Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty Part 9

Mouchet. M. Mouchet takes the cap and presents it to the King, who, to please the crowd, puts it on his head.

Is it possible? That man on a bench, with the ign.o.ble cap of a galley-slave on his head, surrounded by a drunken and tattered rabble who vomit filthy language, that man the King of France and Navarre, the most Christian King, Louis XVI.? Go back to the day of the coronation, June 11, 1775. It is {204} just seventeen years and nine days ago! Do you remember the Cathedral of Rheims, luminous, glittering; the cardinals, ministers, and marshals of France, the red ribbons, the blue ribbons, the lay peers with their vests of cloth-of-gold, their violet ducal mantles lined with ermine; the clerical peers with cope and cross? Do you remember the King taking Charlemagne's sword in his hand, and then prostrating himself before the altar on a great kneeling-cushion of velvet sown with golden lilies? Do you see him vested by the grand-chamberlain with the tunic, the dalmatica, and the ermine-lined mantle which represent the vestments of a sub-deacon, deacon, and priest, because the King is not merely a sovereign, but a pontiff? Do you see him seizing the royal sceptre, that golden sceptre set with oriental pearls, and carvings representing the great Carlovingian Emperor on a throne adorned with lions and eagles? Do you remember the pealing of the bells, the chords of the organ, the blare of trumpets, the clouds of incense, the birds flying in the nave?

And now, instead of the coronation the pillory; instead of the crown the hideous red cap; instead of hymns and murmurs of admiration and respect,--insults, the buffoonery of the fish-market, shouts of contempt and hatred, threats of murder. Ah! the time is not far distant when a Conventionist will break the vial containing the sacred oil on the pavement of the Abbey of Saint Remi. How slippery is the swift descent, the fatal descent by which a {205} sovereign who disarms himself glides down from the heights of power and glory to the depths of opprobrium and sorrow! There he is! Not content with putting the red bonnet on his head, he keeps it there, and mumming in the Jacobin coiffure, he cries: "Long live the nation!" The crowd find the spectacle amusing. A National Guard, to whom some one has pa.s.sed a bottle of wine, offers the complaisant King a drink. Perhaps the wine is poisoned. No matter; Louis XVI. takes a gla.s.s of it.

While all this is going on, two deputies, Isnard and Vergniaud, present themselves. "Citizens," says the first, "I am Isnard, a deputy. If what you demand were at once granted, it might be thought you extorted it by force. In the name of the law and the National a.s.sembly, I ask you to respect the const.i.tuted authorities and retire. The National a.s.sembly will do justice; I will aid thereto with all my power. You shall obtain satisfaction; I answer for it with my head; but go away."

Vergniaud follows him with similar remarks. Neither is listened to.

n.o.body departs.

It is six in the evening. For two hours, one man, exposed to every insult, has held his own against a mult.i.tude. At last Petion arrives wearing his mayor's scarf. The crowd draws back. "Sire," says he, "I have just this instant learned the situation you were in."--"That is very astonishing," returns Louis XVI.; "for it has lasted two hours."--"Sire, truly, I was ignorant that there was trouble at the palace. {206} As soon as I was informed, I hastened to your side. But you have nothing to fear; I answer for it that the people will respect you."--"I fear nothing," replies the King. "Moreover, I have not been in any danger, since I was surrounded by the National Guard."

Petion, like Pontius Pilate, pretends indifference. A munic.i.p.al officer, M. Champion, reminds him of his duties, and says with firmness: "Order the people to retire; order them in the name of the law; we are threatened with great danger, and you must speak." At last Petion decides to intervene. "Citizens," he says, "all you who are listening to me, came to present legally your pet.i.tion to the hereditary representative of the nation, and you have done so with the dignity and majesty of a free people; return now to your homes, for you can desire nothing further. Your demand will doubtless be reiterated by all the eighty-three departments, and the King will grant your prayer. Retire, and do not, by remaining longer, give occasion to the public enemies to impugn your worthy intentions."

