Necker resumes Office.--Outrages in the Provinces.--Pusillanimity of the
Body of the Nation.--Parties in the Assembly.--Views of the
Constitutionalists or "Plain."--Barnave makes Overtures to the Court.--The
Queen rejects them.--The Assembly abolishes all Privileges, August 4th.--
Debates on the Veto.--An Attack on Versailles is threatened.--Great
Scarcity in Paris.--The King sends his Plate to be melted down.--The
Regiment of Flanders is brought up to Versailles.--A Military Banquet is
held in the Opera-house.--October 5th, a Mob from Paris marches on
Versailles.--Blunders of La Fayette--Ferocity of the Mob on the 5th.--
Attack on the Palace on the 6th.--Danger and Heroism of the Queen.--The
Royal Family remove to Paris.--Their Reception at the Barrier and at the
Hôtel de Ville.--Shabbiness of the Tuileries.--The King fixes his
Residence there.
Necker had obeyed the king's summons the moment that he received it, and
before the end of the month he returned to Versailles and resumed his
office. But, even before the king's dispatch reached him, Paris had
witnessed terrible proofs that the tranquillity which the king's visit to
the capital was supposed to have re-established was but temporary. The
populace had broken out into fresh tumults, murdering some of Breteuil's
colleagues with circumstances of frightful barbarity; while intelligence
of similar disturbances in the provinces was constantly arriving. In
Normandy, in Alsace, and in Provence, in the towns, and in the rural
districts, the towns-people and the peasants rose against their wealthier
neighbors or their landlords, burning their houses, and commonly murdering
the owners with the most revolting barbarity. Some were torn into pieces;
some were roasted alive; some had actually portions of their flesh cut off
and eaten by their murderers in their own sight, before the blow was given
which terminated their agonies. Their sex did not save ladies from being
victims of the same cruelties, nor did it prevent women from being actors
in them.
Yet the horror of these scenes was scarcely stranger than the
pusillanimity of those who endured them unresistingly; for there were not
wanting instances of magistrates honest enough to detest, and courageous
enough to chastise, such outrages; and wherever the effort was made it
succeeded so completely as to fix no slight criminality on those who
submitted to them. In Dauphiny, the States of the province raised a small
guard, which quelled the first attempts to cause riots there, and hanged
the ringleaders. In Mâcon, a similar force, though not three hundred
strong, encountered a band of brigands, six thousand in number, and
brought back two hundred prisoners, the chiefs of whom were instantly
executed, and by their prompt punishment tranquillity was restored.
Similar firmness would have saved other districts, which now allowed
themselves to be the victims of ravage and murder; as afterward it would
have preserved the whole country, even when the madness and wickedness of
subsequent years were at their height; for in no part of the kingdom did
those who perpetrated or sympathized with the crimes which have made the
Revolution a by-word, approach the number of those who loathed them, but
who had not the courage or foresight to withstand them. It seemed as if a
long course of misgovernment, and the example of the profligacy and
impiety set by the higher classes for many generations, had demoralized
the entire people, some in their excesses discarding the ordinary
instincts of human beings; while the bulk of the nation had lost even that
courage which had once been among its most shining qualities, and had no
longer the manliness to resist outrages which they abhorred, even when
their own safety was staked upon their repression.
And similar weakness was exhibited in the Assembly itself; for,
unquestionably, the party which at last prevailed was not that which was
originally the strongest. Like most assemblies of the kind, it was divided
into three parties--the extreme Royalists, or "the Right;" the extreme
Reformers (who were subdivided into several sections), or "the Left;" and
between them the moderate Constitutionalists, or "the Plain," as they were
called, from occupying seats in the middle of the hall, between the raised
benches on either side. And to the last party belonged all the men most
distinguished either for statesman-like perceptions or for eloquence,
Mirabeau himself agreeing with them in all their leading principles,
though he never formally enrolled himself in the ranks of any party.
