The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France Part 14

In a subsequent conversation with the count, she explained her own views of the existing situation of affairs, describing them, indeed, according to her custom, as the ideas of the king, in a manner which shows how much she was willing that the king should abate of his old prerogatives, provided only that the concessions were made voluntarily by himself, and not imposed by violent and illegal resolutions of the a.s.sembly. Mirabeau had drawn up an elaborate memorial for the consideration of the king, in which he pointed out in general terms his sense of the state of "utter anarchy" into which France had fallen, his shame and indignation at feeling "that he himself had contributed to bring affairs into such a bad state." and his "profound conviction of the necessity, in the interests of the whole nation, of re-establishing the legitimate authority of the king.[4]" And Marie Antoinette, commenting on this expression, a.s.sured La Marck that "the king had no desire to recover the full extent of the authority which he had formerly possessed; and that he was far from thinking it necessary for his own personal happiness any more than for the welfare of his people.[5]" And it seemed to the count that she placed unlimited confidence in Mirabeau's ability to re-establish her husband's power on a sufficient and satisfactory basis; so full was her conversation, during the latter part of the interview, of the good which she expected to be again able to do, and of the warm affection with which she regarded the people.

The benefits of this new alliance were not to be all on one side. Mirabeau was overwhelmed with debt; and though his father had died in the preceding summer, he had not yet entered into his inheritance, but was in a state little short of absolute dest.i.tution. From this condition he was to be relieved, and the arrangements for the discharge of his debts, and the securing to him the enjoyment of a sufficient though by no means excessive income, were intrusted to Marie Antoinette by the king, and by her to her almoner, M. de Fontanges, who, when Lomenie de Brienne was promoted to the archbishopric of Sens, had succeeded him at Toulouse. The archbishop, who was sincerely devoted to his royal mistress, carried out the necessary arrangements with great skill, but they could not be managed with such secrecy as entirely to escape notice. Among the clubs which had been set on foot at the beginning of the previous year the most violent had been that known as the Breton Club, from being founded by some of the deputies from the great province of Brittany; but, when the court removed to Paris, and the a.s.sembly was established in a large building close to the garden of the Tuileries, the Bretons obtained the use of an apartment in an old convent of Dominican or Jacobin friars (as they were called), the same which two centuries before had been the council-room of the League, and they changed their own designation also, and called themselves the Jacobins; and, canceling the rule which limited the right of membership to deputies, they now admitted every one who, by application for election, avowed his adherence to their principles. Their leaders at this time were Barnave; a young n.o.ble named Alexander Lameth, whose mother, having been left in necessitous circ.u.mstances, owed to the bounty of the king and queen the means of educating her children, a benefit which they repaid with the most unremitting hostility to the whole royal family; and a lawyer named Duport. Mirabeau was in the habit of ridiculing them as the triumvirate; but they were crafty and unscrupulous men, skillful in procuring information; and, having obtained intelligence of his negotiations with the court, they retaliated on him by hiring pamphleteers and journalists to attack him, and narratives of the treason of the Count de Mirabeau were hawked about the streets.

To apply such language to the adherence of a French n.o.ble to the crown was the most open avowal of disloyalty on which the revolutionary party had yet ventured; and in the next four weeks it received a practical development in a series of measures, some of which were so ridiculous as only to deserve notice from the additional evidence which they furnished of the extreme folly of those who now had the lead in the a.s.sembly, and of the strange excitement in which the whole nation, or at least the whole population of Paris, must have been wrought up before they could mistake their acts for those of sagacity or patriotism; but others of which, though not less unwise, were of greater importance as being irrevocable steps in the downward course of destruction along which the whole country was being dragged.

The leaders of the revolutionary party had already selected two days in the past year as especially memorable for the triumphs won over the crown: one was the 20th of June, on which, in the Tennis Court at Versailles, the members of the a.s.sembly had bound themselves to effect the regeneration of the kingdom; the other the 14th of July, on which, as they boasted, they had forever established freedom by the destruction of the Bastile; and they determined this year to celebrate both these anniversaries in a becoming manner. Accordingly, on the 20th of June, a crack-brained member of the Jacobin Club, a Prussian of n.o.ble birth, named Clootz, who, to show his affinity with the philosophers of old, had a.s.sumed the name of Anacharsis, hired a band of vagrants and idlers, and, dressing them up in a variety of costumes to represent Arabs, red Indians, Turks, Chinese, Laplanders, and other tribes, savage and civilized, led them into the a.s.sembly as a deputation from all the nations of the earth to announce the resurrection of the whole world from slavery; and demanded permission for them to attend the festival of the ensuing month, that each, on behalf of his country, might give in his adhesion to the principles of liberty as expounded by the a.s.sembly. The president of the day replied with an oration thanking M. Clootz for the honor done to France by such an emba.s.sy; and Alexander Lameth followed up the president's harangue by fresh praises of the deputation as holy pilgrims who had thrown off the shackles of superst.i.tion. Nor was he content with a barren panegyric. He had devised an appropriate sacrifice with which to commemorate such exalted virtue. In the finest square of the city, the Place des Victoires, the Duke de la Feuillade had erected a statue of Louis XIV. to celebrate his royal master's triumphs, the pedestal of which was decorated with allegorical representations of the nations which had been conquered by the French marshals. It was generally regarded as the finest work of art in the city, and as such it had long been an object of admiration and pride to the citizens. But M. Lameth, in his new-born enthusiasm, regarded it with other eyes, and closed his speech by proposing that, as monuments of despotism and flattery could not fail to be shocking to so enlightened a body, the a.s.sembly should order its instant demolition. His proposal was received with enthusiastic cheers, and the n.o.ble monument was instantly overthrown in a fit of blind fury more resembling the orgies of drunken Baccha.n.a.ls, or the thirst for desolation which had animated the Goths and Huns, than the conduct of the chosen legislators of a polite and accomplished people.

