Preparation for a New Insurrection.--Barbaroux brings up a Gang from
Marseilles.--The King's last Levee.--The Assembly rejects a Motion for the
Impeachment of La Fayette.--It removes some Regiments from Paris.--
Preparations of the Court for Defense.--The 10th of August.--The City is
in Insurrection.--Murder of Mandat.--Louis reviews the Guards.--He takes
Refuge with the Assembly.--Massacre of the Swiss Guards.--Sack of the
Tuileries.--Discussions in the Assembly.--The Royal Authority is
suspended.
The die was cast. Nothing was left but to wait, with such patience as
might be, for the coming explosion, which was sure not to be long
deferred. Madame de Staël has said that there never can be a conspiracy,
in the proper sense of the word, in Paris; and that if there could be one,
it would be superfluous, since every one at all times follows the
majority, and no one ever keeps a secret. But on this occasion the chief
movers of sedition studiously discarded all appearance of concealment.
Vergniaud, Guadet, and Gensonné wrote the king a letter couched in terms
of the most insolent defiance, and signed with all their names, in which
they openly announced to him that an insurrection was organized which
should be abandoned if he replaced Roland and his colleagues in the
ministry, but which should surely break on the palace and overwhelm it if
he refused. And Barbaroux, who had promised Madame Roland to bring up from
Marseilles and other towns in the south a band of men capable of any
atrocity, had collected a gang of five hundred miscreants, the refuse of
the galleys and the jails, and paraded them in triumph through the
streets, which their arrival was destined and intended to deluge with
blood.
And yet Louis, or, to speak more correctly, Marie Antoinette, for it was
with her that every decision rested, preferred to face the impending
struggle in Paris. She still believed that the king had many friends in
whose devotion and gallantry he could confide to the very death. On
Sunday, the 5th of August, the very last Sunday which he was ever to
behold as the acknowledged sovereign of the land, his levee was attended
by a more than usually numerous and brilliant company; though the gayety
appropriate to such a scene was on this occasion clouded over by the
anxiety for their royal master and mistress which sobered every one's
demeanor, and spread a gloom over every countenance. And three days later
both the Assembly and the National Guard displayed feelings which, to so
sanguine a temper as hers, seemed to show a disposition to make a stout
resistance to the further progress of disorder. The Assembly, by a
majority of more than two to one, rejected a motion made by Vergniaud for
the impeachment of La Fayette for his conduct in June; and when the mob
fell upon those who had voted against it, as they came out of the hall,
the National Guard came promptly to their rescue, and inflicted severe
chastisement on the foremost of the rioters.
The vote of the Assembly may be said to have been the last it ever gave
for any object but the promotion of anarchy. It more than neutralized its
effect the very next day, when it passed a decree for the immediate
removal of three regiments of the line which were quartered in Paris. It
even at first included in its resolution the Swiss Guards also; but was
subsequently compelled to withdraw that clause, since an old treaty with
Switzerland expressly secured to the republic the right of always
furnishing a regiment for the honorable service of guarding the palace.
And at the same time, as if to punish the National Guard for its conduct
on the previous day, another vote broke up the staff of that force;
cashiered its finest companies, the grenadiers and the mounted troopers,
on the plea that such distinctions were inconsistent with equality; and
filled up the vacancies with men who were the very dregs of the city, many
of whom were, in fact, secret agents of the Jacobins, by whose aid they
hoped to spread disaffection through the entire force.
