Part 20

Work away, then, insurgents! This unknown young man, this "straight-haired Corsican," hidden in the crowd, will be the master of you all! He will crush the Revolution, he will made himself all-powerful in that palace of the Tuileries where the riot is lording it at this moment! And after him, the brother of the King whom you insult to-day and will kill to-morrow, the Count de Provence, that _émigré_ who is the object of your hatred, will triumphantly enter the palace of his forefathers. And each of them in his turn, the Corsican gentleman and the brother of Louis XVI., will be received with the same transports in that fatal palace which is now red with the blood of the Swiss! How surprised these people would be if they could foresee what the future has in store for them! Among these frenzied demagogues, these ultra-revolutionists, these dishevelled Marseillais with lips blackened by powder, and jackets all blood, how many will be the fanatical admirers and soldiers of a Cæsar!

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XXXI.

THE RESULTS OF THE COMBAT.

The results of the combat were, at the Assembly, the decree of suspension, or, rather, the decree of deposition; at the Tuileries, devastation, massacre, and conflagration. From the moment when he ordered his last defenders to lay down their arms, Louis XVI. was but the phantom of a king.

While the fight was going on, Robespierre had remained in hiding; Marat had not quitted the bottom of a cellar. Even Danton, the man of "audacity," did not show himself until after the last shot had been fired. But now that fate had declared for the Revolution, those who were trembling and hesitating a moment since, were those who talked the loudest. Louis XVI., who had been dreaded a few minutes ago, was insulted and jeered at. The National Assembly, royalist in the morning, became the accomplice of the republicans during the day. It perceived, moreover, that the 10th of August was aimed at it not less than at the throne, and that its own downfall would be contemporaneous with that of royalty.

Huguenin, the president of the new Commune, came boldly to the bar, and said to the deputies: {317} "The people is your sovereign as well as ours!" Another individual, likewise at the bar, exclaimed in a menacing tone: "For a long time the people has asked you to pronounce the deposition, and you have not even yet pronounced the suspension! Know that the Tuileries is on fire, and that we shall not extinguish it until the vengeance of the people has been satisfied!" Vergniaud, who in the morning had promised the King the support of the Assembly, no longer even attempted to stem the revolutionary tide. He came down from the president's chair, and went to a desk to write the decree which should give a legislative form to the will of the insurrection. In virtue of this decree, which Vergniaud read from the tribune, and which was unanimously adopted, the royal power was suspended and a National Convention convoked. In reality this was a veritable deposition, and yet the Assembly still hesitated to give the last shock which should uproot the royal tree that had sheltered beneath its branches so many faithful generations. It declared that in default of a civil list, a salary should be granted to the King during his suspension; that Louis XVI. and his family should have a palace, the Luxembourg, for a residence, and that he should be appointed governor of the Prince-royal.

Concerning this, Madame de Staël has remarked in her _Considerations sur les principaux événements de la Révolution française_: "Ambition for power mingled with the enthusiasm of principles in the republicans {318} of 1792, and several among them offered to maintain royalty if all the ministerial places were given to their friends.... The throne they attacked served to shelter them, and it was not until after they had triumphed that they found themselves exposed before the people." What the Girondins wanted was merely a change in the ministry; it was not a revolution. Vergniaud felt that he had been distanced. When he read the act of deposition, his voice was sad, his attitude dejected, and his action feeble. Did he foresee that the King and himself would die at the same place, on the same scaffold, and only nine months apart?

Louis XVI. listened to the invectives launched against him, and to the decree depriving him of royal power, without a change of color. At the very moment when the vote was taken, he bent towards Deputy Coustard, who sat beside the box of the _Logographe_, and said with the greatest tranquillity: "What you are doing there is not very constitutional." Impassive, and speaking of himself as of a king who had lived a thousand years before, he leaned his elbows on the front of the box, and looked on, like a disinterested spectator, at the lugubrious spectacle that was unrolled before him.

Marie Antoinette, on the contrary, was shuddering. So long as the combat lasted, a secret hope had thrilled her. But when she saw them bringing to the Assembly and laying on the table the jewel-cases, trinkets, and portfolios which the insurgents had just {319} taken from her bedroom at the Tuileries; when she heard the victorious cries of the rioters; when Vergniaud's voice sounded in her ears like a funeral knell--she could hardly contain her grief and indignation. For one instant she closed her eyes. But presently she haughtily raised her head.

The tide was rising, rising incessantly. Petitioners demanded sometimes the deposition, and sometimes the death, of the King. This dialogue was overheard between the painter David and Merlin de Thionville, who were talking together about Louis XVI.: "Would you believe it? Just now he asked me, as I was passing his box, if I would soon have his portrait finished."--"Bah! and what did you say?"--"That I would never paint the portrait of a tyrant again until I should have his head in my hat."--"Admirable! I don't know a more sublime answer, even in antiquity."

