THE KING A FOREIGNER.

587

The queen next tried her influence, and, by dint of prayers and entreaties, at length obtained (October 23rd, 1790,) a general power to treat with foreigners,—a power granted by the king to Breteuil, the queen's secret agent. Foreigners, from that time, became no longer all Europe, but specially Austria. Bouillé, receiving notice of this, advised the king to repair preferably to Besançon, within reach of succour from the Swiss, secured by capitulations, and, moreover, less compromising than that of any power. But this was not at all to the taste of the Austrian advisers, who insisted on Montmédy, at two leagues from the Austrian territory.

In order to come to a definite understanding, M. de Bouillé sent, in December, Louis de Bouillé, one of his sons, who, conducted by the bishop, the primitive messenger in this affair, went to converse at night with Fersen in a very retired house of the faubourg Saint-Honoré. The young Bouillé was very young, being only twenty-one years of age; Fersen was exceedingly devoted, but absent and unmindful, it should seem, and as we shall presently judge. Nevertheless, these were the two persons who held in their hands and directed the destiny of the monarchy.

M. de Bouillé, being well acquainted with the court, and knowing that they were quite capable of disowning him, if the business went wrong, had requested the king to write a letter containing every particular, and giving him full authority; which letter was to be shown to his son, who was to take a copy of it. This proceeding was serious and dangerous. The king wrote and signed those words which, two years later, were to lead him to the scaffold: "You must secure, before everything else, assistance from abroad!”

In October, the king, in the first approbation that he gave to the project, merely said that he relied on the favourable disposition of the Emperor and of Spain; but in December, he wished for their assistance. The project at first had had a French appearance. M. de Bouillé's success at Nancy had inspired the hope that a great party, both in the army and in the National Guard, would pronounce for the king, and that France would be divided; it was then sufficient for M. de Bouillé that Austria should make an exterior demonstration, merely in order to give a pretext for assembling a few regiments; meanwhile a fact became manifest which changed the face of affairs, the unanimity of France.

The affair then became entirely foreign. M. de Bouillé confesses that he needed German troops to retain the few French that remained with him. He requested, says his son, assistance from foreigners. At Paris, the escape was plotted in the house of a Portuguese, and directed by a Swede, and the carriage that was used for it was concealed at the house of an Englishman.

Thus, in its minutest particulars, as in its most important circumstances, the business appears, and was, a foreign conspiracy; foreigners being already in the heart of the kingdom and waging war against us by the king. And then, what were the king and the queen, in reality? Foreigners both, by their mothers: he a Saxon-Bourbon by birth; she a Lorraine-Austrian.

Sovereigns in general, in whom nations seek the guardians of their nationality, thus find themselves, by their kindred and marriages, to be

R R

588

THE KING INDIFFERENT TO NATIONALITY.

less national than European, their dearest relations, the objects of their friendship and love, being often abroad. There are few kings who, in waging war against a king, do not find themselves opposed, face to face, to a cousin, a nephew, or a brother-in-law. Is not this relationship, which, in courts of justice, obliges men to excuse themselves from appearing, a cause of just suspicion in that supreme justice of nations which is pleaded in diplomacy or decided by the sword?

The king, under whom the French navy had arisen against England, was certainly not a foreigner in sentiment; but he was so by birth. The German was his relation; and so was the Spaniard. If he felt any scruple in invoking the aid of Austria, he combated it by the idea that he was, at the same time, invoking his cousin, the King of Spain.

He was moreover a foreigner by a sentiment apart from (and in his opinion superior to) every feeling of nationality: a foreigner by religion. For the (Catholic) Christian, the native land is a secondary affair. His true and great country is the Church, of which every kingdom is but a province. The most christian king, anointed by the priests at the coronation at Reims, bound by his coronation-oath, and not being absolved from it, considered every other oath as null and void. Although he knew the priests perfectly well, and had not always listened to their advice, he nevertheless consulted them in this matter. The Bishop of Clermont confirmed him in the opinion that the attack on the ecclesiastical estates was sacrilege (March, 1790?); and so did the pope, in the horror he felt for the civil constitution of the clergy (September, 1790). The Bishop of Pamiers brought him the plan of escape (in October), and the necessity in which he was placed by sanctioning the decree on the oath required of priests (December 26th), at length removed all his scruples the Christian sentiment stifled that of the king and the Frenchman.

