DEPUTATION OF THE ASSEMBLY.

167

There was no need of them to solemnise the fête. Paris was grand enough with its sun of July, its commotion, and all that population in arms. The hundred deputies, preceded by the French Guards, the Swiss, the officers of the city militia, and by the deputies of the electors, marched up the Rue Saint Honoré to the sound of trumpets. Every arm was stretched towards them, and every heart leaped with joy. From every window were showered flowers, blessings, and tears.

The National Assembly and the people of Paris, the oath of the Jeu-de-Paume and the taking of the Bastille; victory and victory, kissed each other.

Several deputies kissed and wept over the flags of the French Guards: "Flags of our native land!" cried they, "flags of liberty!"

On their arrival at the Hôtel-de-Ville, Lafayette, Bailly, the archbishop of Paris, Sieyès, and Clermont-Tonnerre were made to sit at the bureau. Lafayette spoke coolly and prudently; next, Lally Tollendal with his Irish impetuosity and easy tears. It was at that same Grève that Lally's father, thirty years before, had been gagged and beheaded by the ancien régime; his speech, full of emotion, was nothing but a sort of amnesty for the ancien régime, an amnesty certainly too premature, whilst it still kept Paris surrounded by troops.

Emotion nevertheless took effect also in the citizen assembly of the Hôtel-de-Ville. "The fattest of tender-hearted men, as Lally was called, was crowned with flowers, and led, or rather carried, to the window, and shown to the crowd. Resisting as much as he could, he put his crown on the head of Bailly, the first president the National Assembly had. Bailly likewise refused; but it was held and fastened on his head by the hand of the archbishop of Paris. A strange and whimsical spectacle, which showed, in a strong light, the false position of the parties. Here was the president of the Jeu-de-Paume, crowned by the prelate, who advised the coup d'état, and forced Paris to conquer. The contradiction was so little perceived, that the archbishop did not fear to propose a Te Deum, and everybody followed him to Nôtre Dame. It was rather a De Profundis that he first owed to those whose deaths he had occasioned.

Notwithstanding the general emotion, the people remained

168

DEPUTATION OF THE ASSEMBLY.

in their senses. They did not tamely allow their victory to be meddled with; that, we must say, was neither fair nor useful; that victory was not yet sufficiently complete to sacrifice and forget it so soon. Its moral effect was immense, but its material result still feeble and uncertain. Even in the Rue Saint Honoré, the citizen guard (then it was all the people) brought before the deputies, with military music, that French Guardsman who had been the first to arrest the governor of the Bastille; he was led in triumph in De Launey's chariot, crowned with laurel, and wearing the cross of Saint Louis, which the people had snatched from the gaoler to put upon his conqueror. He was unwilling to keep it; however, before he gave it back, in presence of the deputies, he adorned himself with it, proudly showing it upon his breast.* The crowd applauded, and so did the deputies, thus sanctioning with their approbation what had been done the day before.

Another incident was still clearer. Among the speeches made at the Hôtel-de-Ville, M. De Liancourt, a good-natured, but inconsiderate man, said that the king willingly pardoned the French Guards. Several of them, then present, stepped forward, and one of them exclaimed: "We need no pardon. In serving the nation, we serve the king; the intentions which he displays to-day prove sufficiently to France that we alone have been faithful to the king and the country.'

Bailly is proclaimed mayor, and Lafayette commandant of the citizen militia. They depart for the Te Deum. The archbishop gave his arm to that brave abbé Lefebvre who had guarded and distributed the gunpowder, who left that den for the first time, and was still quite black. Bailly was, in like manner, conducted by Hullin, applauded by the crowd, pressed, and almost stifled. Four fusileers followed him; but, notwithstanding the rejoicings of that day and the unexpected honour of his new position, he could not help thinking "that he looked

* Camille Desmoulins, so amusing here and everywhere else, triumphed also in his manner: "I marched with my sword drawn," &c., (Correspondance, p. 28, 1836). He took a fine gun with a bayonet and a pair of pistols from the Invalids; if he did not make use of them, it is because unfortunately the Bastille was taken so quickly! He ran there, but it was too late. Several go so far as to say, that it was he who caused the Revolution (p. 33); for his part, he is too modest to believe it.

like a man being led to prison.' better, he would have said

Had he been able to foresee to death!

What was that Te Deum, but a falsehood? Who could believe that the archbishop thanked God heartily for the taking of the Bastille? Nothing had changed, neither men nor principles. The court was still the court, the enemy ever the enemy. What had been done was done. Neither the National Assembly nor the electors of Paris, with all their omnipotence, could alter the past. On the 14th of July, there had been a person conquered, who was the king, and the conqueror was the people. How then were they to undo that, cause that not to be, blot out history, change the reality of actual events, and dupe the king and the people, in such a manner that the former should consider himself happy in being beaten, and the latter, without distrust, should give themselves up again into the hands of a master so cruelly provoked?

