The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France

by Charles Duke Yonge

As none of them had any force of character, they fell under the influence of the wife of one of their number, a small manufacturer, named Roland, the same who, as we have already seen, was the first to raise the cry of blood in France, and to recommend the assassination of the king and queen while they were still in fancied security at Versailles. Under the direction of this fierce woman, whose ferocity was rendered more formidable by her undoubted talents, the Girondins began an internecine war with the king, who had refused them the wages which they had asked. They planned and carried out the sanguinary attacks on the palace in the summer of the next year. They brought Louis to the scaffold by the unanimity of their votes. Yet it would have been more fortunate for themselves as well as for him had they been less exorbitant in their demands, and had they connected themselves with the Government as they desired. For though they succeeded in their treason, though Madame Roland saw the accomplishment of her wish in the murder of the king and queen, their success was equally fatal to themselves. Almost all of them perished on the same scaffold to which they had consigned their virtuous sovereigns, meeting a fate in one respect worse even than theirs, from the infamy of the names which they have left behind them.

Yet for a few days it seemed as if their malignity would miss its aim. They did not wait a single day before displaying it; but, at the preliminary meeting of the Assembly, before it was opened for the dispatch of business, Vergniaud proposed to declare it illegal to speak of the king as his majesty, or to address him as "sire;" while another deputy, named Couthon, who at first belonged to the same party, though he afterward joined the Jacobins, carried a motion that, when Louis came to open the Assembly, the president should occupy the place of honor, and the second seat should be allotted to the sovereign.

Still, for a moment it seemed as if they had overshot their mark, and as if the more loyal party would be able to withstand and defeat them. The Assembly itself was compelled to repeal its recent votes, since Louis, whom indignation for once inspired with greater firmness than he usually displayed, refused to open the new Assembly in person unless he were to be received with the honors to which his rank entitled him. The offensive resolutions were canceled; and, when he had therefore opened the session in a dignified and conciliatory speech which was chiefly of his own composition, the president, M. Pastoret, a member of the Constitutional party, replied in a language which was not only respectful, but affectionate. The Constitution, he said, had given the king friends in those who were formerly only styled his subjects. The Assembly and the nation felt the need of his love. As the Constitution had rendered him the greatest monarch in the world, so his attachment to it would place him among the kings most beloved by their people.

And it seemed as if the Parisians in general shared to the full the loyal sentiments uttered by M. Pastoret. Writing the same week to her brother, Marie Antoinette, with a confidence which could only spring from a sincere attachment to the whole nation, reiterated her old opinion that "the good citizens and good people had always in their hearts been friendly to the king and herself;[2]" and expressed her belief that since the acceptance of the Constitution the people "had again learned to trust them." She was "far from giving herself up to a blind confidence. She knew that the disaffected had not abandoned their treasonable purposes; but, as the king and she herself were resolved to unite themselves in sincere good faith to the people, it was impossible but that, when their real feelings were known, the bulk of the people should return to them. The mischief was that the well-meaning knew not how to act in concert."

It did seem as if she were correct in her estimate of the feelings of the citizens, when, in the evening of the day on which Louis had opened the Assembly, the whole royal family, including the two children, went to the opera; and, as if with express design to ratify the loyal language of the president of the Assembly, the whole audience greeted them with a most enthusiastic reception. More than once they interrupted the performance with loud cheers for both king and queen; and as the pleasure of children is always an attractive sight, they sympathized especially with the delight of the little dauphin, their future king, as they all then thought him, who, being new to such a spectacle, only took his eyes off the stage to imitate the gestures of the actors to his mother, and draw her attention to them.

