Page images
PDF
EPUB

162

VERSAILLES, ON THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY.

to be carried off that evening; one was proscribed, another excepted; M. de Breteuil defended the innocence of Bailly. Meanwhile the queen and Madame de Polignac went into the Orangerie to encourage the troops and to order wine to be given to the soldiers, who were dancing about and singing roundelays. To complete the general intoxication, this lovely creature conducted the officers to her apartments, excited them with liqueurs, with sweet words and glances. Those madmen, once let loose, would have made a fearful night. Letters were intercepted, wherein they had written : "We are marching against the enemy." What enemy? The law and France.

But he meets with

But see! a cloud of dust is rising in the Avenue de Paris, it is a body of cavalry, with Prince de Lambesc and all his officers flying before the people of Paris. those of Versailles: if they had not been afraid of wounding the others, they would have fired upon him.

De

De Noailles arrives, saying: "The Bastille is taken." Wimpfen arrives: "The governor is killed; he saw the deed, and was nearly treated in the same way." At last, two envoys of the electors come and acquaint the Assembly with the frightful state of Paris. The Assembly is furious, and invokes against the Court and the ministers the vengeance of God and men. Heads! cried Mirabeau; "We must have De Brog lie's head!"*

[ocr errors]

A deputation of the Assembly waits upon the king, but it can get from him only two equivocal expressions: he sends officers to take the command of the local militia, and orders the troops in the Champ-de-Mars to fall back. A movement very well devised for the general attack.

The Assembly is furious and clamorous; it sends a second deputation. "The king is heart-broken, but he can do no

more.

Louis XVI., whose weakness has been so often deplored, here made a show of deplorable firmness. Berthier had come to stay with him; he was in his closet and comforted him,† telling him there was no great harm done. In the present troubled state of Paris, there was still every chance of the

Ferrières, i., p. 132.

Rapport d'Accusation, Hist. Parl., iv., p. 83.

VERSAILLES, ON THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY.

163

grand attack in the evening. However, they soon discovered that the town was on its guard. It had already placed cannon on Montmartre, which covered La Villette, and kept SaintDenis in check.

Amid the contradictory reports, the king gave no orders; and, faithful to his usual habits, retired to rest at an early hour. The Duke de Liancourt, whose duties gave him the privilege of entering at any hour, even in the night, could not see him perish thus in his apathy and ignorance. He entered, and awoke him. He loved the king, and wanted to save him. He told him the extent of his danger, the importance of the movement, its irresistible force; that he ought to meet it, get the start of the Duke of Orleans, and secure the friendship of the Assembly. Louis XVI., half asleep (and who was never entirely awake): "What then," said he, "is it a revolt?" Sire, it is a Revolution."

46

The king concealed nothing from the queen; so everything was known in the apartment of the Count d'Artois. His followers were much alarmed; royalty might save itself at their expense. One of them, who knew the prince, and that fear was the weak point in his character, secured him by saying that he was proscribed at the Palais Royal, like Flesselles and De Launey, and that he might tranquillise every mind by uniting with the king in the popular measure dictated by necessity. The same man, who was a deputy, ran to the Assembly (it was then midnight); he there found the worthy Bailly, who durst not retire to rest, and asked him, in the name of the prince, for a speech that the king might read on the morrow.

There was one man at Versailles who grieved as much as any. I mean the Duke of Orleans. On the 12th of July, his effigy had been carried in triumph, and then brutally broken to pieces. There the matter rested; nobody had cared about it. On the 13th, a few had spoken of the election of a Lieutenant-general, but the crowd seemed deaf, and either did not, or would not, hear. On the morning of the 14th, Madame de Genlis took the daring and incredible step of sending her Pamela with a lackey in red livery into the middle of the riot.* * Madame Lebrun, Souvenirs, i., p. 189.

164

VERSAILLES, ON THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY.

Somebody exclaimed: "Why it is not the queen!" And those words died away. All their petty intrigues were swamped in that immense commotion, every paltry interest was smothered in the excitement of that sacred day.

The poor Duke of Orleans went on the morning of the 15th to the council at the castle. But he had to stay at the door. He waited; then wrote; not to demand the lieutenancy-general, not to offer his mediation (as had been agreed between him, Mirabeau, and a few others), but to assure the king, as a good and loyal subject, that if matters grew worse, he would go over to England.

He did not stir all day from the Assembly, or from Versailles, and went to the castle in the evening ;* he thus made good an alibi against every accusation of being an accomplice, and washed his hands of the taking of the Bastille. Mirabeau was furious, and left him from that moment. He said (I soften the expression): "He is an eunuch for crime; he would, but cannot !

