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Produced by David Widger | |
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE | |
Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, | |
First Lady in Waiting to the Queen | |
Volume 7 | |
CHAPTER IX. | |
The Queen having been robbed of her purse as she was passing from the | |
Tuileries to the Feuillans, requested my sister to lend her twenty-five | |
louis. | |
[On being interrogated the Queen declared that these five and twenty louis | |
had been lent to her by my sister; this formed a pretence for arresting | |
her and me, and led to her death.--MADAME CAMPAN.] | |
I spent part of the day at the Feuillans, and her Majesty told me she | |
would ask Potion to let me be with her in the place which the Assembly | |
should decree for her prison. I then returned home to prepare everything | |
that might be necessary for me to accompany her. | |
On the same day (11th August), at nine in the evening, I returned to the | |
Feuillans. I found there were orders at all the gates forbidding my being | |
admitted. I claimed a right to enter by virtue of the first permission | |
which had been given to me; I was again refused. I was told that the | |
Queen had as many people as were requisite about her. My sister was with | |
her, as well as one of my companions, who came out of the prisons of the | |
Abbaye on the 11th. I renewed my solicitations on the 12th; my tears and | |
entreaties moved neither the keepers of the gates, nor even a deputy, to | |
whom I addressed myself. | |
I soon heard of the removal of Louis XVI. and his family to the Temple. I | |
went to Potion accompanied by M. Valadon, for whom I had procured a place | |
in the post-office, and who was devoted to me. He determined to go up to | |
Potion alone; he told him that those who requested to be confined could | |
not be suspected of evil designs, and that no political opinion could | |
afford a ground of objection to these solicitations. Seeing that the | |
well-meaning man did not succeed, I thought to do more in person; but | |
Petion persisted in his refusal, and threatened to send me to La Force. | |
Thinking to give me a kind of consolation, he added I might be certain | |
that all those who were then with Louis XVI. and his family would not stay | |
with them long. And in fact, two or three days afterwards the Princesse | |
de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, the Queen's first woman, the | |
first woman of the Dauphin and of Madame, M. de Chamilly, and M. de Hue | |
were carried off during the night and transferred to La Force. After the | |
departure of the King and Queen for the Temple, my sister was detained a | |
prisoner in the apartments their Majesties had quitted for twenty-four | |
hours. | |
From this time I was reduced to the misery of having no further | |
intelligence of my august and unfortunate mistress but through the medium | |
of the newspapers or the National Guard, who did duty at the Temple. | |
The King and Queen said nothing to me at the Feuillans about the portfolio | |
which had been deposited with me; no doubt they expected to see me again. | |
The minister Roland and the deputies composing the provisional government | |
were very intent on a search for papers belonging to their Majesties. | |
They had the whole of the Tuileries ransacked. The infamous Robespierre | |
bethought himself of M. Campan, the Queen's private secretary, and said | |
that his death was feigned; that he was living unknown in some obscure | |
part of France, and was doubtless the depositary of all the important | |
papers. In a great portfolio belonging to the King there had been found a | |
solitary letter from the Comte d'Artois, which, by its date, and the | |
subjects of which it treated, indicated the existence of a continued | |
correspondence. (This letter appeared among the documents used on the | |
trial of Louis XVI.) A former preceptor of my son's had studied with | |
Robespierre; the latter, meeting him in the street, and knowing the | |
connection which had subsisted between him and the family of M. Campan, | |
required him to say, upon his honour, whether he was certain of the death | |
of the latter. The man replied that M. Campan had died at La Briche in | |
1791, and that he had seen him interred in the cemetery of Epinay. "well, | |
then," resumed Robespierre, "bring me the certificate of his burial at | |
twelve to-morrow; it is a document for which I have pressing occasion." | |
Upon hearing the deputy's demand I instantly sent for a certificate of M. | |
Campan's burial, and Robespierre received it at nine o'clock the next | |
morning. But I considered that, in thinking of my father-in-law, they | |
were coming very near me, the real depositary of these important papers. | |
I passed days and nights in considering what I could do for the best under | |
such circumstances. | |
I was thus situated when the order to inform against those who had been | |
denounced as suspected on the 10th of August led to domiciliary visits. My | |
servants were told that the people of the quarter in which I lived were | |
talking much of the search that would be made in my house, and came to | |
apprise me of it. I heard that fifty armed men would make themselves | |
masters of M. Auguies house, where I then was. I had just received this | |
intelligence when M. Gougenot, the King's maitre d'hotel and | |
receiver-general of the taxes, a man much attached to his sovereign, came | |
into my room wrapped in a ridingcloak, under which, with great difficulty, | |
he carried the King's portfolio, which I had entrusted to him. He threw | |
it down at my feet, and said to me, "There is your deposit; I did not | |
receive it from our unfortunate King's own hands; in delivering it to you | |
I have executed my trust." After saying this he was about to withdraw. I | |
stopped him, praying him to consult with me what I ought to do in such a | |
trying emergency. He would not listen to my entreaties, or even hear me | |
describe the course I intended to pursue. I told him my abode was about | |
to be surrounded; I imparted to him what the Queen had said to me about | |
the contents of the portfolio. To all this he answered, "There it is; | |
decide for yourself; I will have no hand in it." Upon that I remained a | |
few seconds thinking, and my conduct was founded upon the following | |
reasons. I spoke aloud, although to myself; I walked about the room with | |
agitated steps; M. Gougenot was thunderstruck. "Yes," said I, "when we | |
can no longer communicate with our King and receive his orders, however | |
attached we may be to him, we can only serve him according to the best of | |
our own judgment. The Queen said to me, 'This portfolio contains scarcely | |
anything but documents of a most dangerous description in the event of a | |
trial taking place, if it should fall into the hands of revolutionary | |
persons.' She mentioned, too, a single document which would, under the | |
same circumstances, be useful. It is my duty to interpret her words, and | |
consider them as orders. She meant to say, 'You will save such a paper, | |
you will destroy the rest if they are likely to be taken from you.' If it | |
were not so, was there any occasion for her to enter into any detail as to | |
what the portfolio contained? The order to keep it was sufficient. | |
Probably it contains, moreover, the letters of that part of the family | |
which has emigrated; there is nothing which may have been foreseen or | |
decided upon that can be useful now; and there can be no political thread | |
which has not been cut by the events of the 10th of August and the | |
imprisonment of the King. My house is about to be surrounded; I cannot | |
conceal anything of such bulk; I might, then, through want of foresight, | |
give up that which would cause the condemnation of the King. Let us open | |
the portfolio, save the document alluded to, and destroy the rest." I | |
took a knife and cut open one side of the portfolio. I saw a great number | |
of envelopes endorsed by the King's own hand. M. Gougenot found there the | |
former seals of the King, | |
[No doubt it was in order to have the ancient seals ready at a moment's | |
notice, in case of a counter-revolution, that the Queen desired me not to | |
quit the Tuileries. M. Gougenot threw the seals into the river, one from | |
above the Pont Neuf, and the other from near the Pont Royal.--MADAME | |
CAMPAN.] | |
such as they were before the Assembly had changed the inscription. At | |
this moment we heard a great noise; he agreed to tie up the portfolio, | |
take it again under his cloak, and go to a safe place to execute what I | |
had taken upon me to determine. He made me swear, by all I held most | |
sacred, that I would affirm, under every possible emergency, that the | |
course I was pursuing had not been dictated to me by anybody; and that, | |
whatever might be the result, I would take all the credit or all the blame | |
upon myself. I lifted up my hand and took the oath he required; he went | |
out. Half an hour afterwards a great number of armed men came to my | |
house; they placed sentinels at all the outlets; they broke open | |
secretaires and closets of which they had not the keys; they 'searched the | |
flower-pots and boxes; they examined the cellars; and the commandant | |
repeatedly said, "Look particularly for papers." In the afternoon M. | |
Gougenot returned. He had still the seals of France about him, and he | |
brought me a statement of all that he had burnt. | |
The portfolio contained twenty letters from Monsieur, eighteen or nineteen | |
from the Comte d'Artois, seventeen from Madame Adelaide, eighteen from | |
Madame Victoire, a great many letters from Comte Alexandre de Lameth, and | |
many from M. de Malesherbes, with documents annexed to them. There were | |
also some from M. de Montmorin and other ex-ministers or ambassadors. | |
Each correspondence had its title written in the King's own hand upon the | |
blank paper which contained it. The most voluminous was that from | |
Mirabeau. It was tied up with a scheme for an escape, which he thought | |
necessary. M. Gougenot, who had skimmed over these letters with more | |
attention than the rest, told me they were of so interesting a nature that | |
the King had no doubt kept them as documents exceedingly valuable for a | |
history of his reign, and that the correspondence with the Princes, which | |
was entirely relative to what was going forward abroad, in concert with | |
the King, would have been fatal to him if it had been seized. After he | |
had finished he placed in my hands the proces-verbal, signed by all the | |
ministers, to which the King attached so much importance, because he had | |
given his opinion against the declaration of war; a copy of the letter | |
written by the King to the Princes, his brothers, inviting them to return | |
to France; an account of the diamonds which the Queen had sent to Brussels | |
(these two documents were in my handwriting); and a receipt for four | |
hundred thousand francs, under the hand of a celebrated banker. This sum | |
was part of the eight hundred thousand francs which the Queen had | |
gradually saved during her reign, out of her pension of three hundred | |
thousand francs per annum, and out of the one hundred thousand francs | |
given by way of present on the birth of the Dauphin. | |
This receipt, written on a very small piece of paper, was in the cover of | |
an almanac. I agreed with M. Gougenot, who was obliged by his office to | |
reside in Paris, that he should retain the proces-verbal of the Council | |
and the receipt for the four hundred thousand francs, and that we should | |
wait either for orders or for the means of transmitting these documents to | |
the King or Queen; and I set out for Versailles. | |
The strictness of the precautions taken to guard the illustrious prisoners | |
was daily increased. The idea that I could not inform the King of the | |
course I had adopted of burning his papers, and the fear that I should not | |
be able to transmit to him that which he had pointed out as necessary, | |
tormented me to such a degree that it is wonderful my health endured the | |
strain. | |
The dreadful trial drew near. Official advocates were granted to the | |
King; the heroic virtue of M. de Malesherbes induced him to brave the most | |
imminent dangers, either to save his master or to perish with him. I hoped | |
also to be able to find some means of informing his Majesty of what I had | |
thought it right to do. I sent a man, on whom I could rely, to Paris, to | |
request M. Gougenot to come to me at Versailles he came immediately. We | |
agreed that he should see M. de Malesherbes without availing himself of | |
any intermediate person for that purpose. | |
M. Gougenot awaited his return from the Temple at the door of his hotel, | |
and made a sign that he wished to speak to him. A moment afterwards a | |
servant came to introduce him into the magistrates' room. He imparted to | |
M. de Malesherbes what I had thought it right to do with respect to the | |
King's papers, and placed in his hands the proces-verbal of the Council, | |
which his Majesty had preserved in order to serve, if occasion required | |
it, for a ground of his defence. However, that paper is not mentioned in | |
either of the speeches of his advocate; probably it was determined not to | |
make use of it. | |
I stop at that terrible period which is marked by the assassination of a | |
King whose virtues are well known; but I cannot refrain from relating what | |
he deigned to say in my favour to M. de Malesherbes: | |
"Let Madame Campan know that she did what I should myself have ordered her | |
to do; I thank her for it; she is one of those whom I regret I have it not | |
in my power to recompense for their fidelity to my person, and for their | |
good services." I did not hear of this until the morning after he had | |
suffered, and I think I should have sunk under my despair if this | |
honourable testimony had not given me some consolation. | |
SUPPLEMENT TO CHAPTER IX. | |
MADAME CAMPAN'S narrative breaking off abruptly at the time of the painful | |
end met with by her sister, we have supplemented it by abridged accounts | |
of the chief incidents in the tragedy which overwhelmed the royal house | |
she so faithfully served, taken from contemporary records and the best | |
historical authorities. | |
The Royal Family in the Temple. | |
The Assembly having, at the instance of the Commune of Paris, decreed that | |
the royal family should be immured in the Temple, they were removed | |
thither from the Feuillans on the 13th of August, 1792, in the charge of | |
Potion, Mayor of Paris, and Santerre, the commandant-general. Twelve | |
Commissioners of the general council were to keep constant watch at the | |
Temple, which had been fortified by earthworks and garrisoned by | |
detachments of the National Guard, no person being allowed to enter | |
without permission from the municipality. | |
The Temple, formerly the headquarters of the Knights Templars in Paris, | |
consisted of two buildings,--the Palace, facing the Rue de Temple, usually | |
occupied by one of the Princes of the blood; and the Tower, standing | |
behind the Palace. | |
[Clery gives a more minute description of this singular building: "The | |
small tower of the Temple in which the King was then confined stood with | |
its back against the great tower, without any interior communication, and | |
formed a long square, flanked by two turrets. In one of these turrets | |
there was a narrow staircase that led from the first floor to a gallery on | |
the platform; in the other were small rooms, answering to each story of | |
the tower. The body of the building was four stories high. The first | |
consisted of an antechamber, a dining-room, and a small room in the | |
turret, where there was a library containing from twelve to fifteen | |
hundred volumes. The second story was divided nearly in the same manner. | |
The largest room was the Queen's bedchamber, in which the Dauphin also | |
slept; the second, which was separated from the Queen's by a small | |
antechamber almost without light, was occupied by Madame Royale and Madame | |
Elisabeth. The King's apartments were on the third story. He slept in | |
the great room, and made a study of the turret closet. There was a | |
kitchen separated from the King's chamber by a small dark room, which had | |
been successively occupied by M. de Chamilly and M. de Hue. The fourth | |
story was shut up; and on the ground floor there were kitchens of which no | |
use was made." --"Journal," p. 96.] | |
The Tower was a square building, with a round tower at each corner and a | |
small turret on one side, usually called the Tourelle. In the narrative | |
of the Duchesse d'Angouleme she says that the soldiers who escorted the | |
royal prisoners wished to take the King alone to the Tower, and his family | |
to the Palace of the Temple, but that on the way Manuel received an order | |
to imprison them all in the Tower, where so little provision had been made | |
for their reception that Madame Elisabeth slept in the kitchen. The royal | |
family were accompanied by the Princesse de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel | |
and her daughter Pauline, Mesdames de Navarre, de Saint-Brice, Thibaut, | |
and Bazire, MM. de Hug and de Chamilly, and three men-servants--An order | |
from the Commune soon removed these devoted attendants, and M. de Hue | |
alone was permitted to return. "We all passed the day together," says | |
Madame Royale. "My father taught my brother geography; my mother history, | |
and to learn verses by heart; and my aunt gave him lessons in arithmetic. | |
My father fortunately found a library which amused him, and my mother | |
worked tapestry . . . . We went every day to walk in the garden, for | |
the sake of my brother's health, though the King was always insulted by | |
the guard. On the Feast of Saint Louis 'Ca Ira' was sung under the walls | |
of the Temple. Manuel that evening brought my aunt a letter from her | |
aunts at Rome. It was the last the family received from without. My | |
father was no longer called King. He was treated with no kind of respect; | |
the officers always sat in his presence and never took off their hats. | |
They deprived him of his sword and searched his pockets . . . . Petion | |
sent as gaoler the horrible man--[Rocher, a saddler by trade] who had | |
broken open my father's door on the 20th June, 1792, and who had been near | |
assassinating him. This man never left the Tower, and was indefatigable | |
in endeavouring to torment him. One time he would sing the 'Caramgnole,' | |
and a thousand other horrors, before us; again, knowing that my mother | |
disliked the smoke of tobacco, he would puff it in her face, as well as in | |
that of my father, as they happened to pass him. He took care always to be | |
in bed before we went to supper, because he knew that we must pass through | |
his room. My father suffered it all with gentleness, forgiving the man | |
from the bottom of his heart. My mother bore it with a dignity that | |
frequently repressed his insolence." The only occasion, Madame Royale | |
adds, on which the Queen showed any impatience at the conduct of the | |
officials, was when a municipal officer woke the Dauphin suddenly in the | |
night to make certain that he was safe, as though the sight of the | |
peacefully sleeping child would not have been in itself the best | |
assurance. | |
Clery, the valet de chambre of the Dauphin, having with difficulty | |
obtained permission to resume his duties, entered the Temple on the 24th | |
August, and for eight days shared with M. de Hue the personal attendance; | |
but on the 2d September De Hue was arrested, seals were placed on the | |
little room he had occupied, and Clery passed the night in that of the | |
King. On the following morning Manuel arrived, charged by the Commune to | |
inform the King that De Hue would not be permitted to return, and to offer | |
to send another person. "I thank you," answered the King. "I will manage | |
with the valet de chambre of my son; and if the Council refuse I will | |
serve myself. I am determined to do it." On the 3d September Manual | |
visited the Temple and assured the King that Madame de Lamballe and all | |
the other prisoners who had been removed to La Force were well, and safely | |
guarded. "But at three o'clock," says Madame Royale, "just after dinner, | |
and as the King was sitting down to 'tric trac' with my mother (which he | |
played for the purpose of having an opportunity of saying a few words to | |
her unheard by the keepers), the most horrid shouts were heard. The | |
officer who happened to be on guard in the room behaved well. He shut the | |
door and the window, and even drew the curtains to prevent their seeing | |
anything; but outside the workmen and the gaoler Rocher joined the | |
assassins and increased the tumult. Several officers of the guard and the | |
