Chapter 15

The reading of this letter vastly increased the tumult. In the midst of cries of order, and a scene of indescribable confusion, it was announced that the petitioners, with arms and banners, in a prolonged procession of thirty thousand men, were approaching the hall. All power of law seemed paralyzed, and bewilderment and consternation reigned. Soon the head of the procession, like a lava-flood, crowded in at the door, and, pressed by the resistless mass behind, was forced slowly through the hall, and made its egress at an opposite portal. They bore enormous tables, upon which were placed the Declaration of Rights. Around these tables danced women and boys waving olive-branches and brandishing pikes, thus emblematically declaring themselves ready for peace or war.

The enormous procession filed slowly through the hall, shouting in deafening chorus the famous "Ça ira" (bravely it goes), armed with every conceivable weapon, and waving banners inscribed with revolutionary devices. Several bore ragged breeches upon poles, while the crowd around shouted, "Vivent les sans culottes!" One man bore on the point of a pike a calf's heart, with the inscription beneath, "The heart of an aristocrat."[328]

For three hours this extraordinary scene continued. The Assembly, agitated with grief and indignation, had no resource but submission. The mob, having passed through the hall of the Assembly, now attempted to enter the garden of the Tuileries, but the gates were closed and defended by numerous detachments of the National Guard. The king, however, perhaps hoping, by a show of confidence, to disarm the mob, ordered the garden gates to be thrown open. The mob, like an inundation, rushed in, and with their mighty mass soon filled the whole inclosure. Some cried out for the king to show himself. Others shouted, "Down with theveto!" A few voices kindly gave utterance to the old excuse, "The king means well, but he is imposed upon."

The mob, which now appeared countless and almost limitless, flowing out from the garden by the gate leading to the Pont Royal, proceeded along the quay and through the wickets of the Louvre into the Place du Carrousel. They were soon gathered in a dense mass before the royal gate of the palace. A strong guard there refused them admittance. Santerre brought up two pieces of cannon to blow down the gate. Two municipal officers then strangely ordered the gates to be thrown open.

The multitude rushed impetuously into the court, filling it in an instant, and crowding into the vestibule of the palace. It was now four o'clock in the afternoon. They clambered the magnificent staircase, even dragging apiece of cannon up to the first floor, and poured in locust legions into every part of the palace. Wherever they found a door barred against them they speedily, with swords and hatchets, hewed it down.

The king was in one of the interior apartments, surrounded by some of the servants of his household and by several officers of the National Guard. His sister, Madame Elizabeth, happened to be with him; but the queen, who was in another room with her children, had not been able to join her husband, so sudden had been the irruption. The crowd arrested her in her flight in the council-chamber. She begged earnestly to be led to her husband, but the throng pouring by was so dense that it was impossible. Her friends placed her in a corner, and rolled the council-table before her as a barrier.

There she stood stupefied with horror, and her eyes suffused with tears, while the low and brutal masses, with no apparent exasperation, end, or aim, crowded by. Her daughter clung to her side, terrified and weeping. Her son, but seven years of age, too young to understand the terrible significance of such an inundation, gazed upon the spectacle with half alarmed, half pleased wonder. Some of the palace-guard gathered around the group for its protection. Occasional scowls and mutterings of defiance and insult alarmed the queen in behalf of her children rather than herself. Some one handed her son the red cap of the Jacobins. The queen, hoping that it might appease the mob, placed it upon his head.

Just then Santerre came along, forcing his way with the crowd. He spoke kindly to the queen, repeating the only excuse which could be made for her, "Madame, you are imposed upon." Seeing the red cap upon the head of the dauphin, he, with a sense of delicacy hardly to be expected in so coarse a man, took it and threw it aside, saying, "The child is stifling." He then urged the people to treat the queen with respect.

A young girl stopped before the queen and assailed her with an incessant volley of imprecations.

"Have I ever," said the queen, calmly, "done you any wrong?"

"No," replied the girl, "not me personally; but you are the cause of the misery of the nation."

"You have been told so," answered the queen; "but you are deceived. As the wife of the King of France and mother of the dauphin, I am a Frenchwoman. I shall never see my own country again. I can be happy only in France. I was happy when you loved me."

These words touched the heart of the passionate but not hardened girl, and she began to weep, saying,

"I ask your pardon. It was because I did not know you. I see that you are good."

While these scenes were transpiring in the council-chamber, the cries of the mob were heard at the door of the king's apartment, and blows from a hatchet fell heavily upon the panels. As a panel, driven by a violent blow, fell at the king's feet, he ordered the door to be thrown open. A forest of pikes and bayonets appeared, and the crowd rushed in. The king, with that courage of resignation which never forsook him, stepped forward with dignity to meet the rabble, and said, "Here I am."

His friends immediately threw themselves around him, forming a rampartwith their bodies. The mob, who seemed to have no definite object in view, fell back, and the friends of the king placed him in the embrasure of a window, where he could more easily be protected from the pressure. There was a moment's lull, and then came renewed clamor and uproar. Some said that they had a petition which they wished to present to the king. Others shouted, "No veto! No priests! No aristocrats! The camp near Paris."

The king stood upon a bench, and with marvelous serenity gazed upon the unparalleled spectacle. Légendre, the butcher, one of the leaders of the mob, stepped up, and with a firm voice demanded in the name of the people the sanction of the two decrees which the king had vetoed.[329]

"This is not the place, neither is this the time," answered the king, firmly, "to grant such a request. I will do all the Constitution requires."

This bold answer seemed to exasperate the crowd, and they shouted, as it were defiantly, "Vive la Nation!"