The demands of the Revolution grew greater from minute to minute. In the decree of deposition which had been voted on Vergniaud's proposition, it was stipulated that the ministers should continue to exercise their functions. A few instants later, Brissot caused it to be decreed that they had lost the nation's confidence. A new ministry was nominated during the session. The three ministers dismissed before June 20--Roland, Clavière, and Servan--were reinstalled by acclamation in the ministries of the Interior, of Finances, and of War. The other ministers were chosen by ballot: Danton was nominated to that {320} of Justice by 282 votes, Monge to the Marine by 150, and Lebrun-Tondu to Foreign Affairs by 100. This ballot established the fact that out of the 749 members composing the Assembly, but 284 were present. Two days before, 680 had voted on the question concerning Lafayette, and now, at the moment of the final crisis, not more than 284 could be found! All the others had disappeared, through fear or through disgust. The Revolution was accomplished by an Assembly thus reduced, and a Commune whose members had appointed themselves. Marie Antoinette, in her pride as Queen, was unable to conceive that there could be anything serious in such a government. When Lebrun-Tondu's appointment was announced, she leaned towards Bigot de Sainte-Croix, and said in his ear: "I hope you will none the less believe yourself Minister of Foreign Affairs."

The unfortunate royal family were still prisoners in the narrow box of the _Logographe_. The heat there was horrible: the sun scorched the white walls of this furnace where the captives listened, as in a place of torture, to the most ignoble insults and the most sanguinary threats.

At seven o'clock in the evening, Count François de la Rochefoucauld succeeded in approaching the box of the _Logographe_. He thus describes its aspect at this hour: "I approached the King's box; it was unguarded except by some wretches who were drunk and paid no attention to me, so that I half-opened the door. I saw the King with a fatigued and {321} downcast face; he was sitting on the front of the box, coldly observing through his lorgnette the scoundrels who were talking, sometimes one after another, and sometimes all together. Near him was the Queen, whose tears and perspiration had completely drenched her fichu and her handkerchief. The Dauphin was asleep on her lap, and resting partly also on that of Madame de Tourzel. Mesdames Elisabeth, de Lamballe, and Madame the King's daughter were at the back of the box. I offered my services to the King, who replied that it would be too dangerous to try to see him again, and added that he was going to the Luxembourg that evening. The Queen asked me for a handkerchief; I had none; mine had served to bind up the wounds of the Viscount de Maillé, whom I had rescued from some pikemen. I went out to look for a handkerchief, and borrowed one from the keeper of the refreshment-room; but as I was taking it to the Queen, the sentinels were relieved, and I found it impossible to approach the box."

We have just seen what occurred at the Assembly after the close of the combat. Cast now a glance at the Tuileries. What horrible scenes, what cries of grief, how many wounded, dead, and dying, what streams of blood! What had become of those Swiss who, either in consequence of their wounds, or through some other motive, had been obliged to remain at the palace? Eighty of them had defended the grand staircase like heroes, against an immense crowd, and died after prodigies of valor. Seventeen {322} Swiss who were posted in the chapel, and who had not fired a shot since the fight began, hoped to save their lives by laying down their arms. It was a mistake. They had their throats cut like the others. Two ushers of the King's chamber, MM. Pallas and de Marchais, sword in hand, and hats pulled down over their eyes, said: "We don't want to live any longer; this is our post; we ought to die here!" and they were killed at the door of their master's chamber.

M. Dieu died in the same way on the threshold of the Queen's bedroom. A certain number of nobles who had not followed the King to the Assembly succeeded in escaping the blows of the assassins. Passing through the suite of large apartments towards the Louvre Gallery, they rejoined there some soldiers detailed to guard an opening contrived in the flooring, so as to prevent the assailants from entering by that way. They crossed this opening on boards, and reached the extremity of the gallery unhindered; then, going down the staircase of Catharine de Medici, they managed to gain the streets near the Louvre. These may have been saved. But woe to all men, no matter what their conditions, who remained in the Tuileries! Domestic servants, ushers, laborers, every soul was put to death. They killed even the dying, even the surgeons who were caring for the wounded. It is Barbaroux himself who describes the murderers as "cowardly fugitives during the action, assassins after the victory, butchers {323} of dead bodies which they stabbed with their swords so as to give themselves the honors of the combat. In the apartments, on roofs, and in cellars, they massacred the Swiss, armed or disarmed, the chevaliers, soldiers, and all who peopled the chateau.... Our devotion was of no avail," says Barbaroux again; "we were speaking to men who no longer recognized us."