The afternoon of the 9th was passed in anxious preparation by both the
conspirators and those whom they were about to attack. The king and queen
were not destitute of faithful adherents, whom their very danger only
rendered the more zealous to place all their strength, their valor, and,
as they truly foreboded, their lives, at the disposal of their honored and
threatened sovereigns. The veteran Marshal de Mailly, one of those gallant
nobles whose devoted loyalty had been so scandalously insulted by La
Fayette[1] in the spring of the preceding year, though now eighty years of
age, hastened to the defense of his royal master and mistress, and brought
with him a chivalrous phalanx of above a hundred gentlemen, all animated
with the same self-sacrificing heroism, as his own, to fight, or, if need
should be, to die for their king and queen, though they had no arms but
their swords. It seemed fortunate, too, that the command of the National
Guard for the day fell by rotation to an officer named Mandat, a man of
high professional skill, intrepid courage, and unshaken in his zeal for
the royal cause, though in former days the constitutionalists had reckoned
him among their adherents. His brigade numbered about two thousand four
hundred men, on most of whom he could thoroughly rely. And it was no
slight proof of his force of character and energy, as well as of his
address, that, as the National Guard could not be employed out of the
routine of their regular duty without a special authorisation from the
civil power, he contrived to extort from Pétion, as mayor of the city, a
formal authority to augment his brigade for the special occasion, and, if
force should be used against him, to repel it by force.
The Swiss Guard of about a thousand men were all trustworthy; and there
was also a small body of heavy cavalry of the gendarmery who had proved
true enough to resist all the seductions of the conspirators. There were
likewise a few cannon. In all, nearly four thousand men could be mustered
for the defense of the palace; a force, if well equipped and well led, not
inadequate to the task of holding it out for some time against any number
of undisciplined assailants. But they were not well armed. They were
nearly destitute of ammunition, and Mandat's most vehement entreaties and
remonstrances could not wring out from Pétion an order for a supply of
cartridges, though, as he told him, several companies had not four rounds
left, some had only one; and though it was notorious that the police had
served out ammunition to the Marseillese, who had no claim to a single
bullet. Still less were they well led; for at such a crisis every thing
depended on the king's example, and Louis was utterly wanting to himself.
As night approached, the agitation in the palace, and still more in the
city, grew more and more intense. It was a brilliant and a warm night. By
ten o'clock the mob began to cluster in the streets, many only curious and
anxious from uncertain fear; those in the secret hastening toward the
point of rendezvous. The rioters also had cannon, and by eleven their
artillery-men had taken charge of their guns. The conspirators had got
possession of all the churches; and as the hour of midnight struck, a
single cannon-shot gave the signal, and from every steeple and tower in
the city the fatal tocsin began to peal. The insurrection was begun.
Pétion, who, from some motive which is not very intelligible, wished to
save appearances, and who, though in fact he had been eager in promoting
the insurrection, pretended innocence of all complicity in it even to the
Assembly, whom he was aware that he was not deceiving, on the first sound
of the bells repaired to the Hôtel de Ville. He found, as indeed he was
aware that he should find, a strange addition to the Municipal Council.
The majority of the sections of the city had declared themselves in
insurrection; had passed resolutions that they would no longer obey the
existing magistrates; and had appointed a body of commissioners to
overbear them, trusting in the cowardice of the majority, and in the
willing acquiescence and co-operation of Danton and the other members of
the party of violence. The commissioners seized on a room in the Hôtel by
the side of the regular council-room, and their first measures were marked
with a cunning and unscrupulousness which largely contributed to the
success of their more active comrades in the streets. Even Pétion himself
was not wicked enough or resolute enough for them. The authority which
Mandat had wrung from him on the previous morning was, in their eyes, a
proof of unpardonable weakness. He might be terrified into issuing some
other order which might disconcert or at least impede their plans; and
accordingly they put him under a kind of honorable arrest, and sent him to
his own house under the guard of an armed force, which was instructed to
allow no one access to him; and at the same time they sent an order in his
name to Mandat to repair to the Hôtel de Ville, to concert with them the
measures necessary for the safety of the city.