municipality now arrived, and on my father's asking what was the matter, a | |
young officer replied, 'Well, since you will know, it is the head of | |
Madame de Lamballe that they want to show you.' At these words my mother | |
was overcome with horror; it was the only occasion on which her firmness | |
abandoned her. The municipal officers were very angry with the young man; | |
but the King, with his usual goodness, excused him, saying that it was his | |
own fault, since he had questioned the officer. The noise lasted till | |
five o'clock. We learned that the people had wished to force the door, | |
and that the municipal officers had been enabled to prevent it only by | |
putting a tricoloured scarf across it, and allowing six of the murderers | |
to march round our prison with the head of the Princess, leaving at the | |
door her body, which they would have dragged in also." | |
Clery was not so fortunate as to escape the frightful spectacle. He had | |
gone down to dine with Tison and his wife, employed as servants in the | |
Temple, and says: "We were hardly seated when a head, on the end of a | |
pike, was presented at the window. Tison's wife gave a great cry; the | |
assassins fancied they recognised the Queen's voice, and responded by | |
savage laughter. Under the idea that his Majesty was still at table, they | |
placed their dreadful trophy where it must be seen. It was the head of | |
the Princesse de Lamballe; although bleeding, it was not disfigured, and | |
her light hair, still in curls, hung about the pike." | |
At length the immense mob that surrounded the Temple gradually withdrew, | |
"to follow the head of the Princess de Lamballe to the Palais Royal." | |
[The pike that bore the head was fixed before the Duc d'Orleans's window | |
as he was going to dinner. It is said that he looked at this horrid sight | |
without horror, went into the dining-room, sat down to table, and helped | |
his guests without saying a word. His silence and coolness left it | |
doubtful whether the assassins, in presenting him this bloody trophy, | |
intended to offer him an insult or to pay him homage.--DE MOLLEVILLE'S | |
"Annals of the French Revolution," vol. vii., p. 398.] | |
Meanwhile the royal family could scarcely believe that for the time their | |
lives were saved. "My aunt and I heard the drums beating to arms all | |
night," says Madame Royale; "my unhappy mother did not even attempt to | |
sleep. We heard her sobs." | |
In the comparative tranquillity which followed the September massacres, | |
the royal family resumed the regular habits they had adopted on entering | |
the Temple. "The King usually rose at six in the morning," says Clery. | |
"He shaved himself, and I dressed his hair; he then went to his | |
reading-room, which, being very small, the municipal officer on duty | |
remained in the bedchamber with the door open, that he might always keep | |
the King in sight. His Majesty continued praying on his knees for some | |
time, and then read till nine. During that interval, after putting his | |
chamber to rights and preparing the breakfast, I went down to the Queen, | |
who never opened her door till I arrived, in order to prevent the | |
municipal officer from going into her apartment. At nine o'clock the | |
Queen, the children, and Madame Elisabeth went up to the King's chamber to | |
breakfast. At ten the King and his family went down to the Queen's | |
chamber, and there passed the day. He employed himself in educating his | |
son, made him recite passages from Corneille and Racine, gave him lessons | |
in geography, and exercised him in colouring the maps. The Queen, on her | |
part, was employed in the education of her daughter, and these different | |
lessons lasted till eleven o'clock. The remaining time till noon was | |
passed in needlework, knitting, or making tapestry. At one o'clock, when | |
the weather was fine, the royal family were conducted to the garden by | |
four municipal officers and the commander of a legion of the National | |
Guard. As there were a number of workmen in the Temple employed in pulling | |
down houses and building new walls, they only allowed a part of the | |
chestnut-tree walk for the promenade, in which I was allowed to share, and | |
where I also played with the young Prince at ball, quoits, or races. At | |
two we returned to the Tower, where I served the dinner, at which time | |
Santerre regularly came to the Temple, attended by two aides-de-camp. The | |
King sometimes spoke to him,--the Queen never. | |
"After the meal the royal family came down into the Queen's room, and | |
their Majesties generally played a game of piquet or tric-trac. At four | |
o'clock the King took a little repose, the Princesses round him, each with | |
a book . . . . When the King woke the conversation was resumed, and I | |
gave writing lessons to his son, taking the copies, according to his | |
instructions, from the works of, Montesquieu and other celebrated authors. | |
After the lesson I took the young Prince into Madame Elisabeth's room, | |
where we played at ball, and battledore and shuttlecock. In the evening | |
the family sat round a table, while the Queen read to them from books of | |
history, or other works proper to instruct and amuse the children. Madame | |
Elisabeth took the book in her turn, and in this manner they read till | |
eight o'clock. After that I served the supper of the young Prince, in | |
which the royal family shared, and the King amused the children with | |
charades out of a collection of French papers which he found in the | |
library. After the Dauphin had supped, I undressed him, and the Queen | |
heard him say his prayers. At nine the King went to supper, and | |
afterwards went for a moment to the Queen's chamber, shook hands with her | |
and his sister for the night, kissed his children, and then retired to the | |
turret-room, where he sat reading till midnight. The Queen and the | |
Princesses locked themselves in, and one of the municipal officers | |
remained in the little room which parted their chamber, where he passed | |
the night; the other followed his Majesty. In this manner was the time | |
passed as long as the King remained in the small tower." | |
But even these harmless pursuits were too often made the means of further | |
insulting and thwarting the unfortunate family. Commissary Le Clerc | |
interrupted the Prince's writing lessons, proposing to substitute | |
Republican works for those from which the King selected his copies. A | |
smith, who was present when the Queen was reading the history of France to | |
her children, denounced her to the Commune for choosing the period when | |
the Connstable de Bourbon took arms against France, and said she wished to | |
inspire her son with unpatriotic feelings; a municipal officer asserted | |
that the multiplication table the Prince was studying would afford a means | |
of "speaking in cipher," so arithmetic had to be abandoned. Much the same | |
occurred even with the needlework, the Queen and Princess finished some | |
chairbacks, which they wished to send to the Duchesse de Tarente; but the | |
officials considered that the patterns were hieroglyphics, intended for | |
carrying on a correspondence, and ordered that none of the Princesses work | |
should leave the Temple. The short daily walk in the garden was also | |
embittered by the rude behaviour of the military and municipal gaolers; | |
sometimes, however, it afforded an opportunity for marks of sympathy to be | |
shown. People would station themselves at the windows of houses | |
overlooking the Temple gardens, and evince by gestures their loyal | |
affection, and some of the sentinels showed, even by tears, that their | |
duty was painful to them. | |
On the 21st September the National Convention was constituted, Petion | |
being made president and Collot d'Herbois moving the "abolition of | |
royalty" amidst transports of applause. That afternoon a municipal | |
officer attended by gendarmes a cheval, and followed by a crowd of people, | |
arrived at the Temple, and, after a flourish of trumpets, proclaimed the | |
establishment of the French Republic. The man, says Clery, "had the voice | |
of a Stentor." The royal family could distinctly hear the announcement of | |
the King's deposition. "Hebert, so well known under the title of Pere | |
Duchesne, and Destournelles were on guard. They were sitting near the | |
door, and turned to the King with meaning smiles. He had a book in his | |
hand, and went on reading without changing countenance. The Queen showed | |
the same firmness. The proclamation finished, the trumpets sounded | |
afresh. I went to the window; the people took me for Louis XVI. and I was | |
overwhelmed with insults." | |
After the new decree the prisoners were treated with increased harshness. | |
Pens, paper, ink, and pencils were taken from them. The King and Madame | |
Elisabeth gave up all, but the Queen and her daughter each concealed a | |
pencil. "In the beginning of October," says Madame Royale, "after my | |
father had supped, he was told to stop, that he was not to return to his | |
former apartments, and that he was to be separated from his family. At | |
this dreadful sentence the Queen lost her usual courage. We parted from | |
him with abundance of tears, though we expected to see him again in the | |
morning. | |
[At nine o'clock, says Clery, the King asked to be taken to his family, | |
but the municipal officers replied that they had "no orders for that." | |
Shortly afterwards a boy brought the King some bread and a decanter of | |
lemonade for his breakfast. The King gave half the bread to Clery, | |
saying, "It seems they have forgotten your breakfast; take this, the rest | |
is enough for me." Clery refused, but the King insisted. "I could not | |
contain my tears," he adds; "the King perceived them, and his own fell | |
also."] | |
They brought in our breakfast separately from his, however. My mother | |
would take nothing. The officers, alarmed at her silent and concentrated | |
sorrow, allowed us to see the King, but at meal-times only, and on | |
condition that we should not speak low, nor in any foreign language, but | |
loud and in 'good French.' We went down, therefore, with the greatest joy | |
to dine with my father. In the evening, when my brother was in bed, my | |
mother and my aunt alternately sat with him or went with me to sup with my | |
father. In the morning, after breakfast, we remained in the King's | |
apartments while Clery dressed our hair, as he was no longer allowed to | |
come to my mother's room, and this arrangement gave us the pleasure of | |
spending a few moments more with my father." | |
[When the first deputation from the Council of the Commune visited the | |
Temple, and formally inquired whether the King had any complaint to make, | |
he replied, "No; while he was permitted to remain with his family he was | |
happy."] | |
The royal prisoners had no comfort except their affection for each other. | |
At that time even common necessaries were denied them. Their small stock | |
of linen had been lent them; by persons of the Court during the time they | |
spent at the Feuillans. The Princesses mended their clothes every day, | |
and after the King had gone to bed Madame Elisabeth mended his. "With | |
much trouble," says Clrry, "I procured some fresh linen for them. But the | |
workwomen having marked it with crowned letters, the Princesses were | |
ordered to pick them out." The room in the great tower to which the King | |
had been removed contained only one bed, and no other article of | |
furniture. A chair was brought on which Clery spent the first night; | |
painters were still at work on the room, and the smell of the paint, he | |
says, was almost unbearable. This room was afterwards furnished by | |
collecting from various parts of the Temple a chest of drawers, a small | |
bureau, a few odd chairs, a chimney-glass, and a bed hung with green | |
damask, which had been used by the captain of the guard to the Comte | |
d'Artois. A room for the Queen was being prepared over that of the King, | |
and she implored the workmen to finish it quickly, but it was not ready | |
for her occupation for some time, and when she was allowed to remove to it | |
the Dauphin was taken from her and placed with his father. When their | |
Majesties met again in the great Tower, says Clery, there was little | |
change in the hours fixed for meals, reading, walking and the education of | |
their children. They were not allowed to have mass said in the Temple, | |
and therefore commissioned Clery to get them the breviary in use in the | |
diocese of Paris. Among the books read by the King while in the Tower | |
were Hume's "History of England" (in the original), Tasso, and the "De | |
Imitatione Christi." The jealous suspicions of the municipal officers led | |
to the most absurd investigations; a draught-board was taken to pieces | |
lest the squares should hide treasonable papers; macaroons were broken in | |
half to see that they did not contain letters; peaches were cut open and | |
the stones cracked; and Clery was compelled to drink the essence of soap | |
prepared for shaving the King, under the pretence that it might contain | |
poison. | |
In November the King and all the family had feverish colds, and Clery had | |
an attack of rheumatic fever. On the first day of his illness he got up | |
and tried to dress his master, but the King, seeing how ill he was, | |
ordered him to lie down, and himself dressed the Dauphin. The little | |
Prince waited on Clery all day, and in the evening the King contrived to | |
approach his bed, and said, in a low voice, "I should like to take care of | |
you myself, but you know how we are watched. Take courage; tomorrow you | |
shall see my doctor." Madame Elisabeth brought the valet cooling | |
draughts, of which she deprived herself; and after Clery was able to get | |
up, the young Prince one night with great difficulty kept awake till | |
eleven o'clock in order to give him a box of lozenges when he went to make | |
the King's bed. | |
On 7th December a deputation from the Commune brought an order that the | |
royal family should be deprived of "knives, razors, scissors, penknives, | |
and all other cutting instruments." The King gave up a knife, and took | |
from a morocco case a pair of scissors and a penknife; and the officials | |
then searched the room, taking away the little toilet implements of gold | |
and silver, and afterwards removing the Princesses' working materials. | |
Returning to the King's room, they insisted upon seeing what remained in | |
his pocket-case. "Are these toys which I have in my hand also cutting | |
instruments?" asked the King, showing them a cork-screw, a turn-screw, | |
and a steel for lighting. These also were taken from him. Shortly | |
afterwards Madame Elisabeth was mending the King's coat, and, having no | |
scissors, was compelled to break the thread with her teeth. | |
"What a contrast!" he exclaimed, looking at her tenderly. "You wanted | |
nothing in your pretty house at Montreuil." | |
"Ah, brother," she answered, "how can I have any regret when I partake | |
your misfortunes?" | |
The Queen had frequently to take on herself some of the humble duties of a | |
servant. This was especially painful to Louis XVI. when the anniversary | |
of some State festival brought the contrast between past and present with | |
unusual keenness before him. | |
"Ah, Madame," he once exclaimed, "what an employment for a Queen of | |
France! Could they see that at Vienna! Who would have foreseen that, in | |
uniting your lot to mine, you would have descended so low?" | |
"And do you esteem as nothing," she replied, "the glory of being the wife | |
of one of the best and most persecuted of men? Are not such misfortunes | |
the noblest honours?"--[Alison's "History of Europe," vol. ii., p. 299.] | |
Meanwhile the Assembly had decided that the King should be brought to | |
trial. Nearly all parties, except the Girondists, no matter how bitterly | |
opposed to each other, could agree in making him the scapegoat; and the | |
first rumour of the approaching ordeal was conveyed to the Temple by | |
Clery's wife, who, with a friend, had permission occasionally to visit | |
him. "I did not know how to announce this terrible news to the King," he | |
says; "but time was pressing, and he had forbidden my concealing anything | |
from him. In the evening, while undressing him, I gave him an account of | |
all I had learnt, and added that there were only four days to concert some | |
plan of corresponding with the Queen. The arrival of the municipal | |
officer would not allow me to say more. Next morning, when the King rose, | |
I could not get a moment for speaking with him. He went up with his son | |
to breakfast with the Princesses, and I followed. After breakfast he | |
talked long with the Queen, who, by a look full of trouble, made me | |
understand that they were discussing what I had told the King. During the | |
day I found an opportunity of describing to Madame Elisabeth how much it | |
had cost me to augment the King's distresses by informing him of his | |
approaching trial. She reassured me, saying that the King felt this as a | |
mark of attachment on my part, and added, 'That which most troubles him is | |
the fear of being separated from us.' In the evening the King told me how | |
satisfied he was at having had warning that he was to appear before the | |
Convention. 'Continue,' he said, 'to endeavour to find out something as | |
to what they want to do with me. Never fear distressing me. I have | |
agreed with my family not to seem pre-informed, in order not to compromise | |
you.'" | |
On the 11th December, at five o'clock in the morning, the prisoners heard | |
the generale beaten throughout Paris, and cavalry and cannon entered the | |
Temple gardens. At nine the King and the Dauphin went as usual to | |
breakfast with the Queen. They were allowed to remain together for an | |
hour, but constantly under the eyes of their republican guardians. At | |
last they were obliged to part, doubtful whether they would ever see each | |
other again. The little Prince, who remained with his father, and was | |
ignorant of the new cause for anxiety, begged hard that the King would | |
play at ninepins with him as usual. Twice the Dauphin could not get | |
beyond a certain number. "Each time that I get up to sixteen," he said, | |
with some vexation, "I lose the game." The King did not reply, but Clery | |
fancied the words made a painful impression on him. | |
At eleven, while the King was giving the Dauphin a reading lesson, two | |
municipal officers entered and said they had come "to take young Louis to | |
his mother." The King inquired why, but was only told that such were the | |
orders of the Council. At one o'clock the Mayor of Paris, Chambon, | |
accompanied by Chaumette, Procureur de la Commune, Santerre, commandant of | |
the National Guard, and others, arrived at the Temple and read a decree to | |
the King, which ordered that "Louis Capet" should be brought before the | |
Convention. "Capet is not my name," he replied, "but that of one of my | |
ancestors. I could have wished," he added, "that you had left my son with | |
me during the last two hours. But this treatment is consistent with all I | |
have experienced here. I follow you, not because I recognise the | |
authority of the Convention, but because I can be compelled to obey it." | |
He then followed the Mayor to a carriage which waited, with a numerous | |
escort, at the gate of the Temple. The family left behind were | |
overwhelmed with grief and apprehension. "It is impossible to describe | |
the anxiety we suffered," says Madame Royale. "My mother used every | |
endeavour with the officer who guarded her to discover what was passing; | |
it was the first time she had condescended to question any of these men. | |
He would tell her nothing." | |
Trial of the King.--Parting of the Royal Family.--Execution. | |
The crowd was immense as, on the morning of the 11th December, 1792, Louis | |
XVI. was driven slowly from the Temple to the Convention, escorted by | |
cavalry, infantry, and artillery. Paris looked like an armed camp: all | |
the posts were doubled; the muster-roll of the National Guard was called | |
over every hour; a picket of two hundred men watched in the court of each | |
of the right sections; a reserve with cannon was stationed at the | |
Tuileries, and strong detachments patroled the streets and cleared the | |
road of all loiterers. The trees that lined the boulevards, the doors and | |
windows of the houses, were alive with gazers, and all eyes were fixed on | |
the King. He was much changed since his people last beheld him. The beard | |
he had been compelled to grow after his razors were taken from him covered | |
cheeks, lips, and chin with light-coloured hair, which concealed the | |
melancholy expression of his mouth; he had become thin, and his garments | |
