Reign of Louis XVI.—Enormous number of Lettres de Cachet
issued in two reigns—William Debure the elder—Blaizot
imprisoned for obeying the King—Pelisseri—Prisoners from
St. Domingo—Linguet—Duvernet—The Count de Paradès—Marquis
de Sade—Brissot—The Countess de la Motte—Cardinal de
Rohan—Cagliostro—The affair of the Diamond Necklace—Reveillon
takes shelter in the Bastile—Attack and capture of the Bastile
by the Parisians—Conclusion.
The reign of Louis XV., which, as far as regarded himself, was every
way inglorious, was protracted to the length of fifty-nine years; a
duration which has rarely been equalled. Popular enthusiasm, or rather
popular folly—the terms are often synonymous—at one time conferred on
him the title of “the Well-beloved;” he lived to be sincerely hated,
and he died unlamented, except by such of his flatterers and parasites
as feared that they would be cast off by a new monarch. Of the enormous
amount of private misery which, during the period of his sway, he must
have inflicted, in exercising only one attribute of his despotism, some
idea may be formed, from the circumstance of more than 150,000 _lettres
de cachet_ having been issued while he occupied the throne; an annual
average of more than 2500. How many wives, parents, children, must have
been yearly driven to despair by this atrocious tyranny! Though it is
certain that the prisoners were not all treated with the same brutality
as Masers de Latude, the mass of suffering must, nevertheless, have been
more than can be contemplated without a shudder by any one who is not
dead to the feelings of humanity.
In 1774, Louis XVI. ascended the throne. He was a perfect contrast to
his predecessor. In his manners there was little of the dignity of a
sovereign, and he was deficient in firmness and penetration; but, pure
in morals, kind in heart, and honest in principle, he was unfeignedly
desirous to do justice to his people, and to contribute to their welfare.
Yet, so difficult is it to uproot a long-established abuse, and such is
the power of ministers and men in office, that, even under the government
of this well-meaning king, no fewer than 14,000 _lettres de cachet_ are
said to have been granted in the fifteen years which elapsed between the
accession of Louis and the meeting of the States General.
The very first instances which I shall bring forward of the use made of
_lettres de cachet_, in this reign, will afford proof of the unprincipled
and arbitrary spirit of the men who held authority. We commence with
William Debure the elder, one of the most eminent and intelligent of the
Parisian booksellers. The family of the Debures carried on, from father
to son, the same business in Paris, for nearly two centuries. The subject
of this sketch was in habits of intimacy with the most distinguished
literary characters. His catalogues of celebrated libraries, to the
number of forty-three, are much esteemed. At the time of his decease,
in 1820, when he was eighty-six, he was the oldest bookseller in France,
and was considered as the patriarch of bibliography. It was in 1778
that he was sent to the Bastile. In 1777, the Council of State thought
proper to issue an ordinance, decreeing that the term of copyright should
not in future extend beyond the time which was required to defray the
expense of publishing. The Council followed this up by another ordinance,
authorizing the sale of pirated editions, on payment of a stamp duty.
These acts, equally absurd and unjust, were, in fact, licenses to commit
robbery upon authors and publishers, for the benefit of the treasury,
which shared the spoil with the robbers. Debure then held in his company
the place of syndic, which seems to be analogous to that of master in
our stationers’ company. To him fell the task of stamping the pirated
works. Well knowing that a great number of booksellers would inevitably
be ruined by the new law, or rather violation of law, which the Council
had promulgated, Debure declined to comply with it, and desired that he
might be allowed to resign. His resignation was not accepted, and he was
thrice summoned to proceed to the stamping of the spurious books; and in
each instance the significant hint was thrown out, “Stamp, or if you do
not——.” Debure remained immovable, and he was at length committed to the
Bastile. The ministers, however, either became ashamed of their conduct,
or, which is more probable, were overruled by the monarch; for, in the
course of a few days, he recovered his liberty.
Another bookseller is said to have been punished in the same manner, for
the extraordinary offence of executing, in the way of trade, an order
which was given to him by his sovereign. Suspecting that his ministers
kept him in ignorance of the sentiments and wishes of the people, Louis
determined to obtain some knowledge of them from another quarter. To
peruse the various political pamphlets of the day seemed to him the best
mode of accomplishing his purpose. Accordingly, he directed a bookseller,
named Blaizot, to send them regularly and secretly to a certain place,
whence they were to be conveyed to him. This was done for about two
months. Alarmed to find the king possessed of so much information,
upon subjects with which they had believed him to be unacquainted, the
ministers set to work to discover the source of it. Either Blaizot’s
imprudence, or the activity of their spies, soon made them masters of
the secret. The luckless bookseller was speedily taught that there
was an influence behind the throne which was greater than the throne
itself. The Bastile received him. This audacious act is attributed to
the Baron de Breteuil; of whom, however, it is but justice to state,
that he is said to have liberated many prisoners, and much ameliorated
the prison discipline. But he was at times harsh and impetuous, and may,
perhaps, on this occasion, have yielded to passion, or to the wish of his
colleagues. Surprised by the customary supply of pamphlets being abruptly
stopped, Louis inquired into the cause of it, and was equally astonished
and indignant to find that Blaizot had been lodged in the Bastile, by
virtue of one of those laconic billets which were signed Louis, and
countersigned by a cabinet minister. Blaizot was instantly released, and
the Baron de Breteuil was reprimanded, in the severest language, by his
offended master.
That Breteuil, highly aristocratic in his principles, and believing the
established order of things to be perfection itself, should consider it
as a matter of course to silence all opponents by means of the Bastile,
can excite no wonder; but, if a minister who sprang from the people,
a republican by birth, and a professed friend of reform, could punish
by imprisonment a man who ventured to criticise his measures, we must
wonder indeed! Yet, if M. Linguet was not misinformed, such a case did
actually happen. He tells us that, while he was in the Bastile, there
was in the prison a captive named Pelisseri, who had been three years
in confinement, and whose sole crime was that he had made some remarks
on the financial operations of M. Necker. The story is not probable.
