Volume Two—Chapter Nine.

Volume Two—Chapter Nine.Playing False.From this time forward, the National Guards stationed in the palace had orders never to lose sight of the royal family. They therefore, for some weeks, kept the doors open day and night, having their eyes upon the royal party all day, and upon their very beds at night. The queen caused a small bed to be placed between the door of her chamber and her own bed, that she might sleep or weep on her pillow without being exposed to the observation of her soldier-gaolers. One night, however, the officer who was on watch, perceiving that the queen was awake, and her attendant asleep, drew near her bed to give her some advice how she should conduct herself in regard to politics. The queen begged him to speak low, that her attendant might not be disturbed. The lady awoke, however, and was in terror when she saw with whom the queen was conversing. Her majesty then used the smooth and flattering tone which she always appeared to think her enemies would be pleased with, desiring the lady not to be alarmed, for that this officer was an excellent man, no doubt truly attached to the king, though mistaken as to what were the intentions of both the king and herself.The king one day rose to shut the door of the room where he was sitting with his family. The guard immediately threw it open again, saying that he had orders to keep it open; and that the king would only give himself useless trouble by shutting it. The difficulty now was to find any opportunity for private conversation. This was done through the attachment of one of the guards, who often took a very disagreeable post which nobody else desired to have. This was in a dark corridor where candles had to be used all day, and where, therefore, no sentinel would like being on guard for twenty-four hours together, in the month of July. Saint Prix, an actor, devoted, however, himself to this service, for the sake of the king and queen, who often met here for short conversations. Saint Prix, on these occasions, retired out of hearing, and gave notice if he believed anyone was coming.This extreme of insulting rigour did not last long this time. In August the family were allowed to open and shut their doors when they pleased, and the king was treated with more outward respect. The Assembly was then preparing a Constitution, which it was believed the king would sign; and it would be well that, at the time of doing so, he should appear in the eyes of the world as a king, and not a prisoner who acted merely upon constraint.The new Constitution was prepared, and the king agreed to it; even sending a letter to the Assembly to propose to swear to the new Constitution in the place where it was framed,—in their chamber. The members were highly delighted: all Paris appeared highly delighted. The leaders of parties thronged to court: their majesties went to the theatres; and when the deputies from the Assembly came to the palace to assure the king how much satisfaction was felt at this agreement of all parties, the queen, the princess royal, and the dauphin stood looking on from a doorway behind. The king pointed to them, saying, “There are my wife and children, who feel as I do.”All this, however, was false and hollow: all these celebrations were but melancholy mirth. All thinking persons must have known that the king could not really approve and rejoice in a new Constitution such as the people liked,—a Constitution which took from him many and great powers and privileges which he considered to be as truly his own as the throne itself. On the other hand, the royal family believed that this act was only one step towards the destruction of the monarchy altogether,—only one stage towards their own total ruin. So, while each party was applauding the other, and all wore smiles in public, there was no real confidence and joy except among the ignorant and thoughtless. After the queen had assured the deputies of her approbation and pleasure, she said, in the privacy of her apartment, “These people do not like having sovereigns. We shall be destroyed by their cunning and persevering management. They are levelling the monarchy stone by stone.”The king felt the same. After professing the utmost satisfaction and delight at this settlement of affairs, and hearing from the Assembly, echoed by the acclamations of the people, that he had “obtained a new title of grandeur and of glory,” the king appeared at the door of the apartment to which the queen had retired after the ceremony,—his face so pale and so wretched that the queen uttered an exclamation as she looked at him. He sank into a chair, and covered his eyes with his handkerchief, saying, “All is lost! O, why were you a witness to this humiliation? Why did you come to France to see—” His words were choked by sobs. The queen had cast herself on her knees before him. She now exclaimed to Madame Campan, “Go! Go!” in a tone which conveyed, “Why do you remain to witness the humiliation of your king?”All Paris was illuminated at night; and the royal family were invited to take a drive in the midst of the people. They were well guarded by soldiers, and received everywhere with acclamations. One man, however, with a prodigiously powerful voice, kept beside the carriage-door next the queen, and as often as the crowd shouted “Long live the king!” bawled out “No, no: don’t believe them. Long live the nation!” The queen was impressed with the same sort of terror with which she had seen the four wax-lights go out. Though panic-struck with this ominous voice, she dared not complain, nor ask to have the man removed. While the royal family were driving about the city in this false and hollow triumph, a messenger was setting off for the Austrian court, with letters from them expressive of extreme discontent and alarm at the present state of public affairs.There were bursts of loyal feeling occasionally, which gratified the royal family; but these became fewer and fewer, as it was observed that they were not well taken by the leaders of the revolution. One day this summer, the Dauphin was walking on the terrace of the Tuileries. A grenadier took him in his arms, with some affectionate words; and everybody within sight cheered the child. Orders, however, soon came to be quiet on the terrace: the child was set down again, and the people went on their way.Another day, Louis forgot his plan of being civil to everybody. He had hold of his mother’s hand; and they were going to walk in the gardens. A loyal sentinel, lately arrived from the country, made his salute so earnestly that his musket rang again. The queen saluted graciously: but Louis was in such a hurry that he was posting on through the gate. His mother checked him, saying, “Come, salute. Do not be unpolite.”Some of the first difficulties which arose under the new Constitution, were of a kind which show how impossible it was for the royal family and the people ever to agree in their thoughts and feelings. The new law had provided a military, and also a civil, establishment for the royal household;—had provided what the king had declared a sufficient number of attendants, and described their offices,—doing away with many of the old forms, and with much of the absurd extravagance, of the old Court. It was now in the queen’s power to please the people by agreeing cheerfully to the new arrangements, and showing that she was not so proud and extravagant as she was reported to be. Instead of this, she clung to the old ways, after having declared her acceptance of the new. She would not appoint people to the offices agreed upon, saying that it was an injury to the old nobility to let them be turned out. To be sure, most of them had fled: but if they returned, what would they say, if they found their places filled, and the queen surrounded by persons of a lower rank? One noble lady at this time resigned an office she had been left in possession of, and said she could not stay now that she was deprived of her hereditary privilege of sitting on a stool unasked in the queen’s presence. This grieved the queen; and she said that this was, and would be, the way with the nobility. They made no allowance for her altered circumstances; but deserted her if she admitted to office persons of inferior rank. She could not do without this nobility: she said she could not bear to see nobody come to her card-parties,—to see no throng but of servants at the king’s rising and undressing. Rather than give up these old ceremonies, and this kind of homage, she broke through the only part of the Constitution that it was in her power to act upon, and insulted the feelings of the people. Barnave argued with her, but she would not yield.The rejoicings for the new Constitution took place on the last day of September. During the rest of the year, the royal family, and the most confidential of their servants, were much employed in secret correspondence with the absent princes and nobility, and with the foreign Courts. Some of these letters were in cipher, and were copied by persons who knew nothing whatever of the meaning of what they were writing. The queen wrote almost all day long, and spent a part of the nights in reading. Poor lady! She could sleep but little.Towards the end of the year, a new alarm arose, for which one cannot but think now there was very little ground; though no one can wonder that the unhappy family, and the police magistrates who had the charge of their safety, were open to every impression of terror. The king was told that one of his pastrycooks was dead; and that the man’s office was to be filled, of right, by a pastry-cook who, while waiting for this appointment, had kept a confectioner’s shop in the neighbourhood, and who was furious in his profession of revolutionary politics. He had been heard to say that any man would be doing a public service who should cut off the king; and it was feared that he might do this service himself, by poisoning the king’s pastry, now that he would have daily opportunities of doing so. The king was particularly fond of pastry, and ate a great deal of it. It would not do now suddenly to give up eating pastry, so as to set everybody in the palace inquiring why: besides, it does not seem to have occurred to the king, under any of the circumstances of his life, to restrain himself in eating. The new pastry-cook had nothing whatever to do but to make and roll out the crusts of pies and tarts; but it was thought so easy a matter to infuse a subtle poison into any of the dishes that stood about in the kitchen, that it was resolved that the king and queen should eat nothing that was brought thence, except roast meat, the last thing which anyone would think of poisoning. Other dishes were to be apparently half-eaten, and their contents conveyed away.Here we see the absurdity of the old court-system, with its laws and formalities;—the system by which so many hangers-on were enriched, to the injury of better people than themselves: and by which the king himself was placed in a sort of bondage. Any shop-keeper in Paris might turn away his shop-boy for insolence; any tradesman’s wife might dismiss her cook for unwholesome cookery: but here was the sovereign of France compelled to retain in his service a man whom he believed to have said that it would be a meritorious act to murder him; and this man’s pastry must be admitted to the royal table every day! The man held the reversion to the office of king’s pastry-cook (the right to it when the occupant should die), and the right once acquired, the man could not, by court custom, be got rid of. Thus were court offices not open to merit; but conferred sometimes by favour, and sometimes for money; and greedily grasped at for the great profits they yielded. One wonders that the royal family did not discover that the new state of affairs, if it imposed some restrictions, might have freed them from many annoyances, if they could have suited their conduct to their affairs.—We shall now see what trouble was caused by the king’s being unable to turn away a kitchen servant whom he could not trust.The bread and wine wanted for the royal table were secretly provided by a steward of the household. The sugar was purchased by Madame Campan, and pounded in her apartment. She also provided the pastry, of which the king was so fond; purchasing it as if for herself, sometimes of one confectioner and sometimes of another. All these things were locked up in a cupboard in the king’s study, on the ground-floor. The royal family chose to wait on themselves; so, when the table was spread, the servants went out, leaving a dumb-waiter and bell beside each chair. Then Madame Campan appeared with the bread, wine, sugar, and pastry, which were put under the table, lest any of the attendants should enter. The princesses drank no wine. The king drank about half a bottle; and when he had done he poured into the bottle from which he had drunk about half of that of which he dared not drink; and this latter bottle, with some of the pastry from the kitchen, was carried away by Madame Campan after dinner. At the end of four months, the heads of the police gave notice that the danger from poisoning was over; that the plans of the king’s enemies were changed, and that future measures would be directed against the throne, and not the life of the monarch. Meantime, did not every labouring man who could supply his family with bread take his meal in more cheerfulness and comfort than this unhappy king?Everything went wrong. The royal party had never been remarkable for success in their undertakings; and now all that they did turned to their ruin. They corresponded at once with the emigrant princes, and with those leaders at home who were attached to the Constitution; and when, as might have been expected, they found that they could not please both, they distrusted and withdrew from those who were best able to help them. They would not follow Barnave’s advice. They believed General Dumouriez a traitor, and broke off from him when he was perfectly sincere in his wish to save them, and had more power to do so than all their emigrant friends together. They distrusted Lafayette; and when, a few weeks later, they were in deeper distress than ever, but might have been protected, and taken to Rouen by Lafayette’s army, the queen refused, saying in private that Lafayette had been offered to them as a resource, but that they had rather perish than owe their safety to the man who had most injured them, or even be obliged to treat with him. Thus, rejecting those who could help them, and relying on those who could not, this unwise and unhappy family went on to their ruin.The foreign courts and emigrant princes were preparing to invade France; and the consequence was that the poor helpless king had to do an act which would have been ridiculous, if it were not too sad to laugh at. As pretended Constitutional King and Head of the Nation, he had to behave in public towards these foreign princes as if they were enemies, when it was for his sake that they were levying armies. By his private letters, written in cipher, and sent in secret, he was urging them to make haste to march to his rescue; and at the very same time he had to go to the Assembly and propose that they should declare war against these enemies of the nation. He said this with the tears in his eyes. It was on the 20th of April that he endured this humiliation. What man of spirit would not rather have taken one side or the other, at all hazards, than have played such a double part as this? If he could act with the people in reforming their affairs, well and good. If he could not,—if he believed them all wrong, and that it was his sacred duty to stand by the old order of things, how much more respectable it would have been to have said so,—to have declared, “You may imprison me—you may destroy me,—but I will stand by my throne and its powers!” In that case, the worst he could have been charged with would have been a mistake. As it was, he stood before the Assembly an object of universal contempt,—proposing, with tears in his eyes, a declaration of war against those who were preparing war at his desire, and for his sake; and everyone knowing that it was so.He and the queen seemed never to have understood or believed what was carefully pointed out to them by the advisers whom they distrusted—that this making war in their behalf could not end well for them. If their foreign friends should be beaten, they would be left more helpless and despised than ever. If the French should be beaten, the frightened and angry people would be sure to treat with more and more rigour—and perhaps with fury—the family who had brought a foreign enemy upon them. Their advisers must have been glad at last to be rejected and dismissed; for it must have been provoking to discover, at every turn, the double dealing of the king and queen; and very melancholy to see them perpetually pursuing the exactly opposite course to that which was noble and wise. One wonders whether, if little Louis had lived to be a man, he would have been as ignorant, selfish, and unwise;—whether there is anything in belonging to the old royal family of France which stands between its princes and wisdom and knowledge. If so, one is less sorry that he died so early as he did.Barnave’s last words impressed the feelings of the queen, but had no other effect. He begged to see her once more before he left Paris; and then withdrew from public affairs. He said, “Your misfortunes, madam, and those of the country, had determined me to devote myself to your service. I see that my advice does not accord with your majesty’s views. I augur little success from the plan which you have been induced to follow. You are too far from the help you rely on, and you will be lost before it can reach you. I earnestly hope that I may be mistaken in this prophecy. At all events, I am sure of losing my head for the interest I have felt in your affairs, and the services I have endeavoured to render you. I only ask as a recompense the honour of kissing your hand.”The queen shed tears as she extended her hand to him, and often afterwards spoke of Barnave with regard. It does not appear, however, that either she or the king called in question their own conduct with regard to these men. They induced them to devote themselves to a most hazardous service—summoned them to secret interviews in the palace, in the night, in dark corridors, or on back staircases, where some spy or another was sure to see them, and report of them to the jealous people; and, after all this, they were dismissed, and left unprotected by the exact contrary of their advice being pursued. Barnave’s dismal predictions were all fulfilled. The royal family did sink down into destruction; and he himself perished, as he had foretold. He now left Paris, and married at Grenoble. The next August, less than three months after his last interview with the queen, his correspondence with her and the king was found in a chest in the palace; and orders were sent to arrest him, and imprison him at Grenoble. He lay in prison fifteen months, and was then brought to Paris, and tried for his life. He made a noble defence; but it was of no avail. He was beheaded on the 29th of October, 1793. When on the scaffold, he seemed suddenly struck with the infamy of the treatment he had met with on every side. He stamped with his foot, and exclaimed, “This, then, is the reward of all that I have done for liberty!” He was only thirty-two years of age. His unwise and miserable sovereign was not living to mourn the destruction he had brought on this high-minded man; and the fair royal hand which he had so desired to kiss had become cold in death some days before.To return to the spring of 1792. The palace was now as dismal an abode as ever children grew up in. The king’s temper and manners gave way entirely. For ten days he never once spoke, except to say the words necessary in the game of backgammon, which he played with his sister every day after dinner. The queen kneeled to him, imploring him to exert himself. When this availed nothing, she endeavoured to arouse him by the most frightful representations she could make of the danger they were all in—a danger which increased every day, and which required that he should act, and not sit sulking, while the hours flew by which were bringing destruction on their heads. She sometimes expressed sympathy and tenderness; sometimes showed him his children, and besought him to act, for their sakes: and sometimes she asked him proudly whether, if they must perish, it would not be better to die with dignity and honour than to wait sullenly, as if inviting the rabble to come and tread their lives out on the floor of their own palace?In one instance, she prevailed with him against his judgment; and in five days, after, bitterly repented it. There was no use in persuading him to a single spirited act now and then, when he had not resolution to follow it up by others: and so she found. In June, the Assembly wished to banish all the clergy, and to form a camp of twenty-thousand men, under the walls of Paris. The king would have agreed, telling the queen that the people only wanted a pretence for a general insurrection; and that it would burst forth at the moment of his refusing anything they wished. The queen, however, induced him to use his lawful power of disapproving and forbidding these measures. This happened on the 15th of June. When he declared to his ministers his intention of doing this, three days before, they remonstrated, and the wife of one of them, Madame Roland, wrote a letter, in her husband’s name, to the king; a letter so plain spoken that the king and queen could not brook it; and the ministry were all turned out next morning.

