The first rumblings of the storm began. People quarrelled and fought in the Palais Royal, the cafés, and the theatres. Half of the National Guard sided with the court, and the other half with the people. To seditious speeches were added songs full of insults to the King and Queen. These songs, sold on every corner, applauded in every tavern, and repeated by the wives and children of the people, propagated revolutionary fury. There was a constant succession of gatherings, brawls, and riots. The Assembly had declared the country in danger. Rumors of every sort excited popular imagination. It was said that priests who refused the oath were in hiding at the Tuileries, which was, moreover, full of arms and munitions. The Duke of Brunswick's manifesto exasperated national sentiment. It was read aloud in every street. The leaders neglected nothing likely to excite the populace, and prepared their last attack on the throne, their afterpiece of June 20, with as much audacity as skill.
In order to subdue the court, it was necessary to destroy its only remaining means of defence. Toleave plenty of elbow-room for the riot, the Assembly, on July 15, ordered the troops of the line to be sent some thirty-five miles beyond Paris and kept there. A singular means was devised for breaking up the choice troops of the National Guard, who were royalists. They were told that it was contrary to equality for certain citizens to be more brilliantly equipped than others; that a bearskin cap humiliated those who were entitled only to a felt one; and that there was a something aristocratic about the name of grenadier which was really intolerable to a simple foot-soldier. The choice troops were dissolved in consequence, and the grenadiers came to the Assembly like good patriots to lay down their epaulettes and bearskin caps and assume the red cap. On July 30, the National Guard was reconstructed, by taking in all the vagabonds and bandits that the clubs could muster.
The famous federates of Marseilles, who were to take such an active part in the coming insurrection, arrived in Paris the same day. The Girondins, having failed to obtain their camp of twenty thousand men before Paris, had devised instead of it a reunion of federate volunteers, summoned from every part of France. The roads were at once thronged by future rioters whom the Assembly allowed thirty cents a day.
The Jacobins of Brest and Marseilles distinguished themselves. Instead of a handful of volunteers they sent two battalions. That of Marseilles, recruited byBarbaroux, comprised five hundred men and two pieces of artillery. Starting July 5, it entered Paris July 30. Excited to fanaticism by the sun and the declamations of the southern clubs, it had run over France, been received under triumphal arches, and chanted in a sort of frenzy the terrible stanzas of Rouget de l'Isle's new hymn, theMarseillaise. It was at this time that Blanc Gilli, deputy from the Bouches du Rhone department to the Legislative Assembly, wrote: "These pretended Marseillais are the scum of the jails of Genoa, Piedmont, Sicily, and of all Italy, Spain, the Archipelago, and Barbary. I run across them every day." Rouget de l'Isle received from his old mother, a royalist and Catholic at heart, a letter in which she said: "What is this revolutionary hymn which a horde of brigands are singing as they pass through France, and in which your name is mixed up?" At Paris the accents of that terrible melody sounded like strokes of the tocsin. The men who sang it filled the conservatives with terror. They wore woollen cockades and insulted as aristocrats those who wore silk ones.
There was no longer any dike to the torrent. August 1, Louis XVI. nominated a cabinet composed of loyal men: Joly was Minister of Justice; Champion de Villeneuve, of the Interior; Bigot de Sainte-Croix, of Foreign Affairs; Du Bouchage, of the Marine; Leroux de la Ville, of Public Taxes; and D'Abancourt, of War. But this ministry was to last only ten days. Certain petitioners at the bar of theAssembly asked for the deposition of the King in most violent language. "This measure," says Barbaroux in his Memoirs, "would have carried Philippe of Orléans to the regency, and therefore his party violently clamored for it. His creditors, his hirelings, and boon-companions, Marat and his Cordeliers, all manner of swindlers and insolvent debtors, thronged public places and incited to this deposition because they were hungry for money and positions under a regent who was their tool and their accomplice."
In vain did Louis XVI. display those sentiments of paternal kindness which had hitherto availed him so little. August 3, he sent a message to the Assembly, in which he said: "I will uphold national independence to my latest breath. Personal dangers are nothing compared to public ones. Oh! what are personal dangers to a King whom men are seeking to deprive of his people's love? This is the real plague-spot in my heart. Perhaps the people will some day know how dear their welfare is to me. How many of my sorrows could be obliterated by the least evidence of a return to right feeling!"
