Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI Part 35

The friendship that subsisted between this ill.u.s.trious pair is an everlasting monument that honours their s.e.x. The Queen used to say of her, that she was the only woman she had ever known without gall. "Like the blessed land of Ireland," observed Her Majesty, "exempt from the reptiles elsewhere so dangerous to mankind, so was she freed by Providence from the venom by which the finest form in others is empoisoned. No envy, no ambition, no desire, but to contribute to the welfare and happiness of her fellow creatures--and yet, with all these estimable virtues, these angelic qualities, she is doomed, from her virtuous attachment to our persons, to sink under the weight of that affliction, which, sooner or later, must bury us all in one common ruin--a ruin which is threatening hourly."

These presentiments of the awful result of impending storms were mutual.

From frequent conversations with the Princesse de Lamballe, from the evidence of her letters and her private papers, and from many remarks which have been repeated to me personally by Her Highness, and from persons in her confidence, there is abundant evidence of the forebodings she constantly had of her own and the Queen's untimely end.

[A very remarkable circ.u.mstance was related to me when I was at Vienna, after this horrid murder. The Princess of Lobkowitz, sister to the Princesse de Lamballe, received a box, with an anonymous letter, telling her to conceal the box carefully till further notice. After the riots had subsided a little in France, she was apprised that the box contained all, or the greater part, of the jewels belonging to the Princess, and had been taken from the Tuileries on the 10th of August.

It is supposed that the jewels had been packed by the Princess in antic.i.p.ation of her doom, and forwarded to her sister through her agency or desire.]

There was no friend of the Queen to whom the King showed any deference, or rather anything like the deference he paid to the Princesse de Lamballe. When the d.u.c.h.esse de Polignac, the Comtesse Diane de Polignac, the Comte d'Artois, the d.u.c.h.esse de Guiche, her husband, the present Duc de Grammont, the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, etc., fled from Paris, he and the Queen, as if they had foreseen the awful catastrophe which was to destroy her so horribly, entreated her to leave the Court, and take refuge in Italy. So also did her father-in-law, the Duc de Penthievre; but all in vain. She saw her friend deprived of De Polignac, and all those near and dear to her heart, and became deaf to every solicitation.

Could such constancy, which looked death in its worst form in the face unshrinking, have existed without great and estimable qualities in its possessor?

The brother-in-law of the Princesse de Lamballe, the Duc d'Orleans, was her declared enemy merely from her attachment to the Queen. These three great victims have been persecuted to the tomb, which had no sooner closed over the last than the hand of Heaven fell upon their destroyer.

That Louis XVI. was not the friend of this member of his family can excite no surprise, but must rather challenge admiration. He had been seduced by his artful and designing regicide companions to expend millions to undermine the throne, and shake it to pieces under the feet of his relative, his Sovereign, the friend of his earliest youth, who was aware of the treason, and who held the thunderbolt, but would not crush him. But they have been foiled in their hope of building a throne for him upon the ruin they had made, and placed an age where they flattered him he would find a diadem.

The Prince de Conti told me at Barcelona that the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans had a.s.sured him that, even had the Duc d'Orleans survived, he never could have attained, his object. The immense sums he had lavished upon the horde of his revolutionary satellites had, previous to his death, thrown him into embarra.s.sment. The avarice of his party increased as his resources diminished. The evil, as evil generally does, would have wrought its own punishment in either way. He must have lived suspected and miserable, had he not died. But his reckless character did not desert him at the scaffold. It is said that before he arrived at the Place de Greve he ate a very rich ragout, and drank a bottle of champagne, and left the world as he had gone through it.

The supernumerary, the uncalled-for martyr, the last of the four devoted royal sufferers, was beheaded the following spring. For this murder there could not have been the shadow of a pretext. The virtues of this victim were sufficient to redeem the name of Elizabeth from the stain with which the two of England and Russia, who had already borne it, had clouded its immortality.

[The eighteen years' imprisonment and final murder of Mary, Queen of Scots, by Elizabeth of England, is enough to stigmatize her forever, independently of the many other acts of tyranny which stain her memory.

The dethronement by Elizabeth of Russia of the innocent Prince Ivan, her near relation, while yet in the cradle, gives the Northern Empress a claim to a similar character to the British Queen.]

She had never, in any way, interfered in political events. Malice itself had never whispered a circ.u.mstance to her dispraise. After this wanton a.s.sa.s.sination, it is scarcely to be expected that the innocent and candid looks and streaming azure eyes of that angelic infant, the Dauphin, though raised in humble supplication to his brutal a.s.sa.s.sins, with an eloquence which would have disarmed the savage tiger, could have won wretches so much more pitiless than the most ferocious beasts of the wilderness, or saved him from their slow but sure poison, whose breath was worse than the upas tree to all who came within its influence.