hung loosely on him; but his manner was perfectly collected and calm, and | |
he recognised and named to the Mayor the various quarters through which he | |
passed. On arriving at the Feuillans he was taken to a room to await the | |
orders of the Assembly. | |
It was about half-past two when the King appeared at the bar. The Mayor | |
and Generaux Santerre and Wittengoff were at his side. Profound silence | |
pervaded the Assembly. All were touched by the King's dignity and the | |
composure of his looks under so great a reverse of fortune. By nature he | |
had been formed rather to endure calamity with patience than to contend | |
against it with energy. The approach of death could not disturb his | |
serenity. | |
"Louis, you may be seated," said Barere. "Answer the questions that shall | |
be put to you." The King seated himself and listened to the reading of | |
the 'acte enonciatif', article by article. All the faults of the Court | |
were there enumerated and imputed to Louis XVI. personally. He was charged | |
with the interruption of the sittings of the 20th of June, 1789, with the | |
Bed of Justice held on the 23d of the same month, the aristocratic | |
conspiracy thwarted by the insurrection of the 14th of July, the | |
entertainment of the Life Guards, the insults offered to the national | |
cockade, the refusal to sanction the Declaration of Rights, as well as | |
several constitutional articles; lastly, all the facts which indicated a | |
new conspiracy in October, and which were followed by the scenes of the | |
5th and 6th; the speeches of reconciliation which had succeeded all these | |
scenes, and which promised a change that was not sincere; the false oath | |
taken at the Federation of the 14th of July; the secret practices of Talon | |
and Mirabeau to effect a counter-revolution; the money spent in bribing a | |
great number of deputies; the assemblage of the "knights of the dagger" on | |
the 28th of February, 1791; the flight to Varennes; the fusilade of the | |
Champ de Mars; the silence observed respecting the Treaty of Pilnitz; the | |
delay in the promulgation of the decree which incorporated Avignon with | |
France; the commotions at Nimes, Montauban, Mende, and Jales; the | |
continuance of their pay to the emigrant Life Guards and to the disbanded | |
Constitutional Guard; the insufficiency of the armies assembled on the | |
frontiers; the refusal to sanction the decree for the camp of twenty | |
thousand men; the disarming of the fortresses; the organisation of secret | |
societies in the interior of Paris; the review of the Swiss and the | |
garrison of the palace on the 10th August; the summoning the Mayor to the | |
Tuileries; and lastly, the effusion of blood which had resulted from these | |
military dispositions. After each article the President paused, and said, | |
"What have you to answer?" The King, in a firm voice, denied some of the | |
facts, imputed others to his ministers, and always appealed to the | |
constitution, from which he declared he had never deviated. His answers | |
were very temperate, but on the charge, "You spilt the blood of the people | |
on the 10th of August," he exclaimed, with emphasis, "No, monsieur, no; it | |
was not I." | |
All the papers on which the act of accusation was founded were then shown | |
to the King, and he disavowed some of them and disputed the existence of | |
the iron chest; this produced a bad impression, and was worse than | |
useless, as the fact had been proved. | |
[A secret closet which the King had directed to be constructed in a wall | |
in the Tuileries. The door was of iron, whence it was afterwards known by | |
the name of the iron chest. See Thiers, and Scott.] | |
Throughout the examination the King showed great presence of mind. He was | |
careful in his answers never to implicate any members of the constituent, | |
and legislative Assemblies; many who then sat as his judges trembled lest | |
he should betray them. The Jacobins beheld with dismay the profound | |
impression made on the Convention by the firm but mild demeanour of the | |
sovereign. The most violent of the party proposed that he should be | |
hanged that very night; a laugh as of demons followed the proposal from | |
the benches of the Mountain, but the majority, composed of the Girondists | |
and the neutrals, decided that he should be formally tried. | |
After the examination Santerre took the King by the arm and led him back | |
to the waiting-room of the Convention, accompanied by Chambon and | |
Chaumette. Mental agitation and the length of the proceedings had | |
exhausted him, and he staggered from weakness. Chaumette inquired if he | |
wished for refreshment, but the King refused it. A moment after, seeing a | |
grenadier of the escort offer the Procureur de la Commune half a small | |
loaf, Louis XVI. approached and asked him, in a whisper, for a piece. | |
"Ask aloud for what you want," said Chaumette, retreating as though he | |
feared being suspected of pity. | |
"I asked for a piece of your bread," replied the King. | |
"Divide it with me," said Chaumette. "It is a Spartan breakfast. If I | |
had a root I would give you half."--[Lamartine's "History of the | |
Girondists," edit. 1870, vol. ii., p. 313.] | |
Soon after six in the evening the King returned to the Temple. "He seemed | |
tired," says Clery, simply, "and his first wish was to be led to his | |
family. The officers refused, on the plea that they had no orders. He | |
insisted that at least they should be informed of his return, and this was | |
promised him. The King ordered me to ask for his supper at half-past | |
eight. The intervening hours he employed in his usual reading, surrounded | |
by four municipals. When I announced that supper was served, the King | |
asked the commissaries if his family could not come down. They made no | |
reply. 'But at least,' the King said, 'my son will pass the night in my | |
room, his bed being here?' The same silence. After supper the King again | |
urged his wish to see his family. They answered that they must await the | |
decision of the Convention. While I was undressing him the King said, 'I | |
was far from expecting all the questions they put to me.' He lay down | |
with perfect calmness. The order for my removal during the night was not | |
executed." On the King's return to the Temple being known, "my mother | |
asked to see him instantly," writes Madame Royale. "She made the same | |
request even to Chambon, but received no answer. My brother passed the | |
night with her; and as he had no bed, she gave him hers, and sat up all | |
the night in such deep affliction that we were afraid to leave her; but | |
she compelled my aunt and me to go to bed. Next day she again asked to | |
see my father, and to read the newspapers, that she might learn the course | |
of the trial. She entreated that if she was to be denied this indulgence, | |
his children, at least, might see him. Her requests were referred to the | |
Commune. The newspapers were refused; but my brother and I were to be | |
allowed to see my father on condition of being entirely separated from my | |
mother. My father replied that, great as his happiness was in seeing his | |
children, the important business which then occupied him would not allow | |
of his attending altogether to his son, and that his daughter could not | |
leave her mother." | |
[During their last interview Madame Elisabeth had given Clery one of her | |
handkerchiefs, saying, "You shall keep it so long as my brother continues | |
well; if he becomes ill, send it to me among my nephew's things."] | |
The Assembly having, after a violent debate, resolved that Louis XVI. | |
should have the aid of counsel, a deputation was sent to the Temple to ask | |
whom he would choose. The King named Messieurs Target and Tronchet. The | |
former refused his services on the ground that he had discontinued | |
practice since 1785; the latter complied at once with the King's request; | |
and while the Assembly was considering whom to, nominate in Target's | |
place, the President received a letter from the venerable Malesherbes, | |
[Christian Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, an eminent French | |
statesman, son of the Chancellor of France, was born at Paris in 1721. In | |
1750 he succeeded his father as President of the Court of Aids, and was | |
also made superintendent of the press. On the banishment of the | |
Parliaments and the suppression of the Court of Aids, Malesherbes was | |
exiled to his country-seat. In 1775 he was appointed Minister of State. | |
On the decree of the Convention for the King's trial, he emerged from his | |
retreat to become the voluntary advocate of his sovereign. Malesherbes | |
was guillotined in 1794, and almost his whole family were extirpated by | |
their merciless persecutors.] | |
then seventy years old, and "the most respected magistrate in France," in | |
the course of which he said: "I have been twice called to be counsel for | |
him who was my master, in times when that duty was coveted by every one. I | |
owe him the same service now that it is a duty which many people deem | |
dangerous. If I knew any possible means of acquainting him with my | |
desires, I should not take the liberty of addressing myself to you." Other | |
citizens made similar proposals, but the King, being made acquainted with | |
them by a deputation from the Commune, while expressing his gratitude for | |
all the offers, accepted only that of Malesherbes. | |
[The Citoyenne Olympia Degonges, calling herself a free and loyal | |
Republican without spot or blame, and declaring that the cold and selfish | |
cruelty of Target had inflamed her heroism and roused her sensibility, | |
asked permission to assist M, de Malesherbes in defending the King. The | |
Assembly passed to the order of the day on this request.--BERTRAND DE | |
MOLLEVILLE, "Annals," edit. 1802, vol, viii., p. 254.] | |
On 14th December M. Tronchet was allowed to confer with the King, and | |
later in the same day M. de Malesherbes was admitted to the Tower. "The | |
King ran up to this worthy old man, whom he clasped in his arms," said | |
Clery, "and the former minister melted into tears at the sight of his | |
master." | |
[According to M. de Hue, "The first time M. de Malesherbes entered the | |
Temple, the King clasped him in his arms and said, 'Ah, is it you, my | |
friend? You fear not to endanger your own life to save mine; but all will | |
be useless. They will bring me to the scaffold. No matter; I shall gain | |
my cause if I leave an unspotted memory behind me.'"] | |
Another deputation brought the King the Act of Accusation and the | |
documents relating to it, numbering more than a hundred, and taking from | |
four o'clock till midnight to read. During this long process the King had | |
refreshments served to the deputies, taking nothing himself till they had | |
left, but considerately reproving Clery for not having supped. From the | |
14th to the 26th December the King saw his counsel and their colleague M. | |
de Size every day. At this time a means of communication between the | |
royal family and the King was devised: a man named Turgi, who had been in | |
the royal kitchen, and who contrived to obtain employment in the Temple, | |
when conveying the meals of the royal family to their apartments, or | |
articles he had purchased for them, managed to give Madame Elisabeth news | |
of the King. Next day, the Princess, when Turgi was removing the dinner, | |
slipped into his hand a bit of paper on which she had pricked with a pin a | |
request for a word from her brother's own hand. Turgi gave this paper to | |
Clery, who conveyed it to the King the same evening; and he, being allowed | |
writing materials while preparing his defence, wrote Madame Elisabeth a | |
short note. An answer was conveyed in a ball of cotton, which Turgi threw | |
under Clery's bed while passing the door of his room. Letters were also | |
passed between the Princess's room and that of Clery, who lodged beneath | |
her, by means of a string let down and drawn up at night. This | |
communication with his family was a great comfort to the King, who, | |
nevertheless, constantly cautioned his faithful servant. "Take care," he | |
would say kindly, "you expose yourself too much." | |
[The King's natural benevolence was constantly shown while in the Temple. | |
His own dreadful position never prevented him from sympathy with the | |
smaller troubles of others. A servant in the Temple named Marchand, the | |
father of a family, was robbed of two hundred francs, --his wages for two | |
months. The King observed his distress, asked its cause, and gave Clery | |
the amount to be handed to Marchand, with a caution not to speak of it to | |
any one, and, above all, not to thank the King, lest it should injure him | |
with his employers.] | |
During his separation from his family the King refused to go into the | |
garden. When it was proposed to him he said, "I cannot make up my mind to | |
go out alone; the walk was agreeable to me only when I shared it with my | |
family." But he did not allow himself to dwell on painful reflections. | |
He talked freely to the municipals on guard, and surprised them by his | |
varied and practical knowledge of their trades, and his interest in their | |
domestic affairs. On the 19th December the King's breakfast was served as | |
usual; but, being a fast-day, he refused to take anything. At dinner-time | |
the King said to Clery, "Fourteen years ago you were up earlier than you | |
were to-day; it is the day my daughter was born--today, her birthday," he | |
repeated, with tears, "and to be prevented from seeing her!" Madame | |
Royale had wished for a calendar; the King ordered Clery to buy her the | |
"Almanac of the Republic," which had replaced the "Court Almanac," and ran | |
through it, marking with a pencil many names. | |
"On Christmas Day," Says Clery, "the King wrote his will." | |
[Madame Royale says: "On the 26th December, St. Stephen's Day, my father | |
made his will, because he expected to be assassinated that day on his way | |
to the bar of the Convention. He went thither, nevertheless, with his | |
usual calmness."--"Royal Memoirs," p. 196.] | |
On the 26th December, 1792, the King appeared a second time before the | |
Convention. M. de Seze, labouring night and day, had completed his | |
defence. The King insisted on excluding from it all that was too | |
rhetorical, and confining it to the mere discussion of essential points. | |
[When the pathetic peroration of M, de Seze was read to the King, the | |
evening before it was delivered to the Assembly, "I have to request of | |
you," he said, "to make a painful sacrifice; strike out of your pleading | |
the peroration. It is enough for me to appear before such judges, and | |
show my entire innocence; I will not move their feelings.--"LACRETELLE.] | |
At half-past nine in the morning the whole armed force was in motion to | |
conduct him from the Temple to the Feuillans, with the same precautions | |
and in the same order as had been observed on the former occasion. Riding | |
in the carriage of the Mayor, he conversed, on the way, with the same | |
composure as usual, and talked of Seneca, of Livy, of the hospitals. | |
Arrived at the Feuillans, he showed great anxiety for his defenders; he | |
seated himself beside them in the Assembly, surveyed with great composure | |
the benches where his accusers and his judges sat, seemed to examine their | |
faces with the view of discovering the impression produced by the pleading | |
of M. de Seze, and more than once conversed smilingly with Tronchet and | |
Malesherbes. The Assembly received his defence in sullen silence, but | |
without any tokens of disapprobation. | |
Being afterwards conducted to an adjoining room with his counsel, the King | |
showed great anxiety about M. de Seze, who seemed fatigued by the long | |
defence. While riding back to the Temple he conversed with his companions | |
with the same serenity as he had shown on leaving it. | |
No sooner had the King left the hall of the Convention than a violent | |
tumult arose there. Some were for opening the discussion. Others, | |
complaining of the delays which postponed the decision of this process, | |
demanded the vote immediately, remarking that in every court, after the | |
accused had been heard, the judges proceed to give their opinion. | |
Lanjuinais had from the commencement of the proceedings felt an | |
indignation which his impetuous disposition no longer suffered him to | |
repress. He darted to the tribune, and, amidst the cries excited by his | |
presence, demanded the annulling of the proceedings altogether. He | |
exclaimed that the days of ferocious men were gone by, that the Assembly | |
ought not to be so dishonoured as to be made to sit in judgment on Louis | |
XVI., that no authority in France had that right, and the Assembly in | |
particular had no claim to it; that if it resolved to act as a political | |
body, it could do no more than take measures of safety against the | |
ci-devant King; but that if it was acting as a court of justice it was | |
overstepping all principles, for it was subjecting the vanquished to be | |
tried by the conquerors, since most of the present members had declared | |
themselves the conspirators of the 10th of August. At the word | |
"conspirators" a tremendous uproar arose on all aides. Cries of | |
"Order!"--"To the Abbaye!"--"Down with the Tribune!" were heard. | |
Lanjuinais strove in vain to justify the word "conspirators," saying that | |
he meant it to be taken in a favourable sense, and that the 10th of August | |
was a glorious conspiracy. He concluded by declaring that he would rather | |
die a thousand deaths than condemn, contrary to all laws, even the most | |
execrable of tyrants. | |
A great number of speakers followed, and the confusion continually | |
increased. The members, determined not to hear any more, mingled | |
together, formed groups, abused and threatened one another. After a | |
tempest of an hour's duration, tranquillity was at last restored; and the | |
Assembly, adopting the opinion of those who demanded the discussion on the | |
trial of Louis XVI., declared that it was opened, and that it should be | |
continued, to the exclusion of all other business, till sentence should be | |
passed. | |
The discussion was accordingly resumed on the 27th, and there was a | |
constant succession of speakers from the 28th to the 31st. Vergniaud at | |
length ascended the tribune for the first time, and an extraordinary | |
eagerness was manifested to hear the Girondists express their sentiments | |
by the lips of their greatest orator. | |
The speech of Vergniaud produced a deep impression on all his hearers. | |
Robespierre was thunderstruck by his earnest and, persuasive eloquence. | |
Vergniaud, however, had but shaken, not convinced, the Assembly, which | |
wavered between the two parties. Several members were successively heard, | |
for and against the appeal to the people. Brissot, Gensonne, Petion, | |
supported it in their turn. One speaker at length had a decisive | |
influence on the question. Barere, by his suppleness, and his cold and | |
evasive eloquence, was the model and oracle of the centre. He spoke at | |
great length on the trial, reviewed it in all its bearings--of facts, of | |
laws, and of policy--and furnished all those weak minds, who only wanted | |
specious reasons for yielding, with motives for the condemnation of the | |
King. From that moment the unfortunate King was condemned. The | |
discussion lasted till the 7th, and nobody would listen any longer to the | |
continual repetition of the same facts and arguments. It was therefore | |
declared to be closed without opposition, but the proposal of a fresh | |
adjournment excited a commotion among the most violent, and ended in a | |
decree which fixed the 14th of January for putting the questions to the | |
vote. | |
Meantime the King did not allow the torturing suspense to disturb his | |
outward composure, or lessen his kindness to those around him. On the | |
morning after his second appearance at the bar of the Convention, the | |
commissary Vincent, who had undertaken secretly to convey to the Queen a | |
copy of the King's printed defence, asked for something which had belonged | |
to him, to treasure as a relic; the King took off his neck handkerchief | |
and gave it him; his gloves he bestowed on another municipal, who had made | |
the same request. "On January 1st," says Clery, "I approached the King's | |
bed and asked permission to offer him my warmest prayers for the end of | |
his misfortunes. 'I accept your good wishes with affection,' he replied, | |
extending his hand to me. As soon as he had risen, he requested a | |
municipal to go and inquire for his family, and present them his good | |
wishes for the new year. The officers were moved by the tone in which | |
these words, so heartrending considering the position of the King, were | |