How did they respond to this conciliatory language? After it had been read, Pétion, the mayor of Paris, presented himself at the bar, and read an address from the Council General of the Commune, in which these words occur: "The chief of the executive power is the first link of the counter-revolutionary chain.... Through a lingering forbearance, we would have desired the power to ask you for thesuspension of Louis XVI., but to this the Constitution is opposed. Louis XVI. incessantly invokes the Constitution; we invoke it in our turn, and ask you for his deposition." The next day the municipality distributed five thousand ball cartridges to the Marseillais, while refusing any to the National Guards.
Nevertheless, the Girondins still hesitated. Guadet, Vergniaud, and Gensonné would have declared themselves satisfied if the three ministers belonging to their party had been reinstated, and on July 29 they secretly despatched a letter to the sovereign, by Thierry, his valet-de-chambre, in which they said that, "attached to the interests of the nation, they would never separate them from those of the King except in so far as he separated them himself." As to Barbaroux, like a true visionary, he dreamed of I know not what rose-water insurrection. "They should not have entered the apartments of the palace," he has said, "but merely blockaded them. Had this plan been followed, the blood of Frenchmen and Swiss, ignorant victims of court perfidy, would not have been shed on the 10th of August, the republic would have been founded without convulsions or massacres, and we, corroded by popular gangrene, should not have become the horror of all nations." The demagogues were not at all certain of success. Robespierre was to spend the 10th of August in the discreet darkness of a cellar. Danton was prudently to await the end of the combat before arming himself with a big sabre and marching at the head of the Marseillesbattalion as the hero of the day. Barbaroux says in his Memoirs that on the 1st, 3d, and 7th of August, Marat implored him to take him to Marseilles, and that on the evening of the 9th he renewed this prayer more urgently than ever, adding that he would disguise himself as a jockey in order to get away.
In spite of their many weaknesses, the majority of the Assembly were royalists and constitutionalists still. The proof is that on August 8, in spite of the violent menaces of the galleries, they decided by 406 against 244 votes, that there was no occasion to impeach Lafayette, so abhorred by the Jacobins. This vote excited the wrath of the revolutionists to fury. The conservative deputies were insulted, pursued, and struck. Several of them barely escaped assassination. The sessions became stormier from day to day. Not only were the large galleries of the Assembly overthronged by violent crowds, but the courtyards, the approaches, and the corridors were obstructed. Many sat or stood on the exterior entablatures of the high windows. The upper part of the hall, where the Jacobins sat, received many strangers, in spite of the often-reiterated opposition of the right. Below this Mountain sat the members of the centre, theVentrus. There were not seats enough for them, and they were crowded up in a ridiculous manner. At the bottom of the hall, almost entirely deserted, were the forty-four members of the right. They were easily marked and counted by their future executioners, who threatened them by voice and gesture. Everyday the petitioners who were admitted to the honors of the session avoided the empty benches of the right and seated themselves with the Mountain or the centre, where they crowded still more the already overcrowded deputies. The discussions were like formidable tempests. "The effect produced by such a spectacle," says Count de Vaublanc in his Memoirs, "was still greater on those who entered the hall during one of those terrible moments. I received this impression several times myself, and it will never be effaced from my mind; I seek vainly for expressions by which to describe it. Long afterwards, M. de Caux, then Minister of War, said to me: 'You made the profoundest impression on me which I ever received in my life. I was young at the time. I entered the galleries just as you were standing out against the furious shouts of a part of the deputies and the people in the galleries.'"
Meanwhile the end was approaching. Faithful royalists still proposed schemes of flight to Louis XVI. Bertrand de Molleville, who is so ill disposed toward Madame de Staël, says concerning this: "There was nobody, even to Madame de Staël, who, either in the hope of being pardoned the injury her intrigues had done the King, or else through her continual need of intrigue, had not invented some plan of escape for His Majesty." Louis XVI. declined them all. He would owe nothing to Lafayette. He relied on the money he had given to Danton and other demagogues, and hoped that theinsurrectionary bands would be repulsed by the royalists of the National Guard and the Swiss regiment. August 8th, in the evening, this fine regiment left its Courbevoie barracks and arrived at the Tuileries at daybreak next morning. Under various idle pretexts it had been deprived of its twelve pieces of artillery, and also of three hundred men who had been given the commission, true or false as may be, to watch over the transportation of corn in Normandy. Only seven hundred and fifty, officers and soldiers, remained; but all of them had said: "We will let ourselves be killed to the last man rather than fail in honor or betray the sanctity of our oaths." In company with a handful of noblemen, these were to be the last defenders of the throne. The fatal hour was approaching. The section of the Cordeliers had decided that if the Assembly had not pronounced the King's deposition by the evening of August 9th, the drums should beat the general alarm at the stroke of midnight, and the insurrection march against the Tuileries. The revolutionists were to carry out their plan, and the Swiss to keep their word.
