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262

MAILLARD AND THE WOMEN

Grégoire, and other deputies speak in the same manner. Pétion mentions and blames the orgy of the body guards. A deputy, who had himself served among them, demands, for their honour, that the denunciation be stated in a regular form, and that the guilty parties be prosecuted. "I will denounce," cried Mirabeau, "and I will sign, if the Assembly declare that the person of the king is alone inviolable.” This was designating the queen. The whole Assembly recoiled from the motion, which was withdrawn. On such a day, it would have provoked assassination.

Mirabeau himself was not free from uneasiness for his backsliding, and his speech on the veto. He approached the president, and said to him in an under tone: " Mounier, Paris is marching against us,-believe me or not, forty thousand men are marching against us. Feign illness, go to the palace, and give them this notice; there is not a moment to be lost." Paris marching?" said Mounier, drily (he thought Mirabeau was one of the authors of the movement).

"Is

"Well! so much

the better! we shall have a republic the sooner."

The Assembly decide that they will send to the king to request the mere and simple acceptation of the Declaration of Rights. At three o'clock, Target announces that a crowd had appeared before the doors on the Avenue de Paris.

Everybody was acquainted with the event, except the king. He had departed for the chase that morning as usual, and was hunting in the woods of Meudon. They sent after him. Meanwhile, they beat the générale, the body guards mounted their horses on the Place d'Armes, and stood with their backs to the iron gates; the regiment of Flanders below, on their right, near the Avenue de Sceaux. M. d'Estaing, in the name of the municipality of Versailles, orders the troops to act in concert with the National Guard, and oppose the rioters. The municipality had carried their precaution so far as to authorize d'Estaing to follow the king, if he went far, on the singular condition of bringing him back to Versailles as soon as possible. D'Estaing adhered to the latter order, went up to the Château, and left the National Guard of Versailles to manage as it pleased. M. de Gouvernet, the second in command, likewise left his post, and placed himself among the body guards, pre

BEFORE THE ASSEMBLY.

263

ferring, he said, to be with people who know how to fight and sabre. Lecointre, the lieutenant-colonel, remained alone to command.

Meanwhile, Maillard arrived at the National Assembly. All the women wanted to enter. He had the greatest trouble to prevail on them to send in only fifteen of their number. They placed themselves at the bar, having at their head the French guardsman of whom we have spoken, a woman who carried a tambourine at the end of a pole, and the gigantic bailiff in the midst, in his tattered black coat, and sword in hand. The soldier began by pertly telling the Assembly that, on no bread being found at the baker's that morning, he had wanted to ring the tocsin; that he had near been hanged, and owed his safety to the ladies who accompanied him. "We come," said he, "to demand bread, and the punishment of the body guard who have insulted the cockade. We are good patriots; on our road we have torn down the black cockades, and I will have the pleasure of tearing one before the Assembly."

To which the other gravely added: "Everybody must certainly wear the patriotic cockade." This was received with a few murmurs.

"And yet we are all brethren!" cried the sinister apparition. Maillard alluded to what the municipal council of Paris had declared the day before: that the tricolor cockade, having been adopted as a symbol of fraternity, was the only one that ought to be worn by citizens.

The women, being impatient, shouted together, "Bread! Bread!' Maillard then began to speak of the horrible situation of Paris, of the supplies being intercepted by the other towns, or by the aristocrats. "They want," said he, "to starve us. A miller has received from somebody two hundred francs to induce him not to grind, with a promise that he should receive as much every week." The Assembly exclaimed, "Name him." It was in the Assembly itself that Grégoire had spoken of that current report; and Maillard had heard of it on the road.

“Name him!” some of the women shouted at random: "It is the archbishop of Paris."

At that moment, when the lives of many men seemed hanging by a thread, Robespierre took a serious step. Alone, he

264

ROBESPIERRE SUPPORTS MAILLARD.

supported Maillard; said that Abbé Grégoire had spoken of the fact, and would doubtless give some information.*

Other members of the Assembly tried threats and caresses. A deputy of the clergy, an abbé, or a prelate, offered his hand to one of the women to kiss. She flew into a passion, and said, "I was not made to kiss a dog's paw." Another deputy, a military man, and wearing the cross of Saint-Louis, hearing Maillard say that the clergy were the grand obstacle to the constitution, exclaimed, in a passion, that he ought instantly to be punished as an example. Maillard, nothing daunted, replied that he inculpated no member of the Assembly; that the Assembly were doubtless ignorant of all; and that he thought he was doing them a service in giving them this information. For the second time, Robespierre supported Maillard, and calmed the anger of the women. Those outside were growing impatient, fearing for the safety of their orator. A report was spreading among them that he had perished. He went out for a moment, and showed himself.