pronounced . . . . The correspondence between their Majesties went on | |
constantly. The King being informed that Madame Royale was ill, was very | |
uneasy for some days. The Queen, after begging earnestly, obtained | |
permission for M. Brunnier, the medical attendant of the royal children, | |
to come to the Temple. This seemed to quiet him." | |
The nearer the moment which was to decide the King's fate approached, the | |
greater became the agitation in, Paris. "A report was circulated that the | |
atrocities of September were to be repeated there, and the prisoners and | |
their relatives beset the deputies with supplications that they would | |
snatch them from destruction. The Jacobins, on their part, alleged that | |
conspiracies were hatching in all quarters to save Louis XVI. from | |
punishment, and to restore royalty. Their anger, excited by delays and | |
obstacles, assumed a more threatening aspect; and the two parties thus | |
alarmed one another by supposing that each harboured sinister designs." | |
On the 14th of January the Convention called for the order of the day, | |
being the final judgment of Louis XVI. | |
"The sitting of the Convention which concluded the trial," says Hazlitt, | |
"lasted seventy-two hours. It might naturally be supposed that silence, | |
restraint, a sort of religious awe, would have pervaded the scene. On the | |
contrary, everything bore the marks of gaiety, dissipation, and the most | |
grotesque confusion. The farther end of the hall was converted into | |
boxes, where ladies, in a studied deshabille, swallowed ices, oranges, | |
liqueurs, and received the salutations of the members who went and came, | |
as on ordinary occasions. Here the doorkeepers on the Mountain side | |
opened and shut the boxes reserved for the mistresses of the Duc | |
d'Orleans; and there, though every sound of approbation or disapprobation | |
was strictly forbidden, you heard the long and indignant 'Ha, ha's!' of | |
the mother-duchess, the patroness of the bands of female Jacobins, | |
whenever her ears were not loudly greeted with the welcome sounds of | |
death. The upper gallery, reserved for the people, was during the whole | |
trial constantly full of strangers of every description, drinking wine as | |
in a tavern. | |
"Bets were made as to the issue of the trial in all the neighbouring | |
coffee-houses. Ennui, impatience, disgust sat on almost every | |
countenance. The figures passing and repassing, rendered more ghastly by | |
the pallid lights, and who in a slow, sepulchral voice pronounced only the | |
word--Death; others calculating if they should have time to go to dinner | |
before they gave their verdict; women pricking cards with pins in order to | |
count the votes; some of the deputies fallen asleep, and only waking up to | |
give their sentence,--all this had the appearance rather of a hideous | |
dream than of a reality." | |
The Duc d'Orleans, when called on to give his vote for the death of his | |
King and relation, walked with a faltering step, and a face paler than | |
death itself, to the appointed place, and there read these words: | |
"Exclusively governed by my duty, and convinced that all those who have | |
resisted the sovereignty of the people deserve death, my vote is for | |
death!" Important as the accession of the first Prince of the blood was | |
to the Terrorist faction, his conduct in this instance was too obviously | |
selfish and atrocious not to excite a general feeling of indignation; the | |
agitation of the Assembly became extreme; it seemed as if by this single | |
vote the fate of the monarch was irrevocably sealed. | |
The President having examined the register, the result of the scrutiny was | |
proclaimed as follows | |
Against an appeal to the people........... 480 | |
For an appeal to the people............... 283 | |
Majority for final judgment............... 197 | |
The President having announced that he was about to declare the result of | |
the scrutiny, a profound silence ensued, and he then gave in the following | |
declaration: that, out of 719 votes, 366 were for DEATH, 319 were for | |
imprisonment during the war, two for perpetual imprisonment, eight for a | |
suspension of the execution of the sentence of death until after the | |
expulsion of the family of the Bourbons, twenty-three were for not putting | |
him to death until the French territory was invaded by any foreign power, | |
and one was for a sentence of death, but with power of commutation of the | |
punishment. | |
After this enumeration the President took off his hat, and, lowering his | |
voice, said: "In consequence of this expression of opinion I declare that | |
the punishment pronounced by the National Convention against Louis Capet | |
is DEATH!" | |
Previous to the passing of the sentence the President announced on the | |
part of the Foreign Minister the receipt of a letter from the Spanish | |
Minister relative to that sentence. The Convention, however, refused to | |
hear it. [It will be remembered that a similar remonstrance was forwarded | |
by the English Government.] | |
M. de Malesherbes, according to his promise to the King, went to the | |
Temple at nine o'clock on the morning of the 17th?. | |
[Louis was fully prepared for his fate. During the calling of the votes | |
he asked M. de Malesherbes, "Have you not met near the Temple the White | |
Lady?"--" What do you mean?" replied he. "Do you not know," resumed the | |
King with a smile, "that when a prince of our house is about to die, a | |
female dressed in white is seen wandering about the palace? My friends," | |
added he to his defenders, "I am about to depart before you for the land | |
of the just, but there, at least, we shall be reunited." In fact, his | |
Majesty's only apprehension seemed to be for his family.--ALISON.] | |
"All is lost," he said to Clery. "The King is condemned." The King, who | |
saw him arrive, rose to receive him. | |
[When M. de Malesherbes went to the Temple to announce the result of the | |
vote, he found Louis with his forehead resting on his hands, and absorbed | |
in a deep reverie. Without inquiring concerning his fate, he said: "For | |
two hours I have been considering whether, during my whole reign, I have | |
voluntarily given any cause of complaint to my subjects; and with perfect | |
sincerity I declare that I deserve no reproach at their hands, and that I | |
have never formed a wish but for their happiness." LACRETELLE.] | |
M. de Malesherbes, choked by sobs, threw himself at his feet. The King | |
raised him up and affectionately embraced him. When he could control his | |
voice, De Malesherbes informed the King of the decree sentencing him to | |
death; he made no movement of surprise or emotion, but seemed only | |
affected by the distress of his advocate, whom he tried to comfort. | |
On the 20th of January, at two in the afternoon, Louis XVI. was awaiting | |
his advocates, when he heard the approach of a numerous party. He stopped | |
with dignity at the door of his apartment, apparently unmoved: Garat then | |
told him sorrowfully that he was commissioned to communicate to him the | |
decrees of the Convention. Grouvelle, secretary of the Executive Council, | |
read them to him. The first declared Louis XVI. guilty of treason against | |
the general safety of the State; the second condemned him to death; the | |
third rejected any appeal to the people; and the fourth and last ordered | |
his execution in twenty-four hours. Louis, looking calmly round, took the | |
paper from Grouvelle, and read Garat a letter, in which he demanded from | |
the Convention three days to prepare for death, a confessor to assist him | |
in his last moments, liberty to see his family, and permission for them to | |
leave France. Garat took the letter, promising to submit it immediately | |
to the Convention. | |
Louis XVI. then went back into his room with great composure, ordered his | |
dinner, and ate as usual. There were no knives on the table, and his | |
attendants refused to let him have any. "Do they think me so cowardly," | |
he exclaimed, "as to lay violent hands on myself? I am innocent, and I am | |
not afraid to die." | |
The Convention refused the delay, but granted some other demands which he | |
had made. Garat sent for Edgeworth de Firmont, the ecclesiastic whom | |
Louis XVI. had chosen, and took him in his own carriage to the Temple. M. | |
Edgeworth, on being ushered into the presence of the King, would have | |
thrown himself at his feet, but Louis instantly raised him, and both shed | |
tears of emotion. He then, with eager curiosity, asked various questions | |
concerning the clergy of France, several bishops, and particularly the | |
Archbishop of Paris, requesting him to assure the latter that he died | |
faithfully attached to his communion.--The clock having struck eight, he | |
rose, begged M. Edgeworth to wait, and retired with emotion, saying that | |
he was going to see his family. The municipal officers, unwilling to lose | |
sight of the King, even while with his family, had decided that he should | |
see them in the dining-room, which had a glass door, through which they | |
could watch all his motions without hearing what he said. At half-past | |
eight the door opened. The Queen, holding the Dauphin by the hand, Madame | |
Elisabeth, and Madame Royale rushed sobbing into the arms of Louis XVI. | |
The door was closed, and the municipal officers, Clery, and M. Edgeworth | |
placed themselves behind it. During the first moments, it was but a scene | |
of confusion and despair. Cries and lamentations prevented those who were | |
on the watch from distinguishing anything. At length the conversation | |
became more calm, and the Princesses, still holding the King clasped in | |
their arms, spoke with him in a low tone. "He related his trial to my | |
mother," says Madame Royale, "apologising for the wretches who had | |
condemned him. He told her that he would not consent to any attempt to | |
save him, which might excite disturbance in the country. He then gave my | |
brother some religious advice, and desired him, above all, to forgive | |
those who caused his death; and he gave us his blessing. My mother was | |
very desirous that the whole family should pass the night with my father, | |
but he opposed this, observing to her that he much needed some hours of | |
repose and quiet." After a long conversation, interrupted by silence and | |
grief, the King put an end to the painful meeting, agreeing to see his | |
family again at eight the next morning. "Do you promise that you will?" | |
earnestly inquired the Princesses. "Yes, yes," sorrowfully replied the | |
King. | |
["But when we were gone," says his daughter, "he requested that we might | |
not be permitted to return, as our presence afflicted him too much."] | |
At this moment the Queen held him by one arm, Madame Elisabeth by the | |
other, while Madame Royale clasped him round the waist, and the Dauphin | |
stood before him, with one hand in that of his mother. At the moment of | |
retiring Madame Royale fainted; she was carried away, and the King | |
returned to M. Edgeworth deeply depressed by this painful interview. The | |
King retired to rest about midnight; M. Edgeworth threw himself upon a | |
bed, and Clery took his place near the pillow of his master. | |
Next morning, the 21st of January, at five, the King awoke, called Clery, | |
and dressed with great calmness. He congratulated himself on having | |
recovered his strength by sleep. Clery kindled a fire,, and moved a chest | |
of drawers, out of which he formed an altar. M. Edgeworth put on his | |
pontifical robes, and began to celebrate mass. Clery waited on him, and | |
the King listened, kneeling with the greatest devotion. He then received | |
the communion from the hands of M. Edgeworth, and after mass rose with new | |
vigour, and awaited with composure the moment for going to the scaffold. | |
He asked for scissors that Clery might cut his hair; but the Commune | |
refused to trust him with a pair. | |
At this moment the drums were beating in the capital. All who belonged to | |
the armed sections repaired to their company with complete submission. It | |
was reported that four or five hundred devoted men, were to make a dash | |
upon the carriage, and rescue the King. The Convention, the Commune, the | |
Executive Council, and the Jacobins were sitting. At eight. in the | |
morning, Santerre, with a deputation from the Commune, the department, and | |
the criminal tribunal, repaired to the Temple. Louis XVI., on hearing | |
them arrive, rose and prepared to depart. He desired Clery to transmit | |
his last farewell to his wife, his sister, and his children; he gave him a | |
sealed packet, hair, and various trinkets, with directions to deliver | |
these articles to them. | |
[In the course of the morning the King said to me: "You will give this | |
seal to my son and this ring to the Queen, and assure her that it is with | |
pain I part with it. This little packet contains the hair of all my | |
family; you will give her that, too. Tell the Queen, my dear sister, and | |
my children, that, although I promised to see them again this morning, I | |
have resolved to spare them the pang of so cruel a separation. Tell them | |
how much it costs me to go away without receiving their embraces once | |
more!" He wiped away some tears, and then added, in the most mournful | |
accents, "I charge you to bear them my last farewell."--CLERY.] | |
He then clasped his hand and thanked him for his services. After this he | |
addressed himself to one of the municipal officers, requesting him to | |
transmit his last will to the Commune. This officer, who had formerly | |
been a priest, and was named Jacques Roux, brutally replied that his | |
business was to conduct him to execution, and not to perform his | |
commissions. Another person took charge of it, and Louis, turning towards | |
the party, gave with firmness the signal for starting. | |
Officers of gendarmerie were placed on the front seat of the carriage. The | |
King and M. Edgeworth occupied the back. During the ride, which was | |
rather long, the King read in M. Edgeworth's breviary the prayers for | |
persons at the point of death; the two gendarmes were astonished at his | |
piety and tranquil resignation. The vehicle advanced slowly, and amidst | |
universal silence. At the Place de la Revolution an extensive space had | |
been left vacant about the scaffold. Around this space were planted | |
cannon; the most violent of the Federalists were stationed about the | |
scaffold; and the vile rabble, always ready to insult genius, virtue, and | |
misfortune, when a signal is given it to do so, crowded behind the ranks | |
of the Federalists, and alone manifested some outward tokens of | |
satisfaction. | |
At ten minutes past ten the carriage stopped. Louis XVI., rising briskly, | |
stepped out into the Place. Three executioners came up; he refused their | |
assistance, and took off his clothes himself. But, perceiving that they | |
were going to bind his hands, he made a movement of indignation, and | |
seemed ready to resist. M. Edgeworth gave him a last look, and said, | |
"Suffer this outrage, as a last resemblance to that God who is about to be | |
your reward." At these words the King suffered himself to be bound and | |
conducted to the scaffold. All at once Louis hurriedly advanced to | |
address the people. "Frenchmen," said he, in a firm voice, "I die | |
innocent of the crimes which are imputed to me; I forgive the authors of | |
my death, and I pray that my blood may not fall upon France." He would | |
have continued, but the drums were instantly ordered to beat: their | |
rolling drowned his voice; the executioners laid hold of him, and M. | |
Edgeworth took his leave in these memorable words: "Son of Saint Louis, | |
ascend to heaven!" As soon as the blood flowed, furious wretches dipped | |
their pikes and handkerchiefs in it, then dispersed throughout Paris, | |
shouting "Vive la Republique! Vive la Nation!" and even went to the | |
gates of the Temple to display brutal and factious joy. | |
[The body of Louis was, immediately after the execution, removed to the | |
ancient cemetery of the Madeleine. Large quantities of quicklime were | |
thrown into the grave, which occasioned so rapid a decomposition that, | |
when his remains were sought for in 1816, it was with difficulty any part | |
could be recovered. Over the spot where he was interred Napoleon | |
commenced the splendid Temple of Glory, after the battle of Jena; and the | |
superb edifice was completed by the Bourbons, and now forms the Church of | |
the Madeleine, the most beautiful structure in Paris. Louis was executed | |
on the same ground where the Queen, Madame Elisabeth, and so many other | |
noble victims of the Revolution perished; where Robespierre and Danton | |
afterwards suffered; and where the Emperor Alexander and the allied | |
sovereigns took their station, when their victorious troops entered Paris | |
in 1814! The history of modern Europe has not a scene fraught with | |
equally interesting recollections to exhibit. It is now marked by the | |
colossal obelisk of blood-red granite which was brought from Thebes, in | |
Upper Egypt, in 1833, by the French Government.--ALLISON.] | |
The Royal Prisoners.--Separation of the Dauphin from His Family. | |
--Removal of the Queen. | |
On the morning of the King's execution, according to the narrative of | |
Madame Royale, his family rose at six: "The night before, my mother had | |
scarcely strength enough to put my brother to bed; She threw herself, | |
dressed as she was, on her own bed, where we heard her shivering with cold | |
and grief all night long. At a quarter-past six the door opened; we | |
believed that we were sent for to the King, but it was only the officers | |
looking for a prayer-book for him. We did not, however, abandon the hope | |
of seeing him, till shouts of joy from the infuriated populace told us | |
that all was over. In the afternoon my mother asked to see Clery, who | |
probably had some message for her; we hoped that seeing him would occasion | |
a burst of grief which might relieve the state of silent and choking agony | |
in which we saw her." The request was refused, and the officers who | |
brought the refusal said Clery was in "a frightful state of despair" at | |
not being allowed to see the royal family; shortly afterwards he was | |
dismissed from the Temple. | |
"We had now a little more freedom," continues the Princess; "our guards | |
even believed that we were about to be sent out of France; but nothing | |
could calm my mother's agony; no hope could touch her heart, and life or | |
death became indifferent to her. Fortunately my own affliction increased | |
my illness so seriously that it distracted her thoughts . . . . My | |
mother would go no more to the garden, because she must have passed the | |
door of what had been my father's room, and that she could not bear. But | |
fearing lest want of air should prove injurious to my brother and me, | |
about the end of February she asked permission to walk on the leads of the | |
Tower, and it was granted." | |
The Council of the Commune, becoming aware of the interest which these sad | |
promenades excited, and the sympathy with which they were observed from | |
the neighbouring houses, ordered that the spaces between the battlements | |
should be filled up with shutters, which intercepted the view. But while | |
the rules for the Queen's captivity were again made more strict, some of | |
the municipal commissioners tried slightly to alleviate it, and by means | |
of M. de Hue, who was at liberty in Paris, and the faithful Turgi, who | |
remained in the Tower, some communications passed between the royal family | |
and their friends. The wife of Tison, who waited on the Queen, suspected | |
and finally denounced these more lenient guardians,--[Toulan, Lepitre, | |
Vincent, Bruno, and others.]--who were executed, the royal prisoners being | |
subjected to a close examination. | |
"On the 20th of April," says Madame Royale, "my mother and I had just gone | |
to bed when Hebert arrived with several municipals. We got up hastily, | |
and these men read us a decree of the Commune directing that we should be | |
searched. My poor brother was asleep; they tore him from his bed under | |
the pretext of examining it. My mother took him up, shivering with cold. | |
All they took was a shopkeeper's card which my mother had happened to | |
keep, a stick of sealing-wax from my aunt, and from me 'une sacre coeur de | |
Jesus' and a prayer for the welfare of France. The search lasted from | |
half-past ten at night till four o'clock in the morning." | |
The next visit of the officials was to Madame Elisabeth alone; they found | |
in her room a hat which the King had worn during his imprisonment, and | |
which she had begged him to give her as a souvenir. They took it from her | |
in spite of her entreaties. "It was suspicious," said the cruel and | |