The night was serene, the sky clear and sown with stars. The calmness of nature contrasted with the revolutionary passions that had been unchained. On account of the heat, all the windows of the Tuileries had been left open, and from a distance the palace could be seen illuminated as if for a fête. It had just struck midnight. The Revolution was executing the programme of the Cordeliers' section. The tocsin was sounding all over the city. Everybody named the church whose bell he thought he recognized. The people of the faubourgs were out of bed in their houses. The drums mingled with the tocsin. The revolutionists beat the general alarm, and the royalists the call to arms.
No one was asleep at the Tuileries. There was no further question of etiquette. The night reception in the royal bedchamber was omitted for the first time. Certain old servitors, faithful guardians of tradition, in vain recalled that it was not permissible to sit down in the sovereign's apartments. The courtiers of the last hour seated themselves in armchairs, on tables and consoles. Louis XVI. stayed sometimesin his chamber and sometimes in his Great Cabinet, also called the Council Hall, where the assembled ministers received constant tidings of what was happening without. The pious monarch had summoned his confessor, Abbé Hébert, and shutting himself up with this venerable priest, he besought from Heaven the resignation and courage he needed to pass through the final crisis. Madame Elisabeth showed the faithful Madame Campan the carnelian pin which fastened her fichu. These words, surrounding the stalk of a lily, were engraved on it: "Forget offences, pardon injuries."—"I fear much," said the virtuous Princess, "that this maxim has little influence over our enemies, but it must be none the less dear to us." Louis XVI. did not wear his padded vest. "I consented to do so on the 14th of July," said he, "because on that day I was merely going to a ceremony where an assassin's dagger might be apprehended. But on a day when my party may be forced to fight with the revolutionists, I should think it cowardly to preserve my life by such means."
Marie Antoinette was grave and tranquil in her heroism. There was nothing affected about her, nothing theatrical, neither passion, despair, nor the spirit of revenge. According to the expressions of Roederer, who never left her, "she was a woman, a mother, a wife in peril; she feared, she hoped, she grieved, and she took heart again." She was also a queen, and the daughter of Maria Theresa. Her anxiety and grief were restrained or concealed byher respect for her rank, her dignity, and her name. When she reappeared amidst the courtiers in the Council Hall, after having dissolved in tears in Thierry's room, the redness of her cheeks and eyes had disappeared. The courtiers said to each other: "What serenity! what courage!"
The struggle might still seem doubtful. Something like two hundred noblemen who had spontaneously repaired to the King, seven hundred and fifty Swiss, and nine hundred mounted gendarmes posted at the approaches of the Tuileries were the last resources of the commander-in-chief of the French army. The Swiss, who through some one's extreme imprudence had not cartridges enough, were posted in the apartments, the chapel, and at the entry of the Royal Court. Baron de Salis, as the oldest captain of the regiment, commanded at the stairways. A reserve of three hundred men, under Captain Durler, was stationed in the Swiss Court, before the Pavilion of Marsan. The National Guards belonging to the sectionsPetits-Pèresand theFilles-Saint-Thomasshowed themselves well disposed toward the King; but it was different with the other companies. As to the mounted gendarmes, Louis XVI. could not count on them, and before the riot ended they were to join the insurgents in spite of all the efforts made by their royalist officers. The artillerists of the National Guard, charged with serving the cannons placed in the courts and before the palace doors to defend the entry, were to act in the same manner.
Like the Swiss, the two hundred noblemen, martyrs to the old French ideas of honor, had resolved to be loyal unto death. With their silk coats and drawing-room swords, they seemed as if they had come to a fête instead of a combat. The servants of the chateau joined them. Some of them had pistols and blunderbusses. Some, for lack of other weapons, had taken the tongs from the chimneys. They jested with each other over their accoutrements. No, no; there was nothing laughable in these champions of misfortune. They represented the past, with its ancient fidelity to the altar and the throne. A great poet who had the spirit of divination, Heinrich Heine, wrote on November 12, 1840, as if he foresaw February 24, 1848: "The middle classes will possibly make less resistance than the aristocracy would do in a similar case. Even in its most pitiable weakness, its enervation by immorality and its degeneration through flattery, the old nobility was still alive to a certain point of honor unknown to our middle classes, who have become prosperous by industry, but who will perish by it also. Another 10th of August is predicted for these middle classes; but I doubt whether the industrial Knights of the throne of July will prove themselves as heroic as the powdered marquises of the old régime who, in silk coats and flimsy dress swords, opposed the people who invaded the Tuileries." The greater part of these noblemen, volunteers for the last conflict, were old men with white hair. There were also children among them.M. Mortimer-Ternaux, author of theHistoire de la Terreur, has remarked: "Was not this a time to exclaim with Racine:—
"'See what avengers arm themselves for the quarrel?'
