History of the Girondists Part 3

No party had the reason, no mind had the genius, no soul had the virtue, no arm had the energy, to control this chaos, and extract from it justice, truth, and strength. Things will only produce what they contain. Louis XVI. was upright and devoted to well doing, but he had not understood, from the very first symptoms of the Revolution, that there was only one part for the leader of a people, and that was to place himself in the van of the newly born idea, to forbear any struggle for the past, and thus to combine in his own person the twofold power of chief of the nation, and chief of a party. The character of moderation is only possible on the condition of having already acquired the unreserved confidence of the party whom it is desired to control. Henri IV. a.s.sumed this character, but it was _after_ victory; had he attempted it _before_ Ivry, he would have lost, not only the kingdom of France, but also of Navarre.

The court was venal, selfish, corrupt; it only defended in the king's person the sources of its vanities,--profitable exactions. The clergy, with Christian virtues, had no public virtues: a state within a state, its life was apart from the life of the nation, its ecclesiastical establishment seemed to be wholly independent of the monarchical establishment. It had only rallied round the monarchy, on the day it had beheld its own fortune compromised; and then it had appealed to the faith of the people, in order to preserve its wealth; but the people now only saw in the monks mendicants, and in the bishops extortioners. The n.o.bility, effeminate by lengthened peace, emigrated in ma.s.ses, abandoning their king to his besetting perils, and fully trusting in the prompt and decisive intervention of foreign powers. The third estate, jealous and envious, fiercely demanded their place and their rights amongst the privileged castes; its justice appeared hatred. The a.s.sembly comprised in its bosom all these weaknesses, all this egotism, all these vices. Mirabeau was venal, Barnave jealous, Robespierre fanatic, the Jacobin Club blood-thirsty, the National Guard selfish, La Fayette a waverer, the government a nullity. No one desired the Revolution but for his own purpose, and according to his own scheme; and it must have been wrecked on these shoals a hundred times, if there were not in human crises something even stronger than the men who appear to guide them--the will of the event itself.

The Revolution in all its comprehensive bearings was not understood at that period by any one except, perchance, Robespierre and the thorough going democrats. The King viewed it only as a vast reform, the Duc d'Orleans as a great faction, Mirabeau but in its political point of view, La Fayette only in its const.i.tutional aspect, the Jacobins as a vengeance, the mob as the abasing of the higher orders, the nation as a display of patriotism. None ventured as yet to contemplate its ultimate consummation.

All was thus blind, except the Revolution itself. The virtue of the Revolution was in the idea which forced these men on to accomplish it, and not in those who actually accomplished it; all its instruments were vitiated, corrupt, or personal; but the idea was pure, incorruptible, divine. The vices, pa.s.sions, selfishness of men were inevitably doomed to produce in the coming crises those shocks, those violences, those perversities, and those crimes which are to human pa.s.sions what consequences are to principles.

If each of the parties or men, mixed up from the first day with these great events had taken their virtue, instead of their impulses as the rule of their actions, all these disasters which eventually crushed them, would have been saved to them and to their country. If the king had been firm and sagacious, if the clergy had been free from a longing for things temporal, and if the aristocracy had been good; if the people had been moderate, if Mirabeau had been honest, if La Fayette had been decided, if Robespierre had been humane, the Revolution would have progressed, majestic and calm as a heavenly thought, through France, and thence through Europe; it would have been installed like a philosophy in facts, in laws, and in creeds. But it was otherwise decreed. The holiest most just and virtuous thought, when it pa.s.ses through the medium of imperfect humanity, comes out in rags and in blood. Those very persons who conceived it, no longer recognise, disavow it. Yet it is not permitted, even to crime, to degrade the truth, that survives all, even its victims. The blood which sullies men does not stain its idea; and despite the selfishness which debases it, the infamies which trammel it, the crimes which pollute it, the blood-stained Revolution purifies itself, feels its own worth, triumphs, and will triumph.

BOOK II.

I.