Had he acted on his own judgment, Mandat would have disregarded the
summons; but M. Roederer urged upon him that he was bound to comply with
an order brought in the name of the mayor. Accordingly he repaired to the
Hôtel de Ville, and gave to the Municipal Council so distinct an account
of his measures, and of his reason for taking them, that, though Danton
and some of his more factious colleagues reproached him for exhibiting
what they called a needless distrust of the people, the majority of the
Council approved of his conduct, and dismissed him to return to his
duties. But as he quit their chamber, he was dragged before the other
body, the Commissioners of the Sections,[2] and subjected to another
examination, which, as a matter of course, they conducted with every kind
of insult and violence. The Municipal Council sent down a deputation to
remonstrate with them; they rose on the Council and expelled them from
their own council-chamber by main force, and then sent off Mandat to
prison, whither, a few minutes later, they dispatched a gang of assassins
to murder him.
The news of his death soon reached the Tuileries, where it struck a chill
even into the firm heart of the queen,[3] who had deservedly placed great
reliance on his fidelity and resolution. She had now to trust to the valor
and loyalty of the troops themselves, though thus deprived of their
commander; and, as a last hope, she persuaded the king to go down and
review them, hoping that his presence might animate the faithful, and
perhaps fix the waverers. Louis consented, as he would have consented to
any course that was recommended to him; but on such occasions more depends
on the grace and spirit with which a thing is done than on the act itself,
and grace and spirit were now less than ever to be looked for in the
unhappy Louis. He visited first the courts of the palace, and the
Carrousel, and then the gardens, at whose different entrances strong
detachments of troops were stationed. When he first appeared he was
greeted by one general cheer of "Vive le roi!" But as he passed along the
ranks the unanimity and loyalty began to disappear. Even of those
regiments which were still true to him the cheers were faint, as if half
suppressed by alarm; while many companies mingled shouts for "the nation"
with those for himself, and individual soldiers murmured audibly, "Down
with the Veto!" or, "Long live the Sans-culottes!" secure that their
officers would not venture to reprove, much less to chastise them. The
Swiss Guard alone showed enthusiasm in their loyalty and resolution in
their demeanor.
But when he reached the artillery, on whom perhaps most depended, many of
the gunners made no secret of their disaffection. Some even quit their
ranks to offer him personal insults, doubling their fists in his face, and
shouting out the coarsest threats which the Revolution had yet taught
them. Both cheers and insults the hapless king received with almost equal
apathy. The despair which was in his heart was shown in his dress, which
had no military character or decoration, but was a suit of plain violet
such as was never worn by kings of France but on occasions of mourning. It
was to no purpose that the queen put a sword into his hand, and exhorted
him to take the command of the troops himself, and to show himself ready
to fight in person for his crown. It was only once or twice that he could
even be brought to utter a few words of acknowledgment to those who
treated him with respect, of expostulation to those who insulted and
threatened him; and presently, pale, and, as it seemed, exhausted with
that slight effort, he returned to his apartments.
The queen was almost in despair. She told Madame de Campan that all was
lost; that the king had shown no energy; that such a review as that had
done harm rather than good. All that could now be done was for her to show
herself not wanting to the occasion, nor to him. Her courage rose with the
imminence of the danger. Those who beheld her, as with dilating eyes and
heightened color she listened to the unceasing tumult, and, repressing
every appearance of alarm, strove with unabated energy to rouse her
husband, and to fortify the good disposition of the loyal friends around
her, have described in terms of enthusiastic admiration the majestic
dignity of her demeanor at this trying moment. She had need of all her
presence of mind; for even among those who were most faithful to her
dissensions were springing up. At the first alarm Marshal de Mailly and
his company of gallant nobles and gentlemen had hastened to her side; but
the National Guards were jealous of them. It seemed as if they expected to
be allowed to remain nearest to the royal person; and the soldiers
disdained to yield the post of honor to men who were not in uniform, and
whom, as they were mostly in court dress, they even disliked as
aristocrats. They besought the queen to dismiss them. "Never!" she
replied; and, trusting rather that the example of their self-sacrificing
devotion might stimulate those who thus complained, and full of that royal
magnanimity which feels that it confers honor on those whom it trusts, and
that it has a right to look for the loyalty of its servants even to the
death, she added, "They will serve with you, and share your dangers. They
will fight with you in the van, in the rear, where you will. They will
show you how men can die for their king."
