The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of
France, Volume 7, by Madame Campan
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Title: The Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Volume 7
Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting
to the Queen
Author: Madame Campan
Release Date: December 4, 2004 [EBook #3890]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE ANTOINETTE ***
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
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Of France, Volume 7, by Madame Campan
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