66

Whilst the duke was being kept waiting like a petitioner at the council door, Sillery-Genlis, his warm partisan, was striving to avenge him; he read, and caused to be adopted, an insidious project of address, calculated to diminish the effect of the king's visit, deprive it of the merit of being spontaneous, and chill, beforehand, every heart: " Come, sire, your majesty will see the consternation of the Assembly, but you will be perhaps astonished at its calmness," &c. And, at the same time, he announced that loads of flour going to Paris had been stopped at Sèvres. What if this news reached the capital!" To which, Mirabeau, addressing the deputies whom they were sending to the king, added these alarming words: "Go, and tell the king that the foreign hordes by which we are invested, were visited yesterday by the princes and princesses, by his male and female favourites, who lavished on them their caresses, presents, and exhortations. Tell him that all night long, those foreign satellites, gorged with wine and gold, have predicted, in their impious songs, the servitude of France, and that their brutal vows have invoked the destruction of the National Assembly. Tell him that in his very palace, his

Ferrières, i., p. 135. Droz, ii., p. 342

THE KING AT THE ASSEMBLY.

165

courtiers danced to the sounds of that barbarous music, and that such was the prelude to the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Tell him that king Henry, whose memory is adored by the universe, that ancestor of his whom he affected to wish to take as his model, ordered provisions to be sent into revolted Paris, which he was besieging in person; whilst his ferocious counsellors have driven back the corn which commerce was bringing to his starving but faithful Paris.”

As the deputation was departing, the king arrives. He enters without his guards, accompanied only by his brothers. He advances a few paces into the hall, and, standing in front of the Assembly, announces that he has given orders to the troops to remove from Paris and Versailles, and he engages the Assembly to give this information to Paris. A sad confession that his own word will obtain little credit unless the Assembly affirmed that the king has not told a lie! He added, however, more nobly and adroitly: "People have dared to spread a report that your persons are not in safety. Can it be necessary to reassure you against such wicked rumours, already belied by my wellknown character? Well then, I, who am but one with the nation, I come to intrust myself to you!"

To remove the troops from Paris and Versailles, without stating any distance, was yet but an equivocal, uncertain promise, that gave but little comfort. But the Assembly were generally so alarmed at the obscure immensity opening before them, so stupefied by the victory of Paris, and had so much need of order, that they showed themselves credulous, enthusiastic for the king, even so far as to forget what they owed to themselves.

They all rushed round him and followed him. He returned on foot. The Assembly and the people crowded about him to suffocation; the king, who was very corpulent, was quite exhausted in crossing the Place d'Armes in such scorching weather; deputies, among whom was the Duke of Orleans, formed a circle around him. On his arrival, the Swiss band played the air: "Où peut on être mieux qu'au sein de sa famille?" A family too limited in number: the people formed no part of it; the gates being shut against them. The king gave orders to open them again. However, he declined to receive the deputies who wished to see him once more; he

166

PARIS IN MOURNING AND MISERY.

was going to his chapel to return thanks to God.* The queen appeared in the balcony with her children, and those of the Count d'Artois, with all the appearance of great delight, and hardly knowing what to think of an enthusiasm so ill deserved.

Versailles was overcome with joy. Paris, in spite of its victory, was still in alarm and affliction. It was burying its dead; many of them had left families without resource. Such as had no family received the last duties from their companions. They had placed a hat beside one of the dead, and said to passengers: "Sir, something for this poor fellow who was killed for the nation! Madam, it is for this poor fellow who was killed for the nation!"† An humble and simple funeral oration for men whose death gave life to France.

Everybody was guarding Paris; nobody was working. There was no work; food was scarce and dear. The Hôtelde-Ville maintained that Paris had provision enough for a fortnight; but it had not enough for three days. It was necessary to order a tax for the subsistence of the poor. The supplies of flour had been stopped at Sèvres and Saint-Denis. Two fresh regiments arrived while they were promising to send back the troops. The hussars came and reconnoitered the barriers; and a report was spread that they had attempted to surprise the Bastille. At length the alarm was so great, that, at two o'clock, the electors could not refuse the people an order to unpave Paris.

66

At two o'clock precisely, a man arrives breathless and almost fainting. He had run all the way from Sèvres, where the troops wanted to stop him. It is all over; the Revolution is finished; the king came into the Assembly, and said: I trust myself to you.' A hundred deputies are now on their road from Versailles, sent by the Assembly to the city of Paris."

6

Those deputies had immediately set forth; Bailly would not dine. The electors had barely the time to run to meet them, just as they were, in disorder, not having been to bed for several nights. They wanted to fire the cannon; but they were still ranged er batterie, and could not be got ready.

* Point du Jour, No. 35, t. i., p. 207.

+ Lettres écrites de France à un Ami, p. 29, quoted in Dussaulx's Notes, P. 333.

Procès-verbal des Electeurs, rédigé par Duveyrier, i., p. 431.

« PreviousContinue »