252

THE QUEEN IS SOLICITED TO ACT.

Saint-Louis, officers or provincial noblemen, who offered her their swords; on the other, projectors and schemers, who showed plans, undertook to execute them, and warranted success. Versailles was as if besieged by these Figaros of royalty.

It was necessary to make a holy league, and for all honest people to rally round the queen. The king would then be carried away in the enthusiasm of their love, and unable to resist any longer. The revolutionary party could make but one campaign; once conquered, it would perish: on the contrary, the other party, comprising all the large proprietors, was able to suffice for several campaigns, and maintain the war for many years. For such arguments to be good, it was only necessary to suppose that the unanimity of the people would not affect the soldier, and that he would never remember that he also was the people.

Fresh

The spirit of jealousy then rising between the National Guard and the people doubtless emboldened the Court, and made them believe Paris to be powerless; they risked a premature manifestation which was destined to ruin them. body guards were arriving, for their three months' service these men, unacquainted with Paris or the Assembly, strangers to the new spirit, good provincial royalists, imbued with all their family prejudices, and paternal and maternal recommendations to serve the king, and the king alone. That body of guards, though some of its members were friends of liberty, had not taken the oath, and still wore the white cockade. By them, they attempted to entice away the officers of the regiment of Flanders, and those of a few other troops. In order to bring them all together, a grand dinner was given, to which were admitted a few officers selected from the National Guard of Versailles, whom they hoped to attach to their cause.

The

We must know that the town in France which had the eatest detestation for the Court, was the one that saw most of it, namely, Versailles. Whoever was not a servant or an employé belonging to the Château was a revolutionist. constant sight of all that pomp, of those splendid equipages, and those haughty, supercilious people, engendered envy and hatred. This disposition of the inhabitants had caused them to name one Lecointre, a linendraper, a firm patriot, but other

ORGY OF THE BODY GUARD.

253

wise a spiteful, virulent man, as lieutenant-colonel of their National Guard. The invitation sent to a few of the officers was but little flattering to them, and a cause of great dissatisfaction to the others.

A military repast might have been given in the Orangerie or anywhere else; but the king (an unprecedented favour) granted the use of his magnificent theatre, in which no féte had been given since the visit of the emperor Joseph II. Wines are lavished with royal prodigality. They drink the health of the king, the queen, and the dauphin; somebody, in a low, timid voice, proposed that of the nation; but nobody would pay any attention. At the dessert, the grenadiers of the regiment of Flanders, the Swiss, and other soldiers are introduced. They all drink and admire, dazzled by the fantastical brilliancy of that singular fairy scene, where the boxes, lined with looking-glasses, reflect a blaze of light in every direction.

The

The doors open. Behold the king and the queen! king has been prevailed on to visit them on his return from the chase. The queen walks round to every table, looking beautiful, and adorned with the child she bears in her arms. All those young men are delighted, transported out of their senses. The queen, we must confess, less majestic at other periods, had never discouraged those who devoted their hearts to her service; she had not disdained to wear in her head-dress a plume from Lauzun's helmet.* There was even a tradition

that the bold declaration of a private in the body guards had been listened to without anger; and that, without any other punishment than a benevolent irony, the queen had obtained his promotion.

So beautiful, and yet so unfortunate ! As she was departing with the king, the band played the affecting air: "O Richard, O my king, abandoned by the whole world! Every heart melted at that appeal. Several tore off their cockades, and took that of the queen, the black Austrian cockade, devoting themselves to her service. At the very least, the tricolor cockade was turned inside out, so as to appear white. The

*What does it signify whether Lauzun offered it, or she had asked for it? See Mémoires de Campan, and Lauzun (Revue rétrospective), &c.

254 INSULTS OFFERED TO THE NATIONAL COCKADE.

music continued, ever more impassioned and ardent : it played the Marche des Hulans, and sounded the charge. They all leaped to their feet, looking about for the enemy. No enemy appeared; for want of adversaries they scaled the boxes, rushed out, and reached the marble court. Perseval, aide-de-camp to d'Estaing, scales the grand balcony, and makes himself master of the interior posts, shouting, They are our prisoners.' He adorns himself with the white cockade. A grenadier of the regiment of Flanders likewise ascends, and Perseval tore off and gave him a decoration which he then wore. A dragoon wanted also to ascend, but being unsteady, he tumbled down, and would have killed himself in his despair.

66

To complete the scene, another, half drunk and half mad, goes shouting about that he is a spy of the Duke of Orleans, and inflicts a slight wound upon himself; his companions were so disgusted that they kicked him almost to death.

