History of the Girondists, Volume I / Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution

by Alphonse de Lamartine

Fréron caused his papers to be sold amongst the groups. "He is gone," said one of them, "this imbecile king, this perjured monarch. She is gone, this wretched queen, who, to the lasciviousness of Messalina, unites the insatiable thirst of blood that devoured Medea. Execrable woman, evil genius of France, thou wast the leader, the soul of this conspiracy." The people repeating these words, circulated from street to street these odious accusations, which fomented their hate, and envenomed their alarm.

XVI.

It was only at ten o'clock that three cannon shots proclaimed (by order of the municipal and departmental authorities) the event of the night to the people. The National Assembly had already met; the president informed it that M. Bailly, the mayor of Paris, was come to acquaint them that the king and his family had been carried off during the night from the Tuileries by some enemies of the nation; the Assembly, who were already individually aware of this fact, listened to the communication with imposing gravity. It seemed as though at this moment the critical juncture of public affairs gave them a majestic calmness, and that all the wisdom of the great nation was concentrated in its representatives—one feeling alone dictated every act, every thought, every resolution,—to preserve and defend the constitution, even although the king was absent, and the royalty virtually dead. To take temporary possession of the regency of the kingdom, to summon the ministers, to send couriers on every road, to arrest all individuals leaving the kingdom; to visit the arsenal, to supply arms, to send the generals to their posts, and to garrison the frontiers,—all this was the work of an instant; there was no "right," no "left," no "centre;" the "left" comprised all. The Assembly was informed that one of the aides-de-camp of M. de La Fayette, sent by him on his own responsibility, and previous to any orders from the Assembly, was in the power of the people, who accused M. de La Fayette and his staff of treason; and messengers were sent to free him.

The aide-de-camp entered the chamber and announced the object of his mission; the Assembly gave a second order, sanctioning that of M. de La Fayette, and he departed. Barnave, who perceived in the popular irritation against La Fayette a fresh peril, hastened to mount the tribune; and although up to that period he had been opposed to the popular general, he yet generously, or adroitly, defended him against the suspicions of the people, who were ready to abandon him. It was said that for some days past Lameth and Barnave, in succeeding Mirabeau in the Assembly, felt, like himself, the necessity of some secret intelligence with this remnant of the monarchy. Much was said of secret relations between Barnave and the king, of a planned flight, of concealed measures; but these rumours, accredited by La Fayette himself in his Memoirs, had not then burst forth; and even at this present period they are doubtful. "The object which ought to occupy us," said Barnave, "is to re-establish the confidence in him to whom it belongs. There is a man against whom popular movement would fain create distrust, that I firmly believe is undeserved; let us throw ourselves between this distrust and the people. We must have a concentrated, a central force, an arm to act, when we have but one single head to reflect. M. de La Fayette, since the commencement of the revolution, has evinced the opinions and the conduct of a good citizen. It is absolutely necessary that he should retain his credit with the nation. Force is necessary at Paris, but tranquillity is equally so. It is you, who must direct this force."

These words of Barnave were voted to be the text of the proclamation. At this moment information was brought that M. de Cazalès, the orator of the côté droit, was in the hands of the people, and exposed to the greatest danger at the Tuileries.

Six commissioners were appointed to go to his succour, and they conducted him to the chamber. He mounted the tribune, irritated at once against the people, from whose violence he had just escaped, and against the king, who had abandoned his partisans without giving them any timely information.

"I have narrowly escaped being torn in pieces by the people," cried he; "and without the assistance of the national guard, who displayed so much attachment for me—." At these words which indicated the pretension to personal popularity lurking in the mind of the royalist orator, the Assembly gave marked signs of disapprobation, and the côté gauche murmured loudly. "I do not speak for myself," returned Cazalès, "but for the common interest. I will willingly sacrifice my petty existence, and this sacrifice has long ago been made; but it is important to the whole empire that your sittings be undisturbed by any popular tumult in the critical state of affairs at present, and in consequence I second all the measures for preserving order and tranquillity that have just been proposed." At length, on the motion of several members, the Assembly decided, that in the king's absence, all power should be vested in themselves, and that their decrees should be immediately put in execution by the ministers without any further sanction or acceptance. The Assembly seized on the dictatorship with a prompt and firm grasp, and declared themselves permanent.

XVII.

Whilst the Assembly, by the rights alike of prudence and necessity, seized on the supreme power, M. de La Fayette cast himself with calm audacity amidst the people, to grasp again, at the peril of his life, the confidence that he had lost. The first impulse of the people would naturally be to massacre the perfidious general, who had answered for the safe custody of the king with his life, and had yet suffered him to escape. La Fayette saw his peril, and, by braving, averted the tempest. One of the first to learn the king's flight, from his officers, he hurried to the Tuileries, where he found the mayor of Paris, Bailly, and the president of the Assembly, Beauharnais. Bailly and Beauharnais lamented the number of hours that must be lost in the pursuit before the Assembly could be convoked, and the decrees executed. "Is it your opinion," asked La Fayette, "that the arrest of the king and the royal family is absolutely essential to the public safety, and can alone preserve us from civil war?" "No doubt can be entertained of that," returned the mayor and the president. "Well then," returned La Fayette, "I take on myself all the responsibility of this arrest;" and he instantly wrote an order to all the national guards and citizens to arrest the king. This was also a dictatorship, and the most personal of all dictatorships, that a single man, taking the place of the Assembly, and the whole nation, thus assumed. He, on his private authority and the right of his civic foresight, struck at the liberty and perhaps the life of the lawful ruler of the nation. This order led Louis XVI. to the scaffold, for it restored to the people the victim who had escaped their clutches. "Fortunately for him," he writes in his Memoirs, after the atrocities committed on these august victims, "fortunately for him, their arrest was not owing to his orders, but to the accident of being recognised by a post-master, and to their ill arrangements." Thus the citizen ordered that which the man trembled to see fulfilled; and tardy sensibility protested against patriotism.

Quitting the Tuileries, La Fayette went to the Hôtel de Ville, on horseback. The quays were crowded with persons whose anger vented itself in reproaches against him, which he supported with the utmost apparent serenity. On his arrival at the Place de Grève, almost unattended, he found the duke d'Aumont, one of his officers, in the hands of the populace, who were on the point of massacring him; and he instantly mingled with the crowd, who were astonished at his audacity, and rescued the duke d'Aumont. He thus recovered by courage the dominion, which he would have lost (and with it his life) had he hesitated.