The majority of the Constitutionalists were as loyal to the king's person
and dignity as the extreme Royalists; their most eloquent speaker, a young
lawyer named Barnave, at the first opening of the States had even sought
to open a direct communication with the court, begging Madame de
Lamballe[1] to assure the queen of the wish of himself and all his friends
to maintain the king in the full enjoyment and exercise of what he called
a Constitutional authority, borrowing the idea and expression from the
English Government. But though Marie Antoinette had no objection to the
king of his own accord renouncing portions of the power which had been
claimed and exerted by his predecessors, she would not hear of the States
taking upon themselves to impose such sacrifices on him, or to curtail his
authority by any exercise of their own; and she rejected with something
like disdain the support of those whose alliance was only to be purchased
on such conditions. Barnave, like Mirabeau, felt insulted; determined to
revenge himself, and for a while united himself to the fiercest of the
Republicans; while the Right, with incredible folly, often played into his
hand, joining the Left, of which many members avowedly aimed at the
abolition of royalty, and with none of whom they had one opinion or
sentiment in common to defeat the Constitutionalists, with whom they
practically had but very slight differences. And thus, as with a base
pusillanimity, many, both of the Right and of the Plain, fled from the
country after the tumults of October, the mastery of the Assembly
gradually fell into the hands of that party which contained by far fewer
men of ability or honesty than either of the others, but which surpassed
them both in distinctness of object, and in unscrupulous resolution to
carry out its views.
But the events of July, the mutiny of the troops, the successful
insurrection of the mob, the destruction of the Bastile, and the visit of
Louis to Paris, had been a series of damaging blows to the Government; and
as each successive exploit gave encouragement to the movement party,
events proceeded with extreme rapidity. Necker, who returned to Versailles
on the 27th of July, showed more clearly than ever his unfitness for the
chief post in the administration at such a crisis, by devoting himself
solely to financial arrangements, and omitting to take, on the part of the
crown, the initiative in any one of the reforms which the king had
promised. Those he permitted to be intrusted to a committee of the
Assembly; and the committee had scarcely met when the Assembly took the
matter into its own hands; and in a strange panic, and at a single
sitting, swept away the privileges of both Nobles and clergy, those who
seemed personally most concerned in their maintenance being the foremost
in urging their suppression. A member of the oldest nobility proposed the
abolition of the privileges of the Nobles. A bishop moved the extinction
of tithes; Bretons, Burgundians, Provençals, renounced for their fellow-
citizens the old distinctions and immunities to which each province had
hitherto clung with an unyielding if somewhat unreasoning attachment; and
the whole was crowned by the Archbishop of Paris proposing a celebration
of the _Te Deum_, as an expression of gratitude to God for having inspired
a series of actions calculated to confer so much happiness on the nation.
Though he could not avoid seeing the mischievous character of many of the
resolutions thus tumultuously passed, and though his royal assent to them
was asked in language unceremonious and almost peremptory in its curtness,
Louis could not bring himself, or perhaps did not venture, to refuse his
sanction to them. He had laid down a rule for himself to refuse no
concession except such as on religious grounds his conscience might revolt
from; and on the 18th he signified his formal acceptance of the
resolutions, and of the title of "Restorer of French Liberty." It was an
act of great weakness, and was rewarded, as such acts generally are, by
further encroachments on his authority. The progress of the Left was not
even arrested by a quarrel between some of its members (who, being
clergymen, were not inclined to be reduced to beggary by the extinction of
their incomes), and Mirabeau, who, not unnaturally, bore the priests
especial ill-will. Before the end of the month, the Assembly even deprived
the king of the power of withholding his assent from measures which it
might pass, enacting that he should no longer possess an absolute "veto,"
as it was called, and Necker, exhibiting on this question an incapacity
more glaring than even his former conduct had displayed, induced the king
to yield this point also; and to express his own preference for what its
contrivers called a suspensive veto--a power, that is, of withholding his
assent to any measure till it had been passed by two successive
Assemblies. The discussions on this most momentous point had been very
vehement in the Assembly itself; and, besides the greatness of the
principle involved in the decision, they have a peculiar importance as
showing that Mirabeau had not the absolute power over the minds of the
members which he believed himself to possess; since he contended with all
the energy of his temper, and with irresistible force of argument, against
a vote which, as he declared, could only take the power from the king to
vest it in the Assembly, and yet was wholly unable to carry more than a
small minority with him in his opposition.