"Who could have told Louis XIV., when in the midst of the splendors of his court he was present at the performance ofAthalie, that the poet was predicting, through the mouth of Joad, the fate reserved for his great-grandson?" The royalist National Guards who were in the apartments considered the volunteer noblemen as companions in arms. They shook hands with each other amid cries of "Long live the King! Long live the National Guard!" But the troops outside did not share these sentiments. Jealous of the royalists assembled in the palace, they wanted to have them sent out. A regimental commander having come to make known this desire to Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette exclaimed: "Nothing can separate us from these gentlemen; they are our most faithful friends. They will share the dangers of the National Guard. They will obey us. Put them at the cannon's mouth, and they will show you how men die for their King."
Meantime what had become of Pétion, whose business it was, as mayor, to defend the palace? Summoned to the Tuileries, he arrived there at eleven in the evening. As Louis XVI. said to him: "It seems there is a great deal of commotion?"—"Yes, sire," he replied, "the excitement is great." And heenlarged upon the measures he claimed that he had taken, and his pretended haste to wait upon the King. In going out, he came face to face with M. de Mandat, who, as general-in-chief of the National Guard, was in command of all military forces. "Why," exclaimed he, "have the police refused cartridges to the National Guard when they have wasted them on the Marseillais? My men have only four charges apiece; some of them have not one. No matter; I answer for everything; my measures are taken, providing I am authorized, by an order signed by you, to repel force by force." Not daring to avow his complicity with the riot, Pétion signed the order demanded. Then he made his escape under pretext of inspecting the gardens, and fell amongst some royalist National Guards, who reprimanded him severely. He began to fear being kept at the Tuileries as a hostage, to guarantee the palace against the attempts of the populace, and went to the Assembly. It had adjourned at ten o'clock the evening before, but on account of the crisis had met again at two in the morning. The Assembly knew the gravity of the danger as well as the King did; but through a ridiculous and culpable point of honor, it affected not to recognize it, and devoted to the reading of a colonial report the moments it should have employed in saving that Constitution it had sworn to maintain. Pétion merely put in an appearance in the Hall of the Manège. But he took good care not to return to the Tuileries. At half-past three in the morning therolling of a carriage was heard from the palace. It was that of the mayor, going back empty. He had not dared to get into it, and had only sent his coachman an order to return when he found himself in safety at the mayoralty, whither he had made his way on foot.
Meanwhile, some hundred unknown individuals, who gathered at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and surreptitiously made their way into one of the halls, had formed an insurrectionary Commune. On their own authority they appointed commissaries of sections, and dismissed the staff of the National Guard, who were very much in their way; but retained in office Manuel as procurator and Pétion as mayor. This new municipality, whose very existence was unknown at the palace, had just learned that Mandat, general-in-chief of the National Guard, had a document in his pocket by which Pétion authorized him to oppose force to force. It was necessary to get rid of this document at any cost. The municipality sent Mandat an order to come to the Hôtel-de-Ville. He knew nothing about the revolution that had just taken place there. And yet he hesitated to obey. A secret presentiment took possession of his soul. Finally, at the instance of Roederer, he decided, towards five in the morning, to leave the Tuileries and go to that Hôtel-de-Ville, which was to be so fatal to him. When he came before the municipality he was surprised to see new faces.
He was accused of having intended to disperse "theinnocent and patriotic column of the people," and sentenced to be taken to the Abbey prison. It was a sentence of death. Mandat was massacred on the steps of the Hôtel-de-Ville. A pistol-shot brought him down. Pikes and sabres finished him. His body was thrown into the Seine. Such was the first exploit of the new Commune. It preluded thus the massacres of September. "Mandat's death," says Count de Vaublanc in his Memoirs, "was, beyond any doubt, the chief cause of the calamities of the day. If he had attacked the rebels as soon as they came near the palace, he could have dispersed them with ease. They took a long time to form and set off; and, being undecided and uneasy, they often halted. No troop marching from a given point in this immense city knew whether it was seconded by the rebels from other quarters, and lost much time in making sure." The second exploit of the Commune was to confine Pétion at the mayoralty under the guard of six men. A voluntary captive, this accomplice of the insurrection rejoiced at a measure which sheltered him from every danger. As M. Mortimer-Ternaux has observed: "On this fatal night, when the passion of the royalty was fulfilled, Pétion doubled the parts of Judas and Pontius Pilate. Like Judas, he went at nightfall to give the kiss of peace to Louis XVI. by assuring him of his loyalty; like the Roman governor, he proclaimed at daybreak the impotence with which he had stricken himself, and washed his hands of all that was to happen."
