The Life of Marie Antoinette

CHAPTER XXX. The Mob attacks the Castle at Vincennes.-La Fayette saves it.-He insults the Nobles who come to protect the King.-Perverseness of the Count d'Artois and the Emigrants.-Mirabeau dies.-General Sorrow for his death.-He would probably not have been able to arrest the Revolution.- The Mob prevent the King from visiting St. Cloud.-The Assembly passes a Vote to forbid him to go more than twenty Leagues from Paris.

The mob, however, was more completely under Jacobin influence; and, at the end of February, Santerre collected his ruffians for a fresh tumult; the object now being the destruction of the old castle of Vincennes, which for some time had been almost unoccupied. La Fayette, whose object at this time was apparently regulated by a desire to make all parties acknowledge his influence, in a momentary fit of resolution marched a body of his National Guard down to save the old fortress, in which he succeeded, though not without much difficulty, and even some danger. He found he had greatly miscalculated his influence, not only over the populace, but over his own soldiers. The rioters fired on him, wounding some of his staff; and at first many of the soldiers refused to act against the people. His officers, however, full of indignation, easily quelled the spirit of mutiny; and, when subordination was restored, proposed to the general to follow up his success by marching at once back into the city and seizing the Jacobin demagogues who had caused the riot. There was little doubt that the great majority of the citizens, in their fear of Santerre and his gang, would joyfully have supported him in such a measure; but La Fayette's resolution was never very consistent nor very durable. He became terrified, not, indeed, so much at the risk to his life which he had incurred, as at the symptom that to resist the mob might cost him his popularity; and to appease those whom he might have offended, he proceeded to insult the king. A report had got abroad, which was not improbably well founded, that Louis's life had been in danger, and that an assassin had been detected while endeavoring to make his way into the Tuileries; and the report had reached a number of nobles, among whom D'Espremesnil, once so vehement a leader of the Opposition in Parliament, was conspicuous, who at once hastened to the palace to defend their sovereign. It was not strange that he and Marie Antoinette should receive them graciously; they had not of late been used to such warm-hearted and prompt displays of attachment. But the National Guards who were on duty were jealous of the cordial and honorable reception which those Nobles met with; they declared that to them alone belonged the task of defending the king; though they took so little care to perform it that they had allowed a gang of drunken desperadoes to get possession of the outer court of the palace, where they were menacing all aristocrats with death. Louis became alarmed for the safety of his friends, and begged them to lay aside their arms; and they had hardly done so when La Fayette arrived. He knew that the mob was exasperated with him for his repression of their outrages in the morning, and that some of his soldiers had not been well pleased at being compelled to act against the rioters. So now, to recover their good-will, he handed over the weapons of the Nobles, which were only pistols, rapiers, and daggers, to the National Guard; and after reproaching D'Espremesnil and his companions for interfering with the duties of his troops, he drove them down the stairs, unarmed and defenseless as they were, among the drunken and infuriated mob. They were hooted and ill-treated; but not only did he make no attempt to protect them, but the next day he offered them a gratuitous insult by the publication of a general order, addressed to his own National Guard, in which he stigmatized their conduct as indecent, their professed zeal as suspicious, and enjoined all the officials of the palace to take care that such persons were not admitted in future. "The king of the Constitution," he said, "ought to be surrounded by no defenders but the soldiers of liberty."

Marie Antoinette had good reason to speak as she did the next week to Mercy; though we can hardly fail to remark, as a singular proof of the strength of her political prejudices, and of the degree in which she allowed them to blind her to the objects and the worth of the few honest or able men whom the Assembly contained, that she still regards the Constitutionalists as only one degree less unfavorable to the king's legitimate authority than the Jacobins. And we shall hereafter see that to this mistaken estimate she adhered almost to the end. "Mischief," she says, "is making progress so rapid that there is reason to fear a speedy explosion, which can not fail to be dangerous to us, if we ourselves do not guide it There is no middle way; either we must remain under the sword of the factions, and consequently be reduced to nothing, if they get the upper hand, or we must submit to be fettered under the despotism of men who profess to be well-intentioned, but who always have done, and always will do us harm. This is what is before us, and perhaps the moment is nearer than we think, if we can not ourselves take a decided line, or lead men's opinions by our own vigor and energetic action. What I here say is not dictated by any exaggerated notions, nor by any disgust at our position, nor by any restless desire to be doing something. I perfectly feel all the dangers and risks to which we are exposed at this moment. But I see that all around us affairs are so full of terror that it is better to perish in trying to save ourselves than to allow ourselves to be utterly crushed in a state of absolute inaction.[1]"