And this defeat may have had some share in prompting him to countenance
and aid, if indeed he was not the original contriver of, a plot which was
undoubtedly intended to produce a change in the whole frame-work of the
Government. The harvest had been bad, and at the beginning of September
Paris was suffering under a scarcity almost as severe as had ever been
felt in the depth of winter. The emergency was so great that the king sent
all his plate to the Mint to be melted down, to procure money to purchase
food for the starving citizens; and many patriotic individuals, Necker
himself being among the most munificent, gave their plate and jewels for
the same benevolent object. But relief procured from such sources was
unavoidably of too limited a character to last long. Though Necker
proposed and the Assembly voted taxes of prodigious amount, they could not
at once be made available, and some of the lower classes were said to have
died of actual famine. In their distress the citizens looked to the king,
and attributed their misery in a great degree to his ignorance of their
situation, which was caused by his living at Versailles. They nicknamed
him the "Baker," as if he could supply them with bread, and began to
clamor for him at least to take up an occasional residence among them in
in his capital. From raising a cry, the step was easy to organize a riot
to compel him to do so. And to this object the partisans of the Duke of
Orleans, assisted, if not prompted, by Mirabeau, now began to apply
themselves, hoping that the result would be the deposition of Louis and
the enthronement of the duke, who might be glad to take the great orator
for his prime minister.
So certain did the conspirators feel of success, that they took no pains
to keep their machinations secret. As early as the middle of September
intelligence was received at Versailles that the Parisians would march
upon that town in force, on the 5th of October; and the Assembly was
greatly alarmed, believing, not without reason, that the object of the
intended attack was to overawe and overbear them. The magistrates of the
town were even more terrified, and besought the king to bring up at least
one regiment for their protection. And, prudent and reasonable as the
request was, the compliance with it furnished the agents of sedition with
pretexts for further violence.
A regiment, known as that of Flanders, was sent for from the frontiers,
and speedily arrived at Versailles, when, according to their old and
hospitable fashion, the Body-guard,[2] who regarded Versailles as their
home, invited the officers, and with them the officers of the Swiss Guard,
and those of the town militia also, to a banquet on the 1st of October.
The opera-house, as had often been done in similar instances, was lent for
the occasion; and the boxes were filled with the chief ladies of the court
and of the town, and also with many members of the Assembly, as
spectators. So enthusiastic were the acclamations that greeted the toast
of the king's health, that, though Marie Antoinette had previously desired
that the royal family should not appear to have any connection with the
entertainment, the captain of the guard, the Count de Luxembourg, had no
difficulty in persuading her that it would but be a graceful recognition
of such spontaneous and sincere loyalty at such a time if she were to
honor the banquet with her presence, though but by the briefest visit.
Louis, too, accepted the proposal with greater warmth than usual, and when
the royal pair with their children--the queen, as was her custom, leading
one in each hand--descended from their apartments and walked through the
banquet-hall, the enthusiasm was redoubled. The spectators, among whom
were many members of the Assembly, caught the contagion. Loyal cheers
resounded from every part of the theatre, and the feelings excited became
so fervid that some officers of the National Guard, who were among the
guests, reversed their new tricolor cockade, and, displaying the white
side outermost, seemed to have resumed the time-honored badge under which
the army had reaped all its old glories. The band struck up a favorite air
from one of the new operas, "Peut-on affliger ce qu'on aime?" which those
who saw the anxiety which recent events had already stamped upon the
queen's majestic brow could hardly avoid applying to their royal mistress;
and when it followed it up by Blondel's lamentation for Richard, "O
Richard, O mon roi, l'univers t'abandonne," the first notes of the
well-known song touched a chord in every heart, and the whole company,
courtiers, ladies, soldiers, and deputies, were all carried away in a
perfect delirium of loyal rapture. The whole company escorted the royal
family back to their apartments; though it was remarked afterward that
some of the soldiers, who on this occasion were the most vociferous in
their exultation, were, before the end of the same week, among the most
furious threateners and assailants of the palace.
