THE THREAT IS LOUDER.
Throughout August, affairs were tending more and more to dangerous
threats. The National Assembly were ostensibly framing a new
constitution; but the delegates proceeded very slowly, except in the
matter of contradiction, at which they were very brisk.
The King’s brothers became still further estranged from him; while
the efforts made beyond the frontier, tending to liberate the royal
family from the state of imprisonment in which they lived, only
tended to hasten the growing belief of the people that by the death
of the King, alone could the nation hope to destroy the chances and
the plans of those Royalists who had escaped from France, and were
blindly endeavoring to serve their own interests by inducing foreign
Courts to declare war against France, and march upon Paris.
Throughout this period the King gave little expression of opinion,
worked and read incessantly, and bore the threatening aspect of
affairs about him and his family with great patience. He was an
estimable man, honest to a degree, but stupid, hopelessly prejudiced,
and apparently without any capability of experiencing tenderness or
sorrow.
It was now that Roland, the husband of the celebrated Madame Roland,
rose to eminence. Nothing in himself, he became notorious through his
wife—one of the most beautiful, accomplished, and brilliant, as one
of the most unfortunate, the world has yet seen. Her husband was much
older than herself—cold, deadly, impassive; but, on the other hand,
his steady principles were never for one moment shaken.
She was a republican, heart and soul; and when the people, towards
the close of the year 1791, began to believe that the differences
between the King and the nation would be amicably settled, she
never swerved one moment in maintaining that a republic, and only a
republic, could save France from invasion.
General Dumouriez was also rising to power. He was rather a courtier
than a soldier, although he was destined to win victories: especially
amongst women, he was very successful. He attempted to obtain favor
from Madame Roland herself; but that single-hearted lady, true to
her ice-cold husband, put down the General’s pretensions with calm
contempt. He, however, gained much attention from Marie Antoinette,
as the man who, amongst those who had acquired the confidence of
the people, was the most aristocratic, and who had, therefore, the
most sympathy with the falling royal cause. The Queen was right.
After gaining several battles for France against the Austrians, he
turned his army upon Paris, intending to intimidate the Republicans.
The army revolted, and Dumouriez himself had to take refuge in the
camp of those very Austrians whom but a short time previously he had
conquered. They would have nothing to do with him; and, finally, he
fled to England, always open to the refugee, and there he died in
obscurity.
This general, therefore, helped to destroy the royal family. At his
first interview with the King, he said, “Sire, I devote myself wholly
to your service. But a minister of to-day is no longer the minister
of yesterday. Without ceasing to be your Majesty’s devoted servant, I
am the slave of the nation.”
The Queen sent for him privately when he had become the idol of the
people.
“Sir,” said she, “you are all-powerful at this moment; but it is
through popular favor, and that soon destroys its idols. I tell you
I oppose the changes which are being made in the constitution, so
beware!”
“I am confounded,” the General replied; “but I am more the servant
of my country than of your Majesty. Think of your safety, of the
King’s, of that of your children! You are surrounded by enemies. If,
in the King’s interests, you oppose the new constitution made by the
Assembly you will endanger the royal family, and in no way prevent
the course of events.”
“Sir,” the Queen frantically replied, “this state of things cannot
last for ever. Beware for _yourself_.”
“Madame,” said Dumouriez, who _had_ accepted the post of Premier of
the Ministry, and who, at this time, appears to have very faithfully
served the nation—his great fault was his fickleness,—“madame, when
I became Prime Minister, I knew that my responsibility was not my
greatest danger.”
The Queen shrank back. “Do you think me capable of having you
assassinated?”
Tears were upon the Queen’s face.
“Far be such a fearful thought from me, your Majesty. Your soul is
great and noble, and the bravery you have shown on many occasions has
for ever made me your Majesty’s most devoted slave.”
The Queen’s anger was appeased in a moment, and she placed her right
hand upon the General’s arm in token of reconciliation.
Thus it was that this unhappy woman, who had begun life so
extravagantly, while the masses were starving, irritated the people,
and especially all those who had dealings with her, by the apparent
childishness and weakness of her general character. It was felt
that no reliance could be placed upon her. Born of the great feudal
Austrian family about whom etiquette was so plastered, that only
nobles could sit down in the presence of the royal family, and then
upon a very low stool, she was brought to France at a very early
age, to a Court almost as ridiculous as the one she had left. But
while the Austrians had been excited to no feelings of hate against
their Emperor, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, had taught the French
to look upon royalty as made up of merciless, greedy puppets; and,
unfortunately, Marie Antoinette—a pure and noble-hearted woman in
herself—had the appearance of totally agreeing with this description.
While the people were starving, her passion for jewels became
absorbing; while mothers were begging meals for their little ones,
she was taking parts in little comedies at Versailles.
Her memory can scarcely be blamed. She had never seen the people;
and, as a proof that she knew nothing about them and their wants, we
hear about her the celebrated anecdote, which helped to send her to
the scaffold. Being told the people wanted bread, she replied, “If
there is no bread, why do they not eat cake?”
