words were, "I die worshipping God, loving my friends, not hating my
enemies, but detesting superstition." Despite the admiration of the
people, the powers of the state could not forget that the man so
enthusiastically received was the great apostle of mockery and
irreverence. The government gave its last kick to the dead lion by
ordering the papers not to comment on his death. The church laid an
interdict on his burial in consecrated ground,--an hour or two too late,
as it proved. His body, minus the heart, was transferred in 1791 to the
Pantheon, and when, in 1864, the sarcophagus was opened with the purpose
of restoring the heart to the other remains, it was found to be empty.
In the stirring days of France the body had by some one, in some way,
been removed.
_THE DIAMOND NECKLACE._
Paris, that city of sensations, was shaken to its centre by tidings of a
new and startling event. The Cardinal de Rohan, grand almoner of France,
at mass-time, and when dressed in his pontifical robes, had been
suddenly arrested in the palace of Versailles and taken to the Bastille.
Why? No one knew; though many had their opinions and beliefs. Rumors of
some mysterious and disgraceful secret beneath this arrest, a mystery in
which the honor of Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, was involved,
had got afloat, and were whispered from end to end of the city, in which
"the Austrian," as the queen was contemptuously designated, was by no
means a favorite.
The truth gradually came out,--the story of a disgraceful and
extraordinary intrigue, of which the prince cardinal was a victim rather
than an accessory, and of which the queen was utterly ignorant, though
the odium of the transaction clung to her until her death. When, eight
years afterwards, she was borne through a raging mob to the guillotine,
insulting references to this affair of the diamond necklace were among
the terms of opprobrium heaped upon her by the dregs of the Parisian
populace.
What was this disgraceful business? It is partly revealed in the graphic
account of an interview with the king which preceded the arrest of the
prince cardinal. On the 15th of August, 1785, Louis XVI. sent for M. de
Rohan to his cabinet. He entered smilingly, not dreaming of the
thunderbolt that was about to burst upon his head. He found there the
king and queen, the former with indignant countenance, the latter grave
and severe in expression.
"Cardinal," broke out the king, in an abrupt tone, "you bought some
diamonds of Boehmer?"
"Yes, sir," rejoined the cardinal, disturbed by the stern severity of
the king's looks and tone.
"What have you done with them?"
"I thought they had been sent to the queen."
"Who gave you the commission to buy them?"
"A lady, the Countess de La Motte Valois," answered the cardinal,
growing more uneasy. "She gave me a letter from the queen; I thought I
was obliging her Majesty."
The queen sharply interrupted him. She was no friend of the cardinal; he
had maligned her years before, when her husband was but dauphin of
France. Now was the opportunity to repay him for those malevolent
letters.
"How, sir," she broke out severely; "how could you think--you to whom I
have never spoken for eight years--that I should choose _you_ for
conducting such a negotiation, and by the medium of such a woman?"
"I was mistaken, I perceive," said the cardinal, humbly. "The desire I
felt to please your Majesty misled me. Here is the letter which I was
told was from you."
He drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to the king. Louis took
it, and cast his eyes over the signature. He looked up indignantly.
"How could a prince of your house and my grand almoner suppose that the
queen would sign, 'Marie Antoinette of France?'" he sternly demanded.
"Queens do not sign their names at such length. It is not even the
queen's writing. And what is the meaning of all these doings with
jewellers, and these notes shown to bankers?"
By this time the cardinal was so agitated that he was obliged to rest
himself against the table for support.
"Sir," he said, in a broken voice, "I am too much overcome to be able to
reply. What you say overwhelms me with surprise."
"Walk into the room, cardinal," said the king, with more kindness of
tone. "You may write your explanation of these occurrences."
The cardinal attempted to do so, but his written statement failed to
make clear the mystery. In the end an officer of the king's body-guard
was called in, and an order given him to convey Cardinal de Rohan to the
Bastille. He had barely time to give secret directions to his grand
vicar to burn all his papers, before he was carried off to that
frightful fortress, the scene of so much injustice, haunted by so many
woes.
