Volume Two—Chapter Nine.
Playing False.
From this time forward, the National Guards stationed in the palace had orders never to lose sight of the royal family. They therefore, for some weeks, kept the doors open day and night, having their eyes upon the royal party all day, and upon their very beds at night. The queen caused a small bed to be placed between the door of her chamber and her own bed, that she might sleep or weep on her pillow without being exposed to the observation of her soldier-gaolers. One night, however, the officer who was on watch, perceiving that the queen was awake, and her attendant asleep, drew near her bed to give her some advice how she should conduct herself in regard to politics. The queen begged him to speak low, that her attendant might not be disturbed. The lady awoke, however, and was in terror when she saw with whom the queen was conversing. Her majesty then used the smooth and flattering tone which she always appeared to think her enemies would be pleased with, desiring the lady not to be alarmed, for that this officer was an excellent man, no doubt truly attached to the king, though mistaken as to what were the intentions of both the king and herself.
The king one day rose to shut the door of the room where he was sitting with his family. The guard immediately threw it open again, saying that he had orders to keep it open; and that the king would only give himself useless trouble by shutting it. The difficulty now was to find any opportunity for private conversation. This was done through the attachment of one of the guards, who often took a very disagreeable post which nobody else desired to have. This was in a dark corridor where candles had to be used all day, and where, therefore, no sentinel would like being on guard for twenty-four hours together, in the month of July. Saint Prix, an actor, devoted, however, himself to this service, for the sake of the king and queen, who often met here for short conversations. Saint Prix, on these occasions, retired out of hearing, and gave notice if he believed anyone was coming.
This extreme of insulting rigour did not last long this time. In August the family were allowed to open and shut their doors when they pleased, and the king was treated with more outward respect. The Assembly was then preparing a Constitution, which it was believed the king would sign; and it would be well that, at the time of doing so, he should appear in the eyes of the world as a king, and not a prisoner who acted merely upon constraint.
The new Constitution was prepared, and the king agreed to it; even sending a letter to the Assembly to propose to swear to the new Constitution in the place where it was framed,—in their chamber. The members were highly delighted: all Paris appeared highly delighted. The leaders of parties thronged to court: their majesties went to the theatres; and when the deputies from the Assembly came to the palace to assure the king how much satisfaction was felt at this agreement of all parties, the queen, the princess royal, and the dauphin stood looking on from a doorway behind. The king pointed to them, saying, “There are my wife and children, who feel as I do.”
All this, however, was false and hollow: all these celebrations were but melancholy mirth. All thinking persons must have known that the king could not really approve and rejoice in a new Constitution such as the people liked,—a Constitution which took from him many and great powers and privileges which he considered to be as truly his own as the throne itself. On the other hand, the royal family believed that this act was only one step towards the destruction of the monarchy altogether,—only one stage towards their own total ruin. So, while each party was applauding the other, and all wore smiles in public, there was no real confidence and joy except among the ignorant and thoughtless. After the queen had assured the deputies of her approbation and pleasure, she said, in the privacy of her apartment, “These people do not like having sovereigns. We shall be destroyed by their cunning and persevering management. They are levelling the monarchy stone by stone.”
The king felt the same. After professing the utmost satisfaction and delight at this settlement of affairs, and hearing from the Assembly, echoed by the acclamations of the people, that he had “obtained a new title of grandeur and of glory,” the king appeared at the door of the apartment to which the queen had retired after the ceremony,—his face so pale and so wretched that the queen uttered an exclamation as she looked at him. He sank into a chair, and covered his eyes with his handkerchief, saying, “All is lost! O, why were you a witness to this humiliation? Why did you come to France to see—” His words were choked by sobs. The queen had cast herself on her knees before him. She now exclaimed to Madame Campan, “Go! Go!” in a tone which conveyed, “Why do you remain to witness the humiliation of your king?”
All Paris was illuminated at night; and the royal family were invited to take a drive in the midst of the people. They were well guarded by soldiers, and received everywhere with acclamations. One man, however, with a prodigiously powerful voice, kept beside the carriage-door next the queen, and as often as the crowd shouted “Long live the king!” bawled out “No, no: don’t believe them. Long live the nation!” The queen was impressed with the same sort of terror with which she had seen the four wax-lights go out. Though panic-struck with this ominous voice, she dared not complain, nor ask to have the man removed. While the royal family were driving about the city in this false and hollow triumph, a messenger was setting off for the Austrian court, with letters from them expressive of extreme discontent and alarm at the present state of public affairs.
