THE MOB AT VERSAILLES.
1789
A gathering storm.--Condition of the French people.--Forces assembled
at Versailles.--The populace rise upon the troops.--Terror and
confusion.--Attack on the Bastile.--The Bastile taken.--Awful
tumult.--Energy of the queen.--Resolution of the king.--The king
visits Paris.--Strange cavalcade.--Painful suspense of the
queen.--Return of the king.--The banquet at Versailles.--Enthusiastic
loyalty.--News of the banquet.--Famine in Paris.--The mob marches to
Versailles.--Heroic reply of the queen.--Violence of the mob.--The
queen retires to rest.--Peril of the queen.--Her narrow escape.--The
mob in the palace.--Heroic conduct of the queen.--The queen appears
on the balcony.--Her composure.--The queen applauded.--The royal
family taken to Paris.--An army of vagabonds.--The royal family
grossly insulted.--The royal family in the Tuileries.--The queen's
self-sacrificing spirit.--Rioting and violence.--The dauphin's
question.--The king's explanation to his son.--Flight of the
nobility.--Inflammatory placards.--The Duke of Orleans.--The Duke
of Orlean's plans frustrated.--Rumors of an invasion.--The leaders of
the populace.--The queen urged to attend the theater.--Dignified reply
of the queen.--Her unpopularity increases.--The queen's vigorous
action.--Ultimate cause of the popular fury.--Transgressors visited
in their children.
The year 1789 opened upon France lowering with darkness and portentous
storms. The events to which we have alluded in the preceding chapters,
and various others of a similar nature, conspired to foment troubles
between the French monarch and his subjects, which were steadily and
irresistibly increasing. The great mass of the people, ignorant,
degraded, and maddened by centuries of oppression, were rising, with
delirious energy, to batter down a corrupt church and a despotic throne,
and to overwhelm the guilty and the innocent alike in indiscriminate
ruin. The storm had been gathering for ages, but those who had been
mainly instrumental in raising it were now slumbering in their graves.
Mobs began to sweep the streets of Paris, phrensied with rum and rage,
and all law was set at defiance. The king, mild in temperament, and with
no force of character, was extremely averse to any measures of violence.
The queen, far more energetic, with the spirit of her heroic mother,
would have quelled these insurrections with the strong arm of military
power.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE BASTILE.]
The king at last was compelled, in order to protect the royal family
from insult, to encamp his army around his palaces; and long trains
of artillery and of cavalry incessantly traversed the streets of
Versailles, to prop the tottering monarchy. As Maria Antoinette, from
the windows, looked down upon these formidable bands, and saw the
crowd of generals and colonels who filled the saloons of the palace,
her fainting courage was revived. The sight of these soldiers, called
to quell the insurgent people, roused the Parisians to the intensest
fury. "To arms! to arms! the king's troops are coming to massacre us,"
resounded through the streets of Paris in the gloom of night, in tones
which caused the heart of every peaceful citizen to quake with terror.
The infuriated populace hurled themselves upon the few troops who were
in Paris. Many of the soldiers of the king threw down their arms and
fraternized with the people. Others were withdrawn, by order of Louis,
to add to the forces which were surrounding his person at Versailles.
Paris was thus left at the mercy of the mob. The arsenals were
ransacked, the powder magazines were broken open, pikes were forged,
and in a day, as it were, all Paris was in arms. Thousands of the
noble and the wealthy fled in consternation from these scenes of
ever-accumulating peril, and bands of ferocious men and women, from
all the abodes of infamy, with the aspect and the energy of demons,
ravaged the streets.
When the morning of the 14th of March, 1789, dawned upon the city,
a scene of terror and confusion was witnessed which baffles all
description. In the heart of Paris there was a prison of terrible
celebrity, in whose dark dungeons many victims of oppression and crime
had perished. The Bastile, in its gloomy strength of rock and iron, was
the great instrument of terror with which the kings of France had, for
centuries, held all restless spirits in subjection. Now, the whole
population of Paris seemed to be rolling like an inundation toward this
apparently impregnable fortress, resolved to batter down its execrated
walls. "To the Bastile! to the Bastile!" was the cry which resounded
along the banks of the Seine, and through every street of the insurgent
metropolis; and men, women, and boys poured on and poured on, an
interminable host, choking every avenue with the agitated mass, armed
with guns, knives, swords, pikes--dragging artillery bestrode by
amazons, and filling the air with the clamor of Pandemonium. A conflict,
fierce, short, bloody, ensued, and the exasperated multitude, many of
them bleeding and maddened by wounds, clambered over the walls and
rushed through the shattered gateways, and, with yells of triumph,
became masters of the Bastile. The heads of its defenders were stuck
upon poles upon the battlements, and the mob, intoxicated with the
discovery of their resistless power, were beginning to inquire in what
scenes of violence they should next engage. At midnight, couriers
arrived at Versailles, informing the king and queen of the terrible
insurrections triumphant in the capital, and that the royal troops every
where, instead of being enthusiastic for the defense of the king,
manifested the strongest disposition to fraternize with the populace.