When the first fires of this fatal day were kindling in the sky, Marie Antoinette experienced a profound emotion. Looking with melancholy at the horizon which began to lighten: "Sister," said she to Madame Elisabeth, "come and see the sun rise." It was the sun that was to illumine the death-struggle of royalty. Sinister omen! the sun was red
The fatal day began. It was five o'clock in the morning. The Queen made her children rise, lest the swords of the insurgents should surprise them in their beds. The Dauphin, unaccustomed to being called so early, stared with surprise at the spectacle presented by the court and garden. "Mamma," said he, "why should any one harm papa? He is so good!" Then, turning to a little girl who was his usual companion in his games, he addressed her these words, which prove how well, in spite of his age, he knew the peril he was in: "Here, Josephine, take this lock of my hair, and promise to wear it as long as I am in danger."
Led by their chief, Marshal de Mailly, an old man of eighty-six, the two hundred noblemen, who had assembled in the Gallery of Diana, passed in review before the royal family with those of the National Guards who were royalists. "Sire," exclaimed the old marshal, bending his knee, "here are your faithful nobles who have hastened to re-establish Your Majesty on the throne of your ancestors."—"For this once," responded Louis XVI., "I consent thatmy friends should defend me; we will perish or save ourselves together." The last defenders of the throne shed tears of fidelity and tenderness. They kneeled before Marie Antoinette, and entreated the honor of kissing her hand. Never had the Queen appeared more gracious and majestic. The National Guards, enchanted, loaded their arms with transport. The Queen seized the Dauphin in her arms and held him above their heads like a living standard. The young men shouted: "Long live the Kings of our fathers!" And the old men cried: "Long live the King of our children!"
At the gates of the Tuileries the tide was rising. Vanguards of the insurrection, the Marseillais arrived unhindered. The municipality had succeeded in removing the cannons which were to have prevented approach by way of the Pont-Neuf and the Pont-Royal. Mandat was no longer there to issue orders. Nothing impeded the march of the faubourgs.
And yet resistance might still have been possible. It is Barbaroux, the fierce revolutionist himself, who says so. "All the faults committed by the insurrection, the wretched arrangement of the attacking party, the terror of some and the ignorance of others, the forces at the palace, all made the victory of the court certain, if the King had not left his post. If he had shown himself on horseback, a large majority of the people of Paris would have pronounced for him." Napoleon, who was an eye-witness, had said the night before to Pozzo di Borgo, that with twobattalions of Swiss and some cavalry he would undertake to give the rioters a lesson they would remember. In the evening of August 10, he wrote to his brother Joseph: "According to what I saw of the temper of the crowd in the morning, if Louis XVI. had mounted a horse, he would have gained the victory." Very few of the insurgents were seriously determined on a revolt. Most of them marched blindly, not knowing, and not even asking, whither they went.
Westermann had been obliged to threaten Santerre, and even to put his sword against his breast, in order to induce him to march. A great number of the people of the faubourgs, uneasy as to the result of the enterprise, said that, considering the preparations made by the palace, it would be better to defer the matter to another day. The unarmed crowd followed through mere curiosity, and were ready to take flight at the first discharge of musketry. According to Count de Vaublanc, the Swiss, if they had been commanded by a good officer from four o'clock in the morning, would have sufficed to disperse the multitude as they came up, and possibly might have won the day for the King without bloodshed. "Thus, the best of princes rendered useless the courage of his defenders, and to spare the blood of his enemies accomplished the ruin of his friends. All his virtues turned against him and brought him to his ruin." M. de Vaublanc says again in his Memoirs: "At six in the morning those who were in revolt had not yet assembled. How much time had been lost, howmuch was still to be lost! It was too evident that no military judgment had presided over that strange disposition of troops, so placed within and without the palace as to be unable to give each other mutual support; a military man knows too well the value of the briefest moments, he knows too well how quickly victory can be decided by attacking the flank of a multitude with a small number of brave men. If the King had appointed one of the generals near him absolute master of operations, no doubt this general would have given the rebels no time to unite.... Alas! Louis XVI. had three times more courage than was necessary to conquer, but he knew not how to avail himself of it." Such also was the opinion of M. Thiers, who, in hisHistoire de la Révolution française, says: "It must be repeated, the unfortunate Prince feared nothing for himself. He had, in fact, refused to wear a wadded vest, as he had done on July 14, saying that on a day of combat he ought to be as much exposed as the least of his servants. Courage did not fail him then, and afterwards he displayed a bravery that was noble and elevated enough; but he lacked boldness to take the offensive.... It is certain, as has been frequently said, that if he had mounted a horse and charged at the head of his troops, the insurrection would have been put down."
