Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty Part 13

Meanwhile, some hundred unknown individuals, who gathered at the Hotel-de-Ville, and surrept.i.tiously made their way into one of the halls, had formed an insurrectionary Commune. On their own authority they appointed commissaries of sections, and dismissed the staff of the National Guard, who were very much in their way; but retained in office Manuel as procurator and Petion as mayor. This new munic.i.p.ality, whose very existence was unknown at the palace, had just learned that Mandat, general-in-chief of the National Guard, had a doc.u.ment in his pocket by which Petion authorized him to oppose force to force. It was necessary to get rid of this doc.u.ment at any cost. The munic.i.p.ality sent Mandat an order to come to the Hotel-de-Ville. He knew nothing about the revolution that had just taken place there. And yet he hesitated to obey. A secret presentiment took possession of his soul. Finally, at the instance of Roederer, he decided, towards five in the morning, to leave the Tuileries and go to that Hotel-de-Ville, which was to be so fatal to him. When he came before the munic.i.p.ality he was surprised to see new faces.

He was accused of having intended to disperse "the {282} innocent and patriotic column of the people," and sentenced to be taken to the Abbey prison. It was a sentence of death. Mandat was ma.s.sacred on the steps of the Hotel-de-Ville. A pistol-shot brought him down. Pikes and sabres finished him. His body was thrown into the Seine. Such was the first exploit of the new Commune. It preluded thus the ma.s.sacres of September. "Mandat's death," says Count de Vaublanc in his Memoirs, "was, beyond any doubt, the chief cause of the calamities of the day.

If he had attacked the rebels as soon as they came near the palace, he could have dispersed them with ease. They took a long time to form and set off; and, being undecided and uneasy, they often halted. No troop marching from a given point in this immense city knew whether it was seconded by the rebels from other quarters, and lost much time in making sure." The second exploit of the Commune was to confine Petion at the mayoralty under the guard of six men. A voluntary captive, this accomplice of the insurrection rejoiced at a measure which sheltered him from every danger. As M. Mortimer-Ternaux has observed: "On this fatal night, when the pa.s.sion of the royalty was fulfilled, Petion doubled the parts of Judas and Pontius Pilate. Like Judas, he went at nightfall to give the kiss of peace to Louis XVI. by a.s.suring him of his loyalty; like the Roman governor, he proclaimed at daybreak the impotence with which he had stricken himself, and washed his hands of all that was to happen."

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When the first fires of this fatal day were kindling in the sky, Marie Antoinette experienced a profound emotion. Looking with melancholy at the horizon which began to lighten: "Sister," said she to Madame Elisabeth, "come and see the sun rise." It was the sun that was to illumine the death-struggle of royalty. Sinister omen! the sun was red as blood.

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XXVIII.

THE MORNING OF AUGUST TENTH.

The fatal day began. It was five o'clock in the morning. The Queen made her children rise, lest the swords of the insurgents should surprise them in their beds. The Dauphin, unaccustomed to being called so early, stared with surprise at the spectacle presented by the court and garden. "Mamma," said he, "why should any one harm papa? He is so good!" Then, turning to a little girl who was his usual companion in his games, he addressed her these words, which prove how well, in spite of his age, he knew the peril he was in: "Here, Josephine, take this lock of my hair, and promise to wear it as long as I am in danger."

Led by their chief, Marshal de Mailly, an old man of eighty-six, the two hundred n.o.blemen, who had a.s.sembled in the Gallery of Diana, pa.s.sed in review before the royal family with those of the National Guards who were royalists. "Sire," exclaimed the old marshal, bending his knee, "here are your faithful n.o.bles who have hastened to re-establish Your Majesty on the throne of your ancestors."--"For this once," responded Louis XVI., "I consent that {285} my friends should defend me; we will perish or save ourselves together." The last defenders of the throne shed tears of fidelity and tenderness. They kneeled before Marie Antoinette, and entreated the honor of kissing her hand. Never had the Queen appeared more gracious and majestic. The National Guards, enchanted, loaded their arms with transport. The Queen seized the Dauphin in her arms and held him above their heads like a living standard. The young men shouted: "Long live the Kings of our fathers!"

