Chapter V: Part 5

Bouille, junior, sent by his father, had been waiting with his troop six hours at Varennes: and he, supposing that the party would not arrive this day, was in bed and asleep when the berlin reached the village, at eleven o'clock. His troop were, some of them, drinking in the public-houses. None of them were ready; and the royal party tried in vain to discover through the thick darkness any sign of a friendly guard, where they had made sure of meeting one. If they could but find these hussars, they believed they should be safe; for they had now no more towns to pass through, and no great way to go.

The berlin stood on the top of the hill, at the entrance of Varennes, while their pretended couriers were riding about, rousing the sleeping village, in search of horses to go on with. The horses were standing, the whole time, all ready, by the orders of the Duke de Choiseul, in the upper village, over the bridge; and the men never found this out. They might have changed horses in five minutes, and proceeded, without having wakened a single person in the place; instead of which, the carriages actually stood five-and-thirty minutes on the top of the hill, while this blundering was going on. The king argued with the postilions about proceeding another stage: but their horses were so tired, they would not hear of it.

In the midst of this argument, two riders came up from behind, checked their horses for a moment on recognising the berlin, which they could just make out in the dark; and then pushed on quickly into the village. It was Drouet and his companion.

They rode to the Golden Arms tavern, told the landlord what they came for, and proceeded to block up the bridge with waggons, and whatever else they could find. And the fugitives might have passed that bridge above half an hour before, and be now speeding on with the fresh horses that were standing ready,--if only young Bouille had not gone to bed; or even if, instead of one of their useless servants, they had had a courier who knew the road, and could have told them of the upper village! Was ever an expedition so mismanaged?

Before the berlin came up (the horses somewhat refreshed with meal and water), the bridge was well barricaded; and (the landlord having roused three or four companions) about half-a-dozen men, with muskets and lanterns hidden under their coats, were standing under an archway, awaiting the party. Suddenly the lanterns shone out, the horses' bridles were seized, and a man thrust the barrel of a musket in at each window, exclaiming, "Ladies, your passports!"

This was one of the moments which occur now and then in the course of men's lives, as if to show what they are made of. This was the occasion, if the king had been a man of spirit, to forget that he had blood to spill,--to assert his rights as a ruler and as an innocent man,--to daunt his enemies, and rouse his friends,--to carry off his family in triumph,--to save his crown and kingdom, his life and reputation. Things much more difficult have been done. His enemies were but six; and he and his body-guards might have resisted them till Bouille was roused by the noise, to come up with his hussars, to help and save. It is true, the king did not know that his enemies were but six: but a man of spirit would have seen how many they were before he yielded. It is true he did not know that Bouille was in bed, and his hussars drinking in the village: but a man of spirit would have trusted that help would rise up, or have done without it in such an extremity, rather than yield. Instead of this, what did the king do? He heard what his enemies had to say.

One of the six was Monsieur Sauce, a grocer who lived in the market-place, and a magistrate. He said, in the name of his party, that, whether the travellers were the Baroness de Korff and suite, or of a higher rank still, it would be better that they should alight, and remain at his house till morning.

With what a bursting heart must the queen have seen the king quietly doing as he was bid! For twenty-one years she had suffered what a high spirit must suffer in being closely united with a companion who has none; but the agony of this moment must have exceeded all former trials of the kind. She, the woman and the wife, must obey, to her own destruction, and that of all who belonged to her. She said little; but there was afterwards a visible sign of what she must have endured. In this one night, her beautiful hair turned white, as if forty years had at once fallen upon her head.

The king stepped out of the coach, and the ladies followed him. They took each an arm of Monsieur Sauce, and walked across the market-place to his shop, the king following, with a child holding either hand. It was strange confusion for little Louis. This was the third night that he had spent out of his bed. He had been asleep,--the whole party had been asleep in the coach; and now this disputing, and the flare of the lanterns, and the presenting the muskets, and the having to get out and walk, must have been perplexing and terrifying to the poor little fellow. There was much noise round about. The alarm-bell was clanging; there were lights in all the windows: men poured out of the houses, half-dressed, and rolled barrels, and laid felled trees across the road, that no help might arrive on the king's behalf.

And what did the king do next? He asked for something to eat! "Something to eat" was always a great object with him; and he seemed to find comfort under all trials in his good appetite. He sat now in an upper story of Monsieur Sauce's house, eating bread and cheese and drinking Burgundy,--declaring that this bottle of Burgundy was the best he ever tasted. One wonders that the queen's heart was not quite broken. She believed that there was yet a chance. She saw Monsieur Sauce's old mother kneeling, and praying for her king and queen, while the tears ran down her cheeks. The queen saw that Monsieur Sauce looked frequently towards his wife, while the king talked with him, explaining that he meant no harm to the nation, but good, since he could come to a better understanding with his people when at a distance and in freedom. Monsieur Sauce, the queen saw, looked so frequently towards his wife, that it was plain that he would act according to her judgment. The queen of France therefore kneeled to the grocer's wife to implore mercy and aid. Fain would the grocer's wife have aided her sovereign, if she dared: but she dared not. Again and again she said, "Think what it is you ask, madame. Your situation is very grievous; but you see what we should be exposed to. They would cut off my husband's head. A wife must consider her husband first."