But meanwhile the insurgents were rapidly approaching the palace, and
already the tramp of the leading column might be heard. The tocsin had
continued its ominous sound throughout the night, and at six in the
morning the main body of the insurgents, twenty thousand strong, and well
armed--for the new council had opened to them the stores of the arsenal--
began their march under the command of Santerre. As they advanced they
were joined by the Marseillese, who had been quartered in a barrack near
the Hall of the Cordeliers, and their numbers were further swelled by
thousands of the populace. Soon after eight they reached the Carrousel,
forced the gates, and pressed on to the royal court, the National Guard
and Swiss falling back before them to the entrance to the royal
apartments, where the more confined space seemed to afford a better
prospect of making an effectual resistance.
But already the palace was deserted by those who were the intended objects
of the attack. Roederer, and one or two of the municipal magistrates, in
whom the indignity with which the new commissioners of the sections had
treated them had excited a feeling of personal indignation, had been
actively endeavoring to rouse the National Guards to an energetic
resistance; but they had wholly failed. Those who listened to them most
favorably would only promise to defend themselves if attacked, while some
of the artillery-men drew the charges from their guns and extinguished
their matches. Roederer, whom the strange vicissitudes of the crisis had
for the moment rendered the king's chief adviser, though there seems no
reason to doubt his good faith, was not a man of that fiery courage which
hopes against hope, and can stimulate waverers by its example. He saw that
if the rioters should succeed in storming the palace, and should find the
king and his family there, the moment that made them masters of their
persons would be the last of their lives and of the monarchy. He returned
into the palace to represent to Louis the utter hopelessness of making any
defense, and to recommend him, as his sole resource, to claim the
protection of the Assembly. The queen, who, to use her own words, would
have preferred being nailed to the walls of the palace to seeking a refuge
which she deemed degrading, pointed to the soldiers, and showed by her
gestures that they were the only protectors whom it became them to look
to. Roederer assured her that they could not he relied on. She seemed
unconvinced. He almost forgot his respect in his earnestness. "If you
refuse, madame, you will be guilty of the blood of the king, of your two
children; you will destroy yourself, and every soul within the palace."
While she was still hesitating between her feeling of shame and her
anxiety for those dearest to her, the king gave the word. "Let us go,"
said he. "Let us give this last proof of our devotion to the
Constitution." The princess spoke. "Could Roederer answer for the king's
life?" He affirmed that he would answer for it with his own. The queen
repeated the question. "Madame," he replied, "we will answer for dying at
your side--that is all that we can promise." "Let us go," said Louis, and
moved toward the door. Even at the last moment, one officer, M. Boscari,
commander of a battalion of the National Guard, known as that of Les
Filles St. Thomas, whose loyalty no disaster had ever been able to shake,
implored him to change his mind. His men, united to the Swiss, would be
able, he said, to cut a way for the royal family to the Rouen road; the
insurgents were all on the other side of the city, and nothing could
resist him. But again, as on all previous occasions, Louis rejected the
brave advice. He pleaded the risk to which he should expose those dearest
to him, and led them to almost certain death in committing them to the
Assembly. Some of De Mailly's gentlemen gathered round him to accompany
him; but such an escort seemed to Roederer likely to provoke additional
animosity, and at his entreaty Louis trusted himself to a company of his
faithful Swiss and to a detachment of the National Guard, who formed
themselves into an escort to conduct him to the Assembly, whose hall
looked into one side of the palace garden.
The minister for foreign affairs walked at his side. The queen leaned on
the arm of M. Dubouchage, the minister of marine, and with the other hand
led the dauphin. The Princess Elizabeth and the princess royal followed
with another minister. And thus, with the Princess de Lamballe, Madame de
Tourzel, and one or two other ministers and attendants, the royal family
left the palace of their ancestors, which only one of them was ever to
behold again. As they quit the saloon, moved down the stairs, and crossed
the garden, their every step was one toward a downfall and a destruction
which could never be retraced. Marie Antoinette felt it to be so, and, as
she reached the foot of the staircase, cast restless and anxious glances
around, looking perhaps even then for any prospect of succor or of
effectual resistance which might present itself. One of the Swiss
misunderstood her, and with rude fidelity endeavored to encourage her.