And the women, what was their fate? When the firing began, the Queen's ladies and the Princesses descended to Marie Antoinette's apartments on the ground-floor. They closed the shutters, hoping to incur less danger, and lighted a candle so as not to be in total darkness. Then Mademoiselle Pauline de Tourzel exclaimed: "Let us light all the candles in the chandelier, the sconces, and the torches; if the brigands force open the door, the astonishment so many lights will cause them may delay the first blow and give us time to speak." The ladies set to work. When the invaders broke in, sabre in hand, the numberless lights, which were repeated also in the mirrors, made such a contrast with the daylight they had just left, that for a moment they remained stupefied. And yet, the Princess de Tarente, Madame de La Roche-Aymon, Mademoiselle de Tourzel, Madame de Ginestons, and all the other ladies were about to perish when a man with a long beard made his appearance, crying to the assassins in Pétion's name: "Spare the women; do not dishonor the nation."

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Madame Campan had attempted to go up a stairway in pursuit of her sister. The murderers followed her. She already felt a terrible hand against her back, trying to seize her by her clothes, when some one cried from the foot of the stairs: "What are you doing up there?"--"Hey!" said the murderer, in a tone that did not soon leave the trembling woman's ears. The other voice replied: "We don't kill women." The Revolution goes fast; it will kill them next year. Madame Campan was on her knees. Her executioner let go his hold. "Get up, hussy," he said to her, "the nation spares you!" In going back she walked over corpses; she recognized that of the old Viscount de Broves. The Queen had sent word to him and to another old man as the last night began, that she desired them to go home. He had replied: "We have been only too obedient to the King's orders in all circumstances when it was necessary to expose our lives to save him; this time we will not obey, and will simply preserve the memory of the Queen's kindness."

What a sight the Tuileries presented! People walked on nothing but dead bodies. A comic actor drank a glass of blood, the blood of a Swiss; one might have thought himself at a feast of Atreus. The furniture was broken, the secretaries forced open, the mirrors smashed to pieces. Prudhomme, the journalist of the _Révolutions de Paris_, thinks that "Medicis-Antoinette has too long studied in them {325} the hypocritical look she wears in public." What a sinister carnival! Drunken women and prostitutes put on the Queen's dresses and sprawl on her bed. Through the cellar gratings one can see a thousand hands groping in the sand, and drawing forth bottles of wine. Everywhere people are laughing, drinking, killing. The royal wine runs in streams. Torrents of wine, torrents of blood. The apartments, the staircase, the vestibule, are crimson pools. Disfigured corpses, pictures thrust through with pikes, musicians' stands thrown on the altar, the organ dismounted, broken,--that is how the chapel looks. But to rob and murder is not enough: they will kindle a conflagration. It devours the stables of the mounted guards, all the buildings in the courts, the house of the governor of the palace: eighteen hundred yards of barracks, huts, and houses. Already the fire is gaining on the Pavilion of Marsan and the Pavilion of Flora. The flames are perceived at the Assembly. A deputy asks to have the firemen sent to fight this fire which threatens the whole quarter Saint-Honoré. Somebody remarks that this is the Commune's business. But the Commune, to use a phrase then in vogue, thinks it has something else to do besides preventing the destruction of the tyrant's palace. It turns a deaf ear. The messenger returns to the Assembly. It is remarked that the flames are doing terrible damage. The president decides to send orders to the firemen. But the firemen return, saying: "We can do nothing. They {326} are firing on us. They want to throw us into the fire." What is to be done? The president bethinks himself of a "patriot" architect, Citizen Palloy, who generally makes his appearance whenever there are "patriotic" demolitions to be accomplished. It is he whom they send to the palace, and who succeeds in getting the flames extinguished. The Tuileries are not burned up this time. The work of the incendiaries of 1792 was only to be finished by the petroleurs of 1871.

Night was come. A great number of the Parisian population were groaning, but the revolutionists triumphed with joy. Curiosity to see the morning battle-field, urged the indolent, who had stayed at home all day, towards the quays, the Champs-Elysées, and the Tuileries. They looked at the trees under which the Swiss had fallen, at the windows of the apartments where the massacres had taken place, at the ravages made by the hardly extinguished fire. The buildings in the three courts: Court of the Princes, Court Royal, Court of the Swiss, had been completely consumed. Thenceforward these three courts formed only one, separated from the Carrousel by a board partition which remained until 1800, and was replaced by a grating finished on the very day when the First Consul came to install himself at the Tuileries. The inscription which was placed above the wooden partition: "On August 10 royalty was abolished; it will never rise again," disappeared even before the proclamation of the Empire.

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Squads of laborers gathered up the dead bodies and threw them into tumbrels. At midnight an immense pile was erected on the Carrousel with timbers and furniture from the palace. There the corpses of the victims that had strewed the courts, the vestibule, and the apartments were heaped up, and set on fire.