"Very true," replied the queen. "My husband is your king. He has made you all happy for many years; and wishes to do so still." Whatever Madame Sauce might think of the poor queen's belief that her husband had made his people happy, she replied only, as before, that she could not induce Monsieur Sauce to put his life in danger.

The leaders of the different military parties, hearing one alarm-bell after another beginning to toll through the whole region, made prodigious exertions to reach Varennes, and did so. The Duke de Choiseul and his troop surmounted the barricade, and got in; and the hussars promised fidelity to "the king--the king! And the queen!" as they kept exclaiming. They were led forward to beset Monsieur Sauce's house: but Drouet shouted to his national soldiery to stand to their cannon. On hearing of cannon, the hussars drew back: though Drouet's cannon were only two empty, worn-out, useless field-pieces, which seemed fit only to make a clatter on the pavement.

Count Damas had also arrived; and the king sat consulting with these officers and the magistrates of Varennes,--consulting, when he, with the aid which had arrived, should have been forcing his way out towards the frontier. There he sat, as usual, unable to decide upon anything; and while he sat doubting, the national soldiery poured in to the number of three thousand, and would presently amount to ten thousand. While he thus sat doubting, the people were handing jugs of wine about among the hussars; and when their commander came out from Monsieur Sauce's, at the end of an hour, he found them tipsy, and declaring for the nation against the king.

There was still one other chance--one more opportunity of choice for him whose misfortune was that he never could make a choice. Another loyal officer, Deslons, arrived, with a hundred horse-soldiers. He left his hundred horse outside the barricade, entered himself, and offered to cut out the royal party,--to rescue them by the sword, if the king would order him to do so. "Will it be hot work?" asked the king. "Very hot," was the answer; and the king would give no orders.--In the bitterness of her regrets, the queen said afterwards, at Paris, that no one who knew what had been the king's answer to Count d'Inisdal about being carried off, should have asked him for orders;--that the officers should have acted without saying a word to him.

The children were asleep on a bed up-stairs, and the ladies remonstrating with Madame Sauce, from hour to hour of this dreadful night: and the end of it all was that it was decided by somebody that the party were to go back to Paris, as the people in the market-place were loudly demanding. The poor queen's doubts and fears thus ended in despair. Weary as they all were,--after having travelled so far, and escaped so many dangers,--and now so near the frontier, so near Bouille's camp, so close upon the queen's own country,--they were to pursue their weary way back to Paris,--journeying in disgrace, prisoners in the eyes of all the people, to be plunged again into the midst of their enemies, now enraged by their flight. It would have been easier to a spirit like the queen's to have died, with those who belonged to her, in one more struggle,--in one rush to the camp, than to undergo the slow despair of a return among their enemies.

Her feelings were understood,--the case was understood,--by one of the attendants who had travelled in the chaise,--the Dauphin's head waiting-woman. Hoping that gaining time might afford a chance, she threw herself on a bed, and pretended to be taken suddenly ill, and in an agony of pain. The queen went to the bedside, and the woman squeezed her hand, to make her understand the pretence. The queen declared that she could not think of leaving in this state a faithful servant who had encountered many dangers and fatigues for the sake of the family; but a device so obvious was seen through at once, and no indulgence was allowed. The woman had to get off the bed and enter the chaise again.

The great berlin travelled back more slowly than it came, being surrounded by sixty thousand National Guards, besides the crowds of other people who drew near to see the captive royal family. There was so much indecent joy, so much insult shown by the ignorant and fierce among the crowd, that civility which would have been thought nothing of at another time touched the feelings of the unhappy ladies. The queen was delighted with the manners of a lady at whose house they rested,-- the wife of Monsieur Renard, the mayor of Ferte-sous-Jouarre. The mayor waited upon the king at table; and Madame Renard did all she could to make the ladies comfortable. Everything was done so quietly that the queen did not discover, for a long time, who she was. When, at length, the queen inquired whether she was not the mistress of the house, Madame Renard replied, "I was so, Madame, before your Majesty honoured this abode with your presence." To us there appears some affectation in this speech; but the queen was now so unused to homage from strangers that she shed tears at the words.

