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

illegal resolutions of the Assembly. Mirabeau had drawn up an elaborate memorial for the consideration of the king, in which he pointed out in general terms his sense of the state of "utter anarchy" into which France had fallen, his shame and indignation at feeling "that he himself had contributed to bring affairs into such a bad state." and his "profound conviction of the necessity, in the interests of the whole nation, of re-establishing the legitimate authority of the king.[4]" And Marie Antoinette, commenting on this expression, assured La Marck that "the king had no desire to recover the full extent of the authority which he had formerly possessed; and that he was far from thinking it necessary for his own personal happiness any more than for the welfare of his people.[5]" And it seemed to the count that she placed unlimited confidence in Mirabeau's ability to re-establish her husband's power on a sufficient and satisfactory basis; so full was her conversation, during the latter part of the interview, of the good which she expected to be again able to do, and of the warm affection with which she regarded the people.

The benefits of this new alliance were not to be all on one side. Mirabeau was overwhelmed with debt; and though his father had died in the preceding summer, he had not yet entered into his inheritance, but was in a state little short of absolute destitution. From this condition he was to be relieved, and the arrangements for the discharge of his debts, and the securing to him the enjoyment of a sufficient though by no means excessive income, were intrusted to Marie Antoinette by the king, and by her to her almoner, M. de Fontanges, who, when Lomenie de Brienne was promoted to the archbishopric of Sens, had succeeded him at Toulouse. The archbishop, who was sincerely devoted to his royal mistress, carried out the necessary arrangements with great skill, but they could not be managed with such secrecy as entirely to escape notice. Among the clubs which had been set on foot at the beginning of the previous year the most violent had been that known as the Breton Club, from being founded by some of the deputies from the great province of Brittany; but, when the court removed to Paris, and the Assembly was established in a large building close to the garden of the Tuileries, the Bretons obtained the use of an apartment in an old convent of Dominican or Jacobin friars (as they were called), the same which two centuries before had been the council-room of the League, and they changed their own designation also, and called themselves the Jacobins; and, canceling the rule which limited the right of membership to deputies, they now admitted every one who, by application for election, avowed his adherence to their principles. Their leaders at this time were Barnave; a young noble named Alexander Lameth, whose mother, having been left in necessitous circumstances, owed to the bounty of the king and queen the means of educating her children, a benefit which they repaid with the most unremitting hostility to the whole royal family; and a lawyer named Duport. Mirabeau was in the habit of ridiculing them as the triumvirate; but they were crafty and unscrupulous men, skillful in procuring information; and, having obtained intelligence of his negotiations with the court, they retaliated on him by hiring pamphleteers and journalists to attack him, and narratives of the treason of the Count de Mirabeau were hawked about the streets.

To apply such language to the adherence of a French noble to the crown was the most open avowal of disloyalty on which the revolutionary party had yet ventured; and in the next four weeks it received a practical development in a series of measures, some of which were so ridiculous as only to deserve notice from the additional evidence which they furnished of the extreme folly of those who now had the lead in the Assembly, and of the strange excitement in which the whole nation, or at least the whole population of Paris, must have been wrought up before they could mistake their acts for those of sagacity or patriotism; but others of which, though not less unwise, were of greater importance as being irrevocable steps in the downward course of destruction along which the whole country was being dragged.

The leaders of the revolutionary party had already selected two days in the past year as especially memorable for the triumphs won over the crown: one was the 20th of June, on which, in the Tennis Court at Versailles, the members of the Assembly had bound themselves to effect the regeneration of the kingdom; the other the 14th of July, on which, as they boasted, they had forever established freedom by the destruction of the Bastile; and they determined this year to celebrate both these anniversaries in a becoming manner. Accordingly, on the 20th of June, a crack-brained member of the Jacobin Club, a Prussian of noble birth, named Clootz, who, to show his affinity with the philosophers of old, had assumed the name of Anacharsis, hired a band of vagrants and idlers, and, dressing them up in a variety of costumes to represent Arabs, red Indians, Turks, Chinese, Laplanders, and other tribes, savage and civilized, led them into the Assembly as a deputation from all the nations of the earth to announce the resurrection of the whole world from slavery; and demanded permission for them to attend the festival of the ensuing month, that each, on behalf of his country, might give in his adhesion to the principles of liberty as expounded by the Assembly. The president of the day replied with an oration thanking M. Clootz for the honor done to France by such an embassy; and Alexander Lameth followed up the president's harangue by fresh praises of the deputation as holy pilgrims who had thrown off the shackles of superstition. Nor was he content with a barren panegyric. He had devised an appropriate sacrifice with which to commemorate such exalted virtue. In the finest square of the city, the Place des Victoires, the Duke de la Feuillade had erected a statue of Louis XIV. to celebrate his royal master's triumphs, the pedestal of which was decorated with allegorical representations of the nations which had been conquered by the French marshals. It was generally regarded as the finest work of art in the city, and as such it had long been an object of admiration and pride to the citizens. But M. Lameth, in his new-born enthusiasm, regarded it with other eyes, and closed his speech by proposing that, as monuments of despotism and flattery could not fail to be shocking to so enlightened a body, the Assembly should order its instant demolition. His proposal was received with enthusiastic cheers, and the noble monument was instantly overthrown in a fit of blind fury more resembling the orgies of drunken Bacchanals, or the thirst for desolation which had animated the Goths and Huns, than the conduct of the chosen legislators of a polite and accomplished people.

