The Peasant and the Prince

by Harriet Martineau

Orders were given for Louis to be taken up and brought immediately: and he was presently ready,—at a little before five, when (it being the 10th of August) it was quite light. His sister appeared too, and the whole family went out to review the soldiers, as it was said, and to see the preparations for defence. Louis had hold of his father’s hand. At first, a few voices cried “Long live the king!” but the king, pale and silent, walked on without taking any notice; and in a few moments there was a long growl, which burst into a clamour of “Long live the nation!” Some of the gunners thrust themselves forward, and shook their fists in the king’s face, uttering the grossest insults. Some of the attendants pushed them back; but the king, now white as the wall, said not a word. Followed by the ladies of his family, he walked along the line, and back again, leaving nothing but contempt behind. “All is lost,” said the queen to Madame Campan, as she entered her apartments: “the king showed no energy; and this review has done nothing but harm.” What a lot was hers! To be dragged down, with her children, to destruction, by the apathy of a husband, while she herself had spirit enough to have ruled an empire, but must not now exert it, because it would exasperate the people to have the foreigner, the Austrian, meddle with the affairs of France!

What was to be done next? The Swiss, and the gentlemen and servants of the court, were all that now remained to be depended upon. The Swiss stood firm as their own Alps. The household arranged themselves in the apartments, armed, and ready for the assault from without: though no one of them could have hope of victory, or any expectation but of destruction. In this terrible hour, however, they jested; and upon a melancholy subject. They were miserably armed; and they quizzed one another and themselves for the appearance they made. None had more than a sword and a pair of pistols: one page had only a single pocket-pistol; and another page and equerry had broken a pair of tongs, and taken each a half.

The insurgents were now surrounding the Tuileries, and filling the neighbourhood: and it seemed probable that the gunners, placed outside for the defence of the palace, would turn their cannon against it. The king sent a messenger to the Assembly, to request them to depute some of their body to be a safeguard to the throne in this extremity. The Assembly took no notice of the message; but went on with their regular business.

The magistrate of the district saw now, from the temper of the people outside, no chance but of destruction to every individual within the palace, if once the siege began. The error was in ever pretending to make a defence, while such a helpless being as the king must be the one to give orders. It was too late to help that now. There were the cannon, with the gunners surlily asking whether it was expected of them to fire upon the people: and there were the people, too many and too angry to be got rid of. The magistrate of the district, Roederer, visited the palace, and begged a private interview with the king. He was shown into a small apartment, which the king and queen entered. Roederer proposed their going over to the Assembly without a moment’s delay, to commit themselves and their children to the protection of the representatives of the people. “No, no!” exclaimed the queen, blushing, no doubt, at the thought of the infamy of deserting, at the fatal moment, their adherents, their steady Swiss, and the servants of the household. Roederer told her that by remaining she would render herself responsible for the lives of the whole family; for that no power could save them within the walls of the palace. She said no more. The king sat, the picture of indifference, with his hands upon his knees, listening. When there was a pause, and he must say something, he looked over his shoulder to the queen, and said, “Let us go.”

As they left the apartment the queen told Madame Campan to remain till either the family should return, or she should be sent for to join her mistress,—no one knew where. The family never returned.

Only two ladies were permitted to accompany them,—the Princess de Lamballe and Madame de Tourzel. In order to fulfil her duty,—in order not to desert Louis,—his governess was compelled to leave her daughter Pauline, only seventeen years old, in this besieged palace, among the soldiers. Pauline escaped with life and safety, and joined her mother soon after.

As the king walked through the apartments of the palace, followed by his family, Roederer went before him, saying, “Make way! The king is going to the Assembly.” How these words must have pierced the hearts of his devoted servants, of his faithful Swiss! This was the reward of their brave fidelity! The king was leaving those who were ready to die rather than desert him. He was going to walk out at an open door, while they were shut in, to be shot down like game in an enclosure.

The family had but a short way to go; and their passage to the Assembly was watched from the windows by some of the doomed friends whom they left behind. They walked between two rows of guards; but were yet so pressed upon that the queen was robbed of her watch and purse. Louis held his mother’s hand, and amused himself with kicking the dead leaves as he walked. A gigantic man, a ringleader of the mob, snatched up the boy, and carried him. The queen screamed with terror, and was near fainting: but the man said, “Do not be frightened: I will do him no harm.” He merely carried him, and then set him down at the gate, where a deputation from the Assembly came out, to meet the royal family. From the palace windows the royal family were seen to enter that gate; and those who saw it well knew that all hope for the royal cause was now over.

The assailants without and the defenders in the outer court of the Tuileries did not know of the departure of the royal family; and the battle therefore began with fury. The gentlemen and servants had now only to think of saving themselves as they could. Some escaped from windows, and others under disguises: but many were murdered. The fate of the Swiss was dreadful. They fought bravely, and kept their ranks. At last, a messenger arrived with a written order from the king that they should cease firing. But they were still fired upon from without. They knew not what to do, and dispersed. Some few reached the Assembly, and were sheltered there. Some few more fled into private houses; but, as for the rest, their blood streamed on the floor of the palace, and their bodies blocked up the doorways. Some lay dead on the terraces, and others were shot down from street to street as they fled, fighting their way. From fifty to eighty were marched as prisoners to the Hall where the magistrates were sitting: but the crowd broke in upon them on the way, and slaughtered them every one. Their last thought might well have been, “Put not your trust in princes.” But perhaps more painful thoughts still were in their fainting hearts; and before their swimming eyes might be visions of their homes in the Swiss valleys, and their wives and children singing of them, while tending the cows on the mountain side. Yet the king who, by his orders and arrangements, gave them over to such a death as this, and deserted them at the crisis, was for ever consoling himself with the thought that not a drop of blood had ever been shed by his command.

In the neighbourhood of Lucerne, in Switzerland, there is a monument to the memory of these men. Above a little lake rises a precipitous face of rock. In the midst of this the monument is hollowed out. The Swiss lion, wounded and dying, grasps with its failing claws the French shield, with the royal lilies upon it.—If the king had sent his family to the Assembly for safety, and himself remained to fall with his adherents, this monument would not have been, as it is now, a reproach upon his memory, durable as Swiss honour and as the everlasting rock.