The National a.s.sembly, wearied with two years of existence, relaxed in its legislative movement: from the moment when it had nothing more to destroy, it really was at a loss what to do. The Jacobins took umbrage at it, its popularity was disappearing, the press inveighed against it, the clubs insulted it; the worn-out tool by which the people had acquired conquest, it felt the people were about to snap it asunder if it did not dissolve of its own accord. Its sittings were inanimate, and it was completing the const.i.tution as a task inflicted on it, but at which it was discouraged before completion. It had no belief in the duration of that which it proclaimed imperishable. The lofty voices which had shaken France so long were now no more, or were silent from indifference. Maury, Cazales, Clermont Tonnerre seemed careless of continuing a conflict in which honour was saved, and in which victory was henceforth impossible. From time to time, indeed, some burst of pa.s.sion between parties interrupted the usual monotony of these theoretical discussions. Such was the struggle of the 10th of June between Cazales and Robespierre with respect to the disbanding the officers of the army. "What is it," exclaimed Robespierre, "that the committees propose to us? to trust to the oaths, to the honour of officers, to defend a const.i.tution which they detest! of what honour do they talk to us? What is that honour more than virtue and love of country? I take credit to myself for not believing in such honour."

Cazales himself arose indignantly. "I could not listen tamely to such calumniating language," he exclaimed. At these words violent murmurs arose on the left, and cries (order! to the Abbaye! to the Abbaye!) burst forth from the ranks of the revolution: "What," said the royalist orator, "is it not enough to have restrained my indignation on hearing two thousand citizens thus accused, who in all moments of peril have presented an example of most heroic patience! I have listened to the previous speaker, because I am, and I a.s.sert it, a partisan of the most unlimited declaration of opinions; but it is beyond human endurance for me to conceal the contempt I feel for such diatribes. If you adopt the disbanding proposed you will no longer have an army, our frontiers will be delivered up to foreign invasion, and the interior to excesses and the pillage of an infuriated soldiery." These energetic words were the funeral oration of the old army, the project of the committee was adopted.

The discussion on the abolition of the punishment of death presented to Adrien Duport an opportunity to p.r.o.nounce in favour of the abolition one of those orations which survive time, and which protest, in the name of reason and philosophy, against the blindness and atrocity of criminal legislation. He demonstrated with the most profound logic that society, by reserving to itself the right of homicide, justifies it to a certain extent in the murderer, and that the means most efficacious for preventing murder and making it infamous was to evince its own horror of the crime. Robespierre, who subsequently was fated to allow of unlimited immolation, demanded that society should be disarmed of the power of putting to death. If the prejudices of jurists had not prevailed over the wholesome doctrines of moral philosophy, who can say how much blood might not have been spared in France.

But these discussions confined to the interior of the Manege, occupied less public attention than the fierce controversies of the periodical press. Journalism, that universal and daily _forum_ of the people's pa.s.sions, had expanded with the progress of liberty. All ardent minds had eagerly embraced it, Mirabeau himself having set the example when he descended from the tribune. He wrote his letters to his const.i.tuents in the _Courrier de Provence_. Camille Desmoulins, a young man of great talent but weak reasoning powers, threw into his lucubrations for the press the feverish tumult of his thoughts. Brissot, Gorsas, Carra, Prudhomme, Freron, Danton, Fauchet, Condorcet, edited democratic journals: they began by demanding the abolition of royalty, "the greatest scourge," said the _Revolutions de Paris_, "which has ever dishonoured the human species." Marat seemed to have concentrated in himself all the evil pa.s.sions which ferment in a society in a state of decomposition: he const.i.tuted himself the permanent representative of popular hate. By pretending this, he kept it up, writing all the while with bitterness and ferocity. He became a cynic in order the more intimately to know the ma.s.ses. He a.s.sumed the language of the lowest reprobates. Like the elder Brutus, he feigned idiocy, but it was not to save his country, it was to urge it to the uttermost bounds of madness, and then control it by its very insanity. All his pamphlets, echoes of the Jacobins and Cordeliers, daily excited the uneasiness, suspicions, and terrors of the people.