The Dauphin did not travel back, as he came, on the lap of Madame de Tourzel. The National Assembly sent three of its members from Paris to meet and travel with the royal family. Two of these members were to be in the carriage with the king; so that Madame de Tourzel had to turn out. The other member and she joined the two waiting-maids in the carriage behind. The pretended couriers were bound with cords, and rode conspicuous to all eyes on the top of the berlin.

Monsieur Barnave, one of the king's new travelling companions, was so considerate, polite, and gentlemanly, that the royal party decided and declared that, if ever they regained their power, Monsieur Barnave should be pardoned the part he had taken in the Revolution. It does not seem to have occurred to them that they might have been prejudiced against him and others,--that the revolutionary leaders might not have been altogether so wicked and detestable as the Court had been accustomed to call them. Barnave, on his part, seems to have been touched by the sorrows of the queen; and it is probable that he discovered now that he had been prejudiced--too strongly wrought upon by the queen's enemies.

A poor clergyman, endeavouring to reach the carriages to offer his loyal greeting, was seized, and roughly handled by the furious mob. Barnave feared they would kill him, as they had already killed one person under similar circumstances. He threw himself almost out of the coach-door as he cried, "Tigers, have you ceased to be Frenchmen? From being brave fellows have you turned assassins?" The Princess Elizabeth, fearing lest he should fall out of the carriage, grasped the skirt of his coat; and the queen told Madame Campan afterwards that she could not but be struck with the oddity of seeing the Princess Elizabeth taking care of the safety of a man whom they had all abhorred as a rebel and a traitor. So vehemently had the whole Court thus detested him, that Madame Campan could scarcely believe her senses when she heard the queen speak with earnest regard of the revolutionary Barnave. This is another circumstance which indicates how much guilt and misery might have been saved if the adverse parties could early have come to an understanding and made their mutual complaints face to face.

Barnave's companion, Petion, disgusted them all; including Barnave. He behaved with ostentatious rudeness and brutality. The king began to converse with him upon the condition of the nation, and to explain the reasons of his own conduct, saying that he wished to strengthen the government so far as to enable it to _be_ a government, since France could not be a republic... "Not yet, indeed," interrupted Petion; "for the French are not ripe for a republic yet." This brutal reply silenced the king, who spoke no more till he entered Paris.

The ladies offered refreshments to their new companions. Barnave said he had to occupy their Majesties with the serious business on which he was sent, but would not trouble them with his personal wants.

Petion ate and drank greedily. He threw chicken-bones out of the window, past the king's face; and when the Princess Elizabeth poured out wine for him, he jerked his glass, instead of speaking, to show that there was enough. He took Louis on his knees, and twisted his fingers in the child's curly hair. When eager in conversation, he twitched the boy's hair so as to make him call out. The queen held out her arms, saying, "Give me my son. He is accustomed to tender care, and to treatment very unlike this familiarity."

The great coach entered Paris on the Saturday evening, slowly rolling on through hundreds of thousands of gazers. A placard had been stuck up through one region of the city, in the morning, declaring that whoever insulted the king should be caned: whoever applauded him should be hanged. The people were quiet, gaped and stared, and seemed neither very much pleased nor very angry. The king now began to speak once more. As one body of official personages after another met him, he said, over and over again, with an embarrassed sort of smile, "Well, here I am!" Again we cannot help thinking what a pity it was that he was not a locksmith, happy in his workshop in one of the meaner streets of Paris. As for his little son, how happy would Louis now have been to be the son of the poor herb-man in the wood of Bondy, gathering his dewy herbs in the fresh, free morning air and sunshine, and going to sleep at sundown, far from crowds and quarrels and fears! Never more was this unfortunate child in the open country. He had this day seen the last of green fields, breezy hills, and waving woods.

The couriers were the first objects of the people's wrath. Some at length left off staring at the king and queen, and seizing the three men in yellow liveries, would have massacred them, if the Assembly had not sent a force to rescue them.

Glad was the poor queen to get out of sight of the hundreds of thousands of gazers, and to be within the courts of the Tuileries: but she found little comfort there. Three women only were appointed to wait on her; and those three were Madame R---the spy, her sister, and niece. It was only after the king had remonstrated with General Lafayette, that the queen could obtain the attendance of her former servants. She much needed the presence of some to whom she could speak without restraint; and yet this was an indulgence she found it prudent to wait for. Immediately on her arrival she caused these few lines, unsigned, to be forwarded by a faithful hand to Madame Campan:--"I dictate this from my bath, by which my bodily strength at least may be recruited. I can say nothing of the state of my mind. We exist: that is all. Do not return till summoned by me. This is very important." It was not till seven or eight weeks after that Madame Campan saw her royal mistress. The queen was then rising from bed. She took off her cap, and showed her hair, white as any aged person's, saying that it had become bleached in one night.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER NINE.

PLAYING FALSE.

