THE ROYAL FAMILY CARRIED TO PARIS.
Waning Popularity of La Fayette.—The King contemplates Flight.—Letter of Admiral d'Estaing.—The Flanders Regiment called to Versailles.—Fête in the Ball-room at Versailles.—Insurrection of the Women; their March to Versailles.—Horrors of the Night of October 5th.—The Royal Family conveyed to Paris.
The press now began to assail Bailly and La Fayette as in league with the aristocrats. The Assembly at the Palais Royal was becoming paramount, a terrific power, threatening ruin to all who should advocate measures of moderation. The most violent harangues roused the populace, and it was evident that they could be easily turned by their leaders into any path of destruction. Threatening letters flooded the National Assembly, and one of great ferocity was signed by St. Huruge. Though he declared it a forgery, he was arrested and imprisoned. The municipal authority also forbade farther meetings in the Palais Royal, and La Fayette, with the National Guard, dispersed the gatherings.
The king now seriously contemplated flight, that, at a safe distance from Paris and surrounded by chosen troops, he might dictate terms to his people, or, if they refused, prepare, by the aid of foreign arms, for war. About one hundred and eighty miles northeast of Paris, on the frontiers of France, was the city of Metz. The city contained about fifty thousand inhabitants, and its fortifications, constructed by Vauban, were of the most extensive and formidable kind. The Marquis de Bouille, one of the most devoted servants of the king, and subsequently one of the most active agents in urging the foreign powers to march against France, commanded, in garrison there, thirty thousand picked troops, resolute Royalists, and who had been taught to regard the popular movement with contempt.
The plan was well matured for the king to escape to Metz. There he was to be joined by the court, the nobles with all their retainers, the ancient parliaments of the provinces, all composed of the aristocratic class, and by all the soldiers whom the Royalist officers could induce to follow them to that rendezvous. Then, by the employment of all the energies of fire and blood, France was to be brought back into subjection to the old régime.
La Fayette knew of this plan, and yet he did not dare to divulge it to the people, for he knew that it would provoke a fierce and terrible outbreak. He saw the peril in which the royal family was involved, and he wished for their protection. He saw the doom with which the liberties of France were menaced, and the liberty for which he was struggling was dearer to him than life. If the king had been either a merciless despot or a reliable friend of liberty, then would La Fayette's path of duty have been plain. But the king was an amiable, kindly-intentioned, weak-minded, vacillating man, quite the tool of the inexorable court.
It is difficult to conceive of a situation more embarrassing than that in which La Fayette was now placed. He was at the head of the National Guard and was informed of all the plots of the court. He wished to be faithful to his sovereign, and wished also to be true to his country. Without the connivance, or at least secret assent of La Fayette, it was hardly possible for the king to escape.
The old admiral D'Estaing was commander of the National Guard at Versailles. He was a man of noble birth, of magnanimous character, and, though with true patriotism he espoused the popular cause, he was, like La Fayette, in favor of a monarchy, and was sincerely friendly to the king. On the 13th of September he dined with La Fayette at Paris. Here the marquis unfolded to the amazed admiral the terrible secret in all its details; that the Baron Breteuil, one of the most implacable enemies of the Revolution, was arranging with the Austrian embassador for the co-operation of Austria; that eighteen regiments had already taken the oath of fidelity to the court; that the Royalists, in large numbers, were already congregating at Metz; that the nobles and the clergy had combined in raising funds, so that fifteen hundred thousand francs ($300,000) a month were secured; that measures were already adopted to besiege Paris, cut off all supplies, and starve the city into subjection; and that more than sixty thousand of the clergy and nobility were pledged to rally around the king.
D'Estaing was appalled by the tidings. He knew that if the populace were informed of the conspiracy it would rouse them to phrensy, that no earthly power could protect the royal family from their fury, and that instantly the fiercest civil war would blaze from the Rhine to the Pyrenees. Aware of the imbecility of the king, and that the queen was the author of every vigorous measure, he immediately addressed a very earnest letter to her. He wrote as follows in a letter long, earnest, and imploring: