war had excited, great eloquence was displayed in the
Assembly. M. Isnard spoke in terms of enthusiasm which brought the
whole Assembly to their feet.
[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.]
"Capitulations," said he, "are proposed to you. It is proposed to
increase the power of the king--of a man whose will can paralyze that
of a whole nation--of a man who receives thirty millions ($6,000,000)
while thousands of citizens are perishing from want. It is proposed to
bring back the nobility. Were all the nobles on earth to attack us, the
French, holding their gold in one hand, and their sword in the other,
would combat that haughty race, and force it to endure the punishment
of equality.
"Tell Europe that you will respect the Constitutions of all other
countries, but that, if a war of kings is raised against France, you
will raise a war of people against kings. The battles which nations
fight at the command of despots are like the blows which two friends,
excited by a perfidious instigator, strike at each other in the dark.
The moment a light appears they embrace and take vengeance on him who
deluded them. In like manner, if, at the moment when the hostile armies
shall be engaged with ours, the light of philosophy bursts upon their
sight, the nations will embrace each other before the face of dethroned
tyrants, of consoled earth, and of delighted heaven."[322]
Vergniaud, the illustrious leader of the Gironde, said eloquently, "Our
resolution has spread alarm among all thrones, for it has given an
example of the destruction of the despotism which sustains them. Kings
hate our Constitution because it renders men free, and they would reign
over slaves. This hate has been manifested on the part of the Emperor
of Germany by all the measures he has adopted to disturb us or to
strengthen our enemies and encourage those Frenchmen who have rebelled
against the laws of their country.
"Let us demand that the _emigrants_ be dispersed. I might demand that
they be given up to the country they insult and to punishment. But
no. If they have been greedy for our blood, let us not show ourselves
greedy for theirs. Their crime is having wished to destroy their
country. Let them be vagrants and wanderers on the face of the earth,
and let their punishment be never to find a country."
The most vigorous preparations were now made on both sides for the
prosecution of the war. Francis of Austria and Frederick of Prussia
met the Duke of Brunswick, Generallissimo of the Confederation, at
Frankfort. The duke, who had married a sister of George III. of
England, was an energetic, veteran soldier, fifty years of age. His
head-quarters were at Coblentz, a town at the confluence of the Moselle
and the Rhine, in the state of the Elector of Treves. Twenty-two
thousand French emigrants had assembled there in arms. Seven French
princes of the House of Bourbon were marshaling them for battle against
their native land--to crush the people struggling for liberty--to rivet
anew the fetters of the most execrable despotism. These princes were
the two brothers of the king, Louis and Charles, the one subsequently
Louis XVIII., the other Charles X.; the Duke of Berri and the Duke of
Angoulême, sons of Charles; the Prince of Condé, cousin of the king,
his son, the Duke of Bourbon, and his grandson, the Duke d'Enghien.
All the military noblesse of the kingdom, with the exception of the few
who had accepted the Constitution, had deserted their garrisons and
united in the most atrocious act of treason. They were not only ready
to march themselves, but were combining despotic Europe to march with
them to crush the liberties of their country.
The peril of the king was now hourly increasing, for he was playing
a double part. While publicly declaring war he was secretly carrying
on a correspondence with the emigrants and with the foreign powers,
encouraging them to make war upon France. This was known by some, and
suspicions of the king's sincerity were spreading rapidly among the
people. He had many papers in his possession, which, if discovered,
would cause his ruin. To conceal them he had an iron chest built
into the thick wall of one of his apartments. This was done by the
confidential locksmith who had been his companion at the forge for ten
years. The wall was painted to resemble large stones. The openings of
the panel were masked in the brown grooves. But after constructing this
safe the king was apprehensive that his locksmith would betray him,
and he consequently intrusted a portfolio containing many of his most
important papers to the care of Madame Campan.
On the 28th of April, one week after the declaration of war, a very
ill-advised attack was made by the French in three detachments upon
three separate positions of the Austrians. But the Austrians, minutely
informed of the plan, were prepared, in stronger numbers, to meet their
foes. The undisciplined French troops were driven back in confusion and
shame. They thought that the king had treacherously ordered them to be
led into a snare. The populace generally adopted the same belief. After
this the troops, on both sides, widely dispersed and poorly provided
with ammunition, provisions, and camp-equipage, could only observe each
other for several weeks, and make preparation for the opening of the
campaign.