"Citizens," said he, "watch closely around this palace: the inviolable asylum of all plots against the nation, there a perverse queen lords it over an imbecile king and rears the cubs of tyranny. Lawless priests there consecrate the arms of insurrection against the people. They prepare the Saint Bartholomew of patriots. The genius of Austria is there, hidden in the committees over which Antoinette presides; they correspond with foreigners, and by concealed means forward to them the gold and arms of France, so that the tyrants who are a.s.sembling in arms on your frontier may find you famished and disarmed. The emigrants--d'Artois and Conde--there receive instructions of the coming vengeance of despotism. A guard of Swiss stipendiaries is not enough for the liberticide schemes of the Capets. Every night the good citizens who watch around this den see the ancient n.o.bility entering stealthily and concealing arms beneath their clothes. Can knights of the poignard be any thing but the enrolled a.s.sa.s.sins of the people? What is La Fayette doing,--is he a dupe or an accomplice? Why does he leave free the avenues of the palace, which is only opened for vengeance or flight? Why do we leave the Revolution incomplete, and also leave in the hands of our crowned enemy, still in the midst of us, the time to overcome and destroy it? Do you not see that specie is disappearing and a.s.signats are discredited? What means the a.s.semblings on your frontier of emigrants and armed bodies, who are advancing to enclose you in a circle of iron?

What are your ministers doing? Why is not the property of emigrants confiscated, their houses burnt, their heads set at a price? In whose hands are arms? In the hands of traitors. Who command your troops?

traitors! Who hold the keys of your strong places? traitors, traitors, traitors, everywhere traitors; and in this palace of treason, the king of traitors! the inviolable traitor, the king! They tell you that he loves the const.i.tution,--humbug! he comes to the a.s.sembly,--humbug; the better he conceals his flight. Watch! watch! a great blow is preparing, is ready to burst; if you do not prevent it by a counter-blow more sudden, more terrible, the people and liberty are annihilated."

These declarations were not wholly void of foundation. The king, honest and good, did not conspire against his people, the queen did not think of selling to the House of Austria the crown of her husband and her son.

If the const.i.tution now completed had been able to restore order to the country and security to the throne, no sacrifice of power would have been felt by Louis XVI.: never did prince find more innate in his character the conditions of his moderation: that pa.s.sive resignation, which is the character of const.i.tutional sovereigns, was his virtue. He neither desired to reconquer nor to avenge himself. All he desired was, that his sincerity should be appreciated by the people, order re-established within and power without; that the a.s.sembly, receding from the encroachments it had made on the executive power, should raise the const.i.tution, correct its errors, and restore to royalty that power indispensable for the weal of the kingdom.

The queen herself, although of a mind more powerful and absolute, was convinced by necessity, and joined the king in his intentions; but the king, who had not two wills, had nevertheless two administrations, and two policies, one in France with his const.i.tutional ministers, and another without with his brothers, and his agents with other powers.

Baron de Breteuil, and M. de Calonne, rivals in intrigue, spake and diplomatised in his name. The king disowned them, sometimes with, and sometimes without, sincerity, in his official letters to amba.s.sadors.

This was not hypocrisy, it was weakness; a captive king, who speaks aloud to his jailers and in whispers to his friends, is excusable. These two languages not always agreeing, gave to Louis XVI. the appearance of disloyalty and treason: he did not betray, he hesitated.

His brothers, and especially the Comte d'Artois, did violence from without to his wishes, interpreting his silence according to their own desires. This young prince went from court to court to solicit in his brother's name the coalition of the monarchical powers against principles which already threatened every throne. Received graciously at Florence by the Emperor of Austria, Leopold, the queen's brother, he obtained a few days afterwards at Mantua the promise of a force of 35,000 men. The King of Prussia, and Spain, the King of Sardinia, Naples, and Switzerland, guaranteed equal forces. Louis XVI. sometimes entertained the hope of an European intervention as a means of intimidating the a.s.sembly, and compelling it to a reconciliation with him; at other times he repulsed it as a crime. The state of his mind in this respect depended on the state of the kingdom; his understanding followed the flux and reflux of interior events. If a good decree, a cordial reconciliation with the a.s.sembly, a return of popular applause came to console his sorrows, he resumed his hopes, and wrote to his agents to break up the hostile gatherings at Coblentz. If a new _emeute_ disturbed the palace--if the a.s.sembly degraded the royal power by some indignity or some outrage--he again began to despair of the Const.i.tution, and to fortify himself against it. The incoherence of his thoughts was rather the fault of his situation than his own; but it compromised his cause equally within and without. Every thought which is not at unity destroys itself. The thought of the king, although right in the main, was too fluctuating not to vary with events, but those events had but one direction--the destruction of the monarchy.

II.

