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One naturally asks how I became acquainted with all this.
I have already said that, on leaving Varennes, I had taken a place on the back of the carriage of the King. Happily, I had managed to retain my position, despite the heat, the fatigue, and the dust. Twice only, for a few minutes, had I quitted my location; firstly, to try and assist M. de Dampierre, and, secondly, to procure the water for Madame Elizabeth and the Dauphin. Both times, on my return, I recovered my place. The glass windows of the berlin were let down on account of the heat, and the royal family, not speaking in very low voices, I managed to hear pretty well all that was said.
This explanation given, I will continue my story, with the history of the rudeness of Pétion, and the courtesy of Barnave.
There was placed between Madame Elizabeth and Madame Royale, a bottle of lemonade and a glass. Pétion was thirsty, and felt inclined to drink. He took the glass, and handed it to Madame Elizabeth, who took up the lemonade, and filled it.
“Enough!” said Pétion, lifting his glass as he would have done at a cabaret.
The Queen’s eyes flashed with anger.
The Dauphin, with the impatience of a youngster, shifted in his seat; Pétion seized him, and imprisoned him between his legs.
The Queen said nothing, but again darted a look of menace at Pétion; who, remembering that it might be politic to gain the favor of the King, caressed the Dauphin’s white locks with apparent affection.
The Dauphin made a grimace expressive of grief.
The Queen snatched him from Pétion’s legs.
Barnave, smiling, immediately opened his arms to him.
The boy seemed willing, and was, therefore, soon installed on Barnave’s knees.
His instinct shewed him that he would find in Barnave a protector.
Playing with a button on the coat of the representative, he discovered that a device was inscribed upon it, and, after many efforts, succeeded in reading it.
The device was, “Live free, or die.”
The Queen sighed, and regarded Barnave, her eyes filled with tears.
Barnave’s heart smote him.
This was his position. He followed his own individual romance in the midst of a royal and terrible history, when suddenly a noise was heard some paces behind the royal carriage.
The cries and tumult drew Barnave from the magic circle which surrounded him.
A venerable ecclesiastic approached the carriage, much in the same manner as M. de Dampierre had done, and uplifted his hands and blessed the royal martyr.
The mob, unsatiated by one murder, rushed upon the priest, and drew him away, to slaughter him in the ditch by the roadside.
I was on the opposite side of the carriage to where this affair was taking place.
“M. Barnave, M. Barnave!” cried I; “help, help!”
At the same moment, M. Barnave, putting his head out of the window, saw what was taking place.
He placed the Dauphin in the arms of his aunt, and opened the carriage door with such violence and rapidity, that he almost fell out; in fact, he would have fallen, had not Madame Elizabeth caught and retained him by his coat-tails.
“Oh, Frenchmen!” cried he; “ye are a nation of brave men—would ye become a horde of assassins?”
At this eloquent appeal, the people let go the priest, who escaped, protected by the outspread arms and eloquent gestures of Barnave.
The door was again shut, Barnave retook his place, and the Queen said to him, “I thank you, M. Barnave.”
He bowed his head.
Before the arrival of the commissaires, the King had eaten alone with his family; but now, after consulting the Queen, he invited them to share his repast.
Pétion accepted the invitation; Latour-Maubourg and Barnave declined.
Barnave insisted, however, on waiting on the royal family; but the Queen made him a sign, and he yielded.
I was one of the guard at the door of the dining-room.
In the evening, MM. Drouet and Guillaume set out at full speed, to inform the Assembly of what had taken place.
Drouet came to bid me good-bye.
“M. Drouet,” said I to him, “you know me, as I am your pupil. I take the greatest interest in that which is going on. It will be something to talk about for the rest of my life. Give the order, before you leave, to have me always placed close to their Majesties. The fatigue will be nothing, and I wish to see all that goes on.”
“Be it as you wish,” said he, without making the least objection.
That was the reason why I had been appointed one of the guards that day at the door of the dining-room.
This is what happened at Dormans.
After dinner, the three commissaires went into the neighboring room—that is to say, the one at which I mounted guard.
“Citizens,” said Barnave to them, “we are commissaires of the National Assembly, and not the executioners of the royal family; and to make them proceed under this burning sun is simply to conduct them to the scaffold.”
“Good!” said Pétion. “What has happened to them has been brought on by their own follies.”
“Still they are no less King and Queen,” replied M. de Latour-Maubourg.
“If affairs keep progressing as they do now, it is extremely probable that they will not long even have that title to console them.”
“Quite right,” said Barnave. “But still I think that, as long as they retain the titles of King and Queen, they ought to be treated as such.”
“I have no objection,” said Pétion, in an indifferent tone. “Do as you like, most loyal gentlemen.”
Saying these words, he left the room.
Barnave and M. de Latour-Maubourg, being alone, decided that the royal carriage should be accompanied only by a cavalry escort, so that it might proceed at a trot, and on the third evening arrive at Meaux.
At that moment, they relieved guard. I ran to the postmaster at Dormans, who was a friend of M. Drouet’s, and with whom we had lodged on our way to the federation, and prayed him to lend me a horse, to go as far as Meaux, where the royal family would halt, to pass the night in repose.
In these critical times, paternal feeling elevated itself. The postmaster had seen M. Drouet the evening before, who had announced to him my arrival to-day. He would not let me hire the steed—he gave it to me.
They arrived at Meaux about six in the evening.
The King again invited the commissaires to sup with him, as he had before invited them to dine. Pétion accepted the invitation; M. de Latour-Maubourg and Barnave refused it.
But the Queen, with charming grace, turning towards Barnave, said, “Pray accept it, M. Barnave, as, after the meal, I shall have need of you.”
Barnave bowed, the King signed to M. de Latour-Maubourg and the two took their places at the royal table.
They were located in the palace of the Bishop of Meaux, a melancholy-looking place enough, with its dark oak staircase and mysterious and dusty passages.
I was on guard at the garden gate.
After dinner, the Queen, who, as she had said to Barnave, had need of him, took his arm, and mounted the staircase to the apartments above, under pretext of seeing a chamber once occupied by Bossuet.
As for the King, he descended into the gardens with Pétion. Pétion it was who desired thetête-à-tête.
Pétion, who, apart from his folly, was a good man, and had a good heart, had formed an idea of escape for the King. It was, to allow the three body-guards to go, so that they might disguise themselves as National Guards, and so facilitate their entrance into Paris.
But, extraordinary to relate, the King could not understand this idea of Pétion’s; and not wishing to be underan obligation to Pétion, and having the absurd suspicion that he wished to assassinate the guards, he refused.
And yet, on the day when he could have caused Lafayette to be proclaimed Mayor of Paris, he nominated Pétion.
It was because the Queen hated Lafayette more than the King detested Pétion.
As for the Queen, no one knows what passed between her and Barnave, except through the account which she afterwards gave to Madame Campan.
The impression which the young representative produced on the Queen may be summed up in those words.
“If ever power returns into our hands, the pardon of Barnave is assured in our hearts.”
The Queen was ready to pardon Barnave for his rebellion; France did not pardon him for his weakness.
The unhappy orator paid with his head for the few moments of happiness he spent with this second Marie Stuart.
Perchance he had the same honor as Mirabeau, of kissing her hand.