Louis and Marie Antoinette contemplate Foreign Intervention.--The Assembly
passes Laws to subordinate the Church to the Civil Power.--Insolence of La
Fayette.--Marie Antoinette refuses to quit France by Herself.--The
Jacobins and La Fayette try to revive the Story of the Necklace.--Marie
Antoinette with her Family.--Flight from Paris is decided on.--The Queen's
Preparations and Views.--An Oath to observe the new Ecclesiastical
Constitution is imposed on the Clergy.--The King's Aunts leave France.
The last sentence of the letter just quoted points to a new hope which the
king and she had begun to entertain of obtaining aid from foreign princes.
As it can hardly have been suggested to them by any other advisers, we may
probably attribute the origination of the idea to the queen, who was
naturally inclined to rate the influence of the empire highly, and to rely
on her brother's zeal to assist her confidently. And Louis caught at it,
as the only means of extricating him from a religious difficulty which was
causing him great distress, and which appeared to him insurmountable by
any means which he could command in his own country. As has been already
seen, he had had no hesitation in yielding up his own prerogatives, and in
making any concessions or surrenders which the Assembly required, so long
as they touched nothing but his own authority. He had even (which was a
far greater sacrifice in his eyes) sanctioned the votes which had deprived
the Church of its property; but, in the course of the autumn the Assembly
passed other measures also, which appeared to him absolutely inconsistent
with religion. They framed a new ecclesiastical constitution which not
only reduced the number of bishops (which, indeed, in France, as in all
other Roman Catholic countries, had been unreasonably excessive), but
which also vested the whole patronage of the Church in the municipal
authorities, and generally subordinated the Church to the civil law. And
having completed these arrangements, which to a conscientious Roman
Catholic bore the character of sacrilege, they required the whole body of
the clergy to accept them, and to take an oath to observe them faithfully.
Louis was in a great strait. Many of the chief prelates appealed to him
for protection, which he thought his duty as a Christian man bound him to
afford them. But the protection which they implored could only be given by
refusal of the royal assent to the bill. And he could not disguise from
himself that such an exercise of his veto would furnish a pretext to his
enemies for more violent denunciations of himself and the queen than had
yet been heard. He had also, though his personal safety was at all times
very slightly regarded by him, begun to feel himself a prisoner, at the
mercy of his enemies. La Fayette, as Commander-in-chief of the National
Guard of Paris, had the protection of the royal palace intrusted to him;
and he availed himself of this charge, not as the guardian of the royal
family, but rather as their jailer,[1] placing his sentries so as to be
spies and a restraint upon all their movements, and seeking every
opportunity to gain an ignoble popularity by an ostentatious disregard of
all their wishes, and of all courtesy, not to say decency, in his behavior
to them.[2] And these considerations led the king, not only to authorize
the Baron de Breteuil, who, as we have seen, had fled from the country in
the previous year, to treat with any foreign princes who might he willing
to exert themselves in his cause, but even to write, with his own hand, to
the principal sovereigns, informing them that "in spite of his acceptance
of the Constitution, the factious portion of his subjects openly
manifested their intention of destroying the monarchy," and suggesting the
idea of "an armed congress of the principal powers of Europe, supported by
an armed force, as the best measure to arrest the progress of factions, to
re-establish order in France, and to prevent the evils which were
devouring his country from seizing on the other states of Europe.[3]"
The historians of the democratic party have denounced with great severity
the conduct of Louis in thus appealing to foreign aid, as a proof that, in
spite of his acceptance of the Constitution, he was meditating a counter-
revolution. The whole tenor of his and the queen's correspondence proves
that this charge is groundless; but it is equally certain that it was an
impolitic step, one wholly opposed to every idea of Constitutional
principles, of which the very foundation must always be perfect freedom
from foreign influence, and from foreign connection in the internal
government of the country.
