THE KING QUITS THE TUILERIES.
The National Assembly had ordered the provinces to send 20,000
troops to Paris. With them they brought the revolutionary hymn, the
“Marseillaise.” It was written and composed by a young artillery
officer, named De Lisle. It was completed at the piano, after a
night’s bout. He fell asleep over the instrument, and at length
awakening, gradually recalled the air and words of a song, the
fierceness of which sent more French men and women to the block than
did any other motive.
That song drove revolutionary France mad, and took from the royal
family all hope of mercy.
The royal family, however, were still at the Palace of the Tuileries;
and while they remained there, the semblance of royalty was kept
up—albeit, in fact, they were utterly prisoners.
The Queen, early in August, still utterly relied upon Lafayette,
who did not disguise his desire to retain the monarchy, under a
protectorate—he himself to be the Protector.
“Mistrust Lafayette,” had said Mirabeau; but the Queen’s faith was
strong, and her confidence hastened events.
However, one Gaudet, only twenty years of age, was rising to power
amongst the Girondists; and he having intimated that he felt great
interest in the royal family, matters were so managed that he had
an interview with Marie Antoinette, who, poor lady, took him by the
hand, and led him to the little cot in which her child was sleeping.
“Educate him to liberty, madame,” said the orator. “It is the one
condition of his life.”
He kissed the child. Nine months afterwards he was one of those who
sent the King and Queen to the scaffold.
The royal family were now prohibited from shutting a door, and so
much did they dread poison, that they only pretended to eat of the
dishes prepared and set before them, and really subsisted upon cakes,
and other food brought to them in the pockets of their attendants,
who purchased the eatables at obscure shops.
The Queen made the King wear as a breastplate fifteen-fold silk; but
while the poor man complied, he said, “They will not assassinate me,
but put me to death like a King, in open daylight.”
He never appears to have thought of the possible execution of the
Queen herself.
“He is no coward,” she said of the King; “but he is calm in the
presence of danger. His courage is in his heart, only it does not
show itself—he is so timid.”
The family now only showed themselves when going to church on Sunday,
and then they were assailed with cries of “No King!” Louis said it
was as though God himself had turned against him.
One night, a chamber-valet, who slept at the Queen’s door, was
awakened, to find an assassin, dagger in hand, stealing into the
Queen’s room.
Murders now became quite common. One D’Epremesnil, who had been a
great favorite with the people, showed signs of moderation. Suddenly
turned upon by the mob, he was cut down, dragged through the gutters,
and was about to be thrown into a common sewer, when he was rescued
by a squad of the National Guard. As he lay dying, Pétion, the Mayor
of Paris, looked upon him, and fainted. Recovering his senses, the
victim said to the Mayor, “And _I_—I, too, was once the idol of the
people! May you meet with a better fate!”
The sound of the soul-stirring “Marseillaise” had maddened Paris.
The hourly news of the march of the Prussians upon France fatally
intensified that hatred of all who were favorable to royalty—a hatred
which was now about utterly to burst all bounds.
An almost complete insurrection was adjourned to August 10.
It was said by the people that Marie Antoinette daily cursed the
people; that she had offered a pistol to the King, and prayed him
to destroy himself: that she had vowed, sooner than leave the royal
palace, she would be nailed to its walls.
In truth, she was battling with her natural royalty—defending the
unemotional King, and endeavoring to take his place without intruding
on his prerogative.
Meanwhile, the principal movers in the drama were being thinned by
murder. Mandat, the commandant general, suspected of treachery rather
than of duty, was shot down before his son’s eyes, and his body was
cast into the Seine.
On the morning of that terrible 10th of August, Madame Elizabeth, the
King’s sister, who had been watching through the night, listening to
the ringing of that bell which all the Royalists knew was the tocsin
of murder,—this pure-hearted Elizabeth called to the Queen.
“Sister,” she said, “come and see the sun rise.”
And Marie Antoinette looked for the last time upon a sunrise (it was
typically blood-red) which she was to see through the palace windows.
