Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty

by Imbert de Saint-Amand

The tide was rising, rising incessantly. Petitioners demanded sometimes the deposition, and sometimes the death, of the King. This dialogue was overheard between the painter David and Merlin de Thionville, who were talking together about Louis XVI.: "Would you believe it? Just now he asked me, as I was passing his box, if I would soon have his portrait finished."—"Bah! and what did you say?"—"That I would never paint the portrait of a tyrant again until I should have his head in my hat."—"Admirable! I don't know a more sublime answer, even in antiquity."

The demands of the Revolution grew greater from minute to minute. In the decree of deposition which had been voted on Vergniaud's proposition, it was stipulated that the ministers should continue to exercise their functions. A few instants later, Brissot caused it to be decreed that they had lost the nation's confidence. A new ministry was nominated during the session. The three ministers dismissed before June 20—Roland, Clavière, and Servan—were reinstalled by acclamation in the ministries of the Interior, of Finances, and of War. The other ministers were chosen by ballot: Danton was nominated to that of Justice by 282 votes, Monge to the Marine by 150, and Lebrun-Tondu to Foreign Affairs by 100. This ballot established the fact that out of the 749 members composing the Assembly, but 284 were present. Two days before, 680 had voted on the question concerning Lafayette, and now, at the moment of the final crisis, not more than 284 could be found! All the others had disappeared, through fear or through disgust. The Revolution was accomplished by an Assembly thus reduced, and a Commune whose members had appointed themselves. Marie Antoinette, in her pride as Queen, was unable to conceive that there could be anything serious in such a government. When Lebrun-Tondu's appointment was announced, she leaned towards Bigot de Sainte-Croix, and said in his ear: "I hope you will none the less believe yourself Minister of Foreign Affairs."

The unfortunate royal family were still prisoners in the narrow box of the Logographe. The heat there was horrible: the sun scorched the white walls of this furnace where the captives listened, as in a place of torture, to the most ignoble insults and the most sanguinary threats.

At seven o'clock in the evening, Count François de la Rochefoucauld succeeded in approaching the box of the Logographe. He thus describes its aspect at this hour: "I approached the King's box; it was unguarded except by some wretches who were drunk and paid no attention to me, so that I half-opened the door. I saw the King with a fatigued and downcast face; he was sitting on the front of the box, coldly observing through his lorgnette the scoundrels who were talking, sometimes one after another, and sometimes all together. Near him was the Queen, whose tears and perspiration had completely drenched her fichu and her handkerchief. The Dauphin was asleep on her lap, and resting partly also on that of Madame de Tourzel. Mesdames Elisabeth, de Lamballe, and Madame the King's daughter were at the back of the box. I offered my services to the King, who replied that it would be too dangerous to try to see him again, and added that he was going to the Luxembourg that evening. The Queen asked me for a handkerchief; I had none; mine had served to bind up the wounds of the Viscount de Maillé, whom I had rescued from some pikemen. I went out to look for a handkerchief, and borrowed one from the keeper of the refreshment-room; but as I was taking it to the Queen, the sentinels were relieved, and I found it impossible to approach the box."

We have just seen what occurred at the Assembly after the close of the combat. Cast now a glance at the Tuileries. What horrible scenes, what cries of grief, how many wounded, dead, and dying, what streams of blood! What had become of those Swiss who, either in consequence of their wounds, or through some other motive, had been obliged to remain at the palace? Eighty of them had defended the grand staircase like heroes, against an immense crowd, and died after prodigies of valor. Seventeen Swiss who were posted in the chapel, and who had not fired a shot since the fight began, hoped to save their lives by laying down their arms. It was a mistake. They had their throats cut like the others. Two ushers of the King's chamber, MM. Pallas and de Marchais, sword in hand, and hats pulled down over their eyes, said: "We don't want to live any longer; this is our post; we ought to die here!" and they were killed at the door of their master's chamber.