The papers of De Rohan probably needed purging by fire, for the order to
burn them indicates that they contained evidence derogatory to his
position as a dignitary of the church. The prince cardinal was a vain
and profligate man, full of vicious inclinations, and credulous to a
degree that had made him the victim of the unscrupulous schemer, Madame
de La Motte Valois, a woman as adroit and unscrupulous as she was
daring. Of low birth, brought up by charity, married to a ruined
nobleman, she had ended her career by duping and ruining Cardinal de
Rohan, a man whose character exposed him to the machinations of an
adventuress so skilful, bold, and alluring as La Motte Valois.
So much for preliminary. Let us take up the story at its beginning. The
diamond necklace was an exceedingly handsome and highly valuable piece
of jewelry, containing about five hundred diamonds, and held at a price
equal to about four hundred thousand dollars of modern money. It had
been made by Boehmer, a jeweller of Paris, about the year 1774, and was
intended for Madame Dubarry, the favorite of Louis XV. But before the
necklace was finished Louis had died, and a new king had come to the
throne. With Louis XVI. virtue entered that profligate court, and Madame
Dubarry was excluded from its precincts. As for the necklace, it
remained without a purchaser. It was too costly for a subject, and was
not craved by the queen. The jeweller had not failed to offer it to
Marie Antoinette, but found her disinclined to buy. The American
Revolution was going on, France was involved in the war, and money was
needed for other purposes than diamond necklaces.
"That is the price of two frigates," said the king, on hearing of the
estimated value of the famous trinket.
"We want ships, and not diamonds," said the queen, and ended the
audience with the jeweller.
A few months afterwards, M. Boehmer openly declared that he had found a
purchaser for the necklace. It had gone to Constantinople, he said, for
the adornment of the favorite sultana.
"This was a real pleasure to the queen," says Madame Campan. "She,
however, expressed some astonishment that a necklace made for the
adornment of French women should be worn in the seraglio, and,
thereupon, she talked to me a long time about the total change which
took place in the tastes and desires of women in the period between
twenty and thirty years of age. She told me that when she was ten years
younger she loved diamonds madly, but that she had no longer any taste
for anything but private society, the country, the work and the
attentions required by the education of her children. From that moment
until the fatal crisis there was nothing more said about the necklace."
The necklace had not been sold. It remained in the jeweller's hands
until nearly ten years had passed. Then the vicious De La Motte laid an
adroit plan for getting it into her possession, through the aid of the
Cardinal de Rohan, who had come to admire her. She was a hanger-on of
the court, and began her work by persuading the cardinal that the queen
regarded him with favor. The credulous dupe was completely infatuated
with the idea. One night, in August, 1784, he was given a brief
interview in the groves around Versailles with a woman whom he supposed
to be the queen, but who was really a girl resembling her, and taught by
La Motte to play this part.
Filled with the idea that the queen loved him, the duped cardinal was
ready for any folly. De La Motte played her next card by persuading him
that the queen had a secret desire to possess this wonderful necklace,
but had not the necessary money at that time. She would, however, sign
an agreement to purchase it if the cardinal would become her security.
De Rohan eagerly assented. This secret understanding seemed but another
proof of the queen's predilection for him. An agreement was produced,
signed with the queen's name, to which the cardinal added his own, and
on February 1, 1785, the jeweller surrendered the necklace to De Rohan,
receiving this agreement as his security. The cardinal carried the
costly prize to Versailles, where he was told the queen would send for
it. It was given by him to La Motte, who was commissioned to deliver it
to her royal patroness. In a few days afterwards this lady's husband
disappeared from Paris, and the diamond necklace with him.
The whole affair had been a trick. All the messages from the queen had
been false ones, the written documents being prepared by a seeming
valet, who was skilful in the imitation of handwriting. Throughout the
whole business the cardinal had been readily deceived, infatuation
closing his eyes to truth.