Toward six o'clock the King went out on the balcony. He was saluted with acclamations. Then he went down the great staircase with the Queen toinspect the troops stationed in the courtyards. As one of his gentlemen-of-the-chamber, Emmanuel Aubier, has remarked: "He had never made war himself during his reign; there had never been a war on the continent; he was so unfortunate as to be wanting in grace, even awkward, and to look thoughtful rather than energetic,—a thing displeasing to French soldiers." Instead of putting on a uniform and mounting a horse, he wore a purple coat, of the shade used as mourning for kings, on this fatal day when he was to wear mourning for the monarchy. Unspurred, unbooted, shod as if for a drawing-room, with white silk stockings, his hat under his arm, his hair out of curl and badly powdered, there was nothing martial, nothing royal about him. At this hour, when what was needed was the attitude and the fire of a Henry IV., he looked like an honest country gentleman talking with his farmers. The first condition of inspiring confidence is to possess it. Louis XVI.'s aspect was much more that of a victim than a sovereign. The cries of "Long live the King!" which would have been enthusiastic for a prince ready to battle for his rights and reconquer his realm at the sword's point, were few and sad. After having inspected the troops in the courts, Louis XVI. decided to inspect those in the garden also. The Queen returned to the palace, and he continued his rounds.
The loyal National Guards, comprising the companies of thePetits-Pèresand theFilles-Saint-Thomas, were drawn up on the terrace between the palace andthe garden. They received the King sympathetically and advised him to continue his inspection as far as the Place Louis XV. At this moment a battalion of the National Guards from the Saint-Marceau section defiled before him, uttering shouts of hatred and fury. Louis XVI. was undisturbed by this. He remained calm, and when this battalion had got into position, he tranquilly reviewed it. Then he walked on again and crossed the entire garden. The battalion of theCroix-Rouge, which was on the terrace beside the water, cried from a distance: "Down with the veto! Down with the traitor!" On the terrace of the Feuillants, at the other side, there was an equally violent crowd. The King, calm as ever, went on to the swing-bridge by which the Tuileries was entered from Place Louis XV. He was well enough received by the troops stationed there. But his return to the palace could not but be difficult. The National Guards of theCroix-Rougehad broken rank and come down from the terrace beside the river to the garden, and pressed around the King with menacing shouts. The unfortunate monarch could only re-enter the palace where he had but a few moments more to stay, by calling to his aid a double row of faithful grenadiers. The ministers who were at the windows became alarmed. One of them, M. de Bouchage, cried: "Great God! it is the King they are hooting! What the devil are they doing down there? Quick; we must go after him!" And he hastened to descend into the garden with his colleague,Bigot de Sainte-Croix, to meet his master. The Queen, who beheld the sight, shed tears. The two ministers brought back Louis XVI. He came in out of breath, and fatigued by the heat and the exercise he had taken, but otherwise seeming very little moved. "All is lost," said the Queen. "This review has done more harm than good."
From this moment bad tidings succeeded each other without interruption. They were apprised of the formation of the new Commune, Mandat's murder, the march of the faubourgs, and the arrival of the first detachments of rioters. The Marseillais debouched into the Carrousel, and sent an envoy to demand that the gate of the Royal Court should be opened. As it remained closed, they knocked on it with repeated blows, while the National Guards said: "We will not fire on our brothers."
Would resistance have been possible even at this moment; that is to say, between seven and eight in the morning? M. de Vaublanc thought so. "I do not know," he writes, "to what section the first band that arrived on the Carrousel belonged; it was in disorder and badly armed. If the King had marched towards this troop at the head of a battalion of the National Guard, if he had pronounced these words: 'I am your King; I order you to lay down your arms,' the success would have been decided. The flight of a single battalion of rebels would have sufficed to frighten and disperse the others, even before they were formed into line."