But even this was not all. The insult to the memory of a king who, little as he deserved it, had a century before been the object of the unanimous admiration of his subjects, was but a prelude to other resolutions of far greater moment, as giving an indelible character to the future of the nation. A deputy, M. Lambel, whose very name was previously unknown to the majority of his colleagues, rose and made a speech of three lines, as if the proposal which it contained only required to be mentioned to command instant and universal a.s.sent "This day," said he, "is the tomb of vanity.

I demand the suppression of the t.i.tles of duke, count, marquis, viscount, baron, and knight." La Fayette and Alexander Lameth's brother, Charles, supported the demand with almost equal brevity; a representative of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, the Viscount Matthieu de Montmorency moved a prohibition of the use of armorial bearings; another n.o.ble, M. de St. Targeau, proposed that the use of names derived from the estates of the owners should be abolished. Every proposal was carried by acclamation. Louder and louder cheers followed each suggestion of a new abolition; a member who ventured to propose an amendment to one proposal was hooted down; and in little more than an hour the whole series of resolutions, which struck at once at the recollections and glories of the past and at the dignity of the future, was made the law of the land.

Every one of these attacks on the n.o.bles was a fresh provocation to Mirabeau, and increased his eagerness to complete his reconciliation with the crown. He p.r.o.nounced the abolition of t.i.tles a torch to kindle civil war, and pressed more earnestly than ever for an interview with the queen, in which he might both learn her views and explain his own. Marie Antoinette had foreseen that she should be forced to admit him to her presence, but there was nothing to which she felt a stronger repugnance.

His profligate character excited a feeling of perfect disgust in her mind; but for the public good she overcame it, and, having in the course of June removed to St. Cloud for change of air, on the 3d of July she, accompanied by the king, received him in the garden of that palace. The account which she sent her brother of the interview shows with what a mixture of feelings she had been agitated. She speaks of herself as "shivering with horror" as the moment drew near, and can not bring herself to describe him except as a "monster," though, she admits that his language speedily removed her agitation, which, when he was first presented to her, had nearly made her ill. "He seemed to be actuated by entire good faith, and to be altogether devoted to the king; and Louis was highly pleased with him, so that they now thought every thing was safe.[6]"

She, on her part, had made an equally favorable impression on him. She had adroitly flattered his high opinion of himself by saying that "if she had been speaking to persons of a different cla.s.s and character she should have felt the necessity of being guarded in her language, but that in dealing with a Mirabeau there could be no need of such caution;" and he told his confidant, La Marck, that till he knew "the soul and thoughts of the daughter of Maria Teresa, and learned how fully he could reckon on that august ally, he had seen nothing of the court but its weakness; but now confidence had raised his courage, and grat.i.tude had made the prosecution of his principles a duty;[7]" and in some subsequent letters he speaks of every thing as depending on the queen, and describes in brief but forcible language his appreciation of the dangers which surrounded her, and of the magnanimous courage with which he sees that she is prepared to confront them. "The king," he says, "has but one man about him, and that is his wife. There is no safety for her but in the reestablishment of the royal authority. I love to believe that she would not desire to preserve life without the crown. What I am quite certain of is, that she will not preserve her life unless she preserves her crown."

In his interview with her, as she reported it to the emperor, he had recommended, as the first step to be adopted by the king and herself, a departure from Paris; and, in reference to that plan, which he at all times regarded as the foundation of every other, he tells La Marck: "The moment will soon come when it will be necessary to try what can be done by a woman and a child on horseback. For her it is but the adoption of an hereditary mode of action.[8] But she must be prepared for it, and must not suppose that one can extricate one's self from an extraordinary crisis by mere chance or by the combinations of an ordinary man."

The hopes with which the acquisition of such an ally inspired the queen at this time nerved her to bear her part in the festival with which the a.s.sembly had decided on celebrating the demolition of the Bastile. The arrangements for it were of a gigantic character. Round the sides of the Champ de Mars a vast embankment was raised, so as to give the plain the appearance of an amphitheatre, and to afford accommodation to three hundred thousand spectators. At the entrance a magnificent arch of triumph was erected. The centre was occupied by a grand altar; and on one side a gorgeous pavilion was appropriated to the king, his family, and retinue, the members of the a.s.sembly, and the munic.i.p.al magistrates. They were all to be performers in the grand ceremony which was to be the distinguishing feature of the day. The Const.i.tution was scarcely more complete than it had been when Louis signified his acceptance of it five months before; but now, not only were he, the deputies, and munic.i.p.al authorities of Paris to swear to its maintenance, but the same oath was to be taken by the National Guard, and by a deputation from every regiment in the army; and it was to bind the soldiers throughout the kingdom to the new order of things that the ceremony was originally designed.[9]

