A last arrow remained in the quiver of the Court party.
The course pursued by the National Assembly after the reunion of
the orders, proved to the aristocracy that a revolution could
alone reinstate them in their ancient prerogatives and save them
from disappearing as a class in the rising tide. They meditated a
revolution accordingly, to be thus executed: the king and queen were to
escape from Versailles and take refuge in the fortress of Metz, then
powerfully garrisoned, and the head quarters of the army; when there,
they could dissolve the Assembly, reduce Paris, and re-establish the
ancient régime.
With their usual recklessness and folly, the members of this party
allowed their plot to become public; they boasted and threatened, and
enrolled members in the conspiracy, exasperating and alarming the
popular party to such an extent that it became apparent to every one
that a few days must decide whether the revolution was to be begun by
the nobles or by the people.
The king and his family must not remain at Versailles, that was the
conclusion of each party. Was he to be taken to Metz or to Paris? In
the first case, the country would be plunged in civil war; the other
alternative made the extinction of the aristocracy, as a class, certain.
In the meantime, the French guard had been dismissed from their
attendance on the royal family, and the palace was placed under the
protection of the Swiss and the body-guard alone.
A Flanders regiment was introduced into Versailles, and two hundred
chasseurs of the Trois-Évêchés, from their barracks at Rambouillet, and
the same number of the dragoons of Lorraine.
On the 2nd of October a dinner was given by the body-guard to the
newly-arrived Flemish regiment, in the theatre of the palace. The stage
was occupied by the officers, seated at a horse-shoe table; in the
orchestra were the bands of the corps, and in the pit the tables of the
soldiers of the Flemish regiment, the chasseurs, and the dragoons of
Lorraine.
After the feast had lasted some hours, the king and the queen appeared
in the royal box. Instantly an unanimous cry of 'Long live the king!
long live the queen!' arose from the hall. All the banqueters rose,
and the soldiers of Flanders and Lorraine, delighted to see the royal
family, whom they hardly knew, overleaped the balustrade of the
amphitheatre to approach and cheer them.
The king, moved by these tokens of affection, left his box and went
round the table on the stage followed by the queen, who held her
daughter by the hand, whilst the dauphin was carried by an officer of
the guards.
In the midst of the general enthusiasm, the band struck up the air of
Grétry,--'O Richard, O mon roi! l'univers t'abandonne!'
When the royal family retired, they were followed by the officers
and soldiers drunk with enthusiasm and wine, and assembling in the
marble court under the king's windows, they repeated their cheers, and
promises to die in his defence. White cockades were distributed by the
ladies of the court, and a national badge having been shown to the
excited soldiers was greeted with scorn and was trampled under foot.
Next day followed another feast, and a similar display of zeal for the
cause of the queen against that of the nation.
On the 4th, as might have been anticipated, Paris was in an uproar.
The people felt instinctively that not a day was to be lost. The
aristocracy might at any moment snatch the king from Versailles, carry
him to a fortress, surround him with troops, and from thence make him
dictate laws and destroy the scaffolding of the new constitution, in
the erection of which the National Assembly was laboriously engaged. If
the Court party were allowed to steal a march on the people, all was
lost.
The most inflammatory harangues in the Palais Royal assisted in
exciting the general conflagration. The scenes preceding the seizure
of the Bastille were renewed; but there was no fortress to be captured
on this occasion,--it was the person of the king must be secured, that
the democracy might place him in the revolutionary vortex, might keep
watch over him, and disperse the clique which dragged him into schemes
antagonistic to the wishes and welfare of the nation.
On the morning of the 5th, all Paris was in movement; but that which
determined its march on Versailles, was the famine.
In spite of the efforts of the committee of subsistence established by
Bailly, corn, and flour especially, arrived in small quantities.
At four o'clock in the morning a crowd besieged the shops of the
bakers. For hours the people remained patiently _en queue_; then they
began to fight to obtain for money a loaf often insufficient to fill
the mouths that clamoured for it at home. The wretched quality of the
bread added to the fury of the populace. Little more was needed to
produce an explosion. The account of the scenes which had been enacted
at Versailles fell like a spark upon these inflammable tempers, and the
fire blazed forth in an instant.
'Let us bring the baker among us!' cried Madeleine, who, like the
rest, had been waiting for the morning's provision of bread.
'Yes, we must have the chief baker here,' shouted several others.
Madeleine, without another word, seized on a drum, and rattled it
vigorously. The women trooped round her, and in a moment she was at
the head of a legion of famished, furious women, some of whom had not
tasted food for thirty hours.
'Let us march to Versailles,' cried several; 'let us besiege the great
bakehouse.'
'Lead on, you girl with the drum!' cried others.
'Whither shall I lead?' asked Madeleine.
'To Versailles!' was the general shout.