From this time forward, the National Guards stationed in the palace had orders never to lose sight of the royal family. They therefore, for some weeks, kept the doors open day and night, having their eyes upon the royal party all day, and upon their very beds at night. The queen caused a small bed to be placed between the door of her chamber and her own bed, that she might sleep or weep on her pillow without being exposed to the observation of her soldier-gaolers. One night, however, the officer who was on watch, perceiving that the queen was awake, and her attendant asleep, drew near her bed to give her some advice how she should conduct herself in regard to politics. The queen begged him to speak low, that her attendant might not be disturbed. The lady awoke, however, and was in terror when she saw with whom the queen was conversing. Her majesty then used the smooth and flattering tone which she always appeared to think her enemies would be pleased with, desiring the lady not to be alarmed, for that this officer was an excellent man, no doubt truly attached to the king, though mistaken as to what were the intentions of both the king and herself.

The king one day rose to shut the door of the room where he was sitting with his family. The guard immediately threw it open again, saying that he had orders to keep it open; and that the king would only give himself useless trouble by shutting it. The difficulty now was to find any opportunity for private conversation. This was done through the attachment of one of the guards, who often took a very disagreeable post which nobody else desired to have. This was in a dark corridor where candles had to be used all day, and where, therefore, no sentinel would like being on guard for twenty-four hours together, in the month of July. Saint Prix, an actor, devoted, however, himself to this service, for the sake of the king and queen, who often met here for short conversations. Saint Prix, on these occasions, retired out of hearing, and gave notice if he believed anyone was coming.

This extreme of insulting rigour did not last long this time. In August the family were allowed to open and shut their doors when they pleased, and the king was treated with more outward respect. The Assembly was then preparing a Constitution, which it was believed the king would sign; and it would be well that, at the time of doing so, he should appear in the eyes of the world as a king, and not a prisoner who acted merely upon constraint.

The new Constitution was prepared, and the king agreed to it; even sending a letter to the Assembly to propose to swear to the new Constitution in the place where it was framed,—in their chamber. The members were highly delighted: all Paris appeared highly delighted. The leaders of parties thronged to court: their majesties went to the theatres; and when the deputies from the Assembly came to the palace to assure the king how much satisfaction was felt at this agreement of all parties, the queen, the princess royal, and the dauphin stood looking on from a doorway behind. The king pointed to them, saying, “There are my wife and children, who feel as I do.”

All this, however, was false and hollow: all these celebrations were but melancholy mirth. All thinking persons must have known that the king could not really approve and rejoice in a new Constitution such as the people liked,—a Constitution which took from him many and great powers and privileges which he considered to be as truly his own as the throne itself. On the other hand, the royal family believed that this act was only one step towards the destruction of the monarchy altogether,—only one stage towards their own total ruin. So, while each party was applauding the other, and all wore smiles in public, there was no real confidence and joy except among the ignorant and thoughtless. After the queen had assured the deputies of her approbation and pleasure, she said, in the privacy of her apartment, “These people do not like having sovereigns. We shall be destroyed by their cunning and persevering management. They are levelling the monarchy stone by stone.”

The king felt the same. After professing the utmost satisfaction and delight at this settlement of affairs, and hearing from the Assembly, echoed by the acclamations of the people, that he had “obtained a new title of grandeur and of glory,” the king appeared at the door of the apartment to which the queen had retired after the ceremony,—his face so pale and so wretched that the queen uttered an exclamation as she looked at him. He sank into a chair, and covered his eyes with his handkerchief, saying, “All is lost! O, why were you a witness to this humiliation? Why did you come to France to see—” His words were choked by sobs. The queen had cast herself on her knees before him. She now exclaimed to Madame Campan, “Go! Go!” in a tone which conveyed, “Why do you remain to witness the humiliation of your king?”

All Paris was illuminated at night; and the royal family were invited to take a drive in the midst of the people. They were well guarded by soldiers, and received everywhere with acclamations. One man, however, with a prodigiously powerful voice, kept beside the carriage-door next the queen, and as often as the crowd shouted “Long live the king!” bawled out “No, no: don’t believe them. Long live the nation!” The queen was impressed with the same sort of terror with which she had seen the four wax-lights go out. Though panic-struck with this ominous voice, she dared not complain, nor ask to have the man removed. While the royal family were driving about the city in this false and hollow triumph, a messenger was setting off for the Austrian court, with letters from them expressive of extreme discontent and alarm at the present state of public affairs.

