The foreign courts and emigrant princes were preparing to invade France; and the consequence was that the poor helpless king had to do an act which would have been ridiculous, if it were not too sad to laugh at. As pretended Constitutional King and Head of the Nation, he had to behave in public towards these foreign princes as if they were enemies, when it was for his sake that they were levying armies. By his private letters, written in cipher, and sent in secret, he was urging them to make haste to march to his rescue; and at the very same time he had to go to the Assembly and propose that they should declare war against these enemies of the nation. He said this with the tears in his eyes. It was on the 20th of April that he endured this humiliation. What man of spirit would not rather have taken one side or the other, at all hazards, than have played such a double part as this? If he could act with the people in reforming their affairs, well and good. If he could not,—if he believed them all wrong, and that it was his sacred duty to stand by the old order of things, how much more respectable it would have been to have said so,—to have declared, “You may imprison me—you may destroy me,—but I will stand by my throne and its powers!” In that case, the worst he could have been charged with would have been a mistake. As it was, he stood before the Assembly an object of universal contempt,—proposing, with tears in his eyes, a declaration of war against those who were preparing war at his desire, and for his sake; and everyone knowing that it was so.
He and the queen seemed never to have understood or believed what was carefully pointed out to them by the advisers whom they distrusted—that this making war in their behalf could not end well for them. If their foreign friends should be beaten, they would be left more helpless and despised than ever. If the French should be beaten, the frightened and angry people would be sure to treat with more and more rigour—and perhaps with fury—the family who had brought a foreign enemy upon them. Their advisers must have been glad at last to be rejected and dismissed; for it must have been provoking to discover, at every turn, the double dealing of the king and queen; and very melancholy to see them perpetually pursuing the exactly opposite course to that which was noble and wise. One wonders whether, if little Louis had lived to be a man, he would have been as ignorant, selfish, and unwise;—whether there is anything in belonging to the old royal family of France which stands between its princes and wisdom and knowledge. If so, one is less sorry that he died so early as he did.
Barnave’s last words impressed the feelings of the queen, but had no other effect. He begged to see her once more before he left Paris; and then withdrew from public affairs. He said, “Your misfortunes, madam, and those of the country, had determined me to devote myself to your service. I see that my advice does not accord with your majesty’s views. I augur little success from the plan which you have been induced to follow. You are too far from the help you rely on, and you will be lost before it can reach you. I earnestly hope that I may be mistaken in this prophecy. At all events, I am sure of losing my head for the interest I have felt in your affairs, and the services I have endeavoured to render you. I only ask as a recompense the honour of kissing your hand.”
The queen shed tears as she extended her hand to him, and often afterwards spoke of Barnave with regard. It does not appear, however, that either she or the king called in question their own conduct with regard to these men. They induced them to devote themselves to a most hazardous service—summoned them to secret interviews in the palace, in the night, in dark corridors, or on back staircases, where some spy or another was sure to see them, and report of them to the jealous people; and, after all this, they were dismissed, and left unprotected by the exact contrary of their advice being pursued. Barnave’s dismal predictions were all fulfilled. The royal family did sink down into destruction; and he himself perished, as he had foretold. He now left Paris, and married at Grenoble. The next August, less than three months after his last interview with the queen, his correspondence with her and the king was found in a chest in the palace; and orders were sent to arrest him, and imprison him at Grenoble. He lay in prison fifteen months, and was then brought to Paris, and tried for his life. He made a noble defence; but it was of no avail. He was beheaded on the 29th of October, 1793. When on the scaffold, he seemed suddenly struck with the infamy of the treatment he had met with on every side. He stamped with his foot, and exclaimed, “This, then, is the reward of all that I have done for liberty!” He was only thirty-two years of age. His unwise and miserable sovereign was not living to mourn the destruction he had brought on this high-minded man; and the fair royal hand which he had so desired to kiss had become cold in death some days before.
To return to the spring of 1792. The palace was now as dismal an abode as ever children grew up in. The king’s temper and manners gave way entirely. For ten days he never once spoke, except to say the words necessary in the game of backgammon, which he played with his sister every day after dinner. The queen kneeled to him, imploring him to exert himself. When this availed nothing, she endeavoured to arouse him by the most frightful representations she could make of the danger they were all in—a danger which increased every day, and which required that he should act, and not sit sulking, while the hours flew by which were bringing destruction on their heads. She sometimes expressed sympathy and tenderness; sometimes showed him his children, and besought him to act, for their sakes: and sometimes she asked him proudly whether, if they must perish, it would not be better to die with dignity and honour than to wait sullenly, as if inviting the rabble to come and tread their lives out on the floor of their own palace?
In one instance, she prevailed with him against his judgment; and in five days, after, bitterly repented it. There was no use in persuading him to a single spirited act now and then, when he had not resolution to follow it up by others: and so she found. In June, the Assembly wished to banish all the clergy, and to form a camp of twenty-thousand men, under the walls of Paris. The king would have agreed, telling the queen that the people only wanted a pretence for a general insurrection; and that it would burst forth at the moment of his refusing anything they wished. The queen, however, induced him to use his lawful power of disapproving and forbidding these measures. This happened on the 15th of June. When he declared to his ministers his intention of doing this, three days before, they remonstrated, and the wife of one of them, Madame Roland, wrote a letter, in her husband’s name, to the king; a letter so plain spoken that the king and queen could not brook it; and the ministry were all turned out next morning.