"Fear nothing, madame," said he, "your majesty is surrounded by honest
citizens." She laid her hand on her heart. "I do fear nothing," and passed
on without another word.
As they crossed the garden the king broke the silence. "How unusually
early," he remarked, "the leaves fall this year!" To those who heard him,
the bareness which he remarked seemed an omen of the fate which awaited
himself, about to be stripped of his royal dignity; perhaps even, like
some superfluous crowder of the grove, to fall beneath the axe. The
Assembly had already been deliberating whether it should invite him to
take refuge with them when they heard that he was approaching. It was
instantly voted that a deputation should be sent to meet him, which, after
a few words of respectful salutation, fell in behind. A vast crowd was
collected outside the doors of the hall. They hooted the king, and, still
more bitterly, the queen, as they advanced. "Down with Veto!" was the
chief cry; but mingled with it were still more unmanly insults, invoking
more especially death on all the women. But the Guards kept the mob at a
distance, though when they reached the hall the Jacobins made an effort to
deprive them of that protection. They declared that it was illegal for
soldiers to enter the hall, as indeed it was; yet without them the princes
must at the last moment have been exposed to all the fury of the mob. At
this critical moment Roederer showed both fidelity and presence of mind.
He implored the deputies to suspend the law which forbade the entrance of
the troops, and, while the Jacobins were reviling him and his proposal, he
pretended to suppose that it had been agreed to, and led forward a
detachment of soldiers who cleared the way. One grenadier look up the
dauphin in his arms and carried him in; and, although the pressure of the
crowd was extreme, at last the whole family were placed within the hall in
such safety as the Assembly was able or disposed to afford them.
Louis bore himself not without dignity. His words were few but calm. "I am
come here to prevent a great crime. I think I can not be better placed,
nor more safely, gentlemen, than among you." The president, who happened
to be Vergniaud, while appearing to desire to give him confidence, yet
avoided uttering a single word, except the simple address of "sire," which
should be a recognition of the royal dignity, if indeed his speech was not
a studied disavowal of it. Louis might reckon, he said, on the firmness of
the National Assembly: its members had sworn to die in support of the
rights of the people and of the constituted authorities: and then, on the
plea that the Assembly must continue its deliberations, and that the law
forbade them to be conducted in the presence of the sovereign, he assigned
him and his family a little box behind the president's chair, which was
usually set apart for the reporters of the debates. A Jacobin deputy
proposed their removal into one of the committee-rooms, with the idea, as
he afterward boasted, that it would be easy there to admit a band of
assassins to murder them all; but Vergniaud and his party divined his
object and overruled him. It might seem that the Girondins, though they
had been the original promoters and chief organizers of the insurrection,
were as yet disposed to be content with the overthrow of the throne, and
had not arrived at the hardihood which can not be sated without murder;
and it is a remarkable instance of the rapidity with which unprincipled
men sink deeper and deeper into iniquity, that they who now exerted
themselves successfully to save the life of Louis, five months afterward
were as unanimous as the most ferocious Jacobins in destroying him.