Suspicions of the insincerity of the king were rapidly spreading among
the people, while those acquainted with the royal family saw plainly
that they were placing all their reliance in hopes of assistance from
the armed emigrants. Barnave, who, since the return from Varennes, had
periled his influence and his life in his endeavor to save the royal
family, finding all his efforts rejected, and that the king and queen
were rushing to ruin, solicited a last audience with the queen.
"Your misfortunes," said he, "and those which I anticipate for France
determined me to sacrifice myself to serve you. I see that my advice
does not agree with the views of your majesties. I augur but little
advantage from the plan you are induced to pursue; you are too remote
from your succors; you will be lost before they reach you. Most
ardently do I wish I may be mistaken in so lamentable a prediction. But
I am sure to pay my head for the interest your misfortunes have raised
in me and the services I have sought to render you. I request for my
sole reward the honor of kissing your hand."
The queen, her eyes suffused with tears, presented her hand to Barnave,
and he, with much emotion imprinting a kiss upon it, took his leave.
His devotion to the queen, however, cost him his life. Hardly a year
elapsed ere he was led to the scaffold.
Two decrees had been passed by the Assembly which were quite obnoxious
to the king. One decree enacted that any nonjuring priest who should be
denounced by twenty citizens as endeavoring to excite faction should be
banished the kingdom. The other established a camp of twenty thousand
men[323] under the walls of Paris for its protection. The king,
expecting that the foreign armies would soon arrive and rescue him, put
his veto upon both of these measures. Dumouriez entreated the king to
sanction these decrees, but in vain, and he was compelled to resign his
post in the ministry. He was immediately commissioned to the frontiers
to aid in the war against the invaders. As he entered the cabinet of
the king to render in his accounts and to take leave, the king said,
"You go, then, to join the army of Luckner?"
"Yes, sire," replied Dumouriez, "and I am delighted to leave this
tumultuous city. I have but one regret--your majesty is in danger."
"Yes," replied Louis, with a sigh, "I certainly am."
"Ah! sire," returned the minister, "you can no longer suppose that I
spoke from any interested motive. Let me implore you not to persist in
your fatal resolution."
"Speak no more of it," said the king, "my part is taken."
"Ah! sire," rejoined Dumouriez, "you said the same when in this very
chamber in the presence of the queen you gave me your word."
"I was wrong then," replied the king, "and I repent that I did so."
"It is now, sire, that you are wrong," continued Dumouriez, "not then.
I shall see you no more. They abuse your religious scruples. They are
leading you to a civil war. You are without force, and you will be
overpowered. History will accuse you of having caused the calamities of
France."
"God is my witness," said Louis in tones of the deepest affliction,
and at the same time placing his hands affectionately upon those of
Dumouriez, "that I wish the happiness of France."
Tears gushed into the eyes of Dumouriez, and his voice was broken with
emotion as he replied, "I do not doubt it, sire; but you are answerable
to God, not only for the purity but for the enlightened direction of
your intentions. You think that you are protecting religion, and you
are destroying it. The priests will be massacred. You will lose your
crown, perhaps your wife, your children."
There was a moment of silence, during which the king pressed the hand
of his faithful friend; Dumouriez then continued:
"Sire, if all the French knew you as I know you, our calamities would
soon be at an end. You wish the happiness of France. You have been
sacrificing yourself to the nation ever since 1789. Continue to do so,
and our troubles will soon cease, the Constitution will be established,
the French will return to their natural character, and the remainder of
your reign will be happy."
"I expect my death," the king rejoined mournfully, "and I forgive my
enemies. I thank you for the sensibility you have shown. You have
served me well, and you have my esteem, and you shall have proofs of it
if I am ever to see a better day."
The king then rose, and, to conceal his emotion, went hastily to a
window. Dumouriez gathered up his papers slowly that he might have time
to regain his composure. As he was leaving the room the king again
approached him, and in a tremulous tone said "Adieu! may all happiness
attend you." They parted, both in tears.[324]
M. Roland, Minister of the Interior, presented a letter to the king,
urging him to sanction the decrees, and to adopt a course more in
accordance with the spirit of constitutional liberty. This letter has
obtained world-wide celebrity. It was written by Madame Roland, the
wife of the minister, one of the most extraordinary women of that or
any other age. She was, in fact, the soul of the Republican party. The
leaders of that party met every evening in her saloon, and her sagacity
originated the measures which they adopted. She was a woman of heroic
mould, and endowed with wonderful powers of intellect and eloquence.