'We will tell the Assembly that we starve,'--'we will bring the king to
Paris, and he shall see how hungry we are,'--'we will surround him, and
protect the good papa from our enemies and his.' Such were some of the
cries that arose.
'Let us go to the Hôtel de Ville!' called another.
'Yes, yes, to the Hôtel de Ville first,' the mob clamoured.
It happened just then that Madame Deschwanden and Gabrielle were
passing. The little lady saw Madeleine at once, and she ran to her,
arrested her in her drumming, and asked, 'My dear! for pity's sake,
what is the matter?'
'Mother, the poor things are starving; and the great nobles at
Versailles are going to carry our king off to Metz and make war on the
people; then we shall have famine and war together.'
'That will never do,' said madame; 'no one will want new caps, and I
shall be out of work. But why are you drumming?'
'Mother! we are going to the Hôtel de Ville first, and then on to
Versailles to bring the king to Paris.'
'Nonsense, Madeleine.'
'We are going to do it,' said the girl bluntly; 'the men are
cowards,--see what the women will do.'
'Oh ecstasy! oh raptures!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden; 'what sport!
it is as good as a play. I shall accompany you, and Gabrielle shall
come too.'
'What, to Versailles?' asked the little peasantess in dismay; 'I pray
you let me remain behind.'
'No, come with me, I will protect you; the day is fine, and we shall
have a charming expedition, and shall see such dresses. Ecstasy!
raptures!'
In vain did Gabrielle plead; Madame Deschwanden linked her arm within
her own and drew her along.
Onward drave the concourse of women--shop-girls, milliners, portresses,
servants, market-women--till they reached the Place de Grève. The
cavalry of the national guard were drawn up there; the women charged
them, and with a volley of stones drove them back, for the soldiers
could not make up their minds to fire upon them.
They would have burnt the Hôtel de Ville, in their ravenous wildness,
because it contained no bread, had not the solemn, gigantic Stanislas
Maillard, one of the conquerors of the Bastille, arrested them. He
beat a drum and obtained a hearing. He offered to conduct the crowd
to Versailles, and the women, liking his appearance and knowing his
name, put themselves under his order. In half an hour the army of women
was in marching order; they drew with them the cannon of the Place de
Grève, and were armed with sticks, cutlasses, and a few guns.
Whilst this troop of women marched to Versailles, Paris was in
ebullition.
Early in the morning, the alarm-bell had been rung by the fellow now in
command of the men who marched after the women. He had been caught in
the act and hung, but his bull-neck had saved him, and the women had
cut him down. The national guard, assembling first in their districts,
betook themselves in a mass to the Hôtel de Ville and filled La
Grève, crying, 'To Versailles!' A deputation of grenadiers sought out
Lafayette, who, along with the municipality, used his utmost endeavours
to arrest the movement. One of these men addressed the general, told
him he was being deceived, that it was time that things should be
brought to a climax, that the people were wretched, that the source of
the evil was at Versailles, and that they were resolved on bringing the
king to Paris.
Lafayette resisted, descended to the square, harangued the grenadiers,
but his voice was drowned by cries of 'To Versailles! to Versailles!'
For several hours he attempted by speeches and by signs to control
the military mob. Then he turned to re-enter the town-hall, but his
grenadiers barred the passage. 'Morbleu! general,' they said, 'you
shall stop with us; you shall not abandon us.'
At length an order was transmitted to him from the municipality
requiring him, 'on account of the urgency of the circumstances and the
desire of the people,' to transport himself to Versailles. The general
mounted his white horse, put himself at the head of his battalions, and
gave the command to march, which was received with acclamations.
It was then six o'clock in the evening, and the rain had begun to fall.
We must return to Versailles.
The ministers had been informed of the march of the women of Paris,
and M. de Saint-Priest wrote a letter to the king, who was out hunting
in the wood of Meudon, urging him to return immediately; and M. de
Cubières, their esquire, was despatched with it, whilst detachments of
the body-guard were sent in different directions to protect the king's
return. At three o'clock M. de Cubières found the king and gave him the
note. 'What!' exclaimed Louis, 'the women of Paris are coming to ask
me for bread. Poor creatures, I would supply them without giving them
the trouble to come for it, if I had it.'
A few minutes after the return of the king, the women arrived at the
barrier.
In the meantime, the regiment of Flanders armed, and the body-guard
mounted their horses; the latter took up their position in the Place
d'Armes before the grating that enclosed the court of the ministers,
whilst some invalids, the Swiss corps, together with the Flemish
regiment, formed a line of battle on the left, and the chasseurs and
the national guard occupied the right. A body of dragoons was sent
down the avenue of Paris to take up a position before the hall of the
Menus-Plaisirs.
These dispositions were no sooner taken than the women entered
Versailles.
The Count of Luxembourg asked the king for orders to give the
body-guard. 'Nonsense,' replied Louis XVI, 'orders against a band of
women! you are joking.'