"Yes," replied the king, heroically, "Vive la Nation!and I am its best friend."

"Prove it, then," cried one of the rabble, thrusting toward him, on the end of a pike, the red cap of the Jacobins.

The king took the cap and placed it upon his head. The mob responded with shouts of applause. The day was oppressively hot, and the king, who was very corpulent, was almost suffocated with the heat and the crowd. A drunken fellow, who had a bottle and a glass, staggered up to the king, and offered him a tumbler of wine, saying, "If you love the people, drink to their health."

Though the king had long been apprehensive of being poisoned, he took the glass and without hesitation drank its contents. Again he was greeted with shouts of applause. Some of the crowd, as they caught sight of Madame Elizabeth, cried out, "There is the Austrian woman!" The unpopularity of the queen excited murmurs and imprecations, and the princess was in great danger of violence. Some of her friends around her endeavored to undeceive the mob.

"Leave them," said the generous and heroic princess, "leave them to think that I am the queen, that she may have time to escape."

The Assembly was immediately informed of the invasion of the palace. The Constitutionalists were indignant. The Jacobins were satisfied, for they wished to see the king and the king's party frightened into obedience. An angry and almost furious altercation ensued in the Assembly. A deputation of twenty-four members was, however, immediately sent to surround the king, and this deputation was renewed every half hour. But the deputies could not force their way through the crowd. Hoisted upon the shoulders of the grenadiers they endeavored in vain to harangue the mob to order. It was half past five o'clock, an hour and a half after the attack upon the Tuileries had commenced, before Pétion, the Mayor of Paris, made hisappearance in the presence of the king. He attempted an apology for coming so late, saying,

"I have only just learned the situation of your majesty."

THE CAP OF LIBERTY PLACED UPON THE KING.

"That is very astonishing," replied the king, "for it is a long time that it has lasted."

"It was half past four," Pétion rejoined, "when I heard of the attack. It took me half an hour to get to the palace; and I could not overcome the obstacles which separated me from your majesty until the present moment. But fear nothing, sire; you are in the midst of your people."

Louis XVI., taking the hand of a grenadier who stood by his side, placed it upon his heart, saying, "Feel whether it beats quicker than usual."

This noble answer again elicited applause. The mayor then, mounting the shoulders of four grenadiers, addressed the mob, urging them to retire.

"Citizens, male and female," said he, "you have used with moderation and dignity your right of petition. You will finish this day as you begun it. Hitherto your conduct has been in conformity with the law, and now, in the name of the law, I call upon you to follow my example and to retire."

The crowd obeyed and slowly moved off through the long suite of apartments of the chateau. As soon as they began to retire the king and his sister threw themselves into each other's arms, and neither was able to repress a flood of tears. Locked in an embrace they left the room to find the queen. She, with her children, had just regained her apartment. The meeting of the royal family, after these scenes of violence, insult, and terror, drew tears into the eyes of all the beholders. One of the deputies, Antoine Merlin of Thionville, though one of the most virulent of the Jacobins, could not refrain from weeping. Marie Antoinette observing it, and knowing his bitter hostility to the court, said,

"You weep to see the king and his family treated so cruelly by a people whom he has always wished to render happy."

"It is true, madam," replied Merlin, "I weep over the misfortunes of a beautiful, tender-hearted woman and mother of a family. But do not mistake; there is not one of my tears for thekingor thequeen; I hate kings and queens."

At this moment the king, from the reflection of a mirror, saw thered bonnetstill upon his head. A crimson glow flushed his face and he hastily threw the badge of the Jacobin from him. Sinking into a chair he for a moment buried his face in his handkerchief, and then, turning a saddened look to the queen, said,

"Ah, madame, why did I take you from your country to associate you with the ignominy of such a day!"

It was eight o'clock in the evening before the apartments and corridors of the palace ceased to echo with the voices and the footsteps of the barbarian invaders. Detachments of the National Guard gradually assembled, the court-yard and the garden were cleared, and night with its silence and darkness again settled down over the wretched royal family in the halls of their palace, and the wretched famishing outcasts wandering through the streets. Such was the 20th of June, 1792.

Napoleon Bonaparte, then twenty-two years of age, was in Paris, and with indignation witnessed this spectacle of lawlessness. Bourrienne thus describes the event: "In the month of April, 1792, I returned to Paris, where I again met Bonaparte, and renewed the friendship of our youthful days. I had not been fortunate, and adversity pressed heavily upon him. We passed our time as two young men of three and twenty may be supposed to have done who had little money and less occupation. At this time he was soliciting employment from the Minister of War, and I at the office of foreign affairs.

"While we were thus spending our time the 20th of June arrived, a sadprelude of the 10th of August. We met by appointment at a restaurateur's, in the Rue St. Honoré, near the Palais Royal. On going out we saw a mob approaching in the direction of the market-place, which Bonaparte estimated at from five to six thousand men. They were a parcel of blackguards, armed with weapons of every description, and shouting the grossest abuse, while they proceeded at a rapid rate toward the Tuileries. This mob appeared to consist of the vilest and most profligate of the population of the suburbs.

THE ATTACK UPON THE TUILERIES.

"'Let us follow the rabble,' said Bonaparte. We got the start of them, and took up our station on the terrace bordering on the river. It was there that he was an eye-witness of the scandalous scenes which ensued, and it would be difficult to describe the surprise and indignation which they excited in him. Such weakness and forbearance, he said, could not be excused. But when the king showed himself at the window which looked out upon the garden, with the red cap which one of the mob had just placed upon his head, he could no longer repress his indignation.

