The longer the revolution went on, exhibiting more and more fully the incapacity of the king, the more were the intoxicated people tempted to exult over him, sometimes fiercely, and sometimes in mockery. It is not conceivable that they would have ventured upon some things that were said and done, if the king had been a man of spirit; for men of spirit command personal respect in their adversity. The great original quarrel with the king, it will be remembered, was on matters of finance,—about the vast debts of the State, and the choice of a minister who would wisely endeavour to reduce these debts, and at the same time to relieve the people from some of the pressure of taxation. Towards the end of this year, 1790, the Assembly had decreed the discharge of the debts of the State; and (whether or not they might prove able to execute what they decreed) the people were highly delighted. It was the custom to serenade the royal family on New Year’s morning. On this New Year’s day, the band of the National Guard played under the king’s windows an opera air which went to the words, “But our creditors are paid, and we are consoled.” They would play nothing but this air; and finished it, stopped and resumed, over and over again. They might have been very sure that the king knew what they meant by playing it at all.
Another New Year’s day custom was to present gifts to the royal children. On this day, some grenadiers of the Parisian guard came, preceded by military music, to offer a gift to the Dauphin. This gift was a set of dominoes made of the stone and marble of which parts of the Bastille had been built. On the lid of the box were engraved some verses, of which the sense was as follows:—
“These stones of the walls which enclosed so many innocent victims of arbitrary power, have been made into a toy, to be offered to your Highness, as a token of the love of the people, and a lesson as to their strength.”
The queen would not allow her son to have this toy. She took it from him, and gave it into the hands of one of her ladies, desiring her to preserve it as a curious sign of the times.
If the royal family received insults from people who could not feel for them, it was equally true that their adherents exasperated the feelings of persons who quite as little deserved insult. Such was the effect of mutual prejudice. General Lafayette, still in hopes of bringing the opposing parties to some understanding, frequently went to the palace of the Tuileries, where now, during the winter, the royal family were once more established. As there was little use in conversing with the king about affairs, these interviews were generally with the queen,—a fact which prevents our wondering much at the common accusation that the queen meddled with the government, and did mischief by it. One day when Lafayette was with the queen, one of her majesty’s ladies observed (intending to be heard by the General’s officers) that it made her uneasy to think of her majesty’s being shut up alone with a rebel and a robber. An older and more prudent lady, Madame Campan, seeing the folly of such a speech at a time when everything might depend on General Lafayette’s goodwill, reproved the person who had spoken; but it is curious to see how much more she thought of the imprudence than of the injustice of the speech. She observed that General Lafayette was certainly a rebel: but that an officer who commanded forty thousand men, the capital, and a large extent of country, should be called a chieftain rather than a robber. One would think this was little enough to say in favour of such a man as Lafayette: yet the queen the next day asked Madame Campan, with a mournful gravity, what she could have meant by taking Lafayette’s part, and silencing the other ladies because they did not like him. When she heard how it was, the queen was satisfied: but we, far from being satisfied, may learn from this how difficult it must have been to help the royal family and court, while they thought and spoke of the best men in the nation in such a way as this. In truth, there were miserable prejudices and insults on both sides: and at this distance of time, Lafayette, with his love of freedom, and his goodwill towards all the sufferers of both parties, rises to our view from among them all as a sunny hill-top above the fogs of an unwholesome marsh.
The next event in the royal family was the departure of the old princesses. They got away in February; and, though stopped in some places on their journey, crossed the frontiers in safety. They might probably have remained secure enough in Paris; and their departure was not on their own account, so much as that of the king. He could not have attempted to fly while his aged aunts remained in the midst of the troubles. When they were disposed of, he felt himself more free to go or stay. The old ladies earnestly entreated the sweet princess Elizabeth to go with them, representing to her how happy she might be at Rome in the exercise of the religion to which she was devoted. But her religion taught her that her duty lay, not where she could say her prayers with the most ease and security, but where she could give the most help and consolation. She refused ease and safety, and declared her intention of remaining with her brother’s family to the end—whatever that end might be.
The queen immediately (that is, in March) began her preparations for departure. Remembering how easily they might have got away from Saint Cloud, last summer, it was determined to start from Saint Cloud this time. On the 15th of April, notice was given to the Assembly that, the king having become subject to colds of late, the royal family would remove into the country in a few days.
The people of Paris discussed this plan very earnestly. Lafayette wished that the king should live at any one of his palaces that he pleased. But so much had been said, all through the winter, about his majesty’s leaving Paris, that it had now become a very difficult thing to do. The papers on the royal side had proudly threatened that the king would leave his people, if they were not more worthy of his presence. The revolutionary papers had said that the king should not go, to raise up armies of enemies at a distance. All Paris had been kept awake by stories of saddled horses in the royal stables, of packed carriages, and a host of armed nobles, always hovering about, ready to rescue him and murder the people. It does indeed appear that latterly there had been various mysterious meetings of gentlemen, who were secretly armed: and report, which always exaggerates these things, declared that thirty thousand such armed gentlemen were hidden in the woods, about Saint Cloud, and that they would overpower the people’s guard, and carry off the family.
Some may wonder why the nation, if sick of their king, did not let him go, and rejoice to be rid of him. The reason why they detained him so carefully was this: they knew that his brother and friends were raising an army at a distance; and they saw that, if once the royal family escaped from their hands, they should have all Europe down upon them; whereas, if they kept the family as hostages, their enemies would let them alone, in the fear that the first march of a foreign army into France would be revenged upon the lives of the very persons whom it was desired to save.
Considering all these things, the people resolved that the royal family should not go to Saint Cloud.