Such was the fate of Lafayette. A few months had sufficed to throw down the popular idol from his pedestal, and the same persons who had once almost burned incense before him, now thought of nothing but flinging him into the gutter. Stunned by his fall, Lafayette could not believe it. To familiarize himself with the fickleness, the caprices, and the inconsequence of the multitude was impossible. For him the Constitution was the sacred ark, and he did not believe that the very men who had constructed this edifice at such a cost had now nothing so much at heart as to destroy it. He would not admit that the predictions of the royalists were about to be accomplished in every point, and still desired to hold aloof from the complicities into which revolutions drag the most upright minds and the most honest characters. He who, in July, 1789, had not been able to prevent the assassination of Foulon and Berthier; who, on October 5, had marched, despite himself, against Versailles; who, on April 18, 1791, had been unable to protect the departure of the royal family to Saint Cloud; who, on the following June 21, had thought himself obliged to say to the Jacobins in their club: "I have come to rejoin you, because I think the true patriots are here," nevertheless imagined that just a year later, all that was necessary to vanquish the same Jacobins was for him to show himself and say like Cæsar: "Veni, vidi, vici."
It was only a later illusion of the generous but imprudent man who had already dreamed manydreams. He thought the popular tiger could be muzzled by persuasion. He was going to make acoup d'état, not in deeds, but in words, forgetting that the Revolution neither esteems nor fears anything but force. As M. de Larmartime has said: "One gets from factions only what one snatches." Instead of striking, Lafayette was going to speak and write. The Jacobins might have feared his sword; they despised his words and pen. But though it was not very wise, the noble audacity with which the hero of America came spontaneously to throw himself into the heat of the struggle and utter his protest in the name of right and honor, was none the less an act of courage. While with the army, that asylum of generous ideas, the sentiments on which his ancestors had prided themselves rekindled in his heart. Memories of his early youth revived anew. Doubtless he also recalled his personal obligations to Louis XVI. On his return from the United States, had he not been created major-general over the heads of a multitude of older officers? Had not the Queen accorded him at that epoch the most flattering eulogies? Had he not been received at the great receptions of May 29, 1785, when any other officer unless highly born would have remained in the OEil-de-Boeuf or paid his court in the passage of the chapel? Had he not accepted the rank of lieutenant-general from the King, on June 30, 1791? The gentleman reappeared beneath the revolutionist. The humiliation of a throne for which his ancestors had so often shed their bloodcaused him a real grief, and it is perhaps regrettable that Louis XVI. should have refused the hand which his recent adversary extended loyally though late.
Lafayette was encamped near Bavay with the Army of the North when the first tidings of June 20 reached him. His soul was roused to indignation, and he wanted to start at once for Paris to lift his voice against the Jacobins. Old Marshal Luckner tried in vain to restrain him by saying that thesans-culotteswould have his head. Nothing could stop him. Placing his army in safety under the cannon of Maubeuge, he started with no companion but an aide-de-camp. At Soissons some persons tried to dissuade him from going further by painting a doleful picture of the dangers to which he would expose himself. He listened to nobody and went on his way. Reaching Paris in the night of June 27-28, he alighted at the house of his intimate friend, the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, who was about to play so honorable a part. As soon as morning came, Lafayette was at the door of the National Assembly, asking permission to offer the homage of his respect. This authorization having been granted, he entered the hall. The right applauded; the left kept silence. Being allowed to speak, he declared that he was the author of the letter to the Assembly of June 16, whose authenticity had been denied, and that he openly avowed responsibility for it. He then expressed himself in the sincerest terms concerning the outrages committed inthe palace of the Tuileries on June 20. He said he had received from the officers, subalterns, and soldiers of his army a great number of addresses expressive of their love for the Constitution, their respect for the authorities, and their patriotic hatred against seditious men of all parties. He ended by imploring the Assembly to punish the authors or instigators of the violences committed on June 20, as guilty of treason against the nation, and to destroy a sect which encroached upon National Sovereignty, and terrorized citizens, and by their public debates removed all doubts concerning the atrocity of their projects. "In my own name and that of all honest men in the kingdom," said he in conclusion, "I entreat you to take efficacious measures to make all constitutional authorities respected, particularly your own and that of the King, and to assure the army that the Constitution will receive no injury from within, while so many brave Frenchmen are lavishing their blood to defend it on the frontiers."