"'What madness!' he loudly exclaimed. 'How could they have allowed that rabble to enter? Why did they not sweep away four or five hundred of them with the cannon? The rest would then have speedily taken to their heels.'"

FOOTNOTES:[317]At the moment of Leopold's death all was ready for hostilities. Two hundred thousand men were under arms for the invasion. The Duke of Brunswick, who was placed in command, was at Berlin receiving the final commands of the king. Another Prussian general was at Vienna receiving from Leopold advice as to the time and point of attack. Leopold, whose constitution was shattered by debauchery, was taken suddenly sick, and, after two days of excruciating pain, died in convulsions. His death was probably caused by an immoderate use of drugs to recruit his system, enervated by dissipation. This event for a short time paralyzed the energies of the coalition. See History of the Girondists, by Lamartine, vol. i., p. 364.[318]Memoirs of Count Mathieu Dumas, vol. i., p. 190.[319]Dumouriez's Memoirs, book iii., ch. vi. Madame Campan gives an account of this interview with a little different coloring. "One day," she writes, "I found the queen in extreme agitation. She told me that she knew not what to do; that the leaders of the Jacobins had offered themselves to her through Dumouriez, or that Dumouriez, forsaking the party of the Jacobins, had come and offered himself to her; that she had given him an audience; that, being alone with her, he had thrown himself at her feet, and told her that he had put on the red cap, and even pulled it down over his ears, but that he neither was, nor ever could be, a Jacobin; that the Revolution had been suffered to roll on to that mob of disorganizers, who, aspiring only to pillage, were capable of every thing. While speaking with extreme warmth, he had taken hold of the queen's hand and kissed it with transport, saying, 'Allow yourself to be saved.' The queen told me that it was impossible to believe the protestations of a traitor; that all his conduct was so well known that the wisest plan was not to trust in him, and, besides, the princes earnestly recommended that no confidence should be placed in any proposal from the interior."—Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 202.[320]Francis was not yet elected Emperor of Germany.[321]Condorcet, in a paper which he drew up in exposition of the motives which led to this strife, says, "The veil which concealed the intentions of our enemy is at length torn. Citizens, which of you could subscribe to these ignominious proposals? Feudal servitude and a humiliating inequality; bankruptcy and taxes which you alone would pay; tithes and the Inquisition; your possessions, bought upon the public faith, restored to their former usurpers; the beasts of the chase re-established in their right of ravaging your fields; your blood profusely spilled for the ambitious projects of a hostile house—such are the conditions of the treaty between the King of Hungary and perfidious Frenchmen! Such is the peace which is offered to you! No! never will you accept it!"—Exposition of the motives which determined the National Assembly to decree, on the formal proposal of the King, that there is reason to declare war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia, by M. Condorcet.[322]Prof. Wm. Smyth, of the University of Cambridge, England, though cherishing no sympathies with the revolutionary party in France, in his admirable lectures upon the French Revolution, with his accustomed candor, says,"The question then is, Was this (the conduct of Austria) an interference in the internal affairs of France that justified a declaration of war on the part of France or not? This is a point on which, under the extraordinary circumstances of the case, reasoners may differ, but I conceive that it was. The rulers of France, at the time, saw themselves menaced, stigmatized, and, as nearly as possible, proscribed by a foreign power on account of their conduct to their own king, in their own country. They could expect nothing but exile, imprisonment, and death if these foreign powers invaded their country in defense of the monarchy and succeeded; and not only this, but, in that case, a counter-revolution was inevitable."I must confess that, with all my horror of war, of counsels of violence, of enthusiastic and furious men like these Girondists, and of dreadful and guilty men like these Jacobins, I must confess that upon this particular point of the Austrian war I am, on the whole, compelled to agree with them. I see not how, upon any other principle, the peace of the world can be maintained, or the proper sovereignty and independence of nations be preserved, nor, finally, upon any other principle, what chance there can ever be for the general cause of the freedom of mankind."[323]Dumas, vol. i., p. 213.[324]Memoirs of Dumouriez.[325]"The most menacing cries were uttered aloud, even in the Tuileries. They called for the destruction of the throne and the murder of the sovereign. These insults assumed the character of the very lowest of the mob. The queen, one day, hearing roars of laughter under her windows, desired me to see what it was about. I saw a man, almost undressed, turning his back toward her apartments. My astonishment and indignation were apparent. The queen rose to come forward. I held her back, telling her it was a very gross insult offered by one of the rabble."—Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 205.[326]Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 206.[327]Montjoie, one of the most decided of Royalist writers, thus describes Santerre: "The muscular expansion of his tall person, the sonorous hoarseness of his voice, his rough manners, and his easy and vulgar eloquence, of course made him a hero among the lower rabble. And, in truth, he had gained a despotic empire over the dregs of the faubourgs. He moved them at will, but that was all he knew how to do, or could do, for, as to the rest, he was neither wicked nor cruel. He engaged blindly in all conspiracies, but he never was guilty of the execution of them, either by himself or by those who obeyed him. He was always concerned for an unfortunate person, of whatever party he might be. Affliction and tears disarmed his hands."—History of Marie Antoinette, by Montjoie, p. 295.[328]Madame Campan says, "There was one representing a gibbet, to which a dirty doll was suspended; the words 'Marie Antoinette à la lanterne' were written beneath it. Another was a board to which a bullock's heart was fastened, with an inscription round it, 'Heart of Louis XVI.;' and then a third showed the horns of an ox, with an obscene legend."—Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 212.[329]Léegendre was a butcher of Paris. He was one of the most violent leaders of the mob. In 1791 he was deputed by the city of Paris to the National Convention. In 1793 he voted for the king's death, and, the day before his execution, proposed to the Jacobins to cut him into eighty-four pieces, and send one to each of the eighty-four departments. He died at Paris in 1797, aged forty-one, and bequeathed his body to the surgeons, "in order to be useful to mankind after his death."—Biographie Moderne.

FOOTNOTES:

[317]At the moment of Leopold's death all was ready for hostilities. Two hundred thousand men were under arms for the invasion. The Duke of Brunswick, who was placed in command, was at Berlin receiving the final commands of the king. Another Prussian general was at Vienna receiving from Leopold advice as to the time and point of attack. Leopold, whose constitution was shattered by debauchery, was taken suddenly sick, and, after two days of excruciating pain, died in convulsions. His death was probably caused by an immoderate use of drugs to recruit his system, enervated by dissipation. This event for a short time paralyzed the energies of the coalition. See History of the Girondists, by Lamartine, vol. i., p. 364.

[318]Memoirs of Count Mathieu Dumas, vol. i., p. 190.

[319]Dumouriez's Memoirs, book iii., ch. vi. Madame Campan gives an account of this interview with a little different coloring. "One day," she writes, "I found the queen in extreme agitation. She told me that she knew not what to do; that the leaders of the Jacobins had offered themselves to her through Dumouriez, or that Dumouriez, forsaking the party of the Jacobins, had come and offered himself to her; that she had given him an audience; that, being alone with her, he had thrown himself at her feet, and told her that he had put on the red cap, and even pulled it down over his ears, but that he neither was, nor ever could be, a Jacobin; that the Revolution had been suffered to roll on to that mob of disorganizers, who, aspiring only to pillage, were capable of every thing. While speaking with extreme warmth, he had taken hold of the queen's hand and kissed it with transport, saying, 'Allow yourself to be saved.' The queen told me that it was impossible to believe the protestations of a traitor; that all his conduct was so well known that the wisest plan was not to trust in him, and, besides, the princes earnestly recommended that no confidence should be placed in any proposal from the interior."—Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 202.

[320]Francis was not yet elected Emperor of Germany.

[321]Condorcet, in a paper which he drew up in exposition of the motives which led to this strife, says, "The veil which concealed the intentions of our enemy is at length torn. Citizens, which of you could subscribe to these ignominious proposals? Feudal servitude and a humiliating inequality; bankruptcy and taxes which you alone would pay; tithes and the Inquisition; your possessions, bought upon the public faith, restored to their former usurpers; the beasts of the chase re-established in their right of ravaging your fields; your blood profusely spilled for the ambitious projects of a hostile house—such are the conditions of the treaty between the King of Hungary and perfidious Frenchmen! Such is the peace which is offered to you! No! never will you accept it!"—Exposition of the motives which determined the National Assembly to decree, on the formal proposal of the King, that there is reason to declare war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia, by M. Condorcet.

[322]Prof. Wm. Smyth, of the University of Cambridge, England, though cherishing no sympathies with the revolutionary party in France, in his admirable lectures upon the French Revolution, with his accustomed candor, says,"The question then is, Was this (the conduct of Austria) an interference in the internal affairs of France that justified a declaration of war on the part of France or not? This is a point on which, under the extraordinary circumstances of the case, reasoners may differ, but I conceive that it was. The rulers of France, at the time, saw themselves menaced, stigmatized, and, as nearly as possible, proscribed by a foreign power on account of their conduct to their own king, in their own country. They could expect nothing but exile, imprisonment, and death if these foreign powers invaded their country in defense of the monarchy and succeeded; and not only this, but, in that case, a counter-revolution was inevitable."I must confess that, with all my horror of war, of counsels of violence, of enthusiastic and furious men like these Girondists, and of dreadful and guilty men like these Jacobins, I must confess that upon this particular point of the Austrian war I am, on the whole, compelled to agree with them. I see not how, upon any other principle, the peace of the world can be maintained, or the proper sovereignty and independence of nations be preserved, nor, finally, upon any other principle, what chance there can ever be for the general cause of the freedom of mankind."

"The question then is, Was this (the conduct of Austria) an interference in the internal affairs of France that justified a declaration of war on the part of France or not? This is a point on which, under the extraordinary circumstances of the case, reasoners may differ, but I conceive that it was. The rulers of France, at the time, saw themselves menaced, stigmatized, and, as nearly as possible, proscribed by a foreign power on account of their conduct to their own king, in their own country. They could expect nothing but exile, imprisonment, and death if these foreign powers invaded their country in defense of the monarchy and succeeded; and not only this, but, in that case, a counter-revolution was inevitable.

"I must confess that, with all my horror of war, of counsels of violence, of enthusiastic and furious men like these Girondists, and of dreadful and guilty men like these Jacobins, I must confess that upon this particular point of the Austrian war I am, on the whole, compelled to agree with them. I see not how, upon any other principle, the peace of the world can be maintained, or the proper sovereignty and independence of nations be preserved, nor, finally, upon any other principle, what chance there can ever be for the general cause of the freedom of mankind."

[323]Dumas, vol. i., p. 213.

[324]Memoirs of Dumouriez.

[325]"The most menacing cries were uttered aloud, even in the Tuileries. They called for the destruction of the throne and the murder of the sovereign. These insults assumed the character of the very lowest of the mob. The queen, one day, hearing roars of laughter under her windows, desired me to see what it was about. I saw a man, almost undressed, turning his back toward her apartments. My astonishment and indignation were apparent. The queen rose to come forward. I held her back, telling her it was a very gross insult offered by one of the rabble."—Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 205.

[326]Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 206.