At first this discourse of the mayor of Paris produces but slight effect. The cries and threats continue. But, after a while, the crowd, worn out with shouting, and hungry and thirsty as well, begin to quiet down a little. The most excited cry: "We are waiting for an answer from the King. Nothing has been asked of him yet." Others say: "Listen to the mayor, he is going to speak again; we will {207} hear him." Petion repeats what he said before: "If you do not wish your magistrates to be unjustly accused, withdraw."

M. Sergent, administrator of police, who had come with the mayor, asked if any one has ordered the doors leading from the Grand Cabinet to the Gallery of Diana to be opened, so as to allow the crowd to pa.s.s out by the small staircase into the Court of the Princes. Louis XVI.

overheard this question. "I have had the apartments opened," said he; "the people, marching out on the gallery side, will like to see them."

A sentiment of curiosity hastened the movements of the crowd. In order to go out, they had to pa.s.s through the State Bedchamber, the Grand Cabinet, and the Gallery of Diana. Sergent, standing in front of the door, leading from the OEil-de-Boeuf to the State Bedchamber, unfastens his scarf and waving it over his head, cries: "Citizens, this is the badge of the law; in its name we invite you to retire and follow us."

Petion says: "The people have done what they ought to do. You have acted with the pride and dignity of freemen. But there has been enough of it; let all retire." A double row of National Guards is formed, and the people pa.s.s between them. The return march begins. A few recalcitrants want to remain, and keep up a cry of "Down with the veto!

Recall the ministers!" But they are swept on by the stream, and follow the march like all the rest. While they are going out through the door between the OEil-de-Boeuf and the State {208} Bed-chamber, the National Guard prevents any one from entering on the other side, through the door connecting the OEil-de-Boeuf with the Hall of the Guards.

At this moment, a deputation of twenty-four members of the a.s.sembly present themselves. Roused by the public clamor announcing that the King's life is in danger, the National a.s.sembly has called an extraordinary evening session. The president of the deputation, M.

Brunk, says to the King: "Sire, the National a.s.sembly sends us to a.s.sure ourselves of your situation, to protect the const.i.tutional liberty you should enjoy, and to share your danger." Louis XVI.

replies: "I am grateful for the solicitude of the a.s.sembly; I am undisturbed in the midst of Frenchmen." At the same time, Petion goes to turn back the crowd, who are constantly ascending the great staircase, and who threaten another invasion. The sentry at the doorway of the OEil-de-Boeuf is replaced, and the crowd ceases to flock thither. The circle of National Guards about the sovereign is increased. A s.p.a.ce is formed, and he is surrounded by the deputation from the a.s.sembly. Acloque, seeing that the tumult is lessening and the room no longer enc.u.mbered by the crowd, proposes to the King that he should retire, and Louis XVI. decides to do so. Surrounded by deputies and National Guards, he pa.s.ses into the State Bedchamber, and notwithstanding the throng, he manages to reach a secret door at the right of the bed, near the chimney, which communicates with his bedroom. He goes through this little door, and some one closes it behind him.

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It is not far from eight o'clock in the evening. The peril and humiliation of Louis XVI. have lasted nearly four hours, and the unhappy King is not yet at the end of his sufferings, for he does not know what has become of his wife and children. While these sad scenes had been enacting in the palace, a furious populace had been in incessant commotion beneath the windows, in the garden and the courtyards. People desiring to establish communication between those down stairs and those above, had been heard to cry: "Have they been struck down? Are they dead? Throw us down their heads!"

A slender young man, with the profile of a Roman medal, a pale complexion, and flashing eyes, was looking at all this from the upper part of the terrace beside the water. Unable to comprehend the long-suffering of Louis XVI., he said in an indignant tone: "How could they have allowed this rabble to enter? They should have swept out four or five hundred of them with cannon, and the rest would have run."

The man who spoke thus, obscure and hidden in the crowd, opposite that palace where he was to play so great a part, was the "straight-haired Corsican," the future Emperor Napoleon.

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XX.

MARIE ANTOINETTE ON JUNE TWENTIETH.

Louis XVI. had just entered his bedchamber. The crowd, after leaving the hall of the OEil-de-Boeuf, had departed through the State Bedchamber, and the King's Great Cabinet, called also the Council Hall.