And the old men cried: "Long live the King of our children!"

At the gates of the Tuileries the tide was rising. Vanguards of the insurrection, the Ma.r.s.eillais arrived unhindered. The munic.i.p.ality had succeeded in removing the cannons which were to have prevented approach by way of the Pont-Neuf and the Pont-Royal. Mandat was no longer there to issue orders. Nothing impeded the march of the faubourgs.

And yet resistance might still have been possible. It is Barbaroux, the fierce revolutionist himself, who says so. "All the faults committed by the insurrection, the wretched arrangement of the attacking party, the terror of some and the ignorance of others, the forces at the palace, all made the victory of the court certain, if the King had not left his post. If he had shown himself on horseback, a large majority of the people of Paris would have p.r.o.nounced for him."

Napoleon, who was an eye-witness, had said the night before to Pozzo di Borgo, that with two {286} battalions of Swiss and some cavalry he would undertake to give the rioters a lesson they would remember. In the evening of August 10, he wrote to his brother Joseph: "According to what I saw of the temper of the crowd in the morning, if Louis XVI. had mounted a horse, he would have gained the victory." Very few of the insurgents were seriously determined on a revolt. Most of them marched blindly, not knowing, and not even asking, whither they went.

Westermann had been obliged to threaten Santerre, and even to put his sword against his breast, in order to induce him to march. A great number of the people of the faubourgs, uneasy as to the result of the enterprise, said that, considering the preparations made by the palace, it would be better to defer the matter to another day. The unarmed crowd followed through mere curiosity, and were ready to take flight at the first discharge of musketry. According to Count de Vaublanc, the Swiss, if they had been commanded by a good officer from four o'clock in the morning, would have sufficed to disperse the mult.i.tude as they came up, and possibly might have won the day for the King without bloodshed. "Thus, the best of princes rendered useless the courage of his defenders, and to spare the blood of his enemies accomplished the ruin of his friends. All his virtues turned against him and brought him to his ruin." M. de Vaublanc says again in his Memoirs: "At six in the morning those who were in revolt had not yet a.s.sembled. How much time had been lost, how {287} much was still to be lost! It was too evident that no military judgment had presided over that strange disposition of troops, so placed within and without the palace as to be unable to give each other mutual support; a military man knows too well the value of the briefest moments, he knows too well how quickly victory can be decided by attacking the flank of a mult.i.tude with a small number of brave men. If the King had appointed one of the generals near him absolute master of operations, no doubt this general would have given the rebels no time to unite.... Alas! Louis XVI. had three times more courage than was necessary to conquer, but he knew not how to avail himself of it." Such also was the opinion of M. Thiers, who, in his _Histoire de la Revolution francaise_, says: "It must be repeated, the unfortunate Prince feared nothing for himself. He had, in fact, refused to wear a wadded vest, as he had done on July 14, saying that on a day of combat he ought to be as much exposed as the least of his servants. Courage did not fail him then, and afterwards he displayed a bravery that was n.o.ble and elevated enough; but he lacked boldness to take the offensive.... It is certain, as has been frequently said, that if he had mounted a horse and charged at the head of his troops, the insurrection would have been put down."