The tumult in Paris that night was awful. The rumor had entered every
ear that the king was coming with forty thousand troops to take dreadful
vengeance in the indiscriminate massacre of the populace. It was a night
of sleeplessness and terror--the carnival of all the monsters of crime
who thronged that depraved metropolis. The streets were filled with
intoxication and blasphemy. No dwelling was secure from pillage. The
streets were barricaded; pavements torn up, and the roofs of houses
loaded with the stones.
All the energies of the queen were aroused for a vigorous and heroic
resistance. She strove to inspire the king with firmness and courage.
He, however, thought only of concessions. He wished to win back the love
of his people by favors. He declared openly that never should one drop
of blood be shed at his command; and, with the heroism of endurance,
which he abundantly possessed, and to prove that he had been grossly
calumniated, he left Versailles in his carriage to go unprotected to
Paris, into the midst of the infuriated populace. Just as he was
entering his carriage on this dangerous expedition, he received
intelligence that a plot was formed to assassinate him on the way. This,
however, did not in the slightest degree shake his resolution. The agony
of the queen was irrepressible as she bade him adieu, never expecting to
see him again.
The National Assembly, consisting of nearly twelve hundred persons, was
then in session at Versailles, the great majority of them sympathizing
with the populace, and yet were alarmed in view of the lawless violence
which their own acts had awakened, and which was every where desolating
the land. As, on the morning of the 17th of July, the king entered his
carriage with a slender retinue, and with no military protection, to
expose himself to the dangers of his tumultuous capital, this whole
body formed in procession on foot and followed him. A countless throng
of artisans and peasants flocked from all the streets of Versailles,
and poured in from the surrounding country, armed with scythes and
bludgeons, and joined the strange cavalcade. Every moment the multitude
increased, and the road, both before and behind the king, was so clogged
with the accumulating mass, that seven hours passed before the king
arrived at the gates of the city. During all this time he was exposed to
every conceivable insult. As Louis was conducted to the Hotel de Ville,
a hundred thousand armed men lined the way, and he passed along under
the arch of their sabers crossed over his head. The cup of degradation
he was compelled to drain to its dregs.
While the king was absent from Versailles on this dreadful visit,
silence and the deepest gloom pervaded the palace. The queen,
apprehensive that the king would be either massacred or retained a
prisoner in Paris, was overwhelmed with the anguish of suspense. She
retired to her chamber, and, with continually gushing tears, prepared
an appeal to the National Assembly, commencing with these words:
"Gentlemen, I come to place in your hands the wife and family of your
sovereign. Do not suffer those who have been united in heaven to be put
asunder on earth." Late in the evening the king returned, to the
inexpressible joy of his household. But the narrative he gave of the
day's adventure plunged them all again into the most profound grief.
The visit of the king had no influence in diminishing the horrors of the
scenes now hourly enacted in the French capital. His friends were openly
massacred in the streets, hung up at the lamp-posts, and roasted at slow
fires, while their dying agonies were but the subjects of derision. The
contagion of crime and cruelty spread to every other city in the empire.
The higher nobility and the more wealthy citizens began very generally
to abandon their homes, seeing no escape from these dangers but by
precipitate flight to foreign lands. Such was the state of affairs,
when the officers of some of the regiments assembled at Versailles for
the protection of the king had a public banquet in the saloon of the
opera. All the rank and elegance which had ventured yet to linger around
the court graced the feast with their presence in the surrounding boxes.