Such was the first act in the drama. The second opened when the jeweller
began to press for payment. M. de La Motte sold some of the diamonds in
England, and transmitted the money to his wife, who is said to have
quieted the jeweller for a time by paying him some instalments on the
price. But he quickly grew impatient and suspicious that all was not
right, and went to court, where he earnestly inquired if the necklace
had been delivered to the queen. For a time she could not understand
what he meant. The diamond necklace? What diamond necklace? What did
this mean? The Cardinal de Rohan her security for payment!--it was all
false, all base, some dark intrigue behind it all.
Burning with indignation, she sent for Abbé de Vermond and Baron de
Breteuil, the minister of the king's household, and told them of the
affair. It was a shameful business, they said. They hated the cardinal,
and did not spare him. The queen, growing momentarily more angry, at
length decided to reveal the whole transaction to the king, and roused
in his mind an indignation equal to her own. The result we have already
seen. De Rohan and La Motte were consigned to the Bastille. M. de La
Motte was in England, and thus out of reach of justice. Another
celebrated individual who was concerned in the affair, and had aided in
duping the cardinal, the famous, or infamous, Count Cagliostro, was
also consigned to the Bastille for his share in the dark and deep
intrigue.
The trial came on, as the closing act in this mysterious drama, in which
all Paris had now become intensely interested. The cardinal had
renounced all the privileges of his rank and condition, and accepted the
jurisdiction of Parliament,--perhaps counting on the open enmity between
that body and the court.
The trial revealed a disgraceful business, in which a high dignitary of
the church had permitted himself to be completely gulled by a shameless
woman and the equally shameless Cagliostro, and into which not only the
name but even the virtue of the queen had been dragged. Public opinion
became intense. The hostility to the queen which had long smouldered now
openly declared itself. "It was for her and by her orders that the
necklace was bought," said the respectable Parisians. Those who were not
respectable said much worse things. The queen was being made a victim of
these shameless and criminal adventurers.
The trial went on, political feeling being openly displayed in it. The
great houses of Condé and Rohan took sides with the cardinal. Their
representatives might be seen, dressed in mourning, interviewing the
magistrates on their way to the tribunal, pleading with them on behalf
of their relative. The magistrates needed little persuasion. The
Parliament of Paris had long been at sword's point with the crown; now
was its time for revenge; political prejudice blinded the members to
the pure questions of law and justice; the cardinal was acquitted.
Cagliostro was similarly acquitted. He had conducted his own case, and
with a skill that deceived the magistrates and the public alike. Madame
de La Motte alone was convicted. She was sentenced to be whipped,
branded on each shoulder with the letter V (for _voleuse_, "thief"), and
to be imprisoned for life. Her husband, who was in England, was
sentenced in his absence to the galleys for life. A minor participant in
this business, the girl who had personated the queen, escaped
unpunished.
So ended this disgraceful affair. The queen was greatly cast down by the
result. "Condole with me," she said, in a broken voice, to Madame
Campan; "the intriguer who wanted to ruin me, or procure money by using
my name and forging my signature, has just been fully acquitted." But it
was due, she declared, to bribery on the part of some and to political
passion on that of others, with an audacity towards authority which such
people loved to display. The king entered as she was speaking.
"You find the queen in great affliction," he said to Madame Campan; "she
has much reason to be. But what then? They would not see in this
business anything save a prince of the Church and the Prince of Rohan,
whereas it is only the case of a man in want of money, and a mere trick
for raising cash, wherein the cardinal has been swindled in his turn.
Nothing is easier to understand, and it needs no Alexander to cut this
Gordian knot."
Cardinal Rohan was exiled to his abbey of Chaise-Dieu, guilty in the
king's opinion, a dupe in the judgment of history, evidently a credulous
profligate who had mistaken his vocation. The queen was the true victim
of the whole affair. It doubled the hostility of the people to her, and
had its share in that final sentence which brought her head to the
block.
_THE FALL OF THE BASTILLE._
"To the Bastille! to the Bastille!" was the cry. Paris surged with an
ungovernable mob. Month by month, week by week, day by day, since the
meeting of the States-General,--called into being chiefly to provide
money for the king and kept in being to provide government for the
people,--the revolutionary feeling had grown, alike among the delegates
and among the citizens. Now the population of Paris was aroused, the
unruly element of the city was in the streets, their wrath directed
against the prison-fortress, the bulwark of feudalism, the stronghold of
oppression, the infamous keeper of the dark secrets of the kings of
France. The people had always feared, always hated it, and now against
its sullen walls was directed the torrent of their wrath.