There were bursts of loyal feeling occasionally, which gratified the royal family; but these became fewer and fewer, as it was observed that they were not well taken by the leaders of the revolution. One day this summer, the Dauphin was walking on the terrace of the Tuileries. A grenadier took him in his arms, with some affectionate words; and everybody within sight cheered the child. Orders, however, soon came to be quiet on the terrace: the child was set down again, and the people went on their way.
Another day, Louis forgot his plan of being civil to everybody. He had hold of his mother’s hand; and they were going to walk in the gardens. A loyal sentinel, lately arrived from the country, made his salute so earnestly that his musket rang again. The queen saluted graciously: but Louis was in such a hurry that he was posting on through the gate. His mother checked him, saying, “Come, salute. Do not be unpolite.”
Some of the first difficulties which arose under the new Constitution, were of a kind which show how impossible it was for the royal family and the people ever to agree in their thoughts and feelings. The new law had provided a military, and also a civil, establishment for the royal household;—had provided what the king had declared a sufficient number of attendants, and described their offices,—doing away with many of the old forms, and with much of the absurd extravagance, of the old Court. It was now in the queen’s power to please the people by agreeing cheerfully to the new arrangements, and showing that she was not so proud and extravagant as she was reported to be. Instead of this, she clung to the old ways, after having declared her acceptance of the new. She would not appoint people to the offices agreed upon, saying that it was an injury to the old nobility to let them be turned out. To be sure, most of them had fled: but if they returned, what would they say, if they found their places filled, and the queen surrounded by persons of a lower rank? One noble lady at this time resigned an office she had been left in possession of, and said she could not stay now that she was deprived of her hereditary privilege of sitting on a stool unasked in the queen’s presence. This grieved the queen; and she said that this was, and would be, the way with the nobility. They made no allowance for her altered circumstances; but deserted her if she admitted to office persons of inferior rank. She could not do without this nobility: she said she could not bear to see nobody come to her card-parties,—to see no throng but of servants at the king’s rising and undressing. Rather than give up these old ceremonies, and this kind of homage, she broke through the only part of the Constitution that it was in her power to act upon, and insulted the feelings of the people. Barnave argued with her, but she would not yield.
The rejoicings for the new Constitution took place on the last day of September. During the rest of the year, the royal family, and the most confidential of their servants, were much employed in secret correspondence with the absent princes and nobility, and with the foreign Courts. Some of these letters were in cipher, and were copied by persons who knew nothing whatever of the meaning of what they were writing. The queen wrote almost all day long, and spent a part of the nights in reading. Poor lady! She could sleep but little.
Towards the end of the year, a new alarm arose, for which one cannot but think now there was very little ground; though no one can wonder that the unhappy family, and the police magistrates who had the charge of their safety, were open to every impression of terror. The king was told that one of his pastrycooks was dead; and that the man’s office was to be filled, of right, by a pastry-cook who, while waiting for this appointment, had kept a confectioner’s shop in the neighbourhood, and who was furious in his profession of revolutionary politics. He had been heard to say that any man would be doing a public service who should cut off the king; and it was feared that he might do this service himself, by poisoning the king’s pastry, now that he would have daily opportunities of doing so. The king was particularly fond of pastry, and ate a great deal of it. It would not do now suddenly to give up eating pastry, so as to set everybody in the palace inquiring why: besides, it does not seem to have occurred to the king, under any of the circumstances of his life, to restrain himself in eating. The new pastry-cook had nothing whatever to do but to make and roll out the crusts of pies and tarts; but it was thought so easy a matter to infuse a subtle poison into any of the dishes that stood about in the kitchen, that it was resolved that the king and queen should eat nothing that was brought thence, except roast meat, the last thing which anyone would think of poisoning. Other dishes were to be apparently half-eaten, and their contents conveyed away.
Here we see the absurdity of the old court-system, with its laws and formalities;—the system by which so many hangers-on were enriched, to the injury of better people than themselves: and by which the king himself was placed in a sort of bondage. Any shop-keeper in Paris might turn away his shop-boy for insolence; any tradesman’s wife might dismiss her cook for unwholesome cookery: but here was the sovereign of France compelled to retain in his service a man whom he believed to have said that it would be a meritorious act to murder him; and this man’s pastry must be admitted to the royal table every day! The man held the reversion to the office of king’s pastry-cook (the right to it when the occupant should die), and the right once acquired, the man could not, by court custom, be got rid of. Thus were court offices not open to merit; but conferred sometimes by favour, and sometimes for money; and greedily grasped at for the great profits they yielded. One wonders that the royal family did not discover that the new state of affairs, if it imposed some restrictions, might have freed them from many annoyances, if they could have suited their conduct to their affairs.—We shall now see what trouble was caused by the king’s being unable to turn away a kitchen servant whom he could not trust.
The bread and wine wanted for the royal table were secretly provided by a steward of the household. The sugar was purchased by Madame Campan, and pounded in her apartment. She also provided the pastry, of which the king was so fond; purchasing it as if for herself, sometimes of one confectioner and sometimes of another. All these things were locked up in a cupboard in the king’s study, on the ground-floor. The royal family chose to wait on themselves; so, when the table was spread, the servants went out, leaving a dumb-waiter and bell beside each chair. Then Madame Campan appeared with the bread, wine, sugar, and pastry, which were put under the table, lest any of the attendants should enter. The princesses drank no wine. The king drank about half a bottle; and when he had done he poured into the bottle from which he had drunk about half of that of which he dared not drink; and this latter bottle, with some of the pastry from the kitchen, was carried away by Madame Campan after dinner. At the end of four months, the heads of the police gave notice that the danger from poisoning was over; that the plans of the king’s enemies were changed, and that future measures would be directed against the throne, and not the life of the monarch. Meantime, did not every labouring man who could supply his family with bread take his meal in more cheerfulness and comfort than this unhappy king?
Everything went wrong. The royal party had never been remarkable for success in their undertakings; and now all that they did turned to their ruin. They corresponded at once with the emigrant princes, and with those leaders at home who were attached to the Constitution; and when, as might have been expected, they found that they could not please both, they distrusted and withdrew from those who were best able to help them. They would not follow Barnave’s advice. They believed General Dumouriez a traitor, and broke off from him when he was perfectly sincere in his wish to save them, and had more power to do so than all their emigrant friends together. They distrusted Lafayette; and when, a few weeks later, they were in deeper distress than ever, but might have been protected, and taken to Rouen by Lafayette’s army, the queen refused, saying in private that Lafayette had been offered to them as a resource, but that they had rather perish than owe their safety to the man who had most injured them, or even be obliged to treat with him. Thus, rejecting those who could help them, and relying on those who could not, this unwise and unhappy family went on to their ruin.
The foreign courts and emigrant princes were preparing to invade France; and the consequence was that the poor helpless king had to do an act which would have been ridiculous, if it were not too sad to laugh at. As pretended Constitutional King and Head of the Nation, he had to behave in public towards these foreign princes as if they were enemies, when it was for his sake that they were levying armies. By his private letters, written in cipher, and sent in secret, he was urging them to make haste to march to his rescue; and at the very same time he had to go to the Assembly and propose that they should declare war against these enemies of the nation. He said this with the tears in his eyes. It was on the 20th of April that he endured this humiliation. What man of spirit would not rather have taken one side or the other, at all hazards, than have played such a double part as this? If he could act with the people in reforming their affairs, well and good. If he could not,—if he believed them all wrong, and that it was his sacred duty to stand by the old order of things, how much more respectable it would have been to have said so,—to have declared, “You may imprison me—you may destroy me,—but I will stand by my throne and its powers!” In that case, the worst he could have been charged with would have been a mistake. As it was, he stood before the Assembly an object of universal contempt,—proposing, with tears in his eyes, a declaration of war against those who were preparing war at his desire, and for his sake; and everyone knowing that it was so.