Fortunately, his secret was well kept, so that no knowledge of this step
reached the leaders of the popular party; and, however great may have been
the queen's secret anxieties and fears, she kept them bravely to herself,
displaying outwardly a serenity and a patience which won the admiration of
all those who, in foreign countries, were watching the course of events in
France with interest.[4] When she wept, she wept by herself. Her one
comfort was that her children were always with her; and though the dauphin
could only witness without understanding her grief, "remarking on one
occasion, when in one of his childish books he met the expression 'as
happy as a queen,' that all queens are not happy, for his mamma wept from
morning till night." Her daughter was old enough to enter into her
sorrows; and, as she writes to Madame de Polignac, mingles her own tears
with hers. She had also the society of her sister-in-law Elizabeth, whom
she had learned to love with an affection which could not be exceeded even
by that which she bore her own sister, and which was cordially returned.
She tells Madame de Polignac that Elizabeth's calmness is one great relief
and support to them all; and Elizabeth can not find adequate words to
express to one of her correspondents her admiration for the queen's "piety
and resignation, which alone enable her to bear up against troubles such
as no one before has ever known."
But amidst all her grief she cherishes hope--hope that the people (the
"good people," as she invariably terms them) will return to their senses;
and her other habitual feeling of benevolence, though she can now only
exert it in forming projects for conferring further benefits on them when
tranquillity should be restored. The feeling shows itself even in letters
which have no reference to her own position. There had been discontent and
signs of insurrection in the Netherlands which Mercy's recent letters led
her to believe were passing away; and her congratulations to her brother
on this peaceful result dwell on the happiness "which it is to be able to
pardon one's subjects without shedding one drop of blood, of which
sovereigns are bound to be always careful.[5]"
Her brother, and many of her friends in France, were at this time pressing
her to quit the country, professing to believe that if her enemies knew
that she was out of their reach, they would be less vehement in their
hostility to the king; but she felt that such a course would be both
unworthy of her, as timid and selfish, and in every way injurious rather
than beneficial to her husband. It could not save his authority, which was
what the Jacobins made it their first object to destroy; and it would
deprive him of the support of her affection and advice, which he
constantly needed.
"Pardon me, I beg of you," she replied to Leopold, "if I continue to
reject your advice to leave Paris. Consider that I do not belong to
myself. My duty is to remain where Providence has placed me, and to oppose
my body, if the necessity should arise, to the knives of the assassins who
would fain reach the king. I should be unworthy of the name of our mother,
which is as dear to you as to me, if danger could make me desert the king
and my children.[6]"
We have seen that Marie Antoinette dreaded calumny more than the knife or
poison of the assassin; and there could hardly have been a greater proof
how well founded her apprehensions were, and how unscrupulous her enemies,
than is afforded by the fact that, in the latter part of this year, they
actually brought back Madame La Mothe to Paris with the purpose of making
a demand for a re-investigation of the whole story of the fraud on the
jeweler--a pretense for reviving the libelous stories to the disparagement
of the queen, the utter falsehood and absurdity of which had been
demonstrated to the satisfaction of the whole world four years before. Nor
was it wholly a Jacobin plot. La Fayette himself was, to a certain extent,
an accomplice in it. As commander of the National Guard of the city, it
was his duty to apprehend one who was an escaped convict; but instead of
doing so he preferred identifying himself with her, and on one occasion
had what Mirabeau rightly called the inconceivable insolence to threaten
the queen with a divorce on the ground of unfaithfulness to her husband.