With some important faults, the minister had many virtues, and certainly
had nothing cruel in his nature. It is very likely that the captivity
of Pelisseri was the work of some secret enemy, who hated both him and
Necker, and doubly gratified his vindictive feelings, by incarcerating
the one and calumniating the other.
The agents of the French government in the colonies seem not to have
been backward in following the example of tyranny which was set to them
by their superiors at home. In one instance, a governor of St. Domingo,
who had quarrelled with all the members of a court of justice, adopted a
summary mode of proceeding against them. He shipped the whole of them,
and sent them off to France as criminals. On their arrival they were
placed in the Bastile, and kept separate from each other; and in this
painful situation they remained for eight months. They were at length
pronounced innocent, and were conveyed back to St. Domingo; but they
received not the slightest compensation for more than a year’s endurance
of bodily and mental suffering.
The Bastile received, in September, 1780, a man whose talents were
more worthy of praise than his temper. This was Simon Nicholas Henry
Linguet, a native of Rheims, who was born in 1736. He was learned, acute,
and eloquent both in speech and writing; but paradoxical, changeful,
suspicious, violent, and wrong-headed. At the age of sixteen, he gained
the three highest University prizes. After having visited Poland with
the Duke of Deux Ponts, and Portugal with the Prince de Beauveau, he
commenced his literary career by a History of the Times of Alexander the
Great. Disappointed by D’Alembert, in his wish to obtain a seat in the
French Academy, he became an inveterate enemy of D’Alembert, and the
party which was called the philosophical. His works succeeded each other
with uncommon rapidity: the most remarkable of those which he published
at this period are, the History of the Revolutions of the Roman Empire,
and the Theory of Civil Laws. Both these works, which in many respects
have great merit, excited a loud clamour, especially the latter, by the
leaning which they manifest towards despotism. Linguet had soon reason to
change his opinion on this subject.
The literary labours of Linguet might seem sufficient to occupy all
his time; but the fact was not so. He was all the while a barrister
in extensive practice. In splendid eloquence, and in the successful
management of causes, he had few if any rivals. He boasted that he
never lost more than two causes, “and those,” said he, “I had a strong
inclination to lose.” It was mainly by his efforts that the obnoxious
Duke d’Aiguillon escaped from deserved punishment. The duke proved
ungrateful, and his irritated counsellor wrote him word that he had
“stolen him from the scaffold,” and that, if the peer did not do what was
right with regard to his advocate, “he would keep him hanging for ten
years at the point of his pen.” D’Aiguillon thought it prudent to yield,
but he took care to avenge himself in the end. The lucrative career of
Linguet, as a barrister, was suddenly brought to a close by his brethren
of the bar, some of whom envied his superior gains, and all of whom
had been irritated by his violent and sarcastic language. They refused
to plead with him, and the parliament sanctioned this resolution, and
expunged his name from the roll of counsellors.
Shut out from forensic honours and emoluments, Linguet devoted himself
to literature and politics. He began to publish a journal in 1774, but,
in 1776, it was suppressed by the minister Maurepas. Apprehensive for
his liberty, he quitted France, and successively resided in Switzerland,
Holland, and England. It was in 1777, while he was in exile, that he
established his well-known work, the Political, Civil, and Literary
Annals of the Eighteenth Century, which forms nineteen volumes. The Count
de Vergennes gave him permission to return to France; but scarcely had
he availed himself of it ere he was shut up in the Bastile, where he
continued for above two years. On his release, he settled at Brussels,
and gained the good-will of the emperor Joseph, which, however, he
soon lost, by espousing the party of the Belgian revolutionists. In
1791, he returned to France. During the reign of terror, he withdrew
into retirement. He was, however, unable to elude the vigilance of the
Jacobins; he was sent by them before the revolutionary tribunal, which,
without suffering him to make any defence, condemned him to death, and he
was accordingly executed in the summer of 1794.
While Linguet was in the Bastile, one of his opponents was sharing the
same fate, though for a much shorter term. Duvernet, an ecclesiastic,
published a pamphlet, anonymously, in 1781, in which he indulged his
wit at the expense of Linguet, D’Espremenil, and other well-known
characters. This he might have done with impunity; but he also attacked
the government; and the government, in return, sent him to the Bastile
for three weeks, to learn prudence. The lesson was thrown away upon him;
for, soon after his release, he ventured to animadvert upon the conduct
of the Count de Maurepas, and was again lodged in the Bastile. His
confinement lasted longer than in the first instance; and he availed
himself of this compulsory leisure to write a life of Voltaire. The
minister of police detained the manuscript; but the work, nevertheless,
found its way into print in 1786, and had such an extensive sale, that
the French bishops took the alarm, and commissioned the keeper of the
seals to complain to the king. Louis XVI., however, replied, “I will not
meddle with this affair; if Duvernet is wrong, let him be refuted,—that
is the business of the bishops.” The author afterwards enlarged and
remodelled his work; but he died in 1796, the year before the new edition
was published.
Another prisoner, who was also contemporary with Linguet in the Bastile,
was an individual of mysterious origin and conduct, who ought to have
found a place in an English prison rather than in a French one. This
was a person who assumed the title of the Count de Paradès. He himself
claimed to be descended from an ancient Spanish family of the same name;
some affirmed him to be the natural son of a Count de Paradès; but he
was generally believed to be of far humbler origin, the offspring of
a pastry-cook named Richard, who resided at Phalsburg. Of his early
life nothing is known; it is at the age of twenty-five that we find him
entering on his public career; and, by some means or other, he contrived
to procure an extremely flattering reception at the French court.
