"THE COUNTRY IS IN DANGER!"
The king wrote to the Assembly to complain of the violation of his
residence, and he issued a proclamation to "his people." So it appeared
there were two peoples--the king's, and those he complained of.
On the twenty-fourth, the king and queen were cheered by the National
Guards, whom they were reviewing, and on this same day, the Paris
Directory suspended Mayor Petion, who had told the king to his face
that the city was not riotous.
Whence sprung such audacity?
Three days after, the murder was out.
Lafayette came to beard the Assembly in its House, taunted by a member,
who had said, when he wrote to encourage the king in his opposition and
to daunt the representatives:
"He is very saucy in the midst of his army; let us see if he would talk
as big if he stood among us."
He escaped censure by a nominal majority--a victory worse than a defeat.
Lafayette had again sacrificed his popularity for the Royalists.
He cherished a last hope. With the enthusiasm to be kindled among
the National Guards by the king and their old commander, he proposed
to march on the Assembly and put down the Opposition, while in the
confusion the king should gain the camp at Maubeuge.
It was a bold scheme, but was almost sure in the state of minds.
Unfortunately, Danton ran to Petion at three in the morning with the
news, and the review was countermanded.
Who had betrayed the king and the general? The queen, who had said she
would rather be lost than owe safety to Lafayette.
She was helping fate, for she was doomed to be slain by Danton.
But supposing she had less spite, and the Girondists might have been
crushed. They were determined not to be caught napping another time.
It was necessary to restore the revolutionary current to its old
course, for it had been checked and was running up-stream.
The soul of the party, Mme. Roland, hoped to do this by rousing the
Assembly. She chose the orator Vergniaud to make the appeal, and
in a splendid speech, he shouted from the rostrum what was already
circulating in an under-tone:
"The country is in danger!"
The effect was like a waterspout; the whole House, even to the
Royalists, spectators, officials, all were enveloped and carried away
by this mighty cyclone; all roared with enthusiasm.
That same evening Barbaroux wrote to his friend Rebecqui, at Marseilles:
"Send me five hundred men eager to die."
On the eleventh of July, the Assembly declared the country to be in
danger, but the king withheld his authorization until the twenty-first,
late at night. Indeed, this call to arms was an admission that the
ruler was impotent, for the nation would not be asked to help herself
unless the king could or would do nothing.
Great terror made the palace quiver in the interval, as a plot was
expected to break out on the fourteenth, the anniversary of the taking
of the Bastile--a holiday.
Robespierre had sent an address out from the Jacobin Club which
suggested regicide.
So persuaded was the Court party, that the king was induced to wear a
shirt of mail to protect him against the assassin's knife, and Mme.
Campan had another for the queen, who refused to don it.
"I should be only too happy if they would slay me," she observed, in
a low voice. "Oh, God, they would do me a greater kindness than Thou
didst in giving me life! they would relieve me of a burden!"
Mme. Campan went out, choking. The king, who was in the corridor, took
her by the hand and led her into the lobby between his rooms and his
son's, and stopping, groped for a secret spring; it opened a press,
perfectly hidden in the wall, with the edges guarded by the moldings.
A large portfolio of papers was in the closet, with gold coin on the
shelves.
The case of papers was so heavy that the lady could not lift it, and
the king carried it to her rooms, saying that the queen would tell her
how to dispose of it. She thrust it between the bed and the mattress,
and went to the queen, who said:
"Campan, those are documents fatal to the king if he were placed on
trial, which the Lord forbid. Particularly--which is why, no doubt, he
confides it all to you--there is a report of a council, in which the
king gave his opinion against war; he made all the ministers sign it,
and reckons on this document being as beneficial in event of a trial as
the others may be hurtful."
The July festival arrived. The idea was to celebrate the triumph of
Petion over the king--that of murdering the latter not being probably
entertained.
Suspended in his functions by the Assembly, Petion was restored to them
on the eve of the rejoicings.
At eleven in the morning, the king came down the grand staircase with
the queen and the royal children. Three or four thousand troops, of
unknown tendencies, escorted them. In vain did the queen seek on their
faces some marks of sympathy; the kindest averted their faces.
There was no mistaking the feeling of the crowd, for cheers for Petion
rose on all sides. As if, too, to give the ovation a more durable stamp
than momentary enthusiasm, the king and the queen could read on all
hats a lettered ribbon: "Petion forever!"
The queen was pale and trembling. Convinced that a plot was aimed at
her husband's life, she started at every instant, fancying she saw a
hand thrust out to bring down a dagger or level a pistol.
On the parade-ground, the monarch alighted, took a place on the left of
the Speaker of the House, and with him walked up to the Altar of the
Country. The queen had to separate from her lord here to go into the
grand stand with her children; she stopped, refusing to go any further
until she saw how he got on, and kept her eyes on him.
At the foot of the altar, one of those rushes came which is common to
great gatherings. The king disappeared as though submerged.
The queen shrieked, and made as if to rush to him; but he rose into
view anew, climbing the steps of the altar.