The letter contained a lively exposition of the peril to which the king
was exposed by opposing the establishment of constitutional liberty in
France. The indignation of the king was aroused by its plain utterance,
and he instantly dismissed the Republican minister, Roland, with his
associates, Servan and Clavieres. Roland presented to the Assembly the
letter which had caused his dismission. It roused the indignation of
the Assembly against the king, and fanned Paris into almost a flame
of fury. The letter was printed and copies sent to the eighty-three
departments, and a vote was passed that the three ministers whom the
king had rejected retained the entire confidence of the nation. This
was another accusation against the king, which greatly increased his
unpopularity.
The vetos of the king and the dismissal of the popular ministers roused
a new storm of indignation. Neither the king nor queen could appear
at the windows of the palace without exposing themselves to the most
atrocious insults of language and gesture from the brutal men who ever
thronged the garden.[325]
The king lost all heart, and sank into the most deplorable condition
of mental and physical weakness. For ten days he wandered restlessly
through his apartments with a bewildered, vacant stare, without
uttering a single word even to his wife and children, and scarcely
making any reply to questions addressed to him. His sister, Madame
Elizabeth, endeavored to interest him in a game of backgammon. He sat
listlessly at the board, mechanically throwing the dice, and simply
repeating the words which belong to the game.
"The queen," says Madame Campan, "roused him from this state, so fatal
at a critical period, when every minute increased the necessity for
action, by throwing herself at his feet, urging every idea calculated
to excite alarm, and employing every affectionate expression. She
represented, also, what he owed to his family, and went so far as
to tell him that, if they were doomed to fall, they ought to fall
honorably, and not to wait to be both smothered upon the floor of their
apartment."[326]
On the 20th of June there was an immense gathering of the populace
of Paris, and of delegates from other parts of the kingdom, to
celebrate the anniversary of the meeting in the tennis-court, and to
present a petition to the king urging him to withdraw his vetos. Deep
apprehensions were felt in several quarters respecting the results of
the day. Pétion, who was then mayor of the city, did not venture to
prohibit the celebration, but adopted the precaution of doubling the
guard of the Tuileries.
[Illustration: FESTIVAL IN HONOR OF LIBERTY.]
Early in the morning the whole city was in commotion, and vast crowds
were hurrying to the various points of concentration. The Assembly met
at eleven o'clock, and was alarmed in view of the possible issues of
the day, and agitated by discordant councils. The session soon became
tumultuous, the Constitutionalists wishing to repress the disorder
which the Jacobins were ready to foment. In this state of affairs a
letter was brought into the Assembly from Santerre, a brewer, who had
become notorious as a leader of the populace.[327] It stated that the
citizens were merely celebrating the anniversary of the 20th of June;
that they were calumniated in the Assembly; and that they beg to be
admitted to the bar of the Assembly that they might confound their
slanderers.
The reading of this letter vastly increased the tumult. In the midst
of cries of order, and a scene of indescribable confusion, it was
announced that the petitioners, with arms and banners, in a prolonged
procession of thirty thousand men, were approaching the hall. All power
of law seemed paralyzed, and bewilderment and consternation reigned.
Soon the head of the procession, like a lava-flood, crowded in at the
door, and, pressed by the resistless mass behind, was forced slowly
through the hall, and made its egress at an opposite portal. They bore
enormous tables, upon which were placed the Declaration of Rights.
Around these tables danced women and boys waving olive-branches and
brandishing pikes, thus emblematically declaring themselves ready for
peace or war.
The enormous procession filed slowly through the hall, shouting in
deafening chorus the famous "_Ça ira_" (bravely it goes), armed
with every conceivable weapon, and waving banners inscribed with
revolutionary devices. Several bore ragged breeches upon poles, while
the crowd around shouted, "_Vivent les sans culottes!_" One man bore on
the point of a pike a calf's heart, with the inscription beneath, "_The
heart of an aristocrat_."[328]
For three hours this extraordinary scene continued. The Assembly,
agitated with grief and indignation, had no resource but submission.