Maillard, then resuming his speech, begged the Assembly to engage the National Guards to make atonement for the insult offered to the cockade. Some deputies gave him the lie. Maillard insisted in unceremonious language. Mounier, the president, reminded him of the respect due to the Assembly; and added, foolishly, that they who wished to be citizens were perfectly at liberty to be so. This gave an advantage to Maillard; he replied: "Everybody ought to be proud of the name of citizen; and if, in that august assembly, there were anybody who considered it a dishonour, he ought to be excluded." The Assembly started with emotion, and applauded: "Yes," cried they, we are all citizens!"

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At that moment a tricolored cockade was brought in, sent by the body guard. The women shouted, God save the king and the body guard! Maillard, who was not so easily satisfied, insisted on the necessity of sending away the regiment of Flanders.

Mounier, then hoping to be able to get rid of them, said that the Assembly had neglected nothing to obtain provisions,

* All this has been disfigured and curtailed by the Moniteur. Luckily, it gives later the depositions (at the end of the 1st volume). See also the Deux Amis de la Liberté, Ferrières, &c. &c.

THE WOMEN BEFORE THE KING.

265

neither had the king; that they would try to find some new means, and that they might withdraw in peace. Maillard did not stir, saying, "No, that is not enough."

A deputy then proposed to go and inform the king of the miserable state of Paris. The Assembly voted it, and the women, eagerly seizing that hope, threw their arms round the necks of the deputies, and embraced the president in spite of his resistance.

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"But where is our Mirabeau ? said they, once more; we should like to see our Count de Mirabeau."

Mounier, surrounded, kissed, and almost stifled, then moodily set out with the deputation and a crowd of women, who insisted on following him. "We were on foot," says he, "in the mud, and it was raining in torrents. We had to pass through a ragged noisy multitude, armed in a fantastical manner. Body guards were patrolling and galloping about. Those guards on beholding Mounier and the deputies, with their strange cortège of honour, imagined they saw there the leaders of the insurrection, and wanting to disperse that multitude, galloped through them."* The inviolable deputies escaped as they could, and ran for their lives through the mud. It is easy to conceive the rage of the people, who had imagined that, with them, they were sure of being respected!

Two women were wounded, and even by swords, according to some witnesses.† However, the people did nothing. From three till eight in the evening, they were patient and motionless, only shouting and hooting whenever they beheld the odious uniform of the body guard. A child threw stones.

The king had been found; he had returned from Meudon, without hurrying himself. Mounier, being at length recognised, was allowed to enter with twelve women. He spoke to the king of the misery of Paris, and to the ministers of the request of the Assembly, who were waiting for the pure and simple acceptation of the Declaration of Rights and other constitutional articles.

Meanwhile the king listened to the women with much kindThe young girl, Louison Chabry, had been charged to

ness.

* See Mounier, at the end of the Exposé justificatif.

If the king forbade the troops to act, as people affirm, it was at a later period, and too late.

266

INDECISION OF THE COURT.

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speak for the others; but her emotion was so great in presence of the king, that she could only articulate "Bread! and fell down in a swoon. The king, much affected, ordered her to be taken care of; and when, on departing, she wanted to kiss his hand, he embraced her like a father.

She ran out a Royalist, and shouting" Vive le Roi !" The women, who were waiting for her in the square, were furious, and began saying she had been bribed; in vain did she turn her pockets inside out, to show that she had no money; the women tied their garters round her neck to strangle her. She was torn from them, but not without much difficulty. She was obliged to return to the Château, and obtain from the king a written order to send for corn, and remove every obstacle for the provisioning of Paris.

To the demands of the president, the king had coolly replied: "Return about nine o'clock." Mounier had nevertheless remained at the castle, at the door of the council, insisting on having an answer, knocking every hour, till ten in the evening. But nothing was decided.

The minister of Paris, M. de Saint-Priest, had heard the news very late (which proves how indecisive and spontaneous the departure for Versailles had been). He proposed that the queen should depart for Rambouillet, and that the king should remain, resist, and fight if necessary; the departure of the queen alone would have quieted the people and rendered fighting unnecessary. M. Necker wanted the king to go to Paris, and trust himself to the people; that is to say, that he should be sincere and frank, and accept the Revolution. Louis XVI., without coming to any resolution, dismissed the council, in order to consult the queen.

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She was very willing to depart, but with him, and not to leave such an indecisive man to himself; the name of the king was her weapon for beginning the civil war. Saint-Priest heard, about seven o'clock, that Lafayette, urged by the National Guard, was marching against Versailles. We must depart immediately," said he; "the king at the head of the troops will pass without any difficulty.' But it was impossible to bring him to any decision. He believed (but very wrongly) that, if he departed, the Assembly would make the Duke of Orleans king. He was also adverse to flight; he strode to and fro,

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