She treated his insinuations with the dignity which became herself, and
the scorn which they and their utterers deserved; and he found that his
conduct had created such general disgust among all people who made the
slightest pretense to decency, that he feared to lose his popularity if he
did not disconnect himself from the plotters. Accordingly, he separated
himself from the lady, though he still forbore to arrest her, and for some
time confined himself to his old course of heaping on the royal family
these petty annoyances and insults, which he could inflict with impunity
because they were unobserved except by his victims. It is remarkable,
however, that Mirabeau, who held him in a contempt which, however
deserved, had in it some touch of rivalry and envy, believed that the
queen was not really so much the object of his animosity as the king. In
his eyes "all the manoeuvres of La Fayette were so many attacks on the
queen; and his attacks on the queen were so many steps to bring him within
reach of the king. It was the king whom he really wanted to strike; and he
saw that the individual safety of one of the royal pair was as inseparable
from that of the other as the king was from his crown.[7]" And this
opinion of Mirabeau is strongly corroborated by the Count de la Marck,
who, a few weeks later, had occasion to go to Alsace, and who took great
pains to ascertain the general state of public feeling in the districts
through which he passed. During his absence he was in constant
correspondence with those whom he had left behind, and he reports with
great satisfaction that in no part of the country had he found the very
slightest ill-feeling toward the queen. It was in Paris alone that the
different libels against her were forged, and there alone that they found
acceptance; and, manifestly referring to the projected departure from
Paris, he expresses his firm conviction that the moment that she is at
liberty, and able to show herself in the provinces, she will win the
confidence of all classes.[8]
However greatly Mirabeau would, on other grounds, have preferred personal
intercourse with the court, he thought that his power of usefulness
depended so entirely on his connection with it being unsuspected, that he
did not think it prudent to solicit interviews with the queen. But he kept
up a constant communication with the court, sometimes by notes and
elaborate memorials, addressed indeed to Louis, but intended for Marie
Antoinette's perusal and consideration; and sometimes by conversations
with La Marck, which the count was expected to repeat to her. But, in all
the counsels thus given, the thing most to be remarked is the high opinion
which they invariably display of the queen's resolution and ability. Every
thing depends on her; it is from her alone that he wishes to receive
instructions; it is her resolution that must supply the deficiencies of
all around her. When he urges that a line of conduct should be adopted
calculated to render their majesties more popular; that they should show
themselves more in public; that they should walk in the most frequented
places; that they should visit the hospitals, the artisans' workshops, and
make themselves friends by acts of charity and generosity, it is to her
that he looks to carry out his suggestions, and to her affability and
presence of mind that he trusts for the success which is to result from
them;[9] and La Marck is equally convinced that "her ability and
resolution are equal to the conduct of affairs of the first importance."
Meantime her health continued good. It showed her strength of mind that
she never intermitted the recreations which contributed to her strength,
about which she was especially anxious, that she might at all times be
ready to act on any emergency; but rode with Elizabeth with great
regularity in the Bois de Boulogne, even in the depth of the winter; and,
while watching with her habitual vigilance of affection over the education
of her children, she found a pleasant relaxation for herself in providing
them with amusement also; often arranging parties, to which other children
of the same age were invited, and finding amusement herself from watching
their gambols in the long corridor of the Tuileries, their blindman's-buff
and hide-and-seek.[10]
The new year opened with grave plans for their extrication from their
troubles--plans requiring the utmost forethought, ingenuity, and secrecy
to bring them to a successful issue; and also with fresh injuries and
insults from the Assembly and the municipal authorities, which every week
made the necessity of promptitude in carrying such plans out more
manifest. Mirabeau, as we have seen, had from the very first recommended
that the king and his family should withdraw from Paris. In his eyes such
a step was the indispensable preliminary to all other measures; and some
of the earliest of the queen's letters in 1791 show that the resolution to
leave the turbulent city had at last been taken. But though what he
recommended was to be done, it was not to be done as he recommended; yet
there was a manliness about the course of action which he proposed which
would of itself have won the queen's preference, if she had not been
forced to consider not what was best and fittest, but what it was most
easy to induce him on whom the final choice must impend, the king, to
adopt. Mirabeau advised that the king should depart publicly, in open day,
"like a king," as he expressed himself,[11] and he affirmed his conviction
that it would in all probability be quite unnecessary to remove farther
than Compiègne; but that the moment that it should be known that the king
was out of Paris, petitions demanding the re-establishment of order would
flock in from every quarter of the kingdom, and public opinion, which was
for the most part royalist, would compel the Assembly to modify the
Constitution which it had framed, or, if it should prove refractory, would
support the king in dissolving it and convoking another.
