The weeks passed by, and that fateful day “9th Thermidor,” which was to bring with it such a bouleversement in Paris, was drawing nigh. At the Temple there had been no change—the Dauphin was still sequestrated from the outside world.
On May 11, 1794, Robespierre visited the prison, and had a brief interview with Marie-Therèse, but we have no information as to what happened.
The 9th Thermidor arrives and throws the dictator down from his pedestal, thereby proclaiming the end of his reign of terror. General Barras, invested with the command of the armed forces within the city, begins to take an important part in the management of affairs. One of his first acts, it will be remembered, after he had triumphed over Robespierre’s party, was to go to the prison of the Temple, on July the 28th, accompanied by his brilliant staff, bedecked with gold. The miserable aspect of the child after being shut up for months caused the general to take immediate steps, and by his order of July 29, 1794, a special guardian, chosen by himself, named Laurent, a native of Martinique, was brought to the prison, there to be entrusted with the sole care for nearly five months of the young Capet.
A careful study of the documents bearing upon this period of the captivity of the Dauphin makes it quite clear that in the hands of his new guardian he was looked after in a fashion which contrasted strongly with the previous neglect, and that he soon became attached to Laurent, who proved himself good-natured, kind, and even affectionate in his attitude towards his charge. If strange things came about in the Temple at that time, we may be certain that Laurent knew about them, and we may assume that Barras was the prime mover in all that happened.
It is impossible, as we have said before, to recapitulate all the arguments which tend to bring home to the general some complicity in the fate of Louis XVII., and which implicate a large number of persons, most of them people of influence in the world of the Convention. Other writers, notably M. Henri Provins,[73] have done this so conscientiously and thoroughly that there is no need for us to attempt it. We may content ourselves with making public a series of documents and newly ascertained matters, the gist of which bears out exactly all that we knew already of Laurent’s conduct at the Temple. Lady Atkyns and her friends could not have done without him. It is true that his name never appears in their communications, for reasons already given, but the striking connection between the events within the prison walls and their effects in London upon the Royalist Committee proves beyond doubt the relations subsisting between them. Between the lines of these documents we get to understand what Cormier meant by “new combinations.” Lady Atkyns has been at pains to say it herself in one of her notes which she used to make upon her correspondence, and which often serve to explain her actions.
In his anxiety about the future, did Cormier entertain fears lest all remembrance of his heroine’s devotion would vanish with her if by some mischance her enterprise should fail, or if she herself should lose her life? Who knows? However that may be, it is the case that on August 1, 1794, he had two statements drawn up (the text of which, unluckily, is not forthcoming), in which Lady Atkyns recorded all that she had achieved down to that date for the safety of those who were so dear to her.
“These records are to my knowledge the absolute truth,” attested Cormier at the foot of the deposition, “and I declare that ever since I first knew Lady Atkyns, she has always shown the same purity of principles, and that all she has here stated is true in every particular.”
These documents were to have been handed over for preservation, with a number of others, to a solicitor or some trustworthy person in London.
Meanwhile, renewed efforts were being made to bring about a good service of news to the Continent and Paris. As time passed, Lady Atkyns’ friends realized more and more that it would have been madness to proceed with a regular attempt at a sudden rescue in the actual conditions of things. In truth, the calm which had followed the 9th Thermidor, and which gave Paris time to take breath, was making itself felt within the Temple. Laurent’s nomination was evidence of this. Any attempt to act at once would have been sheer folly. What was to be done was to “get at” those who had any kind of influence within the Temple or without, whilst taking care not to let too many people into the secret of the enterprise. Here, again, unluckily, the wise secretiveness of all their papers prevents us from ascertaining any names. Those who were tempted by Lady Atkyns’ gold to compromise themselves in any way, took too many precautions against being found out.
Lady Atkyns, however, was not idle. Two sailing vessels were continually plying between different points on the French coast. A third, which she had recently purchased, had orders to keep close to land between Nantes and La Rochelle, ready at any moment to receive the Dauphin.[74]