Maria Antoinette / Makers of History

by John S. C. Abbott

The king's explanation to his son.

The king thus replied. "I wished, my dear child, to render the people still happier than they were. I wanted money to pay the expenses occasioned by wars. I asked the Parliament for money, as my predecessors have always done. Magistrates composing the Parliament opposed it, and said that the people alone had a right to consent to it. I assembled the principal inhabitants of every town, whether distinguished by birth, fortune, or talents, at Versailles. That is what is called the States-General. When they were assembled, they required concessions of me which I could not make, either with due respect for myself or with justice to you, who will be my successor. Wicked men, inducing the people to rise, have occasioned the excesses of the last few days. The people must not be blamed for them."

Flight of the nobility.
Inflammatory placards.

While these terrific scenes were passing in Paris and in France, the majority of the nobility were rapidly emigrating to find refuge in other lands. Every night the horizon was illumined by the conflagration of their chateaux, burned down by mobs. Many of them were mercilessly tortured to death. Large numbers, however, gathering around them such treasures as could easily be carried away, escaped to Germany on the frontiers of France. Some fifteen hundred of these emigrants were at Coblentz, organizing themselves into a military band, seeking assistance from the Austrian monarchy, and threatening, with an overwhelming force of invasion, to recover their homes and their confiscated estates, and to rescue the royal family. The populace in Paris were continually agitated with the rumors of this gathering army at Coblentz. As Maria was an Austrian, she was accused of being in correspondence with the emigrants, and of striving to rouse the Austrian monarchy to make war upon France, and to deluge Paris with the blood of its citizens. Most inflammatory placards were posted in the streets. Speeches full of rancor and falsehood were made to exasperate the populace. And when the fish-women wished to cast upon the queen some epithet of peculiar bitterness, they called her "The Austrian."

The Duke of Orleans.
The Duke of Orlean's plans frustrated.
Rumors of an invasion.
The leaders of the populace.

It is confidently asserted that the mob was instigated to the march to Versailles by the emissaries of the Duke of Orleans, the father of Louis Philippe. The duke hoped that the royal family, terrified by the approach of the infuriated multitude, would enter their carriages and flee to join the emigrants at Coblentz. The throne would then be vacant, and the people would make the Duke of Orleans, who, to secure this result, had become one of the most violent of the Democrats, their king. It was a deeply-laid plot and a very plausible enterprise. But the king understood the plan, and refused thus to be driven from the throne of his fathers. He, however, entreated the queen to take the children and escape. She resolutely declared that no peril should induce her to forsake her husband, but that she would live or die by his side. During all the horrors of that dreadful night, when the palace at Versailles was sacked, the duke, in disguise, with his adherents, was endeavoring to direct the fury of the storm for the accomplishment of this purpose. But his plans were entirely frustrated. The caprice seized the mob to carry the king to Paris. This the Duke of Orleans of all things dreaded; but matters had now passed entirely beyond his control. Rumors of the approaching invasion were filling the kingdom with alarm. There was a large minority, consisting of the most intelligent and wealthy, who were in favor of the king, and who would eagerly join an army coming for his rescue. Should the king escape and head that army, it would give the invaders a vast accession of moral strength, and the insurgent people feared a dreadful vengeance. Consequently, there were great apprehensions entertained that the king might escape. The leaders of the populace were not yet prepared to plunge him into prison or to load him with chains. In fact, they had no definite plan before them. He was still their recognized king. They even pretended that he was not their captive—that they had politely, affectionately invited him, escorted him on a visit to his capital. They entreated the king and queen to show that they had no desire to escape, but were contented and happy, by entering into all the amusements of operas, and theaters, and balls. But in the mean time they doubled the guards around them, and drove away their faithful servants, to place others at their tables and in their chambers who should be their spies.

The queen urged to attend the theater.
Dignified reply of the queen.

But two days after these horrid outrages, in the midst of which the king and queen were dragged as captives to Paris, the city sent a deputation to request the queen to appear at the theater, and thus to prove, by participating in those gay festivities, that it was with pleasure that she resided in her capital. With much dignity the queen replied, "I should, with great pleasure, accede to the invitation of the people of Paris; but time must be allowed me to soften the recollection of the distressing events which have recently occurred, and from which I have suffered so severely. Having come to Paris preceded by the heads of my faithful guards, who perished before the door of their sovereign, I can not think that such an entry into the capital ought to be followed by rejoicings. But the happiness I have always felt in appearing in the midst of the inhabitants of Paris is not effaced from my memory; and I hope to enjoy that happiness again, so soon as I shall find myself able to do so."

Her unpopularity increases.
The queen's vigorous action.
Ultimate cause of the popular fury.
Transgressors visited in their children.

The queen was, however, increasingly the object of especial obloquy. She was accused of urging the king to bombard the city, and to adopt other most vigorous measures of resistance. It was affirmed that she held continual correspondence with the emigrants at Coblentz, and was doing all in her power to rouse Austria to come to the rescue of the king. Maria would have been less than the noble woman she was if she had not done all this, and more, for the protection of her husband, her child, and herself. She inherited her mother's superiority of mind and mental energy. Had Louis possessed her spirit, he might have perished more heroically, but probably none the less surely. Maria did, unquestionably, do every thing in her power to rouse her husband to a more energetic and manly defense. Generations of kings, by licentiousness, luxury, and oppression; by total disregard of the rights of the people, and by the naughty contempt of their sufferings and complaints, had kindled flames of implacable hatred against all kingly power. Circumstances, over which neither Louis nor Maria had any control, caused these flames to burst out with resistless fury around the throne of France, at the time in which they happened to be seated upon it. Though there never had been seated upon that throne more upright, benevolent, and conscientious monarchs, they were compelled to drain to the dregs the poisoned chalice which their ancestors had mingled. Perhaps this world presents no more affecting illustration of that mysterious principle of the divine government, by which the transgressions of the parents are visited upon the children. Louis XIV., as haughty and oppressive a monarch as ever trod an enslaved people into the dust, died peacefully in his luxurious bed. His descendant, Louis XVI., as mild and benignant a sovereign as ever sat upon an earthly throne, received upon his unresisting brow the doom from which his unprincipled ancestors had escaped. It is difficult for us, in the sympathy which is excited for the comparatively innocent Maria Antoinette and Louis, to remember the ages of wrong and outrage by which the popular exasperation had been raised to wreak itself in indiscriminating atrocities. There is but one solution to these mysteries: "After death comes the judgment."