Applause from the right and from some of those in the galleries began anew. The president said: "The National Assembly has sworn to maintain the Constitution. Faithful to its oath, it will be able to guarantee it against all attacks. It accords to you the honors of the session." The general went to take his seat on the right. Deputy Kersaint observed that his place was on the petitioners' bench. The general obeyed this hint and sat down modestly on the bench assigned him. Renewed applauseensued. Thereupon Guadet ascended the tribune and said in an ironic tone: "At the moment when M. Lafayette's presence in Paris was announced to me, a most consoling idea presented itself. So we have no more external enemies, thought I; the Austrians are conquered. This illusion did not last long. Our enemies remain the same. Our exterior situation is not altered, and yet M. Lafayette is in Paris! What powerful motives have brought him hither? Our internal troubles? Does he fear, then, that the National Assembly is not strong enough to repress them? He constitutes himself the organ of his army and of honest men. Where are these honest men? How has the army been able to deliberate?" Guadet concluded thus: "I demand that the Minister of War be asked whether he gave leave of absence to M. Lafayette, and that the extraordinary Committee of Twelve make a report to-morrow on the danger of granting the right of petition to generals." Ramond, one of the most courageous members of the right, was the next speaker: "Four days ago," said he, "an armed multitude asked to appear before you. Positive laws forbade such a thing, and a proclamation made by the department on the previous day recalled this law and demanded that it should be put into execution. You paid no attention, but admitted armed men into your midst. To-day M. Lafayette presents himself; he is known only by reason of his love of liberty; his life is a series of combats against despotisms of every sort; he hassacrificed his life and fortune to the Revolution. It is against this man that pretended suspicions are directed and every passion unchained. Has the National Assembly two weights and measures, then? Certainly, if respect is to be had to persons, it should be shown to this eldest son of French liberty." This eulogy exasperated the left. Deputy Saladin exclaimed: "I ask M. Ramond if he is making M. Lafayette's funeral oration?" However, the right was still in the majority. After a long tumult Guadet's motion against Lafayette was rejected by 339 votes against 234. The general left the Assembly surrounded by a numerous cortège of deputies and National Guards, and went directly to the palace of the Tuileries.
It is the decisive moment. The vote just taken may serve as the starting-point of a conservative reaction if the King will trust himself to Lafayette. But how will he receive him? The sovereign's greeting will be polite, but not cordial. The King and Queen say they are persuaded that there is no safety but in the Constitution. Louis XVI. adds that he would consider it a very fortunate thing if the Austrians were beaten without delay. Lafayette is treated with a courtesy through which suspicion pierces. When he leaves the palace, a large crowd accompany him to his house and plant a may-pole before the door. On the next day Louis XVI. was to review four thousand men of the National Guard. Lafayette had proposed to appear at this reviewbeside the King and make a speech in favor of order. But the court does not desire the general's aid, and takes what measures it can to defeat this project. Pétion, whom it had preferred to Lafayette as mayor of Paris, countermands the review an hour before daybreak.
Perhaps Louis XVI. might have succeeded in overcoming his repugnance to Lafayette and submitted to be rescued by him. But the Queen absolutely refused to trust the man whom she considered her evil genius. She had seen him rise like a spectre at every hapless hour. He had brought her back to Paris a prisoner on the 6th of October. He had been her jailer. His apparition amid the glare of torches in the Court of the Carrousel had frozen her with terror when she was flying from her prison, the Tuileries, to begin the fatal journey to Varennes. His aides-de-camp had pursued her. He was responsible for her arrest; he was present at her humiliating and sorrowful return; the sight of his face, the sound of his voice, made her tremble; she could not hear his name without a shudder. In vain Madame Elisabeth exclaimed: "Let us forget the past and throw ourselves into the arms of the only man who can save the King and his family!" Marie Antoinette's pride revolted at the thought of owing anything to her former persecutor. Moreover, in his latest confidential communications with her, Mirabeau had said: "Madame, be on your guard against Lafayette; if ever he commands the army, he would like to keepthe King in his tent." In the Queen's opinion, to rely on Lafayette would be to accept him as regent of the palace under a sluggard King. Protector for protector, she preferred Danton. Danton, who, subsidized from the civil list, accepts money without knowing whether he will fairly earn it; Danton, who, while awaiting events, had made the cynical remark that he would "save the King or kill him." Strange that the orator of the faubourgs inspired the daughter of Cæsars with less repugnance than the gentleman, the marquis. "They propose M. de Lafayette as a resource," she said to Madame Campan; "but it would be better to perish than owe our safety to the man who has done us most harm."
However, Lafayette was not yet discouraged. He wished to save the royal family in spite of themselves. He assembled several officers of the National Guard at his house. He represented to them the dangers into which the apathy of each plunged the affairs of all; he showed the urgent necessity of combining against the avowed enterprises of the anarchists, of inspiring the National Assembly with the firmness required to repress the intended attacks, and foretold the inevitable calamities which would result from the weakness and disunion of honest men. He wanted to march against the Jacobin Club and close it. But, in consequence of the instructions issued by the court, the royalists of the National Guard were indisposed to second him in this measure. Lafayette, having no one on his side but the constitutionals, anhonest but scanty group who were suspected by both of the extreme parties, gave up the struggle. The next day, June 30, he beat a hasty retreat to the army, after writing to the Assembly another letter which was merely an echo of the first one. A moment since, the Jacobins were trembling. Now, they are reassured, they triumph. In hisChronique des Cinquante Jours, Roederer says: "If M. de Lafayette had had the will and ability to make a bold stroke and seize the dictatorship, reserving the power to relinquish it after the re-establishment of order, one could comprehend his coming to the Assembly with the sword of a dictator at his side; but, to show it only, without resolving to draw it from the scabbard, was a fatal imprudence. In civil commotions it will not answer to dare by halves."