To Rœderer, the deputy, was due the first suggestion of that act
which was really the King’s abdication—that of abandoning the royal
palace, and asking hospitality of the Parliament.
“Place yourselves, madame,” he said, “in the care of the National
Assembly. Your persons will then be as sacred as the constitution.”
The constitution itself was to be a thing of the past in a few weeks.
At five in the morning, the Queen had her children dressed and
brought to her. The King himself, by his appearance, should have
steeped the guard in confidence. He should have appeared in uniform.
On the contrary, he appeared in a suit of violet silk—court mourning,
in fact, without boots or spurs, in white silk stockings and pumps;
while his hair presented an absurd spectacle, for it had not been
dressed since the previous day; and while one side was still rounded
and curled, the other was flat and ragged. He looked about smilingly,
but with that vagueness in which no reliance can be placed. He was
simply a good, stupid, amiable man. He kept apart, all his reign,
making locks; he forgot his people, and he was weak enough to
suppose his people would forget him.
As for the Queen she was never more royal.
“Take these!” she said, seizing a couple of pistols and forcing them
into his hands; “and conquer or die with your friends.”
The King however, handed them to a gentleman by his side, saying,
“No; if I wore arms, the people might be angry.”
A royal progress was made in the court-yard of the Tuileries, even in
the palace-garden beyond. At first received with faint applause, the
cries of hate soon overwhelmed the King, and it was with difficulty
he gained the palace alone.
The tocsin had now been calling to arms through many hours.
Meanwhile, Danton, the man of blood, was maddening the people.
“To arms!” he cried. “Do you not hear the call?”
The infuriated people were now upon the palace.
They attempted once more to burst the doors, while the artillerymen
refused to fire upon the insurgents.
And now the fatal, but inevitable, mistake was made.
“Sire,” cried Rœderer to the King, “time presses. It is no longer
entreaty we use, and only one means is left us. We ask your
permission to use violence towards you; and, by force, to place you
under the safety of the National Assembly.”
The King still did not wish to leave the palace. He turned to the
Queen.
“Let us go.”
Never again did the royal couple step beneath the roof of that
palace. They left it for a barred prison—that barred prison for the
scaffold.
The King and the royal family were taken to the Assembly, and put in
the reporters’ box, amidst the reporters themselves.
There were few members present when the King entered the house, but
it soon filled up. The heat was intense, and the King perspired
frightfully. This box was supposed to be not in the Assembly, because
a grating was placed before it. As the day went on, it was feared
the people might break in from behind, and catch the King in this
dungeon. It was, therefore, ordered that the grating should be
removed; and the workers being unskilful, the King’s knowledge in
metal-work prevailing, he came forward, and helped at its removal; so
that in the event of an attack by the people, whose menaces could be
heard, the members of parliament might shelter the royal family by
forming a living rampart around them.
This agony lasted fourteen hours; but it did not tell upon the King’s
heavy nature. At his usual hour, he was hungry, asked for food, and
he ate a hearty meal as calmly as though he had passed some hours at
lock-making. The Queen, who suffered dreadfully at the sight of this
evidence of callousness on the part of the King, ate nothing, but
drank a glass or two of iced water with much eagerness.
The people, learning that the King had left the palace, turned upon
this building to destroy it—not to sack it. The Revolutionists were
greedy for blood—not wealth. “Death to thieves!” was their implacable
motto. The Tuileries were chiefly defended by seven hundred Swiss,
two hundred badly-armed gentlemen, and one hundred National Guard. At
the end of the day, not one-tenth of them remained alive.
The palace was forced. There stood a Swiss on guard, many files of
comrades behind him. He had orders not to fire. The people hooked
his belt with a pike, dragged him forward, and disarmed him. Another
took his place; he, also, was disarmed. Five times was this episode
repeated.
A shot was fired—some say, by a Swiss; others, by an insurgent; and
this appears to have been the signal.
