Volume Two—Chapter Six.
The Dauphin at Paris.
In the morning of the 7th, some magistrates came, bringing upholsterers with them, and asked the king how he would be pleased to be lodged. They were ready to dispose and furnish the palace as he liked. He answered gruffly that others might lodge as they pleased, he had nothing to say to it. He was apt to be sulky occasionally, in his most prosperous days; and it was natural that he should be more so now. Sometimes, when the queen made anxious inquiries about the state of affairs, he answered, “Madam, your affair is with the children.” He knew that he was, in fact, a prisoner in his own capital; and that it must at any rate be long before he could leave it. He was losing the fine hunting season; and there was no saying when he might hunt again. This grieved him very much. He sent for his locksmith, and did a little filing, now and then; but he was losing his pleasure in everything.
Some of the women who had walked by the royal carriage yesterday came this morning, and stationed themselves before the queen’s windows, requesting to see her. One of them told her that she must send away all bad advisers, and love the people. The queen replied that she had loved the people when she lived at Versailles, and that she should go on to love them now. They repeated to her some reports that they had heard against her,—that she had wished in the summer that Paris should be fired upon; and that she would yesterday have fled to the frontiers, if she had not been prevented. She replied that they had heard these things, and believed them; and that while some people told and others believed what was not true, the nation and the king would never be happy. One woman then spoke a few words of German: but the queen interrupted her, saying that she was now so completely a French woman, that she had forgotten her German. This delighted the women much; for some of the jealousy of the queen which existed was on account of her being a foreigner. They clapped their hands; and asked for the ribbons and flowers out of her hat. She took them off with her own hands, and gave them to the women. They divided them to keep; and they remained half an hour shouting, “Long live Marie Antoinette! Long live our good queen!”
It was found, during the whole long period of her residence where she now was, that everybody who talked with the queen liked her;—her bitterest enemies were heard to shout as these women did, when once they had heard her speak; and soldiers, who had spoken insultingly of her before they knew her, were ready to lay down their lives for her when they became her guards. The reason of this was, not merely that she was beautiful, and that she spoke in a winning manner, when she knew how much depended upon her graciousness;—it was chiefly because the ignorant and angry people had fancied her a sort of monster, determined upon her own indulgence at all cost, and even seeking their destruction, and delighting in their miseries. When, instead of this monster, they found a dignified woman, with sorrow in her beautiful face, and gentleness in her voice, they forgot for the time the faults she really had, and the blameable things she had really done. When again reminded of these, in her absence, the old hatred revived with new force; they were vexed that she had won upon them, and ended by being as cruel as we shall see they were.
She found, this morning, how frightened her little boy had been, the day before. There was some noise in the court-yard of the palace. Louis came running, and threw himself trembling into her arms, crying, “O, mamma, is to-day going to be yesterday again?” When they were settled, and everything was done to make him as happy as a child should be, he did not forget what he had seen and heard. He not only walked with his mother, or with Madame de Tourzel, in the garden of the Tuileries, but he had a little garden of his own, railed in, and a little tool-house for his spade and rake. There the rosy, curly-headed boy was seen digging in the winter, and sowing seeds in the spring; and, sometimes, feeding the ducks on the garden ponds with crumbs of bread. Still he did not forget what he had seen and heard. One day, his father saw the boy looking at him very gravely and earnestly. The king asked him what he was thinking about. Louis said he wanted to ask a very serious question, if he might; and the king gave him leave.
“I want to know,” said Louis, “why all the people who used to love you so much are now so angry with you. I want to know what you have done to put them in such a passion.”
The king took him upon his knee, and said,—
“My dear, I wished to make the people happier than they were before. I wanted money to pay the expenses of our great wars. I asked it of the parliament, as the kings of France have always done before. The magistrates who composed the parliament were unwilling, and said that the people alone had a right to consent that this money should be given. I called together at Versailles the principal people of every town, distinguished by their rank, their fortune, or their talents. These were called the States-General. When they were assembled, they required of me things which I could not do, either for my own sake or yours; as you are to be king after me. Wicked persons have appeared, causing the people to rebel; and the shocking things that have happened lately are their doing. We must blame them and not the people.”