The National Guard had disappeared; it figured with the King and the Assembly itself, among the vanquished of the day. Instead of its bayonets and uniforms one saw nothing in the stations and patrols that divided Paris but pikes and tatters. "Some one came to tell me," relates Madame de Staël, "that all of my friends who had been on guard outside the palace, had been seized and massacred. I went out at once to learn the news; the coachman who drove me was stopped at the bridge by men who silently made signs that they were murdering on the other side. After two hours of useless efforts to pass I learned that all those in whom I was interested were still living, but that most of them had been obliged to hide in order to escape the proscription with which they were threatened. When I went to see them in the evening, on foot, and in the mean houses where they had been able to find shelter, I found armed men lying before the doors, stupid with drink, and only half waking to utter execrable curses. Several women of the people were in the same state, and their vociferations were more odious still. Whenever a patrol intended to maintain order made its appearance, {328} honest people fled out of its way; for what they called maintaining order was to contribute to the triumph of assassins and rid them of all hindrances."

At last the city was going to rest a while after so much emotion! It was three o'clock in the morning. The Assembly, which had been in session for twenty-four hours, adjourned. Only a few members remained in the hall to maintain the permanence proclaimed at the beginning of the crisis. The inspectors of the hall came for Louis XVI. and his family, to conduct them, not to the Luxembourg, but to the upper story of the convent of the Feuillants, above the corridor where the offices and committees of the Assembly had been established. It was there, in the cells of the monks, that the royal family were to pass the night. Then all was silent once more. Royalty was dying!

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XXXII.

THE ROYAL-FAMILY IN THE CONVENT OF THE FEUILLANTS.

What a strange prison was this dilapidated old monastery, these little cells, not lived in for two years, with their flooring half-destroyed, and their narrow windows looking down into courts full of men drunken with wine and blood! By the light of candles stuck into gun-barrels the royal family entered this gloomy lodging. Trembling for her son, who was frightened, the Queen took him from M. Aubier's arms and whispered to him. The child grew calmer. "Mamma," said he, "has promised to let me sleep in her room because I was very good before all those wicked men." Four cells, all opening by similar small doors upon the same corridor, comprised the quarters of the royal family. What a night! The souvenirs of the previous day came back like dismal dreams. Their ears were still deafened with furious cries. They seemed to see the blood of the Swiss flowing like a torrent, the pyramids of corpses in red uniforms, the flames of the terrible conflagration sweeping the approaches to the Tuileries. Marie Antoinette seems under an {330} hallucination; her emotions break her down. Is this woman, confided to the care of an unknown servant, in this deserted old convent, really she? Is this the Queen of France and Navarre? This the daughter of the great Empress Maria Theresa? What uncertainty rests over the fate of her most faithful servitors! What news will she yet learn? Who has fallen? Who has survived the carnage? The hours of the night wear on; Marie Antoinette has not been able to sleep a moment.

The Marquis de Tourzel and M. d'Aubier remained near the King's bedside. Before sleeping, he talked to them with the utmost calmness of all that had taken place. "People regret," said he, "that I did not have the rebels attacked before they could have forced the Assembly; but besides the fact that in accordance with the terms of the Constitution, the National Guards might have refused to be the aggressors, what would have been the result of this attack? The measures of the insurrection were too well taken for my party to have been victorious, even if I had not left the Tuileries. Do they forget that when the seditious Commune massacred M. Mandat, it rendered his projected defence of no avail?" While Louis XVI. was saying this, the men placed under the windows were shouting loudly for the Queen's head. "What has she done to them?" cried the unfortunate sovereign.

The next morning, August 11, several persons were authorized to enter the cells of the convent. {331} Among them was one of the officers of the King's bedchamber, François Hue, who had incurred the greatest dangers on the previous day. Cards of admission were distributed by the inspector of the Assembly hall. A large guard was stationed at all the issues of the corridor. No one could pass without being stopped and questioned. After surmounting all obstacles, M. Hue reached the cell of Louis XVI. The King was still in bed, with his head covered by a coarse cloth. He looked tenderly at his faithful servant. M. Hue, who could scarcely speak for sobbing, apprised his unhappy master of the tragic death of several persons whom His Majesty was especially fond of, among others, the Chevalier d'Allonville, who had been under-governor to the first Dauphin, and several officers of the bedchamber: MM. Le Tellier, Pallas, and de Marchais. "I have, at least," said Louis XVI., "the consolation of seeing you saved from this massacre!"

All night long, Madame Elisabeth, the Princess de Lamballe, and Madame de Tourzel had prayed and wept in silence at the door of the chamber where Marie Antoinette watched beside her sleeping children. It was not until morning, after cruel insomnia, that the wretched Queen was at last able to close her eyes. And when, after a few minutes, she opened them again, what an awakening!