The mob, having passed through the hall of the Assembly, now attempted
to enter the garden of the Tuileries, but the gates were closed and
defended by numerous detachments of the National Guard. The king,
however, perhaps hoping, by a show of confidence, to disarm the
mob, ordered the garden gates to be thrown open. The mob, like an
inundation, rushed in, and with their mighty mass soon filled the whole
inclosure. Some cried out for the king to show himself. Others shouted,
"Down with the _veto_!" A few voices kindly gave utterance to the old
excuse, "The king means well, but he is imposed upon."
The mob, which now appeared countless and almost limitless, flowing
out from the garden by the gate leading to the Pont Royal, proceeded
along the quay and through the wickets of the Louvre into the Place du
Carrousel. They were soon gathered in a dense mass before the royal
gate of the palace. A strong guard there refused them admittance.
Santerre brought up two pieces of cannon to blow down the gate. Two
municipal officers then strangely ordered the gates to be thrown open.
The multitude rushed impetuously into the court, filling it in an
instant, and crowding into the vestibule of the palace. It was now four
o'clock in the afternoon. They clambered the magnificent staircase,
even dragging a piece of cannon up to the first floor, and poured in
locust legions into every part of the palace. Wherever they found a
door barred against them they speedily, with swords and hatchets, hewed
it down.
The king was in one of the interior apartments, surrounded by some of
the servants of his household and by several officers of the National
Guard. His sister, Madame Elizabeth, happened to be with him; but the
queen, who was in another room with her children, had not been able to
join her husband, so sudden had been the irruption. The crowd arrested
her in her flight in the council-chamber. She begged earnestly to be
led to her husband, but the throng pouring by was so dense that it
was impossible. Her friends placed her in a corner, and rolled the
council-table before her as a barrier.
There she stood stupefied with horror, and her eyes suffused with
tears, while the low and brutal masses, with no apparent exasperation,
end, or aim, crowded by. Her daughter clung to her side, terrified and
weeping. Her son, but seven years of age, too young to understand the
terrible significance of such an inundation, gazed upon the spectacle
with half alarmed, half pleased wonder. Some of the palace-guard
gathered around the group for its protection. Occasional scowls and
mutterings of defiance and insult alarmed the queen in behalf of her
children rather than herself. Some one handed her son the red cap of
the Jacobins. The queen, hoping that it might appease the mob, placed
it upon his head.
Just then Santerre came along, forcing his way with the crowd. He spoke
kindly to the queen, repeating the only excuse which could be made for
her, "Madame, you are imposed upon." Seeing the red cap upon the head
of the dauphin, he, with a sense of delicacy hardly to be expected in
so coarse a man, took it and threw it aside, saying, "The child is
stifling." He then urged the people to treat the queen with respect.
A young girl stopped before the queen and assailed her with an
incessant volley of imprecations.
"Have I ever," said the queen, calmly, "done you any wrong?"
"No," replied the girl, "not me personally; but you are the cause of
the misery of the nation."
"You have been told so," answered the queen; "but you are deceived.
As the wife of the King of France and mother of the dauphin, I am a
Frenchwoman. I shall never see my own country again. I can be happy
only in France. I was happy when you loved me."
These words touched the heart of the passionate but not hardened girl,
and she began to weep, saying,
"I ask your pardon. It was because I did not know you. I see that you
are good."
While these scenes were transpiring in the council-chamber, the cries
of the mob were heard at the door of the king's apartment, and blows
from a hatchet fell heavily upon the panels. As a panel, driven by a
violent blow, fell at the king's feet, he ordered the door to be thrown
open. A forest of pikes and bayonets appeared, and the crowd rushed in.
The king, with that courage of resignation which never forsook him,
stepped forward with dignity to meet the rabble, and said, "Here I am."
His friends immediately threw themselves around him, forming a rampart
with their bodies. The mob, who seemed to have no definite object
in view, fell back, and the friends of the king placed him in the
embrasure of a window, where he could more easily be protected from the
pressure. There was a moment's lull, and then came renewed clamor and
uproar. Some said that they had a petition which they wished to present
to the king. Others shouted, "No veto! No priests! No aristocrats! The
camp near Paris."