Mounier, whilst relating on the 16th, in the National Assembly, the visit of the hundred deputies to the city of Paris, made the strange proposal (resumed on the morrow and voted at the Hôtel-de-Ville) to raise a statue to Louis XVI. on the site of the demolished Bastille. A statue for a defeat! that was something new and original. The ridicule of it was apparent. Who was to be thus deceived? Was the victory indeed to be conjured away by thus allowing the vanquished to triumph?

The obstinacy of the king throughout the whole of the 14th of July, made the most simple perceive that his conduct on the 15th was by no means spontaneous. At the very moment the Assembly was conducting him back to the castle, amid this enthusiasm, feigned or real, a woman fell at his knees, and was not afraid to say: "Oh! Sire, are you really sincere? Will they not make you change?"

The population of Paris was full of gloomy ideas. They could not believe that with forty thousand men about Versailles, the court would make no attempt. They believed the king's conduct to be only intended to lull them into security, in order to attack with greater advantage. They distrusted the electors; two of the latter, deputed to Versailles on the 15th, were brought back, menaced as traitors, and in great danger. The French Guards were afraid of some ambush in their barracks, and refused to return to them. The people persisted in believing,

that if the court durst not fight, it would be revenged by some dark plot, that it might have somewhere a mine to blow Paris into the air.

Fear was not ridiculous, but confidence most certainly was. Why should they have felt secure? The troops, in spite of the promise, did not withdraw. The baron de Falckenheim, who commanded at Saint-Denis, said he had no orders. Two of his officers who had come to reconnoitre, had been arrested at the barrier. What was still more serious, was, that the lieutenant of police had given in his resignation. Berthier the intendant had absconded, and with him, all the persons charged with the administration of provisions. In a day or two, perhaps, the market would be without corn, and the people would go to the Hôtel-de-Ville to demand bread and the heads of the magis. trates. The electors sent several of their body to fetch corn from Senlis, Vernon, and even from Hâvre.

Paris was waiting for the king. It thought that if he had spoken candidly and from his heart, he would leave his Versailles and his wicked advisers, and cast himself into the arms of the people. Nothing would have been better timed, or have had a greater effect on the 15th:-he should have departed for Paris, on leaving the Assembly, and have trusted himself, not in words only, but truly, and with his person, boldly entering the crowd, and mingling with that armed population. The emotion, still so great, would have turned entirely in his favour.

That is what the people expected, what they believed and talked of. They said so at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and repeated it in the streets. The king hesitated, consulted, postponed for one day, and all was lost.

Where did he pass that irreparable day? From the evening of the 15th to the morning of the 16th, he was still shut up with those same ministers, whose audacious folly had filled Paris with bloodshed, and shaken the throne for ever. At that council, the queen wanted to fly, carry off the king, put him at the head of the troops, and begin a civil war. But, were the troops very sure? What would happen if war broke out in the army itself, between the French soldiers and the foreign mercenaries? Was it not better to temporise, gain time, and amuse the people? Louis XVI., between these two opinions,

had none of his own,-no will;* he was ready to follow either indifferently. The majority of the council were for the latter opinion; so the king remained.

A mayor and a commandant of Paris appointed by the electors without the king's consent, those places accepted by men of such importance as Bailly and Lafayette, and their nominations confirmed by the Assembly, without asking the king for any permission, was no longer an insurrection, but a well and duly organized Revolution. Lafayette, not doubting but all the communes would be willing to intrust their defence to armed citizens," proposed to call the citizen militia National Guards (a name already invented by Sieyès). This name seemed to generalize, and extend the arming of Paris to all the kingdom, even as the blue and red cockade of the city, augmented with white, the old French colours, became that of all France.

If the king remained at Versailles, if he delayed, he risked Paris. Its attitude was becoming more hostile every moment. On the districts being engaged to join their deputies to those of the Hôtel-de-Ville, in order to go and thank the king, several replied, "There was no occasion yet to return thanks."

It was not till the evening of the 16th, that Bailly having happened to see Vicq d'Azir, the queen's physician, gave him notice that the city of Paris wished for and expected the king. The king promised to go, and the same evening wrote to M. Necker to engage him to return.

On the 17th, the king departed at nine o'clock, very serious, melancholy, and pale; he had heard mass, taken the communion, and given to Monsieur his nomination as lieutenantgeneral, in case he was killed or detained prisoner; the queen, in his absence, wrote, with a trembling hand, the speech she would go and pronounce at the Assembly, if the king should be

detained.

Without guards, but surrounded by three or four hundred deputies, he arrived at the (city) barrier at three o'clock. The mayor, on presenting him the keys, said: "These are the same keys that were presented to Henri IV.; he had re

The Histoire Parlementaire is wrong in quoting a pretended letter from Louis XVI, to the Count d'Artois (v. ii., p. 101), an apocryphal and ridiculous letter, like most of those published by Miss Williams, in the Correspondance inédite, so well criticised and condemned by MM. Barbier and Beuchot.