In more than one of her letters the queen had vehemently deplored the want of a stronger ministry than of late had been in the king's service. It was a natural complaint, though in fact the ability or want of ability displayed by the ministers was a matter of but slight practical importance, so completely had the Assembly engrossed the whole power of the State; but in the course of the autumn some changes were made, one of which for a time certainly added to the comfort of the sovereigns. M. Montmorin retired; M. de Lessart was transferred to his office; and M. Bertrand de Moleville, who was entirely new to official life, became the minister of marine. The whole kingdom did not contain a man more attached to the king and queen. But he combined statesman-like prudence with his loyalty; and his conduct before he took office elicited a very remarkable proof of the singleness of mind and purpose with which the king and queen had accepted the Constitution. M. Bertrand had previously refused office, and was very unwilling to take it now; and he frankly told Louis that he could not hope to be of any real service to him unless he knew the plans which the king might have formed with respect to the Constitution, and the line of conduct which he desired his ministers to observe on the subject; and Louis told him distinctly that though "he was far from regarding the Constitution as a masterpiece, and though he thought it easy to reform it advantageously in many particulars, yet he had sworn to observe it as it was, and that he was bound to be, and resolved to be, strictly faithful to his oath; the more so because it seemed to him that the most exact observance of the Constitution was the surest method to lead the nation to understand it in all its bearings; when the people themselves would perceive the character of the changes in it which it was desirable to make."

M. Bertrand expressed his warm approval of the wisdom of such a policy, but thought it so important to know how far the queen coincided in her husband's sentiments that he ventured to put the question to his majesty. The king assured him that he had been speaking her sentiments as well as his own, and that he should hear them from her own lips; and accordingly the queen immediately granted the new minister an audience, in which, after expressing, with her habitual grace and kindness, her feeling that, by accepting office at such a time, he was laying both the king and herself under a personal obligation, she added, "The king has explained to you his intentions with respect to the Constitution; do not you think that the only plan for him to follow is to be faithful to his oath?" "Undoubtedly, madame." "Well, you may depend upon it that nothing will make us change. Have courage, M. Bertrand; I hope that, with patience, firmness, and consistency, all is not yet lost.[3]"

Nor was M. Bertrand the only one of the ministers who received proofs of the resolution of the queen to adhere steadily to the Constitution. There was also a new minister of war, the Count de Narbonne, as firmly attached to the persons of the sovereigns as M. Bertrand himself, though in political principle more inclined to the views of the Constitutionalists than to those of the extreme Royalists. He was likewise a man of considerable capacity, eloquent and fertile in resources; but he was ambitious and somewhat vain; and he was so elated at the approval expressed by the Assembly of a report on the military resources of the kingdom which he laid before it soon after his appointment, that he obtained an audience of the queen, the object of which was to convince her that the only means of saving the State was to confer on a man of talent, energy, sagacity, and activity, who enjoyed the confidence of the Assembly and of the nation, the post of prime minister; and he admitted that he intended to designate himself by this description. Marie Antoinette, though fully aware of the desirableness of having a single man of ability and firmness at the head of the administration, was for a moment surprised out of her habitual courtesy. She could not forbear a smile, and in plain terms asked him "if he were crazy.[4]" But she proceeded with her usual kindness to explain to him the impracticability of the scheme which he had suggested, and the foundation of her argument was an explanation that such an appointment would be a violation of the Constitution, which forbade the king to create any new ministerial office. And the count deserves to have it mentioned to his honor that the rebuff which he had received in no degree cooled his attachment to the king and queen, or the zeal with which he labored for their service.

We have no information how far the new minister coincided in a step which the queen took in the course of November, and which is commonly ascribed to her judgment alone. Before its dissolution, the late Assembly had broken up the National Guard of Paris into separate legions, and had suppressed the appointment of commander-in-chief of the forces; and La Fayette, whom this measure had left without employment, feeling keenly the diminution of his importance, and instigated by the restlessness common to men of moderate capacity, conceived the hope of succeeding Bailly in the mayoralty of Paris, which that magistrate was on the point of resigning.

It had become a post of great consequence, since the extent to which the authority of the crown had been pared away tended to make the mayor the absolute dictator of the capital; and consequently the Jacobins were anxious to secure the office for one of the extreme Revolutionary party, and set up Pétion as a rival candidate. The election belonged to the citizens, and, as in the city the two parties possessed almost equal strength, it was soon seen that the court, which had by no means lost its influence among the tradesmen and shop-keepers, had the power of deciding the contest in favor of the candidate for whom it should pronounce, Marie Antoinette declared for Pétion. She knew him to be a Jacobin,[5] but he was so devoid of any reputation for ability that she did not fear him. Nor, except that he had behaved with boorish disrespect and ill-manners during their melancholy return from Varennes, had she any reason for suspecting him of any special enmity to the king.