There were bursts of loyal feeling occasionally, which gratified the royal family; but these became fewer and fewer, as it was observed that they were not well taken by the leaders of the revolution. One day this summer, the Dauphin was walking on the terrace of the Tuileries. A grenadier took him in his arms, with some affectionate words; and everybody within sight cheered the child. Orders, however, soon came to be quiet on the terrace: the child was set down again, and the people went on their way.

Another day, Louis forgot his plan of being civil to everybody. He had hold of his mother’s hand; and they were going to walk in the gardens. A loyal sentinel, lately arrived from the country, made his salute so earnestly that his musket rang again. The queen saluted graciously: but Louis was in such a hurry that he was posting on through the gate. His mother checked him, saying, “Come, salute. Do not be unpolite.”

Some of the first difficulties which arose under the new Constitution, were of a kind which show how impossible it was for the royal family and the people ever to agree in their thoughts and feelings. The new law had provided a military, and also a civil, establishment for the royal household;—had provided what the king had declared a sufficient number of attendants, and described their offices,—doing away with many of the old forms, and with much of the absurd extravagance, of the old Court. It was now in the queen’s power to please the people by agreeing cheerfully to the new arrangements, and showing that she was not so proud and extravagant as she was reported to be. Instead of this, she clung to the old ways, after having declared her acceptance of the new. She would not appoint people to the offices agreed upon, saying that it was an injury to the old nobility to let them be turned out. To be sure, most of them had fled: but if they returned, what would they say, if they found their places filled, and the queen surrounded by persons of a lower rank? One noble lady at this time resigned an office she had been left in possession of, and said she could not stay now that she was deprived of her hereditary privilege of sitting on a stool unasked in the queen’s presence. This grieved the queen; and she said that this was, and would be, the way with the nobility. They made no allowance for her altered circumstances; but deserted her if she admitted to office persons of inferior rank. She could not do without this nobility: she said she could not bear to see nobody come to her card-parties,—to see no throng but of servants at the king’s rising and undressing. Rather than give up these old ceremonies, and this kind of homage, she broke through the only part of the Constitution that it was in her power to act upon, and insulted the feelings of the people. Barnave argued with her, but she would not yield.

The rejoicings for the new Constitution took place on the last day of September. During the rest of the year, the royal family, and the most confidential of their servants, were much employed in secret correspondence with the absent princes and nobility, and with the foreign Courts. Some of these letters were in cipher, and were copied by persons who knew nothing whatever of the meaning of what they were writing. The queen wrote almost all day long, and spent a part of the nights in reading. Poor lady! She could sleep but little.

Towards the end of the year, a new alarm arose, for which one cannot but think now there was very little ground; though no one can wonder that the unhappy family, and the police magistrates who had the charge of their safety, were open to every impression of terror. The king was told that one of his pastrycooks was dead; and that the man’s office was to be filled, of right, by a pastry-cook who, while waiting for this appointment, had kept a confectioner’s shop in the neighbourhood, and who was furious in his profession of revolutionary politics. He had been heard to say that any man would be doing a public service who should cut off the king; and it was feared that he might do this service himself, by poisoning the king’s pastry, now that he would have daily opportunities of doing so. The king was particularly fond of pastry, and ate a great deal of it. It would not do now suddenly to give up eating pastry, so as to set everybody in the palace inquiring why: besides, it does not seem to have occurred to the king, under any of the circumstances of his life, to restrain himself in eating. The new pastry-cook had nothing whatever to do but to make and roll out the crusts of pies and tarts; but it was thought so easy a matter to infuse a subtle poison into any of the dishes that stood about in the kitchen, that it was resolved that the king and queen should eat nothing that was brought thence, except roast meat, the last thing which anyone would think of poisoning. Other dishes were to be apparently half-eaten, and their contents conveyed away.

Here we see the absurdity of the old court-system, with its laws and formalities;—the system by which so many hangers-on were enriched, to the injury of better people than themselves: and by which the king himself was placed in a sort of bondage. Any shop-keeper in Paris might turn away his shop-boy for insolence; any tradesman’s wife might dismiss her cook for unwholesome cookery: but here was the sovereign of France compelled to retain in his service a man whom he believed to have said that it would be a meritorious act to murder him; and this man’s pastry must be admitted to the royal table every day! The man held the reversion to the office of king’s pastry-cook (the right to it when the occupant should die), and the right once acquired, the man could not, by court custom, be got rid of. Thus were court offices not open to merit; but conferred sometimes by favour, and sometimes for money; and greedily grasped at for the great profits they yielded. One wonders that the royal family did not discover that the new state of affairs, if it imposed some restrictions, might have freed them from many annoyances, if they could have suited their conduct to their affairs.—We shall now see what trouble was caused by the king’s being unable to turn away a kitchen servant whom he could not trust.

The bread and wine wanted for the royal table were secretly provided by a steward of the household. The sugar was purchased by Madame Campan, and pounded in her apartment. She also provided the pastry, of which the king was so fond; purchasing it as if for herself, sometimes of one confectioner and sometimes of another. All these things were locked up in a cupboard in the king’s study, on the ground-floor. The royal family chose to wait on themselves; so, when the table was spread, the servants went out, leaving a dumb-waiter and bell beside each chair. Then Madame Campan appeared with the bread, wine, sugar, and pastry, which were put under the table, lest any of the attendants should enter. The princesses drank no wine. The king drank about half a bottle; and when he had done he poured into the bottle from which he had drunk about half of that of which he dared not drink; and this latter bottle, with some of the pastry from the kitchen, was carried away by Madame Campan after dinner. At the end of four months, the heads of the police gave notice that the danger from poisoning was over; that the plans of the king’s enemies were changed, and that future measures would be directed against the throne, and not the life of the monarch. Meantime, did not every labouring man who could supply his family with bread take his meal in more cheerfulness and comfort than this unhappy king?

Everything went wrong. The royal party had never been remarkable for success in their undertakings; and now all that they did turned to their ruin. They corresponded at once with the emigrant princes, and with those leaders at home who were attached to the Constitution; and when, as might have been expected, they found that they could not please both, they distrusted and withdrew from those who were best able to help them. They would not follow Barnave’s advice. They believed General Dumouriez a traitor, and broke off from him when he was perfectly sincere in his wish to save them, and had more power to do so than all their emigrant friends together. They distrusted Lafayette; and when, a few weeks later, they were in deeper distress than ever, but might have been protected, and taken to Rouen by Lafayette’s army, the queen refused, saying in private that Lafayette had been offered to them as a resource, but that they had rather perish than owe their safety to the man who had most injured them, or even be obliged to treat with him. Thus, rejecting those who could help them, and relying on those who could not, this unwise and unhappy family went on to their ruin.

The foreign courts and emigrant princes were preparing to invade France; and the consequence was that the poor helpless king had to do an act which would have been ridiculous, if it were not too sad to laugh at. As pretended Constitutional King and Head of the Nation, he had to behave in public towards these foreign princes as if they were enemies, when it was for his sake that they were levying armies. By his private letters, written in cipher, and sent in secret, he was urging them to make haste to march to his rescue; and at the very same time he had to go to the Assembly and propose that they should declare war against these enemies of the nation. He said this with the tears in his eyes. It was on the 20th of April that he endured this humiliation. What man of spirit would not rather have taken one side or the other, at all hazards, than have played such a double part as this? If he could act with the people in reforming their affairs, well and good. If he could not,—if he believed them all wrong, and that it was his sacred duty to stand by the old order of things, how much more respectable it would have been to have said so,—to have declared, “You may imprison me—you may destroy me,—but I will stand by my throne and its powers!” In that case, the worst he could have been charged with would have been a mistake. As it was, he stood before the Assembly an object of universal contempt,—proposing, with tears in his eyes, a declaration of war against those who were preparing war at his desire, and for his sake; and everyone knowing that it was so.

He and the queen seemed never to have understood or believed what was carefully pointed out to them by the advisers whom they distrusted—that this making war in their behalf could not end well for them. If their foreign friends should be beaten, they would be left more helpless and despised than ever. If the French should be beaten, the frightened and angry people would be sure to treat with more and more rigour—and perhaps with fury—the family who had brought a foreign enemy upon them. Their advisers must have been glad at last to be rejected and dismissed; for it must have been provoking to discover, at every turn, the double dealing of the king and queen; and very melancholy to see them perpetually pursuing the exactly opposite course to that which was noble and wise. One wonders whether, if little Louis had lived to be a man, he would have been as ignorant, selfish, and unwise;—whether there is anything in belonging to the old royal family of France which stands between its princes and wisdom and knowledge. If so, one is less sorry that he died so early as he did.

Barnave’s last words impressed the feelings of the queen, but had no other effect. He begged to see her once more before he left Paris; and then withdrew from public affairs. He said, “Your misfortunes, madam, and those of the country, had determined me to devote myself to your service. I see that my advice does not accord with your majesty’s views. I augur little success from the plan which you have been induced to follow. You are too far from the help you rely on, and you will be lost before it can reach you. I earnestly hope that I may be mistaken in this prophecy. At all events, I am sure of losing my head for the interest I have felt in your affairs, and the services I have endeavoured to render you. I only ask as a recompense the honour of kissing your hand.”

The queen shed tears as she extended her hand to him, and often afterwards spoke of Barnave with regard. It does not appear, however, that either she or the king called in question their own conduct with regard to these men. They induced them to devote themselves to a most hazardous service—summoned them to secret interviews in the palace, in the night, in dark corridors, or on back staircases, where some spy or another was sure to see them, and report of them to the jealous people; and, after all this, they were dismissed, and left unprotected by the exact contrary of their advice being pursued. Barnave’s dismal predictions were all fulfilled. The royal family did sink down into destruction; and he himself perished, as he had foretold. He now left Paris, and married at Grenoble. The next August, less than three months after his last interview with the queen, his correspondence with her and the king was found in a chest in the palace; and orders were sent to arrest him, and imprison him at Grenoble. He lay in prison fifteen months, and was then brought to Paris, and tried for his life. He made a noble defence; but it was of no avail. He was beheaded on the 29th of October, 1793. When on the scaffold, he seemed suddenly struck with the infamy of the treatment he had met with on every side. He stamped with his foot, and exclaimed, “This, then, is the reward of all that I have done for liberty!” He was only thirty-two years of age. His unwise and miserable sovereign was not living to mourn the destruction he had brought on this high-minded man; and the fair royal hand which he had so desired to kiss had become cold in death some days before.

