Historic Oddities and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

Among the many episodes of the French Revolution there is one which deserves to be somewhat closely examined, because of the gravity of the accusation which it involves against the King and Queen, and because a good deal of controversy has raged round it. The episode is that of the locksmith Gamain, whom the King and Queen are charged with having attempted to poison.

That the accusation was believed during "the Terror" goes without saying; the heated heads and angry hearts at that time were in no condition to sift evidence with impartiality. Afterwards, the charge was regarded as preposterous, till the late M. Paul Lacroix—better known as le Bibliophile Jacob—a student of history, very careful and diligent as a collector, gave it a new spell of life in 1836, when he reformulated the accusation in a feuilleton of the Siècle. Not content to let it sleep or die in the ephemeral pages of a newspaper, he republished the whole story in 1838, in his "Dissertations sur quelques points curieux de l'histoire de France." This he again reproduced in his "Curiosités de l'histoire de France," in 1858. M. Louis Blanc, convinced that the case was made out, has reasserted the charge in his work on the French Revolution, and it has since been accepted by popular writers—as Décembre-Alonnier—who seek to justify the execution of the King and Queen, and to glorify the Revolution.

M. Thiers rejected the accusation; M. Eckard pointed out the improbabilities in the story in the "Biographie Universelle," and M. Mortimer-Ternaux has also shown its falsity in his "Histoire de la Terreur;" and finally, M. Le Roy, librarian of Versailles, in 1867, devoted his special attention to it, and completely disproved the poisoning of Gamain. But in spite of disproval the slanderous accusation does not die, and no doubt is still largely believed in Paris.

So tenacious of life is a lie—like the bacteria that can be steeped in sulphuric acid without destroying their vitality—that the story has been again recently raked up, and given to the public, from Lacroix, in a number of the Cornhill Magazine (December, 1887); the writer of course knew only Lacroix' myth, and had never seen how it had been disproved. It is well now to review the whole story.

François Gamain was born at Versailles on August 29, 1751. He belonged to an hereditary locksmith family. His father Nicolas had been in the same trade, and had charge of the locks in the royal palaces in Versailles and elsewhere.

The love of Louis XVI. for mechanical works is well known. He had a little workshop at Versailles, where he amused himself making locks, assisted by François Gamain, to whom he was much attached, and with whom he spent many hours in projecting and executing mechanical contrivances. The story is told of the Intendant Thierry, that when one day the King showed him a lock he had made, he replied, "Sire, when kings occupy themselves with the works of the common people, the common people will assume the functions of kings," but the mot was probably made after the fact.

After the terrible days of the 5th and 6th of October, 1789, the King was brought to Paris. Gamain remained at Versailles, which was his home, and retained the King's full confidence.

When, later, the King was surrounded by enemies, and he felt the necessity for having some secret place where he could conceal papers of importance which might yet fall into the hands of the rabble if the palace was again invaded, as it had been at Versailles, he sent for Gamain to make for him an iron chest in a place of concealment, that could only be opened by one knowing the secret of the lock.

Unfortunately, the man was not as trustworthy as Louis XVI. supposed. Surrounded by those who had adopted the principles of the Revolution, and being a man without strong mind, he followed the current, and in 1792 he was nominated member of the Council General of the Commune of Versailles, and on September 24 he was one of the commissioners appointed "to cause to disappear all such paintings, sculptures, and inscriptions from the monuments of the Commune as might serve to recall royalty and despotism."

The records of the debates of the Communal Council show that Gamain attended regularly and took part in the discussions, which were often tumultuous.