The surging throng besieged the Hôtel de Ville, demanding arms. Gaining
no satisfaction there, they rushed to the Invalides, where they knew
that arms were stored. The governor wished to parley. "He asks for time
to make us lose ours!" cried a voice in the crowd. A rush was made, the
iron gates gave way, the cellar-doors were forced open, and in a short
time thirty thousand guns were distributed among the people.
Minute by minute the tumult increased. Messengers came with threatening
tidings. "The troops are marching to attack the Faubourgs; Paris is
about to be put to fire and sword; the cannon of the Bastille are about
to open fire upon us," were the startling cries. The people grew wild
with rage.
This scene was the first of those frightful outbreaks of mob violence
of which Paris was in the coming years to see so many. It was the 14th
of July, 1789. As yet no man dreamed of the horrors which the near
future was to bring forth. The Third Estate was at war with the king,
and fancied itself the power in France. But beneath it, unseen by it,
almost undreamed of by it, was rousing from sleep the wild beast of
popular fury and revenge. Centuries of oppression were about to be
repaid by years of a wild carnival of slaughter.
The Bastille was the visible emblem of that oppression. It was an armed
fortress threatening Paris. The cannon on its walls frowned defiance to
the people. Momentarily the wrath of the multitude grew stronger. The
electors of the Third Estate sent a message to Delaunay, governor of the
Bastille, asking him to withdraw the cannons, the sight of which
infuriated the people, and promising, if he would do this, to restrain
the mob.
The advice was wise; the governor was not. The messengers were long
absent; the electors grew uneasy; the tumult in the street increased. At
length the deputation returned, bringing word that the governor pledged
himself not to fire on the people, unless forced to do so in
self-defence. This message the electors communicated to the crowd
around the Hôtel de Ville, hoping that it would satisfy them. Their
words were interrupted by a startling sound, the roar of a cannon,--even
while they were reporting the governor's evasive message the cannon of
the Bastille were roaring defiance to the people of Paris! An attack had
been made by the people on the fortress and this was the governor's
response.
That shot was fatal to Delaunay. The citizens heard it with rage.
"Treason!" was the cry. "To the Bastille! to the Bastille!" again rose
the shout. Surging onward in an irresistible mass, the furious crowd
poured through the streets, and soon surrounded the towering walls of
the detested prison-fortress. A few bold men had already cut the chains
of the first drawbridge, and let it fall. Across it rushed the multitude
to attack the second bridge.
The fortress was feebly garrisoned, having but thirty Swiss soldiers and
eighty invalids for its defence. But its walls were massive; it was well
provided; it had resisted many attacks in the past; this disorderly and
badly-armed mass seemed likely to beat in vain against those century-old
bulwarks and towers. Yet there come times in which indignation grows
strong, even with bare hands, oppression waxes weak behind its walls of
might, and this was one of those times.
A chance shot was fired from the crowd; the soldiers answered with a
volley; several men were wounded; other shots came from the people; the
governor gave orders to fire the cannon; the struggle had begun.
It proved a short one. Companies of the National Guard were brought up
to restrain the mob,--the soldiers broke from their ranks and joined it.
Two of their sub-officers, Elie and Hullin by name, put themselves at
the head of the furious crowd and led the people to the assault on the
fortress. The fire of the garrison swept through their dense ranks; many
of them fell; one hundred and fifty were killed or wounded; but now
several pieces of cannon were dragged up by hand and their threatening
muzzles turned against the gates.
The assault was progressing; Delaunay waited for succor which did not
arrive; the small garrison could not withstand that mighty mob; in the
excitement of the moment the governor attempted to blow up the powder
magazine, and would have done so had not one of his attendants held his
arms by force.
And now deputations arrived from the electors, two of them in
succession, demanding that the fortress should be given up to the
citizen guard. Delaunay proposed to capitulate, saying that he would
yield if he and his men were allowed to march out with arms and honor.