But this was too bold a step for Louis to decide on. He anticipated that
the Assembly or the mob might endeavor to prevent such a movement by
force, which could only be repelled by force; and force he was resolved
never to employ. The only alternative was to flee secretly; and in the
course of January, Mercy learns that that plan has been adopted, and that
Compiègne is not considered sufficiently distant from Paris, but that some
fortified place will be selected; Valenciennes being the most likely, as
he himself imagined, since, if farther flight should become necessary, it
would be easy from thence to cross the frontier into the Belgian dominions
of the queen's brother. But if Valenciennes had ever been thought of, it
was rejected on that very account; for Louis had learned from English
history that the withdrawal of James II. from his kingdom had been alleged
as one reason for declaring the throne vacant; and he was resolved not to
give his enemies any plea for passing a similar resolution with respect to
himself. Valenciennes was so celebrated as a frontier town, that the mere
fact of his fixing himself there might easily be represented as an
evidence of his intention to quit the kingdom. But there was a small town
of considerable strength named Montmédy, in the district under the command
of the Marquis de Bouillé, which afforded all the advantages of
Valenciennes, and did not appear equally liable to the same objections.
Montmédy, therefore, was fixed upon; and, in the very first week of
February, Marie Antoinette announced the decision to Mercy; and began her
own preparations by sending him a jewel-case full of those diamonds which
were her private property. She explained to him at considerable length the
reasons which had dictated the choice. The very smallness of Montmédy was
in itself a recommendation, since it would prevent any one from thinking
it likely to be selected as a refuge. It was also so near Luxembourg that,
in the present temper of the nation, which regarded the Austrian power
with "a panic fear," any addition which M. de Bouillé might make to either
the garrison or to his supplies would seem only a wise precaution against
the much-dreaded foreigner. Moreover, the troops in that district were
among the most loyal and well-disposed in the whole army; and if the king
should find it unsafe to remain long at Montmédy, he would have a
trustworthy escort to retreat to Alsace.
She also explained the reasons which had led them to decide on quitting
Paris secretly by night. If they started in the daytime, it would be
necessary to have detachments of troops planted at different spots on
their road to protect them. But M. de Bouillé could not rely on all his
own regiments for such a service, and still less on the National Guards in
the different towns; while to bring up fresh forces from distant quarters
would attract attention, and awaken suspicions beforehand which might be
fatal to the enterprise. Montmédy, therefore, had been decided on, and the
plans were already so far settled that she could tell Mercy that they
should take Madame de Tourzel with them, and travel in one single
carriage, which they had never been seen to use before.
Their preparations had even gone beyond these details, minute as they
were. The king was already collecting materials for a manifesto which he
designed to publish the moment that he found himself safely out of Paris.
It would explain the reasons for his flight; it would declare an amnesty
to the people in general, to whom it would impute no worse fault than that
of being misled (none being excepted but the chief leaders of the disloyal
factions; the city of Paris, unless it should at once return to its
ancient tranquillity; and any persons or bodies who might persist in
remaining in arms). To the nation in general the manifesto would breathe
nothing but affection. The Parliaments would be re-established, but only
as judicial tribunals, which should have no pretense to meddle with the
affairs of administration or finance. In short, the king and she had
determined to take his declaration of the 23d of June[12] as the basis of
the Constitution, with such modifications as subsequent circumstances
might have suggested. Religion would be one of the matters placed in the
foreground.
So sanguine were they, or rather was she, of success, that she had even
taken into consideration the principles on which future ministries should
be constituted; and here for the first time she speaks of herself as
chiefly concerned in planning the future arrangements. "In private we
occupy ourselves with discussing the very difficult choice which we shall
have to make of the persons whom we shall desire to call around us when we
are at liberty. I think that it will be best to place a single man at the
head of affairs, as M. Maurepas was formerly; and if it be settled in this
way, the king would thus escape having to transact business with each
individual minister separately, and affairs would proceed more uniformly
and more steadily. Tell me what you think of this idea. The fit man is not
easy to find, and the more I look for him, the greater inconveniences do I
see in all that occur to me."