But even this was not all. The insult to the memory of a king who, little as he deserved it, had a century before been the object of the unanimous admiration of his subjects, was but a prelude to other resolutions of far greater moment, as giving an indelible character to the future of the nation. A deputy, M. Lambel, whose very name was previously unknown to the majority of his colleagues, rose and made a speech of three lines, as if the proposal which it contained only required to be mentioned to command instant and universal assent "This day," said he, "is the tomb of vanity. I demand the suppression of the titles of duke, count, marquis, viscount, baron, and knight." La Fayette and Alexander Lameth's brother, Charles, supported the demand with almost equal brevity; a representative of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, the Viscount Matthieu de Montmorency moved a prohibition of the use of armorial bearings; another noble, M. de St. Targeau, proposed that the use of names derived from the estates of the owners should be abolished. Every proposal was carried by acclamation. Louder and louder cheers followed each suggestion of a new abolition; a member who ventured to propose an amendment to one proposal was hooted down; and in little more than an hour the whole series of resolutions, which struck at once at the recollections and glories of the past and at the dignity of the future, was made the law of the land.

Every one of these attacks on the nobles was a fresh provocation to Mirabeau, and increased his eagerness to complete his reconciliation with the crown. He pronounced the abolition of titles a torch to kindle civil war, and pressed more earnestly than ever for an interview with the queen, in which he might both learn her views and explain his own. Marie Antoinette had foreseen that she should be forced to admit him to her presence, but there was nothing to which she felt a stronger repugnance. His profligate character excited a feeling of perfect disgust in her mind; but for the public good she overcame it, and, having in the course of June removed to St. Cloud for change of air, on the 3d of July she, accompanied by the king, received him in the garden of that palace. The account which she sent her brother of the interview shows with what a mixture of feelings she had been agitated. She speaks of herself as "shivering with horror" as the moment drew near, and can not bring herself to describe him except as a "monster," though, she admits that his language speedily removed her agitation, which, when he was first presented to her, had nearly made her ill. "He seemed to be actuated by entire good faith, and to be altogether devoted to the king; and Louis was highly pleased with him, so that they now thought every thing was safe.[6]"

She, on her part, had made an equally favorable impression on him. She had adroitly flattered his high opinion of himself by saying that "if she had been speaking to persons of a different class and character she should have felt the necessity of being guarded in her language, but that in dealing with a Mirabeau there could be no need of such caution;" and he told his confidant, La Marck, that till he knew "the soul and thoughts of the daughter of Maria Teresa, and learned how fully he could reckon on that august ally, he had seen nothing of the court but its weakness; but now confidence had raised his courage, and gratitude had made the prosecution of his principles a duty;[7]" and in some subsequent letters he speaks of every thing as depending on the queen, and describes in brief but forcible language his appreciation of the dangers which surrounded her, and of the magnanimous courage with which he sees that she is prepared to confront them. "The king," he says, "has but one man about him, and that is his wife. There is no safety for her but in the reestablishment of the royal authority. I love to believe that she would not desire to preserve life without the crown. What I am quite certain of is, that she will not preserve her life unless she preserves her crown."

In his interview with her, as she reported it to the emperor, he had recommended, as the first step to be adopted by the king and herself, a departure from Paris; and, in reference to that plan, which he at all times regarded as the foundation of every other, he tells La Marck: "The moment will soon come when it will be necessary to try what can be done by a woman and a child