France had still its moments of enthusiasm and illusion before plunging into the abyss of woes. It seemed under an hallucination, or suffering from a sort of vertigo. A nameless frenzy, both in good and evil, agitated and disturbed it beyond measure in 1792, that year so fertile in surprises and dramas of every kind. Strange and bizarre epoch, full of love and hatred, launching itself from one extreme to the other with frightful inconstancy, now weeping with tenderness, and now howling with rage! Society resembled a drunken man who is sometimes amiable in his cups, and sometimes cruel. There were sudden halts on the road of fury, oases in the midst of scorching sands, beneath a sun whose fire consumed. But the caravan does not rest long beneath the shady trees. Quickly it resumes its course as if urged by a mysterious force, and soon the terrible simoom overwhelms and destroys it.
Madame Elisabeth wrote to Madame de Raigecourt, July 8, 1792: "It would need all Madame de Sévigné's eloquence to describe properly whathappened yesterday; for it was certainly the most surprising thing, the most extraordinary, the greatest, the smallest, etc., etc. But, fortunately, experience may aid comprehension. In a word, here were Jacobins, Feuillants, republicans, and monarchists, abjuring all their discords and assembling near the tree of the Constitution and of liberty, to promise sincerely that they will act in accordance with law and not depart from it. Luckily, August is coming, the time when, the leaves being well grown, the tree of liberty will afford a more secure shelter."
What had happened on the day before Madame Elisabeth wrote this letter? There had been a very singular session of the Legislative Assembly. In the morning, a woman named Olympe de Gouges, whose mother was a dealer in second-hand clothing at Montauban, being consumed with a desire to be talked about, had caused an emphatic placard to be posted up, in which she preached concord between all parties. This placard was like a prologue to the day's session.
Among the deputies there was a certain Abbé Lamourette, the constitutional bishop of Lyons, who played at religious democracy. He was an ex-Lazarist who had been professor of theology at the Seminary at Toul. Weary of the conventual yoke, he had left his order, and at the beginning of the Revolution was the vicar-general of the diocese of Arras. He had published several works in which he sought to reconcile philosophy and religion. Mirabeau wasone of his acolytes and adopted him as his theologian in ordinary. Finding him fit to "bishopize" (à evêquailler), to use his own expression, the great tribune recommended him to the electors of the Rhone department. It was thus that the Abbé Lamourette became the constitutional bishop of Lyons. After his consecration, he issued a pastoral instruction in such agreement with current ideas that Mirabeau, his protector, induced the Constituent Assembly to have it sent as a model to every department in France. In 1792, the Abbé Lamourette was fifty years old. Affable, unctuous, his mouth always full of pacific and gentle words, he naïvely preached moderation, concord, and fraternity in conversations which were like so many sermons.
For several days the discussions in the Assembly had been of unparalleled violence. Suspicion, hatred, rancor, wrath, were unchained in a fury that bordered on delirium. Right and left emulated each other in outrages and invectives. Lafayette's appearance and the fear of a foreign invasion had disturbed all minds. The National Assembly, sitting both day and night, was like an arena of gladiators fighting without truce or pity. It was this moment which the good Abbé Lamourette chose for delivering his most touching sermon from the tribune.
During the session of July 7, Brissot was about to ascend the tribune and propose new measures of public safety. Lamourette, getting before him, asked to be heard on a motion of order. He saidthat of all the means proposed for arresting the divisions which were destroying France, but one had been forgotten, and that the only one which could be efficacious. It was the union of all Frenchmen in one mind, the reconciliation of all the deputies, without exception. What was to prevent this? The only irreconcilable things are crime and virtue. What do all our mistrust and suspicions amount to? One party in the Assembly attributes to the other a seditious desire to destroy the monarchy. The others attribute to their colleagues a desire to destroy constitutional equality and to establish the aristocratic government known as that of the Two Chambers. These are the disastrous suspicions which divide the empire. "Very well!" cried the abbé, "let us crush both the republic and the Two Chambers." The hall rang with unanimous applause from the Assembly and the galleries. From all sides came shouts of "Yes, yes, we want nothing but the Constitution." Lamourette went on: "Let us swear to have but one mind, one sentiment. Let us swear to sink all our differences and become a homogeneous mass of freemen formidable both to the spirit of anarchy and that of feudalism. The moment when foreigners see that we desire one settled thing, and that we all desire it, will be the moment when liberty will triumph and France be saved. I ask the president to put to vote this simple proposition: That those who equally abjure and execrate the republic and the Two Chambers shall rise." Atonce, as if moved by the same impulse, the members of the Assembly rose as one man, and swore enthusiastically never to permit, either by the introduction of the republican system or by that of the Two Chambers, any alteration whatsoever in the Constitution.
By a spontaneous movement, the members of the extreme left went towards the deputies of the right. They were received with open arms, and, in their turn, the right advanced toward the ranks of the left. All parties blended. Jaucourt and Merlin, Albite and Ramond, Gensonné and Calvet, Chabot and Genty, men who ordinarily opposed each other relentlessly, could be seen sitting on the same bench. As if by miracle, the Assembly chamber became the temple of Concord. The moved spectators mingled their acclamations with the oaths of the deputies. According to the expressions of theMoniteur, serenity and joy were on all faces, and unction in every heart.
M. Emmery was the next speaker. "When the Assembly is reunited," said he, "all the powers ought to be so. I ask, therefore, that the Assembly at once send the King the minutes of its proceedings by a deputation of twenty-four members." The motion was adopted.