The frenzy of that mad orgy seemed to infect the whole court. The queen, on presenting flags to the National Guards of Versailles, said "that she was still enchanted with it." On the 3rd of October, another dinner; they grow more daring, their tongues are untied, and the counter-revolution showed itself boldly; several of the National Guards withdrew in indignation. The costume of National Guard is no longer received in the palace. "You have no feeling," said one officer to another, "to wear such a dress." In the long gallery, and in the apartments, the ladies no longer allow the tricolor cockade to circulate. With their handkerchiefs and ribands they make white cockades, and tie them themselves. The damsels grow so bold as to receive the vows of these new chevaliers, and allow them to kiss their hands. "Take this cockade," said they, "and guard it well; it is the true one, and alone shall be triumphant." How could they refuse, from such lovely hands, that symbol, that souvenir? And yet it is civil war and death: to-morrow, La Vendée ! That fair and almost infantine form, standing by the aunts of the king, will be Madame de Lescure and De la Rochejaquelin.*

The brave National Guards of Versailles had much ado to

*She was then at Versailles. See the novel, true in this particular, which M. de Barante has published in her name.

defend themselves.

IRRITATION OF PARIS.

255

One of their captains had been, willingly or unwillingly, decked out by the ladies with an enormous white cockade. His colonel, Lecointre, the linendraper, was furious. "Those cockades," said he, firmly, "shall be changed, and within a week, or all is lost." He was right. Who could mistake the omnipotence of the symbol? The three colours were the 14th of July and the victory of Paris, the Revolution itself. Thereupon a chevalier of Saint-Louis runs after Lecointre, declaring himself the champion of the white cockade against all comers. He follows, lies in wait for him, and insults him. This passionate defender of the ancien régime was not, however, a Montmorency, but simply the son-in-law of the queen's flower-girl.

Lecointre marches off to the Assembly, and requests the military committee to require the oath from the body guard. Some old guards there present declared that it could never be obtained. The committee did nothing, fearful of occasioning some collision and bloodshed; but it was precisely this prudence that occasioned it.

Paris felt keenly the insult offered to its cockade; it was said to have been ignominiously torn to pieces and trodden under foot. On the very day of the second dinner (Saturday evening, the 3rd) Danton was thundering at the club of the Cordeliers. On Sunday, there was a general onslaught on black or white cockades. Mobs of people and citizens, where coats and jackets appeared mingled together, took place in the cafés, before the doors of the cafés, in the Palais Royal, at the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, at the ends of the bridges, and on the quays. Terrible rumours were in circulation about the approaching war; on the league of the queen and the princes with the German princes; on the foreign uniforms, red and green, then seen in Paris; on the supplies of flour from Corbeil, which came now only every other day; on the inevitably increasing scarcity, and on the approaching severe winter. There is no time to be lost, said they; if people want to prevent war and famine, the king must be brought here; otherwise the Court will carry him off.

The

Nobody felt all that more keenly than the women. family, the household, had then become a scene of extreme suffering. A lady gave the alarm on the evening of Saturday,

256

SUFFERINGS OF THE WOMEN.

the 3rd. Seeing her husband was not sufficiently listened to, she ran to the Café de Foy, there denounced the anti-national cockades, and exposed the public danger. On Monday a young girl took a drum into the markets, beat the générale, and marched off all the women in the quarter.

Such things are seen only in France; our women are brave, and make others so. The country of Joan of Arc, Joan of Montfort, and Joan Hachette, can quote a hundred heroines. There was one at the Bastille, who afterwards departed for war, and was made captain in the artillery; her husband was a soldier. On the 18th of July, when the king went to Paris, many of the women were armed. The women were in the van of our Revolution. We must not be surprised; they suffered more.

men.

Great miseries are ferocious; they strike the weak rather than the strong; they ill-treat children and women rather than The latter come and go, boldly hunt about, set their wits to work, and at length find at least sufficient for the day. Women, poor women, live, for the most part, shut up, sitting, knitting or sewing; they are not fit, on the day when everything is wanting, to seek their living. It is cruel to think that woman, the dependent being, who can live only in company, is more often alone than man. He finds company everywhere, and forms new connexions. But she is nothing without family. And yet her family overwhelms her; all the burden falls upon her. She remains in her cold, desolate, unfurnished lodging, with her children weeping, or sick and dying, who will weep no more. A thing little remarked, but which gives perhaps the greatest pang to the maternal heart, is, that the child is unjust. Accustomed to find in the mother a universal all-sufficient providence, he taxes her cruelly, unfeelingly, for whatever is wanting, is noisy and angry, adding to her grief a greater agony.

Such is the mother. Let us take into account also many lonely girls, sad creatures, without any family or support, who, too ugly, or virtuous, have neither friend nor lover, know none of the joys of life. Should their little work be no longer able to support them, they know not how to make up the deficiency, but return to their garret and wait; sometimes they are found dead, chance revealing the fact to a neighbour.