On entering this last apartment, an unexpected scene had surprised them. Behind the large table they saw the Queen, Madame Elisabeth, the Dauphin, and Madame Royale.

How came the Queen to be there? What had happened? At a quarter of four, when Louis XVI. had left his room to go into the hall of the Bull's-Eye and meet the rioters, Marie Antoinette, as we have already said, made desperate efforts to follow him. M. Aubier, placing himself before the door of the King's chamber, prevented the Queen from going out. In vain she cried: "Let me pa.s.s; my place is beside the King; I will join him and perish with him if it must be." M. Aubier, through devotion, disobeyed her. Nevertheless, the Queen, whose courage redoubled her strength, would have borne down this faithful servant if M. Rougeville, a chevalier of Saint-Louis, had not aided him to block up the pa.s.sage. {211} Imploring Marie Antoinette in the name of her own safety and that of the King, not to expose herself needlessly to poniards, and aided by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, they drew her almost by force into the chamber of the Dauphin, which was near the King's. MM. de Choiseul, d'Haussonville, and de Saint-Priest, a.s.sisted by several grenadiers of the National Guard, afterwards induced her to go with her children into the Grand Cabinet of the King, called also the Council Hall, because the ministers were accustomed to a.s.semble there.

The Princess de Lamballe, the Princess of Tarento, the Marchioness de Tourzel, the d.u.c.h.esses de Luynes, de Duras, de Maille, the Marchioness de Laroche-Aymon, Madame de Soucy, the Baroness de Mackau, the Countess de Ginestous, remained with the Queen. So also did the Minister Chambonas, the Duke de Choiseul, Counts d'Haussonville and de Montmorin, Viscount de Saint-Priest, Marquis de Champcenetz, and General de Wittenghoff, commander of the 17th military division. The Queen and her children occupied the embrasure of a window, and the large and heavy table used by the ministerial council was placed in front of them as a sort of barricade.

Meanwhile, Marie Antoinette's apartments and her bedroom on the ground-floor were invaded. Some National Guards tried vainly to defend them. "You are cutting your own throats!" shouted the people.

Overwhelmed by numbers, they saw the door of the first apartment broken down by hatchets. It {212} contained the beds of the Queen's servants, ranged behind screens. Afterwards they saw the invaders go into Marie Antoinette's sleeping-room, tear the clothes off her bed, and loll upon it, crying as they did so, "We will have the Austrian woman, dead or alive!"

The Queen, however, remained in the Council Hall, where she could hear the echo of the cries resounding in that of the OEil-de-Boeuf, where Louis XVI. was, and from which she was separated only by the State Bedchamber. Toward seven in the evening she beheld Madame Elisabeth, who, after heroically sharing the dangers of the King, had now found means to rejoin her. "The deputies who came to us," she wrote to Madame de Raigecourt, July 3, "had come out of good will. A veritable deputation arrived and persuaded the King to go back to his own apartments. As I was told this, and as I was unwilling to be left in the crowd, I went away about an hour before he did, and rejoined the Queen: you can imagine with what pleasure I embraced her." In their perils, therefore, Madame Elisabeth was near both Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.

After having voluntarily exposed herself to all the anguish of the invasion of the OEil-de-Boeuf, the courageous Princess was with the Queen in the Council Hall, when the crowd, coming through the State Bed-chamber, arrived there. The horde marched through it, carrying their barbarous inscriptions like so many ferocious standards. "One of these," says Madame {213} Campan in her Memoirs, "represented a gibbet from which an ugly doll was hanging; below it was written: 'Marie Antoinette to the lamp-post!' Another was a plank to which a bullock's heart had been fastened, surrounded by the words: 'Heart of Louis XVI.'

Finally, a third presented a pair of bullock's horns with an indecent motto." Some royalist grenadiers belonging to the battalion called the _Filles-Saint-Thomas_, were near the council-table and protected the Queen. Marie Antoinette was standing, and held her daughter's hand.