The king stood upon a bench, and with marvelous serenity gazed upon the
unparalleled spectacle. Légendre, the butcher, one of the leaders of
the mob, stepped up, and with a firm voice demanded in the name of the
people the sanction of the two decrees which the king had vetoed.[329]
"This is not the place, neither is this the time," answered the king,
firmly, "to grant such a request. I will do all the Constitution
requires."
This bold answer seemed to exasperate the crowd, and they shouted, as
it were defiantly, "_Vive la Nation!_"
"Yes," replied the king, heroically, "_Vive la Nation!_ and I am its
best friend."
"Prove it, then," cried one of the rabble, thrusting toward him, on the
end of a pike, the red cap of the Jacobins.
The king took the cap and placed it upon his head. The mob responded
with shouts of applause. The day was oppressively hot, and the king,
who was very corpulent, was almost suffocated with the heat and the
crowd. A drunken fellow, who had a bottle and a glass, staggered up to
the king, and offered him a tumbler of wine, saying, "If you love the
people, drink to their health."
Though the king had long been apprehensive of being poisoned, he took
the glass and without hesitation drank its contents. Again he was
greeted with shouts of applause. Some of the crowd, as they caught
sight of Madame Elizabeth, cried out, "There is the Austrian woman!"
The unpopularity of the queen excited murmurs and imprecations, and the
princess was in great danger of violence. Some of her friends around
her endeavored to undeceive the mob.
"Leave them," said the generous and heroic princess, "leave them to
think that I am the queen, that she may have time to escape."
The Assembly was immediately informed of the invasion of the palace.
The Constitutionalists were indignant. The Jacobins were satisfied,
for they wished to see the king and the king's party frightened into
obedience. An angry and almost furious altercation ensued in the
Assembly. A deputation of twenty-four members was, however, immediately
sent to surround the king, and this deputation was renewed every half
hour. But the deputies could not force their way through the crowd.
Hoisted upon the shoulders of the grenadiers they endeavored in vain to
harangue the mob to order. It was half past five o'clock, an hour and a
half after the attack upon the Tuileries had commenced, before Pétion,
the Mayor of Paris, made his appearance in the presence of the king.
He attempted an apology for coming so late, saying,
"I have only just learned the situation of your majesty."
[Illustration: THE CAP OF LIBERTY PLACED UPON THE KING.]
"That is very astonishing," replied the king, "for it is a long time
that it has lasted."
"It was half past four," Pétion rejoined, "when I heard of the attack.
It took me half an hour to get to the palace; and I could not overcome
the obstacles which separated me from your majesty until the present
moment. But fear nothing, sire; you are in the midst of your people."
Louis XVI., taking the hand of a grenadier who stood by his side,
placed it upon his heart, saying, "Feel whether it beats quicker than
usual."
This noble answer again elicited applause. The mayor then, mounting the
shoulders of four grenadiers, addressed the mob, urging them to retire.
"Citizens, male and female," said he, "you have used with moderation
and dignity your right of petition. You will finish this day as you
begun it. Hitherto your conduct has been in conformity with the law,
and now, in the name of the law, I call upon you to follow my example
and to retire."
The crowd obeyed and slowly moved off through the long suite of
apartments of the chateau. As soon as they began to retire the king
and his sister threw themselves into each other's arms, and neither
was able to repress a flood of tears. Locked in an embrace they left
the room to find the queen. She, with her children, had just regained
her apartment. The meeting of the royal family, after these scenes
of violence, insult, and terror, drew tears into the eyes of all
the beholders. One of the deputies, Antoine Merlin of Thionville,
though one of the most virulent of the Jacobins, could not refrain
from weeping. Marie Antoinette observing it, and knowing his bitter
hostility to the court, said,
"You weep to see the king and his family treated so cruelly by a people
whom he has always wished to render happy."
"It is true, madam," replied Merlin, "I weep over the misfortunes of
a beautiful, tender-hearted woman and mother of a family. But do not
mistake; there is not one of my tears for the _king_ or the _queen_; I
hate kings and queens."
At this moment the king, from the reflection of a mirror, saw the _red
bonnet_ still upon his head. A crimson glow flushed his face and he
hastily threw the badge of the Jacobin from him. Sinking into a chair
he for a moment buried his face in his handkerchief, and then, turning
a saddened look to the queen, said,
"Ah, madame, why did I take you from your country to associate you with
the ignominy of such a day!"