In the midst of their festivities, their chivalrous enthusiasm was
excited in behalf of the king and queen. They drank their health--they
vowed to defend them even unto death. Wine had given fervor to their
loyalty. The ladies showered upon them bouquets, waved their
handkerchiefs, and tossed to them white cockades, the emblem of Bourbon
power. And now the cry arose, loud, and long, and enthusiastic, for the
king and queen to come and show themselves to their defenders. The door
suddenly opened, and the king and queen appeared. Enthusiasm immediately
rose almost to phrensy. The hall resounded with acclamations, and the
king, entirely unmanned by these expressions of attachment, burst into
tears. The band struck up the pathetic air, "O Richard! O my king! the
world abandons you." There was no longer any bounds to the transport.
The officers and the ladies mingled together in a scene of indescribable
enthusiasm.
The tidings of this banquet spread like wildfire through Paris,
magnified by the grossest exaggerations. It was universally believed
that the officers had contemptuously trampled the tri-colored cockade,
the adopted emblem of popular power, under their feet; that they had
sharpened their sabers, and sworn to exterminate the National Assembly
and the people of Paris. All business was at a stand. No laborer was
employed. The provisions in the city were nearly all consumed. No baker
dared to appear with his cart, or farmer to send in his corn, for
pillage was the order of the day. The exasperated and starving people
hung a few bakers before their own ovens, but that did not make bread
any more plenty. The populace of Paris were now starving, literally and
truly starving. A gaunt and haggard woman seized a drum and strode
through the streets, beating it violently, and mingling with its din her
shrieks of "Bread! bread!" A few boys follow her--then a score of female
furies--and then thousands of desperate men. The swelling inundation
rolls from street to street; the alarm bells are rung; all Paris
composes one mighty, resistless mob, motiveless, aimless, but ripe
for any deed of desperation. The cry goes from mouth to mouth "To
Versailles! to Versailles!" Why, no one knows, only that the king and
queen are there. Impetuously, as by a blind instinct, the monster mass
moves on. La Fayette, at the head of the National Guard, knows not what
to do, for all the troops under his command sympathize with the people,
and will obey no orders to resist them. He therefore merely follows on
with his thirty-five thousand troops to watch the issue of events. The
king and queen are warned of the approaching danger, and Louis entreats
Maria Antoinette to take the children in the carriages and flee to some
distant place of safety. Others join most earnestly in the entreaty.
"Nothing," replies the queen, "shall induce me, in such an extremity, to
be separated from my husband. I know that they seek my life. But I am
the daughter of Maria Theresa, and have learned not to fear death."
[Illustration: GARDENS AT VERSAILLES.]
From the windows of their mansion the disorderly multitude were soon
descried, in a dense and apparently interminable mass, pouring along
through the broad avenues toward the palaces of Versailles. It was in
the evening twilight of a dark and rainy day. Like ocean tides, the
frantic mob rolled in from every direction. Their shouts and revels
swelled upon the night air. The rain began to fall in torrents. They
broke into the houses for shelter; insulted maids and matrons; tore
down every thing combustible for their watch fires; massacred a few
of the body-guard of the queen, and, with bacchanalian songs, roasted
their horses for food. And thus passed the hours of this long and
dreary night, in hideous outrages for which one can hardly find a
parallel in the annals of New Zealand cannibalism. The immense gardens
of Versailles were filled with a tumultuous ocean of half-frantic men
and women, tossed to and fro in the wildest and most reckless
excitement.
Toward morning, the queen, worn out with excitement and sleeplessness,
having received from La Fayette the assurance that he had so posted
the guard that she need be in no apprehension of personal danger, had
retired to her chamber for rest. The king had also retired to his
apartment, which was connected with that of the queen by a hall, through
which they could mutually pass. Two faithful soldiers were stationed at
the door of the queen's chamber for her defense. Hardly had the queen
placed her head upon her pillow before she heard a dreadful clamor upon
the stairs--the discharge of fire-arms, the clashing of swords, and the
shouts of the mob rushing upon her door. The faithful guard, bleeding
beneath the blows of the assailants, had only time to cry to the queen,
"Fly! fly for your life!" when they were stricken down. The queen sprang
from her bed, rushed to the door leading to the king's apartments, when,
to her dismay, she found that it was locked, and that the key was upon
the other side. With the energy of despair, she knocked and called for
help. Fortunately, some one rushed to her rescue from the king's chamber
and opened the door. The queen had just time to slip through and again
turn the key, when the whole raging mob, with oaths and imprecations,
burst into the room, and pierced her bed through and through with their
sabers and bayonets. Happy would it have been for Maria if in that short
agony she might have died. But she was reserved by a mysterious
Providence for more prolonged tortures and for a more dreadful doom.