From this time forward, the National Guards stationed in the palace had orders never to lose sight of the royal family. They therefore, for some weeks, kept the doors open day and night, having their eyes upon the royal party all day, and upon their very beds at night. The queen caused a small bed to be placed between the door of her chamber and her own bed, that she might sleep or weep on her pillow without being exposed to the observation of her soldier-gaolers. One night, however, the officer who was on watch, perceiving that the queen was awake, and her attendant asleep, drew near her bed to give her some advice how she should conduct herself in regard to politics. The queen begged him to speak low, that her attendant might not be disturbed. The lady awoke, however, and was in terror when she saw with whom the queen was conversing. Her majesty then used the smooth and flattering tone which she always appeared to think her enemies would be pleased with, desiring the lady not to be alarmed, for that this officer was an excellent man, no doubt truly attached to the king, though mistaken as to what were the intentions of both the king and herself.

The king one day rose to shut the door of the room where he was sitting with his family. The guard immediately threw it open again, saying that he had orders to keep it open; and that the king would only give himself useless trouble by shutting it. The difficulty now was to find any opportunity for private conversation. This was done through the attachment of one of the guards, who often took a very disagreeable post which nobody else desired to have. This was in a dark corridor where candles had to be used all day, and where, therefore, no sentinel would like being on guard for twenty-four hours together, in the month of July. Saint Prix, an actor, devoted, however, himself to this service, for the sake of the king and queen, who often met here for short conversations. Saint Prix, on these occasions, retired out of hearing, and gave notice if he believed anyone was coming.

This extreme of insulting rigour did not last long this time. In August the family were allowed to open and shut their doors when they pleased, and the king was treated with more outward respect. The Assembly was then preparing a Constitution, which it was believed the king would sign; and it would be well that, at the time of doing so, he should appear in the eyes of the world as a king, and not a prisoner who acted merely upon constraint.

The new Constitution was prepared, and the king agreed to it; even sending a letter to the Assembly to propose to swear to the new Constitution in the place where it was framed,--in their chamber. The members were highly delighted: all Paris appeared highly delighted. The leaders of parties thronged to court: their majesties went to the theatres; and when the deputies from the Assembly came to the palace to assure the king how much satisfaction was felt at this agreement of all parties, the queen, the princess royal, and the dauphin stood looking on from a doorway behind. The king pointed to them, saying, "There are my wife and children, who feel as I do."

All this, however, was false and hollow: all these celebrations were but melancholy mirth. All thinking persons must have known that the king could not really approve and rejoice in a new Constitution such as the people liked,--a Constitution which took from him many and great powers and privileges which he considered to be as truly his own as the throne itself. On the other hand, the royal family believed that this act was only one step towards the destruction of the monarchy altogether,--only one stage towards their own total ruin. So, while each party was applauding the other, and all wore smiles in public, there was no real confidence and joy except among the ignorant and thoughtless. After the queen had assured the deputies of her approbation and pleasure, she said, in the privacy of her apartment, "These people do not like having sovereigns. We shall be destroyed by their cunning and persevering management. They are levelling the monarchy stone by stone."

The king felt the same. After professing the utmost satisfaction and delight at this settlement of affairs, and hearing from the Assembly, echoed by the acclamations of the people, that he had "obtained a new title of grandeur and of glory," the king appeared at the door of the apartment to which the queen had retired after the ceremony,--his face so pale and so wretched that the queen uttered an exclamation as she looked at him. He sank into a chair, and covered his eyes with his handkerchief, saying, "All is lost! O, why were you a witness to this humiliation? Why did you come to France to see--" His words were choked by sobs. The queen had cast herself on her knees before him. She now exclaimed to Madame Campan, "Go! Go!" in a tone which conveyed, "Why do you remain to witness the humiliation of your king?"

All Paris was illuminated at night; and the royal family were invited to take a drive in the midst of the people. They were well guarded by soldiers, and received everywhere with acclamations. One man, however, with a prodigiously powerful voice, kept beside the carriage-door next the queen, and as often as the crowd shouted "Long live the king!" bawled out "No, no: don't believe them. Long live the nation!" The queen was impressed with the same sort of terror with which she had seen the four wax-lights go out. Though panic-struck with this ominous voice, she dared not complain, nor ask to have the man removed. While the royal family were driving about the city in this false and hollow triumph, a messenger was setting off for the Austrian court, with letters from them expressive of extreme discontent and alarm at the present state of public affairs.

There were bursts of loyal feeling occasionally, which gratified the royal family; but these became fewer and fewer, as it was observed that they were not well taken by the leaders of the revolution. One day this summer, the Dauphin was walking on the terrace of the Tuileries. A grenadier took him in his arms, with some affectionate words; and everybody within sight cheered the child. Orders, however, soon came to be quiet on the terrace: the child was set down again, and the people went on their way.