So spoke Louis the Sixteenth to his young son: and from these words (among other evidence) we learn how little he was aware of the true causes and nature of the great Revolution which was taking place. It appears that he really thought this revolution was owing to the acts of the last few months, and not to the long course of grinding oppression which had begun hundreds of years before he was born. He believed that the violence he witnessed was owing to the malice of a few “wicked persons,” and not to the exasperation of a nation,—the fury of many millions of sufferers against a few hundreds of the rich and powerful. This was not the first time of the king’s showing how little he understood of what was taking place and what ought to be done. When it was absolutely necessary to the peace of the kingdom to have a minister who would relieve the people of the heaviest taxes, the king removed such a minister, and thought he was doing what he could to make up for this, by retrenching some expenses in the palace. For instance, it had always been the custom for the two first bed-chamber women of the queen to have for their own all the wax-lights placed daily in the whole suite of royal apartments, whether lighted or not. These they sold for many hundred pounds a year. When the king began to retrench, he took from these women the wax-light privilege; and the candles which were not lighted one evening served for the next. The ladies were not pleased at being thus deprived of a large part of their income; but this, with the few other retrenchments made by the royal family, was right. All these retrenchments were nothing, however, in comparison with what was wanted. The peasantry still had to pay the grievous land-tax, even when they were reduced to eat boiled nettles and grass. The poor still had to buy the quantity of dear salt ordered by law, even when they had no meat to eat it with. The labouring man and his sons, weakened by hunger and spent with toil, still had to turn out and work upon the roads, without wages, while wife and young children were growing savage with want in their ruined hut. It was all very well for the king and queen to burn fewer wax-lights; but far happier would it have been could the monarch have seen and known that the thing wanted was to relieve the poor from these heavy oppressions; and that his duty was to uphold a minister who would do it, even if every rich and noble person quitted his court, and turned against him. This, however, was not to be expected; for the king and queen lived amongst, and were acquainted with, not the poor, but the noble and the rich, and heard only what they had to say.
It is not known whether little Louis was ever told what the poor suffer. It is probable that he heard something of it; for his elder brother and sister certainly had, upon one occasion. It was the queen’s custom to give her children a stock of new playthings on New Year’s Day. One very hard winter, she and the king heard of the sufferings of the poor in Paris from cold; and the king ordered a large quantity of wood to be purchased with his money, and given away. The queen commanded the toy-man to bring the new toys, as usual, on New Year’s eve, and spread them out in one of her apartments. She then led the children in, showed them the playthings, and said these were what she meant to have given them; but that she had heard that so many poor families were perishing with cold, that she hoped they would be willing to do without new toys, and let the money go for fuel for the poor. The children agreed, and the toy-man was sent away, with a present of money, to console him for the disappointment of having sold nothing. It is probable that Louis also, when old enough to understand, was told of the sufferings of the poor: but it is difficult to give an idea of what want really is to children who have half-a-dozen ladies and footmen always at their orders, and who are surrounded with luxuries which seem to them to come as naturally as the light of day, and to belong to them as completely as their own limbs and senses. We have all heard of the little French princess who, when told by her governess how many of the poor were dying of starvation, in a hard season, said, she thought that was very foolish; and that, rather than starve, she would eat bread and cheese. She had no idea that multitudes never tasted anything better than the coarsest black dry bread; and that it was for want of this that many were perishing. How should she know? She had never seen the inside of a poor man’s hut, or tasted any but the most delicate food.
Louis wished to know what he ought to do, now that the people were so angry with his father. The queen told him that he must behave civilly and kindly to the magistrates, when they came; to the officers of the people’s army,—the National Guard,—and to everybody that belonged to Paris. Louis took great pains to do this: and when he had an opportunity of speaking kindly to the mayor, or any other visitor, he used to run up to his mother, and whisper in her ear, “Was that right?”—He once said a thing which pleased the mayor of Paris very much. The mayor showed him the shield of Scipio, which was in the royal library, and asked him which he liked best, Scipio or Hannibal. The boy answered that he liked best him who had defended his own country.
At this time he read, not only of Scipio and Hannibal, but much besides. The royal family, out of spirits, and not knowing what would happen next, led a very quiet life in the Tuileries, from the 6th of October, when they were brought there, till the beginning of the next summer.
During this season, the queen never went to the theatre. She gave no concerts, or large entertainments: and only received the court twice a week, where everybody came wearing white lilies, and bows of white ribbon, while tricolor cockades were sold at all the corners of the streets; and the National Guards stopped all who did not show red and blue colours. The queen went to mass, and dined in public with the king, twice a week, and joined small card-parties in the evenings. The Princess de Lamballe, who had returned to resume her office in the palace, gave gay parties; and the queen went a few times, but soon felt that, in her circumstances, a private life was more suitable. One evening she returned to her apartments in great agitation. An English nobleman had been exhibiting a large ring which he wore, containing a lock of Oliver Cromwell’s hair. She looked with horror upon Cromwell, as a regicide; and she thought the English nobleman meant to point out to her what kings may come to when their people are discontented with them. It was probable that the gentleman meant no such thing: but he was guilty of a very thoughtless act, which gave a great deal of pain.