As a spectacle few have been more successful, and perhaps none has ever been so imposing. Before midnight on the 13th of July, the whole of the vast amphitheatre was filled with a dense crowd, in its gayest holiday attire--a marvelous and magnificent sight from its mere numbers; and early the next morning the heads of the procession began to defile under the arch at the entrance of the plain--La Fayette, at the head of the National Guard, leading the way. It was a curious proof of the king's weakness, and of the tenacity with which he clung to his policy of conciliation, that, in spite of his knowledge of the general's bitter animosity to his authority and to himself, and of his recent vote for the suppression of all t.i.tles of honor, Louis had offered him the sword of the Constable of France, a dignity which had been disused for many years; and it was an equally striking evidence of La Fayette's inveterate disloyalty that, gratifying as the succession to Duguesclin and Montmorency would have been to his vanity, he nevertheless refused the honor, and contented himself with the dignity which the enrollment of the detachments from the different departments under his banner conferred on him, by giving him the appearance of being the commander-in-chief of the National Guard throughout the kingdom. The National Guard was followed by regiment after regiment, and deputation after deputation, of the regular army; and, to show the subordination to the law which they were expected to acknowledge for the future, their swords were all sheathed, while the deputies, the munic.i.p.al magistrates, and other peaceful citizens who bore a part in the procession had their swords drawn. Sailors from the fleet, magistrates and deputations from every department, and from every city or town of importance in the kingdom, followed; and after them came two hundred priests, with Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, in his episcopal vestments at their head, their white robes somewhat uncanonically decorated with tricolor ribbons, who pa.s.sed on into the centre of the plain and ranged themselves on the steps of the altar. So vast was the procession that it was half-past three in the afternoon before the detachment of Royal Guards which closed it took up their position.

When at last all were in their places, Louis, accompanied by the queen and other members of his family, entered the royal pavilion. He was known by sight to the deputations from the most distant provinces, for he had reviewed them in a body the day before, when several of them had been separately presented to him, toward whom he had for once laid aside his habitual reserve, a.s.suring them of his fatherly regard for all his subjects with warmth and manifest sincerity. The queen, too, as she always did, had made a most favorable impression on those members whom she had seen by her judicious and cordial affability. Louis wore no robes, but only the ordinary dress of a French n.o.ble. Marie Antoinette was in full evening costume, and her hair was dressed with a plume of tricolor feathers. Yet even on this day, which was intended to be one of universal joy and friendliness, evil signs were not wanting to show how powerful were the enemies of both king and queen; for no seat whatever had been provided for her, while by the aide of that constructed for the king another on very nearly the same level had been placed for the President of the a.s.sembly.

But these refinements of discourtesy were lost on the spectators. They cheered the royal pair joyously the moment that they appeared. Before the shouts had died away, Bishop Talleyrand began the service of the ma.s.s; and, on its termination, administered the oath "of fidelity to the nation, the law, the king, and the Const.i.tution as decreed by the a.s.sembly and accepted by the king." La Fayette took the oath first in the name of the army. Talleyrand followed on behalf of the clergy. Bailly came next, as the representative of the citizens of Paris. It was a stormy day; and when the moment arrived for the king to set the seal to the universal acceptance of the const.i.tution by swearing to exert all his own power for its maintenance, the rain came down so heavily as to render it impossible for him to leave the shelter of his own pavilion. As it happened, the momentary disappointment gave a greater effect to his act. With more than usual presence of mind, he advanced to the front of the pavilion, so as to be seen by the whole of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, and took the oath with a loud voice and perfect dignity of manner. As he resumed his seat, the rain cleared away, the sun burst through the clouds; and the queen, as if by a sudden inspiration, brought forward the little dauphin, and, lifting him up in her arms, showed him to the people. Those whom the king's voice could not reach saw the graceful action; and from every side of the plain one universal acclamation burst forth, which seemed to bear out Marie Antoinette's favorite a.s.sertion that the people were good at heart, and that it was not without great perseverance in artifice and malignity that they could be excited to disloyalty and treason.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Great Tumults in the Provinces.--Mutiny in the Marquis de Bouille's Army.

--Disorder of the a.s.sembly.--Difficulty of managing Mirabeau.--Mercy is removed to The Hague.--Marie Antoinette sees constant Changes in the Aspect of Affairs.--Marat denounces Her.--Attempts are made to a.s.sa.s.sinate Her.--Resignation of Mirabeau.--Misconduct of the Emigrant Princes.

