THE LAST OF THE CHARNYS.
When Roederer entered the queen's apartments behind Weber, that lady
was seated by the fire-place, with her back to the door; but she turned
round on hearing it open.
"Well, sir?" she asked, without being very pointed in her inquiry.
"The honor has been done me of a call," replied Roederer.
"Yes, sir; you are one of the principal magistrates of the town,
and your presence here is a shield for royalty. I wish to ask you,
therefore, whether we have most to hope or to fear?"
"Little to hope, madame, and everything to fear."
"The mob is really marching upon the palace?"
"The front of the column is in the Carrousel, parleying with the Swiss
Guards."
"Parleying? but I gave the Swiss the express order to meet brute force
with force. Are they disobeying?"
"Nay, madame; the Swiss will die at their posts."
"And we at ours. The same as the Swiss are soldiers at the service of
kings, kings are the soldiers at the beck of royalty."
Roederer held his peace.
"Have I the misfortune to entertain an opinion not agreeing with yours,
sir?" asked the queen.
"Madame, I have no opinion unless I am asked for it."
"I do ask for it, sir."
"Then I shall state with the frankness of a believer. My opinion is
that the king is ruined if he stays in the Tuileries."
"But if we do not stay here, where shall we go?" cried the queen,
rising in high alarm.
"At present, there is no longer but one place of shelter for the royal
family," responded the attorney-syndic.
"Name it, sir."
"The National Assembly."
"What do you say, sir?" demanded the queen, snapping her eyes and
questioning like one who had not understood.
He repeated what he had said.
"Do you believe, sir, that I would ask a favor of those fellows?"
He was silent again.
"If we must meet enemies, I like those better who attack us in the
broad day and in front, than those who wish to destroy us in the dark
and from behind."
"Well, madame, it is for you to decide; either go and meet the people,
or beat a retreat into the Assembly Hall."
"Beat a retreat? Are we so deprived of defenders that we must retreat
before we have tried the exchange of shots?"
"Perhaps you will take the report, before you come to a conclusion, of
some competent authority who knows the forces you have to dispose of?"
"Weber, bring me one of the principal officers--Maillardet, or
Chesnaye, or--" she stopped on the point of saying "the Count of
Charny."
Weber went out.
"If your majesty were to step up to the window, you would be able to
judge for yourself."
With visible repugnance the lady took the few steps to the window, and,
parting the curtains, saw the Carrousel Square, and the royal yard as
well, crowded with ragged men bearing pikes.
"Good God! what are those fellows doing in here?" she exclaimed.
"I told your majesty--they are parleying."
"But they have entered the inner yards?"
"I thought I had better gain the time somehow for your majesty to come
to a resolution."
The door opened.
"Come, come," cried the queen, without knowing that it would be Charny
who appeared.
"I am here, madame," he said.
"Oh, is it you? Then I have nothing to say, as you told me a while ago
what you thought should be done."
"Then the gentleman thought that the only course was--" said Roederer.
"To die," returned the queen.
"You see that what I propose is preferable, madame."
"Oh! on my soul, I do not know whether it is or not," groaned the queen.
"What does the gentleman suggest?"
"To take the king under the wing of the House."
"That is not death, but shame," said Charny.
"You hear that, sir?" cried the lady.
"Come, come," said the lawyer; "may there not be some middle course?"
Weber stepped forward.
"I am of very little account," he said, "and I know that it is very
bold of me to speak in such company; but my devotion may inspire me.
Suppose that your majesty only requested a deputation to watch over the
safety of the king?"
"Well, I will consent to that. Lord Charny, if you approve of this
suggestion, will you pray submit it to the king?"
Charny bowed and went out.
"Follow the count, Weber, and bring me the king's answer."
Weber went out after the nobleman.
Charny's presence, cold, stern and devoted, was so cruel a reproach
to her as a woman, if not as a sovereign, that she shuddered in it.
Perhaps she had some terrible forewarning of what was to happen.
Weber came back to say that the king accepted the idea.
"Two gentlemen are going to take his majesty's request to the Assembly."
"But look what they are doing!" exclaimed the queen.
The besiegers were busy fishing for Switzers.
Roederer looked out; but he had not the time to see what was in
progress before a pistol-shot was followed by the formidable discharge.
The building shook as though smitten to its foundations.
The queen screamed and fell back a step, but returned to the window,
drawn by curiosity.
"Oh, see, see!" she cried, with flaring eyes, "they fly! they are
routed! Why did you say, that we had no resource but in the Assembly?"
"Will your majesty be good enough to come with me," said the official.
"See, see," continued the queen, "there go the Swiss, making a sortie,
and pursuing them! Oh, the Carrousel is swept free! Victory, victory!"
