The angry people rose. Twenty-thousand of the poorest, dirtiest, and
most savage, went to the magistrates in a body, to declare their
intention of planting the Tree of Liberty on a terrace of the Tuileries,
on the 20th; and of presenting, at the same time, petitions to the king
against his late prohibitions about the priests and the army. It was
easy to see what sort of petitions these were likely to be; but it had
become difficult to make preparation for any expected public event,--
there were so many opinions to be consulted, and so much suspicion was
abroad.
Early in the morning of the 20th, a tall Lombardy poplar, which the
people called their tree of liberty, was lying on a car in the lower
part of the city, and the people were collecting in multitudes to make a
procession with it to the palace. A messenger from the magistrates
spoke to the people against their scheme; but they said they were only
going to do what they had a right to do: it was lawful to petition; and
that was their errand. So, on they went, their numbers being swelled by
groups from every by-street on their way. They drew two pieces of
cannon with them, and carried abundance of tricolour flags and ribbons;
and also various significant emblems, one of which was a bullock's heart
with a spear through it, labelled "the Aristocrat's heart." The
magistrates next met them: but again the crowd declared they intended
only what was lawful, and pushed on.
They read their address in the Assembly, and then went, dancing and
shouting, to plant their tree. The iron gates of the Tuileries were all
shut, and National soldiers and cannon appeared within; so that the tree
could not be planted on the terrace, as designed. There was a convent
garden near, which served their purpose, and there was the tree of
liberty erected.
While this was doing, the Assembly dispersed till evening. The crowd
desired that the king would come out, and hear their petition. They
waited and waited, pressing against the iron gates, till some were near
being pressed to death, and were not in the better humour for that. The
king did not appear. After a while, the guard within were told that, if
the king would not come out to his people, his people would go in to
him. As usual, there was no decision in the treatment of the people.
After some hesitation, the guards opened one of the gates. The
multitude swarmed in; rushed at a wooden door of the palace; shivered
it; and the royal household were at once at their mercy.
Now at last the sovereign and his craving people met, face to face: met,
too, that they might petition, and he reply. But they were no longer
fitted for coming to an understanding. They despised him as weak, and a
double-dealer; and he despised them for their ignorance, their tatters,
and dirt. He showed this day that he was no coward. He was indolent,
irresolute, and unable to act; but he could endure. After this day, no
one could, unrebuked, call him a coward. When the mob began battering
upon the door of the room in which he was, he ordered it to be thrown
open. Some of the gentlemen of his household had rushed in through
another door, and requested him to stand in the recess of a large
window. They drove up a heavy table before him, and ranged themselves
in front of it. They begged him not to be alarmed. "Put your hand on
my heart," replied the king, "and see if I am afraid." The Princess
Elizabeth flew to see what was doing to her brother. She heard fierce
threats from the mob against the queen. They vowed they would have the
blood of the mischievous Austrian woman. The attendants begged the
princess to go away from this scene. "No," said she, "let them take me
for the queen, and then she may have time to escape." They forced her
away, however, with what emotions of admiration words cannot express.
The king demanded of the riotous crowd what it was that they wanted.
They cried that they would have the patriot ministers back again, and no
prohibition about the clergy and the army. The king replied that this
was not the way, nor the time, to settle such matters. Those who heard
him must have respected him for having at last given a good and decided
answer. During the rest of the time, about three hours, he stood in the
recess of the window, while the mob passed to and fro before the broad
table which stood between him and them. At the very beginning of the
scene one of the people handed him a red woollen cap, such as the
furious revolutionary people had taken to wearing, to show their
patriotism. This cap the king was bid to wear. He put it on; and it
was matter of complaint against him afterwards by his aristocratic
adherents, that he had worn the red cap for three hours. The fact was
that he did not feel the cap on the top of his hair, matted with pomatum
and powder as hair then was, and forgot it, till his family noticed it
on his meeting them again. He declared himself thirsty, and a
ragamuffin handing him a half-empty bottle, he drank from it.
The queen had attempted, with her children, to reach the room where the
king was, but could not. Each seems to have believed that it was the
intention of the mob to murder one or both of them, and there was much
said of the murderers' arms which were carried; but it does not now
appear probable that there was any such intention. There was nothing to
prevent its execution; for the multitude could in a moment have
overpowered ten times the number of adherents that were about the royal
family; and the Assembly were not seen or heard of till past six, when
the mob had been parading about the palace for an hour and a half.
However, the royal party did expect murder, and their suspense of three
hours must have been terrible.
The queen was secured, like the king, behind a table. She put a large
tricolor cockade upon her head, and placed the Dauphin on a table before
her. There sat poor little Louis, with a great red woollen cap covering
his head, down to his very eyes, seeing how his governess and the other
ladies behind his mother were terrified, and perhaps finding out how his
mother's heart was swelling, and well-nigh bursting, while her face and
manner were calm and dignified. He saw, too, the horrible things that
were shown in the procession. The bullock's heart was there; and there
was a little gibbet, with a little doll hung to it, and his mother's
name written below. He heard many dreadful things said to her; but he
also heard her answers, and saw that they pleased the people. One angry
woman stood and railed at the queen. The queen asked whether she had
ever seen her before, and whether she had ever done her any injury.
"No," said the woman; "but it is you who have done the country so much
harm."
"You have been told so; but you are mistaken," said the queen. "Being
the wife of the king of France, and mother of the Dauphin, I am a
Frenchwoman. I shall never see my own country again; it is in France
that I must be happy or unhappy. I was very happy till you began to
hate me." The woman was softened at once. She said, with tears, "I did
not know you. I see now that you are good."
The queen could not in the least comprehend the hatred of royalty, which
had now become common. She could not comprehend it, because she was
born royal; and it seemed to her as natural that princes should be
served and obeyed by everybody below them as that children should be
ruled by their parents. She also knew nothing of the miseries caused
for long years past by the abuse of power by both kings and nobles, and
by herself among the rest. Unconscious of all this, she could make
nothing of what she heard this evening from a member of the Assembly.--
Some of the members arrived at six o'clock, too late to do any good.
The queen directed their notice to the broken doors, bidding them
observe the outrageous way in which the home of the royal family had
been violated. She saw signs of emotion in the countenance of Monsieur
Merlin de Thionville, and observed upon it. Monsieur Merlin replied
that he felt for her as a woman, a wife, and mother, but that she must
not suppose that he shed a single tear for the king or the queen; that
he hated kings and queens. It was the only feeling he had towards them;
it was his religion.--Now, however extravagant this man's feelings might
be, and however harsh his expression of them, such sayings might have
been a valuable lesson to one who could reflect and reason upon them,
and diligently try to discover how such feelings could have grown up in
millions of minds. This, however, the poor queen never thought of
doing. She called it madness; and felt as if in Bedlam, while
surrounded by those who were of the same mind as Monsieur Merlin.
At last the Mayor of Paris came. Monsieur Petion was now mayor: the
same who had pulled Louis's hair, on the return from Varennes, a year
before. He harangued the people: several others harangued; and at last
the mob marched out through the broken doors of the violated palace. It
was eight in the evening. When the members of this unhappy family could
get to one another, again, when they felt that they were once more
alone, they threw themselves into one another's arms, weeping bitterly.
The monarch and his people had met at last, face to face; and it was
only to find that there was, and could be, no agreement between them.
One of the parties must give way: the people were strong; the king was
weak, and his ruin was now certain. Little Louis understood nothing of
all this; but one wonders whether he could sleep that night,--whether he
could forget the frightful procession he had seen filling the very rooms
in which he lived.