contemptible tyrants. | |
The Dauphin became ill with fever, and it was long before his mother, who | |
watched by him night and day, could obtain medicine or advice for him. | |
When Thierry was at last allowed to see him his treatment relieved the | |
most violent symptoms, but, says Madame Royale, "his health was never | |
reestablished. Want of air and exercise did him great mischief, as well | |
as the kind of life which this poor child led, who at eight years of age | |
passed his days amidst the tears of his friends, and in constant anxiety | |
and agony." | |
While the Dauphin's health was causing his family such alarm, they were | |
deprived of the services of Tison's wife, who became ill, and finally | |
insane, and was removed to the Hotel Dieu, where her ravings were reported | |
to the Assembly and made the ground of accusations against the royal | |
prisoners. | |
[This woman, troubled by remorse, lost her reason, threw herself at the | |
feet of the Queen, implored her pardon, and disturbed the Temple for many | |
days with the sight and the noise of her madness. The Princesses, | |
forgetting the denunciations of this unfortunate being, in consideration | |
of her repentance and insanity, watched over her by turns, and deprived | |
themselves of their own food to relieve her.--LAMARTINE, "History of the | |
Girondists," vol. iii., p.140.] | |
No woman took her place, and the Princesses themselves made their beds, | |
swept their rooms, and waited upon the Queen. | |
Far worse punishments than menial work were prepared for them. On 3d July | |
a decree of the Convention ordered that the Dauphin should be separated | |
from his family and "placed in the most secure apartment of the Tower." | |
As soon as he heard this decree pronounced, says his sister, "he threw | |
himself into my mother's arms, and with violent cries entreated not to be | |
parted from her. My mother would not let her son go, and she actually | |
defended against the efforts of the officers the bed in which she had | |
placed him. The men threatened to call up the guard and use violence. My | |
mother exclaimed that they had better kill her than tear her child from | |
her. At last they threatened our lives, and my mother's maternal | |
tenderness forced her to the sacrifice. My aunt and I dressed the child, | |
for my poor mother had no longer strength for anything. Nevertheless, when | |
he was dressed, she took him up in her arms and delivered him herself to | |
the officers, bathing him with her tears, foreseeing that she was never to | |
behold him again. The poor little fellow embraced us all tenderly, and | |
was carried away in a flood of tears. My mother's horror was extreme when | |
she heard that Simon, a shoemaker by trade, whom she had seen as a | |
municipal officer in the Temple, was the person to whom her child was | |
confided . . . . The officers now no longer remained in my mother's | |
apartment; they only came three times a day to bring our meals and examine | |
the bolts and bars of our windows; we were locked up together night and | |
day. We often went up to the Tower, because my brother went, too, from | |
the other side. The only pleasure my mother enjoyed was seeing him | |
through a crevice as he passed at a distance. She would watch for hours | |
together to see him as he passed. It was her only hope, her only | |
thought." | |
The Queen was soon deprived even of this melancholy consolation. On 1st | |
August, 1793, it was resolved that she should be tried. Robespierre | |
opposed the measure, but Barere roused into action that deep-rooted hatred | |
of the Queen which not even the sacrifice of her life availed to | |
eradicate. "Why do the enemies of the Republic still hope for success?" | |
he asked. "Is it because we have too long forgotten the crimes of the | |
Austrian? The children of Louis the Conspirator are hostages for the | |
Republic . . .but behind them lurks a woman who has been the cause of | |
all the disasters of France." | |
At two o'clock on the morning of the following day, the municipal officers | |
"awoke us," says Madame Royale, "to read to my mother the decree of the | |
Convention, which ordered her removal to the Conciergerie, | |
[The Conciergerie was originally, as its name implies, the porter's lodge | |
of the ancient Palace of Justice, and became in time a prison, from the | |
custom of confining there persons who had committed trifling offences | |
about the Court.] | |
preparatory to her trial. She heard it without visible emotion, and | |
without speaking a single word. My aunt and I immediately asked to be | |
allowed to accompany my mother, but this favour was refused us. All the | |
time my mother was making up a bundle of clothes to take with her, these | |
officers never left her. She was even obliged to dress herself before | |
them, and they asked for her pockets, taking away the trifles they | |
contained. She embraced me, charging me to keep up my spirits and my | |
courage, to take tender care of my aunt, and obey her as a second mother. | |
She then threw herself into my aunt's arms, and recommended her children | |
to her care; my aunt replied to her in a whisper, and she was then hurried | |
away. In leaving the Temple she struck her head against the wicket, not | |
having stooped low enough. | |
[Mathieu, the gaoler, used to say, "I make Madame Veto and her sister and | |
daughter, proud though they are, salute me; for the door is so low they | |
cannot pass without bowing."] | |
The officers asked whether she had hurt herself. 'No,' she replied, | |
'nothing can hurt me now." | |
The Last Moments of Marie Antoinette. | |
We have already seen what changes had been made in the Temple. Marie | |
Antoinette had been separated from her sister, her daughter, and her Son, | |
by virtue of a decree which ordered the trial and exile of the last | |
members of the family of the Bourbons. She had been removed to the | |
Conciergerie, and there, alone in a narrow prison, she was reduced to what | |
was strictly necessary, like the other prisoners. The imprudence of a | |
devoted friend had rendered her situation still more irksome. Michonnis, a | |
member of the municipality, in whom she had excited a warm interest, was | |
desirous of introducing to her a person who, he said, wished to see her | |
out of curiosity. This man, a courageous emigrant, threw to her a | |
carnation, in which was enclosed a slip of very fine paper with these | |
words: "Your friends are ready,"--false hope, and equally dangerous for | |
her who received it, and for him who gave it! Michonnis and the emigrant | |
were detected and forthwith apprehended; and the vigilance exercised in | |
regard to the unfortunate prisoner became from that day more rigorous than | |
ever. | |
[The Queen was lodged in a room called the council chamber, which was | |
considered as the moat unwholesome apartment in the Conciergerie on | |
account of its dampness and the bad smells by which it was continually | |
affected. Under pretence of giving her a person to wait upon her they | |
placed near her a spy,--a man of a horrible countenance and hollow, | |
sepulchral voice. This wretch, whose name was Barassin, was a robber and | |
murderer by profession. Such was the chosen attendant on the Queen of | |
France! A few days before her trial this wretch was removed and a | |
gendarme placed in her chamber, who watched over her night and day, and | |
from whom she was not separated, even when in bed, but by a ragged | |
curtain. In this melancholy abode Marie Antoinette had no other dress | |
than an old black gown, stockings with holes, which she was forced to mend | |
every day; and she was entirely destitute of shoes.--DU BROCA.] | |
Gendarmes were to mount guard incessantly at the door of her prison, and | |
they were expressly forbidden to answer anything that she might say to | |
them. | |
That wretch Hebert, the deputy of Chaumette, and editor of the disgusting | |
paper Pere Duchesne, a writer of the party of which Vincent, Ronsin, | |
Varlet, and Leclerc were the leaders--Hebert had made it his particular | |
business to torment the unfortunate remnant of the dethroned family. He | |
asserted that the family of the tyrant ought not to be better treated than | |
any sans-culotte family; and he had caused a resolution to be passed by | |
which the sort of luxury in which the prisoners in the Temple were | |
maintained was to be suppressed. They were no longer to be allowed either | |
poultry or pastry; they were reduced to one sort of aliment for breakfast, | |
and to soup or broth and a single dish for dinner, to two dishes for | |
supper, and half a bottle of wine apiece. Tallow candles were to be | |
furnished instead of wag, pewter instead of silver plate, and delft ware | |
instead of porcelain. The wood and water carriers alone were permitted to | |
enter their room, and that only accompanied by two commissioners. Their | |
food was to be introduced to them by means of a turning box. The numerous | |
establishment was reduced to a cook and an assistant, two men-servants, | |
and a woman-servant to attend to the linen. | |
As soon as this resolution was passed, Hebert had repaired to the Temple | |
and inhumanly taken away from the unfortunate prisoners even the most | |
trifling articles to which they attached a high value. Eighty Louis which | |
Madame Elisabeth had in reserve, and which she had received from Madame de | |
Lamballe, were also taken away. No one is more dangerous, more cruel, | |
than the man without acquirements, without education, clothed with a | |
recent authority. If, above all, he possess a base nature, if, like | |
Hebert, who was check-taker at the door of a theatre, and embezzled money | |
out of the receipts, he be destitute of natural morality, and if he leap | |
all at once from the mud of his condition into power, he is as mean as he | |
is atrocious. Such was Hebert in his conduct at the Temple. He did not | |
confine himself to the annoyances which we have mentioned. He and some | |
others conceived the idea of separating the young Prince from his aunt and | |
sister. A shoemaker named Simon and his wife were the instructors to whom | |
it was deemed right to consign him for the purpose of giving him a | |
sans-cullotte education. Simon and his wife were shut up in the Temple, | |
and, becoming prisoners with the unfortunate child, were directed to bring | |
him up in their own way. Their food was better than that of the | |
Princesses, and they shared the table of the municipal commissioners who | |
were on duty. Simon was permitted to go down, accompanied by two | |
commissioners, to the court of the Temple, for the purpose of giving the | |
Dauphin a little exercise. | |
Hebert conceived the infamous idea of wringing from this boy revelations | |
to criminate his unhappy mother. Whether this wretch imputed to the child | |
false revelations, or abused his, tender age and his condition to extort | |
from him what admissions soever he pleased, he obtained a revolting | |
deposition; and as the youth of the Prince did not admit of his being | |
brought before the tribunal, Hebert appeared and detailed the infamous | |
particulars which he had himself either dictated or invented. | |
It was on the 14th of October that Marie Antoinette appeared before her | |
judges. Dragged before the sanguinary tribunal by inexorable | |
revolutionary vengeance, she appeared there without any chance of | |
acquittal, for it was not to obtain her acquittal that the Jacobins had | |
brought her before it. It was necessary, however, to make some charges. | |
Fouquier therefore collected the rumours current among the populace ever | |
since the arrival of the Princess in France, and, in the act of | |
accusation, he charged her with having plundered the exchequer, first for | |
her pleasures, and afterwards in order to transmit money to her brother, | |
the Emperor. He insisted on the scenes of the 5th and 6th of October, and | |
on the dinners of the Life Guards, alleging that she had at that period | |
framed a plot, which obliged the people to go to Versailles to frustrate | |
it. He afterwards accused her of having governed her husband, interfered | |
in the choice of ministers, conducted the intrigues with the deputies | |
gained by the Court, prepared the journey to Varennes, provoked the war, | |
and transmitted to the enemy's generals all our plans of campaign. He | |
further accused her of having prepared a new conspiracy on the 10th of | |
August, of having on that day caused the people to be fired upon, having | |
induced her husband to defend himself by taxing him with cowardice; | |
lastly, of having never ceased to plot and correspond with foreigners | |
since her captivity in the Temple, and of having there treated her young | |
son as King. We here observe how, on the terrible day of long-deferred | |
vengeance, when subjects at length break forth and strike such of their | |
princes as have not deserved the blow, everything is distorted and | |
converted into crime. We see how the profusion and fondness for pleasure, | |
so natural to a young princess, how her attachment to her native country, | |
her influence over her husband, her regrets, always more indiscreet in a | |
woman than a man, nay, even her bolder courage, appeared to their inflamed | |
or malignant imaginations. | |
It was necessary to produce witnesses. Lecointre, deputy of Versailles, | |
who had seen what had passed on the 5th and 6th of October, Hebert, who | |
had frequently visited the Temple, various clerks in the ministerial | |
offices, and several domestic servants of the old Court were summoned.. | |
Admiral d'Estaing, formerly commandant of the guard of Versailles; Manuel, | |
the ex-procureur of the Commune; Latour-du-Pin, minister of war in 1789; | |
the venerable Bailly, who, it was said, had been, with La Fayette, an | |
accomplice in the journey to Varennes; lastly, Valaze one of the | |
Girondists destined to the scaffold, were taken from their prisons and | |
compelled to give evidence. | |
No precise fact was elicited. Some had seen the Queen in high spirits | |
when the Life Guards testified their attachment; others had seen her vexed | |
and dejected while being conducted to Paris, or brought back from | |
Varennes; these had been present at splendid festivities which must have | |
cost enormous sums; those had heard it said in the ministerial offices | |
that the Queen was adverse to the sanction of the decrees. An ancient | |
waiting-woman of the Queen had heard the Duc de Coigny say, in 1788, that | |
the Emperor had already received two hundred millions from France to make | |
war upon the Turks. | |
The cynical Hebert, being brought before the unfortunate Queen, dared at | |
length to prefer the charges wrung from the young Prince. He said that | |
Charles Capet had given Simon an account of the journey to Varennes, and | |
mentioned La Fayette and Bailly as having cooperated in it. He then added | |
that this boy was addicted to odious and very premature vices for his age; | |
that he had been surprised by Simon, who, on questioning him, learned that | |
he derived from his mother the vices in which he indulged. Hebert said | |
that it was no doubt the intention of Marie Antoinette, by weakening thus, | |
early the physical constitution of her son, to secure to herself the means | |
of ruling him in case he should ever ascend the throne. The rumours which | |
had been whispered for twenty years by a malicious Court had given the | |
people a most unfavourable opinion of the morals of the Queen. That | |
audience, however, though wholly Jacobin, was disgusted at the accusations | |
of Hebert. | |
[Can there be a more infernal invention than that made against the. Queen | |
by Hdbert,--namely, that she had had an improper intimacy with her own | |
son? He made use of this sublime idea of which he boasted in order to | |
prejudice the women against the Queen, and to prevent her execution from | |
exciting pity. It had, however, no other effect than that of disgusting | |
all parties.--PRUDHOMME.] | |
He nevertheless persisted in supporting them. | |
[Hebert did not long survive her in whose sufferings he had taken such an | |
infamous part. He was executed on 26th March, 1794.] | |
The unhappy mother made no reply. Urged a new to explain herself, she | |
said, with extraordinary emotion, "I thought that human nature would | |
excuse me from answering such an imputation, but I appeal from it to the | |
heart of every mother here present." This noble and simple reply affected | |
all who heard it. | |
In the depositions of the witnesses, however, all was not so bitter for | |
Marie Antoinette. The brave D'Estaing, whose enemy she had been, would | |
not say anything to inculpate her, and spoke only of the courage which she | |
had shown on the 5th and 6th of October, and of the noble resolution which | |
she had expressed, to die beside her husband rather than fly. Manuel, in | |
spite of his enmity to the Court during the time of the Legislative | |
Assembly, declared that he could not say anything against the accused. | |
When the venerable Bailly was brought forward, who formerly so often | |
predicted to the Court the calamities which its imprudence must produce, | |
he appeared painfully affected; and when he was asked if he knew the wife | |
of Capet, "Yes," said he, bowing respectfully, "I have known Madame." He | |
declared that he knew nothing, and maintained that the declarations | |
extorted from the young Prince relative to the journey to Varennes were | |
false. In recompense for his deposition he was assailed with outrageous | |
reproaches, from which he might judge what fate would soon be awarded to | |
himself. | |
In all the evidence there appeared but two serious facts, attested by | |
Latour-du-Pin and Valaze, who deposed to them because they could not help | |
it. Latour-du-Pin declared that Marie Antoinette had applied to him for | |
an accurate statement of the armies while he was minister of war. Valaze, | |
always cold, but respectful towards misfortune, would not say anything to | |
criminate the accused; yet he could not help declaring that, as a member | |
of the commission of twenty-four, being charged with his colleagues to | |
examine the papers found at the house of Septeuil, treasurer of the civil | |
list, he had seen bonds for various sums signed Antoinette, which was very | |
natural; but he added that he had also seen a letter in which the minister | |
requested the King to transmit to the Queen the copy of the plan of | |
campaign which he had in his hands. The most unfavourable construction | |
was immediately put upon these two facts, the application for a statement | |
of the armies, and the communication of the plan of campaign; and it was | |
concluded that they could not be wanted for any other purpose than to be | |
sent to the enemy, for it was not supposed that a young princess should | |
turn her attention, merely for her own satisfaction, to matters of | |
administration and military, plans. After these depositions, several | |
others were received respecting the expenses of the Court, the influence | |
of the Queen in public affairs, the scene of the 10th of August, and what | |
had passed in the Temple; and the most vague rumours and most trivial | |
circumstances were eagerly caught at as proofs. | |
Marie Antoinette frequently repeated, with presence of mind and firmness, | |
that there was no precise fact against her; | |
[At first the Queen, consulting only her own sense of dignity, had | |
resolved on her trial to make no other reply to the questions of her | |
judges than "Assassinate me as you have already assassinated my husband!" | |
Afterwards, however, she determined to follow the example of the King, | |
exert herself in her defence, and leave her judges without any excuse or | |
pretest for putting her to death.--WEBER'S "Memoirs of Marie Antoinette."] | |
that, besides, though the wife of Louis XVI., she was not answerable for | |
any of the acts of his reign. Fouquier nevertheless declared her to be | |
sufficiently convicted; Chaveau-Lagarde made unavailing efforts to defend | |
her; and the unfortunate Queen was condemned to suffer the same fate as | |
her husband. | |
Conveyed back to the Conciergerie, she there passed in tolerable composure | |
the night preceding her execution, and, on the morning of the following | |
day, the 16th of October, | |
[The Queen, after having written and prayed, slept soundly for some hours. | |
On her waking, Bault's daughter dressed her and adjusted her hair with | |
more neatness than on other days. Marie Antoinette wore a white gown, a | |
white handkerchief covered her shoulders, a white cap her hair; a black | |
ribbon bound this cap round her temples .... The cries, the looks, the | |
laughter, the jests of the people overwhelmed her with humiliation; her | |
colour, changing continually from purple to paleness, betrayed her | |
agitation .... On reaching the scaffold she inadvertently trod on the | |