The d.u.c.h.esse d'Angouleme, the only survivor of these wretched captives, is a living proof of the baleful influence of that contaminated prison, the infectious tomb of the royal martyrs. That once lovely countenance, which, with the goodness and amiableness of her royal father, whose mildness hung on her lips like the milk and honey of human kindness, blended the dignity, grace, elegance, and innocent vivacity, which were the acknowledged characteristics of her beautiful mother, lost for some time all traces of its original attractions. The lines of deep-seated sorrow are not easily obliterated. If the sanguinary republic had not wished to obtain by exchange the Generals La Fayette, Bournonville, Lameth, etc., whom Dumourier had treacherously consigned into the hands of Austria, there is little: doubt but that, from the prison in which she was so long doomed to vegetate only to make life a burthen, she would have been sent to share the fate of her murdered family.

How can the Parisians complain that they found her Royal Highness, on her return to France, by no means what they required in a Princess? Can it be wondered at that her marked grief should be visible when amidst the murderers of her family? It should rather be a wonder that she can at all bear the scenes in which she moves, and not abhor the very name of Paris, when every step must remind her of some out rage to herself, or those most dear to her, or of some beloved relative or friend destroyed!

Her return can only be accounted for by the spell of that all-powerful 'amor patriae', which sometimes prevails over every other influence.

Before I dismiss this subject, it may not be uninteresting to my readers to receive some desultory anecdotes that I have heard concerning one or two of the leading monsters, by whom the horrors upon which I have expatiated were occasioned.

David, the famous painter, was a member of the sanguinary tribunal which condemned the King. On this account he has been banished from France since the restoration.

If any one deserved this severity, it was David. It was at the expense of the Court of Louis XVI. that this ungrateful being was sent to Rome, to perfect himself in his sublime art. His studies finished, he was pensioned from the same patrons, and upheld as an artist by the special protection of every member of the Royal Family.

And yet this man, if he may be dignified by the name, had the baseness to say in the hearing of the unfortunate Louis XVI., when on trial, "Well!

when are we to have his head dressed, a la guillotine."

At another time, being deputed to visit the Temple, as one of the committee of public safety, as he held out his snuff-box before the Princesse Elizabeth, she, conceiving he meant to offer it, took a pinch.

The monster, observing what she had done, darting a look of contempt at her, instantly threw away the snuff, and dashed the box to pieces on the floor.

Robespierre had a confidential physician, who attended him almost to the period when he ascended the scaffold, and who was very often obliged, 'malgre-lui', to dine tete-a-tete with this monopolizer of human flesh and blood. One day he happened to be with him, after a very extraordinary number had been executed, and amongst the rest, some of the physician's most intimate acquaintances.

The unwilling guest was naturally very downcast, and ill at ease, and could not dissemble his anguish. He tried to stammer out excuses and get away from the table.

Robespierre, perceiving his distress, interrogated him as to the cause.

The physician, putting his hand to his head, discovered his reluctance to explain.

Robespierre took him by the hand, a.s.sured him he had nothing to fear, and added, "Come, doctor, you, as a professional man, must be well informed as to the sentiments of the major part of the Parisians respecting me. I entreat you, my dear friend, frankly to avow their opinion. It may perhaps serve me for the future, as a guide for governing them."

The physician answered, "I can no longer resist the impulse of nature. I know I shall thereby oppose myself to your power, but I must tell you, you are generally abhorred,--considered the Attila, the Sylla, of the age,--the two-footed plague, that, walks about to fill peaceful abodes with miseries and family mournings. The myriads you are daily sending to the slaughter at the Place de Greve, who have, committed no crime, the carts of a certain description, you have ordered daily to bear a stated number to be sacrificed, directing they should be taken from the prisons, and, if enough are not in the prisons, seized, indiscriminately in the streets, that no place in the deadly vehicle may be left unoccupied, and all this without a trial, without even an accusation, and without any sanction but your own mandate--these things call the public curse upon you, which is not the less bitter for not being audible."

"Ah!" said Robespierre, laughing. "This puts me in mind of a story told of the cruelty and tyranny, of Pope Sixtus the Fifth, who, having one night, after he had enjoyed himself at a Baccha.n.a.lian supper, when heated with wine, by way of a 'bonne bouche', ordered the first man that should come through the gate of the 'Strada del popolo' at Rome to be immediately hanged. Every person at this drunken conclave--nay, all Rome--considered the Pope a tyrant, the most cruel of tyrants, till it was made known and proved, after his death, that the wretch so executed had murdered his father and mother ten years previously. I know whom I send to the Place de Greve. All who go there are guilty, though they may not seem so. Go on, what else have you heard?"

"Why, that you have so terrified all descriptions of persons, that they fear even your very breath, and look upon you as worse than the plague; and I should not be surprised, if you persist in this course of conduct, if something serious to yourself should be the consequence, and that ere long."

