_Mademoiselle de Sombreuil and the Glass of Blood._
"... In the Abbaye, Sombreuil, the venerable Governor of the Invalides,
was brought up to the table, and Maillard had pronounced the words 'à
la Force,' when the Governor's daughter, likewise a prisoner, rushed
through pikes and sabres, clasped her old father in her arms so tightly
that none could separate her from him, and made such piteous cries and
prayers that some were touched. She vowed that her father was no
aristocrat, that she herself hated aristocrats. But to put her to a
further proof, or to indulge their bestial caprices, the ruffians
presented to her a cup full of blood, and said 'Drink! drink of the
blood of the aristocrats, and your father shall be saved!' The lady
took the horrible cup, and drank and the monsters kept their promise."
Thus, in relating the massacres of September, writes the author of Knight's
_Pictorial Hist. of Engl._ (Reign of Geo. III., vol. iii. p. 160.); and
thus tradition has handed down to us this most horrible episode of the
first French revolution; one which made so deep an impression on my own
mind, that the scene was always uppermost whenever the atrocities committed
during that eventful period of French history were under consideration.
This impression, I am glad to say, has now been removed by M. Granier de
Cassagnac, who (_Histoire du Directoire_) states that the tradition is not
founded on fact; and as it is the first denial of the event which has come
under my notice, I send you the substance of the evidence which M. de
Cassagnac brings forward in support of his statement:-- {606}
1. The Marquise de Fausse-Lendry, in her work, _Quelques-uns des Fruits
amers de la Révolution_, does not make any allusion to the fact, although
she was in the same chamber with Mlle. de Sombreuil, and relates her heroic
devotion to her father.
2. Peltier, who was in Paris at the time, and published his _Histoire de la
Révolution du 10 Août_ early in 1793, does not say a word as to the
occurrence.
3. The report of Piette, which was drawn up in Mlle. de Sombreuil's favour,
and from details supplied by herself, is completely silent on the matter.
4. Being arrested with her father, and her younger brother, Mlle. de
Sombreuil was taken to the Prison de la Bourbe on the 31st of December,
1793. One of the prisoners thus notices the event in his journal:
"Du 11 Nivôse, an II.
"L'on amena aussi a famille Sombreuil, le père, le fils, et la fille:
tout le monde sait que cette courageuse citoyenne se précipita, dans
les journées du mois de Septembre, entre son père et le fer des
assassins, et parvint à l'arracher de leurs mains. Depuis, sa tendresse
n'avait fait que s'accroître, et il n'est sorte de soins qu'elle ne
prodiguât à son père, malgré les horribles convulsions qui la
tourmentaient tous les mois, pendant trois jours, depuis cette
lamentable époque. Quand elle parut au salon, tous les yeux se fixèrent
sur elle et se remplirent de larmes."--_Tableau des Prisons de Paris
sous Robespierre_, p. 93.
Here again, not a word about the glass of blood, although the narrative was
written at no very distant period from the occurrences of September.
Maton de la Varennes, in his _Hist. particulière des Evènemens_, written
subsequent to the events of Fructidor, year V., is enthusiastic in his
praise of Mlle. de S.'s devotion; but says not a word as to the horrible
sacrifice by which she is represented to have purchased her father's life.
The tradition is found for the first time in print in a note to Legouvé's
_Mérite des Femmes_, which appeared in 1801; and the subject has been
consecrated by the pen of the exiled poet Victor Hugo, in an ode to Mlle.
de Sombreuil. Since then M. Thiers, without further looking into the
matter, has given place to it in his _Hist. de la Révolut. Française_: