Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty

by Imbert de Saint-Amand

All those who had been authorized to follow the royal family to the Temple—the Princess de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel and her daughter, Mesdames Thibaud, Basire, Navarre, MM. de Chamilly and François Hue—surrounded the captives with the most respectful and devoted attentions. But these noble courtiers of misfortune, these voluntary prisoners who were so glad to be associated in their master's trials, were not long to enjoy an honor they had so keenly desired. In the night of August 18-19, two municipal officers presented themselves, who were commissioned to fetch away "all persons not belonging to the Capet family." The Queen pointed out in vain that the Princess de Lamballe was her relative. The Princess must go with the others. "In our position," has said Madame de Tourzel, the governess of the children of France, "there was nothing to do but obey. We dressed ourselves and then went to the Queen, to whom I resigned that dear little Prince, whose bed had been carried into her room without awaking him." It was an indescribable torture for Madame de Tourzel to abandon the Dauphin, whom she cherished so tenderly, and whom she had educated since 1789. "I abstained from looking at him," she adds, "not only to avoid weakening the courage we had so much need of, but in order to give no room for censure, and so come back, if possible, to a place we left with so much regret. The Queen went instantly into the chamber of the Princess de Lamballe, from whom she parted with the utmost grief. To Pauline and me she showed a touching sensibility, and said to me in an undertone: 'If we are not so happy as to see you again, take good care of Madame de Lamballe. Do the talking on all important occasions, and spare her as much as possible from having to answer captious and embarrassing questions.'" The two municipal officers said to Hue and Chamilly: "Are you the valets-de-chambre?" On their affirmative response, the two faithful servants were ordered to get up and prepare for departure. They shook hands with each other, both of them convinced that they had reached the end of their existence. One of the municipal officers had said that very day in their presence: "The guillotine is permanent, and strikes with death the pretended servants of Louis." When they descended to the Queen's antechamber, a very small room in which the Princess de Lamballe slept, they found that Princess and Madame de Tourzel all ready to start, and clasped in one embrace with the Queen, the children, and Madame Elisabeth. Tender and heart-breaking farewells, presages of separations more cruel still!

All these exiles from the prison left at the same time. Only one of them, M. François Hue, was to return. He was examined at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and at the close of this interrogation an order was signed permitting him to be taken back to the tower. "How happy I was," he writes, "to return to the Temple! I ran to the King's chamber. He was already up and dressed, and was reading as usual in the little tower. The moment he saw me, his anxiety to know what had occurred made him advance toward me; but the presence of the municipal officers and the guards who were near him made all conversation impossible. I indicated by a glance that, for the moment, prudence forbade me to explain myself. Feeling the necessity of silence as well as myself, the King resumed his reading and waited for a more opportune moment. Some hours later, I hastily informed him what questions had been asked me and what I had replied." (Dernières Années de Louis XVI., par François Hue.)

The unfortunate sovereign doubtless believed that the others were also about to return. Vain hope! During the day Manuel announced to the King that none of them would come back to the Temple. "What has become of them?" asked Louis XVI. anxiously.—"They are prisoners at the Force," returned Manuel.—"What are they going to do with the only servant I have left?" asked the King, glancing at M. Hue.—"The Commune leaves him with you," said Manuel; "but as he cannot do everything, men will be sent to assist him."—"I do not want them," replied Louis XVI.; "what he cannot do, we will do ourselves. Please God, we will not voluntarily give those who have been taken from us the chagrin of seeing their places taken by others!" In Manuel's presence, the Queen and Madame Elisabeth aided M. Hue to prepare the things most necessary for the new prisoners of the Force. The two Princesses arranged the packets of linen and other matters with the skill and activity of chambermaids.

Behold the heir of Louis XIV., the King of France and Navarre, with but a single servant left him! He has but one coat, and at night his sister mends it. Behold the daughter of the German Cæsars, with not even one woman to wait upon her, and who waits on herself, incessantly watched, meanwhile, by the inquisitors of the Commune; who cannot speak a word or make a gesture unwitnessed by a squad of informers who pursue her even into the chamber where she goes to change her dress, and who spy on her even when she is sleeping! And yet neither the calmness nor the dignity of the prisoners suffers any loss.

There was but one thing that keenly annoyed Louis XVI. It was when, on August 24, they deprived him, the chief of gentlemen, of his sword, as if taking away his sceptre were not enough. He consoled himself by prayer, meditation, and reading. He spent hours in the room containing the library of the keeper of archives of the Order of Malta, who had previously occupied the little tower. One day when he was looking for books, he pointed out to M. Hue the works of Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. "Those two men have ruined France," said he in an undertone. On another day he was pained by overhearing the insults heaped on this faithful servant by one of the Municipal Guards. "You have had a great deal to suffer to-day," he said to him. "Well! for the love of me, continue to endure everything; make no answer." At another time he slipped into his hand a folded paper. "This is some of my hair," said he; "it is the only present I can give you at this moment." M. Hue exclaims in his pathetic book: "O shade forever cherished! I will preserve this precious gift to my latest day! The inheritance of my son, it will pass on to my descendants, and all of them will see in this testimonial of Louis XVI.'s goodness, that they had a father who merited the affection of his King by his fidelity."

In the evenings the Queen made the Dauphin recite this prayer: "Almighty God, who created and redeemed me, I adore Thee. Spare the lives of the King, my father, and those of my family! Defend us against our enemies! Grant Madame de Tourzel the strength she needs to support the evils she endures on our account." And the angel of the Temple, Madame Elisabeth, recited every day this sublime prayer of her own composition: "What will happen to me to-day, O my God! I do not know. All I know is, that nothing will happen that has not been foreseen by Thee from all eternity. It is enough, my God, to keep me tranquil. I adore Thy eternal designs, I submit to them with my whole heart; I will all, I accept all; I sacrifice all to Thee; I unite this sacrifice to that of Thy dear Son, my Saviour, asking Thee by His sacred heart and His infinite merits, the patience in our afflictions and the perfect submission which is due to Thee for all that Thou wiliest and permittest." One day when she had finished her prayer, the saintly Princess said to M. Hue: "It is less for the unhappy King than for his misguided people that I pray. May the Lord deign to be moved, and to look mercifully upon France!" Then she added, with her admirable resignation: "Come, let us take courage. God will never send us more troubles than we are able to bear."

The prisoners were permitted to walk a few steps in the garden every day to get a breath of fresh air. But even there they were insulted. As they passed by, the guards stationed at the base of the tower took pains to put on their hats and sit down. The sentries scrawled insults on the walls. Colporteurs maliciously cried out bad tidings, which were sometimes false. One day, one of them announced a pretended decree separating the King from his family. The Queen, who was near enough to hear distinctly the voice which told this news, not exact as yet, was struck with a terror from which she did not recover.

And yet there were still souls that gave way to compassion. From the upper stories of houses near the Temple enclosure there were eyes looking down into the garden when the prisoners took their walk. The common people and the workmen living in these poor abodes were affected. Sometimes, to show her gratitude for the sympathy of those unknown friends, Marie Antoinette would remove her veil, and smile. When the little Dauphin was playing, there would be hands at the windows, joined as if to applaud. Flowers would sometimes fall, as if by chance, from a garret roof to the Queen's feet, and occasionally it happened that when the captives had gone back to their prison, they would hear in the darkness the echo of some royalist refrain, hummed by a passer-by in the silence of the night.

The Temple tower is no longer in existence. Bonaparte visited it when he was Consul. "There are too many souvenirs in that prison," he exclaimed. "I will tear it down." In 1811 he kept his promise. The palace of the grand-prior was destroyed in 1853. No trace remains of that famous enclosure of the Templars whose legend has so sombre a poetry. But it has left an impress on the imagination of peoples which will never be effaced. It seems to rise again gigantic, that tower where the son of Saint Louis realized not alone the type of the antique sage of whom Horace said: Impavidum ferient ruinae, but also the purest ideal of the true Christian. Does not the name Temple seem predestinated for a spot which was to be sanctified by so many virtues, and where the martyr King put in practice these verses of the Imitation of Jesus Christ, his favorite book: "It needs no great virtue to live peaceably with those who are upright and amiable; one is naturally pleased in such society; we always love those whose sentiments agree with ours. But it is very praiseworthy, and the effect of a special grace and great courage to live in peace with severe and wicked men, who are disorderly, or who contradict us.... He who knows best how to suffer, will enjoy the greatest peace; such a one is the conqueror of himself, master of the world, the friend of Jesus Christ, and the inheritor of heaven."