Toward six o'clock the King went out on the balcony. He was saluted with acclamations. Then he went down the great staircase with the Queen to {288} inspect the troops stationed in the courtyards. As one of his gentlemen-of-the-chamber, Emmanuel Aubier, has remarked: "He had never made war himself during his reign; there had never been a war on the continent; he was so unfortunate as to be wanting in grace, even awkward, and to look thoughtful rather than energetic,--a thing displeasing to French soldiers." Instead of putting on a uniform and mounting a horse, he wore a purple coat, of the shade used as mourning for kings, on this fatal day when he was to wear mourning for the monarchy. Unspurred, unbooted, shod as if for a drawing-room, with white silk stockings, his hat under his arm, his hair out of curl and badly powdered, there was nothing martial, nothing royal about him. At this hour, when what was needed was the att.i.tude and the fire of a Henry IV., he looked like an honest country gentleman talking with his farmers. The first condition of inspiring confidence is to possess it.

Louis XVI.'s aspect was much more that of a victim than a sovereign.

The cries of "Long live the King!" which would have been enthusiastic for a prince ready to battle for his rights and reconquer his realm at the sword's point, were few and sad. After having inspected the troops in the courts, Louis XVI. decided to inspect those in the garden also.

The Queen returned to the palace, and he continued his rounds.

The loyal National Guards, comprising the companies of the _Pet.i.ts-Peres_ and the _Filles-Saint-Thomas_, were drawn up on the terrace between the palace and {289} the garden. They received the King sympathetically and advised him to continue his inspection as far as the Place Louis XV. At this moment a battalion of the National Guards from the Saint-Marceau section defiled before him, uttering shouts of hatred and fury. Louis XVI. was undisturbed by this. He remained calm, and when this battalion had got into position, he tranquilly reviewed it. Then he walked on again and crossed the entire garden. The battalion of the _Croix-Rouge_, which was on the terrace beside the water, cried from a distance: "Down with the veto! Down with the traitor!" On the terrace of the Feuillants, at the other side, there was an equally violent crowd. The King, calm as ever, went on to the swing-bridge by which the Tuileries was entered from Place Louis XV. He was well enough received by the troops stationed there.

But his return to the palace could not but be difficult. The National Guards of the _Croix-Rouge_ had broken rank and come down from the terrace beside the river to the garden, and pressed around the King with menacing shouts. The unfortunate monarch could only re-enter the palace where he had but a few moments more to stay, by calling to his aid a double row of faithful grenadiers. The ministers who were at the windows became alarmed. One of them, M. de Bouchage, cried: "Great G.o.d! it is the King they are hooting! What the devil are they doing down there? Quick; we must go after him!" And he hastened to descend into the garden with his colleague, {290} Bigot de Sainte-Croix, to meet his master. The Queen, who beheld the sight, shed tears. The two ministers brought back Louis XVI. He came in out of breath, and fatigued by the heat and the exercise he had taken, but otherwise seeming very little moved. "All is lost," said the Queen. "This review has done more harm than good."

From this moment bad tidings succeeded each other without interruption.

They were apprised of the formation of the new Commune, Mandat's murder, the march of the faubourgs, and the arrival of the first detachments of rioters. The Ma.r.s.eillais debouched into the Carrousel, and sent an envoy to demand that the gate of the Royal Court should be opened. As it remained closed, they knocked on it with repeated blows, while the National Guards said: "We will not fire on our brothers."

Would resistance have been possible even at this moment; that is to say, between seven and eight in the morning? M. de Vaublanc thought so. "I do not know," he writes, "to what section the first band that arrived on the Carrousel belonged; it was in disorder and badly armed.

If the King had marched towards this troop at the head of a battalion of the National Guard, if he had p.r.o.nounced these words: 'I am your King; I order you to lay down your arms,' the success would have been decided. The flight of a single battalion of rebels would have sufficed to frighten and disperse the others, even before they were formed into line."