The women were no sooner in the town than they invaded the court of
Menus-Plaisirs, and demanded to be admitted to the Assembly.
Maillard and half-a-dozen women were alone admitted, after some
difficulties had been made; one of these was Madeleine with her drum,
and another was Gabrielle, who clung to her. A third bore a tambourine
at the end of a long pole.
'We come,' said Maillard, sword in hand, his black suit splashed with
mud and tattered, 'we come to demand bread, and the punishment of
the body-guard who have insulted the national cockade. We are good
patriots; on our road we have torn down the black cockades, and I will
have the pleasure of tearing one before the Assembly.'
Whereupon another man, he with the bull-neck, told his story, how he
had been nearly hung that morning for having rung the alarm-bell. 'We
will force every one to wear the patriotic badge,' he said. Thereupon
murmurs arose; turning towards those who uttered these sounds of
dissatisfaction, he asked, 'What! are we not all brothers?'
Mounier, the president, replied calmly, 'No one in this Assembly will
deny that all men are to be considered as brothers; the indignation you
resent was aroused by your menace of using force. Speak with respect
where you are.'
Thereupon the women began to cry out for bread. The president assured
them that the Assembly was distressed to learn the state of famine
in which the capital was plunged, and that it would use its utmost
endeavours to obtain a free circulation of corn, and provide for the
regular supply of grain. He told them that their presence at Versailles
was of no earthly use, that it impeded the debates, and could not
relieve the scarcity of provisions.
'That is not enough,' said the great Maillard; and the women exclaimed
again, 'Bread, bread!'
A member then proposed that a deputation should be sent to the king to
inform him of the starving condition of the capital. This proposition
was accepted. The Bishop of Langres took the president's chair, and
Mounier set out, moodily, at the head of a deputation, followed by the
women in a crowd.
The rain fell in torrents, and the avenue of Paris was a lake of mud.
Followed by the wild band of females fantastically dressed, some in
rags, some armed, shouting, singing, cursing, Mounier and the deputies
made their way towards the palace. Body-guards were patrolling and
galloping about, and mistaking the president for a leader of the
insurrection, and wanting to disperse the multitude, they galloped
through the deputation and their suite, scattering them and splashing
them from head to foot with mire.
By this time the ragged army of men which followed that of the women
had entered the Place d'Armes by the avenues of Saint Cloud and Paris,
armed with sticks, pitchforks, and a few muskets. The women, rolling
into the _place_ in floods, were mingled with the crowd of men,
and vented their rage against the body-guard in invectives. As the
different detachments of these guards, which had been sent in quest of
the king, arrived and joined those before the court of the ministers,
they were attacked and insulted. A pike flung against a guard galloping
to rejoin his squadron, fell between the legs of his horse and threw
it down. The soldier fell, and the populace crowded round him to seize
him, when he was rescued by M. Desroches, captain of the national
guard, arriving at the moment with his company. He attempted to capture
the young man who had flung the pike, but the people rushed between him
and the youth and facilitated his escape.
Whilst this was taking place, the regiment of Flanders was the object
of the caresses of the women. Théroigne de Méricourt, covered with a
scarlet cloak, penetrated the ranks of the soldiers, flattered them,
and entreated them not to oppose the people. A great many women,
plucking up courage at the immobility of the guards, who had orders not
to use their arms, advanced to the very feet of the horses and tried to
creep between them into the court before the palace.
All of a sudden, a party of women, headed by a man named Burnout, in
the uniform of the national Parisian guard, rushed upon the mounted
body-guards. The horses, frightened at the noise, and the charge
of Burnout, sabre in hand, swerved, and allowed him to pass. But,
separated from the women who were unable to follow him, he found
himself alone between the railing and the soldiers. He was immediately
pursued; but he escaped in the direction of the national guard, who, it
will be remembered, were drawn up on the right of the body-guard, with
whom they were on the worst possible terms. Burnout received several
blows with the flat of the sabre, and fell over a bucket; this caused
the French guard to raise the cry that the body-guard were massacring
one of their men; whereupon a musket was fired by one of the national
guard, and the arm of an officer in pursuit of Burnout was broken.
The commander of the national guard, Lecointre, a violent partisan
of extreme revolutionary measures, at once sought the officers of
the body-guard, to learn from them what were their intentions. They
replied that they had no wish to fall out with the national guard.
Then he hurried to the regiment of Flanders, which had been already
tampered with by the women, and asked them how they purposed to conduct
themselves towards the people. The soldiers replied that they would not
fire upon them, and they gave Lecointre and his guards some of their
cartouches.
During this time Mounier and his deputation passed through the lines of
the guard before the grating, were received with honour, and admitted
to the court along with twelve women, of whom were Madeleine and
Gabrielle. Five women were alone permitted to see the king. Madeleine
thrust herself forward--Gabrielle remained behind, in the ante-chamber.