It was eight o'clock in the evening before the apartments and corridors
of the palace ceased to echo with the voices and the footsteps of
the barbarian invaders. Detachments of the National Guard gradually
assembled, the court-yard and the garden were cleared, and night
with its silence and darkness again settled down over the wretched
royal family in the halls of their palace, and the wretched famishing
outcasts wandering through the streets. Such was the 20th of June, 1792.
Napoleon Bonaparte, then twenty-two years of age, was in Paris, and
with indignation witnessed this spectacle of lawlessness. Bourrienne
thus describes the event: "In the month of April, 1792, I returned to
Paris, where I again met Bonaparte, and renewed the friendship of our
youthful days. I had not been fortunate, and adversity pressed heavily
upon him. We passed our time as two young men of three and twenty may
be supposed to have done who had little money and less occupation. At
this time he was soliciting employment from the Minister of War, and I
at the office of foreign affairs.
"While we were thus spending our time the 20th of June arrived,
a sad prelude of the 10th of August. We met by appointment at a
restaurateur's, in the Rue St. Honoré, near the Palais Royal. On going
out we saw a mob approaching in the direction of the market-place,
which Bonaparte estimated at from five to six thousand men. They were
a parcel of blackguards, armed with weapons of every description, and
shouting the grossest abuse, while they proceeded at a rapid rate
toward the Tuileries. This mob appeared to consist of the vilest and
most profligate of the population of the suburbs.
[Illustration: THE ATTACK UPON THE TUILERIES.]
"'Let us follow the rabble,' said Bonaparte. We got the start of them,
and took up our station on the terrace bordering on the river. It was
there that he was an eye-witness of the scandalous scenes which ensued,
and it would be difficult to describe the surprise and indignation
which they excited in him. Such weakness and forbearance, he said,
could not be excused. But when the king showed himself at the window
which looked out upon the garden, with the red cap which one of the
mob had just placed upon his head, he could no longer repress his
indignation.
"'What madness!' he loudly exclaimed. 'How could they have allowed that
rabble to enter? Why did they not sweep away four or five hundred of
them with the cannon? The rest would then have speedily taken to their
heels.'"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 317: At the moment of Leopold's death all was ready for
hostilities. Two hundred thousand men were under arms for the invasion.
The Duke of Brunswick, who was placed in command, was at Berlin
receiving the final commands of the king. Another Prussian general was
at Vienna receiving from Leopold advice as to the time and point of
attack. Leopold, whose constitution was shattered by debauchery, was
taken suddenly sick, and, after two days of excruciating pain, died
in convulsions. His death was probably caused by an immoderate use of
drugs to recruit his system, enervated by dissipation. This event for a
short time paralyzed the energies of the coalition. See History of the
Girondists, by Lamartine, vol. i., p. 364.]
[Footnote 318: Memoirs of Count Mathieu Dumas, vol. i., p. 190.]
[Footnote 319: Dumouriez's Memoirs, book iii., ch. vi. Madame Campan
gives an account of this interview with a little different coloring.
"One day," she writes, "I found the queen in extreme agitation. She
told me that she knew not what to do; that the leaders of the Jacobins
had offered themselves to her through Dumouriez, or that Dumouriez,
forsaking the party of the Jacobins, had come and offered himself to
her; that she had given him an audience; that, being alone with her, he
had thrown himself at her feet, and told her that he had put on the red
cap, and even pulled it down over his ears, but that he neither was,
nor ever could be, a Jacobin; that the Revolution had been suffered to
roll on to that mob of disorganizers, who, aspiring only to pillage,
were capable of every thing. While speaking with extreme warmth, he had
taken hold of the queen's hand and kissed it with transport, saying,
'Allow yourself to be saved.' The queen told me that it was impossible
to believe the protestations of a traitor; that all his conduct was so
well known that the wisest plan was not to trust in him, and, besides,
the princes earnestly recommended that no confidence should be placed
in any proposal from the interior."--_Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p. 202.]
[Footnote 320: Francis was not yet elected Emperor of Germany.]
