I mentioned the fruitlessness of my own efforts to awake the ministry.
"Ah," said he, with a melancholy smile, "my friend, if you had been admitted into the palace, or into the council-chamber itself, you would have had precisely the same tale to tell. All was infatuation. I was ushered into the highest presence last midnight. My despatches were read. I was complimented on my zeal, and then was told that every thing was provided for. I was even closeted for two hours with the two individuals who, of all France, or of all mankind, had the largest stake in the crisis, and was again told that there was no crisis to be feared. I even offered to take a squadron of dragoons, and arrest the conspirators at the moment with my own hand. I saw the eyes of the noblest of women fill with tears of grief and indignation at the hopelessness of my appeal, and the answer, 'that though Frenchmen might hate the ministers, they always loved their king.' I saw that all was over."
"Still," said I, "I cannot comprehend how the mere mob of Paris could have succeeded against the defenders of the palace."
"If you had seen it as I did, the only wonder is, how the Tuileries held out so long. After passing a night on guard at the Pavilon de Flore, I was summoned at daybreak to attend his majesty. What a staff for a reviewing monarch! The queen endeavouring to support the appearance of calmness; Madame Elizabeth, that human angel, following her, dissolved in tears; the two royal children, weeping and frightened, making their way through the crowd of nobles, guardsmen, domestics who had gathered promiscuously in the chambers and corridors, armed with whatever weapons they could find, and all in confusion. From the windows there was another scene; and the only time when I saw the queen shudder, was when she cast her eye across the Place du Carrousel, and saw it covered with the dense masses of the multitude drawn up in battle-array. A more gloomy sight never met the eye. From time to time the distant discharge of cannon was heard, giving us the idea that some treachery was transacting in the remoter parts of the city, every discharge answered by a roar of—'Down with the King'—'Death to Marie Antoinette'—'The lamp-iron to all traitors.' While, as I glanced on those around me, I saw despair in every countenance; the resolution perhaps to die, but the evident belief that their death must be in vain. You now know all."
I still expressed my strong anxiety to know what had been the events within the palace.
"Marston, I cannot think of them. I cannot speak of them. I see nothing but a vision of blood, shame, folly, wretchedness. There never was a cause more fatally abandoned. Every thing that could be done to ruin a monarchy was done. I was standing beside the royal group, when a deputation from the National Assembly made its appearance. At its head was a meagre villain, whom one might have taken for the public executioner. He came up, cringing and bowing, to the unfortunate king; but with a look which visibly said—We have you in our power. I could have plunged my sword in the triumphant villain's heart. I had even instinctively half drawn it, when I felt the gentle pressure of a hand on mine. It was the queen's. 'Remember the king's presence. We must owe nothing to violence,' were her words. And at this instant she looked so heart-broken, yet so noble, that I could have worshipped her. The deputation pressed the necessity of 'taking shelter,' as they phrased it, 'in the bosom of the faithful Assembly.' The words, 'assembly of traitors,' burst from my lips. A shout of approbation arose on all sides. But I was more rewarded by a sorrowing smile from the queen. She was indignant at the proposal. 'No; never shall I leave this spot but by the king's command!' she exclaimed. 'I would rather be chained to the walls.' As the guard pressed round her at the words, she suddenly stopped, took a pistol from one of the Garde du Corps, and forcing it on the king—'Now,' said the heroine—'now is the time to show yourself a king of France!' An universal cry of enthusiasm arose, and hundreds of swords were brandished in the air. The deputation, evidently expecting to be massacred, made an effort to reach the door, and the monarchy was on the point of being saved; when the leader of the party glanced back at the royal circle. There stood unfortunate Louis, hesitating, with the pistol in his hand. On such moments all depends. The villain crept up to the king, and whispered in his ear—'Would you have all your family put to death? In the Assembly all are safe.'—'Well, then, we shall go,' was the simple answer. He might have added—'To the scaffold.' The queen pressed her hands on her eyes, and wept bitterly. All were silent. In a few minutes more our sad procession was crossing the garden to the door of the Assembly, amid a roar, which could not have been fiercer or more triumphant had we been going to execution."
It was already twilight; the fine summer's day, as if it had been dimmed by the desperate scenes of which it was witness, set in sudden clouds; and the distant shoutings of the populace seemed to be answered by the voice of a storm. Lafontaine's wound began to bleed afresh by the agitation of his story, and to find medical assistance, was my first object. Having seen him conveyed to my bed, and leaving him in charge of my valet, I hastened towards the residence of the physician to the embassy. In doing this, I had to cross the Rue St Honoré. But there my course was stopped. I shrink from alluding to those horrid scenes and times. The scene which there met my eyes has scarcely left them since.
The populace were returning from the conquest and plunder of the palace to the Palais Royale, the headquarters of all convulsion; and they had arranged their ranks into something like a triumphal procession on the stage. The dead bodies of the brave Swiss were carried on boards or biers, preceded by banners of all kinds; the plundered ornaments of the Tuileries were borne on the heads of men; the horses from the royal stables, caparisoned for the occasion, drew hearses, in which the bodies of the mob who had fallen were deposited. Brief as the time for decoration had been, wreaths of artificial flowers, taken from the shops of the marchandes de modes, and theatrical shawls and mantles from the stores of the fripiers, covered the biers; and the whole, surrounded and followed by a forest of pikes and bayonets, plumes and flags, had no other light than the lurid and shifting blaze of thousands of torches tossing in the wild and howling wind.
The train seemed endless; shocked and sickened, I had made repeated efforts to cross the column, but was repeatedly driven back. If all the dead criminality of Paris had risen to join all the living, it could scarcely have increased my astonishment at the countless thousands which continued to pour on before me; nor scarcely, if the procession had started from the grave, could it have looked more strange, squalid, haggard, and woebegone. In the rear came the cannon, which had achieved this melancholy victory. And they, again, were sometimes converted into the carriage of the dead, sometimes of the plunder, and, in every instance, were surmounted by women, female furies, drinking, shouting, and uttering cries of unspeakable savageness and blasphemy against priests, nobles, and kings; and, mingled with all this, were choruses of bacchanal songs, accompanied with shouts of laughter. It was now near midnight; and my anxiety for the condition of my unfortunate friend at last urged me to make a desperate attempt to force my way through the mass of pikes and daggers. After being swept far along with the stream, I reached the street in which the physician lived. He set out with me immediately, and, by his superior knowledge of the route, we were enabled to make our way unimpeded through streets, that looked like dens of robbers, to my hotel.
But there a new and still more alarming disappointment awaited me. I found the porter and all the attendants of the establishment gathered on the stairs in terror. Lafontaine was gone! Whether, frenzied by the insults and yells of the populace, who continued to pass in troops from time to time, or anxious for my safety, he had started from his bed, put on his sword, and rushed into the street; without the possibility of being restrained, and without uttering a word of explanation.