But men less blinded by the feverish excitement of revolutionary enthusiasm would have seen but little in the state of France at this time to regard as matter for exultation. Many of the recent measures of the a.s.sembly, and especially the extinction of the old provinces, had created great discontent in the rural districts. Formidable riots had broken out in many quarters, especially in the great southern cities, in some of which the mob had rivaled the worst excesses of its Parisian brethren; ma.s.sacring the magistrates, tearing their bodies into pieces, and terrifying the peaceable inhabitants by processions, in which the mangled remains of their victims formed the most conspicuous feature. At Brest and at Toulon the sailors showed that they fully shared the general dissatisfaction; while in the army a formidable mutiny broke out among the troops which were under the command of the Marquis de Bouille, in Lorraine. That, indeed, had a different object, since it had been excited by Jacobin emissaries, who were aware that the marquis, the soldier who, of the whole French army at that time, enjoyed the highest reputation, was firmly attached to the king; though he was not one of the n.o.bles who had opposed all reform, nor had he hesitated to follow his royal master's example and to declare his acceptance of the new Const.i.tution. Fortunately he had subalterns worthy of him, and faithful to their oaths; and as he was a man of great prompt.i.tude and decision, he, with their aid, quelled the mutiny, though not without a sanguinary conflict, in which he himself lost above four hundred men, while the loss which he inflicted on the mutineers was far heavier. But he had set a n.o.ble example, and had given an undeniable proof of the possibility of quelling the most formidable tumults; and it may be said that his quarters were the only spot in all France which was not wholly given up to anarchy and disorder.

For even the a.s.sembly itself was a prey to tumult and violence. From the time of its a.s.suming that t.i.tle admission had been given to every one who could force his way into the chamber, whether he was a member or not; nor was any order preserved among those who thus obtained admission; but they were allowed to express their opinion of every speaker and of every speech by friendly or unfriendly clamor: a practice which, as may well be supposed, materially influenced many votes. And presently attendance for that purpose became a trade; some of the most violent deputies hiring a regularly appointed troop to take their station in the galleries, and paying them daily wages to applaud or hiss in accordance with the signs which they themselves made from the body of the hall.[1] And if the populace was thus the master of the a.s.sembly while at Versailles, this was far more the case after its removal to Paris, where the number of the idle portion of the population furnished the Jacobins with far greater means of intimidating their adversaries.

It was remarkable that La Marck himself, as has been already intimated, did not fully share the hopes which the king and queen founded on the adhesion of Mirabeau. It was not only that on one point he had sounder views than Mirabeau himself--doubting, as he did, whether the mischief which his vehement friend had formerly done could now be undone by the same person, merely because he had changed his mind--but he also felt doubts of Mirabeau's steadiness in his new path, and feared lest eagerness for popularity, or an innate levity of disposition, might still lead him astray. As he described him in a letter to Mercy, "he was sometimes very great and sometimes very little; he could be very useful, and he could be very mischievous: in a word, he was often above, and sometimes greatly below, any other man." At another time he speaks of him as "by turns imprudent through excess of confidence, and lukewarm from distrust;" and this estimate of the great demagogue, which was not very incorrect, shows, too, how high an opinion La Marck had formed of the queen's ability and force of character, for he looks to her "to put a curb on his inconstancy,[2]" trusting for that result not so much to her power of fascination as to her clearness of view and resolution.

And she herself was never so misled by her high estimate of Mirabeau's abilities and influence as to think his judgment unerring. On the contrary, her comment to Mercy on one of the earliest letters which he addressed to the king was that it was "full of madness from one end to the other," and she asked "how he, or any one else, could expect that at such a moment the king and she could be induced to provoke a civil war?"

alluding, apparently, to his urgent advice that the royal family should leave Paris, a step of the necessity for which she was not yet convinced.

Her hope evidently was that he would bring forward some motions in the a.s.sembly which might at least arrest the progress of mischief, and perhaps even pave the way for the repair of some of the evil already done.

On one point she partly agreed with him, but not wholly. He insisted on the necessity of dismissing the ministers; but she, though thinking them, both as a body and individually, unequal to the crisis, saw great difficulty in replacing them, since the vote of the preceding winter forbade the king to select their successors from the members of the a.s.sembly;[3] and she feared also lest, if he should dismiss them, the a.s.sembly would carry out a plan which, as it seemed to her, it already showed great inclination to adopt, of managing every thing by means of committees, and preventing the appointment of any new administration. Her view of the situation, and of the king's and her position, varied from time to time, as indeed their circ.u.mstances and the views of the a.s.sembly appeared to alter. In August she is in great distress, caused by a decision of the emperor to remove Mercy to the Hague. "I am," she writes to the emba.s.sador, "in despair at your departure, especially at a moment when affairs are becoming every day more embarra.s.sing and more painful, and when I have therefore the greater need of an attachment as sincere and enlightened as yours. But I feel that all the powers, under different pretexts, will withdraw their ministers one after another. It is impossible to leave them incessantly exposed to this disorder and license; but such is my destiny, and I am forced to endure the horror of it to the very end.[4]" But a fortnight later she tells Madame de Polignac that "for some days things have been wearing a better complexion. She can not feel very sanguine, the mischievous folks having such an interest in perverting every thing, and in hindering every thing which, is reasonable, and such means of doing so; but at the moment the number of ill-intentioned people is diminished, or at least the right-thinking of all cla.s.ses and of all ranks are more united ... You may depend upon it," she adds, "that misfortunes have not diminished my resolution or my courage: I shall not lose any of that; they will only give me more prudence.[5]" Indeed, her own strength of mind, fort.i.tude, and benevolence were the only things in France which were not constantly changing at this time; and she derived one lesson from the continued vicissitudes to which she was exposed, which, if partly grievous, was also in part full of comfort and encouragement to so warm a heart. "It is in moments such as these that one learns to know men, and to see who are truly attached to one, and who are not. I gain every day fresh experiences in this point; sometimes cruel, sometimes pleasant; for I am continually finding that some people are truly and sincerely attached to us, to whom I never gave a thought."