And she held the same language to her brother, the emperor, assuring him that "the king and herself were both convinced of the necessity of acting with prudence, but there were cases in which dilatoriness might ruin every thing; and that the factious and disloyal were prosecuting their objects with such celerity, aiming at nothing less than the utter subversion of the kingly power, that it would be extremely dangerous not to offer a resistance to their plans.[2]" And referring to her project of foreign aid, she reported to him that she had promises of assistance from both Spain and Switzerland, if they could depend on the co-operation of the empire.

And still the emigrant princes were adding to her perplexity by their perverseness. She wrote herself to the Count d'Artois to expostulate with him, and to entreat him "not to abandon himself to projects of which the success, to say the least, was doubtful, and which would expose himself to danger without the possibility of serving the king.[3]" No description of the relative influence of the king and queen at this time can be so forcible as the fact that it was she who conducted all the correspondence of the court, even with the king's brothers. But her remonstrances had no influence. We may not impute to the king's brothers any intention to injure him; but unhappily they had both not only a mean idea of his capacity, but a very high one, much worse founded, of their own; and full of self-confidence and self-conceit, they took their own line, perfectly regardless of the suspicions to which their perverse and untractable conduct exposed the king, carrying their obstinacy so far that it was not without difficulty, that the emperor himself, though they were in his dominions, was able to restrain their machinations.

Meanwhile, the queen was steadily carrying on the necessary arrangements for flight. Money had to be provided, for which trustworthy agents were negotiating in Switzerland and Holland, while some the emperor might be expected to furnish. Mirabeau marked out for himself what he regarded as a most important share in the enterprise, undertaking to defend and justify their departure to the Assembly, and nothing doubting that he should be able to bring over the majority of the members to his view of that subject, as he had before prevailed upon them to sanction the journey of the princesses. But in the first days of April all the hopes of success which had been founded on his cooperation and support were suddenly extinguished by his death. Though he had hardly entered upon middle age, a constant course of excess had made him an old man before his time. In the latter part of March he was attacked by an illness which his physicians soon pronounced mortal, and on the 2d of April he died. He had borne the approach of death with firmness, professing to regret it more for the sake of his country than for his own. He was leaving behind him no one, as he affirmed, who would he able to arrest the Revolution as he could have done; and there can be no doubt that the great bulk of the nation did place confidence in his power to offer effectual resistance to the designs of the Jacobins. The various parties in the State showed this feeling equally by the different manner in which they received the intelligence. The court and the Royalists openly lamented him. The Jacobins, the followers of Lameth, and the partisans of the Duke of Orleans, exhibited the most indecent exultation.[4] But the citizens of Paris mourned for him, apparently, without reference to party views. They took no heed of the opposition with which he had of late often defeated the plots of the leaders whom they had followed to riot and treason. They cast aside all recollection of the denunciations of him as a friend to the court with which the streets had lately rung. In their eyes he was the personification of the Revolution as a whole; to him, as they viewed his career for the last two years, they owed the independence of the Assembly, the destruction of the Bastile, and of all other abuses; and through him they doubted not still to obtain every thing that was necessary for the completion of their freedom.