Fearing that he was too old to attain elevated rank in the military
profession, he looked about for another road to fortune, and thought he
had found it in adopting the perilous and undignified occupation of a
spy. France was at that period secretly preparing for hostilities against
England, the revolt of the British American colonies seeming to afford
her a favourable opportunity of taking vengeance for the defeats and
disgrace which she had suffered in the seven years’ war. Deeming this
an excellent opportunity to bring himself forward, Paradès voluntarily
visited England, where he gathered some valuable information relative to
our arsenals, ports, and naval and military establishments. The memorial
which, on his return, he presented to Sartine, the French minister of
marine, was so much approved of, that he was despatched to procure
further particulars. He was so successful in his inquiries, that he was
regularly engaged as a spy by Sartine, and was profusely supplied with
the means to purchase the services of British traitors. Paradès was not
idle; he bribed highly, and, if his own assertion may be credited, he
found no difficulty in corrupting many clerks and officers of an inferior
class. Though he may have exaggerated in this respect, there can be no
doubt that there were too many base-minded wretches who were willing
to sell their country. This fact is established by the circumstances
which came out on the trial of La Motte, his less fortunate successor.
Paradès reconnoitred all the English and Irish ports. In a part of his
journeys he was accompanied by an officer of engineers, and they were
several times in the utmost danger of being discovered. For the purpose
of keeping up an intercourse with the French ministry, he fitted out a
vessel, and had a regular establishment of messengers; the vessel served
the double purpose of trading and conveying his despatches. Many of
the communications which he made were highly important; he complains,
in his memoirs, that some of them, which would have enabled France to
strike fatal blows, were unaccountably neglected. One of his projects
was to set fire to the British fleet in the harbour of Portsmouth. His
services were not unrewarded; he was pensioned, and appointed a colonel
of cavalry. In the short time that he had been acting his part, he had
also contrived to amass about £35,000 by speculations in commerce
and the funds, and perhaps by pocketing a heavy per centage on the
remittances from the French ministry. Nearly £30,000 was sent to him by
his employers, and it is obvious that, as to the disbursement of it, they
could have no check whatever upon him. It was with a scheme for seizing
upon Plymouth that he closed his career as a spy. In that port he either
had, or pretended to have emissaries, and to have corrupted a serjeant
and several soldiers of the feeble garrison. It was in pursuance of this
plan that D’Orvilliers, with the combined French and Spanish squadrons,
consisting of sixty-five sail, entered the Channel. It is notorious that
Plymouth was then in an extremely imperfect state of defence, and would
have been much endangered by a vigorous attack. Fortunately, however,
D’Orvilliers, in spite of the remonstrances of Paradès, declined to make
an attempt upon the place. Paradès now visited France, and immediately
received instructions to return to England; but, before he could depart,
his adventurous occupation was brought to an abrupt close. He is said to
have been suspected of playing the Janus-faced traitor, equally bribed
by England and by France. The suspicion, though natural, was probably
unjust, and may have been prompted by the friends of those officers whom
he had accused of missing favourable opportunities. He was committed to
the Bastile in April 1780, and was not liberated till April 1781. He was
allowed to have what books he pleased, to carry on a free correspondence,
and to be visited by his friends. The presumptions against him could not
have been strong; if they had been so, he would have been rigorously
treated, and permanently confined. For three years after he was set free,
Paradès continued to press the government for the payment of £25,000,
which he asserted to be due to him. The war, however, had exhausted the
French treasury, and he consequently solicited in vain. In 1784 he
sailed to St. Domingo, where he had purchased an estate, and he died
there in the course of the following year.
He who appears next on the list of captives was a man—if indeed the name
of man is not misapplied to him—whose crimes were of so dark a dye that
to imprison him for them was unjust, solely because it was nothing less
than assisting him to evade the punishment which justice would have
inflicted on him. This abandoned individual has been correctly described,
by a French writer, as “the profound villain named the Marquis de Sade,
who, by his atrocious examples, and his equally horrible writings,
proved himself to be the apostle of every crime,—of assassination, of
poisoning,—and the enemy of all social order; this monster spent great
part of his life in prison, and was twenty times saved from the scaffold
by his title of marquis.”
The Marquis de Sade, who was descended from an ancient family of the
Comtat Venaissin, was born at Paris, in 1740. He embraced the military
profession, and served in all the German campaigns of the seven years’
war. In 1766, he married an amiable and virtuous woman, to whom he proved
a perpetual source of wretchedness. A sense of duty induced her, for a
considerable period, to aid in extricating him from the difficulties in
which he involved himself, but she was finally obliged to give him up. In
the same year that he was united to her, one of his infamous adventures
caused him to be imprisoned and exiled; and no sooner was he allowed
to return to Paris than he took an actress into keeping, carried her
to Provence, and introduced her as his wife to the gentry around his
mansion. These, however, were merely the venial offences of Sade. His
criminality took a far higher flight. In 1778, he would have fallen a
victim to the justice of his country, for horrible cruelty to a female,
had he not been snatched from it by a _lettre de cachet_, which confined
him for a time at Saumur, whence he was removed to Pierre-Encise.
This danger did not operate as a warning to him. At Marseilles, in 1772,
in company with his valet, who was the companion of his debaucheries,
he acted in such a manner that the parliament of Aix prosecuted him and
his servant, and ultimately pronounced them guilty of unnatural acts
and of poisoning; the persons poisoned are said to have been two loose
women, to whom they administered stimulants of the most dangerous kind.
Sade took flight, but was seized in Savoy by the king of Sardinia, and
sent to the castle of Miolans. He made his escape from the castle, and
concealed himself in Paris, where, in 1777, he was discovered, and sent
to Vincennes. He escaped, was retaken, was lodged again at Vincennes, and
was treated with great rigour for two years. In 1784, he was transferred
to the Bastile.