Another day, Louis forgot his plan of being civil to everybody. He had hold of his mother's hand; and they were going to walk in the gardens. A loyal sentinel, lately arrived from the country, made his salute so earnestly that his musket rang again. The queen saluted graciously: but Louis was in such a hurry that he was posting on through the gate. His mother checked him, saying, "Come, salute. Do not be unpolite."

Some of the first difficulties which arose under the new Constitution, were of a kind which show how impossible it was for the royal family and the people ever to agree in their thoughts and feelings. The new law had provided a military, and also a civil, establishment for the royal household;--had provided what the king had declared a sufficient number of attendants, and described their offices,--doing away with many of the old forms, and with much of the absurd extravagance, of the old Court. It was now in the queen's power to please the people by agreeing cheerfully to the new arrangements, and showing that she was not so proud and extravagant as she was reported to be. Instead of this, she clung to the old ways, after having declared her acceptance of the new. She would not appoint people to the offices agreed upon, saying that it was an injury to the old nobility to let them be turned out. To be sure, most of them had fled: but if they returned, what would they say, if they found their places filled, and the queen surrounded by persons of a lower rank? One noble lady at this time resigned an office she had been left in possession of, and said she could not stay now that she was deprived of her hereditary privilege of sitting on a stool unasked in the queen's presence. This grieved the queen; and she said that this was, and would be, the way with the nobility. They made no allowance for her altered circumstances; but deserted her if she admitted to office persons of inferior rank. She could not do without this nobility: she said she could not bear to see nobody come to her card-parties,--to see no throng but of servants at the king's rising and undressing. Rather than give up these old ceremonies, and this kind of homage, she broke through the only part of the Constitution that it was in her power to act upon, and insulted the feelings of the people. Barnave argued with her, but she would not yield.

The rejoicings for the new Constitution took place on the last day of September. During the rest of the year, the royal family, and the most confidential of their servants, were much employed in secret correspondence with the absent princes and nobility, and with the foreign Courts. Some of these letters were in cipher, and were copied by persons who knew nothing whatever of the meaning of what they were writing. The queen wrote almost all day long, and spent a part of the nights in reading. Poor lady! She could sleep but little.

Towards the end of the year, a new alarm arose, for which one cannot but think now there was very little ground; though no one can wonder that the unhappy family, and the police magistrates who had the charge of their safety, were open to every impression of terror. The king was told that one of his pastrycooks was dead; and that the man's office was to be filled, of right, by a pastry-cook who, while waiting for this appointment, had kept a confectioner's shop in the neighbourhood, and who was furious in his profession of revolutionary politics. He had been heard to say that any man would be doing a public service who should cut off the king; and it was feared that he might do this service himself, by poisoning the king's pastry, now that he would have daily opportunities of doing so. The king was particularly fond of pastry, and ate a great deal of it. It would not do now suddenly to give up eating pastry, so as to set everybody in the palace inquiring why: besides, it does not seem to have occurred to the king, under any of the circumstances of his life, to restrain himself in eating. The new pastry-cook had nothing whatever to do but to make and roll out the crusts of pies and tarts; but it was thought so easy a matter to infuse a subtle poison into any of the dishes that stood about in the kitchen, that it was resolved that the king and queen should eat nothing that was brought thence, except roast meat, the last thing which anyone would think of poisoning. Other dishes were to be apparently half-eaten, and their contents conveyed away.

Here we see the absurdity of the old court-system, with its laws and formalities;--the system by which so many hangers-on were enriched, to the injury of better people than themselves: and by which the king himself was placed in a sort of bondage. Any shop-keeper in Paris might turn away his shop-boy for insolence; any tradesman's wife might dismiss her cook for unwholesome cookery: but here was the sovereign of France compelled to retain in his service a man whom he believed to have said that it would be a meritorious act to murder him; and this man's pastry must be admitted to the royal table every day! The man held the reversion to the office of king's pastry-cook (the right to it when the occupant should die), and the right once acquired, the man could not, by court custom, be got rid of. Thus were court offices not open to merit; but conferred sometimes by favour, and sometimes for money; and greedily grasped at for the great profits they yielded. One wonders that the royal family did not discover that the new state of affairs, if it imposed some restrictions, might have freed them from many annoyances, if they could have suited their conduct to their affairs.--We shall now see what trouble was caused by the king's being unable to turn away a kitchen servant whom he could not trust.