It was at this time that Roederer, instead of counselling resistance, implored Louis XVI. to seek shelter in the Assembly for the royal family. "Sire," he said in an urgent tone, "Your Majesty has not five minutes to lose; there is no safety for you except in the National Assembly. In the opinion of the department, it is necessary to go there without delay. There are not men enough in the courtyards to defend the palace; nor are they perfectly well-disposed. On the mere recommendation to be on the defensive, the cannoneers have already unloaded their cannons."—"But," said the King, "I did not see many persons on the Carrousel."—"Sire," returned Roederer, "there are a dozen pieces of artillery, and an immense crowd is arriving from the faubourgs." The idea of a flight before the insurrection revolted the Queen's pride. "What are you saying, Sir?" cried she; "you are proposing that we should seek shelter with our most cruel persecutors! Never! never! I will be nailed to these walls before I consent to leave them. Sir, we have troops."—"Madame, all Paris is on the march. Resistance is impossible. Will you cause the massacre of the King, your children, and your servants?"
Louis XVI. still hesitating, Roederer vehemently insisted. "Sire," said he, "time presses; this is no longer an entreaty nor even a counsel we take the liberty of offering you; there is only one thing left for us to do now, and we ask your permission to take you away." The King looked fixedly at hisinterlocutor for several seconds; then, turning to the Queen, he said: "Let us go," and rose to his feet. Madame Elisabeth said: "Monsieur Roederer, do you answer for the King's life?"—"Yes, Madame, with my own," responded the communal attorney. Then, turning to the King: "Sire," said he, "I ask Your Majesty not to take any of your court with you, but to have no cortège but the department and no escort except the National Guard."—"Yes," replied the King, "there is nothing but that to say." The Minister of Justice exclaimed: "The ministers will follow the King."—"Yes, they have a place in the Assembly."—"And Madame de Tourzel, my children's governess?" said the Queen.—"Yes, Madame; she will accompany you."
Roederer then left the King's chamber, where this conversation had taken place, and said in a loud voice to the persons crowding together in the Council Hall: "The King and his family are going to the Assembly without other attendants than the department, the ministers, and a guard." Then he asked: "Is the officer who commands the guard here?" This officer presenting himself, he said to him: "You must bring forward a double file of National Guards to accompany the King. The King desires it." The officer replied: "It shall be done." Louis XVI. came out of his chamber with his family. He waited several minutes in the hall until the guard should arrive, and, going around the circle composed of some forty or fifty persons belonging to his court: "Come,gentlemen," said he, "there is nothing more to do here." The Queen, turning to Madame Campan, said: "Wait in my apartment; I will rejoin you or else send word to go I don't know where." Marie Antoinette took no one with her except the Princess de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel. The Princess de Tarente and Madame de la Roche-Aymon, afflicted at the thought of being left at the Tuileries, went down with all the other ladies to the Queen's apartments on the ground-floor.
La Chesnaye, who had succeeded to the command of the National Guard in consequence of Mandat's death, put himself at the head of the escort. This was formed of detachments from the most loyal battalions, thePetits-Pères, theSuite des Moulins, and theFilles-Saint-Thomas, re-enforced by about two hundred Swiss, commanded by the colonel of the regiment, Marquis de Maillardoz, and the major, Baron de Bachmann. The cortège reached the great staircase by way of the Council Hall, the Royal Bedchamber, the OEil-de-Boeuf, the Hall of the Guards, and the Hall of the Hundred Swiss. As he was passing through the OEil-de-Boeuf, Louis XVI. took the hat of the National Guard on his right, and replaced it by his own, which was adorned with white feathers. The guard, surprised, removed the King's hat from his head and carried it under his arm.
When Louis XVI. arrived at the foot of the stairs in the Pavilion of the Horloge, his thoughts recurredto the faithful adherents who had so uselessly devoted themselves to his defence, and whom he was leaving at the Tuileries without watchword or direction. "What is going to become of all those who have stayed up stairs?" said he.—"Sire," replied Roederer, "it seemed to me that they were all in colored coats. Those who have swords need only lay them off, follow you, and go out through the garden."—"That is true," returned Louis XVI. In the vestibule, a little further on, as he was about to quit the fatal palace which fate had condemned him never to re-enter, he had a last moment of scruple and hesitation. He said again: "But after all, there are not many people on the Carrousel."
"True, Sire," replied Roederer; "but the faubourgs will soon arrive, and all the sections are armed, and have assembled at the municipality; besides, there are neither men enough here, nor are they determined enough to resist the actual gathering on the Carrousel, which has twelve pieces of artillery."