"In pity for yourself, madame, follow me," persisted Roederer.
Returning to her senses, she went with the attorney-syndic to the
Louvre gallery, where he learned the king was, and which suited his
purpose.
The queen had not an idea of it.
The gallery was barricaded half down, and it was cut through at a third
of the way, where a temporary bridge was thrown across the gap; the
foot of a fugitive might send it down, and so prevent the pursuers
following into the Tuileries.
The king was in a window recess with his captains and some courtiers,
and he held a spy-glass in his hand.
The queen had no need for it as she ran to the balcony.
The army of the insurrection was approaching, long and dense, covering
the whole of the wide street along the riverside, and extending as far
as the eye could reach.
Over the New Bridge, the southern districts effected a junction with
the others.
All the church-bells of the town were frenziedly swinging out the
tocsin, while the big bell of Notre Dame Cathedral overawed all the
metallic vibrations with its bronze boom.
A burning sun sparkled in myriad points from the steel of gun-barrels
and lance-points.
Like the rumblings of a storm, cannon was heard rolling on the pavement.
"What now, madame?" said Roederer.
Some fifty persons had gathered round the king.
The queen cast a long look on the group to see how much devotion
lingered. Then, mute, not knowing to whom to turn, the poor creature
took up her son and showed him to the officers of the court and army
and National Guard, no longer the sovereign asking the throne for her
heir, but the mother suing for protection for her boy.
During this time, the king was speaking in a low voice with the Commune
attorney, or rather, the latter was repeating what he had said to the
queen.
Two very distinct groups formed around the two sovereigns. The king's
was cold and grave, and was composed of counselors who appeared of
Roederer's opinion. The queen's was ardent, numerous, and enthusiastic
young military men, who waved their hats, flourished their swords,
raised their hands to the dauphin, kissed the hem of the queen's robe,
and swore to die for both of them.
Marie Antoinette found some hope in this enthusiasm.
The king's party melted into the queen's, and with his usual
impassibility, the monarch found himself the center of the two
commingled. His unconcern might be courage.
The queen snatched a pair of pistols from Colonel Maillardet.
"Come, sire," she cried; "this is the time for you to show yourself and
die in the midst of your friends!"
This action had carried enthusiasm to its height, and everybody waited
for the king's reply, with parted lips and breath held in suspense.
A young, brave, and handsome king, who had sprung forward with blazing
eye and quivering lip, to rush with the pistols in hand into the thick
of the fight, might have recalled fortune to his crown.
They waited and they hoped.
Taking the pistols from the queen's hands, the king returned them to
the owner.
"Monsieur Roederer," he said, "you were observing that I had better go
over to the House?"
"Such is my advice," answered the legal agent of the Commune, bowing.
"Come away, gentlemen; there is nothing more to be done here," said the
king.
Uttering a sigh, the queen took up her son in her arms, and said to her
ladies:
"Come, ladies, since it is the king's desire," which was as much as to
say to the others, "Expect nothing more from me."
In the corridor where she would have to pass through, Mme. Campan was
waiting. She whispered to her: "How I wish I dwelt in a tower by the
sea!"
The abandoned attendants looked at each other and seemed to say, "Is
this the monarch for whom we came here to die?"
Colonel Chesnaye understood this mute inquiry, for he answered:
"No, gentlemen, it was for royalty. The wearer of the crown is mortal,
but the principle imperishable."
The queen's ladies were terrified. They looked like so many marble
statues standing in the corners and along the lobbies.
At last the king condescended to remember those he was casting off. At
the foot of the stairs, he halted.
"But what will befall all those I leave behind?" he inquired.
"Sire," replied Roederer, "it will be easy enough for them to follow
you out. As they are in plain dress, they can slip out through the
gardens."
"Alas," said the queen, seeing Count Charny waiting for her by the
garden gate, with his drawn sword, "I would I had heeded you when you
advised me to flee."
The queen's Life Guardsman did not respond, but he went up to the king,
and said:
"Sire, will you please exchange hats, lest yours single out your
majesty?"
"Oh, you are right, on account of the white feather," said Louis.
"Thank you, my lord." And he took the count's hat instead of his own.
"Does the king run any risk in this crossing?" inquired the queen.
"You see, madame, that if so, I have done all I could to turn the
danger aside from the threatened one."
"Is your majesty ready?" asked the Swiss captain charged to escort the
king across the gardens.
The king advanced between two rows of Swiss, keeping step with him,
till suddenly they heard loud shouting on the left.
The door near the Flora restaurant had been burst through by the mob,
and they rushed in, knowing that the king was going to the Assembly.