To return to the spring of 1792. The palace was now as dismal an abode as ever children grew up in. The king’s temper and manners gave way entirely. For ten days he never once spoke, except to say the words necessary in the game of backgammon, which he played with his sister every day after dinner. The queen kneeled to him, imploring him to exert himself. When this availed nothing, she endeavoured to arouse him by the most frightful representations she could make of the danger they were all in—a danger which increased every day, and which required that he should act, and not sit sulking, while the hours flew by which were bringing destruction on their heads. She sometimes expressed sympathy and tenderness; sometimes showed him his children, and besought him to act, for their sakes: and sometimes she asked him proudly whether, if they must perish, it would not be better to die with dignity and honour than to wait sullenly, as if inviting the rabble to come and tread their lives out on the floor of their own palace?

In one instance, she prevailed with him against his judgment; and in five days, after, bitterly repented it. There was no use in persuading him to a single spirited act now and then, when he had not resolution to follow it up by others: and so she found. In June, the Assembly wished to banish all the clergy, and to form a camp of twenty-thousand men, under the walls of Paris. The king would have agreed, telling the queen that the people only wanted a pretence for a general insurrection; and that it would burst forth at the moment of his refusing anything they wished. The queen, however, induced him to use his lawful power of disapproving and forbidding these measures. This happened on the 15th of June. When he declared to his ministers his intention of doing this, three days before, they remonstrated, and the wife of one of them, Madame Roland, wrote a letter, in her husband’s name, to the king; a letter so plain spoken that the king and queen could not brook it; and the ministry were all turned out next morning.

Volume Two—Chapter Ten.The Mob in the Palace.The angry people rose. Twenty-thousand of the poorest, dirtiest, and most savage, went to the magistrates in a body, to declare their intention of planting the Tree of Liberty on a terrace of the Tuileries, on the 20th; and of presenting, at the same time, petitions to the king against his late prohibitions about the priests and the army. It was easy to see what sort of petitions these were likely to be; but it had become difficult to make preparation for any expected public event,—there were so many opinions to be consulted, and so much suspicion was abroad.Early in the morning of the 20th, a tall Lombardy poplar, which the people called their tree of liberty, was lying on a car in the lower part of the city, and the people were collecting in multitudes to make a procession with it to the palace. A messenger from the magistrates spoke to the people against their scheme; but they said they were only going to do what they had a right to do: it was lawful to petition; and that was their errand. So, on they went, their numbers being swelled by groups from every by-street on their way. They drew two pieces of cannon with them, and carried abundance of tricolour flags and ribbons; and also various significant emblems, one of which was a bullock’s heart with a spear through it, labelled “the Aristocrat’s heart.” The magistrates next met them: but again the crowd declared they intended only what was lawful, and pushed on.They read their address in the Assembly, and then went, dancing and shouting, to plant their tree. The iron gates of the Tuileries were all shut, and National soldiers and cannon appeared within; so that the tree could not be planted on the terrace, as designed. There was a convent garden near, which served their purpose, and there was the tree of liberty erected.While this was doing, the Assembly dispersed till evening. The crowd desired that the king would come out, and hear their petition. They waited and waited, pressing against the iron gates, till some were near being pressed to death, and were not in the better humour for that. The king did not appear. After a while, the guard within were told that, if the king would not come out to his people, his people would go in to him. As usual, there was no decision in the treatment of the people. After some hesitation, the guards opened one of the gates. The multitude swarmed in; rushed at a wooden door of the palace; shivered it; and the royal household were at once at their mercy.Now at last the sovereign and his craving people met, face to face: met, too, that they might petition, and he reply. But they were no longer fitted for coming to an understanding. They despised him as weak, and a double-dealer; and he despised them for their ignorance, their tatters, and dirt. He showed this day that he was no coward. He was indolent, irresolute, and unable to act; but he could endure. After this day, no one could, unrebuked, call him a coward. When the mob began battering upon the door of the room in which he was, he ordered it to be thrown open. Some of the gentlemen of his household had rushed in through another door, and requested him to stand in the recess of a large window. They drove up a heavy table before him, and ranged themselves in front of it. They begged him not to be alarmed. “Put your hand on my heart,” replied the king, “and see if I am afraid.” The Princess Elizabeth flew to see what was doing to her brother. She heard fierce threats from the mob against the queen. They vowed they would have the blood of the mischievous Austrian woman. The attendants begged the princess to go away from this scene. “No,” said she, “let them take me for the queen, and then she may have time to escape.” They forced her away, however, with what emotions of admiration words cannot express.The king demanded of the riotous crowd what it was that they wanted. They cried that they would have the patriot ministers back again, and no prohibition about the clergy and the army. The king replied that this was not the way, nor the time, to settle such matters. Those who heard him must have respected him for having at last given a good and decided answer. During the rest of the time, about three hours, he stood in the recess of the window, while the mob passed to and fro before the broad table which stood between him and them. At the very beginning of the scene one of the people handed him a red woollen cap, such as the furious revolutionary people had taken to wearing, to show their patriotism. This cap the king was bid to wear. He put it on; and it was matter of complaint against him afterwards by his aristocratic adherents, that he had worn the red cap for three hours. The fact was that he did not feel the cap on the top of his hair, matted with pomatum and powder as hair then was, and forgot it, till his family noticed it on his meeting them again. He declared himself thirsty, and a ragamuffin handing him a half-empty bottle, he drank from it.The queen had attempted, with her children, to reach the room where the king was, but could not. Each seems to have believed that it was the intention of the mob to murder one or both of them, and there was much said of the murderers’ arms which were carried; but it does not now appear probable that there was any such intention. There was nothing to prevent its execution; for the multitude could in a moment have overpowered ten times the number of adherents that were about the royal family; and the Assembly were not seen or heard of till past six, when the mob had been parading about the palace for an hour and a half. However, the royal party did expect murder, and their suspense of three hours must have been terrible.The queen was secured, like the king, behind a table. She put a large tricolor cockade upon her head, and placed the Dauphin on a table before her. There sat poor little Louis, with a great red woollen cap covering his head, down to his very eyes, seeing how his governess and the other ladies behind his mother were terrified, and perhaps finding out how his mother’s heart was swelling, and well-nigh bursting, while her face and manner were calm and dignified. He saw, too, the horrible things that were shown in the procession. The bullock’s heart was there; and there was a little gibbet, with a little doll hung to it, and his mother’s name written below. He heard many dreadful things said to her; but he also heard her answers, and saw that they pleased the people. One angry woman stood and railed at the queen. The queen asked whether she had ever seen her before, and whether she had ever done her any injury. “No,” said the woman; “but it is you who have done the country so much harm.”“You have been told so; but you are mistaken,” said the queen. “Being the wife of the king of France, and mother of the Dauphin, I am a Frenchwoman. I shall never see my own country again; it is in France that I must be happy or unhappy. I was very happy till you began to hate me.” The woman was softened at once. She said, with tears, “I did not know you. I see now that you are good.”The queen could not in the least comprehend the hatred of royalty, which had now become common. She could not comprehend it, because she was born royal; and it seemed to her as natural that princes should be served and obeyed by everybody below them as that children should be ruled by their parents. She also knew nothing of the miseries caused for long years past by the abuse of power by both kings and nobles, and by herself among the rest. Unconscious of all this, she could make nothing of what she heard this evening from a member of the Assembly.—Some of the members arrived at six o’clock, too late to do any good. The queen directed their notice to the broken doors, bidding them observe the outrageous way in which the home of the royal family had been violated. She saw signs of emotion in the countenance of Monsieur Merlin de Thionville, and observed upon it. Monsieur Merlin replied that he felt for her as a woman, a wife, and mother, but that she must not suppose that he shed a single tear for the king or the queen; that he hated kings and queens. It was the only feeling he had towards them; it was his religion.—Now, however extravagant this man’s feelings might be, and however harsh his expression of them, such sayings might have been a valuable lesson to one who could reflect and reason upon them, and diligently try to discover how such feelings could have grown up in millions of minds. This, however, the poor queen never thought of doing. She called it madness; and felt as if in Bedlam, while surrounded by those who were of the same mind as Monsieur Merlin.At last the Mayor of Paris came. Monsieur Pétion was now mayor: the same who had pulled Louis’s hair, on the return from Varennes, a year before. He harangued the people: several others harangued; and at last the mob marched out through the broken doors of the violated palace. It was eight in the evening. When the members of this unhappy family could get to one another, again, when they felt that they were once more alone, they threw themselves into one another’s arms, weeping bitterly. The monarch and his people had met at last, face to face; and it was only to find that there was, and could be, no agreement between them. One of the parties must give way: the people were strong; the king was weak, and his ruin was now certain. Little Louis understood nothing of all this; but one wonders whether he could sleep that night,—whether he could forget the frightful procession he had seen filling the very rooms in which he lived.

The angry people rose. Twenty-thousand of the poorest, dirtiest, and most savage, went to the magistrates in a body, to declare their intention of planting the Tree of Liberty on a terrace of the Tuileries, on the 20th; and of presenting, at the same time, petitions to the king against his late prohibitions about the priests and the army. It was easy to see what sort of petitions these were likely to be; but it had become difficult to make preparation for any expected public event,—there were so many opinions to be consulted, and so much suspicion was abroad.

Early in the morning of the 20th, a tall Lombardy poplar, which the people called their tree of liberty, was lying on a car in the lower part of the city, and the people were collecting in multitudes to make a procession with it to the palace. A messenger from the magistrates spoke to the people against their scheme; but they said they were only going to do what they had a right to do: it was lawful to petition; and that was their errand. So, on they went, their numbers being swelled by groups from every by-street on their way. They drew two pieces of cannon with them, and carried abundance of tricolour flags and ribbons; and also various significant emblems, one of which was a bullock’s heart with a spear through it, labelled “the Aristocrat’s heart.” The magistrates next met them: but again the crowd declared they intended only what was lawful, and pushed on.