Not the least extraordinary part of the story is that this dialogue between the devil and the doctor took place but a very, few hours previous to Robespierre's being denounced by Tallien and Carriere to the national convention, as a conspirator against the republican cause. In defending himself from being arrested by the guard, he attempted to shoot himself, but the ball missed, broke the monster's jaw-bone only, and nearly impeded his speaking.

Singularly enough, it was this physician who was sent for to a.s.sist and dress his wounds. Robespierre replied to the doctor's observations, laughing, and in the following language:

"Oh, poor devils! they do not know their own interest. But my plan of exterminating the evil will soon teach them. This is the only thing for the good of the nation; for, before you can reform a thousand Frenchmen, you must first lop off half a million of these vagabonds, and, if G.o.d spare my life, in a few months there will be so many the less to breed internal commotions, and disturb the general peace of Europe.

[When Bonaparte was contriving the Consulship for life, and, in the Irish way, forced the Italian Republic to volunteer an offer of the Consulship of Italy, by a deputation to him at Paris, I happened to be there. Many Italians, besides the deputies, went on the occasion, and, among them, we had the good fortune to meet the Abbe Fortis, the celebrated naturalist, a gentleman of first-rate abilities, who had travelled three-fourths of the globe in mineralogical research. The Abbe chanced one day to be in company with my husband, who was an old acquaintance of his, where many of the chopfallen deputies, like themselves, true lovers of their country, could not help declaring their indignation at its degraded state, and reprobating Bonaparte for rendering it so ridiculous in the face of Europe and the world. The Abbe Fords, with the voice of a Stentor, and spreading his gigantic form, which exceeded six feet in height, exclaimed: "This would not have been the case had that just and wise man Robespierre lived but a little longer."

Every one present was struck with horror at the observation. Noticing the effect of his words, the Abbe resumed:

"I knew well I should frighten you in showing any partiality for that b.l.o.o.d.y monopoliser of human heads. But you do not know the perfidy of the French nation so well as I do. I have lived among them many years.

France is the sink of human deception. A Frenchman will deceive his father, wife, and child; for deception is his element. Robespierre knew this, and acted upon it, as you shall hear."

The Abbe then related to us the story I have detailed above, verbatim, as he had it from the son of Esculapius, who himself confirmed it afterwards in a conversation with the Abbe in our presence.

Having completed his anecdote, "Well," said the Abbe, "was I not right in my opinion of this great philosopher and foreseer of evils, when I observed that had he but lived a few months longer, there would have been so many less in the world to disturb its tranquillity?"]

The same physician observed that from the immense number of executions during the sanguinary reign of that monster, the Place de Greve became so complete a swamp of human blood that it would scarcely hold the scaffolding of the instrument of death, which, in consequence, was obliged to be continually moved from one side of the square to the other.

Many of the soldiers and officers, who were obliged to attend these horrible executions, had constantly their half-boots and stockings filled with the blood of the poor sufferers; and as, whenever there was any national festival to be given, it generally followed one of the most sanguinary of these ma.s.sacres, the public places, the theatres especially, all bore the tracks of blood throughout the saloons and lobbies.

The infamous Carrier, who was the execrable agent of his still more execrable employer, Robespierre, was left afterwards to join Tallien in a conspiracy against him, merely to save himself; but did not long survive his atrocious crimes or his perfidy.

It is impossible to calculate the vast number of private a.s.sa.s.sinations committed in the dead of the night, by order of this cannibal, on persons of every rank and description.

My task is now ended. Nothing remains for me but the reflections which these sad and shocking remembrances cannot fail to awaken in all minds, and especially in mine. Is it not astonishing that, in an age so refined, so free from the enormous and flagitious crimes which were the common stains of barbarous centuries, and at an epoch peculiarly enlightened by liberal views, the French nation, by all deemed the most polished since the Christian era, should have given an example of such wanton, brutal, and coa.r.s.e depravity to the world, under pretences altogether chimerical, and, after unprecedented bloodshed and horror, ended at the point where it began!

The organized system of plunder and anarchy, exercised under different forms more or less sanguinary, produced no permanent result beyond an incontestible proof that the versatility of the French nation, and its puny suppleness of character, utterly incapacitate it for that energetic enterprise without which there can be no hope of permanent emanc.i.p.ation from national slavery. It is my unalterable conviction that the French will never know how to enjoy an independent and free Const.i.tution.

The tree of liberty unavoidably in all nations has been sprinkled with human blood; but, when bathed by innocent victims, like the foul weed, though it spring up, it rots in its infancy, and becomes loathsome and infectious. Such has been the case in France; and the result justifies the Italian satire:

"Un albero senza fruta Baretta senza testa Governo che non resta."