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The Queen was right in not viewing events in the same light as those who surrounded her.
Firstly, the struggle was between the Assembly and the Court. The Assembly won the day.
Then it was between the Constitutionals and the Aristocrats. The Constitutionals won the day. Now it was to be between the Constitutionals and the Republicans.
It is true that the Republicans had only just begun to appear, but in their first birth they formed this terrible principle—No more monarchy!
You will remember that the commissioners had been appointed by the Assembly to examine Louis XVI.
These three declared, in the name of their seven committees, that they had found no reason to put Louis XVI on his trial.
The Assembly took the opinion of the commissioners, but the Jacobin Club refused its sanction to the Assembly. The Assembly had then above it a high chamber, which could annihilate its decisions with its veto.
In order to understand the situation and the events about to take place, it is necessary to say that at this juncture there were opposed to each other, three distinct parties.
The Royalists who wished the King absolute—that is to say, without the Constitution; the Constitutionals, who wished the King with a Constitution; and the Republicans, who wished neither King nor Constitution, but a republic.
The Assembly, as we have said, voted that there was no necessity to put the King on trial.
But, through concession to the public feeling, it had voted two measures—one preventive, the other repressive.
This was the repressive measure.
“That Bouillé, and all servants, officers, couriers, and accomplices in the flight, should be prosecuted.”
This was the preventive measure:—
“That if a king breaks his oath, or attacks, or does notdefend, his people, he shall be cast from his throne, become a simple citizen, and be tried for the offences committed previous to his degradation.”
The repressive measure was one of those timid ones proper to a decayed Assembly, which feels that its power is crumbling away.
During some days, or, rather, nights, the Jacobin sitting became stormy.
During the sitting, in which the true culprit—that is to say, the King—was left alone, in order to arrest and punish the minor offenders—that is to say, Bouillé, Fersen, thegardes du corps, and Madame de Tourzel,—M. Robespierre asked in vain to have the report distributed, and the discussion adjourned.
As it was known in advance that the discussion would be stormy, Robespierre went to the club. He had been accused, at the Assembly, of republicanism, and—mark this well,—on the 13th of July 1791, Robespierre did not disdain to again avow himself a Republican.
On that evening, we all went to the Jacobins; M. Duplay and myself in the superior hall, and the three women and Félicién in the inferior, where a society was held, called the Society of the Two Sexes.
During my absence from Paris, Robespierre had acquired a great popularity, to which he had succeeded by degrees. He had still the same voice, though, perhaps, he spoke a little stronger than the last time that I had heard him; and I fancied that I noted a marked progress in his intonation, but still the same spinning-out of his facts.
He had just finished his discourse, when a great disturbance was heard. It was the Cordeliers’ Club, which, in the persons of Danton and Legendre, had made an irruption among the Jacobins.
They were neither vague nor lengthy in their demands.
Danton, in an outburst of ironic thunder, demanded how the Society dared to take upon itself to pronounce reformed opinions before the nation had done so? Legendre directly attacked the King—called to reason the societies who, working in an underground manner, undermined the decisions of the Assembly, and terminated in saying, “What I say is for the good of the Assembly itself.”
There was almost a menace expressed in these last words.Keeping calm and cold during Robespierre’s speech, M. de Laclos, the intendant of the Duc d’Orleans, applauded vehemently Danton and Legendre.
The Constitutionals of the Assembly got up, and went out.
Danton and Laclos conferred together an instant in a whisper; then a voice was heard, crying, “Open the doors for the public deputies!”
The doors opened, and there entered the fraternal Society of the Halles, and the Society of the Two Sexes, which held its meetings in the Lower Hall. They carried addresses against the Assembly, or, rather, against the monarchy.
Preoccupied with Danton and Legendre, I lost a part of the thread of what passed at the tribune. A young surgeon read a letter, which had been written in the Palais Royal in the presence of three hundred persons. A bishop threw himself into his arms, and urged him to oppose the deputies. Robespierre looked on with his sardonic smile; Danton, Legendre, and Laclos with a hateful grin.
Robespierre saw not what was going on on the other side of Paris, but probably Danton knew; and that was what he was recounting in a whisper to Laclos, and what Laclos was listening to with such attention.
On the other side of Paris was a club—a fraternal society,—in the midst of which rested a young man, who was secretary to the club, in oblivion. This young man one day emerged from his obscurity, to raise around him a gigantic storm, after which he again subsided into mediocrity. The name of this young man was Callieu.
What was Callieu doing in this fraternal society? Almost nothing. He prepared an address against the Assembly, signed “The People!”
