1792

Apprehension of poison.
The queen daily insulted.
An assassin in the queen's chamber.

Every day now added to the insults and anguish the royal family were called to endure. They were under such apprehension of having their food poisoned, that all the articles placed upon the table by the attendants, provided by the Assembly, were removed untouched, and they ate and drank nothing but what was secretly provided by one of the ladies of the bed-chamber. One day the queen stood at her window, looking out sadly into the garden of the Tuileries, when a soldier, standing under the window, with his bayonet upon his gun, looked up to her and said, "I wish, Austrian woman, that I had your head upon my bayonet here, that I might pitch it over the wall to the dogs in the street." And this man was placed under her window ostensibly for her protection! Whenever the queen made her appearance in the garden, she encountered insults often too outrageous to be related. An assassin, one night, with his sharpened dagger, endeavored to penetrate her chamber. She was awoke by the noise of the struggle with the guard at the door. The assassin was arrested. "What a life!" exclaimed the queen. "Insults by day, and assassins by night! But let him go. He came to murder me. Had he succeeded, the Jacobins would have borne him to-morrow in triumph through the streets of Paris."

The allied army.

The allied army, united with the emigrants, in a combined force of nearly one hundred and fifty thousand men, now entered the frontiers of France, to rescue, by military power, the royal family. They issued a proclamation, in which it was stated that "the allied sovereigns had taken up arms to stop the anarchy which prevailed in France—to give liberty to the king, and restore him to the legitimate authority of which he had been deprived." The proclamation assured the people of Paris that, if they did not immediately liberate the king and return to their allegiance, the city of Paris should be totally destroyed, and that the enemies of the king should forfeit their heads. This proclamation, with the invasion of the French territory by the allied army, fanned to the intensest fury the flames of passion already raging in all parts of the empire. Thousands of young men from all the provinces thronged into the city, breathing vengeance against the royal family. In vain did the king declare his disapproval of these violent measures on the part of the allies. In vain did he assert his readiness to head the armies of France to repel invasion.

Parties in France.
The Royalists, Girondists, and Jacobins.
Consternation in Paris.
The king's dethronement.
Scene from the palace.
Gathering of the mob.
The queen with her children.
Brutal remarks of the troops.

There were now three important parties in France struggling for power. The first was that of the king, and the nobles generally, wishing for the re-establishment of the monarchy. The second was that of the Girondists, wishing for the dethronement of the king and the establishment of a republic, with the power in the hands of the most influential citizens in intelligence and wealth. The third was that of the ultra Democrats or Jacobins, who wished to raise the multitude from degradation, penury, and infamy, into power, by the destruction of the throne, and the subjection of the middling classes, and the entire subversion of all the distinctions of wealth and rank. The approach of the allies united both of these latter classes against the throne. A motion was immediately introduced into the Assembly that the monarchy be entirely abolished, and a mob rioting through Paris threatened the deputies with death unless they dethroned the king. But an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men were marching upon Paris, and the deputies feared a terrible retribution if this new insult were heaped upon their sovereign. No person can describe the confusion and consternation with which the metropolis of France was filled. The mob declared, on the 9th of August, that, unless the dethronement were that day pronounced, they would that night sack the palace, and bear the heads of the royal family through the streets upon their pikes. The Assembly, undecided, and trembling between the two opposing perils, separated without the adoption of any resolve. All knew that a night of dreadful tumult and violence must ensue. Some hundreds of gentlemen collected around the king and queen, resolved to perish with them. Several regiments of soldiers were placed in and around the palace to drive back the mob, but it was well known that the troops would more willingly fraternize with the multitude than oppose them. The sun went down, and the street lamps feebly glimmered through the darkness of the night. The palace was filled with armed men. The gentlemen surrounding the king were all conscious of their utter inability to protect him. They had come but to share the fate of their sovereign. The queen and the Princess Elizabeth ascended to an upper part of the palace, and stepped from a low window into the dark shadow of a balcony to look out upon the tumultuous city. The sound, as of the gathering of a resistless storm, swept through all the streets, and rose loud and threatening above the usual roar of the vast metropolis. The solemn tones of the alarm bells, pealing through the night air, summoned all the desperadoes of France to their several places of rendezvous, to march upon the palace. The rumbling of artillery wheels, and the frequent discharge of musketry, proclaimed the determination and the desperation of the intoxicated mob. In darkness and silence, the queen and her sister stood listening to these fearful sounds, and their hearts throbbed violently in view of the terrible scene through which they knew that they must pass. The queen, pale but tearless, and nerved to the utmost by queenly pride, descended to the rooms below. She walked into the chamber where her beautiful son was sleeping, gazed earnestly upon him for a moment, bent over him, and imprinted upon his cheek a mother's kiss—and yet without a tear. She entered the apartment of her daughter—lovely, surpassingly lovely in all the blooming beauty of fifteen. The princess, comprehending the peril of the hour, could not sleep. Maria pressed her child to her throbbing heart, and the pride of the queen was soon vanquished by the tenderness of the mother, as with convulsive energy she embraced her, and wept in anguish almost unendurable. Shouts of unfeeling derision arose from the troops below, stationed for the protection of the royal family, and their ears were assailed by remarks of the most brutal barbarity. Hour after hour of the night lingered along, the clamor without incessantly increasing, and the crowds surrounding the palace augmenting. The excitement within the palace was so awful that no words could give it utterance. The few hundred gentlemen who had come so heroically to share the fate of their sovereign were aware that no resistance could be made to the tens of thousands who were thirsting for their blood.

Rising of the sun.
Disaffection of the troops.
Extremity of the royal family.

Midnight came. It was fraught with horror. The queen, in utter exhaustion, threw herself upon a sofa. At that moment a musket shot was fired in the court-yard. "There is the first shot," said the queen, with the calmness of despair, "but it will not be the last. Let us go and be with the king." At length, from the windows of their apartment, a few gleams of light began to redden the eastern sky. "Come," said the Princess Elizabeth, "and see the rising sun." Maria went mournfully to the window, gazed long and steadfastly upon the rising luminary, feeling that, before that day's sun should go down, she and all whom she loved would be in another world. It was an awful spectacle which the light of day revealed. All the avenues to the palace were choked with intoxicated thousands. The gardens, and the court-yard surrounding the palace, were filled with troops, placed there for the protection of the sovereign, but evidently sympathizing with the mob, with whom they exchanged badges and friendly greetings. The queen, apprehensive that the children might be massacred in their beds, had them dressed, and placed by the side of herself and the king. It was recommended to the king that he should go down into the court-yard, among the troops stationed there for his defense; that his presence might possibly awaken sympathy and enthusiasm in his behalf. The king and queen, with their son and daughter, and Madame Elizabeth, went down with throbbing hearts to visit the ranks of their defenders. They were received with derisive insults and hootings. Some of the gunners left their posts, and thrust their fists into the face of the king, insulting him with menaces the most brutal. They instantly returned to the palace, pallid with indignation and despair.

Spirit of the queen.
The king's calmness.