They read their address in the Assembly, and then went, dancing and shouting, to plant their tree. The iron gates of the Tuileries were all shut, and National soldiers and cannon appeared within; so that the tree could not be planted on the terrace, as designed. There was a convent garden near, which served their purpose, and there was the tree of liberty erected.

While this was doing, the Assembly dispersed till evening. The crowd desired that the king would come out, and hear their petition. They waited and waited, pressing against the iron gates, till some were near being pressed to death, and were not in the better humour for that. The king did not appear. After a while, the guard within were told that, if the king would not come out to his people, his people would go in to him. As usual, there was no decision in the treatment of the people. After some hesitation, the guards opened one of the gates. The multitude swarmed in; rushed at a wooden door of the palace; shivered it; and the royal household were at once at their mercy.

Now at last the sovereign and his craving people met, face to face: met, too, that they might petition, and he reply. But they were no longer fitted for coming to an understanding. They despised him as weak, and a double-dealer; and he despised them for their ignorance, their tatters, and dirt. He showed this day that he was no coward. He was indolent, irresolute, and unable to act; but he could endure. After this day, no one could, unrebuked, call him a coward. When the mob began battering upon the door of the room in which he was, he ordered it to be thrown open. Some of the gentlemen of his household had rushed in through another door, and requested him to stand in the recess of a large window. They drove up a heavy table before him, and ranged themselves in front of it. They begged him not to be alarmed. “Put your hand on my heart,” replied the king, “and see if I am afraid.” The Princess Elizabeth flew to see what was doing to her brother. She heard fierce threats from the mob against the queen. They vowed they would have the blood of the mischievous Austrian woman. The attendants begged the princess to go away from this scene. “No,” said she, “let them take me for the queen, and then she may have time to escape.” They forced her away, however, with what emotions of admiration words cannot express.

The king demanded of the riotous crowd what it was that they wanted. They cried that they would have the patriot ministers back again, and no prohibition about the clergy and the army. The king replied that this was not the way, nor the time, to settle such matters. Those who heard him must have respected him for having at last given a good and decided answer. During the rest of the time, about three hours, he stood in the recess of the window, while the mob passed to and fro before the broad table which stood between him and them. At the very beginning of the scene one of the people handed him a red woollen cap, such as the furious revolutionary people had taken to wearing, to show their patriotism. This cap the king was bid to wear. He put it on; and it was matter of complaint against him afterwards by his aristocratic adherents, that he had worn the red cap for three hours. The fact was that he did not feel the cap on the top of his hair, matted with pomatum and powder as hair then was, and forgot it, till his family noticed it on his meeting them again. He declared himself thirsty, and a ragamuffin handing him a half-empty bottle, he drank from it.

The queen had attempted, with her children, to reach the room where the king was, but could not. Each seems to have believed that it was the intention of the mob to murder one or both of them, and there was much said of the murderers’ arms which were carried; but it does not now appear probable that there was any such intention. There was nothing to prevent its execution; for the multitude could in a moment have overpowered ten times the number of adherents that were about the royal family; and the Assembly were not seen or heard of till past six, when the mob had been parading about the palace for an hour and a half. However, the royal party did expect murder, and their suspense of three hours must have been terrible.

The queen was secured, like the king, behind a table. She put a large tricolor cockade upon her head, and placed the Dauphin on a table before her. There sat poor little Louis, with a great red woollen cap covering his head, down to his very eyes, seeing how his governess and the other ladies behind his mother were terrified, and perhaps finding out how his mother’s heart was swelling, and well-nigh bursting, while her face and manner were calm and dignified. He saw, too, the horrible things that were shown in the procession. The bullock’s heart was there; and there was a little gibbet, with a little doll hung to it, and his mother’s name written below. He heard many dreadful things said to her; but he also heard her answers, and saw that they pleased the people. One angry woman stood and railed at the queen. The queen asked whether she had ever seen her before, and whether she had ever done her any injury. “No,” said the woman; “but it is you who have done the country so much harm.”

“You have been told so; but you are mistaken,” said the queen. “Being the wife of the king of France, and mother of the Dauphin, I am a Frenchwoman. I shall never see my own country again; it is in France that I must be happy or unhappy. I was very happy till you began to hate me.” The woman was softened at once. She said, with tears, “I did not know you. I see now that you are good.”

The queen could not in the least comprehend the hatred of royalty, which had now become common. She could not comprehend it, because she was born royal; and it seemed to her as natural that princes should be served and obeyed by everybody below them as that children should be ruled by their parents. She also knew nothing of the miseries caused for long years past by the abuse of power by both kings and nobles, and by herself among the rest. Unconscious of all this, she could make nothing of what she heard this evening from a member of the Assembly.—Some of the members arrived at six o’clock, too late to do any good. The queen directed their notice to the broken doors, bidding them observe the outrageous way in which the home of the royal family had been violated. She saw signs of emotion in the countenance of Monsieur Merlin de Thionville, and observed upon it. Monsieur Merlin replied that he felt for her as a woman, a wife, and mother, but that she must not suppose that he shed a single tear for the king or the queen; that he hated kings and queens. It was the only feeling he had towards them; it was his religion.—Now, however extravagant this man’s feelings might be, and however harsh his expression of them, such sayings might have been a valuable lesson to one who could reflect and reason upon them, and diligently try to discover how such feelings could have grown up in millions of minds. This, however, the poor queen never thought of doing. She called it madness; and felt as if in Bedlam, while surrounded by those who were of the same mind as Monsieur Merlin.

At last the Mayor of Paris came. Monsieur Pétion was now mayor: the same who had pulled Louis’s hair, on the return from Varennes, a year before. He harangued the people: several others harangued; and at last the mob marched out through the broken doors of the violated palace. It was eight in the evening. When the members of this unhappy family could get to one another, again, when they felt that they were once more alone, they threw themselves into one another’s arms, weeping bitterly. The monarch and his people had met at last, face to face; and it was only to find that there was, and could be, no agreement between them. One of the parties must give way: the people were strong; the king was weak, and his ruin was now certain. Little Louis understood nothing of all this; but one wonders whether he could sleep that night,—whether he could forget the frightful procession he had seen filling the very rooms in which he lived.

