Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1

by H. Sutherland Edwards

“You are smothering me with roses,” cried the old poet, intoxicated with his own glory. The emotion, the fatigue, caused by the interesting ceremony, had indeed an injurious effect upon his health, and hastened his death, concerning which so many contradictory stories have been told. That he begged the curé of St. Sulpice to let him “die in peace” is beyond doubt; and that he died unreconciled to the Church, whose bigotry and persecution he had so persistently attacked, is sufficiently shown by the fact that, equally with Molière (though the great comedy writer had in his last moments demanded and received religious consolation), he was refused Christian burial. His nephew, the Abbé Mignot, had the corpse carried to his abbey of Scellières, where it remained until, under the Revolution, it was borne in triumph to the Panthéon.

Eleven years after the crowning of Voltaire at the Tuileries, Louis XVI. arrived there from Versailles, where he had fraternised with the people, only to find that he was no longer a king. On the 19th of October, 1789, three months after the taking of the Bastille, the National Assembly had waited in a body upon the king and queen, when the president, still loyal, said to Marie Antoinette: “The National Assembly, madame, would feel genuine satisfaction could it see for one moment in your arms the illustrious child whom the inhabitants of the capital will henceforth regard as their fellow-citizen, the offshoot of so many princes tenderly beloved by their people, the heir of Louis IX., of Henri IV., and of him whose virtues constitute the hope of France.” The queen replied, “Here is my son;” and Marie Antoinette, taking the young Louis in her arms, carried him into the room occupied by the Assembly.

On the 26th of May, 1791, Barrère said to this same Assembly: “The first things to be reserved for the king are the Louvre and the Tuileries, monuments of grandeur and of indigence, whose plan, whose façades, are due to the genius of art, but whose completion has been neglected or rather forgotten by the wasteful carelessness of a few kings. Each generation expected to see this monument, worthy of Athens and of Rome, at last finished; but our kings, fearing the gaze of the people, went far from the capital to surround themselves with luxury, courtiers, and soldiers. It is characteristic of despotism to shut itself up in the midst of Asiatic luxury, as formerly divinities were placed in the depths of temples and of forests, in order to strike more surely the imagination of men. A great revolution was needed to bring back the people to liberty, and kings to the midst of their people. This revolution has been accomplished, and the King of the French will henceforth have his constant abode in the capital of the empire. This is our project. The Tuileries and the Louvre shall together form the {208} National Palace destined for the habitation of the king.”

Thereupon the Assembly decreed: “The Louvre and the Tuileries joined together shall be the National Palace destined for the habitation of the king, and for the collection of all our monuments of science and art, and for the principal establishments of public instruction.”

The position of the king at this time is well described by Arthur Young:—

“After breakfast,” he writes in diary form, “walk in the gardens of the Tuileries, where there is the most extraordinary sight that either French or English eyes could ever behold at Paris. The king, walking with six Grenadiers of the milice bourgeoise, with an officer or two of his household, and a page. The doors of the gardens are kept shut in respect to him in order to exclude everybody but deputies or those who have admission tickets. When he entered the palace, the doors of the gardens were thrown open for all without distinction, though the queen was still walking with a lady of her court. She also was attended so closely by the gardes bourgeoises that she could not speak but in a low voice without being heard by them. A mob followed her, talking very loud, and paying no other apparent respect than that of taking off their hats whenever she passed, which was, indeed, more than I expected. Her Majesty does not appear to be in health; she seems to be much affected and shows it in her face; but the king is as plump as ease can render him. By his orders there is a little garden railed off for the Dauphin to amuse himself in and a small room is built in it to retire to in case of rain; here he was at work with his little hoe and rake, but not without a guard of two Grenadiers. He is a very pretty, good-natured looking boy, five or six years old, with an agreeable countenance; wherever he goes all hats are taken off to him, which I was glad to observe. All the family being thus kept close prisoners (for such they are in effect) afford at first view a shocking spectacle, and is really so if the act were not absolutely necessary to effect the revolution. This I conceive to be impossible; but if it were necessary no one can blame the people for taking every measure possible to secure that liberty they had seized in the violence of a revolution. At such a moment nothing is to be condemned but what endangers the national {209} freedom. I must, however, freely own that I have my doubts whether this treatment of the royal family can be justly esteemed any security to liberty; or on the contrary, whether it was not a very dangerous step that exposes to hazard whatever had been gained.

I have spoken with several persons to-day and started objections to the present system, stronger even than they appear to me, in order to learn their sentiments, and it is evident they are at the present moment under an apprehension of an attempt toward a counter revolution. The danger of it very much, if not absolutely, results from the violence which has been used towards the royal family. The National Assembly was before that period answerable only for the permanent constitutional laws passed for the future; since that moment it is equally answerable for the whole conduct of the government of the State, executive as well as legislative. This critical situation has made a constant spirit of exertion necessary amongst the Paris militia. The great object of M. La Fayette and the other military leaders is to improve their discipline and to bring them into such a form as to allow a rational dependence on them in case of their being wanted in the field; but such is the spirit of freedom that even in the military, there is so little subordination that a man is an officer to-day and in the ranks to-morrow; a mode of proceeding that makes it the more difficult to bring them to the point their leaders see necessary. Eight thousand men in Paris may be called the standing army, paid every day 15 fr. a man; in which number is {210} included the corps of the French Guards from Versailles that deserted to the people; they have also 800 horses at an expense each of 1,500 livres a year, and the officers have double the pay of those in the army.”

If the people and the popular leaders were in constant fear of a counter revolution, the king on his side had had enough of royalty, and on the first opportunity fled from his subjects. The flight of the royal family, as is plainly shown by the correspondence of Marie Antoinette and by other authentic documents, had been concerted beforehand with the foreign Powers. This course was dictated by the most obvious considerations of personal safety. But all idea of an understanding with the “foreigner” was repudiated in the most solemn manner by the king. What the revolutionary Government resented was less the king’s desire to escape from a country where he had not only ceased to rule, but where his position was getting from day to day more precarious, than his apparent intention of making himself as soon as he had crossed the frontier the centre and support of a counter revolution.