Another of her old vexations was revived in the renewed jealousy of Austrian influence with which the Jacobin leaders at this time inspired the mob, and which was so great that, when in the autumn Leopold sent the young Prince de Lichtenstein as his envoy to notify his accession, Marie Antoinette could only venture to give him a single audience; and, greatly as she enjoyed the opportunity of gathering from him news of Vienna and of the old friends of the childhood of whom she still cherished an affectionate recollection, she was yet forced to dismiss him after a few minutes' conversation, and to beg him to accelerate his departure from Paris, lest even that short interview should be made a pretext for fresh calumnies. "The kindest thing that any Austrian of mark could do for her,"

she told her brother, "was to keep away from Paris at present.[6]" She would gladly have seen the a.s.sembly interest itself a little in the politics of the empire, where Leopold's own situation was full of difficulties; but the French had not yet come to consider themselves as justified in interfering in the internal government of other countries. As she describes their feelings to the emperor, "They feel their own individual troubles, but those of their neighbors do not yet affect them; and the names of Liberty and Despotism are so deeply engraved in their heads, even though they do not clearly define them, that they are everlastingly pa.s.sing from the love of the former to the dread of the latter;" and then she adds a sketch of her own ideas and expectations, and of the objects which she conceives it her duty to keep in view, in which it is affecting to see that her utter despair of any future happiness for the king and herself in no degree weakens her desire to promote the happiness of the very people who have caused her suffering. "Our task is to watch skillfully for the moment when men's heads have returned to proper ideas sufficiently to make them enjoy a reasonable and honest freedom, such as the king has himself always desired for the happiness of his people; but far from that license and anarchy which have precipitated the fairest of kingdoms into all possible miseries. Our health continues good, but it would be better if we could only perceive the least gleam of happiness around us; as for ourselves, that is at an end forever, happen what will. I know that it is the duty of a king to suffer for others; and it is one which we are discharging thoroughly."

She had indeed at this time sufferings to which it is characteristic of her undaunted courage that she never makes the slightest allusion in her letters. Of all the Jacobin party, one of the most blood-thirsty was a wretch named Marat.[7] At the very outset of the Revolution he had established a newspaper to which he gave the name of _The People's Friend_, and the staple topic of which was the desirableness of bloodshed and ma.s.sacre. He had been exasperated at the receptions given to the royal family at the festival of July; and for some weeks afterward his efforts were directed to inflame the populace to a new riot, in which the king and queen should be dragged into Paris from St. Cloud, as in 1789 they had been dragged in from Versailles, and which should end in the murder of the queen, the ministers, and several hundreds of other innocent persons; and his denunciations very nearly bore a part of their intended fruit. The royal family had hardly returned to St. Cloud, when a man named Rotondo was apprehended in the inner garden, who confessed that he had made his way into it with the express design of a.s.sa.s.sinating Marie Antoinette, a design which was only balked by the fortunate accident of a heavy shower which prevented her from leaving the house; and a week or two afterward a second plot was discovered, the contrivers of which designed to poison her. Her attendants were greatly alarmed; and her physician furnished Madame Campan with an antidote for such poisons as seemed most likely to be employed. But Marie Antoinette herself cared little for such precautions. a.s.sa.s.sination was not the end which she antic.i.p.ated. On one occasion, when she found Madame Campan changing some powdered sugar which, it was suspected, might have been tampered with, she thanked her, and praised M. Vicq-d'Azyr, the physician by whose instructions Madame Campan was acting, but told her that she was giving herself needless trouble.

"Depend upon it," she added, "they will not employ a grain of poison against me. The Brinvilliers[8] do not belong to this age; people now use calumny, which is much more effectual for killing people; and it is by calumny that they will work my destruction.[9] But even thus, if my death only secures the throne to my son, I shall willingly die."

One of the measures which Mirabeau strongly urged, and as to which Marie Antoinette hesitated, balancing the difficulties to which it was not unlikely to give rise against the advantages which were more obvious, was arranged without her intervention. Necker had but one panacea for all the ills of a defective const.i.tution or an ill-regulated government--the re-establishment of the finances of the country; and, as public confidence is indispensable to national credit, the troubles of the last year had largely increased the embarra.s.sments of the Treasury. He was also but scantily endowed with personal courage. In the denunciations of Marat he had not been spared, and by the beginning of September fear had so predominated over every other feeling in his mind that he resolved to quit a country which, as he was not one of her sons, seemed to him to have no such claim on his allegiance that he should imperil his life for her sake.

But in carrying out his determination, he exhibited a strange forgetfulness, not only of the respect due to his royal master as king, but also of all the ordinary rules of propriety; for he did not resign his office into the hands of the sovereign from whom he had received it, but he announced his retirement to the a.s.sembly, sending the president of the week a letter in which he attributed his reasons for the step partly to his health, which he described as weak, and partly to the "mortal anxieties of his wife, as virtuous as she was dear to his heart." It was hardly to be wondered at that the members present were moved rather to laughter than to sympathy by this sentimental effusion. They took no notice of the letter, and pa.s.sed to the order of the day; and certainly, if it afforded evidence of his amiable disposition, it supplied proof at least equally strong of the weakness of his character, and of his consequent unfitness for any post of responsibility at such a time.