The die is cast; Louis XVI. abandons the Tuileries. Respect alone restrains the grief and indignation that move the Swiss soldiers and the noblemen whose weapons and whose blood have been refused. They looked down from the windows at the cortège, or better, the funeral procession of royalty. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. The escort was drawn up in two lines. The members of the department formed a circle around the royal family. Roederer walked first. Then came the King, withBigot de Sainte-Croix, Minister of Foreign Affairs, at his side; the Queen followed, giving her left arm to M. du Bouchage, Minister of Marine, and her right hand to the Dauphin, who held Madame de Tourzel with the other; then Madame Royale and Madame Elisabeth, with De Joly, Minister of Justice; the Minister of War, D'Abancourt, leading the Princess de Lamballe. The Ministers of the Interior and of Taxes, Champion de Villeneuve and Le Roux de la Ville, closed the procession. The air was pure and the morning radiant. The sun lighted up the garden, the marble sculpture, and the sheets of water. Birds sang under the trees, and nature smiled on this day of mourning as if it were a festival.
Looking at the populace, Madame Elisabeth said: "All those people have gone astray; I should like them to be converted; I should not like them to be punished." Tears stood in the eyes of the little Madame Royale. The Princess de Lamballe said mournfully: "We shall never return to the Tuileries!" The Prince de Poix, the Duke de Choiseul, Counts d'Haussonville, de Vioménil, de Hervilly, and de Pont-l'Abbé, the Marquis de Briges, Chevalier de Fleurieu, Viscount de Saint-Priest, the Marquis de Nantouillet, MM. de Fresnes and de Salaignac, the King's equerries, and Saint-Pardoux, the equerry of Madame Elisabeth, followed the sad procession. They passed through the grand alley unobstructed as far as the parterres, then turned to the right,toward the alley of the chestnut trees. There a halt of some minutes occurred, in order to give time for warning the Assembly. Louis XVI. looked down at a heap of dead leaves which had been swept up by the gardeners after a storm the night before. "There are a good many leaves," said the King; "they are falling early this year." It was only a few days before that Manuel had written in a journal that the King would not last until the falling of the leaves. Perhaps Louis XVI. remembered the prophecy of the revolutionist; the Dauphin, with the carelessness belonging to his age, amused himself by kicking about the dead leaves, the leaves that had fallen as his father's crown was falling at this moment.
Before the royal family could enter the Assembly chamber, it was necessary that the step the King had taken should be announced to the deputies. The president of the department undertook this commission. A deputation of twenty-four members was at once sent to meet Louis XVI. They found him in the large alley at the foot of the terrace of the Feuillants, a few steps from the staircase leading up to it, and which goes as far as the lobby through which one enters the hall occupied by the National Assembly. "Sire," said the leader of the deputation, "the Assembly, eager to contribute to your safety, offers to you and your family an asylum in its midst."
During this time, the terrace and the staircase had become thronged by a furious crowd. A mancarrying a long pole cried out in rage: "No, no; they shall not enter the Assembly. They are the cause of all our troubles. This must be ended. Down with them!" Roederer, standing on the fourth step of the staircase, cried: "Citizens, I demand silence in the name of the law. You seem disposed to prevent the King and his family from entering the National Assembly; you are not justified in opposing it. The King has a place there in virtue of the Constitution; and though his family has none legally, they have just been authorized by a decree to go there. Here are the deputies sent to meet the King; they will attest the existence of this decree." The deputies confirmed his words. Nevertheless, the crowd still hesitated to leave the way clear. The man with the pole kept on brandishing it, and crying: "Down with them! down with them!" Roederer, going on to the terrace, snatched the pole and flung it into the garden. The crowd was so compact that in the midst of the squabble some one stole the Queen's watch and her purse. A man with a sinister face approached the Dauphin, took him from Marie Antoinette, and lifted him in his arms. The Queen uttered a cry. "Do not be frightened," said the man; "I will do him no harm." Another person said to Louis XVI.: "Sire, we are honest men; but we are not willing to be betrayed any longer. Be a good citizen, and don't forget to drive away your shavelings and your wife." Insults and threats resounded from all sides. Finally, after an actual struggle, the royal family succeededin opening a passage. They made their way with difficulty through the narrow lobby, choked with people, penetrated the crowd, and entered the session chamber. It was there that royalty, humiliated and overcome, was to lie at the point of death under the eyes of its implacable enemies.