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His weak and troubled conscience feasted on two ideas, those of which we have spoken in the beginning of this chapter: first, he believed he was not imitating James II., not quitting his kingdom: secondly, not imitating Charles I., not making war on his people.-These two points, which the history of England had impressed upon his mind, being avoided, he was afraid of nothing in the world, reposing tacitly on that ancient superstition which has emboldened kings to take so many guilty steps: "What can happen to me, after all? I am the Lord's anointed!"

He wrote in the letter, which Bouillé had requested, that he would not take one step out of the kingdom on any consideration (not even to return to it instantly by some other frontier), that he was absolutely resolved not to go abroad.

Kings have a special religion; they are devoted to royalty. Their person is a consecrated wafer; their palace the holy of holies; and even their servants and domestics have a sacred, a quasi-sacerdotal character. Louis XVI. was keenly wounded in this religious feeling by the scene that took place at the Tuileries in the evening of the 28th of February. Lafayette, at the head of the National Guard, had just put down the riot of Vincennes, and remained convinced that it had been contrived by the palace. On his return to the Tuileries, he found the place full of armed nobles, who were there without being able to give any reason for their

HIS NOBLES AND PRIESTS.

589

meeting. The National Guards being still excited and in very ill-humour, did not show these noble lords all the respect that people of their quality considered they had a right to expect. They were deprived of their swords, pistols, and daggers, and received a nick-name, which will recur more than once in the Revolution,-chevaliers du poignard; disarmed, and departing, one by one, amid the hooting of the guards, some of them received rough usage, and a fraternal correction from the hands of the armed citizens.

Louis XVI., much grieved at this want of respect, was infinitely more touched by the expulsion of the recusant priests, who were obliged to quit their churches in the spring. He received a great number of them in the royal establishments and the Tuileries. He knew nothing about the intrigues of the clergy, neither did he perceive in them what they were, the organisers of civil war; he entirely forgot the political question, and reduced everything to one of religious tolerance. It is remarkable that even politicians and philosophers, by no means Christian, Sièyes and Raynal, judged the thing in the same manner; and their protestations in favour of the priests, necessarily confirmed Louis XVI. in his opposition to the revolutionary movement. How was it that he, who had granted tolerance to the Protestants, could not enjoy it in the midst of his own palace? He considered himself freed from every oath and absolved from every duty; and he believed he saw both God and Reason arrayed against the Revolution.

Besides, whether he wished it or not, was not the counter-revolution about to be effected? His brother, the Count d'Artois, was then at Mantua, with the Emperor Leopold, and the ambassadors of England and Prussia (May, 1791). This was, in reality, a congress in which they were treating the affairs of France. If the king did not act, they were going to act without him. He did not occupy much space in the plan of the Count d'Artois : this warlike plan, devised by Calonne, his factotum, supposed that five armies, of five different nations, should enter France at the same time. There would be no impediment; the young prince, without any other delay than the customary speeches at the gates of towns, was going to lead all Europe joyously to sup at Paris. In this Iliad, he was the Agamemnon, the king of kings; he bestowed favours and justice; he reigned. But what then became of the king? He would have but the more time for mass and hunting. And what was to be done with the queen? She was to be sent back to Austria, or to a convent.

Leopold answered this romance by another, that, on the 1st of July, the armies should, without fail, be punctual at the rendezvous on the frontier; only, he testified some repugnance at making them enter France. And even though he had really had the idea of doing anything, his sister would have prevented him; for she wrote to him from Paris, not to put the least confidence in Calonne ; yet, at the same time, the king and the queen sent word to the Count d'Artois that they trusted to Calonne, and authorised him to treat in their name.*

590

THE KING AND QUEEN'S DUPLICITY.

All the measures of the king and the queen, at this period, are double and contradictory.

Thus, they caused unlimited offers to be made to Lafayette (by young Bouillé, his cousin) if he would assist in restoring the royal power (December or January); and, almost at the same time, they assured the Count d'Artois that they know Lafayette "to be a villain and a factious fanatic, in whom no confidence can be placed" (March, 1791).

Again, at the time when the king, by his attempt to leave the Tuileries (April 18th), had just demonstrated his captivity before all Europe, he approved a letter, inconsiderately drawn up by the Lameths, in which he is made to say that he is perfectly free (April 23rd). In vain did Montmorin represent the improbability of the thing; the king insisted; and the minister was obliged to communicate to the Assembly this singular document, in which he notified to foreign courts the revolutionary sentiments of Louis XVI. In this ridiculous letter, the king, speaking of himself in a Jacobin style, said that he was only the first public functionary; that he was free, and had freely adopted the constitution, which constituted his happiness, &c. This entirely novel language, wherein everybody perceived the stamp of falsehood, and this false jarring voice, did the king incredible harm; and whatever attachment was still felt for him, could not withstand the contempt inspired by his duplicity.