It was more to his credit that he at the same time placed in the treasury a sum of two millions of francs to cover any incorrectness which might be discovered or suspected in his accounts, and any loss which might be sustained from the depreciation of the paper money lately issued under his administration, though not with his approbation. All the rest of his colleagues retired at the same time, except the foreign secretary, M.

Montmorin. They had recently been attacked with great violence in the a.s.sembly by a combination of the most extreme democrats and the most extreme Royalists, the latter of whom accused them of having betrayed the royal authority by unworthy accessions. But, though, in the division which had taken place they had been supported by a considerable majority, they feared a repet.i.tion of the attack, and resigned their offices; in some degree undoubtedly weakening their royal master by their retirement, since those by whom he found himself compelled to replace them had still less of his confidence. Two--Duport de Tertre, Keeper of the Seals, and Duportail, Minister of War--were creatures of La Fayette, and the first mentioned was notoriously unfriendly to the queen. Two others--Lambert, the successor of Necker, and Fleurieu, the Minister of Marine--were under the influence of Barnave and the Jacobins. The only member of the new ministry who was in the least degree acceptable to Louis was M. de Lessart, the Minister of the Interior; but he, though loyal in purpose, was of too moderate talents for his appointment to add any real strength to the royal cause.

Marie Antoinette, however, paid but little attention to these ministerial changes; she disregarded them--and her view was not unsound--as but the displacement of one set of weak men by another set equally weak; and she saw, too, that the a.s.sembly had established so complete a mastery over the Government, that even men of far greater ability and force of character would have been impotent for good. Her whole dependence was on Mirabeau; and his course at this time was so capricious and erratic that it often caused her more perplexity and alarm than pleasure or confidence. He regarded himself as having a very difficult part to play. He could not conceal from himself that he was no longer able to lead the a.s.sembly as he had done at first, except when he was urging it along a road which it desired to take. In spite of one of his most brilliant efforts of eloquence, he had recently been defeated in an endeavor to preserve to the king the right of peace and war; and, to regain his ascendency, he more than once in the course of the autumn supported measures to which the king and queen had the greatest repugnance, and made speeches so inflammatory that even his own friend, La Marck, was indignant at his language, and expostulated with him with great earnestness. He justified himself by explaining his view[10] that no man in the country could at present bring the people back to reasonable notions; that they could only at this moment be governed by flattering their prejudices; that the king must trust to time alone; and that his own sole prospect of being of use to the crown lay in his preservation of his popularity till the favorable moment should arrive, even if, to preserve that popularity, it were necessary for him at times still to appear a supporter of revolutionary principles. It is not impossible that the motives which he thus described did really influence him; but it was not strange that Marie Antoinette should fail to appreciate such refined subtlety. She had looked forward to his taking a bold, straightforward course in defense of Royalist principles; and she could hardly believe in the honesty of a man who for any object whatever could seem to disregard or to despise them. Her feelings may be shown by some extracts from one of her letters to the emperor written just after one of Mirabeau's most violent outbursts, apparently his speech in support of a motion that the fleet should be ordered to hoist the tricolor flag.

"October 22d, 1790.

"We are again fallen back into chaos and all our old distrust. Mirabeau had sent the king some notes, a little violent in language, but well argued, on the necessity of preventing the usurpations of the a.s.sembly ...

when, on a question concerning the fleet, he delivered a speech suited only to a violent demagogue, enough to frighten all honest men. Here, again, all our hopes from that quarter are overthrown. The king is indignant, and I am in despair. He has written to one of his friends, in whom I have great confidence, a man of courage and devoted to us, an explanatory letter, which seems to me neither an explanation nor an excuse. The man is a volcano which would set an empire on fire; and we are to trust to him to put out the conflagration which is devouring us. He will have a great deal to do before we can feel confidence in him again.

La Marck defends Mirabeau, and maintains that if at times he breaks away, he is still in reality faithful to the monarchy ... The king will not believe this. He was greatly irritated yesterday. La Marck says that he has no doubt that Mirabeau thought that he was acting well in speaking as he did, to throw dust in the eyes of the a.s.sembly, and so to obtain greater credit when circ.u.mstances still more grave should arise. O my G.o.d!

if we have committed faults, we have sadly expiated them.[11]"

And before the end of the year, the royal cause had fresh difficulties thrown in its way by the perverse and selfish wrongheadedness of the emigrant princes, who were already evincing an inclination to pursue objects of their own, and to disown all obedience to the king, on the plea that he was no longer master of his policy or of his actions. They showed such open disregard of his remonstrances that, in December, as Marie Antoinette told the emperor, Louis had written both to the Count d'Artois and to the King of Sardinia (in whose dominions the count was at the time), that, if his brothers persisted in their designs, "he should be compelled to disavow them peremptorily, and summon all his subjects who were still faithful to him to return to their obedience. She hoped," she said, "that that would make them pause. It seemed certain to her that no one but those on the spot, no one but themselves, could judge what moments and what circ.u.mstances were favorable for action, so as to put an end to their own miseries and to those of France. And it will be then," she concludes, "my dear brother, that I shall reckon on your friendship, and that I shall address myself to you with the confidence with which I am inspired by the feelings of your heart, which are well known to me, and by the good-will which you have shown us on all occasions.[12]"

CHAPTER XXIX.