But a demonstration such as this, in which the whole number of the
soldiers concerned did not exceed fifteen hundred men, could not deter the
organizers of the impending riot from carrying out their plan: if it did
not even aid them by the opportunities which it afforded for spreading
abroad exaggerated accounts of what had taken place, as an additional
proof of the settled hatred and contempt which the court entertained for
the people. Mirabeau had suggested that the best chance of success for an
insurrection in Paris lay in placing women at its head; and, in compliance
with his hint, at day-break on the appointed morning a woman of notorious
infamy of character moved toward the chief market-place of Paris, beating
a drum, and calling on all who heard her to follow her.[3] She soon
gathered round her a troop of followers worthy of such a leader, market-
women, fish-women, and men in women's clothes, whose deep voices, and the
power with which they brandished their weapons, betrayed their sex through
their disguise.
One man, Maillard, who had been conspicuous as one of the fiercest of the
stormers of the Bastile, disdained any concealment or dress but his own;
they chose him for their leader, mingling with their cries for bread
horrid threats against the queen and the aristocrats. Their numbers
increased till they felt themselves strong enough to attack the Hôtel de
Ville. A detachment of the National Guard who were on duty offered them no
resistance, pleading that they had received no orders from La Fayette; and
the rioters, now amounting to many thousands, having armed themselves from
the store of muskets and swords which they found in the armory, passed on
to the barrier and took the road to Versailles.
The riot had lasted four hours, and the very last of the rioters had
already passed through the gates before La Fayette reached the Hôtel de
Ville, though his office of Commander of the National Guard made the
preservation of tranquillity one of his most especial duties. He had
evidently feared to risk his popularity by resisting the mob, and even now
he refused to act at all till be had received a written order from the
Municipal Council; and, when he had obtained that, he did not obey it; but
preferred complying with the demands of his own soldiers, who insisted on
following the rioters to Versailles, where they would exterminate the
regiment of Flanders; bring the king back to Paris; and perhaps depose him
and appoint a Regent. Yet even this open avowal of their treasonable views
did not deter their unworthy general from submitting to their dictates. He
had indeed no desire for the success of their designs; for he had no
connection with the Duc d'Orléans, and no inclination to co-operate with
Mirabeau, who he knew was in the habit of speaking of him with contempt;
but he had not firmness to resist their demand. His vanity, too, always
his most predominant feeling, was flattered by the desire they expressed
to retain him as their commander, and at last he procured from the
magistrates a fresh order, authorizing him to comply with the soldiers'
clamor, and to lead them to Versailles.
When before the magistrates he had professed an expectation that he should
be able to induce the king to comply with the wishes of the Assembly, and
a determination to restrain the excesses of the mob; but the whole day had
been so wasted by his irresolution that when he at last put his regiment
in motion it was seven o'clock in the evening--full four hours after
Maillard and his fish-women had reached Versailles. The news of their
approach and of their designs had been brought to the palace by Monsieur
de Chinon, the eldest son of the Duc de Richelieu, who, at great personal
risk, had disguised himself as an artisan, and had marched some way with
the crowd to learn their object. He reported that even the women and
children were armed, that the great majority were drunk; that they were
beguiling the way with the most ferocious threats, and that they had been
joined by a gang of men who gave themselves the name of "Coupe-têtes," and
boasted that they should have ample opportunity of proving their title to
it.
In addition to the warnings previously received, a rumor had reached the
palace on the preceding evening that the Duc d'Orléans had come down to
Versailles in disguise,[4] a movement which could hardly have an innocent
object; but so little heed had been given to the intelligence, or, it may
perhaps be said, so little was it supposed that, if such an attack was
really meditated, any warning would have been given, that Monsieur de
Chinon found the palace empty. Louis had gone to hunt in the Bois de
Meudon; Marie Antoinette was at the Little Trianon. But messengers easily
found them. The queen came in with speed from her garden, which she was
destined never to behold again; the king hastened hack from his coverts;
and by the time that they returned, the Count de St. Priest, the Minister
of the Household, had their carriages ready for them to retire to
Rambouillet, and he earnestly pressed the adoption of such a course.
Louis, as usual, could not make up his mind. He sat in his chair,
repeating that it was a moment to think seriously. "Rather," said Marie
Antoinette, "say that it is a time to act promptly." He would gladly have
had her depart with her children, but she refused to leave him, declaring
that her place was by his side; that, as the daughter of Maria Teresa, she
did not fear death; and after a time he changed his mind and ceased to
wish even her to retire, clinging to his old conviction that conciliation
was always possible. He believed that he had won over even the worst of
the mob, and that all danger was past.
