Volume Two—Chapter Three.
The Dauphin loses his Governess.
Little Louis had no cause to rejoice in his new honours. Much more observance was paid to him within the palace, now that he had become heir to the throne; but out of doors all was confusion: and five weeks from his brother’s death had not passed before the little prince had to endure one of those fits of terror of which he had but too much experience from that time forward.
The two principal royal palaces were, that called the Tuileries, in Paris, and that of Versailles, twelve miles from Paris. At this time, July, 1789, the royal family were at Versailles. The discontented, long-murmuring people of Paris rose in rebellion, because their favourite minister, Necker, who had managed the money affairs of the nation well, and was more likely to take off taxes than any other minister, had been dismissed from his office. The nation were determined to have him back again; but, having once risen in rebellion, they aimed at more achievements than one. On the 14th of July the people of Paris besieged and took the Bastille, the great state-prison, where, for hundreds of years, victims had suffered cruel imprisonments, often without having been tried. The very sight of this gloomy castle was odious to the people; and they pulled it down, leaving not one brick upon another, and carrying the prisoners they found there on their shoulders through the city, in triumphant procession.
While this attack on the Bastille was taking place, there was a ball given in the orangery at Versailles, where the court ladies and the officers of the troops danced, and laughed, and talked, and took their refreshments, as if all was well. The French Parliament was sitting in the town of Versailles; and they sent some of their body repeatedly that day to the palace, to tell the king of the danger, and urge him to do what was proper: but there was no moving the king to do anything, that day, any more than on other occasions; and he only sent word to the parliament to mind their own business. The inhabitants of Versailles were alarmed at the reports that arrived from Paris, and they were all on the watch, consulting in the streets, or wondering in their own houses what would happen next. Some vague rumours reached the palace; but the court ladies and their guests danced away in the orangery, till the time for breaking up the ball arrived. Late at night, a nobleman who had a right to demand an audience of the king at all times, arrived, made his way, dusty as he was, to the king’s chamber, and told of the rebellion, the destruction of the Bastille, and the murder of two faithful officers, well-known to the king. “Why,” said the king, as much surprised as if nothing had happened to warn him, “this is a revolt.”
“It is not a revolt,” said the nobleman: “it is a revolution.”
The Dauphin was fast asleep when this alarm arrived. He saw, the next morning, that every one about him was in terror, and that the courts of the palace were filled with a crowd of ill-looking angry people. His governess appeared greatly alarmed; and well she might be; for the mob outside were shouting her name, and saying that they would be revenged on her for giving the queen bad advice. The king had gone to address the parliament, promising to do all that they had advised the day before, and to recall Monsieur Necker, the favourite minister. While he was gone, one of the queen’s ladies came to the room where Louis was with his governess, unlocked the door with the queen’s key, and told him that he was to go with her to his mother. The Duchess de Polignac asked whether she might not take him herself to the queen: but the lady messenger shook her head, and said she had no such orders. She knew very well that if the people who were looking up at the windows should once see the duchess, they would be ready to pull her to pieces. The duchess, understanding the lady’s countenance, took the child in her arms, and wept bitterly. Louis did not know what it all meant; but it frightened him. The messenger tried to console the duchess with promising to bring Louis back presently; but she said, weeping, that she knew too well now what to expect. One of the under-governesses asked whether she might take the prince to his mother, and did so.
The queen was waiting for the boy, with the Princess Royal by her side. She stepped out into the balcony with her two children, and repeatedly kissed them in the sight of the people. Little Louis might well be glad to step back from the balcony into the room again; for the mob was very noisy and rude. The lady who had been sent to summon him slipped out among the people, to hear what they were saying. A woman, who kept a thick veil down over her face, seized her by the arm, told her she knew her, and desired her to tell the queen not to meddle any more in the government, but to leave it to those who cared more for the people. A man then grasped her other arm, and said he knew her too, and bade her tell the queen that times were coming very different from those which were past. Just then, the queen and the children appeared in the balcony. “Ah!” said the veiled woman, “the duchess is not with her.”
“No,” said the man, “but she is still in the palace, working underground like a mole: but we will dig her out.” The queen’s lady had heard quite enough. She was glad to go in and sit down, for she could scarcely stand. She thought it her duty to tell the queen what she had heard; and the queen made her repeat it to the king.
One of the king’s aunts was at her tapestry-work that day, in a room which looked towards the court, and where there was a window-blind through which she could see without being seen. Three men were talking together; and she knew one of them. They did not whisper, or speak low; and one of them said, looking up at the window of the throne-room, “There stands that throne of which there will soon be left no remains.”