Louis and Marie Antoinette contemplate Foreign Intervention.--The a.s.sembly pa.s.ses Laws to subordinate the Church to the Civil Power.--Insolence of La Fayette.--Marie Antoinette refuses to quit France by Herself.--The Jacobins and La Fayette try to revive the Story of the Necklace.--Marie Antoinette with her Family.--Flight from Paris is decided on.--The Queen's Preparations and Views.--An Oath to observe the new Ecclesiastical Const.i.tution is imposed on the Clergy.--The King's Aunts leave France.

The last sentence of the letter just quoted points to a new hope which the king and she had begun to entertain of obtaining aid from foreign princes.

As it can hardly have been suggested to them by any other advisers, we may probably attribute the origination of the idea to the queen, who was naturally inclined to rate the influence of the empire highly, and to rely on her brother's zeal to a.s.sist her confidently. And Louis caught at it, as the only means of extricating him from a religious difficulty which was causing him great distress, and which appeared to him insurmountable by any means which he could command in his own country. As has been already seen, he had had no hesitation in yielding up his own prerogatives, and in making any concessions or surrenders which the a.s.sembly required, so long as they touched nothing but his own authority. He had even (which was a far greater sacrifice in his eyes) sanctioned the votes which had deprived the Church of its property; but, in the course of the autumn the a.s.sembly pa.s.sed other measures also, which appeared to him absolutely inconsistent with religion. They framed a new ecclesiastical const.i.tution which not only reduced the number of bishops (which, indeed, in France, as in all other Roman Catholic countries, had been unreasonably excessive), but which also vested the whole patronage of the Church in the munic.i.p.al authorities, and generally subordinated the Church to the civil law. And having completed these arrangements, which to a conscientious Roman Catholic bore the character of sacrilege, they required the whole body of the clergy to accept them, and to take an oath to observe them faithfully.

Louis was in a great strait. Many of the chief prelates appealed to him for protection, which he thought his duty as a Christian man bound him to afford them. But the protection which they implored could only be given by refusal of the royal a.s.sent to the bill. And he could not disguise from himself that such an exercise of his veto would furnish a pretext to his enemies for more violent denunciations of himself and the queen than had yet been heard. He had also, though his personal safety was at all times very slightly regarded by him, begun to feel himself a prisoner, at the mercy of his enemies. La Fayette, as Commander-in-chief of the National Guard of Paris, had the protection of the royal palace intrusted to him; and he availed himself of this charge, not as the guardian of the royal family, but rather as their jailer,[1] placing his sentries so as to be spies and a restraint upon all their movements, and seeking every opportunity to gain an ign.o.ble popularity by an ostentatious disregard of all their wishes, and of all courtesy, not to say decency, in his behavior to them.[2] And these considerations led the king, not only to authorize the Baron de Breteuil, who, as we have seen, had fled from the country in the previous year, to treat with any foreign princes who might he willing to exert themselves in his cause, but even to write, with his own hand, to the princ.i.p.al sovereigns, informing them that "in spite of his acceptance of the Const.i.tution, the factious portion of his subjects openly manifested their intention of destroying the monarchy," and suggesting the idea of "an armed congress of the princ.i.p.al powers of Europe, supported by an armed force, as the best measure to arrest the progress of factions, to re-establish order in France, and to prevent the evils which were devouring his country from seizing on the other states of Europe.[3]"

The historians of the democratic party have denounced with great severity the conduct of Louis in thus appealing to foreign aid, as a proof that, in spite of his acceptance of the Const.i.tution, he was meditating a counter- revolution. The whole tenor of his and the queen's correspondence proves that this charge is groundless; but it is equally certain that it was an impolitic step, one wholly opposed to every idea of Const.i.tutional principles, of which the very foundation must always be perfect freedom from foreign influence, and from foreign connection in the internal government of the country.

Fortunately, his secret was well kept, so that no knowledge of this step reached the leaders of the popular party; and, however great may have been the queen's secret anxieties and fears, she kept them bravely to herself, displaying outwardly a serenity and a patience which won the admiration of all those who, in foreign countries, were watching the course of events in France with interest.[4] When she wept, she wept by herself. Her one comfort was that her children were always with her; and though the dauphin could only witness without understanding her grief, "remarking on one occasion, when in one of his childish books he met the expression 'as happy as a queen,' that all queens are not happy, for his mamma wept from morning till night." Her daughter was old enough to enter into her sorrows; and, as she writes to Madame de Polignac, mingles her own tears with hers. She had also the society of her sister-in-law Elizabeth, whom she had learned to love with an affection which could not be exceeded even by that which she bore her own sister, and which was cordially returned.

She tells Madame de Polignac that Elizabeth's calmness is one great relief and support to them all; and Elizabeth can not find adequate words to express to one of her correspondents her admiration for the queen's "piety and resignation, which alone enable her to bear up against troubles such as no one before has ever known."