Versailles witnessed a strange scene that morning. The moment that the mob
reached the town, they forced their way into the Assembly Hall, where
Maillard, as their spokesman, after terrifying the members with ferocious
threats against the whole body of the Nobles, demanded that the Assembly
should send a deputation to the king to represent to him the distress of
the people, and that a party of the women should accompany it. Louis
consented to receive them, and when they reached the palace, the women,
disorderly and ferocious as they were, were so awed by the magnificence
and pomp which they beheld, and by the actual presence of the king and
queen, that they could only summon up a few modest and humble words of
petition, and one, a young and pretty girl of seventeen, fainted with the
excitement. One of the princesses brought her a glass of water: she
recovered, and, as she knelt to kiss the king's hand, Louis kissed her
himself, and, transported by his affability, she and her companions quit
the apartment, uttering loud cheers for the king and queen. But this had
not been the impression which their leaders had intended them to receive;
and, when they reached the streets, their new-born loyalty so exasperated
their comrades that the soldiers had some difficulty in saving them from
their fury.
Meanwhile, the mob increased every hour. They occupied the court-yard of
the palace, roaring out ferocious threats, the most sanguinary of which
were directed against the queen. The President of the Assembly moved that
the members should adjourn and repair to the palace for the protection of
the royal family, but Mirabeau resisted the proposal, and procured its
rejection; and when a large party of the members went, as individuals, to
place their services at the king's disposal, he mingled with the rioters,
tampering with the soldiers, and urging them to espouse what he called the
cause of the people. As it grew dark, the crowd grew more and more
tumultuous and violent. The Body-guard, who were all gentlemen, were
faithful and fearless; but it began to be seen that none of the other
troops, not even the regiment of Flanders, could be trusted. Some of them
even fired on the Body-guard, and mortally wounded its commander, the
Marquis de Savonières; while Louis, adhering to his unhappy policy of
conciliation even at such a moment, sent down orders to the officer who
succeeded to the command that the men were not to use their weapons, and
that all bloodshed was to be avoided. "Tell the king," replied M.
d'Huillier, "that his orders shall be obeyed; but that we shall all be
assassinated."
The mob grew fiercer when it became known that La Fayette and his regiment
were approaching. No one knew what course he might take, but the
ringleaders of the rioters resolved on a strenuous effort to render his
arrival useless by their previous success. Guns were fired, heavy blows
were dealt on the railings of the inner court-yard and on the gates; and
the danger seemed so imminent that the mob might force its way into the
palace, that the deputies themselves besought the king to delay no longer,
but to retire to Rambouillet. He was still irresolute, and still trusting
to his plan of conciliating by non-resistance. The queen, though more
earnest than ever that he should depart, still nobly adhered to her own
view of duty, and refused to leave him; but, hoping that he might change
his mind, she gave a written order to keep the carriages harnessed, and to
prepare to force a passage for them if the life of the king should appear
to be in danger; but, she added, they were not to be used if she alone
were threatened.
At last, when it was nearly midnight, La Fayette arrived. With a singular
perverseness of folly, at a time when every moment was of consequence, he
had halted his men a mile out of the town to make them a speech in praise
of himself and his own loyalty, and to administer to them an oath to be
faithful to the nation, to the law, and to the king; an oath needless if
they were inclined to keep it; useless, if they were not; and in the state
of feeling then common, mischievous in the order in which he ranged the
powers to which he required them to profess allegiance. At last he reached
the palace. Leaving his men below, he ascended to the king's apartments,
and, laying his hand on his heart, assured the king that he had no more
loyal servant than himself. Louis was not given to sarcasm: yet some of
the bystanders fancied that there was a tone of irony in his voice when in
reply he expressed his conviction of the marquis's sincerity; and perhaps
La Fayette thought so too, for he proceeded to harangue his majesty on his
favorite subject of his own courage; describing the dangers which, as he
affirmed, he had incurred in the course of the day. After which he
descended into the court-yard to assure the soldiers that the king had
promised to accede to their wishes; and then returned to the royal
apartments to inform the king that contentment was restored, and that he
himself would be responsible for the tranquillity of the night.