Nevertheless, in the midst of these vacillations of the royal will, it is impossible for history to misunderstand that from the month of November 1790 the king vaguely meditated a plan of escape from Paris in collusion with the emperor. Louis XVI. had obtained from this prince the promise of sending a body of troops on the French frontier at the moment when he should desire it; but had the king the intention of quitting the kingdom and returning at the head of a foreign force, or simply to a.s.semble round his person a portion of his own army in some point of the frontier, and there to treat with the a.s.sembly? This latter is the more probable hypothesis.

Louis XVI. had read much history, especially the history of England.

Like all unfortunate men, he sought, in the misfortunes of dethroned princes, a.n.a.logies with his own unhappy position. The portrait of Charles I., by Van Dyck, was constantly before his eyes in his closet in the Tuileries; his history continually open on his table. He had been struck by two circ.u.mstances; that James II. had lost his throne because he had left his kingdom, and that Charles I. had been beheaded for having made war against his parliament and his people. These reflections had inspired him with an instinctive repugnance against the idea of leaving France, or of casting himself into the arms of the army. In order to compel his decision one way or the other in favour of one of these two extreme parties, his freedom of mind was completely oppressed by the imminence of his present perils, and the dread which beset the chateau of the Tuileries night and day had penetrated the very soul of the king and queen.

The atrocious threats which a.s.sailed them whenever they showed themselves at the windows of their residence, the insults of the press, the vociferations of the Jacobins, the riots and murders which multiplied in the capital and the provinces, the violent obstacles which had been opposed to their departure from St. Cloud, and then the recollections of the daggers which had even pierced the queen's bed on the evening of the 5th to the 6th of October, made their life one continued scene of alarms. They began to comprehend that the insatiate Revolution was irritated even by the concessions they had made; that the blind fury of factions which had not paused before royalty surrounded by its guards, would not hesitate before the illusory inviolability decreed by a const.i.tution; and that their lives, those of their children, and those of the royal family which remained, had no longer any a.s.surance of safety but in flight.

Flight was therefore resolved upon, and was frequently discussed before the time when the king decided upon it. Mirabeau himself, bought by the court, had proposed it in his mysterious interviews with the queen. One of his plans presented to the king was, to escape from Paris, take refuge in the midst of a camp, or in a frontier town, and there treat with the baffled a.s.sembly. Mirabeau remaining in Paris, and again possessing himself of the public mind, would lead matters, as he declared, to accommodation, and a voluntary restoration of the royal authority. Mirabeau had carried these hopes away with him into the tomb.

The king himself, in his secret correspondence, testified his repugnance to intrusting his fate into the hands of the ringleader of the factions.

Another cause of uneasiness troubled the king's mind, and gave the queen great anxiety; they were not ignorant that it was a question without, either at Coblentz or in the councils of Leopold and the King of Prussia, to declare the throne of France virtually vacant by default of the king's liberty, and to nominate as regent one of the emigrant princes, in order that he might call around him with a show of legality all his loyal subjects, and give to foreign troops an incontestible right of intervention. A throne even in fragments will not admit of partic.i.p.ation.

An uneasy jealousy still prevailed in the midst of so many other alarms even in this palace, where sedition had already effected so many breaches. "M. le Comte d'Artois will then become a hero," said the queen ironically, who at one time was excessively fond of this young prince, but now hated him. The king, on his part, feared that moral forfeiture with which he was menaced, under pretence of delivering the monarchy. He knew not which to fear the most, his friends or his enemies. Flight only, to the centre of a faithful army, could remove him from both these perils; but flight was also a peril. If he succeeded, civil war might spring up, and the king had a horror of blood spilled in his defence; if it did not succeed, it would be imputed to him as a crime, and then who could say where the national fury would stop? Forfeiture, captivity, death, might be the consequence of the slightest accident, or least indiscretion. He was about to suspend by a slender thread his throne, his liberty, his life, and the lives a thousand times more dear to him--those of his wife, his two children, and his sister.

His tormenting reflections were long and terrible, lasting for eight months, during which time he had no confidants but the queen, Madame Elizabeth, a few faithful servants within the palace, and the Marquis de Bouille without.

III.