[Footnote 321: Condorcet, in a paper which he drew up in exposition of
the motives which led to this strife, says, "The veil which concealed
the intentions of our enemy is at length torn. Citizens, which of you
could subscribe to these ignominious proposals? Feudal servitude and
a humiliating inequality; bankruptcy and taxes which you alone would
pay; tithes and the Inquisition; your possessions, bought upon the
public faith, restored to their former usurpers; the beasts of the
chase re-established in their right of ravaging your fields; your blood
profusely spilled for the ambitious projects of a hostile house--such
are the conditions of the treaty between the King of Hungary and
perfidious Frenchmen! Such is the peace which is offered to you! No!
never will you accept it!"--_Exposition of the motives which determined
the National Assembly to decree, on the formal proposal of the King,
that there is reason to declare war against the King of Hungary and
Bohemia, by M. Condorcet._]
[Footnote 322: Prof. Wm. Smyth, of the University of Cambridge,
England, though cherishing no sympathies with the revolutionary party
in France, in his admirable lectures upon the French Revolution, with
his accustomed candor, says,
"The question then is, Was this (the conduct of Austria) an
interference in the internal affairs of France that justified a
declaration of war on the part of France or not? This is a point on
which, under the extraordinary circumstances of the case, reasoners
may differ, but I conceive that it was. The rulers of France, at the
time, saw themselves menaced, stigmatized, and, as nearly as possible,
proscribed by a foreign power on account of their conduct to their
own king, in their own country. They could expect nothing but exile,
imprisonment, and death if these foreign powers invaded their country
in defense of the monarchy and succeeded; and not only this, but, in
that case, a counter-revolution was inevitable.
"I must confess that, with all my horror of war, of counsels of
violence, of enthusiastic and furious men like these Girondists, and
of dreadful and guilty men like these Jacobins, I must confess that
upon this particular point of the Austrian war I am, on the whole,
compelled to agree with them. I see not how, upon any other principle,
the peace of the world can be maintained, or the proper sovereignty
and independence of nations be preserved, nor, finally, upon any other
principle, what chance there can ever be for the general cause of the
freedom of mankind."]
[Footnote 323: Dumas, vol. i., p. 213.]
[Footnote 324: Memoirs of Dumouriez.]
[Footnote 325: "The most menacing cries were uttered aloud, even in the
Tuileries. They called for the destruction of the throne and the murder
of the sovereign. These insults assumed the character of the very
lowest of the mob. The queen, one day, hearing roars of laughter under
her windows, desired me to see what it was about. I saw a man, almost
undressed, turning his back toward her apartments. My astonishment and
indignation were apparent. The queen rose to come forward. I held her
back, telling her it was a very gross insult offered by one of the
rabble."--_Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p.
205.]
[Footnote 326: Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 206.]
[Footnote 327: Montjoie, one of the most decided of Royalist writers,
thus describes Santerre: "The muscular expansion of his tall person,
the sonorous hoarseness of his voice, his rough manners, and his easy
and vulgar eloquence, of course made him a hero among the lower rabble.
And, in truth, he had gained a despotic empire over the dregs of the
faubourgs. He moved them at will, but that was all he knew how to do,
or could do, for, as to the rest, he was neither wicked nor cruel. He
engaged blindly in all conspiracies, but he never was guilty of the
execution of them, either by himself or by those who obeyed him. He
was always concerned for an unfortunate person, of whatever party he
might be. Affliction and tears disarmed his hands."--_History of Marie
Antoinette, by Montjoie_, p. 295.]
[Footnote 328: Madame Campan says, "There was one representing a
gibbet, to which a dirty doll was suspended; the words '_Marie
Antoinette à la lanterne_' were written beneath it. Another was a board
to which a bullock's heart was fastened, with an inscription round it,
'_Heart of Louis XVI._;' and then a third showed the horns of an ox,
with an obscene legend."--_Madame Campan_, vol. ii., p. 212.]
[Footnote 329: Léegendre was a butcher of Paris. He was one of the most
violent leaders of the mob. In 1791 he was deputed by the city of Paris
to the National Convention. In 1793 he voted for the king's death,
and, the day before his execution, proposed to the Jacobins to cut
him into eighty-four pieces, and send one to each of the eighty-four
departments. He died at Paris in 1797, aged forty-one, and bequeathed
his body to the surgeons, "in order to be useful to mankind after his
death."--_Biographie Moderne._]