A few minutes later, Louis XVI., followed by the deputation and surrounded by his ministers, entered the hall. Cries of "Long live the nation! Long live the King!" resounded from every side. The sovereignplaced himself near the president, and in a voice that betrayed emotion, made the following address: "Gentlemen, the spectacle most affecting to my heart is that of the reunion of all wills for the sake of the country's safety. I have long desired this salutary moment; my desire is accomplished. The nation and the King are one. Each of them has the same end in view. Their reunion will save France. The Constitution should be the rallying-point for all Frenchmen. We all ought to defend it. The King will always set the example of so doing." The president replied: "Sire, this memorable moment, when all constituted authorities unite, is a signal of joy to the friends of liberty, and of terror to its enemies. From this union will issue the force necessary to combat the tyrants combined against us. It is a sure warrant of liberty."
After prolonged applause a great silence followed. "I own to you, M. the President," presently said the complaisant Louis XVI., "that I was longing for the deputation to finish, so that I might hasten to the Assembly." Applause and cries of "Long live the nation! Long live the King!" redoubled. What! this monarch now acclaimed is the same prince against whom Vergniaud hurled invectives a few days ago with the enthusiastic approbation of the same Assembly! He is the sovereign whom the Girondin thus addressed: "O King, who doubtless have believed with Lysander the tyrant that truth is no better than a lie, and that men must be amusedwith oaths like children with rattles; who have pretended to love the laws only to preserve the power that will enable you to defy them; the Constitution only that it may not cast you from the throne where you must remain in order to destroy it; the nation only to assure the success of your perfidy by inspiring it with confidence,—do you think you can impose upon us to-day by hypocritical protestations?" What has occurred since the day when Vergniaud, uttering such words as these, was frantically cheered? Nothing. That day, the weather-cock pointed to anger; to-day to concord. Why? No one knows. Tired of hating, the Assembly doubtless needed an instant of relaxation. Violent sentiments end by wearying the souls that experience them. They must rest and renew their energies in order to hate better to-morrow. And why say to-morrow? This very evening the quarrelling, anger, and fury will begin anew.
At half-past three Louis XVI. left the Hall of the Manège, in the midst of joyful applause from the Assembly and the galleries. During the evening session discord reappeared. The following letter from the King was read: "I have just been handed the departmental decree which provisionally suspends the mayor and the procureur of the Commune of Paris. As this decree is based on facts which personally concern me, the first impulse of my heart is to beg the Assembly to decide upon it." Does any one believe that the Assembly will have the courage to condemn Pétion and the 20th of June? Not a bitof it. It makes no decision, but passes unanimously from the King's letter to the order of the day. And what occurs at the clubs? Listen to Billaud-Varennes at the Jacobins: "They embrace each other at the Assembly," he exclaims; "it is the kiss of Judas, it is the kiss of Charles IX., extending his hand to Coligny. They were embracing like this while the King was preparing for flight on October 6. They were embracing like this before the massacres of the Champ-de-Mars. They embrace, but are the court conspiracies coming to an end? Have our enemies ceased their advance against our frontiers? Is Lafayette the less a traitor?" And thereupon the cry broke out: "Pétion or death!" The next day, June 8, at the Assembly, loud applause greeted the orator from a section who said, concerning the department: "It openly serves the sinister projects and disastrous conspiracies of a perfidious court. It is the first link in the immense chain of plots formed against the people. It is an accomplice in the extravagant projects of this general, who, not being able to become the hero of liberty, has preferred to make himself the Don Quixote of the court." A deputy exclaimed: "The acclamations with which the Assembly has listened to this petition authorize me to ask its publication: I make an express motion to that effect." And the publication was decreed.
O poor Lamourette! humanitarian abbé, rose-water revolutionist, of what avail is your democratic holy water? What have you gained by your sentimentaljargon? what do your dreams of evangelical philosophy and universal brotherhood amount to? Poor constitutional abbé, people are scoffing already at your sacerdotal unction, your soothing homily! The very men who, to please you, have sworn to destroy the republic, will proclaim it two and a half months later. Your famous reunion of parties, people are already shrugging their shoulders at and calling it the "baiser d'Amourette, la réconciliation normande": the calf-love kiss, the pretended reconciliation. They accuse you of having sold yourself to the court. They ridicule, they flout, and they will kill you. January 11, 1794, Fouquier-Tinville's prosecuting speech will punish you for your moderatism. You will carry your head to the scaffold, and, optimist to the end, you will say: "What is the guillotine? only a rap on the neck."
The fête of the Federation, which was to be celebrated July 14, was awaited with anxiety. The federates came into Paris full of the most revolutionary projects. Anxiety and anguish reigned at the Tuileries. Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, who were to be present in the Champ-de-Mars, feared to be assassinated there. The Queen's importunities decided the King to have a plastron made, to ward off a poniard thrust. Composed of fifteen thicknesses of Italian taffeta, this plastron consisted of a vest and a large belt. Madame Campan secretly tried it on the King in the chamber where Marie Antoinette was lying. Pulling Madame Campan by the dress as far as possible from the Queen's bed, Louis XVI. whispered: "It is to satisfy her that I yield; they will not assassinate me; their plan is changed; they will put me to death in another way." When the King had gone out, the Queen forced Madame Campan to tell her what he had just said. "I had divined it!" she exclaimed. "He has said this long time that all that is going on in France is an imitation of the revolution in England under Charles I. I begin to dreadan impeachment for him. As for me, I am a foreigner, and they will assassinate me. What will become of my poor children?" And she fell to weeping. Madame Campan tried to administer a nervine, but the Queen refused it. "Nervous maladies," said she. "are the ailments of happy women; I no longer have them." Without her knowledge a sort of corset, in the style of her husband's plastron, had been made for her. Nothing could induce her to wear it. To those who implored her with tears to put it on, she replied: "If seditious persons assassinate me, so much the better; they will deliver me from a most sorrowful life."