M. Dieu died in the same way on the threshold of the Queen's bedroom. A certain number of nobles who had not followed the King to the Assembly succeeded in escaping the blows of the assassins. Passing through the suite of large apartments towards the Louvre Gallery, they rejoined there some soldiers detailed to guard an opening contrived in the flooring, so as to prevent the assailants from entering by that way. They crossed this opening on boards, and reached the extremity of the gallery unhindered; then, going down the staircase of Catharine de Medici, they managed to gain the streets near the Louvre. These may have been saved. But woe to all men, no matter what their conditions, who remained in the Tuileries! Domestic servants, ushers, laborers, every soul was put to death. They killed even the dying, even the surgeons who were caring for the wounded. It is Barbaroux himself who describes the murderers as "cowardly fugitives during the action, assassins after the victory, butchers of dead bodies which they stabbed with their swords so as to give themselves the honors of the combat. In the apartments, on roofs, and in cellars, they massacred the Swiss, armed or disarmed, the chevaliers, soldiers, and all who peopled the chateau.... Our devotion was of no avail," says Barbaroux again; "we were speaking to men who no longer recognized us."

And the women, what was their fate? When the firing began, the Queen's ladies and the Princesses descended to Marie Antoinette's apartments on the ground-floor. They closed the shutters, hoping to incur less danger, and lighted a candle so as not to be in total darkness. Then Mademoiselle Pauline de Tourzel exclaimed: "Let us light all the candles in the chandelier, the sconces, and the torches; if the brigands force open the door, the astonishment so many lights will cause them may delay the first blow and give us time to speak." The ladies set to work. When the invaders broke in, sabre in hand, the numberless lights, which were repeated also in the mirrors, made such a contrast with the daylight they had just left, that for a moment they remained stupefied. And yet, the Princess de Tarente, Madame de La Roche-Aymon, Mademoiselle de Tourzel, Madame de Ginestons, and all the other ladies were about to perish when a man with a long beard made his appearance, crying to the assassins in Pétion's name: "Spare the women; do not dishonor the nation."

Madame Campan had attempted to go up a stairway in pursuit of her sister. The murderers followed her. She already felt a terrible hand against her back, trying to seize her by her clothes, when some one cried from the foot of the stairs: "What are you doing up there?"—"Hey!" said the murderer, in a tone that did not soon leave the trembling woman's ears. The other voice replied: "We don't kill women." The Revolution goes fast; it will kill them next year. Madame Campan was on her knees. Her executioner let go his hold. "Get up, hussy," he said to her, "the nation spares you!" In going back she walked over corpses; she recognized that of the old Viscount de Broves. The Queen had sent word to him and to another old man as the last night began, that she desired them to go home. He had replied: "We have been only too obedient to the King's orders in all circumstances when it was necessary to expose our lives to save him; this time we will not obey, and will simply preserve the memory of the Queen's kindness."

What a sight the Tuileries presented! People walked on nothing but dead bodies. A comic actor drank a glass of blood, the blood of a Swiss; one might have thought himself at a feast of Atreus. The furniture was broken, the secretaries forced open, the mirrors smashed to pieces. Prudhomme, the journalist of the Révolutions de Paris, thinks that "Medicis-Antoinette has too long studied in them the hypocritical look she wears in public." What a sinister carnival! Drunken women and prostitutes put on the Queen's dresses and sprawl on her bed. Through the cellar gratings one can see a thousand hands groping in the sand, and drawing forth bottles of wine. Everywhere people are laughing, drinking, killing. The royal wine runs in streams. Torrents of wine, torrents of blood. The apartments, the staircase, the vestibule, are crimson pools. Disfigured corpses, pictures thrust through with pikes, musicians' stands thrown on the altar, the organ dismounted, broken,—that is how the chapel looks. But to rob and murder is not enough: they will kindle a conflagration. It devours the stables of the mounted guards, all the buildings in the courts, the house of the governor of the palace: eighteen hundred yards of barracks, huts, and houses. Already the fire is gaining on the Pavilion of Marsan and the Pavilion of Flora. The flames are perceived at the Assembly. A deputy asks to have the firemen sent to fight this fire which threatens the whole quarter Saint-Honoré. Somebody remarks that this is the Commune's business. But the Commune, to use a phrase then in vogue, thinks it has something else to do besides preventing the destruction of the tyrant's palace. It turns a deaf ear. The messenger returns to the Assembly. It is remarked that the flames are doing terrible damage. The president decides to send orders to the firemen. But the firemen return, saying: "We can do nothing. They are firing on us. They want to throw us into the fire." What is to be done? The president bethinks himself of a "patriot" architect, Citizen Palloy, who generally makes his appearance whenever there are "patriotic" demolitions to be accomplished. It is he whom they send to the palace, and who succeeds in getting the flames extinguished. The Tuileries are not burned up this time. The work of the incendiaries of 1792 was only to be finished by the petroleurs of 1871.