executioner's foot. "Pardon me," she said, courteously. She knelt for an | |
instant and uttered a half-audible prayer; then rising and glancing | |
towards the towers of the Temple, "Adieu, once again, my children," she | |
said; "I go to rejoin your father."--LAMARTINE.] | |
she was conducted, amidst a great concourse of the populace, to the fatal | |
spot where, ten months before, Louis XVI. had perished. She listened | |
with calmness to the exhortations of the ecclesiastic who accompanied her, | |
and cast an indifferent look at the people who had so often applauded her | |
beauty and her grace, and who now as warmly applauded her execution. On | |
reaching the foot of the scaffold she perceived the Tuileries, and | |
appeared to be moved; but she hastened to ascend the fatal ladder, and | |
gave herself up with courage to the executioner. | |
[Sorrow had blanched the Queen's once beautiful hair; but her features and | |
air still commanded the admiration of all who beheld her; her cheeks, pale | |
and emaciated, were occasionally tinged with a vivid colour at the mention | |
of those she had lost. When led out to execution, she was dressed in | |
white; she had cut off her hair with her own hands. Placed in a tumbrel, | |
with her arms tied behind her, she was taken by a circuitous route to the | |
Place de la Revolution, and she ascended the scaffold with a firm and | |
dignified step, as if she had been about to take her place on a throne by | |
the side of her husband.-LACRETELLE.] | |
The infamous wretch exhibited her head to the people, as he was accustomed | |
to do when he had sacrificed an illustrious victim. | |
The Last Separation.--Execution of Madame Elisabeth. | |
--Death of the Dauphin. | |
The two Princesses left in the Temple were now almost inconsolable; they | |
spent days and nights in tears, whose only alleviation was that they were | |
shed together. "The company of my aunt, whom I loved so tenderly," said | |
Madame Royale, "was a great comfort to me. But alas! all that I loved | |
was perishing around me, and I was soon to lose her also . . . . In | |
the beginning of September I had an illness caused solely by my anxiety | |
about my mother; I never heard a drum beat that I did not expect another | |
3d of September."--[when the head of the Princesse de Lamballe was carried | |
to the Temple.] | |
In the course of the month the rigour of their captivity was much | |
increased. The Commune ordered that they should only have one room; that | |
Tison (who had done the heaviest of the household work for them, and since | |
the kindness they showed to his insane wife had occasionally given them | |
tidings of the Dauphin) should be imprisoned in the turret; that they | |
should be supplied with only the barest necessaries; and that no one | |
should enter their room save to carry water and firewood. Their quantity | |
of firing was reduced, and they were not allowed candles. They were also | |
forbidden to go on the leads, and their large sheets were taken away, | |
"lest--notwithstanding the gratings!--they should escape from the | |
windows." | |
On 8th October, 1793, Madame Royale was ordered to go downstairs, that she | |
might be interrogated by some municipal officers. "My aunt, who was | |
greatly affected, would have followed, but they stopped her. She asked | |
whether I should be permitted to come up again; Chaumette assured her that | |
I should. 'You may trust,' said he, 'the word of an honest republican. | |
She shall return.' I soon found myself in my brother's room, whom I | |
embraced tenderly; but we were torn asunder, and I was obliged to go into | |
another room.--[This was the last time the brother and sister met] . . . | |
Chaumette then questioned me about a thousand shocking things of which | |
they accused my mother and aunt; I was so indignant at hearing such | |
horrors that, terrified as I was, I could not help exclaiming that they | |
were infamous falsehoods. | |
"But in spite of my tears they still pressed their questions. There were | |
some things which I did not comprehend, but of which I understood enough | |
to make me weep with indignation and horror . . . . They then asked me | |
about Varennes, and other things. I answered as well as I could without | |
implicating anybody. I had always heard my parents say that it were | |
better to die than to implicate anybody." When the examination was over | |
the Princess begged to be allowed to join her mother, but Chaumette said | |
he could not obtain permission for her to do so. She was then cautioned | |
to say nothing about her examination to her aunt, who was next to appear | |
before them. Madame Elisabeth, her niece declares, "replied with still | |
more contempt to their shocking questions." | |
The only intimation of the Queen's fate which her daughter and her | |
sister-in-law were allowed to receive was through hearing her sentence | |
cried by the newsman. But "we could not persuade ourselves that she was | |
dead," writes Madame Royale. "A hope, so natural to the unfortunate, | |
persuaded us that she must have been saved. For eighteen months I | |
remained in this cruel suspense. We learnt also by the cries of the | |
newsman the death of the Duc d'Orleans. | |
[The Duc d'Orleans, the early and interested propagator of the Revolution, | |
was its next victim. Billaud Varennes said in the Convention: "The time | |
has come when all the conspirators should be known and struck. I demand | |
that we no longer pass over in silence a man whom we seem to have | |
forgotten, despite the numerous facts against him. I demand that | |
D'ORLEANS be sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal." The Convention, once | |
his hireling adulators, unanimously supported the proposal. In vain he | |
alleged his having been accessory to the disorders of 5th October, his | |
support of the revolt on 10th August, 1792, his vote against the King on | |
17th January, 1793. His condemnation was pronounced. He then asked only | |
for a delay of twenty-four hours, and had a repast carefully prepared, on | |
which he feasted with avidity. When led out for execution he gazed with a | |
smile on the Palais Royal, the scene of his former orgies. He was detained | |
for a quarter of an hour before that palace by the order of Robespierre, | |
who had asked his daughter's hand, and promised in return to excite a | |
tumult in which the Duke's life should be saved. Depraved though he was, | |
he would not consent to such a sacrifice, and he met his fate with stoical | |
fortitude.--ALLISON, vol. iii., p. 172.] | |
It was the only piece of news that reached us during the whole winter." | |
The severity with which the prisoners were treated was carried into every | |
detail of their life. The officers who guarded them took away their | |
chessmen and cards because some of them were named kings and queens, and | |
all the books with coats of arms on them; they refused to get ointment for | |
a gathering on Madame Elisabeth's arm; they, would not allow her to make a | |
herb-tea which she thought would strengthen her niece; they declined to | |
supply fish or eggs on fast-days or during Lent, bringing only coarse fat | |
meat, and brutally replying to all remonstances, "None but fools believe | |
in that stuff nowadays." Madame Elisabeth never made the officials | |
another request, but reserved some of the bread and cafe-au-lait from her | |
breakfast for her second meal. The time during which she could be thus | |
tormented was growing short. | |
On 9th May, 1794, as the Princesses were going to bed, the outside bolts | |
of the door were unfastened and a loud knocking was heard. "When my aunt | |
was dressed," says Madame Royale, "she opened the door, and they said to | |
her, 'Citoyenne, come down.'--'And my niece?'--'We shall take care of her | |
afterwards.' She embraced me, and to calm my agitation promised to return. | |
'No, citoyenne,' said the men, 'bring your bonnet; you shall not return.' | |
They overwhelmed her with abuse, but she bore it patiently, embracing me, | |
and exhorting me to trust in Heaven, and never to forget the last commands | |
of my father and mother." | |
Madame Elisabeth was then taken to the Conciergerie, where she was | |
interrogated by the vice-president at midnight, and then allowed to take | |
some hours rest on the bed on which Marie Antoinette had slept for the | |
last time. In the morning she was brought before the tribunal, with | |
twenty-four other prisoners, of varying ages and both sexes, some of whom | |
had once been frequently seen at Court. | |
"Of what has Elisabeth to complain?" Fouquier-Tinville satirically asked. | |
"At the foot of the guillotine, surrounded by faithful nobility, she may | |
imagine herself again at Versailles." | |
"You call my brother a tyrant," the Princess replied to her accuser; "if | |
he had been what you say, you would not be where you are, nor I before | |
you!" | |
She was sentenced to death, and showed neither surprise nor grief. "I am | |
ready to die," she said, "happy in the prospect of rejoining in a better | |
world those whom I loved on earth." | |
On being taken to the room where those condemned to suffer at the same | |
time as herself were assembled, she spoke to them with so much piety and | |
resignation that they were encouraged by her example to show calmness and | |
courage like her own. The women, on leaving the cart, begged to embrace | |
her, and she said some words of comfort to each in turn as they mounted | |
the scaffold, which she was not allowed to ascend till all her companions | |
had been executed before her eyes. | |
[Madame Elisabeth was one of those rare personages only seen at distant | |
intervals during the course of ages; she set an example of steadfast piety | |
in the palace of kings, she lived amid her family the favourite of all and | |
the admiration of the world .... When I went to Versailles Madame | |
Elisabeth was twenty-two years of age. Her plump figure and pretty pink | |
colour must have attracted notice, and her air of calmness and contentment | |
even more than her beauty. She was fond of billiards, and her elegance and | |
courage in riding were remarkable. But she never allowed these amusements | |
to interfere with her religious observances. At that time her wish to | |
take the veil at St. Cyr was much talked of, but the King was too fond of | |
his sister to endure the separation. There were also rumours of a | |
marriage between Madame Elisabeth and the Emperor Joseph. The Queen was | |
sincerely attached to her brother, and loved her sister-in-law most | |
tenderly; she ardently desired this marriage as a means of raising the | |
Princess to one of the first thrones in Europe, and as a possible means of | |
turning the Emperor from his innovations. She had been very carefully | |
educated, had talent in music and painting, spoke Italian and a little | |
Latin, and understood mathematics.... Her last moments were worthy of her | |
courage and virtue.--D'HEZECQUES's "Recollections," pp. 72-75.] | |
"It is impossible to imagine my distress at finding myself separated from | |
my aunt," says Madame Royale. "Since I had been able to appreciate her | |
merits, I saw in her nothing but religion, gentleness, meekness, modesty, | |
and a devoted attachment to her family; she sacrificed her life for them, | |
since nothing could persuade her to leave the King and Queen. I never can | |
be sufficiently grateful to her for her goodness to me, which ended only | |
with her life. She looked on me as her child, and I honoured and loved | |
her as a second mother. I was thought to be very like her in countenance, | |
and I feel conscious that I have something of her character. Would to God | |
I might imitate her virtues, and hope that I may hereafter deserve to meet | |
her, as well as my dear parents, in the bosom of our Creator, where I | |
cannot doubt that they enjoy the reward of their virtuous lives and | |
meritorious deaths." | |
Madame Royale vainly begged to be allowed to rejoin her mother or her | |
aunt, or at least to know their fate. The municipal officers would tell | |
her nothing, and rudely refused her request to have a woman placed with | |
her. "I asked nothing but what seemed indispensable, though it was often | |
harshly refused," she says. "But I at least could keep myself clean. I | |
had soap and water, and carefully swept out my room every day. I had no | |
light, but in the long days I did not feel this privation much . . . . | |
I had some religious works and travels, which I had read over and over. I | |
had also some knitting, 'qui m'ennuyait beaucoup'." Once, she believes, | |
Robespierre visited her prison: | |
[It has been said that Robespierre vainly tried to obtain the hand of | |
Mademoiselle d'Orleans. It was also rumoured that Madame Royale herself | |
owed her life to his matrimonial ambition.] | |
"The officers showed him great respect; the people in the Tower did not | |
know him, or at least would not tell me who he was. He stared insolently | |
at me, glanced at my books, and, after joining the municipal officers in a | |
search, retired." | |
[On another occasion "three men in scarfs," who entered the Princess's | |
room, told her that they did not see why she should wish to be released, | |
as she seemed very comfortable! "It is dreadful,' I replied, 'to be | |
separated for more than a year from one's mother, without even hearing | |
what has become of her or of my aunt.'--'You are not ill?'--'No, monsieur, | |
but the cruellest illness is that of the heart'--' We can do nothing for | |
you. Be patient, and submit to the justice and goodness of the French | |
people: I had nothing more to say."--DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME, "Royal | |
Memoirs," p. 273.] | |
When Laurent was appointed by the Convention to the charge of the young | |
prisoners, Madame Royale was treated with more consideration. "He was | |
always courteous," she says; he restored her tinderbox, gave her fresh | |
books, and allowed her candles and as much firewood as she wanted, "which | |
pleased me greatly." This simple expression of relief gives a clearer | |
idea of what the delicate girl must have suffered than a volume of | |
complaints. | |
But however hard Madame Royale's lot might be, that of the Dauphin was | |
infinitely harder. Though only eight years old when he entered the | |
Temple, he was by nature and education extremely precocious; "his memory | |
retained everything, and his sensitiveness comprehended everything." His | |
features "recalled the somewhat effeminate look of Louis XV., and the | |
Austrian hauteur of Maria Theresa; his blue eyes, aquiline nose, elevated | |
nostrils, well-defined mouth, pouting lips, chestnut hair parted in the | |
middle and falling in thick curls on his shoulders, resembled his mother | |
before her years of tears and torture. All the beauty of his race, by | |
both descents, seemed to reappear in him."--[Lamartine]--For some time the | |
care of his parents preserved his health and cheerfulness even in the | |
Temple; but his constitution was weakened by the fever recorded by his | |
sister, and his gaolers were determined that he should never regain | |
strength. | |
"What does the Convention intend to do with him?" asked Simon, when the | |
innocent victim was placed in his clutches. "Transport him?" | |
"No." | |
"Kill him?" | |
"No." | |
"Poison him?" | |
"No." | |
"What, then?" | |
"Why, get rid of him." | |
For such a purpose they could not have chosen their instruments better. | |
"Simon and his wife, cut off all those fair locks that had been his | |
youthful glory and his mother's pride. This worthy pair stripped him of | |
the mourning he wore for his father; and as they did so, they called it | |
'playing at the game of the spoiled king.' They alternately induced him | |
to commit excesses, and then half starved him. They beat him mercilessly; | |
nor was the treatment by night less brutal than that by day. As soon as | |
the weary boy had sunk into his first profound sleep, they would loudly | |
call him by name, 'Capet! Capet!' Startled, nervous, bathed in | |
perspiration, or sometimes trembling with cold, he would spring up, rush | |
through the dark, and present himself at Simon's bedside, murmuring, | |
tremblingly, 'I am here, citizen.'--'Come nearer; let me feel you.' He | |
would approach the bed as he was ordered, although he knew the treatment | |
that awaited him. Simon would buffet him on the head, or kick him away, | |
adding the remark, 'Get to bed again, wolfs cub; I only wanted to know | |
that you were safe.' On one of these occasions, when the child had fallen | |
half stunned upon his own miserable couch, and lay there groaning and | |
faint with pain, Simon roared out with a laugh, 'Suppose you were king, | |
Capet, what would you do to me?' The child thought of his father's dying | |
words, and said, 'I would forgive you.'"--[THIERS] | |
The change in the young Prince's mode of life, and the cruelties and | |
caprices to which he was subjected, soon made him fall ill, says his | |
sister. "Simon forced him to eat to excess, and to drink large quantities | |
of wine, which he detested . . . . He grew extremely fat without | |
increasing in height or strength." His aunt and sister, deprived of the | |
pleasure of tending him, had the pain of hearing his childish voice raised | |
in the abominable songs his gaolers taught him. The brutality of Simon | |
"depraved at once the body and soul of his pupil. He called him the young | |
wolf of the Temple. He treated him as the young of wild animals are | |
treated when taken from the mother and reduced to captivity,--at once | |
intimidated by blows and enervated by taming. He punished for | |
sensibility; he rewarded meanness; he encouraged vice; he made the child | |
wait on him at table, sometimes striking him on the face with a knotted | |
towel, sometimes raising the poker and threatening to strike him with it." | |
[Simon left the Temple to become a municipal officer. He was involved in | |
the overthrow of Robespierre, and guillotined the day after him, 29th | |
July, 1794.] | |
Yet when Simon was removed the poor young Prince's condition became even | |
worse. His horrible loneliness induced an apathetic stupor to which any | |
suffering would have been preferable. "He passed his days without any | |
kind of occupation; they did not allow him light in the evening. His | |
keepers never approached him but to give him food;" and on the rare | |
occasions when they took him to the platform of the Tower, he was unable | |
or unwilling to move about. When, in November, 1794, a commissary named | |
Gomin arrived at the Temple, disposed to treat the little prisoner with | |
kindness, it was too late. "He took extreme care of my brother," says | |
Madame Royale. "For a long time the unhappy child had been shut up in | |
darkness, and he was dying of fright. He was very grateful for the | |
attentions of Gomin, and became much attached to him." But his physical | |
condition was alarming, and, owing to Gomin's representations, a | |
commission was instituted to examine him. "The commissioners appointed | |
were Harmond, Mathieu, and Reverchon, who visited 'Louis Charles,' as he | |
was now called, in the month of February, 1795. They found the young | |
Prince seated at a square deal table, at which he was playing with some | |
dirty cards, making card houses and the like,--the materials having been | |
furnished him, probably, that they might figure in the report as evidences | |
of indulgence. He did not look up from the table as the commissioners | |
entered. He was in a slate-coloured dress, bareheaded; the room was | |
reported as clean, the bed in good condition, the linen fresh; his clothes | |
were also reported as new; but, in spite of all these assertions, it is | |
well known that his bed had not been made for months, that he had not left | |
his room, nor was permitted to leave it, for any purpose whatever, that it | |
was consequently uninhabitable, and that he was covered with vermin and | |
with sores. The swellings at his knees alone were sufficient to disable | |
him from walking. One of the commissioners approached the young Prince | |
respectfully. The latter did not raise his head. Harmond in a kind voice | |
begged him to speak to them. The eyes of the boy remained fixed on the | |
table before him. They told him of the kindly intentions of the | |
Government, of their hopes that he would yet be happy, and their desire | |
that he would speak unreservedly to the medical man that was to visit him. | |
He seemed to listen with profound attention, but not a single word passed | |
his lips. It was an heroic principle that impelled that poor young heart | |
to maintain the silence of a mute in presence of these men. He remembered | |
too well the days when three other commissaries waited on him, regaled him | |
with pastry and wine, and obtained from him that hellish accusation | |