The leader of the band carried a head on a pole as the ensign.
The Swiss captain ordered a halt and called his men to get their guns
ready.
"My Lord Charny," said the queen, "if you see me on the point of
falling into those ruffians' hands, you will kill me, will you not?"
"I can not promise you that, for I shall be dead before they touch you."
"Bless us," said the king; "this is the head of our poor Colonel
Mandat. I know it again."
The band of assassins did not dare to come too near, but they
overwhelmed the royal pair with insults. Five or six shots were fired,
and two Swiss fell--one dead.
"Do not fire," said Charny; "or not one of us will reach the House
alive."
"That is so," observed the captain; "carry arms."
The soldiers shouldered their guns and all continued crossing
diagonally. The first heats of the year had yellowed the
chestnut-trees, and dry leaves were strewing the earth. The little
prince found some sport in heaping them up with his foot and kicking
them on his sister's.
"The leaves are falling early this year," observed the king.
"Did not one of those men write that royalty will not outlast the fall
of the leaf?" questioned the queen.
"Yes, my lady," replied Charny.
"What was the name of this cunning prophet?"
"Manuel."
A new obstacle rose in the path of the royal family: a numerous
crowd of men and women, who were waiting with menacing gestures and
brandished weapons on the steps and the terrace which had to be gone
over to reach the riding-school.
The danger was the worse from the Swiss being unable to keep in rank.
The captain tried in vain to get through, and he showed so much rage
that Roederer cried:
"Be careful, sir--you will lead to the king being killed."
They had to halt, but a messenger was sent to the Assembly to plead
that the king wanted asylum.
The House sent a deputation, at the sight of whom the mob's fury was
redoubled.
Nothing was to be heard but these shouts yelled with wrath:
"Down with Veto!"--"Over with the Austrian!"--"Dethronement or death!"
Understanding that it was in particular their mother who was
threatened, the two children huddled up to her. The little dauphin
asked:
"Lord Charny, why do these naughty people want to hurt my mamma?"
A gigantic man, armed with a pike, and roaring louder than the rest,
"Down with Veto--death to the Austrian!" kept trying to stab the king
and the queen.
The Swiss escort had gradually been forced away, so that the royal
family had by them only the six noblemen who had left the palace with
them, Charny, and the Assembly deputation.
There were still some thirty paces to go in the thick crowd.
It was evident that the lives of the pair were aimed at, and chiefly
the queen's.
The struggle began at the staircase foot.
"If you do not sheathe your sword," said Roederer, "I will answer for
nothing."
Without uttering a word, Charny put up his sword.
The party was lifted by the press as a skiff is tossed in a gale by the
waves, and drawn toward the Assembly. The king was obliged to push away
a ruffian who stuck his fist in his face. The little dauphin, almost
smothered, screamed and held out his hands for help.
A man dashed forward and snatched him out of his mother's arms.
"My Lord Charny, my son!" she shrieked; "in Heaven's name, save my boy!"
Charny took a couple of steps in chase of the fellow with the prince,
but as soon as he unmasked the queen, two or three hands dragged her
toward them, and one clutched the neckerchief on her bosom. She sent up
a scream.
Charny forgot Roederer's advice, and his sword disappeared its full
length in the body of the wretch who had dared to lay hands on the
queen.
The gang howled with rage on seeing one of their number slain, and
rushed all the more fiercely on the group.
Highest of all the women yelled: "Why don't you kill the
Austrian?"--"Give her to us to have her throat slit!"--"Death to
her--death!"
Twenty naked arms were stretched out to seize her. Maddened by grief,
thinking nothing of her own danger, she never ceased to cry:
"My son--save my son!"
They touched the portals of the Assembly, but the mob doubled their
efforts for fear their prey would escape.
Charny was so closely pressed that he could only ply the handle of
his sword. Among the clinched and menacing fists, he saw one holding
a pistol and trying to get a shot at the queen. He dropped his sword,
grasped the pistol by both hands, wrenched it from the holder, and
discharged it into the body of the nearest assailant. The man fell as
though blasted by lightning.
Charny stooped in the gap to regain his rapier.
At this moment, the queen entered the Assembly vestibule in the retinue
of the king.
Charny's sword was already in a hand that had struck at her.
He flew at the murderer, but at this the doors were slammed, and on the
step he dropped, at the same time felled by an iron bar on his head and
a spear right through his heart.
"As fell my brothers," he muttered. "My poor Andrea!"
The fate of the Charnys was accomplished with the last one, as in the
case of Valence and Isidore. That of the queen, for whom their lives
were laid down, was yet to be fulfilled.
At this time, a dreadful discharge of great guns announced that the
besiegers and the garrison were hard at work.