The proposition was received with shouts of sarcastic laughter.
"Life and safety are all we can promise you," answered Elie. "This I
engage on the word of an officer."
Delaunay at this ordered the second drawbridge to be lowered and the
gates to be opened. In poured the mass, precipitating themselves in fury
upon that hated fortress, rushing madly through all its halls and
passages, breaking its cell-doors with hammer blows, releasing captives
some of whom had been held there in hopeless misery for half a lifetime,
unearthing secrets which added to their revengeful rage.
Elie and Hullin had promised the governor his life. They miscalculated
their power over their savage followers. Before they had gone far they
were fighting hand to hand with the multitude for the safety of their
prisoner. At the Place de Grève, Hullin seized the governor in his
strong arms and covered his bare head with a hat, with the hope of
concealing his features from the people. In a moment more he was hurled
down and trodden under foot, and on struggling to his feet saw the head
of Delaunay carried on a pike. The major and lieutenant were similarly
massacred. Flesselles, the mayor of Paris, shared their fate. The other
prisoners were saved by the soldiers, who surrounded and protected them
from the fury of the mob.
The fall of the Bastille was celebrated by two processions that moved
through the streets; one blood-stained and horrible, carrying the heads
of the victims on pikes; the other triumphant and pathetic, bearing on
their shoulders the prisoners released from its cells. Of these, two had
been incarcerated so long that they were imbecile, and no one could
tell whence they came. On the pathway of this procession flowers and
ribbons were scattered. The spectators looked on with silent horror at
the other.
Meanwhile, the king was at Versailles, in ignorance of what was taking
place at Paris. The courts were full of soldiers, drinking and singing;
wine had been distributed among them; there were courtiers and court
intrigues still; the lowering cloud of ruin had yet scarcely cast a
shadow on the palace. Louis XVI. went to bed and to sleep, in blissful
ignorance of what had taken place. The Duke of Lioncourt entered and had
him awakened, and informed him of the momentous event.
"But that is a revolt!" exclaimed the king, with startled face, sitting
up on his couch.
"No, sire," replied the duke; "it is a revolution!"
That was the true word. It was a revolution. With the taking of the
Bastille the Revolution of France was fairly inaugurated. As for that
detested fortress, its demolition began on the next day, amid the
thunder of cannon and the singing of the _Te Deum_. It had dominated
Paris, and served as a state-prison for four hundred years. Its site was
henceforward to be kept as a monument to liberty.
_THE STORY OF THE SAINTE AMPOULE._
Sad years were they for kings and potentates in France--now a century
ago--when the cup of civilization was turned upside-down and the dregs
rose to the top. For once in the history of mankind the anarchist was
lord--and a frightful use he made of his privileges. Not only living
kings were at a discount, but the very bones of kings were scattered to
the winds, and the sacred oil, the "Sainte Ampoule," which for many
centuries had been used at the coronation of the kings of France, became
an object of detestation, and was treated with the same lack of ceremony
and consideration as the royal family itself.
Thereby hangs a tale. But before telling what desecration came to the
Sainte Ampoule through the impious hands of the new lords of France, it
may be well to trace briefly the earlier history of this precious oil.
Christianity came to France when Clovis, its first king, was baptized.
And although we cannot say much for the Christian virtues of the worthy
king Clovis, we are given to understand that Heaven smiled on his
conversion, for the story goes that a dove came down from the realm of
the blessed, bearing a small vial of holy oil, which was placed in the
hands of St. Remy to be used in anointing the king at his coronation.
Afterwards the saint placed this vial in his own tomb, where it was
after many years discovered by miracle. It is true, St. Remy tells us
none of this. Our authority for it is Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, who
flourished four centuries after Clovis and his converter had been
gathered to their fathers. But as Hincmar defied those who doubted the
story of the dove and the vial to prove the contrary, and produced a
vial of oil from the saint's tomb in further proof of his statement, no
reasonable person--at that day--could longer deny it, though the first
mention of it is by a chronicler who lived a century and a half after
the saint.