The bread and wine wanted for the royal table were secretly provided by a steward of the household. The sugar was purchased by Madame Campan, and pounded in her apartment. She also provided the pastry, of which the king was so fond; purchasing it as if for herself, sometimes of one confectioner and sometimes of another. All these things were locked up in a cupboard in the king's study, on the ground-floor. The royal family chose to wait on themselves; so, when the table was spread, the servants went out, leaving a dumb-waiter and bell beside each chair. Then Madame Campan appeared with the bread, wine, sugar, and pastry, which were put under the table, lest any of the attendants should enter. The princesses drank no wine. The king drank about half a bottle; and when he had done he poured into the bottle from which he had drunk about half of that of which he dared not drink; and this latter bottle, with some of the pastry from the kitchen, was carried away by Madame Campan after dinner. At the end of four months, the heads of the police gave notice that the danger from poisoning was over; that the plans of the king's enemies were changed, and that future measures would be directed against the throne, and not the life of the monarch. Meantime, did not every labouring man who could supply his family with bread take his meal in more cheerfulness and comfort than this unhappy king?

Everything went wrong. The royal party had never been remarkable for success in their undertakings; and now all that they did turned to their ruin. They corresponded at once with the emigrant princes, and with those leaders at home who were attached to the Constitution; and when, as might have been expected, they found that they could not please both, they distrusted and withdrew from those who were best able to help them. They would not follow Barnave's advice. They believed General Dumouriez a traitor, and broke off from him when he was perfectly sincere in his wish to save them, and had more power to do so than all their emigrant friends together. They distrusted Lafayette; and when, a few weeks later, they were in deeper distress than ever, but might have been protected, and taken to Rouen by Lafayette's army, the queen refused, saying in private that Lafayette had been offered to them as a resource, but that they had rather perish than owe their safety to the man who had most injured them, or even be obliged to treat with him. Thus, rejecting those who could help them, and relying on those who could not, this unwise and unhappy family went on to their ruin.

The foreign courts and emigrant princes were preparing to invade France; and the consequence was that the poor helpless king had to do an act which would have been ridiculous, if it were not too sad to laugh at. As pretended Constitutional King and Head of the Nation, he had to behave in public towards these foreign princes as if they were enemies, when it was for his sake that they were levying armies. By his private letters, written in cipher, and sent in secret, he was urging them to make haste to march to his rescue; and at the very same time he had to go to the Assembly and propose that they should declare war against these enemies of the nation. He said this with the tears in his eyes. It was on the 20th of April that he endured this humiliation. What man of spirit would not rather have taken one side or the other, at all hazards, than have played such a double part as this? If he could act with the people in reforming their affairs, well and good. If he could not,--if he believed them all wrong, and that it was his sacred duty to stand by the old order of things, how much more respectable it would have been to have said so,--to have declared, "You may imprison me--you may destroy me,--but I will stand by my throne and its powers!" In that case, the worst he could have been charged with would have been a mistake. As it was, he stood before the Assembly an object of universal contempt,--proposing, with tears in his eyes, a declaration of war against those who were preparing war at his desire, and for his sake; and everyone knowing that it was so.

He and the queen seemed never to have understood or believed what was carefully pointed out to them by the advisers whom they distrusted--that this making war in their behalf could not end well for them. If their foreign friends should be beaten, they would be left more helpless and despised than ever. If the French should be beaten, the frightened and angry people would be sure to treat with more and more rigour--and perhaps with fury--the family who had brought a foreign enemy upon them. Their advisers must have been glad at last to be rejected and dismissed; for it must have been provoking to discover, at every turn, the double dealing of the king and queen; and very melancholy to see them perpetually pursuing the exactly opposite course to that which was noble and wise. One wonders whether, if little Louis had lived to be a man, he would have been as ignorant, selfish, and unwise;--whether there is anything in belonging to the old royal family of France which stands between its princes and wisdom and knowledge. If so, one is less sorry that he died so early as he did.

Barnave's last words impressed the feelings of the queen, but had no other effect. He begged to see her once more before he left Paris; and then withdrew from public affairs. He said, "Your misfortunes, madam, and those of the country, had determined me to devote myself to your service. I see that my advice does not accord with your majesty's views. I augur little success from the plan which you have been induced to follow. You are too far from the help you rely on, and you will be lost before it can reach you. I earnestly hope that I may be mistaken in this prophecy. At all events, I am sure of losing my head for the interest I have felt in your affairs, and the services I have endeavoured to render you. I only ask as a recompense the honour of kissing your hand."

The queen shed tears as she extended her hand to him, and often afterwards spoke of Barnave with regard. It does not appear, however, that either she or the king called in question their own conduct with regard to these men. They induced them to devote themselves to a most hazardous service--summoned them to secret interviews in the palace, in the night, in dark corridors, or on back staircases, where some spy or another was sure to see them, and report of them to the jealous people; and, after all this, they were dismissed, and left unprotected by the exact contrary of their advice being pursued. Barnave's dismal predictions were all fulfilled. The royal family did sink down into destruction; and he himself perished, as he had foretold. He now left Paris, and married at Grenoble. The next August, less than three months after his last interview with the queen, his correspondence with her and the king was found in a chest in the palace; and orders were sent to arrest him, and imprison him at Grenoble. He lay in prison fifteen months, and was then brought to Paris, and tried for his life. He made a noble defence; but it was of no avail. He was beheaded on the 29th of October, 1793. When on the scaffold, he seemed suddenly struck with the infamy of the treatment he had met with on every side. He stamped with his foot, and exclaimed, "This, then, is the reward of all that I have done for liberty!" He was only thirty-two years of age. His unwise and miserable sovereign was not living to mourn the destruction he had brought on this high-minded man; and the fair royal hand which he had so desired to kiss had become cold in death some days before.