But amidst all her grief she cherishes hope--hope that the people (the "good people," as she invariably terms them) will return to their senses; and her other habitual feeling of benevolence, though she can now only exert it in forming projects for conferring further benefits on them when tranquillity should be restored. The feeling shows itself even in letters which have no reference to her own position. There had been discontent and signs of insurrection in the Netherlands which Mercy's recent letters led her to believe were pa.s.sing away; and her congratulations to her brother on this peaceful result dwell on the happiness "which it is to be able to pardon one's subjects without shedding one drop of blood, of which sovereigns are bound to be always careful.[5]"

Her brother, and many of her friends in France, were at this time pressing her to quit the country, professing to believe that if her enemies knew that she was out of their reach, they would be less vehement in their hostility to the king; but she felt that such a course would be both unworthy of her, as timid and selfish, and in every way injurious rather than beneficial to her husband. It could not save his authority, which was what the Jacobins made it their first object to destroy; and it would deprive him of the support of her affection and advice, which he constantly needed.

"Pardon me, I beg of you," she replied to Leopold, "if I continue to reject your advice to leave Paris. Consider that I do not belong to myself. My duty is to remain where Providence has placed me, and to oppose my body, if the necessity should arise, to the knives of the a.s.sa.s.sins who would fain reach the king. I should be unworthy of the name of our mother, which is as dear to you as to me, if danger could make me desert the king and my children.[6]"

We have seen that Marie Antoinette dreaded calumny more than the knife or poison of the a.s.sa.s.sin; and there could hardly have been a greater proof how well founded her apprehensions were, and how unscrupulous her enemies, than is afforded by the fact that, in the latter part of this year, they actually brought back Madame La Mothe to Paris with the purpose of making a demand for a re-investigation of the whole story of the fraud on the jeweler--a pretense for reviving the libelous stories to the disparagement of the queen, the utter falsehood and absurdity of which had been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the whole world four years before. Nor was it wholly a Jacobin plot. La Fayette himself was, to a certain extent, an accomplice in it. As commander of the National Guard of the city, it was his duty to apprehend one who was an escaped convict; but instead of doing so he preferred identifying himself with her, and on one occasion had what Mirabeau rightly called the inconceivable insolence to threaten the queen with a divorce on the ground of unfaithfulness to her husband.

She treated his insinuations with the dignity which became herself, and the scorn which they and their utterers deserved; and he found that his conduct had created such general disgust among all people who made the slightest pretense to decency, that he feared to lose his popularity if he did not disconnect himself from the plotters. Accordingly, he separated himself from the lady, though he still forbore to arrest her, and for some time confined himself to his old course of heaping on the royal family these petty annoyances and insults, which he could inflict with impunity because they were un.o.bserved except by his victims. It is remarkable, however, that Mirabeau, who held him in a contempt which, however deserved, had in it some touch of rivalry and envy, believed that the queen was not really so much the object of his animosity as the king. In his eyes "all the manoeuvres of La Fayette were so many attacks on the queen; and his attacks on the queen were so many steps to bring him within reach of the king. It was the king whom he really wanted to strike; and he saw that the individual safety of one of the royal pair was as inseparable from that of the other as the king was from his crown.[7]" And this opinion of Mirabeau is strongly corroborated by the Count de la Marck, who, a few weeks later, had occasion to go to Alsace, and who took great pains to ascertain the general state of public feeling in the districts through which he pa.s.sed. During his absence he was in constant correspondence with those whom he had left behind, and he reports with great satisfaction that in no part of the country had he found the very slightest ill-feeling toward the queen. It was in Paris alone that the different libels against her were forged, and there alone that they found acceptance; and, manifestly referring to the projected departure from Paris, he expresses his firm conviction that the moment that she is at liberty, and able to show herself in the provinces, she will win the confidence of all cla.s.ses.[8]

However greatly Mirabeau would, on other grounds, have preferred personal intercourse with the court, he thought that his power of usefulness depended so entirely on his connection with it being unsuspected, that he did not think it prudent to solicit interviews with the queen. But he kept up a constant communication with the court, sometimes by notes and elaborate memorials, addressed indeed to Louis, but intended for Marie Antoinette's perusal and consideration; and sometimes by conversations with La Marck, which the count was expected to repeat to her. But, in all the counsels thus given, the thing most to be remarked is the high opinion which they invariably display of the queen's resolution and ability. Every thing depends on her; it is from her alone that he wishes to receive instructions; it is her resolution that must supply the deficiencies of all around her. When he urges that a line of conduct should be adopted calculated to render their majesties more popular; that they should show themselves more in public; that they should walk in the most frequented places; that they should visit the hospitals, the artisans' workshops, and make themselves friends by acts of charity and generosity, it is to her that he looks to carry out his suggestions, and to her affability and presence of mind that he trusts for the success which is to result from them;[9] and La Marck is equally convinced that "her ability and resolution are equal to the conduct of affairs of the first importance."

Meantime her health continued good. It showed her strength of mind that she never intermitted the recreations which contributed to her strength, about which she was especially anxious, that she might at all times be ready to act on any emergency; but rode with Elizabeth with great regularity in the Bois de Boulogne, even in the depth of the winter; and, while watching with her habitual vigilance of affection over the education of her children, she found a pleasant relaxation for herself in providing them with amus.e.m.e.nt also; often arranging parties, to which other children of the same age were invited, and finding amus.e.m.e.nt herself from watching their gambols in the long corridor of the Tuileries, their blindman's-buff and hide-and-seek.[10]