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It was at this time that Roederer, instead of counselling resistance, implored Louis XVI. to seek shelter in the a.s.sembly for the royal family. "Sire," he said in an urgent tone, "Your Majesty has not five minutes to lose; there is no safety for you except in the National a.s.sembly. In the opinion of the department, it is necessary to go there without delay. There are not men enough in the courtyards to defend the palace; nor are they perfectly well-disposed. On the mere recommendation to be on the defensive, the cannoneers have already unloaded their cannons."--"But," said the King, "I did not see many persons on the Carrousel."--"Sire," returned Roederer, "there are a dozen pieces of artillery, and an immense crowd is arriving from the faubourgs." The idea of a flight before the insurrection revolted the Queen's pride. "What are you saying, Sir?" cried she; "you are proposing that we should seek shelter with our most cruel persecutors!

Never! never! I will be nailed to these walls before I consent to leave them. Sir, we have troops."--"Madame, all Paris is on the march.

Resistance is impossible. Will you cause the ma.s.sacre of the King, your children, and your servants?"

Louis XVI. still hesitating, Roederer vehemently insisted. "Sire,"

said he, "time presses; this is no longer an entreaty nor even a counsel we take the liberty of offering you; there is only one thing left for us to do now, and we ask your permission to take you away."

The King looked fixedly at his {292} interlocutor for several seconds; then, turning to the Queen, he said: "Let us go," and rose to his feet.

Madame Elisabeth said: "Monsieur Roederer, do you answer for the King's life?"--"Yes, Madame, with my own," responded the communal attorney.

Then, turning to the King: "Sire," said he, "I ask Your Majesty not to take any of your court with you, but to have no cortege but the department and no escort except the National Guard."--"Yes," replied the King, "there is nothing but that to say." The Minister of Justice exclaimed: "The ministers will follow the King."--"Yes, they have a place in the a.s.sembly."--"And Madame de Tourzel, my children's governess?" said the Queen.--"Yes, Madame; she will accompany you."

Roederer then left the King's chamber, where this conversation had taken place, and said in a loud voice to the persons crowding together in the Council Hall: "The King and his family are going to the a.s.sembly without other attendants than the department, the ministers, and a guard." Then he asked: "Is the officer who commands the guard here?"

This officer presenting himself, he said to him: "You must bring forward a double file of National Guards to accompany the King. The King desires it." The officer replied: "It shall be done." Louis XVI.

came out of his chamber with his family. He waited several minutes in the hall until the guard should arrive, and, going around the circle composed of some forty or fifty persons belonging to his court: "Come, {293} gentlemen," said he, "there is nothing more to do here." The Queen, turning to Madame Campan, said: "Wait in my apartment; I will rejoin you or else send word to go I don't know where." Marie Antoinette took no one with her except the Princess de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel. The Princess de Tarente and Madame de la Roche-Aymon, afflicted at the thought of being left at the Tuileries, went down with all the other ladies to the Queen's apartments on the ground-floor.

La Chesnaye, who had succeeded to the command of the National Guard in consequence of Mandat's death, put himself at the head of the escort.

This was formed of detachments from the most loyal battalions, the _Pet.i.ts-Peres_, the _Suite des Moulins_, and the _Filles-Saint-Thomas_, re-enforced by about two hundred Swiss, commanded by the colonel of the regiment, Marquis de Maillardoz, and the major, Baron de Bachmann. The cortege reached the great staircase by way of the Council Hall, the Royal Bedchamber, the OEil-de-Boeuf, the Hall of the Guards, and the Hall of the Hundred Swiss. As he was pa.s.sing through the OEil-de-Boeuf, Louis XVI. took the hat of the National Guard on his right, and replaced it by his own, which was adorned with white feathers. The guard, surprised, removed the King's hat from his head and carried it under his arm.

When Louis XVI. arrived at the foot of the stairs in the Pavilion of the Horloge, his thoughts recurred {294} to the faithful adherents who had so uselessly devoted themselves to his defence, and whom he was leaving at the Tuileries without watchword or direction. "What is going to become of all those who have stayed up stairs?" said he.--"Sire," replied Roederer, "it seemed to me that they were all in colored coats. Those who have swords need only lay them off, follow you, and go out through the garden."--"That is true," returned Louis XVI. In the vestibule, a little further on, as he was about to quit the fatal palace which fate had condemned him never to re-enter, he had a last moment of scruple and hesitation. He said again: "But after all, there are not many people on the Carrousel."