The fête of the Federation was celebrated in 1792 amidst extremely tragical preoccupations. Things had changed very greatly since the fête which had excited such enthusiasm two years earlier. On July 14, 1790, the Champ-de-Mars was filled at four o'clock in the morning by a crowd delirious with joy. At eight o'clock in the morning of July 14, 1792, it was still empty. The people were said to be at the Bastille witnessing the laying of the first stone of the column to be erected on the ruins of the famous fortress. On the Champ-de-Mars there was no magnificent altar served by three hundred priests, no side benches covered by an innumerable crowd, none of that sincere and ardent joy which throbbed in every heart two years before. For the fête of 1792, eighty-three little tents, representing the departments of the kingdom, had been erected on hillocks of sand.Before each tent stood a poplar, so frail that it seemed as if a breath might blow away the tree and its tri-colored pendant. In the middle of the Champ-de-Mars were four stretchers covered with canvas painted gray which would have made a miserable decoration for a boulevard theatre. It was a so-called tomb, an honorary monument to those who had died or were about to die on the frontiers. On one side of it was the inscription: "Tremble, tyrants; we will avenge them!" The Altar of the Country could hardly be seen. It was formed of a truncated column placed on the top of the altar steps raised in 1790. Perfumes were burned on the four small corner altars. Two hundred yards farther off, near the Seine, a large tree had been set up and named the Tree of Feudalism. From its branches depended escutcheons, helmets, and blue ribbons interwoven with chains. This tree rose out of a wood-pile on which lay a heap of crowns, tiaras, cardinals' hats, Saint Peter's keys, ermine mantles, doctors' caps, and titles of nobility. A royal crown was among them, and beside it the escutcheons of the Count de Provence, the Count d'Artois, and the Prince de Condé. The organizers of the fête hoped to induce the King himself to set fire to this pile, covered with feudal emblems. A figure representing Liberty, and another representing Law, were placed on casters by the aid of which the two divinities were to be rolled about. Fifty-four pieces of cannon bordered the Champ-de-Mars on the side next the Seine, and the Phrygian cap crowned every tree.
At eleven in the morning the King and his cortège arrived at the Military School. A detachment of cavalry opened the march. There were three carriages. In the first were the Prince de Poix, the Marquis de Brézé, and the Count de Saint-Priest; in the second, the Queen's ladies, Mesdames de Tarente, de la Roche-Aymon, de Maillé, and de Mackau; in the third, the King, the Queen, their two children, and Madame Elisabeth. The trumpets sounded and the drums beat a salute. A salvo of artillery announced the arrival of the royal family. The sovereign's countenance was mild and benevolent. Marie Antoinette appeared still more majestic than usual. The dignity of her demeanor, the grace of her children, and the angelic charm of Madame Elisabeth inspired a tender respect. The little Dauphin wore the uniform of a National Guard. "He has not deserved the cap yet," said the Queen to the grenadiers.
The royal family took their places on the balcony of the Military School, which was covered with a red velvet carpet embroidered with gold, and watched the popular procession, entering the Champ-de-Mars by the gate of the rue de Grenelle, and marching towards the Altar of the Country. What a strange procession! Men, women, children, armed with pikes, sticks, and hatchets; bands singing theÇa ira; drunken harlots, adorned with flowers; people from the faubourgs with the inscription, "Long live Pétion!" chalked on their head-gear; six legions of National Guards marching pell-mell with thesans-culottes; redcaps; placards with devices either ferocious or stupid, like this one: "Long live the heroes who died in the siege of the Bastille!" a plan in relief of the celebrated fortress; a travelling printing-press throwing off copies of the revolutionary manifesto, which the crowd at first mistook for a little guillotine; a great deal of noise and shouting,—and there you have the popular cortège. By way of compensation, the troops of the line and the grenadiers of the National Guard displayed extremely royalist sentiments. The 104th regiment of infantry having halted under the balcony, its band played the air:Où peut-on être mieux qu'au sein de sa famille?(Where is one better off than in the bosom of his family?)
The moment when Louis XVI. left the Military School to walk to the Altar of the Country with the National Assembly was not without solemnity. A certain anxiety was felt by all as to what might happen. Would Louis XVI. be struck by a ball or by a poniard? What might not be feared from so many demoniacs, howling like cannibals? The King, the deputies, the soldiers, the crowd, all pressed against each other in a solid mass that left no vacant spaces; all was in continual undulation. Louis XVI. could only advance slowly and with difficulty. The intervention of the troops was necessary to enable him to reach the Altar of the Country, where he was to swear allegiance for the second time to the Constitution whose fragments were to overwhelm his throne. "It needed the character of Louis XVI.," Madame deStaël has said, "it needed that martyr character which he never belied, to support such a situation as he did. His gait, his countenance, had something peculiar to himself; on other occasions one might have wished he had more grandeur; but at this moment it was enough for him to remain what he was in order to appear sublime. From a distance I watched his powdered head in the midst of all those black ones; his coat, still embroidered as it had been in former days, stood out against the costumes of the common people who pressed around him. When he ascended the steps of the altar, one seemed to behold the sacred victim offering himself in voluntary sacrifice."