The royal family, exhausted with the fatigues of so terrible a day,
retired to rest, the queen expressly enjoining her ladies to follow her
example. Fortunately they were too anxious for her safety to obey her,
and, with their own attendants, kept watch in the room outside her
bed-chamber. But La Fayette, in spite of the responsibility which he had
taken upon himself, felt no such anxiety. He declared himself tired and
sleepy; and, leaving the palace, went to a friend's house to ask for a
bed.[5] Yet he well knew that the crowd was still assembled around the
palace, and was increasing in violence. Though the night was stormy and
wet, the rioters sought no shelter except such as was afforded by a
hurried resort to the wine-shops in the neighborhood, where they inflamed
their intoxication, and from which they soon returned to renew their
savage clamor and threats, increasing the disorder by keeping up a
frequent fire of their muskets. Throughout the night the Duc d'Orléans was
briskly going to and fro, his emissaries scattering money among the
rioters, who seemed to have no definite purpose or plan, till, as day
began to break, one of the gates leading into the Princes' Court was seen
to be open. It had been intrusted to some of La Fayette's soldiers, and
could not have been opened without treachery. The crowd poured in,
uttering fiercer threats than ever, from the belief that their prey was
within their reach. There was, in truth, nothing between them and the
staircase which led to the royal apartments except two gallant gentlemen,
M. des Huttes and M. Moreau, the sentries of the detachment of the Body-
guard on duty, whose quarters were at the head of the staircase in a
saloon opposite to the queen's chamber. But these brave men were worthy of
the best days of the French army. The more formidable the mob, and the
greater the danger, the more imperative to their loyal hearts was the duty
to defend those whose safety was intrusted to their vigilance; and with so
dauntless a front did they stand to their posts that for a moment the
ruffians recoiled and shrunk from attacking them, till D'Orléans himself
came forward, waving to them with his hand a signal to force the way in,
and pointing out to them which way to take.
What, then, could two men effect against such a multitude? Des Huttes
perished, pierced by a hundred pikes, and torn into pieces by his blood-
thirsty assailants. Moreau, with equal valor, but with better fortune,
backed up the stairs, fighting so desperately as he retreated that he gave
his comrades time to barricade the doors leading to the queen's
apartments, and to come to his assistance. As they drew him back, terribly
wounded, into the guardroom, De Varicourt and Durepaire took his place. De
Varicourt was soon slain, but Durepaire, a man of prodigious strength and
prowess, held the assassins at bay for some time, till he too fell,
reduced to helplessness by a score of deep wounds; when he, in his turn,
was replaced by Miomandre. His devotion and intrepidity equaled that of
his comrades; he was eminently skillful also in the use of his weapons,
and with his own hand he struck down many of his assailants, till he was
gradually forced back by numbers, when he placed his musket as a barrier
across the door-way, and thus still kept his enemies at bay, while he
shouted to the queen's ladies, now separated from him by but a single
partition, to save the queen, for "the tigers with whom he was struggling
were aiming at her life."
In the annals of the ancient chivalry of the nation it had been recorded
as the most brilliant feat of Bayard, that, on a bridge of the Garigliano,
he had for a while, with his single arm, stemmed the onset of two hundred
Spaniards; and that glorious exploit of the model hero of the nation had
never been more faithfully copied and more nobly rivaled than it was on
this morning of shame and danger by Miomandre and his intrepid comrades,
as they successively stepped into the breach to fight against those whom
he truly called, not men, but tigers. It was but a brief moment before he
too was struck down; but he had gained for the ladies a respite sufficient
to enable them to secure the safety of their royal mistress. They roused
her from her bed, for her fatigue had been so great that she had hitherto
slept soundly through the uproar, and hurried her off to the apartments of
the king, who, having in been just similarly awakened, was coming to seek
her; and in a few minutes the whole family was collected in his
antechamber; while the Body-guard occupied the queen's bedroom, and the
rioters, balked of their intended victim, were pillaging the different
rooms into which they had been able to make their way. Luckily, La Fayette
was still absent: he was having his hair dressed with great composure,
while the mob, for whose contentment and orderly behavior he had vouched,
was plundering the royal palace and seeking its owners to murder them; and
in his absence the Marquis de Vaudreuil and a body of nobles took upon
themselves the office of defenders of the crown, and, going down to the
court-yard, reproached the National Guard with their inaction at such a
moment of danger, and with their manifest sympathy with the rioters. At
first, out of mere shame, the National Guard attempted to justify
themselves: "they had been told," they said, "that the Body-guard were the
aggressors; that they had attacked the people." "Do you pretend to
believe," said the gallant marquis, "that two hundred men have been mad
enough to attack thirty thousand?" The argument was irresistible; they
declared that if the Body-guard would assume the tricolor, they would
stand by them as brothers. And, by a reaction not uncommon at such times
of excitement, the two regiments became reconciled in a moment. As no
tricolor cockades could be procured, they exchanged shakos, and, in many
cases, arms. And presently, when the Coup-têtes, after mutilating the
bodies of two of the Body-guard who had been killed on the previous
evening, were preparing to murder two or three more who had fallen into
their hands, the National Guard dashed to their rescue, shouting out, with
a curious identification of their force with the old French army, that
"they would save the Body-guard who saved them at Fontenoy," and brought
them off unhurt.