One object of Louis in abandoning his palace had been to save the lives of
the National Guards and of the Swiss, by withdrawing them from what he
regarded as an unequal combat with the infuriated multitude; and of the
National Guard the greater part did escape, drawing off silently in small
detachments, when the sovereign whom it had been their duty to defend,
seemed no longer to require their service. But the Swiss remained bravely
at their posts around the royal staircase, though, as they abstained from
provoking the rioters by any active opposition, which now seemed to have
no object, they hoped that they might escape attack. But the mob and
Santerre were bent on their destruction. Some of the insurgents tried to
provoke them by threats. Some endeavored to tamper with them to desert
their allegiance. But an accidental interruption suddenly terminated their
brief period of inaction. In the confusion a pistol went off, and the
Swiss fancied it was meant as a signal for an assault upon them. Thinking
that the time was come to defend their own lives, they leveled their
muskets and fired: they charged down the steps, driving the insurgents
before them like sheep; they cleared the inner or royal court, forced
their way into the Carrousel, recovered the cannon which were posted in
the large square, and were so completely victorious that, had there been
any superior officer at hand to direct their movements, they might even
now have checked the insurrection.
There might even have been some hope had not Louis himself actually
interfered to check their exertions. Hearing what they had accomplished,
the gallant D'Hervilly made his way to them, and called on them to follow
him to the rescue of the king. They hesitated, unwilling to leave their
wounded comrades to the mercy of their enemies; but their hesitation was
brief, for it was put an end to by the wounded men themselves, who bid
them hasten forward; their duty, they told them, was to save the king; for
themselves, they could but die where they lay.[4] There were still plenty
of gallant spirits to do their duty to the king, if he could but have been
persuaded to take a right view of his duty to himself and to them.
The Swiss gladly obeyed D'Hervilly's summons. Forming in close order, and
as steady as on parade, they marched through the garden, one battalion
moving toward the end opposite to the palace, where there was a
draw-bridge which it was essential to secure; the other following
D'Hervilly to the Assembly hall. Nothing could resist their advance: they
forced their way up the stairs; and in a few moments a young officer, M.
de Salis, at the head of a small detachment, sword in hand, entered the
chamber. Some of the deputies shrieked and fled, while others, more calm,
reminded him that armed men were forbidden to enter the hall, and ordered
him to retire. He refused, and sent his subaltern to the king for orders.
But Louis still held to his strange policy of non-resistance. Even the
terrible scenes of the morning, and the deliberate attack of an armed mob
upon his palace, had failed to eradicate his unwillingness to authorize
his own Guards to fight in his behalf, or to convince him that when his
throne (perhaps even his life and the lives of all his family) was at
stake, it was nobler to struggle for victory, and, if defeated, to die
with arms in his hands, than tamely to sit still and be stripped of his
kingly dignity by brigands and traitors. Could he but have summoned energy
to put himself at the head of his faithful Guards, as we may be sure that
his brave wife urged him to do; could he have even sent them one
encouraging order, one cheering word, there still might have been hope;
for they had already proved that no number of Santerre's ruffians could
stand before them.[5] But Louis could not even now bring himself to act;
he could only suffer. His command to the officer, the last he ever issued,
was for the whole battalion to lay down their arms, to evacuate the
palace, and to retire to their barracks. He would not, he said, that such
brave men should die. They knew that in fact he was consigning them to
death without honor; but they were loyal to the last. They obeyed, though
their obedience to the first part of the order rendered the last part
impracticable. They laid down their arms, and were at once made prisoners;
and the fate of prisoners in such hands as those of their captors was
certain. A small handful, consisting, it is said, of fourteen men, escaped
through the courage of one or two friends, who presently brought them
plain clothes to exchange for their uniforms, but before night all the
rest were massacred.
Not more fortunate were their comrades of the other battalion, except in
falling by a more soldier-like death. Though no longer supported by the
detachment under D'Hervilly, they succeeded in forcing their way to the
draw-bridge. It was held by a strong detachment of the National Guard, who
ought to have received them as comrades, but who had now caught the
contagion of successful treason, and fired on them as they advanced. But
the gallant Swiss, in spite of their diminished numbers still invincible,
charged through them, forced their way across the bridge into the Place
Louis XV., and there formed themselves into square, resolved to sell their
lives dearly. It was all that was left to them to do. The mounted
gendarmery, too, came up and turned against them. Hemmed in on all sides,
they fell one after another; Louis, who had refused to let them die for
him, having only given their death the additional pang that it had been of
no service to him.