A few of the National Guard, faithful to the king, rallied around the
royal family, and La Fayette soon appeared, and was barely able to
protect the king and queen from massacre. He had no power to effectually
resist the tempest of human passion which was raging, but was swept
along by its violence. Nearly all of the interior of the palace was
ransacked and defiled by the mob. The bloody heads of the massacred
guards, stuck upon pikes, were raised up to the windows of the king, to
insult and to terrify the royal family with these hideous trophies of
the triumph of their foes.
At length the morning succeeding this dreadful night dawned lurid and
cheerless. It was the 8th of October, 1789. Dark clouds over-shadowed
the sky, showers of mist were driven through the air, and the branches
of the trees swayed to and fro before the driving storm. Pools of water
filled the streets, and a countless multitude of drunken vagabonds, in a
mass so dense as to be almost impervious, besieged the palace, having no
definite plan or desire, only furious with the thought that now was the
hour in which they could wreak vengeance upon aristocrats for ages of
oppression. Muskets were continually discharged by the more desperate,
and bullets passed through the windows of the palace. Maria Antoinette,
in these trying scenes, indeed appeared queenly. Her conduct was heroic
in the extreme. Her soul was nerved to the very highest acts of
fearlessness and magnanimity. Seeing the mob in the court-yard below
ready to tear in pieces some of her faithful guard whom they had
captured, regardless of the shots which were whistling by her, she
persisted in exposing herself at the open window to beg for their lives;
and when a friend, M. Luzerne, placed himself before her, that his body
might be her shield from the bullets, she gently, but firmly, with her
hand, pressed him away, saying, "The king can not afford to lose so
faithful a servant as you are."
At length the crowd began vigorously to shout, "The queen! the queen!"
demanding that she should appear upon the balcony. She immediately came
forth, with her children at her side, that, as a mother, she might
appeal to their hearts. The sight moved the sympathies of the multitude;
and execrating, as they did, Maria Antoinette, whom they had long been
taught to hate, they could not have the heart, in cold blood, to
massacre these innocent children. Thousands of voices simultaneously
shouted, "Away with the children!" Maria, apparently without the tremor
of a nerve, led back her children, and again appearing upon the balcony
alone, folded her arms, and, raising her eyes to heaven, stood before
them, a self-devoted victim. The heroism of the act changed for a moment
hatred to admiration. Not a gun was fired; there was a moment of
silence, and then one spontaneous burst of applause rose apparently from
every lip, and shouts of "Vive la reine! vive la reine!" pierced the
skies.
[Illustration: MOB AT VERSAILLES.]
And now the universal cry ascends, "To Paris! to Paris!" La Fayette,
with the deepest mortification, was compelled to inform the king that
he had no force at his disposal sufficient to enable him to resist
the demands of the mob. The king, seeing that he was entirely at the
mercy of his foes, who were acting without leaders and without plan,
as the caprice of each passing moment instigated, said, "You wish, my
children, that I should accompany you to Paris. I can not go but on
condition that I shall not be separated from my wife and family." To
this proposal there was a tumultuous assent. At one o'clock, the king
and queen, with their two children, entered the royal carriage to be
escorted by the triumphant mob as captives to Paris. Behind them, in a
long train, followed the carriages of the king's suite and servants.
Then followed twenty-five carriages filled with the members of the
National Assembly. After them came the thirty-five thousand troops
of the National Guard; and before, behind, and around them all,
a hideous concourse of vagabonds, male and female, in uncounted
thousands, armed with every conceivable weapon, yelling, blaspheming,
and crowding against the carriages so that they surged to and fro like
ships in a storm. This motley multitude kept up an incessant discharge
of fire-arms loaded with bullets, and the balls often struck the
ornaments of the carriages, and the king and queen were often almost
suffocated with the smoke of powder. The two body-guard, who had been
massacred while so faithfully defending the queen at the door of her
chamber, were beheaded, and, their gory heads affixed to pikes, were
carried by the windows of the carriage, and pressed upon the view of
the wretched captives with every species of insult and derision. La
Fayette was powerless. He was borne along resistlessly by this
whirlwind of human passions. None were so malignant, so ferocious, so
merciless, as the degraded women who mingled with the throng. They
bestrode the cannon singing the most indecent and insulting songs. "We
shall now have bread," they exclaimed; "for we have with us the baker,
and the baker's wife, and the baker's boy." During seven long hours
of agony were the royal family exposed to these insults, before the
unwieldy mass had urged its slow way to Paris. The darkness of night
was settling down around the city as the royal captives were led into
the Hotel de Ville. No one seemed then to know what to do, or why the
king and queen had been brought from Versailles. The mayor of the city
received them there with the external mockery of respect and homage.