At Vincennes and the Bastile he wrote the earliest of those works which
alone would suffice to brand his name with indelible infamy. It is truly
said of them, that “everything the most monstrous and revolting, that
can be dreamt by the most frenzied, obscene, and sanguinary imagination,
seems to be combined in these works, the mere conception of which ought
to be looked upon as a crime against social order.” Sade was a voluminous
writer, and produced many other works, plays, romances, verses, and
miscellanies, which have never seen the light.
At the Bastile, but a short time before the attack on it, he quarrelled
with the governor, and, by means of a sort of speaking trumpet, harangued
the passengers in St. Anthony’s Street, and endeavoured to excite them
to arms. For this he was sent off to Charenton. In 1790, the decree of
the National Assembly, which liberated all the victims of _lettres des
cachet_, put an end to his imprisonment, after it had continued for
thirteen years. Sade was a partisan of the revolution, in its worst
aspect; but even the revolutionists of 1793 shrank from contact with
so foul a being. He was arrested by them, and for nearly a year was an
inmate of various prisons. After this, he remained at large till the
reins of government were assumed by Napoleon. The First Consul put a
stop, in 1801, to the publication of Sade’s works, and sent him to St.
Pelagie; from that prison he was removed to Charenton, in 1803, and there
he spent his days till the close of his dishonoured existence in 1814,
when he was seventy-five years of age. To the very last his detestable
doctrines and habits experienced not the slightest change.
One of the most eminent of the French revolutionists, from whom a
considerable party took its denomination, was among the latest prisoners
of the Bastile. John Peter Brissot was born in 1754, at the village of
Ouarville, near Chartres, where his father, who was a pastry-cook in
Chartres, had a trifling property. It was from his native place, the name
of which he anglicised, that he afterwards styled himself Brissot de
Warville. He received a good education, and, as he also read with great
avidity, he accumulated a large stock of miscellaneous but undigested
knowledge. In the English language he acquired a proficiency which was
unusual among Frenchmen at that period, and his study of it contributed
powerfully to give his sentiments a republican tinge; for he dwelt with
delight on the characters of the great men who withstood the tyranny
of Charles the First. Brissot was placed in an attorney’s office at
Paris; and it is a curious circumstance, that one of his fellow-clerks
was Robespierre, who afterwards became his deadly political foe. In
two years Brissot got tired of legal drudgery, and determined to look
to literature for subsistence. His first essay was a satire, which he
subsequently owned to contain much injustice, and for which he narrowly
escaped being lodged in the Bastile. A pamphlet which he published
attracted the notice of Swinton, an Englishman, a man utterly devoid of
honourable feelings, who engaged him to superintend the reprinting of the
Courrier de l’Europe, at Boulogne. This engagement was soon terminated;
and Brissot, who had received two hundred pounds on his father’s death,
purchased the necessary titles for practising at the bar. The money thus
laid out was thrown away, he being soon compelled to resign all hope of
succeeding as an advocate. His next scheme, of the success of which he
did not allow himself to doubt, was to establish, in the British capital,
a Lyceum, which was to serve as a point of union to literary men of all
countries, and was to carry on a universal correspondence with them,
and to issue a periodical work for the more wide diffusion of English
literature. As might have been foreseen, this magnificent institution, of
which he was of course to be the presiding genius, proved to be nothing
more than an abortion. Instead of reaping fame and profit from the
periodical, Brissot found that no one would buy it, and he was arrested
and imprisoned by the printer. Having, however, contrived to get free,
he returned penniless to France in 1784, where another prison was ready
to receive him. Merely, it is said, because he had spoken lightly of
the works of D’Aguesseau, he was sent to the Bastile. Others attribute
his imprisonment to the malice of his inveterate and unprincipled enemy
Morande, who accused him of having written a libel, entitled le Diable à
Quatre, which was from the pen of the Marquis de Pelleport. Through the
influence of Madame de Genlis, Brissot was released at the expiration
of two months. This visit to the Bastile was not calculated to diminish
his republican fervour. That fervour was no doubt much increased by his
visit to the United States, whither he went early in 1788, and whence he
returned in the following year.
Brissot, on his return, threw himself with all his heart and soul into
the Revolution. His mind was heated by the reading of ancient and
modern writers, who have held up republican heroes to our admiration,
and it was irritated by wrongs which arbitrary power had inflicted;
and he rashly and illogically concluded, that under a monarchy it was
impossible for liberty to exist. Such was the case, also, with many of
the talented, eloquent, and warm-hearted men who, acting in concert
with him, were known by the title of Brissotins and Girondists. No one
who has attentively perused the numerous documents relative to the
French revolution can deny that, at a moment when, according to their
own confession, there was not a handful of republicans in France, the
Brissotins had determined to subvert the monarchical government and
establish their favourite system. It is as certain, too, that they were
not delicate in the choice of means, and that truth was not allowed to
stand in the way of their designs. Believing a republican order of things
to be the perfection of human wisdom, they seem to have thought that, “to
do a great right, they might do a little wrong.” They were soon taught
by woeful experience that the strict rule of right can never be violated
without danger; and that, however good his intentions may be, he who does
a little wrong opens the way for the commission of the worst of crimes.
Brissot was elected a member of the Parisian Common Council, an assembly
which, in less than four years, became infamous for its ferocious and
sanguinary proceedings. It must have been gratifying to his feelings,
that one of the first acts which it fell to his lot to perform, was
to receive the keys of the Bastile. He now established a newspaper
called the French Patriot, in which he made daily violent attacks on the
monarch, the ministers, and all the institutions of the state. It was
he who, in conjunction with Laclos, after the flight of Louis XVI. to
Varennes, drew up the petition which called on the Constituent Assembly
to depose the king, and which gave rise to a riot that cost some blood.