The Queen had remained on the balcony of the Military School. From there she watched through a lorgnette the dangerous progress of the King. A prey to inexpressible emotion, she remained motionless during an entire hour, hardly able to breathe on account of excessive anguish. She used the lorgnette steadily, but at one moment she cried out: "He has come down two steps!" This cry made all those about her shudder. The King could not, in fact, reach the summit of the altar, because a throng of suspicious-looking persons had already taken possession of it.
Deputy Dumas had the presence of mind to cry out: "Attention, Grenadiers! present arms!" The intimidatedsans-culottesremained quiet, and Louis XVI. took the oath amid the thundering of the cannon ranged beside the Seine.
It was then proposed to the King that he should set fire to the Tree of Feudalism; it was close to the river and the arms of France were hung upon it. Louis XVI. spared himself that shame, exclaiming, "There is no more feudalism!" He returned to the Military School by the way he came. The 6th legion of the National Guard had not yet marched past when the cavalry announced the King's approach. This legion, quickening its pace, was intercepted by the royal escort, and invaded, not to say routed, by the populace, which from all sides pressed into its ranks.
Meanwhile the anguish of Marie Antoinette redoubled. "The expression of the Queen's face," Madame de Staël says again, "will never be effaced from my memory. Her eyes were drowned in tears; the splendor of her toilette, the dignity of her demeanor, contrasted with the throng that surrounded her. Nothing separated her from the populace but a few National Guards; the armed men assembled in the Champ-de-Mars seemed more as if they had come together for a riot than for a festival." Pétion, who had been reinstated in his functions as mayor of Paris on the previous day, was the hero of the occasion. They called him King Pétion, and the cheers which resounded in honor of this revolutionist were like a funeral knell in the ears of Marie Antoinette.
At last Louis XVI. appeared in front of the Military School. The Queen experienced a momentary joy in seeing him approach. Rising hastily, she randown the stairs to meet him. Always calm, the King tenderly clasped his wife's hand. At once royalist sentiment took fire. All who were present—National Guards, troops of the line, Switzers, people in the courts, at the windows, on balconies and gates—all cried: "Long live the King! Long live the Queen!" The royal family regained the Tuileries in the midst of acclamations. At the entrance of the palace enthusiasm deepened. From the Royal Court to the great stairway of the Horloge Pavilion, the grenadiers of the National Guard, who had escorted and saved the King, formed into line with shouts of joy.
"All former souvenirs," says the Count de Vaublanc in his Memoirs, "all former habits of respect then awoke.... Yes, I saw and observed this multitude; it was animated with the best sentiments; at heart it was faithful to its King and crowned him with sincere benedictions. But do popular love and fidelity afford any support to a tottering throne? He is mad who can think so. The people will be spectators of the latest combat and will applaud the victor. And let no one blame them! What can they do if they are not united, encouraged, and led? The people behold a few seditious individuals attack a throne, and a few courageous men defend it; they fear one party and desire the success of the other. When the struggle is over, they submit and obey. The most honest of them weep in silence, the timid force themselves to display a guilty joy in order to escape the hatred of the victors whom they seebathing themselves in blood. They think about their families, their affairs, their means of support. They were not expected to lead themselves; that duty was imposed on others; have they fulfilled it?"
It is said that during the fête those who were friendly to the King, amongst the crowd, were awaiting a signal they expected from him. They hoped that, by the assistance of the Swiss, they could force their way to the royal family during the confusion of a hand-to-hand affray, and get them safely out of Paris. But Louis XVI. neither spoke nor acted. He returned to his palace without having dared anything. And, nevertheless, there were still many chances of safety open. Imagine the effect of a haughty bearing, a commanding gesture in place of the inert attitude habitual to the unfortunate sovereign. Fancy the Most Christian King, the heir of Louis XIV., on horseback, haranguing the people in the style of his witty and valiant ancestor, Henry IV.! He is still King. The troops of the line are faithful. The great majority of the National Guard are well-disposed towards him. Luckner, Lafayette, Dumouriez himself, would ask nothing better than to defend him if he would show a little energy.
The day after the ceremony of July 14, Lafayette was still anxious that Louis XVI. should leave Paris openly and go to Compiègne, so as to show France and Europe that he was free. In case of resistance, the general demanded only fifty loyal cavaliers to take the royal family away. From Compiègne, pickedsquadrons would conduct them to the midst of the French army, the asylum of devotion and honor. But Louis XVI. refused. The last resources remaining to him were to evaporate between his hands. He will profit neither by the sympathies of all European courts, which ardently desire his safety; by his civil list, which might be such an efficacious means of action; nor by the loyalty of his brave soldiers, who are ready to shed their last drop of blood in his defence. A large party in the Legislative Assembly would ask nothing but a signal, providing it were seriously given, to rally with vigor to the royal cause. He had intrepid champions there whom no menace could affright, and who on every occasion, no matter how violent or tumultuous the galleries might be, had braved the storm with heroic constancy. Public opinion was changing for the better. The schemes and language of the Jacobins exasperated the mass of honest people. The provinces were sending addresses of fidelity to the King.