"True, Sire," replied Roederer; "but the faubourgs will soon arrive, and all the sections are armed, and have a.s.sembled at the munic.i.p.ality; besides, there are neither men enough here, nor are they determined enough to resist the actual gathering on the Carrousel, which has twelve pieces of artillery."

The die is cast; Louis XVI. abandons the Tuileries. Respect alone restrains the grief and indignation that move the Swiss soldiers and the n.o.blemen whose weapons and whose blood have been refused. They looked down from the windows at the cortege, or better, the funeral procession of royalty. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. The escort was drawn up in two lines. The members of the department formed a circle around the royal family. Roederer walked first. Then came the King, with {295} Bigot de Sainte-Croix, Minister of Foreign Affairs, at his side; the Queen followed, giving her left arm to M. du Bouchage, Minister of Marine, and her right hand to the Dauphin, who held Madame de Tourzel with the other; then Madame Royale and Madame Elisabeth, with De Joly, Minister of Justice; the Minister of War, D'Abancourt, leading the Princess de Lamballe. The Ministers of the Interior and of Taxes, Champion de Villeneuve and Le Roux de la Ville, closed the procession. The air was pure and the morning radiant. The sun lighted up the garden, the marble sculpture, and the sheets of water. Birds sang under the trees, and nature smiled on this day of mourning as if it were a festival.

Looking at the populace, Madame Elisabeth said: "All those people have gone astray; I should like them to be converted; I should not like them to be punished." Tears stood in the eyes of the little Madame Royale.

The Princess de Lamballe said mournfully: "We shall never return to the Tuileries!" The Prince de Poix, the Duke de Choiseul, Counts d'Haussonville, de Viomenil, de Hervilly, and de Pont-l'Abbe, the Marquis de Briges, Chevalier de Fleurieu, Viscount de Saint-Priest, the Marquis de Nantouillet, MM. de Fresnes and de Salaignac, the King's equerries, and Saint-Pardoux, the equerry of Madame Elisabeth, followed the sad procession. They pa.s.sed through the grand alley un.o.bstructed as far as the parterres, then turned to the right, {296} toward the alley of the chestnut trees. There a halt of some minutes occurred, in order to give time for warning the a.s.sembly. Louis XVI. looked down at a heap of dead leaves which had been swept up by the gardeners after a storm the night before. "There are a good many leaves," said the King; "they are falling early this year." It was only a few days before that Manuel had written in a journal that the King would not last until the falling of the leaves. Perhaps Louis XVI. remembered the prophecy of the revolutionist; the Dauphin, with the carelessness belonging to his age, amused himself by kicking about the dead leaves, the leaves that had fallen as his father's crown was falling at this moment.

Before the royal family could enter the a.s.sembly chamber, it was necessary that the step the King had taken should be announced to the deputies. The president of the department undertook this commission.

A deputation of twenty-four members was at once sent to meet Louis XVI.

They found him in the large alley at the foot of the terrace of the Feuillants, a few steps from the staircase leading up to it, and which goes as far as the lobby through which one enters the hall occupied by the National a.s.sembly. "Sire," said the leader of the deputation, "the a.s.sembly, eager to contribute to your safety, offers to you and your family an asylum in its midst."

During this time, the terrace and the staircase had become thronged by a furious crowd. A man {297} carrying a long pole cried out in rage: "No, no; they shall not enter the a.s.sembly. They are the cause of all our troubles. This must be ended. Down with them!" Roederer, standing on the fourth step of the staircase, cried: "Citizens, I demand silence in the name of the law. You seem disposed to prevent the King and his family from entering the National a.s.sembly; you are not justified in opposing it. The King has a place there in virtue of the Const.i.tution; and though his family has none legally, they have just been authorized by a decree to go there. Here are the deputies sent to meet the King; they will attest the existence of this decree."