At the period when the election of members to the Legislative Assembly
was going forward, the court exerted itself to prevent him from being
chosen a representative. Its misdirected efforts, however, as was the
case in many other instances, only produced a diametrically opposite
effect to that which was intended; the attention of the electors was
directed to Brissot, and he was unanimously returned as one of the
Parisian members.
Brissot was nominated a member of the diplomatic committee, and its
reports were almost uniformly drawn up by him. It was principally by
his exertions that a war was brought about with Austria; his purpose in
producing that war was to forward the dethroning of the king. In the
Legislative Assembly he, for a while, enjoyed great popularity, and
he availed himself of it to batter in breach the tottering fabric of
the monarchy. But the Jacobins, meanwhile, with Robespierre at their
head, all animated by a deadly hatred of Brissot and his friends,
were gradually gaining influence; and, in proportion as they won over
the populace and the most hot-headed of the legislators, the power
of Brissot declined. For a moment he meditated making common cause
with the constitutional royalists, in order to avert the disastrous
consequences which he began to dread would ensue, in case the Jacobins
should triumph. The plan, however, was abandoned. In the revolution
of the 10th of August he did not participate; Danton was the prime
mover in that transaction. The department of the Eure deputed Brissot
to the convention; and thenceforth, with a few exceptions, his conduct
was prudent and moderate. From the moment that he and his friends took
their seats, they were daily and furiously assailed by the Jacobins.
They maintained the contest for several months, but they were finally
overthrown, and the majority of them perished on the scaffold. Brissot
was put to death on the 31st of October, 1793, and met his fate as calmly
as though he had only been ascending the tribune to read a report to his
late colleagues. The few tears which he shed during his imprisonment were
not for himself, they were wrung from him by the agonizing thought that
he must leave a beloved wife and children in a state of destitution.
The last prisoners that remain to be noticed, owed their residence
in the Bastile to an affair which excited the public attention in an
extraordinary degree, and contributed greatly to render the Queen of
France an object of suspicion and unpopularity. This was the affair of
the diamond necklace, in which the principal part was played by the
Countess de la Motte. The countess, and a brother and sister, were
descendants of Henry de St. Remi, a natural son of Henry II., but her
family had been reduced to beggary. The three children, two of whom she
had found asking alms, were taken under the protection of the Marchioness
of Boulainvilliers, who charitably brought them up at her own expense.
D’Hozier, the eminent genealogist, having ascertained that they really
sprang from the house of Valois, the Duke of Brancas presented to the
queen a memorial in their favour, and a small pension was in consequence
granted to each of them.
In 1780, Jane, the eldest, married the Count de la Motte, who was
one of the guards of the Count d’Artois. Their united resources being
exceedingly scanty, the Countess looked about for the means of improving
them at the cost of some dupe. She had a prepossessing appearance,
fluency of speech, and considerable talents for intrigue, masked by
a semblance of openness and candour. The personage whom she selected
to try her experiment on, was the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, Bishop of
Strasburgh, who was then in his fiftieth year. Rohan, though a bishop
and a cardinal, did not think it necessary to assume even the appearance
of decorum and virtue. He was weak, vain, dissolute, presumptuous,
and extravagant. For a long time he had been in great disfavour with
Maria Antoinetta, the Queen of France. She, as well as her mother, the
Empress Queen, had been disgusted by his unseemly conduct, some years
before this, while he was ambassador at Vienna, and the queen’s disgust
was heightened by his indiscreet language respecting her, and by the
insulting manner in which he had spoken of her mother, in a letter to
the Duke d’Aiguillon. She, however, did not interfere to prevent his
obtaining several ill-deserved appointments from the government, but she
manifested her resentment by refusing to admit him into her presence, and
by expressing her unbounded contempt of him.
Rohan was in despair at not being admitted into the society of the
queen. All that he enjoyed seemed worthless, while he was denied that
privilege. It was on this egregious weakness that Madame de la Motte
founded her hopes of success. The deceiver acted her part with much
skill; she gradually led the besotted cardinal to believe that she
had acquired the queen’s entire confidence, and could exercise great
influence over her. She was, therefore, obviously the fittest person to
bring about the reconciliation for which he was so eager. The countess
readily undertook to be the mediator. Week after week she deluded him by
tales of her pleadings to the queen, and of the slow but sure progress
that she made in restoring him to the royal favour. At last he was told,
that though the queen had forgiven him, there were reasons why she could
not alter her behaviour towards him at court, and that all intercourse
between them must be carried on through the medium of Madame de la Motte.
Billets, forged by a M. Villette, now began to be addressed to him in her
Majesty’s name; twice the writer requested a loan from Rohan, and the
request was granted by the delighted dupe. To lure him on still further,
he was informed, that Maria Antoinetta would admit him to an interview at
night, in the Bois du Boulogne. To play this character, a lady of easy
virtue, named d’Oliva, whose person and voice resembled the queen’s,
was tutored by La Motte. The cardinal saw her for a moment, and was in
raptures, but he had not time to express them before the nocturnal farce
was put an end to, by a preconcerted interruption. This last fraud having
raised the infatuation of the cardinal to the highest pitch, measures
were taken to turn his folly to advantage. There was in the hands of
Bœhmer and Bossange, the court jewellers, a splendid diamond necklace,
valued at 1,800,000 francs, which the queen had recently declined to
purchase, on the ground that it was too expensive. It was this rich prize
which La Motte had in view. To get possession of it, she made Rohan her
tool; she succeeded in making him believe—for his fund of credulity
appears to have been inexhaustible—that the queen was extremely desirous
to be mistress of the necklace; but that, as she did not choose to be
seen in the affair, she wished him to negotiate for her, and to purchase
it on his own credit. A forged authority, from Maria Antoinetta, was
produced, in support of this fiction. Rohan rushed blindly into the
snare; he bought the necklace, giving for it four bills, payable at
intervals of six months, which the jewellers consented to receive, on his
showing them the paper authorizing him to treat with them. Another forged
document, bearing the queen’s signature, enabled Madame de la Motte to
get the necklace into her own possession. Her husband is said to have
been immediately sent off to London, to dispose of a part of the diamonds.