[327]Montjoie, one of the most decided of Royalist writers, thus describes Santerre: "The muscular expansion of his tall person, the sonorous hoarseness of his voice, his rough manners, and his easy and vulgar eloquence, of course made him a hero among the lower rabble. And, in truth, he had gained a despotic empire over the dregs of the faubourgs. He moved them at will, but that was all he knew how to do, or could do, for, as to the rest, he was neither wicked nor cruel. He engaged blindly in all conspiracies, but he never was guilty of the execution of them, either by himself or by those who obeyed him. He was always concerned for an unfortunate person, of whatever party he might be. Affliction and tears disarmed his hands."—History of Marie Antoinette, by Montjoie, p. 295.

[328]Madame Campan says, "There was one representing a gibbet, to which a dirty doll was suspended; the words 'Marie Antoinette à la lanterne' were written beneath it. Another was a board to which a bullock's heart was fastened, with an inscription round it, 'Heart of Louis XVI.;' and then a third showed the horns of an ox, with an obscene legend."—Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 212.

[329]Léegendre was a butcher of Paris. He was one of the most violent leaders of the mob. In 1791 he was deputed by the city of Paris to the National Convention. In 1793 he voted for the king's death, and, the day before his execution, proposed to the Jacobins to cut him into eighty-four pieces, and send one to each of the eighty-four departments. He died at Paris in 1797, aged forty-one, and bequeathed his body to the surgeons, "in order to be useful to mankind after his death."—Biographie Moderne.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE THRONE ASSAILED.

Angry Interview between the King and the Mayor.—Decisive Action of La Fayette.—Expectations of the Queen.—Movement of the Prussian Army.—Efforts of the Priests.—Secret Committee of Royalists.—Terror in the Palace.—The Queen's View of the King's Character.—Parties in France.—Energetic Action of the Assembly.—Speech of Vergniaud.

Thenext day after the fearful scenes of the 20th of June, the Assembly held a very tumultuous sitting. Various measures were proposed to prevent a repetition of armed petitions, and the filing of processions through the hall. The Jacobins were, however, in sympathy with the mob; and the Royalists, waiting the approach of foreign armies, had no wish to introduce order but by the sword of invasion. It was apprehended that the mob, who had now risen above the power of law, might again invade the palace. In the afternoon of the 21st, crowds began to assemble at various points, but the mayor, Pétion, succeeded in inducing them to disperse. He then hastened to the king, and said to him,

"Sire, there is no longer cause for alarm. Order is restored. The people have become tranquil and satisfied."

The king, who now appreciated the peril of his position, was exasperated, and replied, with suppressed emotion, "That is not true."

"Sire—" rejoined Pétion.

"Be silent," said the king sternly, interrupting him.

"It befits not the magistrate of the people," replied Pétion, "to be silent when he does his duty and speaks the truth."

"The tranquillity of Paris rests on your head," added the king.

"I know my duty," Pétion replied, "and shall perform it."

The king could no longer restrain himself, and passionately exclaimed, "Enough; go and perform it. Retire."

Pétion, thus summarily turned out of doors, bowed and left. The report of the angry interview was speedily spread through Paris. It was rumoredthrough the palacethat the mob were preparing to rise to murder the king and all the royal family. It was rumoredthrough the streetsthat the Royalists were endeavoring to provoke the people to rise, that they might shoot them down with artillery. The mayor issued a proclamation urging the people not to allow themselves to be excited to fresh commotions. The king issued a proclamation, spirited and defiant in its tone, and yet calculated only to exasperate those whom he had no power to restrain.[330]

La Fayette, who was at this time with his division of the army on the frontiers, heard these tidings from Paris with intense alarm. Had the court not prevented his election as mayor, the outrages of the 20th of June could not have occurred. His only hope for France was in the Constitution. The invasion of the Legislative Assembly by the mob, the irruption into the palace, and the outrages inflicted upon the royal family, impressed him with shame and horror. He saw the terrific reign of anarchy approaching, and was fully conscious that no one could attempt to resist the popular torrent but at the peril of his life. He wrote a very earnest letter of remonstrance to the Assembly, and resolved to hasten immediately to Paris, and to brave every possible danger in endeavoring to restore to his country the dominion of law. Making all the arrangements in his power, that his temporary absence might not be detrimental to the military operations then in progress, he set out for the capital, and arrived there on the 28th of June.[331]He thought that he might rely upon the National Guard to aid him in maintaining the Constitution, and that, throwing himself into the breach to save the monarchy and the king, he might place some reliance upon the co-operation of the court. But the court hated La Fayette and constitutional liberty, and wished for no assistance but from the armies of the allies, through whom they might dictate terms to the re-enslaved people.

La Fayette, immediately upon his arrival in Paris, sent a message to the Assembly that he wished for permission to address them. At half-past one of the 28th of June, he entered the hall. The Constitutionalists received him with plaudits. The Republicans, both the Girondists and the Jacobins, were silent. The general, in his bold and spirited address, spoke of the disgrace which the outrages of the 20th of June had brought upon the nation, and the indignation which it had excited in the army, and urged that the instigators of the riot should be prosecuted; that the Jacobin Club, ever urging violence and revolution, should be suppressed; and that the Constitution and the laws should be maintained by all the armed force of the government.

This speech introduced an angry debate, in which La Fayette was reproached with neglecting his own duties in the army to meddle with matters in which he had no concern. La Fayette left the Assembly in the midst of the debate, and repaired to the palace to see what assistance he could render to the king and queen. The courtiers surrounding the monarch, with their wonted infatuation, assailed La Fayette with the most abusive epithets. The king and queen received him with great coldness, and refused to accept from him of any sympathy or aid.