He had them then conducted to the Tuileries, the gorgeous city palace
of the kings of France, now the prison of the royal family. Soldiers
were stationed at all the avenues to the palace, ostensibly to
preserve the royal family from danger, but, in reality, to guard them
from escape.
A moment before the queen entered her carriage for this march of
humiliation, she hastily retired to her private apartment, and, bursting
into tears, surrendered herself to the most uncontrollable emotion. Then
immediately, as if relieved and strengthened by this flood of tears, she
summoned all her energies, and appeared as she had ever appeared, the
invincible sovereign. Indeed, through all these dreadful scenes she
never seemed to have a thought for herself. It was for her husband and
her children alone that she wept and suffered. Through all the long
hours of the night succeeding this day of horror, Paris was one boiling
caldron of tumult and passion. Rioting and violence filled all its
streets, and the clamor of madness and inebriation drove sleep from
every pillow. The excitement of the day had been too terrible to allow
either the king or the queen to attempt repose. The two children, in
utter exhaustion, found a few hours of agitated slumber from the terror
with which they had so long been appalled. But in the morning, when the
dauphin awoke, being but six or eight years of age, hearing the report
of musketry and the turmoil still resounding in the streets, he threw
his arms around his mother's neck, and, as he clung trembling to her
bosom, exclaimed, "O mother! mother! is to-day yesterday again?" Soon
after, his father came into the room. The little prince, to whom sorrow
had given a maturity above his years, contemplated his father for a
moment with a pensive air, went up to him and said, "Dear father, why
are your people, who formerly loved you so well, now, all of a sudden
so angry with you? And what have you done to irritate them so much?"
[Illustration: GRAND AVENUE OF THE TUILERIES.]
The king thus replied. "I wished, my dear child, to render the
people still happier than they were. I wanted money to pay the
expenses occasioned by wars. I asked the Parliament for money, as my
predecessors have always done. Magistrates composing the Parliament
opposed it, and said that the _people_ alone had a right to consent
to it. I assembled the principal inhabitants of every town, whether
distinguished by birth, fortune, or talents, at Versailles. That is
what is called the _States-General_. When they were assembled, they
required concessions of me which I could not make, either with due
respect for myself or with justice to you, who will be my successor.
Wicked men, inducing the people to rise, have occasioned the excesses
of the last few days. The _people_ must not be blamed for them."
While these terrific scenes were passing in Paris and in France, the
majority of the nobility were rapidly emigrating to find refuge in other
lands. Every night the horizon was illumined by the conflagration of
their chateaux, burned down by mobs. Many of them were mercilessly
tortured to death. Large numbers, however, gathering around them such
treasures as could easily be carried away, escaped to Germany on the
frontiers of France. Some fifteen hundred of these emigrants were
at Coblentz, organizing themselves into a military band, seeking
assistance from the Austrian monarchy, and threatening, with an
overwhelming force of invasion, to recover their homes and their
confiscated estates, and to rescue the royal family. The populace in
Paris were continually agitated with the rumors of this gathering army
at Coblentz. As Maria was an Austrian, she was accused of being in
correspondence with the emigrants, and of striving to rouse the Austrian
monarchy to make war upon France, and to deluge Paris with the blood of
its citizens. Most inflammatory placards were posted in the streets.
Speeches full of rancor and falsehood were made to exasperate the
populace. And when the fish-women wished to cast upon the queen some
epithet of peculiar bitterness, they called her "The Austrian."
It is confidently asserted that the mob was instigated to the march to
Versailles by the emissaries of the Duke of Orleans, the father of
Louis Philippe. The duke hoped that the royal family, terrified by the
approach of the infuriated multitude, would enter their carriages and
flee to join the emigrants at Coblentz. The throne would then be vacant,
and the people would make the Duke of Orleans, who, to secure this
result, had become one of the most violent of the Democrats, their king.