Volume Two—Chapter Eleven.What befell while the Queen was hoping.The secret cipher letters went now faster than ever, and seem to have been so urgent about speedy help and rescue as to have appeared somewhat peevish to friends at a distance. The queen’s sister wrote from Brussels that she hoped the royal family did not doubt the anxiety of their friends: that the danger appeared indeed as pressing as it could be represented; but that some prudence was necessary on the part of those who were preparing help, and some patience on the part of those who were awaiting it.—Alas! It was difficult for the poor queen to be patient, expecting, as she did daily, the murder of the king. Though this fear seems to have been unfounded, it caused her as much suffering as if it had been just.—She had a breastplate made for the king, of silk many times folded, and well wadded, so that it would resist the blow of a dagger, and even a pistol-ball. This under-dress was made at Madame Campan’s house; and she brought it into the palace, wearing it as an under-petticoat, that no one might see it. For three days, in the beginning of July, did Madame Campan wear this heavy warm petticoat before an opportunity could be found for the king to try it on. The occasion for which it was wanted was the 14th of July, the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille, and the date of the Independence of the Nation, as the nation chose to say: on which day the king was to appear in public.When he tried on the breastplate, he said in a low voice to Madame Campan that he wore this to satisfy the queen, but that he was persuaded he should not be assassinated, but left to be disposed of in another way. The queen afterwards made Madame Campan repeat to her what the king had said, and then observed that this was not new to her: she had seen the king much occupied of late in studying the history of Charles the First of England. The king declared that he studied this history in order to learn how to avoid the errors of Charles in dealing with his people. Alas! If he had done so twenty years before, it is doubtful whether such study could have been of any use to a ruler who had neither the knowledge nor the spirit necessary for the times. Now it was by many years too late. No one believed in his sincerity: every one despised his weakness; and he was so humbled that no act of his could have the force or the grace of freedom. The history of Charles the First is indeed a most instructive lesson to kings: but it is a lesson which must be learned and used while kings are still sitting on an honoured and unshaken throne.There were people enough in Paris grieved and shocked at the proceedings of the 20th of June to have made some stand in defence of the king,—some delay in the dissolution of society; and these people declared themselves by public acts, particularly by petitions to the Assembly. A man of spirit would have seized the occasion: and if the king had been such a man, he might possibly have risen from this point out of his misfortunes, and so have made a favourable day out of that most miserable one. But, as usual, the royal family overlooked the opportunity. They were so occupied in looking for help from Germany, that they had no attention, no trust, for friends nearer home. The Duke of Brunswick was coming with an army to rescue them. The people knew this well enough; and their panic about an invasion did not make them love the more the family at whose call the invaders were coming. On the 25th of July, the Duke of Brunswick began his march into France, and issued a proclamation which said that the whole French nation should be protected by him in rallying round their king; but that, if any parties should insult the king, or carry him away from Paris, such persons should be destroyed, and Paris blown to pieces with his cannon. As the French nation did not wish or intend to rally round their king, this proclamation made them furious, and caused the destruction of the royal family in a shorter time than it would otherwise have happened; if it had otherwise happened at all. Was ever such mournful folly heard of as marks the whole history of this unhappy king? One’s compassion, however, is chiefly for the three who were victims of this folly without sharing it. The king and queen brought much of their misery upon themselves; but the sweet Princess Elizabeth and the two children suffered without having sinned. The darkness of their lot was now gathering fast about them.It was impossible, after the late proceedings, to consider the palace safe at any hour. The queen feared assassination for herself as a foreigner, and a trial for the king, preparatory to his death upon the scaffold; and she desired to guard against any seizure of papers, which might now take place at any time. She deposited her ready money in the hands of a faithful person; and the king employed his old companion, Gamin, the locksmith, to make, in great secrecy, a safe for papers in a place where no one would suspect its existence. This fellow betrayed the secret; first, luckily, to some friends; and the queen, hearing of this, persuaded the king to empty out the safe. Gamin afterwards publicly informed the enemies of the king of this cupboard, and moreover swore that the king attempted to poison him when it was done, that the secret might be safe. This absurd calumny was believed, like everything else that was said against the royal family; and the wretch had a pension given him. Such was the king’s reward for submitting, like a timid apprentice, to this man’s insolence, while learning lock-making from him, for ten years past.General Lafayette came to Paris, to remonstrate, at the head of twenty-thousand petitioners, against the late treatment of the king. Of course, those who had done it looked coldly upon him; and so did the king. The king forbade his officers to support anything proposed by General Lafayette; and the queen refused to allow him to remove her and her family to the loyal city of Rouen. Lafayette, thus unsupported, had to hasten back to the army; and in this way the royal family insulted and dismissed the last person who could have rescued them from their impending fate.Whenever even the children appeared out of doors, they experienced such insults that they left off going anywhere beyond the palace gardens, from which the public were excluded, in order to allow the family to take the air unmolested. Such cries, however, were heard from the terrace outside, that, after being twice driven in by them, the family gave up going out at all Louis had to give up his gardening, and the sight of the flowers he had sown, and to keep within doors all these long bright summer days.The queen could not sleep much; and she ordered that neither the shutters nor blinds of her chamber should be closed, that the nights might appear less long. One night, as Madame Campan watched beside her, she fixed her eyes on the moon, and said softly, that before she saw the same moon next month, she and the king should be free. She declared that their affairs were now proceeding fast and well, and told how the army from Germany was to march, and how soon it might arrive. She admitted that there were alarming differences of advice and opinion among their followers, and spoke of the fatal consequences of the king’s irresolution; but still she hoped that another month would set them free. She was, as usual, completely mistaken. She found it so hard to bear the insults daily offered, even while expecting so speedy an end to them, that she declared she should have preferred imprisonment in a tower, on a lonely sea-shore, to her present condition. On their way through the corridor to the chapel, one Sunday, the king and she were greeted by the cry from some of the guards of “Long live the king!” but others broke in with “No, no; no king! Down with the veto!” This struck upon the queen’s heart; for it was she who had persuaded the king to put his veto, or prohibition, upon the banishment of the priests. When they were in the chapel, something worse happened. The passage “He bringeth down the mighty from their seat,” had to be sung; and when the choir came to it, they sang, or shouted it, three times as loud as any other part of the service. The king’s adherents were so angry at this that when the words came “And may the Lord keep the king in safety,” the royalists shouted out three times “And the Queen.” This indecent contention went on during the whole time of service; and the royal family found that they were no longer permitted even to worship in peace.On the 9th of August, there was much noise and confusion throughout Paris; and it became known that an insurrection was to take place the next morning. Louis knew that something was dreaded, but he slept as usual. His servant, Cléry, put him to bed at half-past eight, while it was still daylight, and then went out, to try what he could learn of the proceedings of the people. The king and queen supped at nine o’clock. While Madame Campan waited on them at table, a noise was heard outside the door. Madame Campan went to see what it was. Two of the guards were fighting,—one abusing the king, and the other insisting that he was sincere in professing to stand by the Constitution. If the queen had not before given over all idea of safety, she would now have done so. She said she knew that some of their fiercest enemies were among their guards;—not their Swiss guards, but those who wore the national uniform.This was a terrible night. It was oppressively hot; and the rooms of the palace were crowded with gentlemen, adherents of the court, who had come to devote themselves finally for their king and his family. The Swiss guards,—picked Swiss soldiers, strong and brave, hired to guard the person and palace of the sovereign,—stood silently at their posts, their red uniforms contrasting with the black clothes of the seven hundred gentlemen who waited to see what they were to do. Though these seemed a large number when collected under a roof,—though the rooms were so full that the windows had to be thrown open, and the mayor Pétion went down to walk in the gardens because the heat was so oppressive within, this was no force to oppose to a siege from the population of Paris. The king caused the plan of defence, prepared by General Vioménil, to be communicated to an officer, who said to Madame Campan, “Put your jewels and money into your pockets. There is no chance for us. The measures of defence are good for nothing. Our only chance is in the resolution of the king; and with all his virtues, he has not that.”Never yet had the king cut such a wretched figure as on this occasion. He often congratulated himself on no blood having been shed by his order: and this was one of his dying consolations. It seems never to have occurred to him that his weakness caused more destruction than even cruelty would have done. It caused not only the loss of many lives; it encouraged the breaking up of society from its very foundations; it spared the wicked, while it betrayed the faithful. It did moral injury, which it may be worse to have to answer for in the end than some acts of bloodshed. He would not have half a dozen shots fired to make a way for his coach over the bridge of Varennes; but he deserted, without a moment’s scruple, his devoted Swiss guards, as we shall see; and as he refused to suffer with them, he may be considered answerable for their lives.The clang of bells was heard by the inmates of the palace, as they stood, this summer night, by the open windows. Steeple after steeple rang out; and every one knew that this was the token of insurrection in the respective parishes. Pétion had been sent for, to answer for what was doing; he had not been civilly treated within doors, as might be supposed,—the king speaking very roughly to him. He could not get away again, as the gates were all guarded, and no one allowed to pass; so that the only thing he could well do was to walk in the gardens.At four in the morning, the National Assembly sent for him, to appear and give an account of Paris. Considering that he had been pacing the garden walks all night, the Mayor of Paris was as little able as anybody to give an account of the city; but he was glad to get away, considering his situation one of great danger.The number of the Swiss guards was a thousand. Their post was within the Tuileries. Outside were squadrons under the command of Mandat, a loyal officer, who kept them ranged with their cannon round the outer enclosures of the palace. Just at dawn, Mandat was sent for by the magistrates of the city, and went alone, suspecting no danger. To his amazement, he found that, with the exception of the mayor and one or two more, the entire magistracy was changed, and now composed of furious revolutionary men. They arrested him, and ordered him to prison; but the mob seized him on the steps, and murdered him. The question next was, what his soldiers would do now they had lost their commander. They were hungry and weary; and were heard to say how sad it would be to fire upon their own countrymen—how much easier to side with them. Now was the moment for the king to speak and act. Now he was told what a gloomy and uncertain temper these squadrons were in. He owed it to his office, to his family, to his adherents, to his Swiss guards, to endeavour to confirm these soldiers in their duty to him. A word, a look, a gesture might, in the right moment, have done it. What did he do?In the middle of the night, while all was supposed to be well among the soldiers outside, the king had retired for a while. When he appeared again, on the arrival of fresh tidings, it was seen, by the powder being rubbed off from one side of his head, that he had been lying down to get a little sleep. The queen and Princess Elizabeth also withdrew; but not to sleep. They went, with Madame Campan to attend upon them, to a small room on the ground-floor, where they lay down on couches. In preparing to lie down, the princess took out the cornelian pin which fastened her dress, and showed Madame Campan what was engraved upon it. It was the stem of a lily, with the inscription, “Oblivion of wrongs: forgiveness of injuries.”“I fear,” said the princess, “our enemies do not regard that maxim: but we must, nevertheless.” The ladies conversed sadly enough, but little imagining what was happening to Mandat. At last they heard a shot. They sprang from their couches, observing that this was the first shot, but would not be the last. They must go to the king. They did so, desiring Madame Campan to follow, and to be in waiting with the other ladies.—At four o’clock, the queen came out of the king’s apartment, saying that she had no longer any hope whatever, as Mandat was killed. Yet the king was going out to review the squadrons who had lost their commander; and the wife of a resolute and spirited king would not have been without hope. She would have hoped much from the king’s presence and appeal. It was because she knew the king so well that she had no hope.Orders were given for Louis to be taken up and brought immediately: and he was presently ready,—at a little before five, when (it being the 10th of August) it was quite light. His sister appeared too, and the whole family went out to review the soldiers, as it was said, and to see the preparations for defence. Louis had hold of his father’s hand. At first, a few voices cried “Long live the king!” but the king, pale and silent, walked on without taking any notice; and in a few moments there was a long growl, which burst into a clamour of “Long live the nation!” Some of the gunners thrust themselves forward, and shook their fists in the king’s face, uttering the grossest insults. Some of the attendants pushed them back; but the king, now white as the wall, said not a word. Followed by the ladies of his family, he walked along the line, and back again, leaving nothing but contempt behind. “All is lost,” said the queen to Madame Campan, as she entered her apartments: “the king showed no energy; and this review has done nothing but harm.” What a lot was hers! To be dragged down, with her children, to destruction, by the apathy of a husband, while she herself had spirit enough to have ruled an empire, but must not now exert it, because it would exasperate the people to have the foreigner, the Austrian, meddle with the affairs of France!What was to be done next? The Swiss, and the gentlemen and servants of the court, were all that now remained to be depended upon. The Swiss stood firm as their own Alps. The household arranged themselves in the apartments, armed, and ready for the assault from without: though no one of them could have hope of victory, or any expectation but of destruction. In this terrible hour, however, they jested; and upon a melancholy subject. They were miserably armed; and they quizzed one another and themselves for the appearance they made. None had more than a sword and a pair of pistols: one page had only a single pocket-pistol; and another page and equerry had broken a pair of tongs, and taken each a half.The insurgents were now surrounding the Tuileries, and filling the neighbourhood: and it seemed probable that the gunners, placed outside for the defence of the palace, would turn their cannon against it. The king sent a messenger to the Assembly, to request them to depute some of their body to be a safeguard to the throne in this extremity. The Assembly took no notice of the message; but went on with their regular business.The magistrate of the district saw now, from the temper of the people outside, no chance but of destruction to every individual within the palace, if once the siege began. The error was in ever pretending to make a defence, while such a helpless being as the king must be the one to give orders. It was too late to help that now. There were the cannon, with the gunners surlily asking whether it was expected of them to fire upon the people: and there were the people, too many and too angry to be got rid of. The magistrate of the district, Roederer, visited the palace, and begged a private interview with the king. He was shown into a small apartment, which the king and queen entered. Roederer proposed their going over to the Assembly without a moment’s delay, to commit themselves and their children to the protection of the representatives of the people. “No, no!” exclaimed the queen, blushing, no doubt, at the thought of the infamy of deserting, at the fatal moment, their adherents, their steady Swiss, and the servants of the household. Roederer told her that by remaining she would render herself responsible for the lives of the whole family; for that no power could save them within the walls of the palace. She said no more. The king sat, the picture of indifference, with his hands upon his knees, listening. When there was a pause, and he must say something, he looked over his shoulder to the queen, and said, “Let us go.”As they left the apartment the queen told Madame Campan to remain till either the family should return, or she should be sent for to join her mistress,—no one knew where. The family never returned.Only two ladies were permitted to accompany them,—the Princess de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel. In order to fulfil her duty,—in order not to desert Louis,—his governess was compelled to leave her daughter Pauline, only seventeen years old, in this besieged palace, among the soldiers. Pauline escaped with life and safety, and joined her mother soon after.As the king walked through the apartments of the palace, followed by his family, Roederer went before him, saying, “Make way! The king is going to the Assembly.” How these words must have pierced the hearts of his devoted servants, of his faithful Swiss! This was the reward of their brave fidelity! The king was leaving those who were ready to die rather than desert him. He was going to walk out at an open door, while they were shut in, to be shot down like game in an enclosure.The family had but a short way to go; and their passage to the Assembly was watched from the windows by some of the doomed friends whom they left behind. They walked between two rows of guards; but were yet so pressed upon that the queen was robbed of her watch and purse. Louis held his mother’s hand, and amused himself with kicking the dead leaves as he walked. A gigantic man, a ringleader of the mob, snatched up the boy, and carried him. The queen screamed with terror, and was near fainting: but the man said, “Do not be frightened: I will do him no harm.” He merely carried him, and then set him down at the gate, where a deputation from the Assembly came out, to meet the royal family. From the palace windows the royal family were seen to enter that gate; and those who saw it well knew that all hope for the royal cause was now over.The assailants without and the defenders in the outer court of the Tuileries did not know of the departure of the royal family; and the battle therefore began with fury. The gentlemen and servants had now only to think of saving themselves as they could. Some escaped from windows, and others under disguises: but many were murdered. The fate of the Swiss was dreadful. They fought bravely, and kept their ranks. At last, a messenger arrived with a written order from the king that they should cease firing. But they were still fired upon from without. They knew not what to do, and dispersed. Some few reached the Assembly, and were sheltered there. Some few more fled into private houses; but, as for the rest, their blood streamed on the floor of the palace, and their bodies blocked up the doorways. Some lay dead on the terraces, and others were shot down from street to street as they fled, fighting their way. From fifty to eighty were marched as prisoners to the Hall where the magistrates were sitting: but the crowd broke in upon them on the way, and slaughtered them every one. Their last thought might well have been, “Put not your trust in princes.” But perhaps more painful thoughts still were in their fainting hearts; and before their swimming eyes might be visions of their homes in the Swiss valleys, and their wives and children singing of them, while tending the cows on the mountain side. Yet the king who, by his orders and arrangements, gave them over to such a death as this, and deserted them at the crisis, was for ever consoling himself with the thought that not a drop of blood had ever been shed by his command.In the neighbourhood of Lucerne, in Switzerland, there is a monument to the memory of these men. Above a little lake rises a precipitous face of rock. In the midst of this the monument is hollowed out. The Swiss lion, wounded and dying, grasps with its failing claws the French shield, with the royal lilies upon it.—If the king had sent his family to the Assembly for safety, and himself remained to fall with his adherents, this monument would not have been, as it is now, a reproach upon his memory, durable as Swiss honour and as the everlasting rock.