To return to the spring of 1792. The palace was now as dismal an abode as ever children grew up in. The king's temper and manners gave way entirely. For ten days he never once spoke, except to say the words necessary in the game of backgammon, which he played with his sister every day after dinner. The queen kneeled to him, imploring him to exert himself. When this availed nothing, she endeavoured to arouse him by the most frightful representations she could make of the danger they were all in--a danger which increased every day, and which required that he should act, and not sit sulking, while the hours flew by which were bringing destruction on their heads. She sometimes expressed sympathy and tenderness; sometimes showed him his children, and besought him to act, for their sakes: and sometimes she asked him proudly whether, if they must perish, it would not be better to die with dignity and honour than to wait sullenly, as if inviting the rabble to come and tread their lives out on the floor of their own palace?

In one instance, she prevailed with him against his judgment; and in five days, after, bitterly repented it. There was no use in persuading him to a single spirited act now and then, when he had not resolution to follow it up by others: and so she found. In June, the Assembly wished to banish all the clergy, and to form a camp of twenty-thousand men, under the walls of Paris. The king would have agreed, telling the queen that the people only wanted a pretence for a general insurrection; and that it would burst forth at the moment of his refusing anything they wished. The queen, however, induced him to use his lawful power of disapproving and forbidding these measures. This happened on the 15th of June. When he declared to his ministers his intention of doing this, three days before, they remonstrated, and the wife of one of them, Madame Roland, wrote a letter, in her husband's name, to the king; a letter so plain spoken that the king and queen could not brook it; and the ministry were all turned out next morning.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TEN.

THE MOB IN THE PALACE.

The angry people rose. Twenty-thousand of the poorest, dirtiest, and most savage, went to the magistrates in a body, to declare their intention of planting the Tree of Liberty on a terrace of the Tuileries, on the 20th; and of presenting, at the same time, petitions to the king against his late prohibitions about the priests and the army. It was easy to see what sort of petitions these were likely to be; but it had become difficult to make preparation for any expected public event,-- there were so many opinions to be consulted, and so much suspicion was abroad.

Early in the morning of the 20th, a tall Lombardy poplar, which the people called their tree of liberty, was lying on a car in the lower part of the city, and the people were collecting in multitudes to make a procession with it to the palace. A messenger from the magistrates spoke to the people against their scheme; but they said they were only going to do what they had a right to do: it was lawful to petition; and that was their errand. So, on they went, their numbers being swelled by groups from every by-street on their way. They drew two pieces of cannon with them, and carried abundance of tricolour flags and ribbons; and also various significant emblems, one of which was a bullock's heart with a spear through it, labelled "the Aristocrat's heart." The magistrates next met them: but again the crowd declared they intended only what was lawful, and pushed on.

They read their address in the Assembly, and then went, dancing and shouting, to plant their tree. The iron gates of the Tuileries were all shut, and National soldiers and cannon appeared within; so that the tree could not be planted on the terrace, as designed. There was a convent garden near, which served their purpose, and there was the tree of liberty erected.

While this was doing, the Assembly dispersed till evening. The crowd desired that the king would come out, and hear their petition. They waited and waited, pressing against the iron gates, till some were near being pressed to death, and were not in the better humour for that. The king did not appear. After a while, the guard within were told that, if the king would not come out to his people, his people would go in to him. As usual, there was no decision in the treatment of the people. After some hesitation, the guards opened one of the gates. The multitude swarmed in; rushed at a wooden door of the palace; shivered it; and the royal household were at once at their mercy.

Now at last the sovereign and his craving people met, face to face: met, too, that they might petition, and he reply. But they were no longer fitted for coming to an understanding. They despised him as weak, and a double-dealer; and he despised them for their ignorance, their tatters, and dirt. He showed this day that he was no coward. He was indolent, irresolute, and unable to act; but he could endure. After this day, no one could, unrebuked, call him a coward. When the mob began battering upon the door of the room in which he was, he ordered it to be thrown open. Some of the gentlemen of his household had rushed in through another door, and requested him to stand in the recess of a large window. They drove up a heavy table before him, and ranged themselves in front of it. They begged him not to be alarmed. "Put your hand on my heart," replied the king, "and see if I am afraid." The Princess Elizabeth flew to see what was doing to her brother. She heard fierce threats from the mob against the queen. They vowed they would have the blood of the mischievous Austrian woman. The attendants begged the princess to go away from this scene. "No," said she, "let them take me for the queen, and then she may have time to escape." They forced her away, however, with what emotions of admiration words cannot express.

