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

to persuade Louis to act with resolution; but when, as usual, she failed, she gave way to despair, and sat silent, with touching, helpless sorrow, gazing on her children, who had fallen asleep.

At seven o'clock on the morning of the 22d a single horseman rode into the town. He was an aid-de-camp of La Fayette. On the morning of the 21st the excitement had been great in Paris when it became known that the king had fled. The mob rose in furious tumult. They forced their way into the Tuileries, plundering the palace and destroying the furniture. A fruit-woman took possession of the queen's bed, as a stall to range her cherries on, saying that to-day it was the turn of the nation; and a picture of the king was torn down from the walls, and, after being stuck up in derision outside the gates for some time, was offered for sale to the highest bidder.[2] In the Assembly the most violent language was used. An officer whose name has been preserved through the eminence which after his death was attained by his widow and his children, General Beauharnais, was the president; and as such, he announced that M. Bailly had reported to him that the enemies of the nation had carried off the king. The whole Assembly was roused to fury at the idea of his having escaped from their power. A decree was at once drawn up in form, commanding that Louis should be seized wherever he could be found, and brought back to Paris. No one could pretend that the Assembly had the slightest right to issue such an order; but La Fayette, with the alacrity which he always displayed when any insult was to be offered to the king or queen, at once sent it off by his own aid-de-camp, M. Romeuf, with instructions to see that it was carried out The order was now delivered to Strausse; the king, with scarcely an attempt at resistance, declared his willingness to obey it; and before eight o'clock he and his family, with their faithful Body-guard, now in undisguised captivity, were traveling back to Paris.

When was there ever a journey so miserable as that which now brought its sovereigns back to that disloyal and hostile city! The National Guard of Varennes, and of other towns through which they passed, claimed a right to accompany them; and as they were all infantry, the speed of the carriage was limited to their walking pace. So slowly did the procession advance, that it was not till the fourth day that it reached the barrier; and, in many places on the road, a mob had collected in expectation of their arrival, and aggravated the misery of their situation by ferocious threats addressed to the queen, and even to the little dauphin. But at Chalons they were received with respect by the municipal authorities; the Hotel de Ville had been prepared for their reception: a supper had been provided. The queen was even entreated to allow some of the principal ladies of the city to be presented to her; and, as the next day was the great Roman Catholic festival of the Fete Dieu, they were escorted with all honor to hear mass in the cathedral, before they resumed their journey. Even the National Guard were not all hostile or insolent. At Epernay, though a menacing crowd surrounded the carriage as they dismounted, the commanding officer took up the dauphin in his arms to carry him in safety to the door of the hotel; comforting the queen at the same time with a loyal whisper well suited to her feelings, "Despise this clamor, madame; there is a God above all."

But, miserable as their journey was, soon after leaving Chalons it became more wretched still. They were no longer to be allowed the privilege of suffering and grieving by themselves. The Assembly had sent three of its members to take charge of them, selecting, as might have been expected, two who were known as among their bitterest enemies--Barnave, and a man named Petion; the third, M. Latour Maubourg, was a plain soldier, who might be depended on for carrying out his orders with resolution. In one respect those who made the choice were disappointed. Barnave, whose hostility to the king and queen had been chiefly dictated by personal feelings, was entirely converted by the dignified resignation of the queen, and from this day renounced his republicanism; and, though he adhered to what were known as Constitutionalist views, was ever afterward a zealous advocate of both the monarch and the monarchy. But Petion took every opportunity of insulting Louis, haranguing him on the future abolition of royalty, and reproaching him for many of his actions, and for what he believed to be his feelings and views for the future.

It was the afternoon of the 25th when they came in sight of Paris. So great had been Marie Antoinette's mental sufferings that in those few days her hair had turned white; and fresh and studied humiliations were yet in store for her. The carriage was not allowed to take the shortest road, but was conducted some miles round, that it might be led in triumph down the Champs Elysees, where a vast mob was waiting to feast their eyes on the spectacle, whose display of sullen ill-will had been bespoken by a notice prohibiting any one from taking off his hat to the king, or uttering a cheer. The National Guard were forbidden to present arms to him; and it seemed as if they interpreted this order as a prohibition also against using them in his defense; for, as the carriage approached the palace, a gang of desperate ruffians, some of whom were recognized as among the most ferocious of the former assailants of Versailles, forced their way through their ranks, pressed up against the carriage, and even mounted on the steps. Barnave and Latour Maubourg, fearing that they intended to break open the doors, placed themselves against them; but they contented themselves with looking in at the window, and uttering sanguinary threats. Marie Antoinette became alarmed--not for herself, but for her children. They had so closed up every avenue of air that those within were nearly stifled, and the youngest, of course, suffered most. She let down a glass, and appealed to those who were crowding round: "For the love of God," she exclaimed, "retire; my children are choking!" "We will soon choke you," was the only reply they vouchsafed to her. At last, however, La Fayette came up with an armed escort, and they were driven off; but they still followed the carriage up to the very gate of the palace with yells of insult. And it had a stranger follower still: behind the royal carriage came an open cabriolet, in which sat Drouet, with a laurel crown on his head,[3] as if the chief object of the procession wore to celebrate his triumph over his king.