against the mother that he loved. He had learnt by some means the import | |
of the act, so far as it was an injury to his mother. He now dreaded | |
seeing again three commissaries, hearing again kind words, and being | |
treated again with fine promises. Dumb as death itself he sat before | |
them, and remained motionless as stone, and as mute." [THIERS] | |
His disease now made rapid progress, and Gomin and Lasne, superintendents | |
of the Temple, thinking it necessary to inform the Government of the | |
melancholy condition of their prisoner, wrote on the register: "Little | |
Capet is unwell." No notice was taken of this account, which was renewed | |
next day in more urgent terms: "Little Capet is dangerously ill." Still | |
there was no word from beyond the walls. "We must knock harder," said the | |
keepers to each other, and they added, "It is feared he will not live," to | |
the words "dangerously ill." At length, on Wednesday, 6th May, 1795, | |
three days after the first report, the authorities appointed M. Desault to | |
give the invalid the assistance of his art. After having written down his | |
name on the register he was admitted to see the Prince. He made a long and | |
very attentive examination of the unfortunate child, asked him many | |
questions without being able to obtain an answer, and contented himself | |
with prescribing a decoction of hops, to be taken by spoonfuls every | |
half-hour, from six o'clock in the morning till eight in the evening. On | |
the first day the Prince steadily refused to take it. In vain Gomin | |
several times drank off a glass of the potion in his presence; his example | |
proved as ineffectual as his words. Next day Lasne renewed his | |
solicitations. "Monsieur knows very well that I desire nothing but the | |
good of his health, and he distresses me deeply by thus refusing to take | |
what might contribute to it. I entreat him as a favour not to give me | |
this cause of grief." And as Lasne, while speaking, began to taste the | |
potion in a glass, the child took what he offered him out of his hands. | |
"You have, then, taken an oath that I should drink it," said he, firmly; | |
"well, give it me, I will drink it." From that moment he conformed with | |
docility to whatever was required of him, but the policy of the Commune | |
had attained its object; help had been withheld till it was almost a | |
mockery to supply it. | |
The Prince's weakness was excessive; his keepers could scarcely drag him | |
to the, top of the Tower; walking hurt his tender feet, and at every step | |
he stopped to press the arm of Lasne with both hands upon his breast. At | |
last he suffered so much that it was no longer possible for him to walk, | |
and his keeper carried him about, sometimes on the platform, and sometimes | |
in the little tower, where the royal family had lived at first. But the | |
slight improvement to his health occasioned by the change of air scarcely | |
compensated for the pain which his fatigue gave him. On the battlement of | |
the platform nearest the left turret, the rain had, by perseverance | |
through ages, hollowed out a kind of basin. The water that fell remained | |
there for several days; and as, during the spring of 1795, storms were of | |
frequent occurrence, this little sheet of water was kept constantly | |
supplied. Whenever the child was brought out upon the platform, he saw a | |
little troop of sparrows, which used to come to drink and bathe in this | |
reservoir. At first they flew away at his approach, but from being | |
accustomed to see him walking quietly there every day, they at last grew | |
more familiar, and did not spread their wings for flight till he came up | |
close to them. They were always the same, he knew them by sight, and | |
perhaps like himself they were inhabitants of that ancient pile. He | |
called them his birds; and his first action, when the door into the | |
terrace was opened, was to look towards that side,--and the sparrows were | |
always there. He delighted in their chirping, and he must have envied | |
them their wings. | |
Though so little could be done to alleviate his sufferings, a moral | |
improvement was taking place in him. He was touched by the lively | |
interest displayed by his physician, who never failed to visit him at nine | |
o'clock every morning. He seemed pleased with the attention paid him, and | |
ended by placing entire confidence in M. Desault. Gratitude loosened his | |
tongue; brutality and insult had failed to extort a murmur, but kind | |
treatment restored his speech he had no words for anger, but he found them | |
to express his thanks. M. Desault prolonged his visits as long as the | |
officers of the municipality would permit. When they announced the close | |
of the visit, the child, unwilling to beg them to allow a longer time, | |
held back M. Desault by the skirt of his coat. Suddenly M. Desault's | |
visits ceased. Several days passed and nothing was heard of him. The | |
keepers wondered at his absence, and the poor little invalid was much | |
distressed at it. The commissary on duty (M. Benoist) suggested that it | |
would be proper to send to the physician's house to make inquiries as to | |
the cause of so long an absence. Gomin and Larne had not yet ventured to | |
follow this advice, when next day M. Benoist was relieved by M. Bidault, | |
who, hearing M. Desault's name mentioned as he came in, immediately said, | |
"You must not expect to see him any more; he died yesterday." | |
M. Pelletan, head surgeon of the Grand Hospice de l'Humanite, was next | |
directed to attend the prisoner, and in June he found him in so alarming a | |
state that he at once asked for a coadjutor, fearing to undertake the | |
responsibility alone. The physician--sent for form's sake to attend the | |
dying child, as an advocate is given by law to a criminal condemned | |
beforehand--blamed the officers of the municipality for not having removed | |
the blind, which obstructed the light, and the numerous bolts, the noise | |
of which never failed to remind the victim of his captivity. That sound, | |
which always caused him an involuntary shudder, disturbed him in the last | |
mournful scene of his unparalleled tortures. M. Pelletan said | |
authoritatively to the municipal on duty, "If you will not take these | |
bolts and casings away at once, at least you can make no objection to our | |
carrying the child into another room, for I suppose we are sent here to | |
take charge of him." The Prince, being disturbed by these words, spoken | |
as they were with great animation, made a sign to the physician to come | |
nearer. "Speak lower, I beg of you," said he; "I am afraid they will hear | |
you up-stairs, and I should be very sorry for them to know that I am ill, | |
as it would give them much uneasiness." | |
At first the change to a cheerful and airy room revived the Prince and | |
gave him evident pleasure, but the improvement did not last. Next day M. | |
Pelletan learned that the Government had acceded to his request for a | |
colleague. M. Dumangin, head physician of the Hospice de l'Unite, made | |
his appearance at his house on the morning of Sunday, 7th June, with the | |
official despatch sent him by the committee of public safety. They | |
repaired together immediately to the Tower. On their arrival they heard | |
that the child, whose weakness was excessive, had had a fainting fit, | |
which had occasioned fears to be entertained that his end was approaching. | |
He had revived a little, however, when the physicians went up at about | |
nine o'clock. Unable to contend with increasing exhaustion, they | |
perceived there was no longer any hope of prolonging an existence worn out | |
by so much suffering, and that all their art could effect would be to | |
soften the last stage of this lamentable disease. While standing by the | |
Prince's bed, Gomin noticed that he was quietly crying, and asked him. | |
kindly what was the matter. "I am always alone," he said. "My dear | |
mother remains in the other tower." Night came,--his last night,--which | |
the regulations of the prison condemned him to pass once more in solitude, | |
with suffering, his old companion, only at his side. This time, however, | |
death, too, stood at his pillow. When Gomin went up to the child's room | |
on the morning of 8th June, he said, seeing him calm, motionless, and | |
mute: | |
"I hope you are not in pain just now?" | |
"Oh, yes, I am still in pain, but not nearly so much,--the music is so | |
beautiful!" | |
Now there was no music to be heard, either in the Tower or anywhere near. | |
Gomin, astonished, said to him, "From what direction do you hear this | |
music?" | |
"From above!" | |
"Have you heard it long?" | |
"Since you knelt down. Do you not hear it? Listen! Listen!" And the | |
child, with a nervous motion, raised his faltering hand, as he opened his | |
large eyes illuminated by delight. His poor keeper, unwilling to destroy | |
this last sweet illusion, appeared to listen also. | |
After a few minutes of attention the child again started, and cried out, | |
in intense rapture, "Amongst all the voices I have distinguished that of | |
my mother!" | |
These were almost his last words. At a quarter past two he died, Lasne | |
only being in the room at the time. Lasne acquainted Gomin and Damont, | |
the commissary on duty, with the event, and they repaired to the chamber | |
of death. The poor little royal corpse was carried from the room into | |
that where he had suffered so long,--where for two years he had never | |
ceased to suffer. From this apartment the father had gone to the | |
scaffold, and thence the son must pass to the burial-ground. The remains | |
were laid out on the bed, and the doors of the apartment were set | |
open,--doors which had remained closed ever since the Revolution had | |
seized on a child, then full of vigour and grace and life and health! | |
At eight o'clock next morning (9th June) four members of the committee of | |
general safety came to the Tower to make sure that the Prince was really | |
dead. When they were admitted to the death-chamber by Lasne and Damont | |
they affected the greatest indifference. "The event is not of the least | |
importance," they repeated, several times over; "the police commissary of | |
the section will come and receive the declaration of the decease; he will | |
acknowledge it, and proceed to the interment without any ceremony; and the | |
committee will give the necessary directions." As they withdrew, some | |
officers of the Temple guard asked to see the remains of little Capet. | |
Damont having observed that the guard would not permit the bier to pass | |
without its being opened, the deputies decided that the officers and | |
non-commissioned officers of the guard going off duty, together with those | |
coming on, should be all invited to assure themselves of the child's | |
death. All having assembled in the room where the body lay, he asked them | |
if they recognised it as that of the ex-Dauphin, son of the last King of | |
France. Those who had seen the young Prince at the Tuileries, or at the | |
Temple (and most of them had), bore witness to its being the body of Louis | |
XVII. When they were come down into the council-room, Darlot drew up the | |
minutes of this attestation, which was signed by a score of persons. | |
These minutes were inserted in the journal of the Temple tower, which was | |
afterwards deposited in the office of the Minister of the Interior. | |
During this visit the surgeons entrusted with the autopsy arrived at the | |
outer gate of the Temple. These were Dumangin, head physician of the | |
Hospice de l'Unite; Pelletan, head surgeon of the Grand Hospice de | |
l'Humanite; Jeanroy, professor in the medical schools of Paris; and | |
Laasus, professor of legal medicine at the Ecole de Sante of Paris. The | |
last two were selected by Dumangin and Pelletan because of the former | |
connection of M. Lassus with Mesdames de France, and of M. Jeanroy with | |
the House of Lorraine, which gave a peculiar weight to their signatures. | |
Gomin received them in the council-room, and detained them until the | |
National Guard, descending from the second floor, entered to sign the | |
minutes prepared by Darlot. This done, Lasne, Darlot, and Bouquet went up | |
again with the surgeons, and introduced them into the apartment of Louis | |
XVII., whom they at first examined as he lay on his death-bed; but M. | |
Jeanroy observing that the dim light of this room was but little | |
favourable to the accomplishment of their mission, the commissaries | |
prepared a table in the first room, near the window, on which the corpse | |
was laid, and the surgeons began their melancholy operation. | |
At seven o'clock the police commissary ordered the body to be taken up, | |
and that they should proceed to the cemetery. It was the season of the | |
longest days, and therefore the interment did not take place in secrecy | |
and at night, as some misinformed narrators have said or written; it took | |
place in broad daylight, and attracted a great concourse of people before | |
the gates of the Temple palace. One of the municipals wished to have the | |
coffin carried out secretly by the door opening into the chapel enclosure; | |
but M. Duaser, police commiasary, who was specially entrusted with the | |
arrangement of the ceremony, opposed this indecorous measure, and the | |
procession passed out through the great gate. The crowd that was pressing | |
round was kept back, and compelled to keep a line, by a tricoloured | |
ribbon, held at short distances by gendarmes. Compassion and sorrow were | |
impressed on every countenance. | |
A small detachment of the troops of the line from the garrison of Paris, | |
sent by the authorities, was waiting to serve as an escort. The bier, | |
still covered with the pall, was carried on a litter on the shoulders of | |
four men, who relieved each other two at a time; it was preceded by six or | |
eight men, headed by a sergeant. The procession was accompanied a long | |
way by the crowd, and a great number of persona followed it even to the | |
cemetery. The name of "Little Capet," and the more popular title of | |
Dauphin, spread from lip to lip, with exclamations of pity and compassion. | |
The funeral entered the cemetery of Ste. Marguerite, not by the church, as | |
some accounts assert, but by the old gate of the cemetery. The interment | |
was made in the corner, on the left, at a distance of eight or nine feet | |
from the enclosure wall, and at an equal distance from a small house, | |
which subsequently served as a school. The grave was filled up,--no mound | |
marked its place, and not even a trace remained of the interment! Not | |
till then did the commissaries of police and the municipality withdraw, | |
and enter the house opposite the church to draw up the declaration of | |
interment. It was nearly nine o'clock, and still daylight. | |
Release of Madame Royale.--Her Marriage to the Duc d'Angouleme. | |
--Return to France.--Death. | |
The last person to hear of the sad events in the Temple was the one for | |
whom they had the deepest and most painful interest. After her brother's | |
death the captivity of Madame Royale was much lightened. She was allowed | |
to walk in the Temple gardens, and to receive visits from some ladies of | |
the old Court, and from Madame de Chantereine, who at last, after several | |
times evading her questions, ventured cautiously to tell her of the deaths | |
of her mother, aunt, and brother. Madame Royale wept bitterly, but had | |
much difficulty in expressing her feelings. "She spoke so confusedly," | |
says Madame de la Ramiere in a letter to Madame de Verneuil, "that it was | |
difficult to understand her. It took her more than a month's reading | |
aloud, with careful study of pronunciation, to make herself | |
intelligible,--so much had she lost the power of expression." She was | |
dressed with plainness amounting to poverty, and her hands were disfigured | |
by exposure to cold and by the menial work she had been so long accustomed | |
to do for herself, and which it was difficult to persuade her to leave | |
off. When urged to accept the services of an attendant, she replied, with | |
a sad prevision of the vicissitudes of her future life, that she did not | |
like to form a habit which she might have again to abandon. She suffered | |
herself, however, to be persuaded gradually to modify her recluse and | |
ascetic habits. It was well she did so, as a preparation for the great | |
changes about to follow. | |
Nine days after the death of her brother, the city of Orleans interceded | |
for the daughter of Louis XVI., and sent deputies to the Convention to | |
pray for her deliverance and restoration to her family. Names followed | |
this example; and Charette, on the part of the Vendeans, demanded, as a | |
condition of the pacification of La Vendee, that the Princess should be | |
allowed to join her relations. At length the Convention decreed that | |
Madame Royale should be exchanged with Austria for the representatives and | |
ministers whom Dumouriez had given up to the Prince of Cobourg,--Drouet, | |
Semonville, Maret, and other prisoners of importance. At midnight on 19th | |
December, 1795, which was her birthday, the Princess was released from | |
prison, the Minister of the Interior, M. Benezech, to avoid attracting | |
public attention and possible disturbance, conducting her on foot from the | |
Temple to a neighbouring street, where his carriage awaited her. She made | |
it her particular request that Gomin, who had been so devoted to her | |
brother, should be the commissary appointed to accompany her to the | |
frontier; Madame de Soucy, formerly under-governess to the children of | |
France, was also in attendance; and the Princess took with her a dog named | |
Coco, which had belonged to Louis XVI. | |
[The mention of the little dog taken from the Temple by Madame Royale | |
reminds me how fond all the family were of these creatures. Each Princess | |
kept a different kind. Mesdames had beautiful spaniels; little grayhounds | |
were preferred by Madame Elisabeth. Louis XVI. was the only one of all his | |
family who had no dogs in his room. I remember one day waiting in the | |
great gallery for the King's retiring, when he entered with all his family | |
and the whole pack, who were escorting him. All at once all the dogs | |
began to bark, one louder than another, and ran away, passing like ghosts | |
along those great dark rooms, which rang with their hoarse cries. The | |
Princesses shouting, calling them, running everywhere after them, | |
completed a ridiculous spectacle, which made those august persons very | |
merry.--D'HEZECQUES, p. 49.] | |
She was frequently recognised on her way through France, and always with | |
marks of pleasure and respect. | |
It might have been supposed that the Princess would rejoice to leave | |
behind her the country which had been the scene of so many horrors and | |
such bitter suffering. But it was her birthplace, and it held the graves | |
of all she loved; and as she crossed the frontier she said to those around | |
her, "I leave France with regret, for I shall never cease to consider it | |
my country." She arrived in Vienna on 9th January, 1796, and her first | |
care was to attend a memorial service for her murdered relatives. After | |
many weeks of close retirement she occasionally began to appear in public, | |
and people looked with interest at the pale, grave, slender girl of | |
seventeen, dressed in the deepest mourning, over whose young head such | |
terrible storms had swept. The Emperor wished her to marry the Archduke | |
Charles of Austria, but her father and mother had, even in the cradle, | |
destined her hand for her cousin, the Duc d'Angouleme, son of the Comte | |
d'Artois, and the memory of their lightest wish was law to her. | |
Her quiet determination entailed anger and opposition amounting to | |
persecution. Every effort was made to alienate her from her French | |
relations. She was urged to claim Provence, which had become her own if | |
Louis XVIII. was to be considered King of France. A pressure of opinion | |
was brought to bear upon her which might well have overawed so young a | |
girl. "I was sent for to the Emperor's cabinet," she writes, "where I | |
found the imperial family assembled. The ministers and chief imperial | |
counsellors were also present . . . . When the Emperor invited me to | |
express my opinion, I answered that to be able to treat fittingly of such | |
interests I thought, I ought to be surrounded not only by my mother's | |
relatives, but also by those of my father . . . . Besides, I said, I | |
was above all things French, and in entire subjection to the laws of | |
France, which had rendered me alternately the subject of the King my | |
father, the King my brother, and the King my uncle, and that I would yield | |
obedience to the latter, whatever might be his commands. This declaration | |