The people turned upon the five disarmed Swiss, and beat them to
death. One man of huge stature and strength killed four. The Swiss
were now ordered to fire. Many aimed at the huge man, and he fell
with many more. In a moment, the hall was strewn with the dead and
the dying. From that moment, the Swiss were doomed; though, for a
short time, they were victorious; for the people were driven back.
Meanwhile, the rattle of the musketry echoed through the building in
which the National Assembly were deliberating; and its cause soon
became known.
“Long live the nation!” cried the parliamentarians, glaring at the
King, who, unhappy man, now helped on the massacre of his Swiss
guards by sending a written order to their commander to cease firing,
whatever happened. This was really their death-warrant; for fidelity
keeping them near the King’s person, fidelity would compel them to
obey his last command—for this order was the last Louis XVI ever gave.
Suddenly, shots sounded close at hand. The members thought it was the
Swiss guard, about to fire upon and massacre the National Assembly.
In truth, it was the National Guard firing upon that division of the
Swiss which had accompanied the King to the National Assembly.
“Now,” cried the President, “is the time to prove ourselves worthy of
the people, and of the position they have given us, by dying at our
posts.”
It was a false alarm; it was royalty dying.
The people now rallied, broke into the palace, and, maddened by the
sight of the dead citizens in the great hall, charged the Swiss, who
were serried on the grand staircase.
Upon those stairs they were driven, leaving comrades upon every step.
The incline afforded good shooting to the people, who, when they had
forced their way to the top of the stairs, had slain every soldier
who had faced them. The Swiss guard died bravely to the very last man.
After that it was massacre, not fighting. Wherever a Swiss was found
on guard throughout the palace, he was hacked to pieces. Many were
thrown alive from the windows to the people below. Some few of these
solitary Swiss sentinels showed fight; many threw down their arms,
and either faced death unarmed, or uselessly asked for mercy.
Seventeen were found kneeling in the palace chapel. In vain did they
show their fire-arms, which, clear and bright, proved they had not
fired upon the people. They were foreigners; the news came hourly
that all Europe was about to pour upon France, and they were killed
before the very altar.
It is said the people had, to stimulate their bloodthirstiness,
dissolved gunpowder in the wine and brandy they drank.
Not a Swiss escaped.
The Queen’s women remained trembling in the palace.
One man alone defended their door, and fell—generous sentinel!
Danton was the very king of the massacre; and publicly he thanked the
people for their day’s work.
Meanwhile, calm, patient, implacable, Robespierre—he who was to
conquer Danton—waited quietly abiding his time, but always feeling
his way.
The Assembly soon learnt the true state of affairs; and, by their
orders, a few Swiss were saved, by being hidden in the passages and
cellars of the House of Assembly.
And now, the Revolutionists, eager for blood, but not for riches,
brought before the National Assembly the spoils of the Tuileries.
Sacks upon sacks of gold, plate, precious stones, costly ornaments,
and even heaps of letters—even the money found upon the dead Swiss
was set out in a separate pile.
The Girondists now felt that the time was come to abandon the throne.
Vergniaud drew up an act for the _provisional suspension of royalty_.
This was at once passed.
The King’s fall was signed. A few hours before, he abandoned his
palace. Now, by this Act, the King’s authority was revoked; payment
of money to royalty was stopped; and the National Assembly declared
to hold possession of the persons of the royal family until happier
times arrived.
This was virtually dethroning the King, and taking him prisoner.
And how did the King accept this news?
He smiled, and said jocosely, “This is not too constitutional!”
He was the only human being that smiled in that place upon that fatal
day—he whose heart should have felt the heaviest weight of grief.
But the people around the building shouted for the King’s life.
The people, however, must not be looked upon harshly. They had not
stolen; and though many hundreds had been slain by them, they had
lost three thousand six hundred men. The Swiss did not die unavenged.
Then the people went back to their work, tired of bloodshed, for a
few days.
And the royal family were taken to the prison of the Temple, which
three of them quitted only for the scaffold.