172 THE KING GOES TO PARIS. conquered his people, now the people have re-conquered their king.' Those last words, so true and so strong, the full meaning of which was not perceived, even by Bailly, were enthusiastically applauded. The Place Louis XV. presented a circle of troops, with the French Guards, drawn up in a square battalion, in the centre. The battalion opened and formed into file, displaying cannon in the midst (perhaps those of the Bastille). It put itself at the head of the procession, dragging its cannon after it—and the king followed. In front of the king's carriage rode Lafayette, the commandant, in a private dress, sword in hand, with the cockade and plume in his hat. Everything was obedient to his slightest gesture. There was complete order and silence too; not one cry of Vive le Roi,* Now and then, they cried Vive la Nation. From the Point-du-Jour to Paris, and from the barrier to the Hôtel-de-Ville, there were two hundred thousand men under arms, more than thirty thousand guns, fifty thousand pikes, and, for the others, lances, sabres, swords, pitchforks, and scythes. No uniforms, but two regular lines, throughout that immense extent, of three, and sometimes of four or five men deep. A formidable apparition of the nation in arms! could not misunderstand it; it was not a party. many weapons and so many different dresses, there same soul and the same silence! The king Amid so was the Everybody was there; all had wanted to come; nobody was missing at that solemn review. Even ladies were seen armed beside their husbands, and girls with their fathers. figured among the conquerors of the Bastille. A woman Monks, believing also that they were men and citizens, had come to take their part in that grand crusade. The Mathurins were in their ranks under the banner of their order, now become * Save one mishap; one gun went off, and a woman was killed. There was no bad intention towards the king. Everybody was royalist, both the Assembly and the people: even Marat was till 1791. In an unpublished letter of Robespierre's (which M. De George communicated to me at Arras), he seems to believe in the good faith of Louis XVI., whose visit to the city of Paris is therein related, (23rd of July, 1789). THE KING GOES TO PARIS. 173 the standard of the district of that name. Capucins were there shouldering the sword or the musket. The ladies of the Place Maubert had put the revolution of Paris under the protection of Saint Geneviève, and offered on the preceding evening a picture wherein the saint was encouraging the destroying angel to overthrow the Bastille, which was seen falling to pieces with broken. crowns and sceptres. Two men only were applauded, Bailly and Lafayette, and no others. The deputies marched surrounding the king's carriage, with sorrowful, uneasy looks; there was something gloomy about that procession. Those strange looking weapons, those pitch-forks and scythes, were not pleasing to the eye. Those cannon reclining so quietly in the streets, silent, and bedecked with flowers, seemed as though they would awake. Above all the apparent signs of peace hovered a conspicuous and significant image of war, the tattered flag of the Bastille. The king alights, and Bailly presents to him the new cockade of the colours of the city, which had become those of France. He begs of him to accept "that distinguishing symbol of Frenchmen." The king put it in his hat, and, separated from his suite by the crowd, ascended the gloomy stairs of the Hôtelde-Ville. Over head, swords placed crosswise formed a canopy of steel; a singular honour, borrowed from the masonic customs, which seemed to have a double meaning, and might lead to suppose that the king was passing under the yoke. There was no intention to cause either humiliation or displeasure. On the contrary, he was received with extraordinary emotion. The great hall, crowded with a confused mass of notables and men of every class, presented a strange spectacle; those in the middle remained kneeling, in order not to deprive the others of the happiness of seeing the king, and all had their hands raised towards the throne, and their eyes full of tears. Bailly, in his speech, had pronounced the word alliance between the king and the people. The president of the electors, Moreau de Saint Méry (he who had been chairman during the great days, and given three thousand orders in thirty hours) ventured a word that seemed to engage the king: "You come to promise your subjects that the authors of those disastrous councils shall surround you no longer, and that Virtue, too long exiled, shall remain your support. Virtue meant Necker.. 