When the first bill became due, it was dishonoured, for Rohan had no
money, and had relied upon receiving the amount from the queen. The
alarmed jewellers hastened to the palace, to remonstrate with her majesty
on the subject. The queen was indignant and astonished at the story
which they told. Cardinal de Rohan, the Countess de la Motte, and some
others, were arrested, and conveyed to the Bastile. The parliament was
charged with the trial of the prisoners. The trial was not brought to a
conclusion till the 31st of May, 1786. Rohan was acquitted, but Madame
de la Motte was sentenced to make the _amende honorable_, to be branded
on both shoulders, and publicly whipped, and be confined for the rest
of her days in the prison of the Salpêtrière. Villette, the forger, and
d’Etionville, his accomplice, were condemned to the galleys for life.
After having undergone the ignominious part of her sentence, the countess
contrived to escape, and joined her husband in London, where she died in
1791.
Rohan, though acquitted, was compelled by the king to resign the office
of high almoner, and the Order of the Holy Ghost, and was exiled to one
of his abbeys. In the early part of the Revolution, he for a short time
seemed friendly to it; but, his aristocratic feelings soon getting the
upper hand, he became one of its most inveterate enemies, and strained
every nerve to forward the designs of the emigrants. He died in Germany,
in 1803.
Besides La Motte and Rohan, there were committed to the Bastile some
subordinate actors in the affair of the diamond necklace, and also a
singular adventurer, who was known to the world under the title of
Count Cagliostro. The count himself, while he threw a veil of mystery
over his birth, appeared to claim an oriental and illustrious origin;
but his enemies assert that his real name was Joseph Balsamo, and that
he was the son of poor parents at Palermo, where he was born in 1743.
They represent him, too, as a degraded being, sometimes living by the
sale of chemical compositions, sometimes by swindling, and, still more
frequently, by the prostitution of a handsome wife. Yet it is certain
that, in his travels over the largest portion of Europe, he gained the
esteem and confidence of many distinguished characters. That he was a man
of talents is undeniable; his person and manners were attractive, he was
acquainted with most of the European and Asiatic languages, his knowledge
is said to have been extensive, and he had a powerful flow of eloquence.
Where he procured the funds, by which he kept up the appearance of a man
of distinction, it would not be easy to ascertain. He was intimate with
Cardinal de Rohan, who had sought his friendship, and this intimacy was
the cause of his being incarcerated, on suspicion of being an accomplice
of the cardinal. He was acquitted by the parliament. Cagliostro
subsequently spent two years in England, whence he passed into Italy. At
Rome, his wanderings were brought to a close; he was arrested in 1791,
and sent to the castle of St. Angelo, on a charge of having established
a masonic lodge, and written a seditious, heretical, and blasphemous
work, entitled Egyptian Masonry. He was condemned to death, but for this
penalty the Pope substituted perpetual imprisonment. He is believed to
have died in confinement in 1795.
The long catalogue of captives is now exhausted; ruin impends over
the fortress in which they spent their solitary and mournful hours;
but, before its doom is sealed, we must see it changing its character,
and becoming, for the first time, a place of refuge to a persecuted
individual. In April 1789, at a period when the minds of all Frenchmen
were in a state of fermentation, and when, like the ground-swell, which
announces a coming tempest, popular outbreaks were happening in various
quarters, there occurred a riot of a very serious nature in the suburb of
St. Antoine. Reveillon, a man of good character, who had himself risen
from the working class, was the person against whom the fury of the mob
was directed. He was a paper-hanging manufacturer, and employed three
hundred men. The charge against him, which was calumniously made by an
abbé, who was in his debt, was, that he had declared bread to be not yet
dear enough, and expressed a hope that hunger would compel the workmen
to labour for half their present wages. The thoughtless multitude,
always too ready to credit such slanders, immediately determined to take
summary vengeance on him; the first step of the rioters was to hang him
in effigy. On the first day they were prevented from going further, but
on the following day, they returned to the charge with increased numbers
and means of offence. Reveillon’s house and manufactory were plundered
of everything that was portable, and were then burned to the ground. It
was not till the mischief was completed, that the troops arrived. They
seem to have thought it necessary to atone for their extraordinary delay
by extraordinary severity; a furious contest ensued, and between four
and five hundred of the rioters are said to have been slaughtered on
the spot. Each of the political parties accused its rival of having, for
sinister purposes, been the planner of this sanguinary scene. In the
midst of the confusion, Reveillon was so fortunate as to escape from the
mob, and he sought for shelter in the Bastile, where, during a whole
month, he deemed it prudent to remain.
In little more than three months after the destruction of Reveillon’s
establishment, the storm of popular anger, which had long been gathering
in the capital, burst forth with irresistible violence, and shook to its
very basis the throne of France. Matters were, indeed, come to a crisis,
between the royalist and the reforming parties. The court seemed resolved
to commit the question to the decision of the sword; a formidable
force, consisting chiefly of foreign troops, was accumulated around the
metropolis; and the language held by some of the courtiers and ministers
was of the most sanguinary kind. The Baron de Breteuil did not hesitate
to say, “If it should be necessary to burn Paris, it shall be burned,
and the inhabitants decimated: desperate diseases require desperate
remedies.” To dissolve the National Assembly by force, and to consign
to the scaffold its most distinguished members, were among the remedies
which this political Sangrado designed to administer for the purpose of
checking the disease.
As a preliminary to the projected operations, the ministry of M. Necker
was abruptly broken up, and another was formed, composed of men notorious
for their hostility to the rights of the people. It was a sufficient
indication of what was intended, that Necker, Montmorin, De la Lezarne,
De Puysegur, and De St. Priest, were replaced by Breteuil, Broglie, De la
Vauguyon, and others of the same stamp. Necker was ordered to quit the
kingdom, and to keep his departure a profound secret.