"If the court and the people attached to the king," writes the Marquis de Ferrières, a decided Royalist, "had but resolved to support La Fayette, there was force to have annihilated the two factions. But the queen recoiled from any idea of owing her safety to a man whom she had resolved to ruin. They refused to enter into his views, and they thus rejected the only means of safety that Providence offered them. Inexplicable blindness, if an explanation were not afforded by the approaching entry of the foreign troops and the confidence reposed in them."

The historian Toulongeon, describing these events, says, "Retired to his hotel, La Fayette set himself to consider what was the force of which he could avail himself. A review of the first division of the National Guard was fixed for the next morning at break of day. The king was to pass along the line, and La Fayette was then to harangue the troops. But the mayor, Pétion,was advertised of their movements by the queen, who feared the success of La Fayette even more than that of the Jacobins, and a counter-order was given, and the review didnottake place."

La Fayette returned to the army thwarted and disheartened. His retirement in despair from Paris was the last expiring sigh of the Constitutional party. From this moment the Jacobins resolved upon his destruction, and that very evening his effigy was burned at the Palais Royal. Bertrand de Moleville, one of the most false and envenomed of the Royalist writers, condemns La Fayette for thus leaving Paris. But even Professor Smyth, whose English sympathies are strongly with the court, exclaims,

"M. Bertrand de Moleville may surely be asked, on this occasion, what resource was left for La Fayette but to move away from Paris, if the king and the court, for whom he was hazarding both his fame and his safety, would not honor him with the slightest countenance? Was it to be endured that they were to seem neutral and indifferent, at the least, and sitting with folded arms, while he was to be left to rush into a combat in the Assembly and in the streets of Paris with their furious and murderous enemies, and with the men who had just been assailing the king in his palace, and who evidently only waited for an opportunity to rob him of his crown and take away his life; was this, I repeat, to be endured? Many are the sensations by which the heart of man may be alienated and imbittered, but there are few more fitted for that purpose than to find indifference to services offered, and ingratitude for sacrifices made."[332]

Both the king and the queen knew that Prussia had already combined with Austria, and was secretly marching an army of eighty thousand men under the Duke of Brunswick to unite with the emigrants at Coblentz. The queen thought that the allies would be in Paris in six weeks. She was minutely informed of their contemplated movements; when they would be at Verdun, when at Lille; and she, in confidence, informed her ladies that she expected to be rescued in a month.[333]

The peril of France was now truly great, and the patriots were deeply agitated. Foreign armies were approaching. The king not only was taking no effectual measures for the defense of the kingdom, but had vetoedthe decrees of the Assembly raising an army for the protection of the capital, and was also believed to be in sympathy and in traitorous correspondence with the foe. France was threatened with invasion, and the court of France was virtually guiding the march of the invading armies, weakening every point of defense, and striving to betray the patriot forces into the hands of the enemy. The only excuse which history can offer for the king is, that he was the tool of others, and so weak and characterless that he was unconscious of the enormity of his crime. But this excuse, which ought to have commended him to pity, could not be an argument for maintaining him upon his throne.

Though it was well known to all intelligent men that the Prussian armies were marching to unite with the Austrian for the invasion of France, yet the king, in grossest violation of duty, had made no communication of the fact to the Legislative Assembly. All the great roads were crowded with priests, nobles, and their partisans, hastening to join the emigrants at Coblentz. Couriers were every where traversing Europe, from St. Petersburg to Rome, from Stockholm to Madrid, from Berlin to Naples, openly announcing the coalition of all Europe to crush the revolution in France, and declaring that the armies would move in such force that the French would not be able to resist them for a single month. The allies were not unwilling to have their plans known and even exaggerated, for some of them hoped that the terror of the threat might be sufficient to drive the French patriots to submission.[334]

It was consequently proclaimed, not officially, but with great soundings of trumpets, that Spain was to indemnify herself for the war by taking possession of the four beautiful southern provinces of France which lean against the Pyrenees—Navarre, Roussillon, Languedoc, and Guienne. The King of Sardinia was to receive the provinces adjacent to his kingdom, whose romantic valleys penetrated the lower Alps—Dauphiny, Provence, Lyonnois, and Bretagne. The Stadtholder of Holland was to extend his sway over the Provinces of Flanders and Picardy. Austria was to grasp the provinces adjoining the Rhine—Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne. The Swiss were offered Franche Comte if they would join the coalition. And, finally, England was to regain her old possession of Normandy, and was to seize all the colonial possessions of France in the two Indies.[335]

Though the Britishgovernmentwas at this time strongly in sympathy with the coalition, it did not venture openly to join the alliance, for the masses of the Britishpeoplewere cordially with the French patriots and rejoiced in the establishment of constitutional liberty in France. These extravagant threats filled Europe. It was every where assumed that only a small minority of the French people were opposed to the Old Régime, and that the mass of the nation would at once arise and welcome the invading armies.

With this terrific storm from without menacing the liberties of France, a large number of priests who had refused to accept the Constitution were plying all the energies of the most potent superstition earth has ever known to rouse the ignorant peasantry against civil and religious liberty. They were told that eternal damnation was their inevitable doom if they were not willing to lay down their lives in defense of the king and the Pope; and that eternal blessedness was the sure inheritance of all who should labor and pray for holy mother Church. The queen, it was well known, was in constant conference with the enemy, counseling, encouraging, and aiding with all the pecuniary means she could obtain from the revenues of France. The king was a weak-minded, fickle man, with no decision of his own, and entirely at the disposal of those who surrounded him. Being quite in subjection to the imperial mind of the queen, he delayed adopting any vigorous measure to repel the approaching foe, thwarted the decrees of the Assembly, and allowed his own enormous salary of six millions of dollars to be appropriated by the queen and her counselors to hasten the march of foreign invaders upon Paris.