On the day before that evening—how I came to forget to mention it, I cannot think,—the 12th of July, there was a great disturbance in Paris. All hats were waving in a burst of enthusiasm.
On Sunday, the 10th, the body of Voltaire ought to have been removed to the Pantheon, but the weather was unpropitious; and there was no fête in Paris, on account of the rain. The removal of Voltaire’s corpse was therefore postponed till the morrow.
The triumphal procession entered by the barrier ofCharenton; and accompanied by an immense crowd, drawn by horses presented by the Queen, the bier crossed Paris, and stopped at the house where the author of the “Philosophic Dictionary” had died.
There they sang choruses to his glory. The Calas family, led by Madame de Vilette, laid down crowns on the sarcophagus, before the temple of Flora, which was closed, on the pretence of the absence of Madame de Lamballe.
On the 12th, Voltaire entered the Pantheon. On the 13th, in the morning, they played a sacred drama, with a grand chorus and orchestra, in Notre Dame. It was entitled, “Le Prise de la Bastille.”
In the evening, Danton and Legendre came to the Jacobins, and turned out the Constitutionals; whilst at the club on the other side of Paris they were signing an address against the Assembly.
On the 14th, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, when a drama was performed on the subject, the Bishop of Paris performed mass at the altar of the country in the midst of the rain.
Each day now brought an event. On the evening of the 15th, the Assembly voted not only that the King should be brought to judgment, but that his offices should be suspended until he agreed toswear to the Constitution.
The Constitutionals carried it.
The Assembly knew so well that it had committed an unpopular act, that it demanded to be protected by Lafayette and 5,000 men, without counting the National Guard and the pikes of the Faubourg St. Antoine.
The crowd which could not enter—and their name was legion—took up a position on the other side of the citizen guard, who made a ring round the Riding Hall.
The moment the vote became known to the crowd, they yelled “Treason!” and re-entered Paris by its three great arteries, the Boulevards, the Rue St. Honoré, and the street which is now known by that name. They then began to shut the theatres and the houses of play and pleasure, and in consequence of the disturbance, the police themselves closed two or three theatres.
Little work was done in these days of ebullition. M. Duplay sent me to see what was going on at the Assembly; I returned to announce to him the triumph of the King.
“Good!” said he. “Let us get over supper quickly, and then off to the Jacobins. There will be a disturbance there this evening.”
M. Duplay was right.
Robespierre was in the tribune. He attacked, in the midst of vociferous plaudits, the vote of the Assembly. When he had finished, M. Laclos took his place. You must not forget that Laclos was the intendant of the Duc d’Orleans. He demanded that a bulletin should be issued, proclaiming the forfeiture.
“There will be,” said he, “ten million signatures.”
“Yes, yes!” cried the spectators, with one voice. “Ten, fifteen, twenty millions! The women and children, even, shall be compelled to sign!”
A powerful voice shook the nation. It was Danton’s. For some days the Cordeliers had fraternized with the Jacobins, and Danton walked with Robespierre.
“Only,” said Danton, in a low voice, “let us have no women. They are generally Royalists. They would vote for the deposal of a King only in order to raise up another.”
Saying these words, he stared fixedly at the author of “Liaisons Dangereuses.” Not a smile nor a frown ruffled the habitually stern features of Laclos.
Perceiving the silence kept by the Duke of Orleans’ man, he added, “And more, I prefer an address to the adopted societies to a public one.”
Laclos said nothing, but appeared as if listening to something outside the building.
All at once, a large mass of people entered the club. They were what were called the Bucks of the Palais Royal, dragging with them about fifty young women of questionable character.
“Ah, ah!” murmured Danton. “’Tis a planned affair!”
All the newly-arrived mixed with the Jacobins, crying, “The forfeiture—the forfeiture!”
Laclos ascended the tribune.
“You see,” said he, “’tis the people—the people who desire the forfeiture. A petition is necessary, of which I approve.”
All this immense crowd, who probably had the word, cried with one voice, “The petition—the petition!”
Then, with uproarious enthusiasm, the petition was voted. It was agreed that the next day, at eleven o’clock, the Jacobins should meet and hear the reading of it, after which it would be brought to theChamps de Mars, where it was to be signed by the populace, and thence forwarded to the adopted societies.
During this tumult, M. Duplay had taken hold of my arm, and drew me sharply on one side. He then pointed me out a woman standing outside one of the tribunes, who appeared to be taking the greatest possible interest in what was passing.
“Look at that woman,” said he; “it is the Citizen Roland Platrière—a good patriot.”