The queen’s mind was so full of the revolution, that she found she could not fix her attention upon books. Work suited her best; and she sat the greater part of the morning working, with the Princess Elizabeth, at a carpet intended for one of their apartments. After breakfast she went to the king, to converse with him, if he was so inclined. She then sat by, at work, while the children did their lessons, which was the regular employment of the morning. They all walked in the palace gardens; and the queen returned to her work after dinner. She could talk of nothing but the revolution: and was extremely anxious to know what everybody thought of her,—particularly persons in office. She was for ever wondering how it was that those who hailed her with love and joy, when she came as a bride from Germany, should so fiercely hate her now. It is a pity that she did not now learn to know and trust Lafayette. It might have saved her, and all who belonged to her; but she was prejudiced against him from his being a friend of the people, and in favour of great changes in the government.
Thus the winter passed wearily on. If the people of Paris were jealous of the queen’s wish to get away, and suspicious of her meaning it, if possible, they were not far wrong. Some or other of the nobles and clergy were continually planning to carry the royal family, either to Rouen (a loyal city) or to the frontiers, to meet the king’s brother and friends, and the army they were raising. It would probably have been done, but for the king’s irresolution. He would neither speak nor stir about it.
One night in March, at ten o’clock, when the children were asleep in bed, the king and queen were playing whist with his next brother and sister-in-law (who had not gone away), and the Princess Elizabeth was kneeling on a footstool beside the card table, looking on. Monsieur Campan, one of the most trusty of the queen’s attendants, came in, and said, in a low voice, that the Count d’Inisdal had called to say that everything was planned for an escape. The nobles who had contrived it were collected to guard and accompany the king;—the National Guard about the palace were gained over;—post horses were ready all along the road;—the king had only to consent, and he might be off before midnight. The king went on playing his cards, and made no answer. “Did you hear,” said the queen, “what Campan has been telling us?”
“I hear,” said the king; and still went on playing. After a while, the queen observed, “Campan must have an answer of some kind.” Then, at length, the king spoke. “Tell the Count d’Inisdal,” said he, “that I cannot consent to be carried off.” The queen repeated, “The king cannot consent to be carried off,” meaning it to be clearly understood that he would be very glad to go, if it could be so done as that he might say afterwards that he had had nothing to do with the plan. The Count d’Inisdal was very angry at the message. “I see how it is,” said he. “We, the king’s faithful servants, are to have all the danger, and all the blame, if the scheme fails.” And off he went.
The queen would not give up her hopes that the nobles would understand how glad the royal family would be to go, and would come for them. She sat till past midnight wrapping up her jewels to carry away; and then desired the lady who assisted her not to go to bed. The lady listened all the night through, and looked out of the window many times; but all was still, and no one but the guards was to be seen. The queen observed to this lady that they should have to fly. There was no saying to what lengths the rebellious people would go, she declared, and the danger increased every day.
There was indeed no respite from apprehensions of danger. About a month after, on the 13th of April, there was a good deal of agitation in Paris, from the debates in the Assembly having been very warm, and such as to make the people fear that the king would be carried away. Lafayette promised the king that if he saw reason to consider the palace in danger, he would fire a great cannon on a certain bridge. At night, some accidental musket-shots were heard near the palace, and the king mistook them for Lafayette’s cannon. He went to the queen’s apartments. She was not there. He found her in the Dauphin’s chamber, with Louis in her arms. “I was alarmed about you,” said the king. “You see,” said she, clasping her little son close, “I was at my post.”
While thus suffering, and certainly not learning to love the people more on this account,—while distrusting Lafayette, and knowing no one else who could give them the knowledge and advice which would have been best for them, the royal family were confirmed in their worst prejudices and errors by letters which reached them from a distance. Those who wished to write to them in their distress were naturally those who sympathised most with them, and least with the people. One instance shows how absurd and mischievous such a correspondence was. The Empress Catherine of Russia wrote to the queen, “Kings ought to proceed on their course without troubling themselves about the cries of the people, as the moon traverses the sky without regard to the baying of dogs.” Whether the queen saw the folly of these words, and thought of the proper answer to them,—that a king is a man, like those who cry to him for sympathy, but the moon is not a dog,—we do not know; nor whether she perceived the insolent wickedness of the sentence; but she saw the unfeeling absurdity of writing this to a king and queen who were actually prisoners in the hands of their subjects. If the king had been active, decided, and equal to the dangers of the times, he would have made use of this winter in Paris to go among his people, and learn for himself what was the matter, what they wanted, and how much could be done for peace and good government: and then this correspondence from a distance might have done no harm: but, indolent and passive as he was, everything seemed to conspire to prevent all mutual understanding between him and the nation.