Balked of their expected prey, the rioters grew more furious than ever; in
useless wrath they kept firing against the walls of the palace, and
shouting out a demand for the queen to show herself. She, with her
children, was still in the king's apartment, where the princesses, the
ministers, and a few courtiers were also assembled. Necker, in an agony of
terror and distress, sat with his face buried in his hands, unable to
offer any advice; La Fayette, who had just arrived, dwelt upon the dangers
which he had run, though no one else knew what they were, and assured the
king of the power which he still possessed to allay the tumult, if the
reasonable demands of the people (as he called them) were granted. Marie
Antoinette alone was undaunted and calm; or, at least, if in the depths of
her woman's heart she felt terror at the sanguinary and obscene threats of
her ruffianly enemies, she scorned to show it. When the firing began, M.
de Luzerne, one of the ministers, had quietly placed himself between her
and the window; but, while she thanked him for his devotion, she begged
him to retire, saying, with her habitually gracious courtesy, that it was
her place to be there,[6] not his, since the king could not afford to have
so faithful a servant endangered. And now, holding her little son and
daughter, one in each hand, she stepped out on the balcony, to confront
those who were shouting for her blood. "No children!" was their cry. She
led the dauphin and his sister back into the room, and, returning to the
balcony, stood before them alone, with her hands crossed and her eyes
looking up to heaven, as one who expected instant death, with a firmness
as far removed from defiance as from supplication. Even those ruthless
miscreants were awed by her magnanimous fearlessness; not a shot was
fired; for a moment it seemed as if her enemies had become her partisans.
Loud shouts of "Bravo!" and "Long live the queen!" were heard on all
sides; and one ruffian, who raised his gun to take aim at her, had his
weapon beaten down by those who stood near him, and ran some risk of being
himself sacrificed to their indignation. But this impulse of respect, like
other impulses of such a people, was short-lived, and presently the
multitude began to raise a shout, which expressed the original purpose
which had led the majority to march upon Versailles. "To Paris!" was the
cry, and again La Fayette volunteered his advice, urging the king to
comply with the request. By this time Louis had learned the value of the
marquis's loyalty. But he had no alternative. It was evident that the
rioters had the power of compelling compliance with their demand. And
accordingly he authorized the marquis to promise that he would remove his
family to Paris, and a few minutes afterward he himself went out on the
balcony with the queen, and himself announced his intention, with the view
of giving his act a greater appearance of being voluntarily resolved upon.
