The second objection—a reply to which shows how considerable were the King’s stake and chances—is met by the military consideration that nothing more needs a special organisation and training than a successful rally. An assault, if it is of any consequence, must be pressed hard; if it is fully repulsed, its head and energy are crushed at their highest vigour; the defeat is more crushing than that of a defensive which retires in time. This is generally true of soldiers in the field; it is always true of civilians. The doubts and defections that accompany a civil war, the conversion of the great body of cowards and the still larger majority of indifferent men, the claims of regular domestic life, the absence of a commissariat, the near presence of women and children, the contrast which the return of quiet after the blow presents to the pain and terror of a renewed struggle, make it, as it were, impossible for a defeated mob to return, after an interval, against the regular force which has repelled it; moreover, the regulars, once victorious, can pursue, scatter, and destroy the unorganised mass, while its leaders are arrested and judged; nor is there an example in history of a popular rising which, when it has once broken against the defence of a regular force, has not been broken for good.
The strategy of the Court was therefore sound, their calculation of victory was reasonable, and their chances were of the best when the defence of the palace was organised in these first days of August. It was calculated that the populace even with artillery could do little against the palace; that the trained men would crush the mob once and for all. Had that defence succeeded, the advent of the foreigner, perhaps allied with one of the royal armies, was secure. That the defence of the palace failed was due partly to the lack of homogeneity in its garrison, more to a lack of united leadership, but most of all to the unexpected, incalculable and hitherto unequalled tenacity and determination of the insurgents.
With every day the tension increased. The Federation delegates, who had come from all over France to the Feast of the 14th of July, many of whom lingered in the city, clashed in the streets with courtiers, and with those who, whether by temperament or service, were still supporters of the Crown.
Just when the Marseillais were entering Paris, Brunswick had broken camp and the march of the Allies into France had begun. Less than a hundred miles of flat road along the Moselle valley separated Brunswick from the outposts of the defence: Paris itself was hardly further from him than is York from London. Rapidity would put the first garrison of the frontier into his hands within a week, and even the tardiness which the Prussian calculation and the Prussian confidence involve could hardly (it was thought) delay for a fortnight the news that the frontier was passed.
In the passionate quarrel the enemy’s character of invader was forgotten. Not only to the Court but to many who could now remember nothing but the ancient tradition of the Monarchy, the enemy seemed a saviour. Bands parading the pavement by night threatened their fellow-citizens with Brunswick, songs threatening vengeance against the revolutionaries were heard abroad after carousals, and a continuous series of petty street-fights, increasing in gravity, enlivened the attention of either side.
Hardly were the Marseillais in Paris, for instance, when, that same evening of their arrival, after a banquet, a violent quarrel between them and a body of armed royalists had broken out. They carried their side-arms only, but blood was shed, and as the victims upon the defeated side of this brawl were carried to the Guard-Room in the palace, the Queen, seeing blood, thought that the final struggle had begun. She was relieved to see the King go down amongst the wounded, staunching the blood of one with his handkerchief. Her women, fearing what she had feared, began crying each for one of hers: “Is my husband wounded?” “Is mine?” She could not forbear from one of those insults which had lost her the affection of so many, and from one of those reflections which proved how little she conceived the French nobility. “Ladies,” she said to the noble-women about her, “your husbands were not there.” She had no further opportunity to revile them; it was perhaps the last expression of her contempt for a people whom she believed to have grown incapable.
Either side continued to arm. The heat, growing steadily in intensity, had bred by the 3rd of August a very thunderous calm, when the King announced to the Assembly the terms of Brunswick’s Manifesto. It was received in silence, and those who least knew and know the city thought and still think that the news was met with indifference. But during that night, while a furious storm struck Paris time and time again with lightning, one workman’s suburb, St. Marcel, sent word to another, St. Antoine: “If we march to the palace, will you?” In the midst of the thunder, messengers returned saying: “We will!” And in the night as they went and came, they passed men bearing the dead whom the lightning had struck and killed. Very late and before the growling of the thunder had ceased, certain of the Marseillais must go to the walls of the palace and shout the chorus of their song.
Next day they asked for ball-cartridge. Sergent, the official guardian of the Militia ammunition-reserve, had been struck in the face when he had gone, as his duty compelled him, to the palace a fortnight before; he had been struck because his radical politics were known. Should the insurrection fail, his signature for rebel ammunition would be his death warrant. Nevertheless, remembering that blow, he signed; and the arsenal served out ten rounds a man to the Battalion of Marseilles. They crossed the river so armed, and were received at the Cordeliers,[[26]] which was Danton’s fief, and Danton restrained them till such poor and hasty organisation as could be undertaken should be effected. It was the end of the week which had seen their entry into Paris, and nothing had been done. The Tuileries continued to arm, the populace to convene, and between the combatants the Parliament daily lost its power and grew bewildered.
[26]. Now the clinical museum, opposite the faculty of medicine in the University.
On Sunday, at Mass, always a public occasion in the palace, men passed and re-passed each other in the gallery, and there were quarrels. This also was the last time in which the Monarchy was treated as a general thing—with the next morning its isolation began. On Monday the King was begged to fly, at least to Compiègne: the road was guarded, and it was an easy ride if he went alone round by Poissy and the north. He refused. On Tuesday the last preparations were made in the suburban garrisons of the Crown soldiers. On Wednesday, the 8th, in the morning, the Swiss Guard was warned that on the morrow before dawn it must be accoutred.