The Marquis de Bouille, cousin of M. de La Fayette, was of a character totally different to that of the hero of Paris. Severe and stern soldier, attached to the monarchy by principle, to the king by an almost religious devotion, his respect for his sovereign's orders had alone prevented him from emigrating; he was one of the few general officers popular amongst the soldiers who had remained faithful to their duty amidst the storms and tempests of the last two years, and who, without openly declaring for or against these innovations, had yet striven to preserve that force which outlives, and not unfrequently supplies, the deficiency of all others,--the force of discipline. He had served with great distinction in America, in the colonies in India, and the authority of his character and name had not as yet lost their influence over the soldiery; the heroic repression of the famous outbreak amongst the troops at Nancy in the preceding August had greatly contributed to strengthen this authority; and he alone of all the French generals had re-obtained the supreme command, and had crushed insubordination. The a.s.sembly, alarmed in the midst of its triumphs by the seditions amongst the troops, had pa.s.sed a vote of thanks to him as the saviour of his country. La Fayette, who commanded the citizens, feared only this rival who commanded regiments, he therefore watched and flattered M. de Bouille. He constantly proposed to him a coalition of their forces, of which they would be the commanders-in-chief, and by thus acting in concert secure at once the revolution and the monarchy. M. de Bouille, who doubted the loyalty of La Fayette, replied with a cold and sarcastic civility, that but ill concealed his suspicions. These two characters were incompatible,--the one was the representative of modern patriotism, the other of ancient honour: they could not harmonise.

The Marquis de Bouille commanded the troops of Loraine, Alsace, Franche-Comte, and Champagne, and his government extended from Switzerland to the Sambre. He had no less than ninety battalions of foot, and a hundred and four squadrons of cavalry under his orders. Out of this number the general could only rely upon twenty battalions of German troops and a few cavalry regiments; the remainder were in favour of the Revolution: and the influence of the clubs had spread amongst them the spirit of insubordination and hatred for the king; the regiments obeyed the munic.i.p.alities rather than their generals.

IV.

Since the month of February, 1791, the king, who had the most entire confidence in M. de Bouille, had written to this general that he wished him to make overtures to Mirabeau, and through the intervention of the Count de Lamarck, a foreign n.o.bleman, the intimate and confidential friend of Mirabeau. "Although these persons are not over estimable,"

said the king in his letter, "and although I have paid Mirabeau very dearly, I yet think he has it in his power to serve me. Hear all he has to say, without putting yourself too much in his hands." The Count de Lamarck arrived soon after at Metz. He mentioned to M. de Bouille the object of his mission, confessed to him that the king had recently given Mirabeau 600,000f. (24,000_l._), and that he also allowed him 50,000f. a month. He then revealed to him the plan of his counter-revolutionary conspiracy, the first act of which was to be an address to Paris and the Departments demanding the liberty of the king. Every thing in this scheme depended upon the rhetoric of Mirabeau. Carried away by his own eloquence, the salaried orator was ignorant that words, though all-powerful to excite, are yet impotent to appease; they urge nations forward, but nothing but the bayonet can arrest them. M. de Bouille, a veteran soldier, smiled at these chimerical projects of the citizen orator; but he did not, however, discourage him in his plans, and promised him his a.s.sistance: he wrote to the king to repay largely the desertion of Mirabeau; "A clever scoundrel," said he, "who perhaps has it in his power to repair through cupidity the mischief he has done through revenge;" and to mistrust La Fayette, "A chimerical enthusiast, intoxicated with popularity, who might become the chief of a party, but never the support of a monarchy."

After the death of Mirabeau, the king adhered to the project with some modification; he wrote in cypher to the Marquis de Bouille at the end of April, to inform him that he should leave Paris almost immediately with his family in one carriage, which he had ordered to be built secretly and expressly for this purpose; and he also desired him to establish a line of posts from Chalons to Montmedy, the frontier town he had fixed upon. The nearest road from Paris to Montmedy was through Rheims; but the king having been crowned there dreaded recognition. He therefore determined, in spite of M. de Bouille's reiterated advice, to pa.s.s through Varennes. The chief inconvenience of this road was, that there were no relays of post-horses, and it would be therefore necessary to send relays thither under different pretexts; the arrival of these relays would naturally create suspicion amongst the inhabitants of the small towns. The presence of detachments along a road not usually frequented by troops was likewise dangerous, and M. de Bouille was anxious to dissuade the king from taking this road. He pointed out to him in his answer, that if the detachments were strong they would excite the alarm and vigilance of the munic.i.p.al authorities, and if they were weak they would be unable to afford him protection: he also entreated him not to travel in a berlin made expressly for him, and conspicuous by its form, but to make use of two English carriages, then much in vogue, and better fitted for such a purpose; he, moreover, dwelt on the necessity of taking with him some man of firmness and energy to advise and a.s.sist him in the unforeseen accidents that might happen on his journey; he mentioned as the fittest person the Marquis d'Agoult, major in the French guards; and he lastly besought the king to request the Emperor to make a threatening movement of the Austrian troops on the frontier near Montmedy, in order that the disquietude and alarm of the population might serve as a pretext to justify the movements of the different detachments and the presence of the different corps of cavalry in the vicinity of the town.