Everybody supposed that he was writing a contradiction at the same time; and this was the fact. The king deceived Montmorin, who deceived Lameth (as he had formerly done Mirabeau); he sent word to Prussia and Austria, that every step and every word in favour of a constitution was to be taken in an opposite sense, and that yes meant no.

The king had received a royal education from M. de la Vauguyon, the leader of the Jesuit party; his natural honesty had gained the upper hand in ordinary circumstances; but, in this crisis, where religion and royalty were at stake, the Jesuit reappeared. Too devout to have the least scruple of chivalrous honour, and believing that he who deceives for a good purpose cannot use too much deception, he outstepped all bounds, and did not deceive at all.

Austria does not seem to have believed, any more than France, in the honesty of Louis XVI.; and perhaps, in reality, he still remained patriotic enough to wish to deceive Austria in availing himself of her assistance. He asked her only for some ten thousand men,—an insignificant force, strongly counterbalanced, moreover, by a Spanish army, and the twenty-five thousand Swiss troops which the capitulations obliged them to furnish on the king's demand. Accordingly, the Austrians used no haste; they waited, alleging the opposition of Prussia and England; it did not at all suit them to come forward thus gratis, and merely for a display, like theatrical figurants, to embolden and rally the royalists, and to create a force for the king; they asked him, on the contrary, to prove that he had one by "beginning civil war."

spective, in 1833, t. i. and ii. in the second series (from the original in the Archives du Royaume).—“ We reiterate to you a demand for eight or ten thousand men," &c. (June 1st, 1791).

In order to induce them to take upon themselves the burden of such an affair, it was necessary to give them an interest in it; if the king had offered Alsace, or at least a few towns, his brother-in-law, the kindhearted Leopold, would have acted more efficaciously, in spite of his difficulties.

Such was the situation of this poor Louis XVI., and which leads us to pity him, even though he deceived everybody. He could place reliance on nothing, neither abroad nor at home, not even in his own family, where he found nothing but egotism: far from its being his support, it contributed singularly to his ruin.

His aunts contributed to it, by hastening to depart before him, thus giving rise to the terrible discussion on the right of emigrating, and diminishing, in proportion, the king's chances of escape.

The Count de Provence (Monsieur) likewise contributed to it. He gave the king reason to fear lest he should depart alone, which would have been a real danger for Louis XVI. Monsieur was looked upon with much suspicion. He had endeavoured to carry off the king by means of Favras, without having obtained his consent; and many spoke of making him regent, lieutenant-general, or provisionally king, during the king's captivity.

But nobody contributed more directly than the queen to the ruin of Louis XVI.

Being excessively afraid of a separation, never losing sight of the king, but remaining constantly by his side, and wishing to depart at the same time, and with all her friends, she rendered his flight almost impossible.

An extreme solicitude for the queen's safety caused M. de Mercey, the Austrian ambassador, to require, contrary to common sense, and against M. de Bouille's advice, that a series of detachments should be posted along the road she was about to take: a precaution well calculated to alarm, warn, and agitate the populace, altogether insufficient to check the dense masses of an armed population, and quite useless for the king, who was not at all disliked. We have already seen the real opinion of the people, candidly expressed by a newspaper: "That Louis XVI. used to weep bitterly over the follies which the Austrian (the queen) caused him to commit." Even if he had been recognised, he might have passed; for few people would have had the heart to arrest him. But the very sight of the queen awakened every fear, and made even the royalists perceive the danger of allowing her thus to conduct the King of France to the armies of foreigners.

The queen influenced, moreover, the execution of the project in a very fatal manner, by choosing for agents, not the most able, but the most devoted to her person, or else the clients of her family; her faithful M. de Fersen, her secretary, Goguelat, whom she had employed in very secret missions to Estherazy and others, and lastly, young Choiseul, an amiable noble-hearted youth, of a family dear to Austria, and of a very great fortune, who made it his glory to receive the queen in a royal manner in her own Lorraine, and was far more fit to receive her well than to save or conduct her. M. de Bouillé evidently wished to please the queen by intrusting to this young man one of the most important parts to perform in effecting the escape.