The king demanded of the riotous crowd what it was that they wanted. They cried that they would have the patriot ministers back again, and no prohibition about the clergy and the army. The king replied that this was not the way, nor the time, to settle such matters. Those who heard him must have respected him for having at last given a good and decided answer. During the rest of the time, about three hours, he stood in the recess of the window, while the mob passed to and fro before the broad table which stood between him and them. At the very beginning of the scene one of the people handed him a red woollen cap, such as the furious revolutionary people had taken to wearing, to show their patriotism. This cap the king was bid to wear. He put it on; and it was matter of complaint against him afterwards by his aristocratic adherents, that he had worn the red cap for three hours. The fact was that he did not feel the cap on the top of his hair, matted with pomatum and powder as hair then was, and forgot it, till his family noticed it on his meeting them again. He declared himself thirsty, and a ragamuffin handing him a half-empty bottle, he drank from it.

The queen had attempted, with her children, to reach the room where the king was, but could not. Each seems to have believed that it was the intention of the mob to murder one or both of them, and there was much said of the murderers' arms which were carried; but it does not now appear probable that there was any such intention. There was nothing to prevent its execution; for the multitude could in a moment have overpowered ten times the number of adherents that were about the royal family; and the Assembly were not seen or heard of till past six, when the mob had been parading about the palace for an hour and a half. However, the royal party did expect murder, and their suspense of three hours must have been terrible.

The queen was secured, like the king, behind a table. She put a large tricolor cockade upon her head, and placed the Dauphin on a table before her. There sat poor little Louis, with a great red woollen cap covering his head, down to his very eyes, seeing how his governess and the other ladies behind his mother were terrified, and perhaps finding out how his mother's heart was swelling, and well-nigh bursting, while her face and manner were calm and dignified. He saw, too, the horrible things that were shown in the procession. The bullock's heart was there; and there was a little gibbet, with a little doll hung to it, and his mother's name written below. He heard many dreadful things said to her; but he also heard her answers, and saw that they pleased the people. One angry woman stood and railed at the queen. The queen asked whether she had ever seen her before, and whether she had ever done her any injury. "No," said the woman; "but it is you who have done the country so much harm."

"You have been told so; but you are mistaken," said the queen. "Being the wife of the king of France, and mother of the Dauphin, I am a Frenchwoman. I shall never see my own country again; it is in France that I must be happy or unhappy. I was very happy till you began to hate me." The woman was softened at once. She said, with tears, "I did not know you. I see now that you are good."

The queen could not in the least comprehend the hatred of royalty, which had now become common. She could not comprehend it, because she was born royal; and it seemed to her as natural that princes should be served and obeyed by everybody below them as that children should be ruled by their parents. She also knew nothing of the miseries caused for long years past by the abuse of power by both kings and nobles, and by herself among the rest. Unconscious of all this, she could make nothing of what she heard this evening from a member of the Assembly.-- Some of the members arrived at six o'clock, too late to do any good. The queen directed their notice to the broken doors, bidding them observe the outrageous way in which the home of the royal family had been violated. She saw signs of emotion in the countenance of Monsieur Merlin de Thionville, and observed upon it. Monsieur Merlin replied that he felt for her as a woman, a wife, and mother, but that she must not suppose that he shed a single tear for the king or the queen; that he hated kings and queens. It was the only feeling he had towards them; it was his religion.--Now, however extravagant this man's feelings might be, and however harsh his expression of them, such sayings might have been a valuable lesson to one who could reflect and reason upon them, and diligently try to discover how such feelings could have grown up in millions of minds. This, however, the poor queen never thought of doing. She called it madness; and felt as if in Bedlam, while surrounded by those who were of the same mind as Monsieur Merlin.

At last the Mayor of Paris came. Monsieur Petion was now mayor: the same who had pulled Louis's hair, on the return from Varennes, a year before. He harangued the people: several others harangued; and at last the mob marched out through the broken doors of the violated palace. It was eight in the evening. When the members of this unhappy family could get to one another, again, when they felt that they were once more alone, they threw themselves into one another's arms, weeping bitterly. The monarch and his people had met at last, face to face; and it was only to find that there was, and could be, no agreement between them. One of the parties must give way: the people were strong; the king was weak, and his ruin was now certain. Little Louis understood nothing of all this; but one wonders whether he could sleep that night,--whether he could forget the frightful procession he had seen filling the very rooms in which he lived.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

WHAT BEFELL WHILE THE QUEEN WAS HOPING.