The king agreed to this, and also to take with him the Marquis d'Agoult; to the rest he positively refused to accede. A few days prior to his departure he sent a million in a.s.signats (40,000_l._) to M. de Bouille, to furnish the rations and forage, as well as to pay the faithful troops who were destined to favour his flight. These arrangements made, the Marquis de Bouille despatched a trusty officer of his staff, M. de Guoguelas, with instructions to make a minute and accurate survey of the road and country between Chalons and Montmedy, and to deliver an exact report to the king. This officer saw the king, and brought back his orders to M. de Bouille.

In the meantime M. de Bouille held himself in readiness to execute all that had been agreed upon; he had sent to a distance the disaffected troops, and concentrated the twelve foreign battalions on which he could rely. A train of sixteen pieces of artillery was sent towards Montmedy.

The regiment of _Royal Allemand_ arrived at Stenay, a squadron of hussars was at Dun, another at Varennes; two squadrons of dragoons were to be at Clermont on the day the king would pa.s.s through; they were commanded by Count Charles de Damas, a bold and dashing officer, who had instructions to send forward a detachment to Sainte Menehould, and fifty hussars, detached from Varennes, were to march to Pont Sommeville between Chalons and Sainte Menehould, under pretence of securing the safe pa.s.sage of a large sum of money sent from Paris to pay the troops.

Thus once through Chalons the king's carriage would be surrounded at each relay by tried and faithful followers. The commanding officers of these detachments had instructions to approach the window of the carriage whilst they changed horses, and to receive any orders the king might think proper to issue. In case his majesty wished to pursue his journey without being recognised, these officers were to content themselves with ascertaining that no obstacle existed to bar the road.

If it was his pleasure to be escorted, then they would mount their men and escort him. Nothing could be better devised, and the most inviolable secrecy enveloped all.

The 27th of May the king wrote that he should set out the 19th of the next month between twelve and one at night; that he should leave Paris in a hired carriage, and at Bondy, the first stage out of Paris, he should take his berlin; that one of his body guard, who was to serve as courier, would await him at Bondy; that in case the king did not arrive before two, it was because he had been arrested on his way; the courier would then proceed alone to Pont Sommeville to inform M. de Bouille the scheme had failed, and to warn the general, and those of his officers engaged in the plot, to provide for their own safety.

V.

After the receipt of these last orders, M. de Bouille despatched the Duke de Choiseul to Paris, with orders to await the king's instructions, and to precede his departure by twelve hours. M. de Choiseul was to desire his servants to be at Varennes on the 18th with his own horses, which would draw the king's carriage; the spot where the horses were placed was to be clearly explained to the king, in order that they might be changed without any loss of time. On his return M. de Choiseul had instructions to take the command of the hussars posted at Pont Sommeville, to await the king, to escort him with his hussars as far as Sainte-Menehould, and to station his troopers there, with positive orders to allow no one to pa.s.s on the road from Paris to Verdun, and from Paris to Varennes, for four and twenty hours after the king's arrival. M. de Choiseul received from M. de Bouille orders signed by the king himself, enjoining him, as well as all the other commanding officers of the detachments, to employ force, should it be necessary, to rescue his majesty if the populace attempted to lay violent hands on him. In case the carriage was stopped at Lyons, M. de Choiseul was to give instant information to the general to a.s.semble all the detachments, and march to the king's rescue. He received six hundred louis in gold, to distribute amongst the soldiers, and thus insure their fidelity, when the king arrived and made himself known to them.