The secret cipher letters went now faster than ever, and seem to have been so urgent about speedy help and rescue as to have appeared somewhat peevish to friends at a distance. The queen’s sister wrote from Brussels that she hoped the royal family did not doubt the anxiety of their friends: that the danger appeared indeed as pressing as it could be represented; but that some prudence was necessary on the part of those who were preparing help, and some patience on the part of those who were awaiting it.—Alas! It was difficult for the poor queen to be patient, expecting, as she did daily, the murder of the king. Though this fear seems to have been unfounded, it caused her as much suffering as if it had been just.—She had a breastplate made for the king, of silk many times folded, and well wadded, so that it would resist the blow of a dagger, and even a pistol-ball. This under-dress was made at Madame Campan’s house; and she brought it into the palace, wearing it as an under-petticoat, that no one might see it. For three days, in the beginning of July, did Madame Campan wear this heavy warm petticoat before an opportunity could be found for the king to try it on. The occasion for which it was wanted was the 14th of July, the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille, and the date of the Independence of the Nation, as the nation chose to say: on which day the king was to appear in public.

When he tried on the breastplate, he said in a low voice to Madame Campan that he wore this to satisfy the queen, but that he was persuaded he should not be assassinated, but left to be disposed of in another way. The queen afterwards made Madame Campan repeat to her what the king had said, and then observed that this was not new to her: she had seen the king much occupied of late in studying the history of Charles the First of England. The king declared that he studied this history in order to learn how to avoid the errors of Charles in dealing with his people. Alas! If he had done so twenty years before, it is doubtful whether such study could have been of any use to a ruler who had neither the knowledge nor the spirit necessary for the times. Now it was by many years too late. No one believed in his sincerity: every one despised his weakness; and he was so humbled that no act of his could have the force or the grace of freedom. The history of Charles the First is indeed a most instructive lesson to kings: but it is a lesson which must be learned and used while kings are still sitting on an honoured and unshaken throne.

There were people enough in Paris grieved and shocked at the proceedings of the 20th of June to have made some stand in defence of the king,—some delay in the dissolution of society; and these people declared themselves by public acts, particularly by petitions to the Assembly. A man of spirit would have seized the occasion: and if the king had been such a man, he might possibly have risen from this point out of his misfortunes, and so have made a favourable day out of that most miserable one. But, as usual, the royal family overlooked the opportunity. They were so occupied in looking for help from Germany, that they had no attention, no trust, for friends nearer home. The Duke of Brunswick was coming with an army to rescue them. The people knew this well enough; and their panic about an invasion did not make them love the more the family at whose call the invaders were coming. On the 25th of July, the Duke of Brunswick began his march into France, and issued a proclamation which said that the whole French nation should be protected by him in rallying round their king; but that, if any parties should insult the king, or carry him away from Paris, such persons should be destroyed, and Paris blown to pieces with his cannon. As the French nation did not wish or intend to rally round their king, this proclamation made them furious, and caused the destruction of the royal family in a shorter time than it would otherwise have happened; if it had otherwise happened at all. Was ever such mournful folly heard of as marks the whole history of this unhappy king? One’s compassion, however, is chiefly for the three who were victims of this folly without sharing it. The king and queen brought much of their misery upon themselves; but the sweet Princess Elizabeth and the two children suffered without having sinned. The darkness of their lot was now gathering fast about them.

It was impossible, after the late proceedings, to consider the palace safe at any hour. The queen feared assassination for herself as a foreigner, and a trial for the king, preparatory to his death upon the scaffold; and she desired to guard against any seizure of papers, which might now take place at any time. She deposited her ready money in the hands of a faithful person; and the king employed his old companion, Gamin, the locksmith, to make, in great secrecy, a safe for papers in a place where no one would suspect its existence. This fellow betrayed the secret; first, luckily, to some friends; and the queen, hearing of this, persuaded the king to empty out the safe. Gamin afterwards publicly informed the enemies of the king of this cupboard, and moreover swore that the king attempted to poison him when it was done, that the secret might be safe. This absurd calumny was believed, like everything else that was said against the royal family; and the wretch had a pension given him. Such was the king’s reward for submitting, like a timid apprentice, to this man’s insolence, while learning lock-making from him, for ten years past.

General Lafayette came to Paris, to remonstrate, at the head of twenty-thousand petitioners, against the late treatment of the king. Of course, those who had done it looked coldly upon him; and so did the king. The king forbade his officers to support anything proposed by General Lafayette; and the queen refused to allow him to remove her and her family to the loyal city of Rouen. Lafayette, thus unsupported, had to hasten back to the army; and in this way the royal family insulted and dismissed the last person who could have rescued them from their impending fate.

Whenever even the children appeared out of doors, they experienced such insults that they left off going anywhere beyond the palace gardens, from which the public were excluded, in order to allow the family to take the air unmolested. Such cries, however, were heard from the terrace outside, that, after being twice driven in by them, the family gave up going out at all Louis had to give up his gardening, and the sight of the flowers he had sown, and to keep within doors all these long bright summer days.

The queen could not sleep much; and she ordered that neither the shutters nor blinds of her chamber should be closed, that the nights might appear less long. One night, as Madame Campan watched beside her, she fixed her eyes on the moon, and said softly, that before she saw the same moon next month, she and the king should be free. She declared that their affairs were now proceeding fast and well, and told how the army from Germany was to march, and how soon it might arrive. She admitted that there were alarming differences of advice and opinion among their followers, and spoke of the fatal consequences of the king’s irresolution; but still she hoped that another month would set them free. She was, as usual, completely mistaken. She found it so hard to bear the insults daily offered, even while expecting so speedy an end to them, that she declared she should have preferred imprisonment in a tower, on a lonely sea-shore, to her present condition. On their way through the corridor to the chapel, one Sunday, the king and she were greeted by the cry from some of the guards of “Long live the king!” but others broke in with “No, no; no king! Down with the veto!” This struck upon the queen’s heart; for it was she who had persuaded the king to put his veto, or prohibition, upon the banishment of the priests. When they were in the chapel, something worse happened. The passage “He bringeth down the mighty from their seat,” had to be sung; and when the choir came to it, they sang, or shouted it, three times as loud as any other part of the service. The king’s adherents were so angry at this that when the words came “And may the Lord keep the king in safety,” the royalists shouted out three times “And the Queen.” This indecent contention went on during the whole time of service; and the royal family found that they were no longer permitted even to worship in peace.

On the 9th of August, there was much noise and confusion throughout Paris; and it became known that an insurrection was to take place the next morning. Louis knew that something was dreaded, but he slept as usual. His servant, Cléry, put him to bed at half-past eight, while it was still daylight, and then went out, to try what he could learn of the proceedings of the people. The king and queen supped at nine o’clock. While Madame Campan waited on them at table, a noise was heard outside the door. Madame Campan went to see what it was. Two of the guards were fighting,—one abusing the king, and the other insisting that he was sincere in professing to stand by the Constitution. If the queen had not before given over all idea of safety, she would now have done so. She said she knew that some of their fiercest enemies were among their guards;—not their Swiss guards, but those who wore the national uniform.