He and the queen seemed never to have understood or believed what was carefully pointed out to them by the advisers whom they distrusted—that this making war in their behalf could not end well for them. If their foreign friends should be beaten, they would be left more helpless and despised than ever. If the French should be beaten, the frightened and angry people would be sure to treat with more and more rigour—and perhaps with fury—the family who had brought a foreign enemy upon them. Their advisers must have been glad at last to be rejected and dismissed; for it must have been provoking to discover, at every turn, the double dealing of the king and queen; and very melancholy to see them perpetually pursuing the exactly opposite course to that which was noble and wise. One wonders whether, if little Louis had lived to be a man, he would have been as ignorant, selfish, and unwise;—whether there is anything in belonging to the old royal family of France which stands between its princes and wisdom and knowledge. If so, one is less sorry that he died so early as he did.
Barnave’s last words impressed the feelings of the queen, but had no other effect. He begged to see her once more before he left Paris; and then withdrew from public affairs. He said, “Your misfortunes, madam, and those of the country, had determined me to devote myself to your service. I see that my advice does not accord with your majesty’s views. I augur little success from the plan which you have been induced to follow. You are too far from the help you rely on, and you will be lost before it can reach you. I earnestly hope that I may be mistaken in this prophecy. At all events, I am sure of losing my head for the interest I have felt in your affairs, and the services I have endeavoured to render you. I only ask as a recompense the honour of kissing your hand.”
The queen shed tears as she extended her hand to him, and often afterwards spoke of Barnave with regard. It does not appear, however, that either she or the king called in question their own conduct with regard to these men. They induced them to devote themselves to a most hazardous service—summoned them to secret interviews in the palace, in the night, in dark corridors, or on back staircases, where some spy or another was sure to see them, and report of them to the jealous people; and, after all this, they were dismissed, and left unprotected by the exact contrary of their advice being pursued. Barnave’s dismal predictions were all fulfilled. The royal family did sink down into destruction; and he himself perished, as he had foretold. He now left Paris, and married at Grenoble. The next August, less than three months after his last interview with the queen, his correspondence with her and the king was found in a chest in the palace; and orders were sent to arrest him, and imprison him at Grenoble. He lay in prison fifteen months, and was then brought to Paris, and tried for his life. He made a noble defence; but it was of no avail. He was beheaded on the 29th of October, 1793. When on the scaffold, he seemed suddenly struck with the infamy of the treatment he had met with on every side. He stamped with his foot, and exclaimed, “This, then, is the reward of all that I have done for liberty!” He was only thirty-two years of age. His unwise and miserable sovereign was not living to mourn the destruction he had brought on this high-minded man; and the fair royal hand which he had so desired to kiss had become cold in death some days before.
To return to the spring of 1792. The palace was now as dismal an abode as ever children grew up in. The king’s temper and manners gave way entirely. For ten days he never once spoke, except to say the words necessary in the game of backgammon, which he played with his sister every day after dinner. The queen kneeled to him, imploring him to exert himself. When this availed nothing, she endeavoured to arouse him by the most frightful representations she could make of the danger they were all in—a danger which increased every day, and which required that he should act, and not sit sulking, while the hours flew by which were bringing destruction on their heads. She sometimes expressed sympathy and tenderness; sometimes showed him his children, and besought him to act, for their sakes: and sometimes she asked him proudly whether, if they must perish, it would not be better to die with dignity and honour than to wait sullenly, as if inviting the rabble to come and tread their lives out on the floor of their own palace?
In one instance, she prevailed with him against his judgment; and in five days, after, bitterly repented it. There was no use in persuading him to a single spirited act now and then, when he had not resolution to follow it up by others: and so she found. In June, the Assembly wished to banish all the clergy, and to form a camp of twenty-thousand men, under the walls of Paris. The king would have agreed, telling the queen that the people only wanted a pretence for a general insurrection; and that it would burst forth at the moment of his refusing anything they wished. The queen, however, induced him to use his lawful power of disapproving and forbidding these measures. This happened on the 15th of June. When he declared to his ministers his intention of doing this, three days before, they remonstrated, and the wife of one of them, Madame Roland, wrote a letter, in her husband’s name, to the king; a letter so plain spoken that the king and queen could not brook it; and the ministry were all turned out next morning.