174 THE KING GOES TO PARIS. The king, from timidity or prudence, said nothing. The city proctor then made a proposal to raise a statue on the Place de la Bastille; it was voted unanimously. Next, Lally, always eloquent, only too tender-hearted and lachrymose, avowed the king's chagrin, and the need he had of consolation. This was showing him as conquered, instead of associating him with the victory of the people over the ministers who were departing. "Well, citizens, are you satisfied! Behold the king," &c. That Behold, thrice repeated, seemed like a sad parody of Ecce Homo. Those who had noticed that similitude found it exact and complete, when Bailly showed the king at the window of the Hôtel-de-Ville, with the cockade in his hat. He remained On his de there a quarter of an hour, serious and silent. parture it was intimated to him, in a whisper, that he ought to say something himself. But all they could get from him was the ratification of the citizen guard, the mayor, and the commandant, and the very laconic sentence: You may always rely on my affection." The electors were satisfied, but not so the people. They had imagined that tne king, rid of his bad advisers, had come to fraternize with the city of Paris. But, what! not one word, not one gesture! Nevertheless, the crowd applauded on his return; they seemed to desire to give vent at length to their long restrained feelings. Every weapon was reversed in sign of peace. They shouted Vive le Roi, and he was carried to his carriage. A market-woman flung her arms round his neck. Men with bottles stopped his horses, poured out wine for his coachman and valets, and drank with them the health of the king. He smiled, but still said nothing. The least kind word, uttered at that moment, would have been re-echoed and celebrated with immense effect. It was past nine in the evening when he returned to the castle. On the staircase he found the queen and his children in tears, who came and threw themselves into his arms. Had the king then incurred some alarming danger in going to visit his people? Was his people his enemy? Why what more would they have done for a king set at liberty, for John or Francis I., returning from London or Madrid? On the same day, Friday, the 17th, as if to protest that the king neither said nor did anything at Paris but by force and constraint, his brother the Count d'Artois, the Condés, the Contis, the Polignacs, Vaudreuil, Broglie, Lambesc, and others, absconded from France. It was no easy matter. They found everywhere their names held in detestation, and the people rising against them. The Polignacs and Vaudreuils were only able to escape by declaiming along their road against Vaudreuil and Polignac. The conspiracy of the court, aggravated with a thousand popular accounts, both strange and horrible, had seized upon every imagination, and rendered them incurably suspicious and distrustful. Versailles, excited at least as much as Paris, watched the castle night and day as the centre of treason. That immense palace seemed a desert. Many durst no longer enter it. The north wing, appropriated to the Condés, was almost empty; the south wing, that of the Count d'Artois, and the seven vast apartments of the ladies Polignac were shut up for ever. Several of the king's servants would have liked to forsake their master. They were beginning to entertain strange ideas about him. For three days, says Besenval, the king had scarcely anybody about him but M. de Montmorin and myself. On the 19th, every minister being absent, I had entered the king's apartment to ask him to sign an order to have horses given to a colonel who was returning. As I was presenting that order a footman placed himself between the king and me, in order to see what he was writing. The king turned round, perceived the insolent fellow, and snatched up the tongs. I prevented him from following that impulse of very natural indignation; he clasped my hand to thank me, and I perceived tears in his eyes. CHAPTER II. POPULAR JUDGMENTS. No Power inspires Confidence.-The Judiciary Power has lost Confidence.The Breton Club.-Advocates, the Basoche.-Danton and Camille Desmoulins.-Barbarity of the Laws, and of the Punishments.-Judgments of the Palais Royal.-La Grève and Famine.-Death of Foulon and Berthier, July 22, 1789. ROYALTY remains alone. The privileged class go into exile or submit; they declare they will henceforth vote in the National Assembly and be subject to the majority. Being isolated and laid bare, royalty appears what it had been fundamentally for a long time a nonentity. That nonentity was the ancient faith of France; and that faith deceived now causes her distrust and incredulity; it makes her excessively uneasy and suspicious. To have believed and loved, and to have been for a century always deceived in that love, is enough to make her no longer believe in anything. Where will faith be now? At that question, they experience a feeling of terror and solitude, like Louis XVI. himself in the corner of his lonely palace. There will no longer be faith in any mortal power. The legislative power itself, that Assembly beloved by France, is now so unfortunate as to have absorbed its enemies, five or six hundred nobles and priests, and to contain them in its bosom. Another evil is, that it has conquered too much; it will now be the authority, the government, the king—when a king is no longer possible. The electoral power, which likewise found itself obliged to govern, feels itself expiring at the end of a few days, and entreats the districts to create its successor. During the cannonade of the Bastille, it had shuddered and doubted. Men of little faith! But perfidious? No. That bourgeoisie of '89, imbued with the philosophy of that grand age, was certainly less egotistical than our own. It was wavering and uncertain, bold in principle, but timid in application; it had been so long in bondage! |