Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty

by Imbert de Saint-Amand

THE FÉTE OF THE FEDERATION IN 1792.

The fête of the Federation, which was to be celebrated July 14, was awaited with anxiety. The federates came into Paris full of the most revolutionary projects. Anxiety and anguish reigned at the Tuileries. Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, who were to be present in the Champ-de-Mars, feared to be assassinated there. The Queen's importunities decided the King to have a plastron made, to ward off a poniard thrust. Composed of fifteen thicknesses of Italian taffeta, this plastron consisted of a vest and a large belt. Madame Campan secretly tried it on the King in the chamber where Marie Antoinette was lying. Pulling Madame Campan by the dress as far as possible from the Queen's bed, Louis XVI. whispered: "It is to satisfy her that I yield; they will not assassinate me; their plan is changed; they will put me to death in another way." When the King had gone out, the Queen forced Madame Campan to tell her what he had just said. "I had divined it!" she exclaimed. "He has said this long time that all that is going on in France is an imitation of the revolution in England under Charles I. I begin to dread an impeachment for him. As for me, I am a foreigner, and they will assassinate me. What will become of my poor children?" And she fell to weeping. Madame Campan tried to administer a nervine, but the Queen refused it. "Nervous maladies," said she. "are the ailments of happy women; I no longer have them." Without her knowledge a sort of corset, in the style of her husband's plastron, had been made for her. Nothing could induce her to wear it. To those who implored her with tears to put it on, she replied: "If seditious persons assassinate me, so much the better; they will deliver me from a most sorrowful life."

The fête of the Federation was celebrated in 1792 amidst extremely tragical preoccupations. Things had changed very greatly since the fête which had excited such enthusiasm two years earlier. On July 14, 1790, the Champ-de-Mars was filled at four o'clock in the morning by a crowd delirious with joy. At eight o'clock in the morning of July 14, 1792, it was still empty. The people were said to be at the Bastille witnessing the laying of the first stone of the column to be erected on the ruins of the famous fortress. On the Champ-de-Mars there was no magnificent altar served by three hundred priests, no side benches covered by an innumerable crowd, none of that sincere and ardent joy which throbbed in every heart two years before. For the fête of 1792, eighty-three little tents, representing the departments of the kingdom, had been erected on hillocks of sand. Before each tent stood a poplar, so frail that it seemed as if a breath might blow away the tree and its tri-colored pendant. In the middle of the Champ-de-Mars were four stretchers covered with canvas painted gray which would have made a miserable decoration for a boulevard theatre. It was a so-called tomb, an honorary monument to those who had died or were about to die on the frontiers. On one side of it was the inscription: "Tremble, tyrants; we will avenge them!" The Altar of the Country could hardly be seen. It was formed of a truncated column placed on the top of the altar steps raised in 1790. Perfumes were burned on the four small corner altars. Two hundred yards farther off, near the Seine, a large tree had been set up and named the Tree of Feudalism. From its branches depended escutcheons, helmets, and blue ribbons interwoven with chains. This tree rose out of a wood-pile on which lay a heap of crowns, tiaras, cardinals' hats, Saint Peter's keys, ermine mantles, doctors' caps, and titles of nobility. A royal crown was among them, and beside it the escutcheons of the Count de Provence, the Count d'Artois, and the Prince de Condé. The organizers of the fête hoped to induce the King himself to set fire to this pile, covered with feudal emblems. A figure representing Liberty, and another representing Law, were placed on casters by the aid of which the two divinities were to be rolled about. Fifty-four pieces of cannon bordered the Champ-de-Mars on the side next the Seine, and the Phrygian cap crowned every tree.

At eleven in the morning the King and his cortège arrived at the Military School. A detachment of cavalry opened the march. There were three carriages. In the first were the Prince de Poix, the Marquis de Brézé, and the Count de Saint-Priest; in the second, the Queen's ladies, Mesdames de Tarente, de la Roche-Aymon, de Maillé, and de Mackau; in the third, the King, the Queen, their two children, and Madame Elisabeth. The trumpets sounded and the drums beat a salute. A salvo of artillery announced the arrival of the royal family. The sovereign's countenance was mild and benevolent. Marie Antoinette appeared still more majestic than usual. The dignity of her demeanor, the grace of her children, and the angelic charm of Madame Elisabeth inspired a tender respect. The little Dauphin wore the uniform of a National Guard. "He has not deserved the cap yet," said the Queen to the grenadiers.

The royal family took their places on the balcony of the Military School, which was covered with a red velvet carpet embroidered with gold, and watched the popular procession, entering the Champ-de-Mars by the gate of the rue de Grenelle, and marching towards the Altar of the Country. What a strange procession! Men, women, children, armed with pikes, sticks, and hatchets; bands singing the Ça ira; drunken harlots, adorned with flowers; people from the faubourgs with the inscription, "Long live Pétion!" chalked on their head-gear; six legions of National Guards marching pell-mell with the sans-culottes; red caps; placards with devices either ferocious or stupid, like this one: "Long live the heroes who died in the siege of the Bastille!" a plan in relief of the celebrated fortress; a travelling printing-press throwing off copies of the revolutionary manifesto, which the crowd at first mistook for a little guillotine; a great deal of noise and shouting,—and there you have the popular cortège. By way of compensation, the troops of the line and the grenadiers of the National Guard displayed extremely royalist sentiments. The 104th regiment of infantry having halted under the balcony, its band played the air: Où peut-on être mieux qu'au sein de sa famille? (Where is one better off than in the bosom of his family?)

The moment when Louis XVI. left the Military School to walk to the Altar of the Country with the National Assembly was not without solemnity. A certain anxiety was felt by all as to what might happen. Would Louis XVI. be struck by a ball or by a poniard? What might not be feared from so many demoniacs, howling like cannibals? The King, the deputies, the soldiers, the crowd, all pressed against each other in a solid mass that left no vacant spaces; all was in continual undulation. Louis XVI. could only advance slowly and with difficulty. The intervention of the troops was necessary to enable him to reach the Altar of the Country, where he was to swear allegiance for the second time to the Constitution whose fragments were to overwhelm his throne. "It needed the character of Louis XVI.," Madame de Staël has said, "it needed that martyr character which he never belied, to support such a situation as he did. His gait, his countenance, had something peculiar to himself; on other occasions one might have wished he had more grandeur; but at this moment it was enough for him to remain what he was in order to appear sublime. From a distance I watched his powdered head in the midst of all those black ones; his coat, still embroidered as it had been in former days, stood out against the costumes of the common people who pressed around him. When he ascended the steps of the altar, one seemed to behold the sacred victim offering himself in voluntary sacrifice."

The Queen had remained on the balcony of the Military School. From there she watched through a lorgnette the dangerous progress of the King. A prey to inexpressible emotion, she remained motionless during an entire hour, hardly able to breathe on account of excessive anguish. She used the lorgnette steadily, but at one moment she cried out: "He has come down two steps!" This cry made all those about her shudder. The King could not, in fact, reach the summit of the altar, because a throng of suspicious-looking persons had already taken possession of it.

Deputy Dumas had the presence of mind to cry out: "Attention, Grenadiers! present arms!" The intimidated sans-culottes remained quiet, and Louis XVI. took the oath amid the thundering of the cannon ranged beside the Seine.