What was lacking to the monarch to enable him to combine so many scattered elements into a solid group? A little will, a little of that essential quality, audacity, which, according to Danton, is the last word of politics. But Louis XVI. has a timorous soul. If he makes one step forward, he is in haste to make another back. He is scrupulous, hesitating; he has no confidence in himself or any one else. This prince, so incontestably courageous, acts as if he were a coward. He has made so many concessions already thatthe idea of any manner of resistance seems to him chimerical. Does the fate of Charles I. make him dread the beginning of civil war as the supreme danger? Does he fear to imperil the lives of his wife and children by an energetic deed? Is he expecting foreign aid? Does he think to prove his wisdom by his patience, and that success will crown delay? Is he so benevolent, so gentle, that the least thought of repression is repugnant to him? Does he wish to carry to extremes that pardon of injuries which is recommended by the Gospel? What is plain is, that he rejects every firm resolution.
Palliatives, expedients, half-measures, were what suited this honest but feeble nature. Disturbed by contradictory councils, and no longer knowing what to desire or what to hope, he looked on at his own destruction like an unmoved spectator. He was no longer a sovereign full of the sentiment of his power and his rights, but an almost unconscious victim of fatality. Example full of startling lessons for all leaders of state who adopt weakness as a system, and who, under pretext of benevolence or moderation, no longer know how to foresee, to will, or to strike!
During one of the last nights of July, at one o'clock, Madame Campan was alone near the Queen's bed, when she heard some one walking softly in the adjoining corridor, which was ordinarily locked at both ends. Madame Campan summoned the valet-de-chambre, who went into the corridor; presently the noise of two men fighting reached the ears of Marie Antoinette. "What a position!" cried the unfortunate Queen. "Insults by day and assassins by night!" The valet cried: "Madame, it is a scoundrel whom I know; I am holding him."—"Let him go," said the Queen. "Open the door for him; he came to assassinate me; he will be carried in triumph by the Jacobins to-morrow."
People were constantly saying that the Faubourg Saint-Antoine was getting ready to march against the palace. Marie Antoinette was so badly guarded, and it was so easy to force an entrance to her apartment on the ground-floor, opposite the garden, that Madame de Tourzel, her children's governess, begged her to sleep in the Dauphin's room on the first floor. The Queen was averse to this step, as she wasunwilling to have any one suspect her uneasiness. But Madame de Tourzel having shown her that it would be easy to keep the secret of this change by using the Dauphin's private staircase, she ended by accepting the proposal so long as the trouble should last. She was so thoughtful of all those in her service that it cost her much to incommode them in the least. Finally, she consented to use the bed of the governess, and a pallet was laid for the latter every evening. Mademoiselle Pauline de Tourzel slept on a sofa in an adjoining closet. As no one in the house suspected that the Queen might have changed her apartment for the night, Madame de Tourzel and her daughter took precautionary measures. When the Queen had gone to bed, they rose, and after making sure that the doors were locked, they shot the inside bolts. "The closet I occupied served as a passage for the royal family when they went to supper," says Mademoiselle de Tourzel, afterwards Madame de Béarn, in herSouvenirs de Quarante Ans; "I went to bed early; sometimes I pretended to be asleep when the Princes were passing through, and I saw them approach my sofa, one after another; I heard their expressions of kindness and good will toward me, and noticed what care they took not to disturb my slumber."
Poor Marie Antoinette! Could one believe that a Queen of France would be reduced to keeping a little dog in her bedroom to warn her of the least noise in her apartment? The Dauphin, delighted tohave his mother sleep so near him, used to run to her as soon as he awoke, and clasping her in his little arms would say the most affectionate things. This was the only moment of the day that brought her any consolation.
By the end of July, both the Queen and her children were obliged to give up walking in the garden. She had gone out to take the air with her daughter in the Dauphin's small parterre at the extreme end of the Tuileries, close to the Place Louis XV. Some federates grossly insulted her. Four Swiss officers made their way through the crowd, and placing the Queen and the young Princess between them, brought them back to the palace. When she reached her apartments, Marie Antoinette thanked her defenders in the most affecting terms, but she never went out again.
After June 20, the garden, excepting the terrace of the Feuillants, which, by a decree of the Assembly, had become a part of its precincts, had been forbidden to the populace. Posters warned the people to remain on the terrace and not go down into the garden. The terrace was called National Ground, and the garden the Land of Coblentz. Inscriptions apprised passers-by of this novel topography. Tri-colored ribbons had been tied to the banisters of the staircases by way of barriers. Placards were fastened at intervals to the trees bordering the terrace, whereon could be read: "Citizens, respect yourselves; give the force of bayonets to this feeble barrier. Citizens, donot go into this foreign land, this Coblentz, abode of corruption." The leaders had such an empire over the crowd that no one disobeyed. And yet it was the height of summer, the trees offered their verdant shade, and the King had withdrawn all his guards and opened every gate. Nobody dared infringe the revolutionary mandate. One young man, paying no attention, went down into the garden. Furious clamors broke out on all sides. "To the lamp-post with him!" cried some one on the terrace. Thereupon the young man, taking off his shoes, drew out his handkerchief and began to wipe the dust from their soles. People cried bravo, and he was carried in triumph.
