The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Charles Duke Yonge [e book reader android txt] 📗

exclude all idea of their being the equals of those other orders of which they had for a moment become the colleagues. And, in a similar spirit it was arranged that, after the folding-doors of the saloon in which the sovereigns were awaiting them were thrown wide open to admit the representatives of the higher orders, the Commons were let in through a side door. And though in the eyes of persons habituated to the ceremonious niceties of court life these distinctions seemed matters of course, and, as such, unworthy of notice, it can hardly be wondered at if they were galling to men accustomed only to the simpler manners of a provincial town; and who, proud of their new position and deeply impressed with its importance, fancied they saw in them a settled intention to degrade both them and their constituents by thus stamping them with a badge of inferiority before all the spectators.

The opening of the States-general was fixed for the 5th of May, and on the day before, which was Sunday, a solemn mass was performed at the principal church in Versailles, that of Notre Dame; after which the congregation proceeded to another church, that of St. Louis, to hear a sermon from the Bishop of Nancy. It was a stately procession that moved from one church to the other, and it was afterward remembered as the very last in which the royal pair appeared before their subjects with the undiminished magnificence of ancient ceremony. First, after a splendid escort of troops, came the members of the States in their several orders; then the king marched by himself; the queen followed; and behind her came the princes and princesses of the royal family of the blood, the officers of state and of the household, and companies of the Body-guard brought up the rear. The acclamations of the spectators were loud as the deputies of the States, and especially as the representatives of the Commons, passed on; loud, too, as the king; moved forward, bearing himself with unusual dignity; but, when the queen advanced, though still the main body of the people cheered with sincere respect, a gang of ruffians, among whom were several women,[3] shouted out "Long live the Duke of Orleans!" in her ear, with so menacing an accent that, she nearly fainted with terror. By a strong mastery over herself she shook off the agitation, which was only perceived by her immediate attendants; but the disloyal feeling thus shown toward her at the outset was a sad omen of the spirit in which one party at least was prepared to view the measures of the Government; and, so far as she was concerned, of the degree in which her enemies had succeeded in poisoning the minds of the people against her, as the person whose resistance to their meditated encroachments on the royal authority was likely to prove the most formidable.

It was a significant hint, too, of the projects already formed by the worthless prince whose adherents these ruffians proclaimed themselves. The Duc d'Orleans conceived himself to have lately received a fresh provocation, and an additional motive for revenge. His eldest son, the Duc de Chartres,[4] was now a boy of sixteen, and he had proposed to the king to give him Madame Royale in marriage; an idea which the queen, who held his character in deserved abhorrence, had rejected with very decided marks of displeasure. He was also stimulated by views of personal ambition. The history of England had been recently studied by many persons in France besides the king and queen; and there were not wanting advisers to point out to the duke that the revolution which had taken place in England exactly a century before had owed its success to the dethronement of the reigning sovereign and the substitution of another member of the royal family in his place. As William of Orange was, after the king's own children, the next heir to James II., so was the Duc d'Orleans now the next heir, after the king's children and brothers, to Louis XVI.; and for the next five months there can be no doubt that he and his partisans, who numbered in their body some of the most influential members of the States- general, kept constantly in view the hope of placing him on the throne from which they were to depose his cousin.

The next day the States were formally opened by Louis in person. The place of meeting was a spacious hall which, two years before, had been used for the meeting of the Notables. It had been the scene of many a splendid spectacle in times past, but had never before witnessed so imposing or momentous a ceremony. The town itself had not risen into notice till the memory of the preceding States-general had almost passed away. And now, after all the deputies had ranged themselves to receive their sovereign, the representatives of the clergy on the right of the throne, the Nobles on the left, the Commons in denser masses at the bottom of the hall;[5] as the king, accompanied by the queen, leading two of her children[6] by the hand, and attended by all the princes of the royal family and of the blood, by the dukes and peers of the kingdom, the ministers and great officers of state, entered and took his seat on the throne, the most unimpassioned spectator must have felt that he was beholding a scene at once magnificent and solemn; and one, from long desuetude, as novel as if it had been wholly unprecedented, such as might well inaugurate a new policy or a new constitution.

Could those who beheld it as spectators, could those who bore a part in the solemnity, have looked into futurity; could they have divined that no other hall would ever again see that virtuous and beneficent king surrounded with that pomp, or received with that reverential homage which was now paid to him as as unquestioned right; nay, that the end, of which this day was the beginning, scarcely one single person of all those now present, whether men in the flower of their strength, women in the pride of their beauty, or even children in their infantine innocence and grace, would live to behold; but that sovereigns and subjects were destined, almost without exception, to perish with circumstances of unutterable, unimaginable horror and misery, as the direct consequence of this day's pageant; we may well believe that the most sanguine of those who now greeted it with eager hope and exultation would rather have averted his eyes from the ill-omened spectacle, and would have preferred to bear the worst evils of which he was anticipating the abolition, to bringing on his country the calamities which were about to fall upon it.

A large state arm-chair, a little lower than the throne, had been set beside it for the queen; the princes and princesses were ranged on each side on a row of chairs without arms; and, when all had taken their places, the king opened the session with a short speech, leaving the real business to be unfolded at greater length by his ministers. In order to feel assured of the proper emphasis and expression, he had rehearsed his speech frequently to the queen; and, as he now delivered it with unusual dignity and gracefulness, it was received with frequent acclamations, though some of those who were watching all that passed with the greatest anxiety fancied that one or two compliments to the queen which it contained met with a colder response; while, at its close, the representatives of the Third Estate gave an indication of their feeling toward the other orders, and provoked a display on their part which promised little cordiality to their deliberations. The king, who had uncovered himself while speaking, on resuming his seat replaced his hat. The Nobles, according to the ancient etiquette, replaced theirs; and many of the Commons at once asserted their equality with them by also covering themselves. Such an assumption was a breach of all established custom. The Nobles were indignant, and with angry shouts demanded the removal of the Commons' hats. They were met with louder clamor by the Commons, and in a moment the whole hall was in an uproar, which was only allayed by the presence of mind of Louis himself, who, as if oppressed by the heat, laid aside his own hat, when, as a matter of course, the Nobles followed his example. The deputies of the Commons did the same, and peace was restored.

The king's speech was followed by another short one from the keeper of the seals, which received but little attention; and by one of prodigious length from Necker, which was equally injudicious and unacceptable to his hearers, both in what it said and in what it omitted. He never mentioned the question of constitutional reform. He said nothing of what the Commons, at least, thought still more important--the number of chambers in which the members were to meet; and, though he dilated at the most profuse length on the condition of the finances, and on his own success in re-establishing public credit, they were by no means pleased to hear him assert that success had removed any absolute necessity for their meeting at all, and that they had only been called together in fulfillment of the king's promise, that so the sovereign might establish a better harmony between the different parts of the Constitution.

Before any business could be proceeded with, it was necessary for the members to have the writs of their elections properly certified and registered, for which they were to meet on the following day. We need not here detail the artifices and assumptions by which the members of the Third Estate put forward pretensions which were designed to make them masters of the whole Assembly; nor is it necessary to unfold at length the combination of audacity and craft, aided by the culpable weakness of Necker, by which they ultimately carried the point they contended for, providing that the three orders should deliberate and vote together as one united body in one chamber. Emboldened by their success, they even proceeded to a step which probably not one among them had originally contemplated; and, as if one of their principal objects had been to disown the authority of the king by which they had been called together, they repudiated the title of States-general, and invented for themselves a new name, that of "The National Assembly," which, as it had never been heard of before, seemed to mark that they owed their existence to the nation, and not to the sovereign.

But the discussions that took place before all these points were settled, presented, besides the importance of the conclusion which was adopted, another feature of powerful interest, since it was in them that the members first heard the voice of the Count de Mirabeau, who, more than any other deputy, was supposed during the ensuing year to be able to sway the whole Assembly, and to hold the destinies of the nation in his hands.

Necker's daughter, the celebrated Baroness de Stael, wife of the Swedish embassador, who was present at the opening of the States, which, as her father's daughter, she regarded with exulting confidence as the body of legislators who were to regenerate the nation, remarked, as the long procession passed before her eyes, that of the six hundred deputies of the Commons[7], the Count de Mirabeau alone bore a name which was previously known; and he was manifestly out of his place as a representative of the Commons. His history was a strange one. He was the eldest son of a Provencal noble, of Italian origin, great wealth, and a ferocious eccentricity of character, which made him one of the worst possible instructors for a youth of brilliant talents,