His remains were treated with honors never before paid to a subject. He lay in state; he had a public funeral. His body was laid in the great Church of St. Genevieve, which, the very day before, had been renamed the Pantheon, and appropriated as a cemetery for such of her illustrious sons as France might hereafter think worthy of the national gratitude. Yet, though his great confidant and panegyrist, M. Dumont,[5] has devoted an elaborate argument to prove that he had not overestimated his power to influence the future; and though the Russian embassador, M. Simolin, a diplomatist of extreme acuteness, seems to imply the same opinion by his pithy saying that "he ought to have lived two years longer, or died two years earlier," we can hardly agree with them. La Marck, as has been seen, even when first opening the negotiation for his connection with the court, doubted whether he would be able to undo the mischief which he had acquiesced in, measures not of reform nor of reconstruction, but of total abolition and destruction, are in their very nature irrevocable and irremediable. The nobility was gone; he had not resisted its suppression. The Church was gone; he had himself been among the foremost of its assailants. How, even if he had wished it, could he have undone these acts? and if he could not, how, without those indispensable pillars and supports, could any monarchy endure? That he was now fully alive to the magnitude of the dangers which encompassed both throne and people, and that he would have labored vigorously to avert them, we may do him the justice to believe. But it seems not so probable that he would have succeeded, as that he would have added one more to the list of these politicians who, having allowed their own selfish aims to carry them beyond the limits of prudence and justice, have afterward found it impossible to retrace their steps, but have learned to their shame and sorrow that their rashness has but led to the disappointment of their hopes, the permanent downfall of their own reputations, and the ruin of what they would gladly have defended and preserved. And, on the whole, it is well that from time to time such lessons should be impressed upon the world. It is well that men of lofty genius and pure patriotism should learn, equally with the most shallow empiric or the most self-seeking demagogue, that false steps in politics can rarely be retraced; that concessions once made can seldom, if ever, be recalled, but are usually the stepping-stones to others still more extensive; that what it would have been easy to preserve, it is commonly impossible to repair or to restore.

He had been laid in the grave only a fortnight, when, as if on purpose to show how utterly defenseless the king now was, the Jacobins excited the mob and the assembly to inflict greater insults on him than had been offered even by the attack on Versailles, or by any previous vote. As Easter, which was unusually late this year, approached, Louis became anxious to spend a short time in tranquillity and holy meditation; and, since the tumultuousness of the city was not very favorable for such a purpose, he resolved to pass a fortnight at St. Cloud. But when he was preparing to set out, a furious mob seized the horses and unharnessed them; the National Guards united with the rioters, refusing to obey La Fayette's orders to clear the way for the royal carriage, and the king and queen were compelled to dismount and to return to their apartments; while, a day or two afterward, the Assembly came to a vote which seemed as if designed for an express sanction of this outrage, and which ordained that the king should not be permitted ever to move more than twenty leagues from Paris.

Of all the decrees which it had yet enacted, this, in some sense, may be regarded as the most monstrous. It was not only passing a penal sentence on the royal family such as in no country or age any but convicted criminals had even been subjected to, but it was an insult and an injury to every part of the kingdom except the capital, which, by an intolerable assumption, it treated as if it were the whole of France. Joseph, as has been seen, had wisely pointed out to his brother-in-law that it was one, and no unimportant part, of a sovereign's duty to visit the different provinces and chief cities of his kingdom, and Louis had in one instance acted on his advice. We have seen how gladly he was received by the citizens of Cherbourg, and what advantages they promised themselves from his having thus made himself personally acquainted with their situation and wants and prospects; and we can not doubt that other towns and cities shared this feeling, nor that it was well founded, and that the acquisition by a king of a personal knowledge of the resources and capabilities and interests of the great cities, of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, is a benefit to the whole community; but of this every province and every city but Paris was now to be deprived. It was to be an offense to visit Rouen, or Lyons, or Bordeaux; to examine Riquet's canal or Vauban's fortifications. The king was the only person in the kingdom to whom liberty of movement was to be denied; and the peasants of every province, and the citizens of every other town, were to be refused for a single day the presence of their sovereign, whom the Parisians thus claimed a right to keep as a prisoner in their own district.

It is hardly strange that such open attacks on their liberty made a deeper impression on the queen, and even on the phlegmatic disposition of the king, than any previous act of violence, or that it increased their eagerness to escape with as little delay as possible. Indeed, the queen regarded the public welfare as equally concerned with their own in their safe establishment in some town to which they should also be able to remove the Assembly, so that that body as well as themselves should be protected from the fatal influence of the clubs of Paris, and of the populace which was under the dominion of the clubs.[6] Accordingly, on the 20th of April, she writes to the emperor[7] that "the occurrence which has just taken place has confirmed them more than ever in their plans. The very guards who surrounded them are the persons who threaten them most. Their very lives are not safe; but they must appear to submit to every thing till the moment comes when they can act; and in the mean time their captivity proves that none of their actions are done by their own accord." And she urges her brother at once to move a strong body of troops toward some of his fortresses on the Belgian frontier-Arlon, Vitron, or Mons-in order to give M. de Bouille a pretext for collecting troops and munitions of war at Montmedy. "Send me an immediate answer on this point; let me know, too, about the money; our position is frightful, and we must absolutely put an end to it next month. The king desires it even more than I do."