The dismissed minister obeyed the order so strictly that not even his
daughter knew of his setting out; but the ridiculous silence which
was required of him was of no avail. On the following day, which was
Sunday, the 12th of July, it was known at Paris that the favourite of
the people was expelled from office, and was leaving the country. All
the citizens were instantly in alarm. Groups assembled in every street,
and more than ten thousand persons were soon congregated at the Palais
Royal. Every one was enraged, but no one knew what to propose, till
Camille Desmoulins ascended a table, in the Palais Royal, and exhorted
his hearers to take up arms; he then plucked a green leaf, which he put
into his hat, as a rallying-sign, and the symbol of hope. His example
was universally followed. The crowd now proceeded to a waxwork museum,
took from it the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, covered
them with crape, carried them in procession through the streets, and
compelled the passengers to take off their hats. Near the place Vendôme,
they were assailed by a detachment of the Royal German regiment, and
several persons were wounded. The Germans were, however, repulsed. At
the place de Louis XV. there was another contest. They were charged by
the dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, who dispersed them, and killed a
soldier of the French guards, and one of the bearers of the busts. The
prince himself, a brutal character, followed some of them into the garden
of the Tuileries, sabring indiscriminately the fugitives and those who
were walking; among those who fell beneath his hand were a female and
an aged man. The multitude rallied, and chairs, stones, and everything
that could be converted into a weapon, was employed against the dragoons,
who were finally compelled to fly. By this time the French guards, who
were confined in their barracks, because they favoured the people,
had learned the death of their comrade. It was impossible to restrain
their rage; they broke out, fired on the Royal German regiment, and then
took post to cover the multitude from further attack. Some of the Swiss
regiments were ordered to reduce them to obedience, but they refused
to obey; and it was thus rendered obvious, that the court had fatally
miscalculated in relying upon the army for support.
During that night, and the whole of the succeeding day, Paris was like a
hive about to send forth a swarm. In the course of the night, the most
disorderly part of the populace burned the custom-houses at the barriers,
and plundered the gunsmiths’ shops. Weapons of every kind, and of all
ages and countries, were eagerly sought for and brought into use. In
the morning, the electors met at the town-hall to decide upon the steps
which ought to be taken. It was manifest that they had nothing to expect
from the leniency of the court; it was, in fact, understood that Paris
was to be attacked on seven points in the evening of the 14th, and it
was therefore absolutely necessary to provide the means of defence. In
a few hours a plan was matured and proclaimed, for arraying forty-eight
thousand Parisian militia. The alarm-bells were kept incessantly ringing
throughout Paris, and drums were beating in every street, to summon
the inhabitants to their posts. The scanty supply of arms was the most
serious obstacle which the citizens had to overcome. To remove it in
part, pikes were fabricated, fifty thousand of which were distributed
within six-and-thirty hours. Fortunately, it was discovered that there
was a large quantity of arms at the Hôtel des Invalides; these were
immediately seized upon, and thus 28,000 muskets, besides sabres and some
cannon, were obtained. Sufficient powder was procured, and hundreds of
men were occupied in casting balls.
The position of the Bastile, interrupting the communication between
various parts of the capital, and commanding a considerable portion
of the city, was a cause of much embarrassment to the citizens. M.
de Launey had received instructions to defend his post to the last
extremity. He was provided with ample means, as far as regarded
ammunition and arms; for he had on the ramparts fifteen cannon, and
twelve wall-pieces, each of which carried a ball of a pound and a half;
he had also plenty of shot, 15,000 cartridges, and 31,000 pounds of
powder. Besides these, there were, on the summit of the building, six
cartloads of paving-stones, bars of iron, and other missiles, to hurl on
an approaching enemy, when the cannon could no longer reach him. But,
with unaccountable negligence, no magazine of provisions had been formed;
there was not food enough in the place to last for twenty-four hours. The
garrison consisted of 32 Swiss and 82 invalids.
It is certain that the Committee of Electors, sitting at the town-hall,
did not entertain any idea of reducing the Bastile by arms. A sort of
neutrality was the most for which they hoped. That this is the fact,
is proved by their having twice sent a deputation to the governor,
calling on him to admit a detachment of the Parisian militia, to act in
conjunction with the garrison. The ground on which they claimed this
admission was, that the city ought to have a control over any military
force which was stationed within its limits. To such a proposal the
governor could not accede without perilling his head.
A M. Thuriot was now sent, by the district of St. Louis de la Culture,
to desire that the cannon might be removed from the towers. De Launey
replied that this could not be done without the king’s orders, but that
he would withdraw them from the embrasures to prevent their appearance
from exciting alarm. Thuriot was permitted to ascend to the summit of the
fortress, that he might be enabled to report to those who sent him the
real state of things, and he availed himself of this permission to exhort
the soldiers to surrender. This they refused to do, but they unanimously
and solemnly promised that they would not be the first to fire.
But though the Committee of Electors was not disposed to engage in
hostilities which seemed likely to be both fruitless and dangerous, there
were others, who were more daring, and some, perhaps, who were aware that
the garrison had no provisions, and little inclination to fight. From
various parts, but especially from the suburb of St. Antoine, an enormous
multitude, with every variety of weapon, hurried to the fortress,
shouting “We will have the Bastile! down with the troops!” Two of them
boldly ascended the roof of the guard-house, and with axes broke the
chains of the great drawbridge. The throng then pressed into the court,
and advanced towards the second bridge, firing all the while upon the
garrison. The latter replied with such effect, that the assailants were
driven back; but they placed themselves under shelter, whence they kept
up an incessant discharge of musketry.