The retreat of the king had left the Tuileries at the mercy of the
rioters. Furious to find that he had escaped them, they wreaked their rage
on the lifeless furniture, breaking, hewing, and destroying in every way
that wantonness or malice could devise. Different articles which had
belonged to the queen were the especial objects of their wrath. Crowds of
the vilest women arrayed themselves in her dresses, or defiled her bed.
Her looking-glasses were broken, with imprecations, because they had
reflected her features. Her footmen were pursued and slaughtered because
they had been wont to obey her. Nor were the monsters who slew them
contented with murder. They tore the dead bodies into pieces; devoured the
still bleeding fragments, or deliberately lighted fire and cooked them;
or, hoisting the severed limbs on pikes, carried them in fiendish triumph
through the streets.
And while these horrors were going on in the palace, the tumult in the
Assembly was scarcely less furious. The majority of the members--all,
indeed, except the Girondins and Jacobins, who were secure in their
alliance with the ringleaders--were panic-stricken. Many fled, but the
rest sat still, and in terrified helplessness voted whatever resolutions
the fiercest of the king's enemies chose to propose. It was an ominous
preliminary to their deliberations that they admitted a deputation from
the commissioners of the sections into the hall, where Guadet, to whom
Vergniaud had surrendered the president's chair, thanked them for their
zeal, and assured them that the Assembly regarded them as virtuous
citizens only anxious for the restoration of peace and order. They were
even formally recognized as the Municipal Council; and then, on the motion
of Vergniaud, the Assembly passed a series of resolutions, ordering the
suspension of Louis from all authority; his confinement in the Luxembourg
Palace; the dismissal and impeachment of his ministers; the re-appointment
of Roland and those of his colleagues whom he had dismissed, and the
immediate election of a National Convention. A large pecuniary reward was
even voted for the Marseillese, and for similar gangs from one or two
other departments which had been brought up to Paris to take a part in the
insurrection.
Yet so deeply seated were hope and confidence in the queen's heart, so
sanguine was her trust that out of the mutual enmity of the populace and
the Assembly safety would still be wrought for the king and the monarchy,
that even while the din of battle was raging outside the hall, and inside
deputy after deputy was rising to heap insults on the king and on herself,
or to second Vergniaud's resolutions for his formal degradation, she could
still believe that the tide was about to turn in her favor. While the
uproar was at its height she turned to D'Hervilly, who still kept his
post, faithful and fearless, at his master's side. "Well, M. d'Hervilly,"
said she, with an air, as M. Bertrand, who tells the story, describes it,
of the most perfect security, "did we not do well not to leave Paris?" "I
pray God," said the brave noble, "that your majesty may be able to ask me
the same question in six months' time.[6]" His foreboding was truer than
her hopes. In less than six months she was a desolate, imprisoned widow,
helplessly awaiting her own fate from her husband's murderers.
All these resolutions of Vergniaud, all the ribald abuse with which
different members supported them, the unhappy sovereigns were condemned to
hear in the narrow box to which they had been removed. They bore the
insults, the queen with her habitual dignity, the king with his inveterate
apathy; Louis even speaking occasionally with apparent cheerfulness to
some of the deputies. The constant interruptions protracted the
discussions through the entire day. It was half-past three in the morning
before the Assembly adjourned, when the king and his family were removed
to the adjacent Convent of the Feuillants, where four wretched cells had
been hastily furnished with camp-beds, and a few other necessaries of the
coarsest description. So little was any attempt made to disguise the fact
that they were prisoners, that their own domestic servants were not
allowed the next day to attend them till they had received a formal ticket
of admittance from the president. Yet even in this extremity of distress
Marie Antoinette thought of others rather than of herself; and when at
last her faithful attendant, Madame de Campan, obtained access to her, her
first words expressed how greatly her own sorrows were aggravated by the
thought that she had involved in them those loyal friends whose attachment
merited a very different recompense.[7]