At last the Mayor of Paris came. Monsieur Pétion was now mayor: the same who had pulled Louis’s hair, on the return from Varennes, a year before. He harangued the people: several others harangued; and at last the mob marched out through the broken doors of the violated palace. It was eight in the evening. When the members of this unhappy family could get to one another, again, when they felt that they were once more alone, they threw themselves into one another’s arms, weeping bitterly. The monarch and his people had met at last, face to face; and it was only to find that there was, and could be, no agreement between them. One of the parties must give way: the people were strong; the king was weak, and his ruin was now certain. Little Louis understood nothing of all this; but one wonders whether he could sleep that night,—whether he could forget the frightful procession he had seen filling the very rooms in which he lived.
Volume Two—Chapter Eleven.
What befell while the Queen was hoping.
The secret cipher letters went now faster than ever, and seem to have been so urgent about speedy help and rescue as to have appeared somewhat peevish to friends at a distance. The queen’s sister wrote from Brussels that she hoped the royal family did not doubt the anxiety of their friends: that the danger appeared indeed as pressing as it could be represented; but that some prudence was necessary on the part of those who were preparing help, and some patience on the part of those who were awaiting it.—Alas! It was difficult for the poor queen to be patient, expecting, as she did daily, the murder of the king. Though this fear seems to have been unfounded, it caused her as much suffering as if it had been just.—She had a breastplate made for the king, of silk many times folded, and well wadded, so that it would resist the blow of a dagger, and even a pistol-ball. This under-dress was made at Madame Campan’s house; and she brought it into the palace, wearing it as an under-petticoat, that no one might see it. For three days, in the beginning of July, did Madame Campan wear this heavy warm petticoat before an opportunity could be found for the king to try it on. The occasion for which it was wanted was the 14th of July, the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille, and the date of the Independence of the Nation, as the nation chose to say: on which day the king was to appear in public.
When he tried on the breastplate, he said in a low voice to Madame Campan that he wore this to satisfy the queen, but that he was persuaded he should not be assassinated, but left to be disposed of in another way. The queen afterwards made Madame Campan repeat to her what the king had said, and then observed that this was not new to her: she had seen the king much occupied of late in studying the history of Charles the First of England. The king declared that he studied this history in order to learn how to avoid the errors of Charles in dealing with his people. Alas! If he had done so twenty years before, it is doubtful whether such study could have been of any use to a ruler who had neither the knowledge nor the spirit necessary for the times. Now it was by many years too late. No one believed in his sincerity: every one despised his weakness; and he was so humbled that no act of his could have the force or the grace of freedom. The history of Charles the First is indeed a most instructive lesson to kings: but it is a lesson which must be learned and used while kings are still sitting on an honoured and unshaken throne.
There were people enough in Paris grieved and shocked at the proceedings of the 20th of June to have made some stand in defence of the king,—some delay in the dissolution of society; and these people declared themselves by public acts, particularly by petitions to the Assembly. A man of spirit would have seized the occasion: and if the king had been such a man, he might possibly have risen from this point out of his misfortunes, and so have made a favourable day out of that most miserable one. But, as usual, the royal family overlooked the opportunity. They were so occupied in looking for help from Germany, that they had no attention, no trust, for friends nearer home. The Duke of Brunswick was coming with an army to rescue them. The people knew this well enough; and their panic about an invasion did not make them love the more the family at whose call the invaders were coming. On the 25th of July, the Duke of Brunswick began his march into France, and issued a proclamation which said that the whole French nation should be protected by him in rallying round their king; but that, if any parties should insult the king, or carry him away from Paris, such persons should be destroyed, and Paris blown to pieces with his cannon. As the French nation did not wish or intend to rally round their king, this proclamation made them furious, and caused the destruction of the royal family in a shorter time than it would otherwise have happened; if it had otherwise happened at all. Was ever such mournful folly heard of as marks the whole history of this unhappy king? One’s compassion, however, is chiefly for the three who were victims of this folly without sharing it. The king and queen brought much of their misery upon themselves; but the sweet Princess Elizabeth and the two children suffered without having sinned. The darkness of their lot was now gathering fast about them.
It was impossible, after the late proceedings, to consider the palace safe at any hour. The queen feared assassination for herself as a foreigner, and a trial for the king, preparatory to his death upon the scaffold; and she desired to guard against any seizure of papers, which might now take place at any time. She deposited her ready money in the hands of a faithful person; and the king employed his old companion, Gamin, the locksmith, to make, in great secrecy, a safe for papers in a place where no one would suspect its existence. This fellow betrayed the secret; first, luckily, to some friends; and the queen, hearing of this, persuaded the king to empty out the safe. Gamin afterwards publicly informed the enemies of the king of this cupboard, and moreover swore that the king attempted to poison him when it was done, that the secret might be safe. This absurd calumny was believed, like everything else that was said against the royal family; and the wretch had a pension given him. Such was the king’s reward for submitting, like a timid apprentice, to this man’s insolence, while learning lock-making from him, for ten years past.
General Lafayette came to Paris, to remonstrate, at the head of twenty-thousand petitioners, against the late treatment of the king. Of course, those who had done it looked coldly upon him; and so did the king. The king forbade his officers to support anything proposed by General Lafayette; and the queen refused to allow him to remove her and her family to the loyal city of Rouen. Lafayette, thus unsupported, had to hasten back to the army; and in this way the royal family insulted and dismissed the last person who could have rescued them from their impending fate.