In the very palace of the Tuileries a secret committee of old Royalists were in session every day, planning for the enemy, informing them of all the movements in Paris, advising them as to the best points of attack, and organizing, in different parts of the empire, their partisans to rise in civil war the moment the first thunderings of hostile artillery should be heard upon the plains of France. Here surely was a combination of wrong and outrage sufficient to drive any people mad.[336]

During the whole month of July the interior of the palace was the abode of terror. The inmates, apprehensive every hour of attack, had no repose by day or night. Almost daily there was an alarm that the mob was gathering. "During the whole month," writes Madame Campan, "I was never once in bed. I always dreaded some night attack. One morning, about one o'clock, footsteps were heard in the anteroom of the queen's chamber, and then a violent struggle and loud outcries, as the groom of the chambers grasped a man who was stealthily approaching with a dagger, apparently to assassinate the queen."

"I begin to fear," said the queen one day, "that they will bring the king to a trial. Me they will assassinate. But what will become of our poor children? If they assassinate me, so much the better; they will rid me of an existence that is painful."

"One morning, at about four o'clock, near the close of July," writes Madame Campan, "a person came to give me information that the Faubourg St. Antoine was preparing to march against the palace. We knew that atleast an hour must elapse before the populace, assembled upon the site of the Bastille, could reach the Tuileries. It seemed to me sufficient for the queen's safety that all about her should be awakened. I went softly into her room. She was asleep. I did not awaken her.

"The king had been awakened, and so had Madame Elizabeth, who had gone to him. The queen, yielding to the weight of her griefs, slept till nine o'clock on that day, which was very unusual with her. The king had already been to know whether she was awake. I told him what I had done, and the care I had taken not to disturb her rest. He thanked me, and said,

"'I was awake, and so was the whole palace. She ran no risk. I am very glad to see her take a little rest. Alas! her griefs double mine.'

"What was my chagrin, when the queen, awaking and learning what had passed, began to weep bitterly from regret at not having been called. In vain did I reiterate that it was only a false alarm, and that she required to have her strength recruited.

"'My strength is not exhausted,' said she; 'misfortune gives us additional strength. Elizabeth was with the king, and I was asleep! I, who am determined to perish by his side. I am his wife. I will not suffer him to incur the smallest risk without my sharing it.'"

The queen appears to have understood very perfectly the character of her dejected, spiritless, long-suffering husband. "The king," said she, "is not a coward. He possesses abundance of passive courage, but he is overwhelmed by an awkward shyness, a mistrust of himself, which proceeds from his education as much as from his disposition. He is afraid to command, and, above all things, dreads speaking to assembled numbers. He lived like a child, and always ill at ease, under the eyes of Louis XV., until the age of twenty-one. This constraint confirmed his timidity. Circumstanced as we are, a few well-delivered words addressed to the Parisians would multiply the strength of our party a hundred-fold. He will not utter them. What can be expected from those addresses to the people which he has been advised to post up? Nothing but fresh outrages. As for myself, I could do any thing, and would appear on horseback if necessary; but, if I really were to begin to act, that would be furnishing arms to the king's enemies. The cry againstthe Austrian, and against the sway of a female, would become general in France, and, moreover, by showing myself I should render the king a mere nothing. A queen who is not regent ought, under these circumstances, to remain passive or to die."[337]

There were now three prominent parties in France. First, the Royalists, with the queen and the court, controlling the ever-vacillating king, at their head. They were plotting, through foreign armies and civil war, to restore the political and ecclesiastical despotism of the Old Régime. This party would have been utterly powerless but for the aid of foreign despots. Second came the Constitutional party, with La Fayette at its head. The kingprofessedto belong to this party, and at times, perhaps, with sincerity, but, overruled by others, he conducted with a degree of feebleness and fickleness which amounted to treachery. This party had originally embraced nearly the whole nation. Never did a nobler set of men undertake national reformthan were the leaders of the French Revolution. They sought only the happiness of France, were anxious for peace with all nations, were decidedly conservative in their views. They had no desire to overthrow the French monarchy, but wished only to limit that monarchy by a Constitution which should secure to the nation civil and religious liberty.

But the Constitutional party was now daily growing weaker, simply because its best friends saw that it was impossible to maintain the Constitution while the king himself was co-operating with foreign armies for its overthrow. Why should the people sustain a king, and furnish him with a salary of five millions of dollars a year, only to enable him to overthrow the Constitution and reinstate the rejected despotism? Thus were thousands of the purest men in France driven with great reluctance to the conviction that constitutional liberty could only be preserved by dethroning the king and establishing a republic. They were originally decidedly in favor of a constitutional monarchy. They felt that the transition was altogether too great and too sudden from utter despotism to republican freedom. The vast mass of the peasant population in France could neither read nor write. They were totally unacquainted with the forms of popular government. They were as ignorant as children, and almost entirely under the tutelage of the priests, to whom they believed that the keys of heaven and of hell had been intrusted. The establishment of republican forms would render France still more obnoxious to surrounding monarchies, and therefore they had wished to maintain the monarchy, and they took the British Constitution and not the American republic as their model, wishing, however, to infuse more of the popular element into their Constitution than has been admitted into the aristocratic institutions of England.