As May proceeds she presses on her preparations, and urges the emperor to accelerate his, especially the movements of his troops; but the Count d'Artois and his followers are a terrible addition to her anxieties. Leopold had told her that the ancient minister, Calonne, always restless and always unscrupulous, was now with the count, and was busily stirring him up to undertake some enterprise or other;[8] and her reply shows how justly she dreads the results of such an alliance. "The prince, the Count d'Artois, and all those whom they have about them, seem determined to be doing something. They have no proper means of action, and they will ruin us, without our having the slightest connection with their plans. Their indiscretion, and the men who are guiding them, will prevent our communicating our secret to them till the very last moment."

To Mercy she is even more explicit in her description of the imminence of the danger to which the king and she are now exposed than she had been to her brother. As the time for attempting to escape grew nearer, the embassador became the more painfully impressed with the danger of the attempt. Failure, as it seems to him, will be absolutely fatal. He asks her anxiously whether the necessity is such that it has become indispensable to risk such a result;[9] and she, in an answer of considerable length and admirable clearness of expression and argument, explains her reasons for deciding that it is absolutely unavoidable: "The only alternative for us, especially since the 18th of April,[10] is either blindly to submit to all that the factions require, or to perish by the sword which is forever suspended over our heads. Believe me, I am not exaggerating the danger; you know that my notion used to be, as long as I could cherish it, to trust to gentleness, to time, and to public opinion. But now all is changed, and we must either perish or take the only line which remains to us. We are far from shutting our eyes to the fact that this line also has its perils; but, if we must die, it will be at least with glory, and in having done all that we could for our duty, for honor, and for religion.... I believe that the provinces are less corrupted than the capital; but it is always Paris which gives the tone to the whole kingdom. We should greatly deceive ourselves if we fancied that the events of the 18th of April, horrible as they were, produced any excitement in the provinces. The clubs and the affiliations lead France where they please; the right-thinking people, and those who are dissatisfied with what is taking place, either flee from the country or hide themselves, because they are not the stronger party, and because they have no rallying-point. But when the king can show himself freely in a fortified place, people will be astonished to see the number of dissatisfied people who will then come forward, who, till that time, are groaning in silence; but the longer we delay, the less support we shall have....

"Let us resume. You ask two questions: 1st. Is it possible or useful to wait? No; by the explanation of our position which I gave at the beginning of this letter, I have sufficiently proved the impossibility.... As to the usefulness, it could only be useful on the supposition that we could count on a new legislative body.... 2d. Admitting the necessity of acting promptly, are we sure of means to escape; of a place to retreat to, and of having a party strong enough to maintain itself for two months by its own resources? I have answered this question several times. It is more than probable that the king, once escaped from here, and in a place of safety, will have, and will very soon find, a very strong party. The means of escape depend on a flight the most immediate and the most secret. There are only four persons who are acquainted with our secret; and those whom we mean to take with us will not know it till the very moment. None of our own people will attend us; and at a distance of only thirty or thirty-five leagues we shall find some troops to protect our march, but not enough to cause us to be recognized till we reach the place of our destination.

"....I can easily conceive the repugnance which, on political grounds, the emperor would feel to allowing his troops to enter France.... But if their movement is solicited by his brother-in-law, his ally, whose life, existence, and honor are in danger, I conceive the case is very different; and as to Brabant, that province will never be quiet till this country is brought back to a different state. It is, then, for himself also that my brother will be working in giving us this assistance, which is so much the more valuable to us, that his troops will serve as an example to ours, and will even be able to restrain them.

"And it is with this view that the person[11] of whom I spoke to you in my letter in cipher demands their employment for a time ... We can not delay longer than the end of this month. By that time I hope we shall have a decisive answer from Spain. But till the very instant of our departure we must do everything that is required of us, and even appear to go to meet them. It is one way, perhaps the only one, to lull the mob to sleep and to save our lives."