Marie Antoinette could not become resigned to this hatred. Often she frightened her women by wishing to go out of the palace and address the people. "Yes," she would cry, her voice trembling, as she walked quickly to and fro in her chamber, "yes, I will say to them: Frenchmen, they have had the cruelty to persuade you that I do not love France, I, the wife of its King and the mother of a Dauphin!" Then, this brief moment of generous exaltation over, the illusion of being able to move a nation of insulters quickly vanished. Her life was a daily, hourly struggle. The wife, the mother, the queen, never ceased to contend against destiny. She hardly slept or ate; but from the very excess of danger she drew additional energy, and moral and material force. As she awoke at daybreak, she required that theshutters should not be closed, so that her sleepless nights might be sooner consoled by the light of morning. The most widely diverse sentiments occupied her soul. A captive in her palace, she sometimes believed herself irrevocably condemned by fate, and sometimes hoped for deliverance.
Toward the middle of one of the last nights preceding the 10th of August, the moon shone into her bedchamber. "In a month," she said to Madame Campan, "I shall not see that moon unless I am freed from my chains." But she was not free from anxiety concerning all that might happen before that. "The King is not a poltroon," she added; "he has very great passive courage, but he is crushed by a false shame, a doubt of himself, which arises from his education quite as much as from his character. He is afraid of commanding; he dreads above everything to speak to assemblages of men. He lived uneasily and like a child, under the eyes of Louis XV. until he was twenty, and this constraint has had an effect on his timidity. In our circumstances, a few clearly spoken words addressed to the Parisians who are devoted to us would immensely strengthen our party, but he will not say them." Then Marie Antoinette explained why she did not put herself forward more: "For my part," said she, "I could act, and mount a horse if need were; but, if I acted, it would put weapons into the hands of King's enemies; a general outcry would be raised in France against the Austrian woman, against female domination; moreover,I should reduce the King to nothingness by showing myself. A queen who is not regent must in such circumstances remain inactive and prepare to die."
The danger constantly increased. At four in the morning of one of the last days of July, warning was given at the palace that the faubourgs were threatening, and would doubtless march against the Tuileries. Madame Campan went very softly into the Queen's room. For a wonder, Marie Antoinette was sleeping peacefully and profoundly. Madame Campan did not rouse her. "You were right," said Louis XVI.; "it is good to see her take a little rest. Oh! her griefs redouble mine!" At her waking the Queen, on being informed of what had passed, began to weep, and said: "Why was I not called?" Madame Campan excused herself by saying: "It was only a false alarm. Your Majesty needed to repair your prostrate strength."—"It is not prostrate," quickly replied the courageous sovereign; "misfortune makes it all the greater. Elisabeth was with the King, and I was sleeping! I, who wish to perish beside him! I am his wife; I am not willing that he should incur the least danger without me!"
On Sunday, August 5,—the last Sunday the royal family were to spend at the Tuileries,—as they were going to the chapel to hear Mass, half the National Guards on duty cried: "Long live the King!" The others said: "No, no; no King, down with the veto!" The same day, at Vespers, the chanters had agreed to swell their tones greatly, and in amenacing way, when reciting this versicle of theMagnificat: Deposuit potentes de sede—"He hath put down the mighty from their seat." In their turn the royalists, after theDominum salvum fac regem, cried thrice, turning as they did so toward the Queen:Et reginam. There was a continual murmuring all through the divine office. Five days later, the same chapel was to be a pool of blood.
And yet Madame Elisabeth, always calm and always angelic, still had illusions. One morning of this terrible month of August, while in her room in the Pavilion of Flora, she thought she heard some one humming her favorite air,Pauvre Jacques, beneath her windows. Attracted by this refrain, which in the midst of sorrow renewed the souvenir of happier times, she half opened her window and listened attentively. The words sung were not those of the ballad she loved, yet they were royalist in sentiment and adapted to the same air. The poor people had been substituted for poor Jack—the poor people who were pitied for having a king no longer and for knowing nothing but wretchedness. Such marks of attachment consoled the virtuous Princess, and made her hope against all hope. She wrote, August 8, to her friend Madame de Raigecourt: "They say that the King is going to be turned out of here somewhat forcibly, and made to lodge in the Hôtel-de-Ville. They say that there will be a very strong movement to that effect in Paris. Do you believe it? For my part, I do not. I believe in rumors, but not in theirresulting in anything. That is my profession of faith. For the rest, everything is perfectly quiet to-day. Yesterday passed in the same way, and I think this one will be like it." On August 9, the eve of the fatal day, Madame Elisabeth again addressed a reassuring letter to one of her friends, Madame de Bombelles. Curiously enough she dated this letter August 10, no doubt by accident, and when Madame de Bombelles received it, she read these lines, which seem like the irony of fate: "This day of the 10th, which was to have been so exciting, so terrible, is as calm as possible; the Assembly has decreed neither deposition nor suspension."