It was a deeply-laid plot and a very plausible enterprise. But the king
understood the plan, and refused thus to be driven from the throne of
his fathers. He, however, entreated the queen to take the children and
escape. She resolutely declared that no peril should induce her to
forsake her husband, but that she would live or die by his side. During
all the horrors of that dreadful night, when the palace at Versailles
was sacked, the duke, in disguise, with his adherents, was endeavoring
to direct the fury of the storm for the accomplishment of this purpose.
But his plans were entirely frustrated. The caprice seized the mob to
carry the king to Paris. This the Duke of Orleans of all things dreaded;
but matters had now passed entirely beyond his control. Rumors of the
approaching invasion were filling the kingdom with alarm. There was a
large minority, consisting of the most intelligent and wealthy, who were
in favor of the king, and who would eagerly join an army coming for
his rescue. Should the king escape and head that army, it would give
the invaders a vast accession of moral strength, and the insurgent
people feared a dreadful vengeance. Consequently, there were great
apprehensions entertained that the king might escape. The leaders of the
populace were not yet prepared to plunge him into prison or to load him
with chains. In fact, they had no definite plan before them. He was
still their recognized king. They even pretended that he was not their
captive--that they had politely, affectionately invited him, escorted
him on a visit to his capital. They entreated the king and queen to show
that they had no desire to escape, but were contented and happy, by
entering into all the amusements of operas, and theaters, and balls. But
in the mean time they doubled the guards around them, and drove away
their faithful servants, to place others at their tables and in their
chambers who should be their spies.
But two days after these horrid outrages, in the midst of which the king
and queen were dragged as captives to Paris, the city sent a deputation
to request the queen to appear at the theater, and thus to prove, by
participating in those gay festivities, that it was with pleasure that
she resided in her capital. With much dignity the queen replied, "I
should, with great pleasure, accede to the invitation of the people of
Paris; but time must be allowed me to soften the recollection of the
distressing events which have recently occurred, and from which I have
suffered so severely. Having come to Paris preceded by the heads of my
faithful guards, who perished before the door of their sovereign, I can
not think that such an entry into the capital ought to be followed by
rejoicings. But the happiness I have always felt in appearing in the
midst of the inhabitants of Paris is not effaced from my memory; and I
hope to enjoy that happiness again, so soon as I shall find myself able
to do so."
The queen was, however, increasingly the object of especial obloquy. She
was accused of urging the king to bombard the city, and to adopt other
most vigorous measures of resistance. It was affirmed that she held
continual correspondence with the emigrants at Coblentz, and was doing
all in her power to rouse Austria to come to the rescue of the king.
Maria would have been less than the noble woman she was if she had not
done all this, and more, for the protection of her husband, her child,
and herself. She inherited her mother's superiority of mind and mental
energy. Had Louis possessed her spirit, he might have perished
more heroically, but probably none the less surely. Maria did,
unquestionably, do every thing in her power to rouse her husband to
a more energetic and manly defense. Generations of kings, by
licentiousness, luxury, and oppression; by total disregard of the rights
of the people, and by the naughty contempt of their sufferings and
complaints, had kindled flames of implacable hatred against all kingly
power. Circumstances, over which neither Louis nor Maria had any
control, caused these flames to burst out with resistless fury around
the throne of France, at the time in which they happened to be seated
upon it. Though there never had been seated upon that throne more
upright, benevolent, and conscientious monarchs, they were compelled
to drain to the dregs the poisoned chalice which their ancestors had
mingled. Perhaps this world presents no more affecting illustration
of that mysterious principle of the divine government, by which the
transgressions of the parents are visited upon the children. Louis XIV.,
as haughty and oppressive a monarch as ever trod an enslaved people into
the dust, died peacefully in his luxurious bed. His descendant, Louis
XVI., as mild and benignant a sovereign as ever sat upon an earthly
throne, received upon his unresisting brow the doom from which his
unprincipled ancestors had escaped. It is difficult for us, in the
sympathy which is excited for the comparatively innocent Maria
Antoinette and Louis, to remember the ages of wrong and outrage by
which the popular exasperation had been raised to wreak itself in
indiscriminating atrocities. There is but one solution to these
mysteries: "After death comes the judgment."