M. de Guoguelas left at the same for Paris, to reconnoitre the roads a second time, pa.s.sing by Stenay, Dun, Varennes, and Sainte Menehould, and to explain clearly to the king the topography of the country; he was also to bring back the latest orders for M. de Bouille, and to return to Montmedy by another route. The Marquis de Bouille left Metz himself, under pretence of visiting the fortresses under his command, and drew near Montmedy. The 15th he was at Longwy, where he received a message from the king, informing him that they had put off their journey for four and twenty hours, in consequence of the necessity of concealing the preparations for their departure from a femme de chambre of the queen, a fanatical democrat, who was fully capable of betraying them, and whose duties only terminated on the 19th. His majesty added that the Marquis d'Agoult would not accompany him, because Madame de Tourzel, the governess of the royal children, had claimed the privileges of her post, and wished to accompany them.

This delay rendered necessary counter-orders of the most fatal nature; all the arrangements as to time and place were thus thrown out. The detachments were forced to remain at places they were only to have marched through, and the relays stationed on the road might be withdrawn. However, the Marquis de Bouille remedied all these evils as far as was in his power; sent modified orders to the commanders of the detachments, and advanced in person the 20th to Stenay, which was garrisoned by the Royal Allemand regiment, on whose fidelity he could rely. The 21st he a.s.sembled the generals under his orders, informed them that the king would pa.s.s in the course of the night by Stenay, and would be at Montmedy the next evening; he ordered General Klinglin to prepare under the guns of the fortress a camp of twelve battalions and twenty-four squadrons; the king was to reside in a chateau behind the camp: this chateau would thus serve as head quarters, and the king's position would be at once more secure and more dignified surrounded by his army. The generals did not hesitate for an instant. M. de Bouille left General de Hoffelizze at Stenay with the Royal Allemand regiment, with orders to saddle the horses at night fall, to mount at daybreak and to send at ten o'clock at night a detachment of fifty troopers between Stenay and Dun, to await the king and escort him to Stenay.

At night M. de Choiseul quitted Stenay with several officers on horseback, and advanced to the very gate of Dun, but he would not enter lest his presence might in any way work on the people. There he awaited, in silence and obscurity, the courier who was to precede the carriages by an hour. The destiny of the monarchy, the throne of a dynasty, the lives of the royal family, king, queen, princess, children, all weighed down his spirit and lay heavily on his heart. The night seemed interminable, yet it pa.s.sed without the sound of horses' feet announcing to the group who so anxiously awaited the intelligence, that the king of France was saved or lost.

VI.

What pa.s.sed at the Tuileries during these decisive hours? the secret of the projected flight had been carefully confined to the king, the queen, the princess Elizabeth, two or three faithful attendants, and the Count de Fersen, a Swedish gentlemen who had the care of the exterior arrangements confided to him. Some vague rumours, like presentiments of coming events, had, it is true, been bruited amongst the people for some days past, but these rumours originated rather in the state of popular excitement than any actual disclosures of the intended departure. These reports, however, which were constantly transmitted to M. de La Fayette and his staff, occasioned a stricter _surveillance_ round the palace and the king's apartments. Since the 5th and 6th of October the household guards had been disbanded; the companies of the body guard, every soldier of whom was a gentleman and whose honour, descent, ancient traditions, and party feeling a.s.sured their fidelity, existed no longer; that respectful vigilance that rendered their service a matter of duty with them, had given place to the jealous watchfulness of the national guard, who were rather spies on the king than guardians of the monarchy.

The Swiss guards still, it is true, surrounded the Tuileries, but they only occupied the exterior posts; the interior of the Tuileries, the staircases, the communications between the apartments, were guarded by the national guards. M. de La Fayette was constantly going to and fro, his officers at night were at every issue, and they had secret orders not to allow even the king to quit the palace after midnight. To this official vigilance was now joined the secret and close _espionage_ of the numerous domestics of the palace, amongst whom revolutionary feeling had crept in to encourage treachery, and sanction ingrat.i.tude: amongst them, as amongst their superiors, betrayal was termed virtue, and treason, patriotism. Within the walls of the palace of his fathers the king could alone count on the queen, his sisters, and a few n.o.bles still faithful in his misfortunes, and even whose gestures were duly reported to M. de La Fayette. This general had driven by violence from the Tuileries many of the faithful gentlemen who had come to strengthen the guard, on the day of the _emeute_ at Vincennes. The king had witnessed, with tears in his eyes, his most faithful adherents ignominiously driven from his palace and exposed by his official protector to the insults and outrages of the populace. Thus the royal family could hope to find no one disposed to aid their escape without the palace walls.

VII.