She was weary, faint, and hungry. Madeleine had drawn her along with
her against her wishes, and the poor girl had been frightened and
miserable all day.
She took the opportunity of sinking into a chair; and then, overcome
by her weariness, her tears began to flow. M. d'Estaing happening to
pass through the ante-room at the moment, saw that she was crying, and
coming towards her said kindly, 'My child, you are weeping because
you have not seen the king.' Then he took her by the hand and led her
into the royal apartment, where were the king, his ministers, and the
deputation.
'Why did you come to Versailles?' asked M. de Saint-Priest of Gabrielle.
'Sir,' she answered, 'I was forced into the troop;' and she looked
reproachfully at Madeleine.
'We have come to Versailles,' said Madeleine, 'to inform the king that
his good town of Paris wants him. We are afraid that some people will
take him from this place and carry him to Metz, and we have come to
bring him home with us.'
'They are hungry,' cried Mounier; 'the women clamour for bread.'
'But you should have asked bread of the municipality,' said
Saint-Priest, addressing Madeleine.
'We went to the Hôtel de Ville,' she replied, 'and we found no one
there.'
The king, whose eye had rested on Gabrielle, saw that she was deadly
pale. He asked her if she were ill.
'Sire,' she answered, 'I am tired and faint.'
The king filled a goblet with wine, and took it to her and made her
drink. She thanked him with a speaking look, and tasted it; but at the
same moment every object swam before her eyes, and she fainted away.
When she returned to herself, the king was stooping over her. He gave
her smelling-salts, and sprinkled water on her brow. Madeleine fanned
her and she recovered.
Louis gave a written order for the immediate supply of food to Paris,
and handed a copy to Madeleine, who rushed down the court, shouting
'Long live the king!' She held Gabrielle's arm in hers, and passed
outside the railing, and between the soldiers to the crowd, to show
them the order.
Instantly it was discovered that the copy was not signed, and they were
constrained to return to the king and request his signature.
When they reappeared, the women outside were in a state of violent
exasperation; they had taken it into their heads that Madeleine had
been bribed; and they cried out that the king had given her twenty-five
louis-d'or. In vain did the girl empty her pockets to show there was no
money there; they then assaulted Gabrielle. A great commotion arose.
Some cried out, 'These girls have betrayed us. They have sold us to the
queen!' and a thousand voices screamed, 'Hang the traitors!'
What caused this sudden transition of feeling,--whether it arose from
the jealousy of those who had failed to obtain admission, whether
it was that Madeleine appeared too enthusiastic in her praise of
his majesty, or whether the tumult had been excited by a malicious
slander,--it is impossible to say. Certain it is, however, that a crowd
of wild, ravenous amazons attacked the two girls with their fists; a
garter was knotted round Madeleine's neck, and she was dragged off
towards the nearest lamp, and would infallibly have been strung up to
it, had not the guards interfered and rescued her. Gabrielle in the
meanwhile was in the grasp of a furious termagant, who fastened her
hands round her throat and attempted to strangle her. Frantic women
around shrieked to her to deliver up the money which she had received
from the king; her dress was torn, and her hands were wounded in
struggling with the infuriated savages; her consciousness was beginning
to leave her again, as the pressure on her throat tightened, when a
stout arm swept her assailants to right and left, a hand seized her,
and she was rapidly drawn away from the place of danger. The crowd was
closely wedged together, and she and her deliverer disappeared from
those who were incensed against her, amongst a throng who knew nothing
of what was being enacted a few ranks beyond them. Her conductor worked
his way through the people, and in another moment, with an air of
relief, he exclaimed, 'Praised be God and Bruder Klaus, we are safe
now!'
'Nicholas!' exclaimed Gabrielle, 'how came you here?'
'When I heard you were with Madeleine, I followed. I have kept as close
to you as possible since I saw you leave the hall of the Assembly. It
was well that I did so.'
Gabrielle was sinking from fatigue and fear.
'Oh, Nicholas, I cannot endure any more. I shall die here.'
'No, no,' exclaimed he; 'lean against that wall.'
'Here!' he cried to a priest who was passing, 'M. le Curé, help!'
'What is the matter?' asked the priest, stopping.
Gabrielle suddenly revived, and exclaimed with an accent of appealing
distress,--'M. Lindet, help me!'
'Who are you?' asked the deputy for the clergy of Évreux.
'She is called Gabrielle André,' answered Nicholas; 'can you do
anything for her? She is worn out, faint, and ill.'
'Follow me,' said the curé; 'she shall have rest and refreshment in my
lodgings; I know little Gabrielle well.'
Nicholas lifted the girl in his arms, held her very tight to his breast
as he carried her, and did not deposit her till he had reached the
priest's door.