The Royal Life Guard; or, the flight of the royal family. A historical romance of the suppression of the French monarchy

Pitou took charge of the other details. Reluctant to visit Father Fortier, with whom he stood on delicate ground, he ordered the mortuary mass of the sacristan, and engaged the...

"Sire," said Isidore, the first to shake it off; "dead or living, let us not think of our brother, but of your Majesty. There is not an instant to lose. These fellows must know...

Some months after recorded events, about the end of March, 1791, Dr. Gilbert was hurriedly called to his friend Mirabeau, by the latter's faithful servant Deutsch, who had been...

"Billet," began Charny, "how comes it that you are here on an errand of vengeance? I thought you were the friend of your superiors the nobles, and, besides, a faithful and sound...

They advanced slowly, for the carriage could not move but at the gait of the escort, and that was composed mostly of men on foot. Their ranks were filled up with women and child...

The Queen was therefore checked in her first impulse which was to rush to the new arrival, sponge away the blood with her handkerchief and address him some of the comforting wor...

On arriving at Dormans, the party had to get out at an inn as nothing was prepared for them. Either from Petion's orders or from the Royal Family's snubbing him on the journey h...

On the Field of Mars the Altar of the Country still stood, set up for the anniversary of the Bastile Capture, a skeleton of the past. On this sixteenth of July, it was used as a...

The Queen had noticed the absence of Charny, but she could not slacken the pace or question the postboys. She did lean out a dozen times but she discovered nothing.

She was apparently calm but was deeply moved, as she spoke with Isidore, who wore a courier's dress. It was composed of a buff leather riding jacket, tight breeches of buckskin...

Eighty-three trees, one for each department of France, were stuck up to show the space occupied by the infamous states-prison, on whose foundation these trees of liberty were pl...

When the Queen came to her senses she was in her sleeping room in the Tuileries. Her favorite bed-chamber women, Lady Misery and Madam Campan were at hand. Though they told her...

It is easy for us who know the state of Andrea's heart to imagine what she suffered from the time of Isidore's leaving. She trembled for the grand plot failing or succeeding. If...

"You do not know me, brothers," said the stranger, when Billet had nodded and Pitou smiled condescendingly, "but I know you both. You are Captain Pitou, and you, Farmer Billet....

The royal carriage sadly travelled the Paris Road, watched by the two moody men who had forced it to alter its direction. Between Epernay and Dormans, Charny, from his stature a...

The Queen had not taken ten paces beyond the gateway before a man in a blue garrick and with his face hidden by a tarpaulin hat, caught her convulsively by the arm and dragged h...

"Gentlemen, do not trust to the feigned tranquility of our masters; the position is not hopeless and we must look it in the face. The probability is that at present, Marquis Bou...

Mirabeau had favored the movement, thinking that the King would gain by the country people coming to Paris, where they might overpower the citizens. He deluded himself into the...

Hardly was the door closed behind the last before the Master said holding up his hand quickly like one who knew the value of time, and wished not to lose a second:

On the morning of the second of April, an hour before Mirabeau yielded up his last breath, a superior officer of the navy, wearing his full dress uniform of captain, entered the...

Charny's flight was patent; the window was being closed by the Colonel after him; by bending forward Billet could see the count vaulting over the garden wall. It followed that t...

"Gentlemen," he began, "yesterday, M. Petion proposed that you should flee in disguise, but the Queen and I opposed the plan for fear it was a plot. This day he repeats the offe...

The Queen had sent her confidential valet Weber to the spot to get the latest news. To be just to her and comprehend the hatred she felt for the French, she had not only so suff...

On the day of the King taking the oath to the Constitution, Lafayette's aids and soldiers had been withdrawn from the palace and the King had become less hampered if not more po...

Had Isidore been alive and she were coming to visit her mother in health, she would have got down from the stage at the end of the village and slipped round upon her father's fa...

At this period hospitals were far from being organized as at present, particularly military ones like this which was receiving the injured in the massacre, while the dead were b...

France had been changed to a limited monarchy from an absolute one, and King Louis XVI. had solemnly sworn to defend the new Constitution. But it had been remarked by shrewd obs...

Knowing that a detachment of soldiery was to be at Sommevelle, Charny had thought he need not linger and had galloped beside the door, urging on the postillions and keeping them...

Scarcely was she seated before her heart overflowed and she burst into sobs. They were so sincere and forcible that they went down into the depths of Charny's heart and sought f...

Lugubrious was the scene which met the eye of a young man who trod the Champ de Mars, after the tragedy of which Bailly and Lafayette were the principal actors.

On the morning of the twenty-first of June, the Count of Choiseul, who had notified the King that he could wait no longer but must pick up his detachments along the road and fal...