This was a terrible night. It was oppressively hot; and the rooms of the palace were crowded with gentlemen, adherents of the court, who had come to devote themselves finally for their king and his family. The Swiss guards,—picked Swiss soldiers, strong and brave, hired to guard the person and palace of the sovereign,—stood silently at their posts, their red uniforms contrasting with the black clothes of the seven hundred gentlemen who waited to see what they were to do. Though these seemed a large number when collected under a roof,—though the rooms were so full that the windows had to be thrown open, and the mayor Pétion went down to walk in the gardens because the heat was so oppressive within, this was no force to oppose to a siege from the population of Paris. The king caused the plan of defence, prepared by General Vioménil, to be communicated to an officer, who said to Madame Campan, “Put your jewels and money into your pockets. There is no chance for us. The measures of defence are good for nothing. Our only chance is in the resolution of the king; and with all his virtues, he has not that.”

Never yet had the king cut such a wretched figure as on this occasion. He often congratulated himself on no blood having been shed by his order: and this was one of his dying consolations. It seems never to have occurred to him that his weakness caused more destruction than even cruelty would have done. It caused not only the loss of many lives; it encouraged the breaking up of society from its very foundations; it spared the wicked, while it betrayed the faithful. It did moral injury, which it may be worse to have to answer for in the end than some acts of bloodshed. He would not have half a dozen shots fired to make a way for his coach over the bridge of Varennes; but he deserted, without a moment’s scruple, his devoted Swiss guards, as we shall see; and as he refused to suffer with them, he may be considered answerable for their lives.

The clang of bells was heard by the inmates of the palace, as they stood, this summer night, by the open windows. Steeple after steeple rang out; and every one knew that this was the token of insurrection in the respective parishes. Pétion had been sent for, to answer for what was doing; he had not been civilly treated within doors, as might be supposed,—the king speaking very roughly to him. He could not get away again, as the gates were all guarded, and no one allowed to pass; so that the only thing he could well do was to walk in the gardens.

At four in the morning, the National Assembly sent for him, to appear and give an account of Paris. Considering that he had been pacing the garden walks all night, the Mayor of Paris was as little able as anybody to give an account of the city; but he was glad to get away, considering his situation one of great danger.

The number of the Swiss guards was a thousand. Their post was within the Tuileries. Outside were squadrons under the command of Mandat, a loyal officer, who kept them ranged with their cannon round the outer enclosures of the palace. Just at dawn, Mandat was sent for by the magistrates of the city, and went alone, suspecting no danger. To his amazement, he found that, with the exception of the mayor and one or two more, the entire magistracy was changed, and now composed of furious revolutionary men. They arrested him, and ordered him to prison; but the mob seized him on the steps, and murdered him. The question next was, what his soldiers would do now they had lost their commander. They were hungry and weary; and were heard to say how sad it would be to fire upon their own countrymen—how much easier to side with them. Now was the moment for the king to speak and act. Now he was told what a gloomy and uncertain temper these squadrons were in. He owed it to his office, to his family, to his adherents, to his Swiss guards, to endeavour to confirm these soldiers in their duty to him. A word, a look, a gesture might, in the right moment, have done it. What did he do?

In the middle of the night, while all was supposed to be well among the soldiers outside, the king had retired for a while. When he appeared again, on the arrival of fresh tidings, it was seen, by the powder being rubbed off from one side of his head, that he had been lying down to get a little sleep. The queen and Princess Elizabeth also withdrew; but not to sleep. They went, with Madame Campan to attend upon them, to a small room on the ground-floor, where they lay down on couches. In preparing to lie down, the princess took out the cornelian pin which fastened her dress, and showed Madame Campan what was engraved upon it. It was the stem of a lily, with the inscription, “Oblivion of wrongs: forgiveness of injuries.”

“I fear,” said the princess, “our enemies do not regard that maxim: but we must, nevertheless.” The ladies conversed sadly enough, but little imagining what was happening to Mandat. At last they heard a shot. They sprang from their couches, observing that this was the first shot, but would not be the last. They must go to the king. They did so, desiring Madame Campan to follow, and to be in waiting with the other ladies.—At four o’clock, the queen came out of the king’s apartment, saying that she had no longer any hope whatever, as Mandat was killed. Yet the king was going out to review the squadrons who had lost their commander; and the wife of a resolute and spirited king would not have been without hope. She would have hoped much from the king’s presence and appeal. It was because she knew the king so well that she had no hope.

Orders were given for Louis to be taken up and brought immediately: and he was presently ready,—at a little before five, when (it being the 10th of August) it was quite light. His sister appeared too, and the whole family went out to review the soldiers, as it was said, and to see the preparations for defence. Louis had hold of his father’s hand. At first, a few voices cried “Long live the king!” but the king, pale and silent, walked on without taking any notice; and in a few moments there was a long growl, which burst into a clamour of “Long live the nation!” Some of the gunners thrust themselves forward, and shook their fists in the king’s face, uttering the grossest insults. Some of the attendants pushed them back; but the king, now white as the wall, said not a word. Followed by the ladies of his family, he walked along the line, and back again, leaving nothing but contempt behind. “All is lost,” said the queen to Madame Campan, as she entered her apartments: “the king showed no energy; and this review has done nothing but harm.” What a lot was hers! To be dragged down, with her children, to destruction, by the apathy of a husband, while she herself had spirit enough to have ruled an empire, but must not now exert it, because it would exasperate the people to have the foreigner, the Austrian, meddle with the affairs of France!

What was to be done next? The Swiss, and the gentlemen and servants of the court, were all that now remained to be depended upon. The Swiss stood firm as their own Alps. The household arranged themselves in the apartments, armed, and ready for the assault from without: though no one of them could have hope of victory, or any expectation but of destruction. In this terrible hour, however, they jested; and upon a melancholy subject. They were miserably armed; and they quizzed one another and themselves for the appearance they made. None had more than a sword and a pair of pistols: one page had only a single pocket-pistol; and another page and equerry had broken a pair of tongs, and taken each a half.

The insurgents were now surrounding the Tuileries, and filling the neighbourhood: and it seemed probable that the gunners, placed outside for the defence of the palace, would turn their cannon against it. The king sent a messenger to the Assembly, to request them to depute some of their body to be a safeguard to the throne in this extremity. The Assembly took no notice of the message; but went on with their regular business.

The magistrate of the district saw now, from the temper of the people outside, no chance but of destruction to every individual within the palace, if once the siege began. The error was in ever pretending to make a defence, while such a helpless being as the king must be the one to give orders. It was too late to help that now. There were the cannon, with the gunners surlily asking whether it was expected of them to fire upon the people: and there were the people, too many and too angry to be got rid of. The magistrate of the district, Roederer, visited the palace, and begged a private interview with the king. He was shown into a small apartment, which the king and queen entered. Roederer proposed their going over to the Assembly without a moment’s delay, to commit themselves and their children to the protection of the representatives of the people. “No, no!” exclaimed the queen, blushing, no doubt, at the thought of the infamy of deserting, at the fatal moment, their adherents, their steady Swiss, and the servants of the household. Roederer told her that by remaining she would render herself responsible for the lives of the whole family; for that no power could save them within the walls of the palace. She said no more. The king sat, the picture of indifference, with his hands upon his knees, listening. When there was a pause, and he must say something, he looked over his shoulder to the queen, and said, “Let us go.”

As they left the apartment the queen told Madame Campan to remain till either the family should return, or she should be sent for to join her mistress,—no one knew where. The family never returned.

Only two ladies were permitted to accompany them,—the Princess de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel. In order to fulfil her duty,—in order not to desert Louis,—his governess was compelled to leave her daughter Pauline, only seventeen years old, in this besieged palace, among the soldiers. Pauline escaped with life and safety, and joined her mother soon after.

As the king walked through the apartments of the palace, followed by his family, Roederer went before him, saying, “Make way! The king is going to the Assembly.” How these words must have pierced the hearts of his devoted servants, of his faithful Swiss! This was the reward of their brave fidelity! The king was leaving those who were ready to die rather than desert him. He was going to walk out at an open door, while they were shut in, to be shot down like game in an enclosure.

The family had but a short way to go; and their passage to the Assembly was watched from the windows by some of the doomed friends whom they left behind. They walked between two rows of guards; but were yet so pressed upon that the queen was robbed of her watch and purse. Louis held his mother’s hand, and amused himself with kicking the dead leaves as he walked. A gigantic man, a ringleader of the mob, snatched up the boy, and carried him. The queen screamed with terror, and was near fainting: but the man said, “Do not be frightened: I will do him no harm.” He merely carried him, and then set him down at the gate, where a deputation from the Assembly came out, to meet the royal family. From the palace windows the royal family were seen to enter that gate; and those who saw it well knew that all hope for the royal cause was now over.

The assailants without and the defenders in the outer court of the Tuileries did not know of the departure of the royal family; and the battle therefore began with fury. The gentlemen and servants had now only to think of saving themselves as they could. Some escaped from windows, and others under disguises: but many were murdered. The fate of the Swiss was dreadful. They fought bravely, and kept their ranks. At last, a messenger arrived with a written order from the king that they should cease firing. But they were still fired upon from without. They knew not what to do, and dispersed. Some few reached the Assembly, and were sheltered there. Some few more fled into private houses; but, as for the rest, their blood streamed on the floor of the palace, and their bodies blocked up the doorways. Some lay dead on the terraces, and others were shot down from street to street as they fled, fighting their way. From fifty to eighty were marched as prisoners to the Hall where the magistrates were sitting: but the crowd broke in upon them on the way, and slaughtered them every one. Their last thought might well have been, “Put not your trust in princes.” But perhaps more painful thoughts still were in their fainting hearts; and before their swimming eyes might be visions of their homes in the Swiss valleys, and their wives and children singing of them, while tending the cows on the mountain side. Yet the king who, by his orders and arrangements, gave them over to such a death as this, and deserted them at the crisis, was for ever consoling himself with the thought that not a drop of blood had ever been shed by his command.

In the neighbourhood of Lucerne, in Switzerland, there is a monument to the memory of these men. Above a little lake rises a precipitous face of rock. In the midst of this the monument is hollowed out. The Swiss lion, wounded and dying, grasps with its failing claws the French shield, with the royal lilies upon it.—If the king had sent his family to the Assembly for safety, and himself remained to fall with his adherents, this monument would not have been, as it is now, a reproach upon his memory, durable as Swiss honour and as the everlasting rock.

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