The mob was even hoping to add to its impressiveness by the slaughter of some immediate victims--not of the king and queen, for they believed them to be destined to public execution; but they were eager to massacre the faithful Body-guards, who had been brought back, bound, on the box of the carriage; and they would undoubtedly have carried out their bloody purpose had not the queen remembered them, and, as she was dismounting, entreated Barnave and La Fayette to protect them. Though during the last three days many things had had their names altered,[4] the Tuileries had been spared. It was still in name a royal palace, but those who now entered it knew it for their prison. The sun was setting, the emblem of the extinction of their royalty, as they ascended the stairs to find such rest as they might, and to ponder in privacy for this one night over their fatal disappointment, and their still more fatal future.

Yet, though their return was full of ignominy and wretchedness, though their home had become a prison, the only exit from which was to be the scaffold, still, if posthumous renown can compensate for miseries endured in this life; if it be worth while to purchase, even by the most terrible and protracted sufferings, an undying, unfading memory of the most admirable virtues--of fidelity, of truth, of patience, of resignation, of disinterestedness, of fortitude, of all the qualities which most ennoble and sanctify the heart--it may be said, now that her agonies have long been terminated, and that she has been long at rest, that it was well for Marie Antoinette that she had failed to reach Montmedy, and that she had thus fallen again, without having to reproach herself in any single particular, into the hands of her enemies. As a prisoner to the basest of mankind, as victim to the most ferocious monsters that have ever disgraced humanity, she has ever commanded, and she will never cease to command, the sympathy and admiration of every generous mind. But the case would have been widely different had Louis and she found the refuge which they sought with the loyal and brave De Bouille. Their arrival in his camp could not have failed to be a signal for civil war; and civil war, under such circumstances as those of France at that time, could have had but one termination--their defeat, dethronement, and expulsion from the country. In a foreign land they might, indeed, have found security, but they would have enjoyed but little happiness. Wherever he may be, the life of a deposed and exiled sovereign must be one of ceaseless mortification. The greatest of the Italian poets has well said that the recollection of former happiness is the bitterest aggravation of present misery; and not only to the fugitive monarch himself, but to those who still preserve their fidelity to him, and to the foreign people to whom he is indebted for his asylum, the recollection of his former greatness will ever be at hand to add still further bitterness to his present humiliation. The most friendly feeling his misfortunes can ever excite is a contemptuous pity, such as noble and proud minds must find it harder to endure than the utmost virulence of hatred and enmity.

From such a fate, at least, Marie Antoinette was saved. During the remainder of her life her failure did indeed condemn her to a protraction of trial and agony such as no other woman has ever endured; but she always prized honor far above life, and it also opened to her an immortality of glory such as no other woman has ever achieved.


CHAPTER XXXII.

Marie Antoinette's Feelings on her Return.--She sees Hopes of Improvement.--The 17th of July.--The Assembly inquire into the King's Conduct on leaving Paris.--They resolve that there is no Reason for taking Proceedings.--Excitement in Foreign Countries.--The Assembly proceeds to complete the Constitution.--It declares all the Members Incapable of Election to the New Assembly.--Letters of Marie Antoinette to the Emperor and to Mercy.--The Declaration of Pilnitz.--The King accepts the Constitution.--Insults offered to him at the Festival of the Champ de Mars.--And to the Queen at the Theatre.--The First or Constituent Assembly is dissolved.

It was eminently characteristic of Marie Antoinette that her very first act, the morning after her return, was to write to De Fersen, to inform him that she was safe and well in health; but though she had roused herself for that effort of gratitude and courteous kindness, for some days she seemed stupefied by grief and disappointment, and unable to speak or think for a single moment of any thing but the narrow chance which had crushed her hopes, and changed success, when it had seemed to be secured, into ruin; and, if ever she could for a moment drive the feeling from her mind, her enemies took care to force it back upon her every