The Dauphin sat on the table in front of her. At the moment when the march began, a woman threw a red cap on this table and cried out that it must be placed on the Queen's head. M. de Wittenghoff, his hand trembling with indignation, took the cap and after holding it for a moment over Marie Antoinette's head, put it back on the table. Then a cry was raised: "The red cap for the Prince Royal! Tri-colored ribbons for little Veto!" Ribbons were thrown down beside the Phrygian cap.

Some one shouted: "If you love the nation, set the red cap on your son's head." The Queen made an affirmative sign, and the revolutionary coiffure was set on the child's fair head.

What humiliations were these for the unhappy mother! What anguish for so haughty, so magnanimous a queen! The galley-slave's cap has touched the head of the daughter of Caesars, and now soils the forehead of her son! The slang of the {214} fish-markets resounds beneath the venerable arches of the palace. How bitterly the unfortunate sovereign expiates her former triumphs! Where are the ovations and the apotheoses, the carriages of gold and crystal, the solemn entries into the city in its gala dress, to the sound of bells and trumpets? What trace remains of those brilliant days when, more G.o.ddess than woman, the Queen of France and Navarre appeared through a cloud of incense, in the midst of flowers and light? This good and beautiful sovereign, whose least smile, or glance, or nod, had been regarded as a precious recompense, a supreme favor by the n.o.ble lords and ladies who bent respectfully before her, behold how she is treated now! Consider the costumes and the language of her new courtiers! And yet, Marie Antoinette is majestic still. Even in this horrible scene, in presence of these drunken women and ragged suburbans, she does not lose that gift of pleasing which is her special dower. At a distance they curse her; but when they come near they are subjugated by her spell. Her most ferocious enemies are touched in their own despite. A young girl had just called her "_Autrichienne_." "You call me an Austrian woman,"

replied she, "but I am the wife of the King of France, I am the mother of the Dauphin; I am a Frenchwoman by my sentiments as wife and mother.

I shall never again see the land where I was born. I can be happy or unhappy nowhere but in France. I was happy when you loved me."

Confused by this gentle {215} reproach, the young girl softened.

"Pardon me," she said; "it was because I did not know you; I see very well now that you are not wicked." A woman, pa.s.sing, stopped before the Queen and began to sob. "What is the matter with her?" asked Santerre; "what is she crying about?" And he shook her by the arm, saying: "Make her pa.s.s on, she is drunk." Even Santerre himself felt Marie Antoinette's influence. "Madame," he said to her, "the people wish you no harm. Your friends deceive you; you have nothing to fear, and I am going to prove it by serving as your shield." It was he who took pity on the Dauphin whom the heat was stifling, and said: "Take the red cap off the child; he is too hot." He too, it was, that hastened the march of the procession and pointed out to the people the different members of the royal family by name, saying: "This is the Queen, this is her son, this her daughter, this Madame Elisabeth."

At last the crowd is gone. The hall is empty. It is eight o'clock.

The Queen and her children enter the King's chamber. Louis XVI., who finds them once more after so many perils and emotions, covers them with kisses. In the midst of this pathetic scene some deputies arrive.

Marie Antoinette shows them the traces of violence which the people have left behind them,--locks broken, hinges forced off, wainscoting burst through, furniture ruined. She speaks of the dangers that have threatened the King and the insults offered to herself. Perceiving that Merlin de {216} Thionville, an ardent Jacobin, has tears in his eyes, she says: "You are weeping to see the King and his family so cruelly treated by people whom he has always desired to render happy."

The republican answered: "Yes, Madame, I weep, but it is for the misfortunes of the mother of a family, not for the King and Queen; I hate kings and queens." A deputy accosted Marie Antoinette, saying in a familiar tone: "You were very much afraid, Madame, you must admit."

"No, Monsieur," she replied, "I was not at all afraid; but I suffered much in being separated from the King at a moment when his life was in danger. At least, I had the consolation of being with my children and performing one of my duties." "Without pretending to excuse everything, agree, Madame, that the people showed themselves very good-natured." "The King and I, Monsieur, are convinced of the natural goodness of the people; it is only when they are misled that they are wicked."--"How old is Mademoiselle?" went on the deputy, pointing to Madame Royale.--"She is at that age, Monsieur, when one feels only too great a horror of such scenes."