But now they found, to their surprise and grief, that all Europe was combining against their liberties, and that the king, instead of being grateful that his throne was preserved to him, was lamenting his loss of despotic power, and was co-operating with combined Europe for the re-enslavement of France. This left the friends of liberty no alternative. They must either hold out their hands to have the irons riveted upon them anew, or they must dethrone the king, rouse the nation to repel invasion, and attempt the fearful experiment of a republican government with a nation turbulent, unenlightened, and totally unaccustomed to self-control. In the old despotism there was no hope. It presented but poverty, chains, and despair. In republicanism, with all its perils, there was at leasthope. Hence arose republicanism. It was the child of necessity. In the Constituent Assembly not an individual was to be found who advocated a republic.[338]But after the flight of the king to Varennes, republican sentiments, as the only hope of the nation, rapidly gained ground, and at the very commencement of the Legislative Assembly we see that a republican party is already organized. From the beginning there were two divisions of this party—the conservativerepublicans, called Girondists, because their leaders were from the department of the Gironde; and the radical democrats, called Jacobins from the hall where the club held its meeting.

All France was now in a state of alarm. The Assembly passed a very solemn decree announcing thatthe country is in danger. It declared its sitting to be permanent, that the king might not dissolve it. All the citizens were required to give up their arms that they might be suitably distributed to the defenders of the country. Every man, old and young, capable of bearing arms was ordered to be enrolled in the National Guards for the public defense. M. Vergniaud, the leader of the Girondists, a man of exalted virtue and of marvelous powers of eloquence, concluded a speech which roused the enthusiasm of the whole Assembly by proposing a firm but respectful message to Louis XVI., which should oblige him to choose between France and foreigners, and which should teach him that the French were resolved to perish or triumph with the Constitution.

"It is in the name ofthe king," said Vergniaud, "that the French princes have endeavored to raise up Europe against us. It is to avenge thedignity of the kingthat the treaty of Pilnitz has been concluded. It is to come to theaid of the kingthat the sovereign of Hungary and Bohemia makes war upon us, and that Prussia is marching toward our frontiers. Now, I read in the Constitution,

"'If the king puts himself at the head of an army and directs its forces against the nation, or if he does not oppose by a formal act an enterprise of this kind, that may be executed in his name, he shall be considered as having abdicated royalty.'

"What is a formal act of opposition? If one hundred thousand Austrians were marching toward Flanders, and one hundred thousand Prussians toward Alsace, and the king were to oppose to them ten or twenty thousand men, would he have done a formal act of opposition? If the king, whose duty it is to notify us of imminent hostilities, apprised of the movements of the Prussian army, were not to communicate any information upon the subject to the National Assembly; if a camp of reserve necessary for stopping the progress of the enemy into the interior were proposed, and the king were to substitute in its stead an uncertain plan which it would take a long time to execute; if the king were to leave the command of an army to an intriguing general (La Fayette) of whom the nation was suspicious. If another general (Luckner) familiar with victory were to demand a re-enforcement, and the king were by a refusal to say to him,I forbid thee to conquer, could it be asserted that the king had performed a formal act of opposition.

"If while France were swimming in blood the king were to say to you, 'It is true that the enemies pretend to be acting for me, for my dignity, for my rights, but I have proved that I am not the accomplice. I have sent armies into the field; these armies were too weak, but the Constitution does not fix the degree of their force. I have assembled them too late; but the Constitution does not fix the time for collecting them. I have stopped a general who was on the point of conquering, but the Constitution does not order victories. I have had ministers who deceived the Assembly and disorganized the government, but their appointment belonged to me. The Assembly has passed useful decrees which I have not sanctioned, but I had a right to act so. I have done all that the Constitution enjoined me. It is therefore impossible to doubt my fidelity to it.'

"If the king were to hold this language would you not have a right to reply, 'O king, who, like Lysander, the tyrant, have believed that truth was not worth more than falsehood, who have feigned a love for the laws, merely to preserve the power which enabled you to defy them—was it defending us to oppose to the foreign soldiers forces whose inferiority left not even uncertainty as to their defeat? Was it defending us to thwart plans tending to fortify the interior? Was it defending us not to check a general who violated the Constitution, but to enchain the courage of those who were serving it? No! no! man, in whom the generosity of the French has excited no corresponding feeling, insensible to every thing but the love of despotism, you are henceforth nothing to that Constitution which you have so unworthily violated, nothing to that people which you have so basely betrayed.'"

This was the first time any one had ventured to speak in the Assembly of the forfeiture of the crown, though it was a common topic in the journals and in the streets. The speech of Vergniaud was received with vehement applause. The king, alarmed, immediately sent a message to the Assembly informing them that Prussia had allied her troops with those of Austria in their march upon France. This message, thus tardily extorted, was received by the Assembly with a smile of contempt.

It was now manifest, beyond all dispute, that the foe of French liberty most to be dreaded was the king and the court. M. Brissot, who had been the bosom friend and the ardent eulogist of La Fayette, could no longer sustain the king. Ascending the tribune he gave bold utterance to the sentiment of the nation.

"Our peril," said he, "exceeds all that past ages have witnessed. The country is in danger, not because we are in want of troops—not because those troops want courage. No! it is in danger because its force is paralyzed. And who has paralyzed it. A man—one man, the man whom the Constitution has made its chief, and whom perfidious advisers have made its foe. You are told to fear the Kings of Prussia and Hungary; I say the chief force of those kings isat the court, and it istherewe must first conquer them. They tell you to strike at the dissentient priests. I tell you to strike at theTuileries, and fell all the priests with a single blow. You are told to persecute all factious and intriguing conspirators. They will all disappear if you knock loud enough at the door of theCabinet of the Tuileries; for that cabinet is the point to which all these threads tend, where every scheme is plotted, and whence every impulse proceeds. This is the secret of our position; this is the source of the evil, and here the remedy must be applied."[339]

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