The people never forgave that—she washed those words only partly
out with her blood. Did she really mean what she said, or were the
words intended for a joke? Did she really think that if there was no
bread there must be cake; or did she utter that fatal sentence as
a witticism? I venture to think that she was ignorant of the very
meaning of starvation; for courtiers treat kings and queens like
children. A misfortune this, when the people expect them to be men
and women—the condition of things when the Revolution broke out.
Louis XVI was incapable of managing anything but a lock; his wife
thought she could govern for him, and she made a sorry mistake.
The King’s grandfather, Louis XV, the preceding King, had said,
“After me, the deluge.” The deluge was upon the royal family,
sweeping around them, and was to overwhelm the family.
The popular feeling was far stronger against the Queen than the King.
“See,” she said, one day, before Dumouriez and the King, and pointing
through a window near her; “a prisoner in this palace, I dare not
venture to present myself at a window that overlooks the garden. But
yesterday I wished to breathe the air, and went to the window. An
artilleryman used the language of a guard-room, and hurled his words
at me; held up his sword, and said he should like to see my head on
it. I have seen them murdering a priest, and meanwhile, not ten yards
away, children and their nurses are playing at ball. What a country,
and what people!”
That the Queen incessantly conspired to induce a foreign army to
march into France, is very certain.
The King soon mistrusted Dumouriez, who at once offered to resign his
position of Minister. The King at once accepted, and another friend
was lost by royalty.
On taking his leave, Dumouriez foretold what was to happen.
“Sire,” said he, “you think you are about to save religion. You are
destroying it. The priesthood will be killed; your crown will be
taken from you; perhaps even the Queen and the royal children——”
Dumouriez could not finish the sentence.
“I await—I expect death!” said the King, much moved; “and I pardon my
enemies.”
He turned away, with quivering lips.
Dumouriez never saw Louis XVI again.
He fled from Paris, and especially from La Belle Liègoise, who, in
her blood-colored dress, was now rising to utter power.
“Build the new parliament,” she cried, “on the site of the Bastille;
and let every woman give her jewels, that the gold may be coined to
pay for the work.”
And taking the golden earrings from her ears, the rings from her
fingers, she cast them before her hearers.
Her power was so great, that during every sudden outbreak her “nod”
condemned any man brought before her, to death; her “Let him go,” set
him at liberty.
She was mad for years before she was placed in the asylum where
she ended her days, twenty years after the death of the King and
Queen. Not a Frenchwoman, but born at Liège, she had been brought
up respectably; she was even accomplished; but at seventeen she had
fallen a victim to the snares of a young French nobleman.
Thus fallen, she threw herself into all shapes of debauchery; and
when the Revolution broke out, she came to France, to hunt down and
destroy the man who had destroyed her.
This she did in the raging time to come, of which I have to tell, and
she showed him no mercy.
Neither found she any mercy for herself. The furies of the
Revolution—the _tricoteuses_—seized her, stripped her to the skin,
and whipped her in public, as an obscene prostitute. This act
brought into active force the latent madness from which she had been
suffering for some time. She was removed to a madhouse, and there
she dragged through twenty years of life. In fierce memory of the
indignity which had been put upon her, she would never put on any
clothing; and so she lived, clutching the bars of her den, screaming,
alternately, “Blood!” and “Liberty!”
It took twenty years to enfeeble her constitution, and to wear her
life away into the peacefulness of death.
She was the greatest enemy the Queen had. She declared Marie
Antoinette as frail as herself; for this demon in woman’s shape
insanely gloried in her condition. And when she gloried in this
statement against the “Austrian”—the most opprobrious name the people
could find to cast at the Queen—her hearers applauded loudly.
So the months drifted on, the events of every day darkening the
fortunes of the royal family.
And now came the time when the palace was besieged. The King, looking
from his window, saw the meeting of a huge crowd without any alarm:
he was, by this time, accustomed to sudden crowds.
Again a soldier had led the way for the mob. An artillery officer,
instead of obeying orders, and retiring his guns to defend the
palace, pointed to its windows, and cried, “The enemy is there!”
Two minutes after, the people had got possession of the Tuileries.
The king—who, whatever his faults, was no coward—rushed forward
towards the massive folding-doors, which the populace finding bolted,
were breaking open.
As he approached, the panels fell at his feet. He ordered a couple of
valets to open these folding-doors.
“What have I to fear,” he said, “from my people?”
A ragged man rushed forward, and thrust a stick, pointed with iron,
at the King. A grenadier of the guard struck it down with his
bayonet. And now the man fell, whether in a fit or not will always
remain a question. Certainly, as he rushed forward, he was foaming
at the mouth. All that is known farther of him is this—that the mass
pressing forward, he was trampled to death.
For a moment, the power of majesty was once more asserted.
He had left the Queen, the royal children, and his noble sister,
Madame Elizabeth, in an inner room, and had ordered the door to be
closed after him. This had been done.