A despatch to the governor, informing him that succour was at hand,
having been intercepted by the committee, that body sent a third
deputation to prevail on him to admit the Parisian forces. It reached the
outer court, and was invited to enter the place by some officers of the
garrison; but either it mistook the meaning of the invitation, or was
intimidated by the scene of carnage, for it retired without fulfilling
its mission. The firing was recommenced by the people, and was answered
with deadly effect by their antagonists. Three waggon-loads of straw were
now brought in and set on fire, to burn the buildings near the fortress;
but they were so unskilfully managed, that they proved obstacles to the
besiegers, who were compelled to remove them. While they were thus
employed, they received a discharge of grape-shot from the only cannon
which the garrison fired during the conflict.
The French guards now arrived with four pieces of cannon, to take a part
in the attack. The sight of this reinforcement entirely depressed the
spirits of the besieged, which had already begun to sink. They called on
their commander to capitulate. Anticipating, no doubt, the fate which was
reserved for him, he is said to have seized a lighted match, intending
to apply it to the powder-magazine. A large portion of the neighbourhood
would have been destroyed with the Bastile, had not two non-commissioned
officers repelled him with their bayonets from the dangerous spot. A
white handkerchief was hoisted on one of the towers as a flag of truce,
and a parley was beaten by the drums of the invalids. These signs were
unnoticed for a considerable time by the besiegers, who continued their
fire. At length, finding that all was silent in the Bastile, they
advanced towards the last drawbridge, and called to the garrison to let
it down. A Swiss officer looked through a loop-hole, and required that
his comrades should be allowed to march out with the honours of war. That
being refused, he declared that they were willing to submit, on condition
of not being massacred. “Let down the bridge, and nothing shall happen to
you,” was the reply. On this assurance, the governor gave up the key of
the bridge, and the conquerors entered in triumph.
A vast majority of the assailants were undoubtedly brave and honourable
men; but there were among them numbers of the most infamous of mankind;
men who lent their aid in tumults only that they might gratify their
love of plunder and blood. To these degraded wretches must be attributed
the cruelties which sullied the victory. No sooner was the day won,
than they began to gratify their diabolical propensities. Their first
achievement was to attempt to throw into the flames a young girl, whom
they found in a fainting fit, and supposed to be the governor’s daughter.
She was, however, saved by one of the Parisian volunteers. Others were
less happy. The unfortunate De Launey was massacred on his way to the
town-hall, after having received innumerable sword and bayonet stabs from
the savages around him. Five of his officers were put to death in an
almost equally barbarous manner.
The loss of the besiegers was eighty-three killed on the spot, fifteen
who died afterwards, thirteen crippled, and sixty wounded.
In the Bastile there were found only seven prisoners; four of them had
forged bills to an immense amount, two were insane, and the last, the
Count de Solange, had been confined at the request of his father for
dissipated conduct.
The Bastile soon ceased to exist. It was demolished by order of the civic
authorities of Paris; and, when the demolition was completed, a grand
ball was given on the levelled space. The capture and downfall of this
obnoxious fabric were hailed with delight by the friends of liberty in
every part of the globe, and they long furnished a favourite and fertile
theme for moralists, orators, and poets.
THE END.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS,
WHITEFRIARS.
FOOTNOTES
[1] M. Linguet says, that each of these niches was but just large enough
for one person, and had neither light nor air except at the moment when
the door was opened.
[2] M. de Fratteaux was seized in England, and carried off, by the
French officers of police. “His misfortunes seem to have been owing to
an unnatural father, who being on terms of intimacy with the minister,
obtained a _lettre de cachet_ to arrest and confine his son.”
[3] Prisoners who were not allowed to have a servant of their own,
sometimes were indulged with an invalid soldier to attend them; but those
who had neither, made their bed, lighted their fire, and swept their
room, themselves.
[4] I have passed lightly over the life of Palissy, because I shall have
occasion to dwell upon it, in another volume of the Family Library.
[5] Henry pointed his advice with a pun, which is not translatable. He
recommended to Biron, “Qu’il l’otât d’auprès de lui, sinon que _La Fin
l’affineroit_.” In English, if such a deceiver’s name were Cousin, we
might similarly say, “If you do not get rid of that Cousin, he will cozen
you.”
[6] Biographers and historians differ with respect to the circumstances
which ensued on the pardon being announced. While some give the statement
which I have adopted, others affirm that, when de Jars was taken back to
prison, he remained for a long while speechless, and seemingly deprived
of all consciousness. This is asserted by Madame de Motteville; and,
as she was his intimate friend, her authority has considerable weight.
But her assertion may be correct, and yet it is more than probable
that de Jars may have made the reply which is attributed to him. I
think the conduct ascribed to him in the text more consonant than any
other with his intrepid character. Nature, however, can endure only to
a certain point, and the effort that is made to bear up, and which,
as long as danger is present, seldom fails with the honourable and
brave, necessarily produces exhaustion when the struggle is over. It
may therefore, easily be believed, that, though de Jars was capable of
answering Laffemas with his wonted spirit—and the very sight of such a
monster would stimulate that spirit—he might sink into insensibility on
his return to prison.
[7] It has been conjectured, by some writers, that Richelieu was
stimulated to this new attack upon the queen by the circumstance of her
being pregnant, which induced him to dread that her influence would be
greatly increased, if he did not find the means of rendering her an
object of suspicion. But the conjecture is erroneous, as a comparison
of dates will prove. The attack upon her was commenced in the summer of
1637 (La Porte was sent to the Bastile in August), and the queen was not
brought to bed till September 1638, thirteen months afterwards.
[8] The mask is said to have been improperly described as being of iron;
it being formed of black velvet. Only the frame work and the springs were
of metal.
[9] This seems to be a quantity of linen so enormous as to stagger
belief. But Latude is probably correct in his assertion. In some of the
French provinces, families have an immense stock of linen; and it is
necessary that they should, as the operation of washing is not performed
more than twice or thrice a year.