Soon after midday he set out, accompanied by the queen, his brother the
Count de Provence, his sister the Princess Elizabeth, and his children. It
was a strange and shameful retinue that escorted the King of France to his
capital. One party of the rioters, with Maillard and another ruffian named
Jourdan, the chief of the Coupe-têtes, at their head, had started two
hours before, bearing aloft in triumph the heads of the mangled
Body-guards, and combining such hideous mockery with their barbarity that
they halted at Sèvres to compel a barber to dress the hair on the lifeless
skulls. And now the royal carriage was surrounded by a vast and confused
medley; market-women and the rest of the female rabble, with drunken gangs
of the ruffians who had stormed the palace in the morning, still
brandishing their weapons, or bearing loaves of bread on their pike-heads,
and singing out that they should all have enough of bread now, since they
were bringing the baker, the bakeress, and the baker's boy to Paris.[7]
The only part of the procession that bore even a decent appearance was a
small escort of 'different regiments--the Guards, the National Guards, and
the Body-guards; many of the latter still bleeding from the wounds which
they had received in the conflict and tumult of the morning. A train of
carriages containing a deputation of the members of the Assembly also
followed; Mirabeau himself having just earned a motion that the Assembly
was inseparable from the king, and that wherever he was there must be the
place of meeting for the great council of the nation. Yet, in spite of the
confidence which their presence might have been expected to diffuse among
the mob, and in spite of the hopes of coming plenty which the rioters
themselves announced, the royal party was not even yet safe from further
attacks. Some ruffians stabbed at the royal carriage as it passed with
their pikes, and several shots were fired at it, though fortunately they
missed their aim and no one was injured.[8]
To the queen the journey was more painful than to any one else. A few
weeks before she had congratulated Mademoiselle de Lamballe on not being a
mother--perhaps the bitterest exclamation that grief and anxiety ever
wrung from her lips; and now the keenest anxieties of a mother were indeed
added to those of a queen. The procession moved with painful slowness. No
provisions had been taken in the carriage, and the little dauphin was
suffering from hunger and begging for some food. Tears, which her own
danger could not bring to her eyes, flowed plentifully as she witnessed
the suffering of her child. She could only beg him to bear his privations
with patience; and she had the reward of the pains she had always taken to
inspire him with confident in her, in the fortitude with which, for the
rest of the day, he bore what to children of his age is probably the
severest hardship to which they can be exposed.[9]
So vast and disorderly was the procession that it was nine o'clock at
night before it reached Paris. Bailly again met the royal carriage at the
barrier, and, re-assuming the tone of coarse insult which he had adopted
on the king's previous visit, had the effrontery to describe the day so
full of horror to every one, and of humiliation and agony to those whom he
was addressing, as a glorious day. It was at such moments as these that
Louis's impassibility assumed the character of dignity. He disdained to
notice the mayor's insolence, and briefly answered that it was always with
pleasure and with confidence that he found himself among the inhabitants
of his good city of Paris. He proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville, where the
council of civic magistrates was sitting; and where the president
addressed him in language which afforded a marked contrast to that of the
mayor, calling him "an adored father who had come to visit the place where
he could meet with the greatest number of his children." And it seemed as
if Bailly himself had become in some degree ashamed of his insolence; for
now, when Louis desired him, in reply to the president's address, to
repeat the answer which he had made to him at the barrier, he merely said
that the king had come with pleasure among the Parisians. "The king, sir,"
interrupted the queen, "added, 'and with confidence.'" "Gentlemen," said
Bailly, "you hear her majesty's words. You are happier in doing so than if
I myself had uttered them." The whole company burst into one rapturous
cheer, and at their request the king and queen showed themselves for a few
minutes at the windows, beneath which, late as the hour was, a vast
multitude was still collected, which received them with vociferous cheers.
And then the royal family, quitting the Hotel, drove to the Tuileries,
where their attendants had been hastily making such preparations as a few
hours allowed for their reception.
Since the completion of the Palace at Versailles the Tuileries had been
almost deserted.[10] The paint and gilding were tarnished, the curtains
were faded, many most necessary articles of furniture were altogether
wanting; and the whole was so shabby that it attracted the notice of even
the little dauphin. "How bad, mamma," said he, "every thing looks here."
"My boy," she replied, "Louis XIV. lived here comfortably enough." But
they had not yet decided on making it their permanent residence. La
Fayette, who had tried to induce the king to promise to do so, had been
distinctly refused; and for some days Louis did not make up his mind. But,
after a time, the fear, if he should propose to return, to Versailles, of
being met by an opposition on the part of the Assembly or the civic
magistrates, which he might be unable to surmount, or, if he should again
settle there, of his absence from the city furnishing a pretext for fresh
tumults, caused him to announce his intention of making Paris his
principal abode for the future. He gave orders for the removal of some
furniture and of the queen's library to the Tuileries; and, with something
of the apathy of despair, began to reconcile himself to his new abode and
his changed position.