Among the ordinary symbols figuring in these feasts, such as justice,
power, liberty, etc., one glittered mysteriously and dreadfully under
black crape, carried by a man clad in black and crowned with cypress.
This weird emblem particularly caught the queen's eyes. She was riveted
to the spot, and, while encouraged a little by the king's fate, she
could not take her gaze from this somber apparition. Making an effort
to speak, she gasped, without addressing any one specially:
"Who is that man dressed in mourning?"
"The death's-man," replied a voice which made her shudder.
"And what has he under the veil?" continued she.
"The ax which chopped off the head of King Charles I."
The queen turned round, losing color, for she thought she recognized
the voice. She was not mistaken; the speaker was the magician who had
shown her the awful future in a glass at Taverney, and warned her at
Sèvres and on her return from Varennes--Cagliostro, in fact.
She screamed, and fell fainting into Princess Elizabeth's arms.
One week subsequently, on the twenty-second, at six in the morning, all
Paris was aroused by the first of a series of minute guns. The terrible
booming went on all through the day.
At day-break the six legions of the National Guards were collected at
the City Hall. Two processions were formed throughout the town and
suburbs to spread the proclamation that the country was in danger.
Danton had the idea of this dreadful show, and he had intrusted the
details to Sergent, the engraver, an immense stage-manager.
Each party left the Hall at six o'clock.
First marched a cavalry squadron, with the mounted band playing
a funeral march, specially composed. Next, six field-pieces,
abreast where the road-way was wide enough, or in pairs.
Then four heralds on horseback, bearing ensigns labeled
"Liberty"--"Equality"--"Constitution"--"Our Country." Then came twelve
city officials, with swords by the sides and their scarfs on. Then,
all alone, isolated like France herself, a National Guardsman, in the
saddle of a black horse, holding a large tri-color flag, on which was
lettered:
"CITIZENS, THE COUNTRY IS IN DANGER!"
In the same order as the preceding, rolled six guns with weighty
jolting and heavy rumbling, National Guards and cavalry at the rear.
On every bridge, crossing, and square, the party halted, and silence
was commanded by the ruffling of the drums. The banners were waved, and
when no sound was heard and the crowd held their peace, the grave voice
of the municipal crier arose, reading the proclamation, and adding:
"The country is in danger!"
This last line was dreadful, and rang in all hearts. It was the shriek
of the nation, of the motherland, of France. It was the parent calling
on her offspring to help her.
And ever and anon the guns kept thundering.
On all the large open places platforms were run up for the voluntary
enlistments. With the intoxication of patriotism, the men rushed to put
their names down. Some were too old, but lied to be inscribed; some too
young, but stood on tiptoe and swore they were full sixteen.
Those who were accepted leaped to the ground, waving their enrollment
papers, and cheering or singing the "Let it go on," and kissing the
cannon's mouth.
It was the betrothal of the French to war--this war of twenty odd
years, which will result in the freedom of Europe, although it may not
altogether be in our time.
The excitement was so great that the Assembly was appalled by its own
work; it sent men through the town to cry out: "Brothers, for the sake
of the country, no rioting! The court wishes disorder as an excuse for
taking the king out of the city, so give it no pretext. The king should
stay among us."
These dread sowers of words added in a deep voice:
"He must be punished."
They mentioned nobody by name, but all knew who was meant.
Every cannon-report had an echo in the heart of the palace. Those
were the king's rooms where the queen and the rest of the family were
gathered. They kept together all day, from feeling that their fate was
decided this time, so grand and solemn. They did not separate until
midnight, when the last cannon was fired.
On the following night Mme. Campan was aroused; she had slept in the
queen's bedroom since a fellow had been caught there with a knife, who
might have been a murderer.
"Is your majesty ill?" she asked, hearing a moan.
"I am always in pain, Campan, but I trust to have it over soon now.
Yes," and she held out her pale hand in the moonbeam, making it seem
all the whiter, "in a month this same moonlight will see us free and
disengaged from our chains."
"Oh, you have accepted Lafayette's offers," said the lady, "and you
will flee?"
"Lafayette's help? Thank God, no," said the queen, with repugnance
there was no mistaking; "no, but in a month, my nephew, Francis, will
be in Paris."
"Is your majesty quite sure?" asked the royal governess, alarmed.
"Yes, all is settled," returned the sovereign; "alliance is made
between Austria and Prussia, two powers who will march upon Paris in
combination. We have the route of the French princes and their allied
armies, and we can surely say that on such and such a day they will be
here or there."
"But do you not fear--"
"Murder?" The queen finished the phrase. "I know that might befall; but
they may hold us as hostages for their necks when vengeance impends.
However, nothing venture, nothing win."
"And when do the allied sovereigns expect to be in Paris?" inquired
Mme. Campan.
"Between the fifteenth and twentieth of August," was the reply.
"God grant it!" said the lady.
But the prayer was not granted; or, if heard, Heaven sent France the
succor she had not dreamed of--the Marseillaise Hymn of Liberty.