She proceeds to discuss foreign affairs, the probable views and future
conduct of almost every power in Europe--of Holland, Prussia, Spain,
Sweden, England; still showing the lingering jealousy which she
entertained of the British Government, which she suspected of wishing to
detach the chivalrous Gustavus from the alliance of France by the offer of
a subsidy. But she is sanguine that, "though some may he glad to see the
influence of France diminished, no wise statesman in any country can
desire her ruin or dismemberment. What is going on in France would be an
example too dangerous to other countries, if it were left unpunished.
Their cause is the cause of all kings, and not a simple political
difficulty.[13]"
The whole letter is a most remarkable one, and fully bears out the
eulogies which all who had an opportunity of judging pronounced on her
ability. But the most striking reflection which it suggests is with what
admirable sagacity the whole of the arrangements for the flight of the
royal family had been concerted, and with what judgment the agents had
been chosen, since, though the enterprise was not attempted till more than
four months after this letter was written, the secret was kept through the
whole of that time without the slightest hint of it having been given, or
the slightest suspicion of it having been conceived, by the most watchful
or the most malignant of the king's enemies.
Yet during the winter and early spring the conduct of the Jacobin party in
the Assembly, and of the Parisian mob whom they were keeping in a constant
state of excitement, increased in violence; while one occurrence which
took place was, in Mirabeau's opinion, especially calculated to prompt a
suspicion of the king's intentions. Louis had at, last, and with extreme
reluctance, sanctioned, the bill which required the clergy to take an oath
to comply with the new ecclesiastical arrangements, in the vain hope that
the framers of it would be content with their triumph, and would forbear
to enforce it by fixing any precise date for administering the oath. But,
at the end of January, Barnave obtained from the Assembly a decree that it
should be taken within twenty-four hours, under the penalty of deprivation
of all their preferments to all who should refuse it; the clerical members
of the Assembly were even threatened by the mob in the galleries with
instant death if they declined or even delayed to swear. And as very few
of any rank complied, the main body of the clergy was instantly stripped
of all their appointments and reduced to beggary, and a large proportion
of them fled at once from the kingdom. Those who took the oath, and who in
consequence were appointed to the offices thus vacated, were immediately
condemned and denounced by the pope; and the consequence was that a great
number of their flocks fled with their old priests, not being able to
reconcile to their consciences to stay and receive the sacrament and rites
of the Church from ministers under the ban of its head.
Among those who thus fled were the king's two aunts, the Princesses
Adelaide and Victoire. Bigotry was their only virtue; and they determined
to seek shelter in Rome. Louis highly disapproved of the step, which, as
Mirabeau,[14] in a very elaborate and forcible memorial which he drew up
and submitted to him, pointed out, might be very dangerous for the king
and queen as well as for themselves, since it could be easily represented
by the evil-minded as a certain proof that they also were designing to
flee. And he even recommended that Louis should formally notify to the
Assembly that he disapproved of his aunts' journey, and should make it a
pretext for demanding a law which should give him the power of regulating
the movements of the members of his family.
The flight of the princesses, however, did not, as it turned out, cause
any inconvenience to the king or queen, though it did endanger themselves;
for, though they were furnished with passports, the municipal authorities
tried to stop them at Moret; and at Arnay-le-Duc the mob unharnessed their
horses and detained them by force They appealed to the Assembly by letter;
Alexander Lameth, on this occasion uniting with the most violent Jacobins,
was not ashamed to move that orders should be dispatched to send them back
to Paris: but the body of the Assembly had not yet descended to the
baseness of warring with women; and Mirabeau, who treated the proposal as
ridiculous, and overwhelmed the mover with his wit, had no difficulty in
procuring an order that the fugitives, "two princesses of advanced age and
timorous consciences," as he called them, should be allowed to proceed on
their journey.