The king now moved to another room, larger, pretending that there
he could speak to a greater number of citizens. Suddenly, hearing
a scuffle, the King turned, to find the mob surrounding Madame
Elizabeth, who was endeavoring to reach the King’s side.
“It is the Queen!” screamed several fierce voices. And they were the
voices of women.
In a moment, they turned upon her.
The abhorred Queen was before them, as they thought. In another
moment she would have been killed.
“It is Madame Elizabeth!” cried the soldiers.
The mob fell back with reverence. Even at that point they could
respect Elizabeth, the purity and simplicity of whose life formed the
one favorable point in the united lives of the royal family, and one
to which the whole mass of the people gave implicit credence.
But she was to die with her family.
“Ah! what have you done?” she cried. “Had they been allowed to take
me for the Queen, and have killed me, I had perhaps saved the Queen’s
life!”
By this time, about twenty of the King’s friends stood about him,
their swords drawn.
“Put up your swords,” said the King; “this multitude’s more excited
than guilty.”
“Where is the Austrian?” now resounded upon all sides.
The question which excited the multitude was against the priesthood,
whose members, known to favor royalty, were abhorred by the people.
The king had refused to sign an act by virtue of which the priesthood
would have been annihilated.
A butcher, named Legendre, cried to the King, “The people are weary
of being your plaything and your victim!”
Meanwhile, those who could not gain an entrance to the besieged
palace called loudly to those within, “Are they dead? Show us, then,
their heads!”
“Let him put it on!” cried the butcher, thrusting a coarse red cap of
liberty towards the King on the end of a pike.
The King smiled, and put the symbol of liberty upon his head.
“Long live the King!” now cried some voices.
The people now called upon the King to restore Roland—Madame Roland’s
husband—to power, from which he had been dismissed.
The King was inflexible.
“This is not the moment for deliberation,” said the King.
“Do not be afraid!” whispered a grenadier to Louis.
“My friend,” said the King, “does my heart beat rapidly?”
And he placed the man’s left hand upon his breast.
The pulsation of the King’s heart was perfectly equable.
“If you love the people, drink their health!” cried a man in rags,
pushing forward a common bottle.
The King smiled and took the bottle, saying, “To the nation!”
And now the cries of “Long live the King!” were so strong that they
floated out upon the crowd waiting to see the King’s body cast
amongst them; and, instead, they learnt that once more the King
had—if only for a time—reconciled himself to his people.
Meanwhile the Queen was undergoing her agony.
Only the conviction that she was more immeasurable hated than the
King, prevented her from joining him before the people. She feared
her presence might exasperate the people beyond all control.
She remained in her bed-room, pressing her two children to her heart.
Suddenly, a beating at the door, and the screams of many fierce
women, upon hearing the words, “The Austrian is there!”
But they had to call masculine help before they forced the door.
They found the Queen unprotected, except by her children, whose
presence probably saved their mother from assassination.
Only a few ladies were with her, one of whom was that unhappy
Princess de Lamballe, who would not remain in England, who returned
to France, and who was one of the first to fall a victim to the Reign
of Terror.
The Queen was found by the screaming crowd of women standing as I
have described, in a bay window, while between her and the mob, a
long, heavy table had been placed across the window.
By the Queen stood her daughter—near fourteen years of age.
The Dauphin—then seven years of age, and extremely handsome—was
placed upon the table before her.
The men in the crowd were for the greater part silent; the women were
implacable: one of these thrust forward a republican red cap, and
told the Austrian to put it on Louis’s head. This she did.
The child took it for a plaything, and smiled.
And now a pretty, rosy, youthful girl came forward, and using the
coarsest possible language, upbraided the Queen savagely.
“Pray what harm have I done you?”
“Me?—perhaps not. But what harm have you not done the nation?”
“Poor child!” the Queen replied. “You but repeat what you have been
told. Why should I make the people miserable? Though not born a
Frenchwoman, my children are French, and I shall never see my native
land again. I was happy when you loved me!”
The girl’s head fell.
“I did not know you,” she said; “and I see now that you are good!”
And now Santerre—good name for a leader of the people—approached.
“Take the cap off the child!” he cried; “don’t you see that he is
stifling?”
The crowd was tremendous.
And approaching the Queen he whispered, “You have some awkward
friends here. I know of some who would serve you better.”
This was the first intimation the Queen really had that there was a
party amongst the people actually willing to raise the royal family
they had so utterly degraded.
Five hours that torture lasted before the palace was cleared. The
King and Queen had also been forced to put the national cockades upon
their heads. When once more the royal house was free, the unhappy
people could scarcely find strength with which to embrace.
Several of the members of the National Assembly wept.
To one, Merlin, the Queen said, “You weep, sir.”
“Yes, madame,” he replied, gravely; “I weep over the misfortunes of
the woman, the wife, and the mother; but, beyond this, my heart is
stone. I hate kings and queens.”
These words were the key-stone to French feeling. Louis XVI and his
wife were driven to the block, not as a man and a wife, as father and
mother—but as _King_ and _Queen_.