The deputies confirmed his words. Nevertheless, the crowd still hesitated to leave the way clear. The man with the pole kept on brandishing it, and crying: "Down with them! down with them!"

Roederer, going on to the terrace, s.n.a.t.c.hed the pole and flung it into the garden. The crowd was so compact that in the midst of the squabble some one stole the Queen's watch and her purse. A man with a sinister face approached the Dauphin, took him from Marie Antoinette, and lifted him in his arms. The Queen uttered a cry. "Do not be frightened,"

said the man; "I will do him no harm." Another person said to Louis XVI.: "Sire, we are honest men; but we are not willing to be betrayed any longer. Be a good citizen, and don't forget to drive away your shavelings and your wife." Insults and threats resounded from all sides. Finally, after an actual struggle, the royal family succeeded {298} in opening a pa.s.sage. They made their way with difficulty through the narrow lobby, choked with people, penetrated the crowd, and entered the session chamber. It was there that royalty, humiliated and overcome, was to lie at the point of death under the eyes of its implacable enemies.

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XXIX.

THE BOX OF THE LOGOGRAPH.

The royal family has just entered the session chamber. It will find there not an asylum, but the vestibule of the prison and the scaffold.

The man who had taken the Dauphin from the Queen's arms at the door of the a.s.sembly set him down on the secretary's desk with an air of triumph, and the young Prince was greeted with applause. Marie Antoinette advanced with dignity. According to Vaublanc's expression, she would not have had a different bearing or a more august serenity on a day of royal pomp. Louis XVI. took a place near the president. The Queen, her daughter, Madame Elisabeth, and Madame de Tourzel sat down on the ministerial benches. As soon as the Dauphin was left to himself, he sprang towards his mother. A voice cried: "Take him to the King! The Austrian woman is unworthy of the people's confidence." An usher attempted to obey this injunction. However, the child began to cry, people were affected, and he was allowed to remain with the Queen.

At this moment some armed n.o.blemen made their appearance at the extremity of the hall. "You {300} compromise the King's safety!"

exclaimed some one, and the n.o.bles retired.

Order was restored. Louis XVI. began to speak. "I came here," said he, "to prevent a great crime, and I think that I could be nowhere more secure than amidst the representatives of the nation." Alas! the crime will not be prevented, but only adjourned. Vergniaud occupied the president's chair. "Sire," he replied, "you may count on the firmness of the National a.s.sembly. It knows its duties; its members have sworn to die in defending the rights of the people and the const.i.tuted authorities."

So they still called Louis XVI. Sire; presently they will call him nothing but Louis Capet. They allow him to take an armchair near the president; but in a few minutes they will find this place too good for him. And it is the voice of this very Vergniaud who, a few hours from now, will p.r.o.nounce his deposition, and five months later his sentence of death.

Hardly had the unhappy King sat down when Chabot, the unfrocked Capuchin, claimed that a clause of the Const.i.tution forbade the a.s.sembly to deliberate in presence of the sovereign. Under this pretext his place was changed, and Louis XVI. with all his family was shut up in the reporters' gallery, sometimes called the box of the Logograph. This miserable hole, about six feet high by twelve wide, was on a level with the last ranks of the a.s.sembly, behind the president's chair and the seats of the {301} secretaries. It was ordinarily set apart for the editors, or rather for the stenographers of a great newspaper which reported the proceedings, and which was called the _Journal logographique_, or the _Logotachygraphe_, usually abbreviated into the _Logographe_. Louis XVI. seated himself in the front of the box, Marie Antoinette half-concealed herself in a corner, where she sought a little shelter against so many humiliations. Her children and their governess took places on a bench with Madame Elisabeth and the Princess de Lamballe. Several n.o.blemen, the latest courtiers of misfortune, stood up behind them.