While such a temper as this was abroad, it mattered little that everything seemed set right for the time by what the king said to the parliament. The members escorted him back to the palace, and the people cheered him. All Paris cheered when the news arrived that the people’s minister was to be restored to his office; and a messenger was sent off to Monsieur Necker that night.
The Duchess de Polignac and her relations now saw that they must be off, if they wished to preserve their liberty—perhaps their lives. After the next day, Louis never saw his governess more. She bade him good-night at his bed time; and in the morning she was far away. She went disguised as a lady’s maid, and sat on the coach-box, leaving the palace just at midnight. The queen bade her farewell in private, with many and bitter tears, forgetting any coolness that had lately existed between them in the thought of their former friendship, and the care the duchess had taken of her children. The duchess was not rich; and the queen, after they had parted, sent her a purse of gold, with a message that she might want it on the journey.
It was a perilous journey. The party consisted of six, of whom two were gentlemen. When they arrived at Sens they found the people had risen. The mob stopped the carriage to ask, as they had been asking of other travellers who came the same road, if those Polignacs were still about the queen. “No, no,” said one of the gentlemen, “they are far enough from Versailles. We have got rid of all such bad subjects.” The next time the carriage stopped, the postilion stood on the step, and whispered to the duchess, “Madam, there are some good people in France. I found out who you were at Sens.” They gave him a handful of gold.
The queen wept the more bitterly on parting with her friend, because she would have been glad to have gone away too. It was talked of: and some of the king’s relations, with their families, set off the same night as the Polignacs, and were soon out of danger beyond the frontier. The question had been whether the king should go with them, or show himself in Paris, and endeavour to come to an understanding with his people. This question was debated for some hours by the royal family and their confidential friends; and the king let them argue, hour after hour, without appearing to have any will of his own. “Well,” said he, when he was tired of listening, “something must be decided. Am I to go or stay? I am as ready for one as the other.” It was then decided that he should stay. The queen, meanwhile, had been making preparations for departure, in hopes that they should go. She probably saw that it would have been all very right to stay if the king meant to act vigorously, and to save the monarchy by joining with the nation to reform the government; but that, since acting vigorously was the one thing which the king could not do, it would have been better for all parties that he should have left a scene where his apathy could only do mischief, exasperate the people, and endanger his own safety and that of his family. The queen had burned a great many papers, and had her diamonds packed in a little box, which she meant to take in her own carriage: she had also written a paper of directions to her confidential servants about following her. As she saw her jewels restored to their places, and tore the paper of directions, with tearful eyes, she said she feared that this decision would prove a misfortune to them all.
The king was next to go to Paris. He set out from Versailles at ten in the morning after the departure of the Polignacs. He was well attended, and appeared, as usual, very composed. The queen kept her feelings to herself till he was gone; but she had terrible fears that he would be detained as a prisoner in his own capital. She shut herself up with her children in her own apartment. There she felt so restless and miserable that she sent for one after another of the courtiers. Their doors were all padlocked—every one of them. The courtiers considered it dangerous to stay; and they were all gone. Though this afflicted the queen at the moment, it happened very well; for it taught her to place no dependence on these people another time. It must have been a dreary morning for the children,—their father in danger, their governess gone, and their mother weeping, deserted by her court. She employed herself in writing a short address, to be spoken to the National Assembly at Paris (which may be called the people’s new parliament), in case of the king not being allowed to return. She meant to go with her children, and beg of the Assembly that they might share the lot of the king, whatever it might be. As she learnt by heart what she had written (lest she should not have presence of mind to make an address at the time), her voice was choked with grief, and she sobbed out, “They will never let him return.”
He did return, however, late in the evening. He had had a weary day. He had been received with gloom, and with either silence or insulting cries. It was not till, at the desire of the mayor of Paris, he had put the new national cockade in his hat, that the people cheered him; after which they were in good humour. This cockade was made of the three colours which are now seen in the tricolour flag of France,—red and blue, the ancient colours of the city of Paris, with the white of the royal lilies between. In these troubled times a white cockade was a welcome sight to royal eyes, as an emblem of loyalty; while red and blue colours were detestable, as tokens of a revolutionary temper. When the king himself was compelled to wear them, it was a cruel mortification. It was, in fact, a sign of submission to his rebellious people. Glad indeed was he to get home this night, and endeavour to forget that he had worn the tricolor. He kept repeating to the queen what he had said in the hearing of many this day, “Happily, there was no blood shed; and I swear that not a drop shall be shed by my order, happen what may.” These were the words of a humane man: but it was hardly prudent to speak them during the outbreak of a revolution, when they might discourage his friends, and embolden the violent.
Note: The Fleur-de-Lys (lily) was blazoned in the royal arms of France for many centuries.