appeared very much to dissatisfy all who were present, and when they | |
observed that I was not to be shaken, they declared that my right being | |
independent of my will, my resistance would not be the slightest obstacle | |
to the measures they might deem it necessary to adopt for the preservation | |
of my interests." | |
In their anxiety to make a German princess of Marie Therese, her imperial | |
relations suppressed her French title as much as possible. When, with | |
some difficulty, the Duc de Grammont succeeded in obtaining an audience of | |
her, and used the familiar form of address, she smiled faintly, and bade | |
him beware. "Call me Madame de Bretagne, or de Bourgogne, or de | |
Lorraine," she said, "for here I am so identified with these | |
provinces--[which the Emperor wished her to claim from her uncle Louis | |
XVIII.]--that I shall end in believing in my own transformation." After | |
these discussions she was so closely watched, and so many restraints were | |
imposed upon her, that she was scarcely less a prisoner than in the old | |
days of the Temple, though her cage was this time gilded. Rescue, | |
however, was at hand. | |
In 1798 Louis XVIII. accepted a refuge offered to him at Mittau by the | |
Czar Paul, who had promised that he would grant his guest's first request, | |
whatever it might be. Louis begged the Czar to use his influence with the | |
Court of Vienna to allow his niece to join him. "Monsieur, my brother," | |
was Paul's answer, "Madame Royale shall be restored to you, or I shall | |
cease to be Paul I." Next morning the Czar despatched a courier to Vienna | |
with a demand for the Princess, so energetically worded that refusal must | |
have been followed by war. Accordingly, in May, 1799, Madame Royale was | |
allowed to leave the capital which she had found so uncongenial an asylum. | |
In the old ducal castle of Mittau, the capital of Courland, Louis XVIII. | |
and his wife, with their nephews, the Ducs d'Angouleme | |
[The Duc d'Angonleme was quiet and reserved. He loved hunting as means of | |
killing time; was given to early hours and innocent pleasures. He was a | |
gentleman, and brave as became one. He had not the "gentlemanly vices" of | |
his brother, and was all the better for it. He was ill educated, but had | |
natural good sense, and would have passed for having more than that had he | |
cared to put forth pretensions. Of all his family he was the one most ill | |
spoken of, and least deserving of it.--DOCTOR DORAN.] | |
and de Berri, were awaiting her, attended by the Abbe Edgeworth, as chief | |
ecclesiastic, and a little Court of refugee nobles and officers. With | |
them were two men of humbler position, who must have been even more | |
welcome to Madame Royale,--De Malden, who had acted as courier to Louis | |
XVI. during the flight to Varennes, and Turgi, who had waited on the | |
Princesses in the Temple. It was a sad meeting, though so long anxiously | |
desired, and it was followed on 10th June, 1799, by an equally sad | |
wedding,--exiles, pensioners on the bounty of the Russian monarch, | |
fulfilling an engagement founded, not on personal preference, but on | |
family policy and reverence for the wishes of the dead, the bride and | |
bridegroom had small cause for rejoicing. During the eighteen months of | |
tranquil seclusion which followed her marriage, the favourite occupation | |
of the Duchess was visiting and relieving the poor. In January, 1801, the | |
Czar Paul, in compliance with the demand of Napoleon, who was just then | |
the object of his capricious enthusiasm, ordered the French royal family | |
to leave Mittau. Their wanderings commenced on the 21st, a day of bitter | |
memories; and the young Duchess led the King to his carriage through a | |
crowd of men, women, and children, whose tears and blessings attended them | |
on their way. | |
[The Queen was too ill to travel. The Duc d'Angouleme took another route | |
to join a body of French gentlemen in arms for the Legitimist cause.] | |
The exiles asked permission from the King of Prussia to settle in his | |
dominions, and while awaiting his answer at Munich they were painfully | |
surprised by the entrance of five old soldiers of noble birth, part of the | |
body-guard they had left behind at Mittau, relying on the protection of | |
Paul. The "mad Czar" had decreed their immediate expulsion, and, | |
penniless and almost starving, they made their way to Louis XVIII. All | |
the money the royal family possessed was bestowed on these faithful | |
servants, who came to them in detachments for relief, and then the Duchess | |
offered her diamonds to the Danish consul for an advance of two thousand | |
ducats, saying she pledged her property "that in our common distress it | |
may be rendered of real use to my uncle, his faithful servants, and | |
myself." The Duchess's consistent and unselfish kindness procured her | |
from the King, and those about him who knew her best, the name of "our | |
angel." | |
Warsaw was for a brief time the resting-place of the wanderers, but there | |
they were disturbed in 1803 by Napoleon's attempt to threaten and bribe | |
Louis XVIII. into abdication. It was suggested that refusal might bring | |
upon them expulsion from Prussia. "We are accustomed to suffering," was | |
the King's answer, "and we do not dread poverty. I would, trusting in | |
God, seek another asylum." In 1808, after many changes of scene, this | |
asylum was sought in England, Gosfield Hall, Essex, being placed at their | |
disposal by the Marquis of Buckingham. From Gosfield, the King moved to | |
Hartwell Hall, a fine old Elizabethan mansion rented from Sir George Lee | |
for L 500 a year. A yearly grant of L 24,000 was made to the exiled | |
family by the British Government, out of which a hundred and forty persons | |
were supported, the royal dinner-party generally numbering two dozen. | |
At Hartwell, as in her other homes, the Duchess was most popular amongst | |
the poor. In general society she was cold and reserved, and she disliked | |
the notice of strangers. In March, 1814, the royalist successes at | |
Bordeaux paved the way for the restoration of royalty in France, and | |
amidst general sympathy and congratulation, with the Prince Regent himself | |
to wish them good fortune, the King, the Duchess, and their suite left | |
Hartwell in April, 1814. The return to France was as triumphant as a | |
somewhat half-hearted and doubtful enthusiasm could make it, and most of | |
such cordiality as there was fell to the share of the Duchess. As she | |
passed to Notre-Dame in May, 1814, on entering Paris, she was vociferously | |
greeted. The feeling of loyalty, however, was not much longer-lived than | |
the applause by which it was expressed; the Duchess had scarcely effected | |
one of the strongest wishes of her heart,--the identification of what | |
remained of her parents' bodies, and the magnificent ceremony with which | |
they were removed from the cemetery of the Madeleine to the Abbey of St. | |
Denis,--when the escape of Napoleon from Elba in February,1815, scattered | |
the royal family and their followers like chaff before the wind. The Duc | |
d'Angouleme, compelled to capitulate at Toulouse, sailed from Cette in a | |
Swedish vessel. The Comte d'Artois, the Duc de Berri, and the Prince de | |
Conde withdrew beyond the frontier. The King fled from the capital. The | |
Duchesse d'Angouleme, then at Bordeaux celebrating the anniversary of the | |
Proclamation of Louis XVIII., alone of all her family made any stand | |
against the general panic. Day after day she mounted her horse and | |
reviewed the National Guard. She made personal and even passionate | |
appeals to the officers and men, standing firm, and prevailing on a | |
handful of soldiers to remain by her, even when the imperialist troops | |
were on the other side of the river and their cannon were directed against | |
the square where the Duchess was reviewing her scanty followers. | |
["It was the Duchesse d'Angouleme who saved you," said the gallant General | |
Clauzel, after these events, to a royalist volunteer; "I could not bring | |
myself to order such a woman to be fired upon, at the moment when she was | |
providing material for the noblest page in her history."--"Fillia | |
Dolorosa," vol. vii., p. 131.] | |
With pain and difficulty she was convinced that resistance was vain; | |
Napoleon's banner soon floated over Bordeaux; the Duchess issued a | |
farewell proclamation to her "brave Bordelais," and on the 1st April, | |
1815, she started for Pouillac, whence she embarked for Spain. During a | |
brief visit to England she heard that the reign of a hundred days was | |
over, and the 27th of July, 1815, saw her second triumphal return to the | |
Tuileries. She did not take up her abode there with any wish for State | |
ceremonies or Court gaieties. Her life was as secluded as her position | |
would allow. Her favourite retreat was the Pavilion, which had been | |
inhabited by her mother, and in her little oratory she collected relics of | |
her family, over which on the anniversaries of their deaths she wept and | |
prayed. In her daily drives through Paris she scrupulously avoided the | |
spot on which they had suffered; and the memory of the past seemed to rule | |
all her sad and self-denying life, both in what she did and what she | |
refrained from doing. | |
[She was so methodical and economical, though liberal in her charities, | |
that one of her regular evening occupations was to tear off the seals from | |
the letters she had received during the day, in order that the wax might | |
be melted down and sold; the produce made one poor family "passing rich | |
with forty pounds a year."--See "Filia Dolorosa," vol. ii., p. 239.] | |
Her somewhat austere goodness was not of a nature to make her popular. The | |
few who really understood her loved her, but the majority of her | |
pleasure-seeking subjects regarded her either with ridicule or dread. She | |
is said to have taken no part in politics, and to have exerted no | |
influence in public affairs, but her sympathies were well known, and "the | |
very word liberty made her shudder;" like Madame Roland, she had seen "so | |
many crimes perpetrated under that name." | |
The claims of three pretended Dauphins--Hervagault, the son of the tailor | |
of St. Lo; Bruneau, son of the shoemaker of Vergin; and Naundorf or | |
Norndorff, the watchmaker somewhat troubled her peace, but never for a | |
moment obtained her sanction. Of the many other pseudo-Dauphins (said to | |
number a dozen and a half) not even the names remain. In February,1820, a | |
fresh tragedy befell the royal family in the assassination of the Duc de | |
Berri, brother-in-law of the Duchesse d'Angouleme, as he was seeing his | |
wife into her carriage at the door of the Opera-house. He was carried | |
into the theatre, and there the dying Prince and his wife were joined by | |
the Duchess, who remained till he breathed his last, and was present when | |
he, too, was laid in the Abbey of St. Denis. She was present also when | |
his son, the Duc de Bordeaux, was born, and hoped that she saw in him a | |
guarantee for the stability of royalty in France. In September, 1824, she | |
stood by the death-bed of Louis XVIII., and thenceforward her chief | |
occupation was directing the education of the little Duc de Bordeaux, who | |
generally resided with her at Villeneuve l'Etang, her country house near | |
St. Cloud. Thence she went in July, 1830, to the Baths of Vichy, | |
stopping at Dijon on her way to Paris, and visiting the theatre on the | |
evening of the 27th. She was received with "a roar of execrations and | |
seditious cries," and knew only too well what they signified. She | |
instantly left the theatre and proceeded to Tonnere, where she received | |
news of the rising in Paris, and, quitting the town by night, was driven | |
to Joigny with three attendants. Soon after leaving that place it was | |
thought more prudent that the party should separate and proceed on foot, | |
and the Duchess and M. de Foucigny, disguised as peasants, entered | |
Versailles arm-in-arm, to obtain tidings of the King. The Duchess found | |
him at Rambouillet with her husband, the Dauphin, and the King met her | |
with a request for "pardon," being fully conscious, too late, that his | |
unwise decrees and his headlong flight had destroyed the last hopes of his | |
family. The act of abdication followed, by which the prospect of royalty | |
passed from the Dauphin and his wife, as well as from Charles X.--Henri V. | |
being proclaimed King, and the Duc d'Orleans (who refused to take the boy | |
monarch under his personal protection) lieutenant-general of the kingdom. | |
Then began the Duchess's third expatriation. At Cherbourg the royal | |
family, accompanied by the little King without a kingdom, embarked in the | |
'Great Britain', which stood out to sea. The Duchess, remaining on deck | |
for a last look at the coast of France, noticed a brig which kept, she | |
thought, suspiciously near them. | |
"Who commands that vessel?" she inquired. | |
"Captain Thibault." | |
And what are his orders?" | |
"To fire into and sink the vessels in which we sail, should any attempt be | |
made to return to France." | |
Such was the farewell of their subjects to the House of Bourbon. The | |
fugitives landed at Weymouth; the Duchesse d'Angouleme under the title of | |
Comtesse de Marne, the Duchesse de Berri as Comtesse de Rosny, and her | |
son, Henri de Bordeaux, as Comte de Chambord, the title he retained till | |
his death, originally taken from the estate presented to him in infancy by | |
his enthusiastic people. Holyrood, with its royal and gloomy | |
associations, was their appointed dwelling. The Duc and Duchesse | |
d'Angouleme, and the daughter of the Duc de Berri, travelled thither by | |
land, the King and the young Comte de Chambord by sea. "I prefer my route | |
to that of my sister," observed the latter, "because I shall see the coast | |
of France again, and she will not." | |
The French Government soon complained that at Holyrood the exiles were | |
still too near their native land, and accordingly, in 1832, Charles X., | |
with his son and grandson, left Scotland for Hamburg, while the Duchesse | |
d'Angouleme and her niece repaired to Vienna. The family were reunited at | |
Prague in 1833, where the birthday of the Comte de Chambord was celebrated | |
with some pomp and rejoicing, many Legitimists flocking thither to | |
congratulate him on attaining the age of thirteen, which the old law of | |
monarchical France had fixed as the majority of her princes. Three years | |
later the wanderings of the unfortunate family recommenced; the Emperor | |
Francis II. was dead, and his successor, Ferdinand, must visit Prague to | |
be crowned, and Charles X. feared that the presence of a discrowned | |
monarch might be embarrassing on such an occasion. Illness and sorrow | |
attended the exiles on their new journey, and a few months after they were | |
established in the Chateau of Graffenburg at Goritz, Charles X. died of | |
cholera, in his eightieth year. At Goritz, also, on the 31st May, 1844, | |
the Duchesse d'Angouleme, who had sat beside so many death-beds, watched | |
over that of her husband. Theirs had not been a marriage of affection in | |
youth, but they respected each other's virtues, and to a great extent | |
shared each other's tastes; banishment and suffering had united them very | |
closely, and of late years they had been almost inseparable,--walking, | |
riding, and reading together. When the Duchesse d'Angouleme had seen her | |
husband laid by his father's side in the vault of the Franciscan convent, | |
she, accompanied by her nephew and niece, removed to Frohsdorf, where they | |
spent seven tranquil years. Here she was addressed as "Queen" by her | |
household for the first time in her life, but she herself always | |
recognised Henri, Comte de Chambord, as her sovereign. The Duchess lived | |
to see the overthrow of Louis Philippe, the usurper of the inheritance of | |
her family. Her last attempt to exert herself was a characteristic one. | |
She tried to rise from a sick-bed in order to attend the memorial service | |
held for her mother, Marie Antoinette, on the 16th October, the | |
anniversary of her execution. But her strength was not equal to the task; | |
on the 19th she expired, with her hand in that of the Comte de Chambord, | |
and on 28th October, 1851, Marie Therese Charlotte, Duchesse d'Angouleme, | |
was buried in the Franciscan convent. | |
The Ceremony of Expiation. | |
"In the spring of 1814 a ceremony took place in Paris at which I was | |
present because there was nothing in it that could be mortifying to a | |
French heart. The death of Louis XVI. had long been admitted to be one of | |
the most serious misfortunes of the Revolution. The Emperor Napoleon | |
never spoke of that sovereign but in terms of the highest respect, and | |
always prefixed the epithet unfortunate to his name. The ceremony to | |
which I allude was proposed by the Emperor of Russia and the King of | |
Prussia. It consisted of a kind of expiation and purification of the spot | |
on which Louis XVI. and his Queen were beheaded. I went to see the | |
ceremony, and I had a place at a window in the Hotel of Madame de Remusat, | |
next to the Hotel de Crillon, and what was termed the Hotel de Courlande. | |
"The expiation took place on the 10th of April. The weather was extremely | |
fine and warm for the season. The Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia, | |
accompanied by Prince Schwartzenberg, took their station at the entrance | |
of the Rue Royale; the King of Prussia being on the right of the Emperor | |
Alexander, and Prince Schwartzenberg on his left. There was a long | |
parade, during which the Russian, Prussian and Austrian military bands | |
vied with each other in playing the air, 'Vive Henri IV.!' The cavalry | |
defiled past, and then withdrew into the Champs Elysees; but the infantry | |
ranged themselves round an altar which was raised in the middle of the | |
Place, and which was elevated on a platform having twelve or fifteen | |
steps. The Emperor of Russia alighted from his horse, and, followed by | |
the King of Prussia, the Grand Duke Constantine, Lord Cathcart, and Prince | |
Schwartzenberg, advanced to the altar. When the Emperor had nearly | |
reached the altar the "Te Deum" commenced. At the moment of the | |
benediction, the sovereigns and persons who accompanied them, as well as | |
the twenty-five thousand troops who covered the Place, all knelt down. | |
The Greek priest presented the cross to the Emperor Alexander, who kissed | |
it; his example was followed by the individuals who accompanied him, | |
though they were not of the Greek faith. On rising, the Grand Duke | |
Constantine took off his hat, and immediately salvoes of artillery were | |
heard." | |
NOTE. | |
The following titles have the signification given below during the period | |
covered by this work: | |
MONSEIGNEUR........... The Dauphin. | |
MONSIEUR.............. The eldest brother of the King, Comte de Provence, | |
afterwards Louis XVIII. | |
MONSIEUR LE PRINCE.... The Prince de Conde, head of the House of Conde. | |
MONSIEUR LE DUC....... The Duc de Bourbon, the eldest son of the Prince de | |
Condo (and the father of the Duc d'Enghien shot by Napoleon). | |
MONSIEUR LE GRAND..... The Grand Equerry under the ancien regime. | |
MONSIEUR LE PREMIER... The First Equerry under the ancien regime. | |
ENFANS DE FRANCE...... The royal children. | |
MADAME & MESDAMES..... Sisters or daughters of the King, or Princesses | |
near the Throne (sometimes used also for the wife of Monsieur, the eldest | |
brother of the King, the Princesses Adelaide, Victoire, Sophie, Louise, | |
daughters of Louis XV., and aunts of Louis XVI.) | |
MADAME ELISABETH...... The Princesse Elisabeth, sister of Louis XVI. | |
MADAME ROYALE......... The Princesse Marie Therese, daughter of Louis | |
XVI., afterwards Duchesse d'Angouleme. | |
MADEMOISELLE.......... The daughter of Monsieur, the brother of the King. | |
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: | |
Allowed her candles and as much firewood as she wanted | |
Better to die than to implicate anybody | |
Duc d'Orleans, when called on to give his vote for death of King | |
Formed rather to endure calamity with patience than to contend | |
How can I have any regret when I partake your misfortunes | |
Louis Philippe, the usurper of the inheritance of her family | |
My father fortunately found a library which amused him | |
No one is more dangerous than a man clothed with recent authority | |
Rabble, always ready to insult genius, virtue, and misfortune | |
So many crimes perpetrated under that name (liberty) | |
Subjecting the vanquished to be tried by the conquerors | |
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, Queen | |
Of France, Volume 7, by Madame Campan | |
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