Other deputies surround the Dauphin. They question him on different subjects, especially concerning the geography of France and its new territorial division into departments and districts, and are enchanted by the correctness of his replies.

An officer of Cha.s.seurs of the National Guard enters the King's chamber. This officer had shown {217} the utmost zeal in protecting his sovereign and had had the honor of being wounded at his side. He is congratulated. The Dauphin perceives him. "What is the name of that guard who defended my father so bravely?" he asks.--"Monseigneur,"

replies M. Hue, "I do not know; he will be flattered if you ask him."

The Prince runs to put his question to the officer, but the latter, in respectful terms, declines to answer. Then M. Hue insists. "I beg you," he cries, "tell us your name."--"I ought to conceal my name,"

replies the officer; "unfortunately for me, it is the same as that of an execrable man." The faithful royalist bore the same name as the man who had caused the arrest of the royal family at Varennes the previous year. He was called Drouot.

The hour for repose has come at last. It is ten o'clock. Certain individuals still complain: "They took us there for nothing; but we will go back and have what we want." Still, the storm is over. The crowd has evacuated the palace, the courtyards, and the garden. The a.s.sembly closes its sessions at half-past ten. Petion said there: "The King has no cause of complaint against the citizens who marched before him. He has said as much to the deputies and magistrates." Finally, as the deputies were about to separate after this exciting day, one of them, M. Guyton-Morveau, remarked: "The deputation which preceded us, has doubtless announced to you that all is now tranquil. We remained with the King for some time, and saw nothing which could {218} inspire the least alarm. We invited the King to seek some repose. He sent an officer of the National Guard to visit the posts, and the officer reported that there was n.o.body in the palace. His Majesty a.s.sured us that he desired to remain alone; we left him; and we can certify to you that all is quiet."

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XXI.

THE MORROW OF JUNE TWENTIETH.

In the morning of June 21 there were still some disorderly gatherings in front of the Tuileries. On awaking, the Dauphin put this artless question to the Queen: "Mamma, is it yesterday still?" Alas! yes, it was still yesterday, it was always to be yesterday until the catastrophes at the end of the drama. It was just a year to a day since the royal family had furtively quitted Paris to begin the fatal journey which terminated at Varennes. This souvenir occurred to Marie Antoinette, and, recalling the first stations of her Calvary, the unfortunate sovereign told herself that her humiliations had but just begun. Her lips had touched only the brim of the chalice, and it must be drained to the dregs.

Meanwhile, visitors were arriving at the Tuileries one after another to condole with and protest their fidelity to the King and his family.

When Marshal de Mouchy made his appearance, the worthy old man was received with the honors due to his n.o.ble conduct on the previous day.

When the invasion began, Louis XVI., in order not to irritate the rabble, had given his gentlemen a formal order to withdraw, but {220} the old marshal, hoping that his great age (he was seventy-seven) would excuse his presence in the palace, had refused to leave his master.

More than once, with a strength rejuvenated by devotion, he had succeeded in repulsing persons whose violence made him tremble for the King's life. As soon as she saw the marshal, Marie Antoinette made haste to say: "I have learned from the King how courageously you defended him yesterday. I share his grat.i.tude."--"Madame," he replied, alluding to those of his relatives who had figured among the promoters of the Revolution, "I did very little in comparison with the injuries I should like to repair. They were not mine, but they touch me very nearly."--"My son," said the Queen, calling the Dauphin, "repeat before the marshal, the prayer you addressed to G.o.d this morning for the King." The child, kneeling down, put his hands together, and looking up to heaven, began to sing this refrain from the opera of _Pierre le Grand_:--

_Ciel, entends la priere Qu'ici je fais: Conserve un si bon pere A ses sujets._[1]

After the Marshal de Mouchy came M. de Malesherbes. Contrary to his usual custom, the ex-first {221} president wore his sword. "It is a long time," some one said to him, "since you have worn a sword."--"True," replied the old man, "but who would not arm when the King's life is in danger?" Then, looking with emotion at the little Prince, he said to Marie Antoinette: "I hope, Madame, that at least our children will see better days!"