The Life of Marie Antoinette

CHAPTER XXXVI. Feelings of Marie Antoinette.-Different Plans are formed for her Escape. -She hopes for Aid from Austria and Prussia.-La Fayette comes to Paris. -His Mismanagement.-An Attempt is made to assassinate the Queen.-The Motion of Bishop Lamourette.-The Feast of the Federation.-La Fayette proposes a Plan for the King's Escape.-Bertrand proposes Another.-Both are rejected by the Queen.

We can do little more than guess at the feelings of Marie Antoinette after such a day of horrors. She could scarcely venture to write a letter, lest it should fall into hands for which it was not intended, and be misinterpreted so as to be mischievous to herself and to her correspondents. And two brief notes-one on the 4th of July to Mercy, and one written a day or two later to the Landgravine of Hesse-Darmstadt-are all that, so far as we know, proceeded from her pen in the sad period between the two attacks on the palace. Brief as they are, they are characteristic as showing her unshaken resolution to perform her duty to her family, and proving at the same time how absolutely free she was from any delusion as to the certain event of the struggle in which she was engaged. No courage was ever more entirely founded on high and virtuous principle, for no one was ever less sustained by hope. To Mercy she says:

"July 4th, 1792.

"You know the occurrences of the 20th of June. Our position becomes every day more critical. There is nothing but violence and rage on one side, weakness and inactivity on the other. We can reckon neither on the National Guard nor on the army. We do not know whether to remain in Paris, or to throw ourselves into some other place. It is more than time for the powers to speak out boldly. The 14th of July and the days which will follow it may become days of general mourning for France, and of regret to the powers who will have been too slow in explaining themselves. All is lost if the factions are not arrested in their wickedness by fear of impending chastisement. They are resolved on a republic at all risks. To arrive at that, they have determined to assassinate the king. It would be necessary that any manifesto[1] should make the National Assembly and Paris responsible for his life and the lives of his family.

"In spite of all these dangers, we will not change our resolution. You may depend on this as much as I depend on your attachment. It is a pleasure to me to believe that you allow me a stare of the attachment which bound you to my mother. And this is a moment to give me a great proof of it, in saving me and mine, if there be still time.[2]"

The letter to the landgravine was one of reply to a proposal which that princess, who had long been one of her most attached friends, had lately made to her, that she should allow her brother, Prince George of Darmstadt, to carry out a plan by which, as he conceived, he could convey the queen and her children safely out of Paris; the enterprise being, as both he and his sister flattered themselves, greatly facilitated by the circumstance that the prince's person was wholly unknown in the French capital.

"July, 1792.[3]

"Your friendship and your anxiety for me have touched my very inmost soul. The person[4] who is about to return to you will explain the reasons which have detained him so long. He will also tell you that at present I do not dare to receive him in my own apartment. Yet it would have been very pleasant to talk to him about you, to whom I am so tenderly attached. No, my princess, while I feel all the kindness of your offers, I can not accept them. I am vowed for life to my duties, and to those beloved persons whose misfortunes I share, and who, whatever people may say of them, deserve to be regarded with interest by all the world for the courage with which they support their position. The bearer of this letter will be able to give you a detailed account of what is going on at present, and of the spirit of this place where we are living. I hear that he has seen much, and has formed very correct ideas. May all that we are now doing and suffering one day make our children happy! This is the only wish that I allow myself. Farewell, my princess; they have taken from me every thing except my heart, which will always remain constant in its love for you. Be sure of this; the loss of your love would be an evil which I could not endure. I embrace you tenderly. A thousand compliments to all yours. I am prouder than ever of having been born a German."

In her mention of the 14th of July as likely to bring fresh dangers, she is alluding to the announcement of an intention of the Jacobins to hold a fresh festival to commemorate the destruction of the Bastile on the anniversary of that exploit; a celebration which she had ample reason to expect would furnish occasion for some fresh tumult and outrage. And we may remark that in one of these letters she rests her whole hope on foreign assistance; while in the other, she rejects foreign aid to escape from her almost hopeless position. But the key to her feeling in both cases is one and the same. Above all things she was a devoted, faithful wife and mother. To herself and her own safety she never gave a thought. Her first duty, she rightly judged, was to the king, and she looked to such a manifesto as she desired Austria and Prussia to issue, backed by the movements of a powerful army, as the measure which afforded the best prospect of saving her husband, who could hardly be trusted to save himself; while, for the very same reason, she refused to fly without him, even though flight might have saved her children, her son and heir, as well as herself, because it would have increased her husband's danger. In each case her decision was that of a brave and devoted wife, not perhaps in both instances judicious; for when Prussia did mingle in the contest, as it did in the first week in July, it evidently increased the perils of Louis, if indeed they were capable of aggravation, by giving the Jacobins a plea for raising the cry "that the country was in danger." But in the second case, in her refusal to flee, and to leave her husband by himself to confront the existing and impending dangers, she judged rightly and worthily of herself; and the only circumstance that has prevented her from receiving the credit due for her refusal to avail herself of Prince George's offer is that throughout the whole period of the Revolution her acts of disinterestedness and heroism are so incessant that single deeds of the kind are lost in the contemplation of her entire career during this long period of trial.

It was the peculiar ill-fortune of Louis that more than once the very efforts made by people who desired to assist him increased his perils. The events of the 20th of June had shocked and alarmed even La Fayette. From the beginning of the Revolution he had vacillated between a desire for a republic and for a limited monarchy on something like the English pattern, without being able to decide which to prefer. He had shown himself willing to court a base popularity with the mob by heaping uncalled-for insults on the king and queen. But though he had coquetted with the ultra- revolutionists, and allowed them to make a tool of him, he had not nerve for the villainies which it was now clear that they meditated. He had no taste for bloodshed; and, though gifted with but little acuteness, he saw that the success of the Jacobins and Girondins would lead neither to a republic nor to a limited monarchy, but to anarchy; and he had discernment enough to dread that. He therefore now sincerely desired to save the king's life, and even what remained of his authority, especially if he could so order matters that their preservation should be seen to be his own work. He was conscious also that he could reckon on many allies in any effort which he might make for the prevention of further outrages. The more respectable portion of the Parisians viewed the recent outrages with disgust, sharpened by personal alarm. The dominion of Santerre and his gangs of destitute desperadoes was manifestly fraught with destruction to themselves as well as to the king. The greater part of the army under his command shared these feelings, and would gladly have followed him to Paris to crush the revolutionary clubs, and to inflict condign punishment on the authors and chief agents in the late insurrection. If he had but had the skill to avail himself of this favorable state of feeling, there can be little doubt that it was in his power at this moment to have established the king in the full exercise of all the authority vested in him by the Constitution, or even to have induced the Assembly to enlarge that authority. He so mismanaged matters that he only increased the king's danger, and brought general contempt and imminent danger on himself likewise. His enemies had more than once accused him of wishing to copy Cromwell. His friends had boasted that he would emulate Monk. But if he was too scrupulous for the audacious wickedness of the one, he proved himself equally devoid of the well-calculating shrewdness of the other. If, subsequently, he had any reason to congratulate himself on the result of his conduct, it was that, like the stork in the fable, after be had thrust his head into the mouth of the wolf, he was allowed to draw it out again in safety.

Louis's enemies had abundantly shown that they did not lack boldness. If they were to be defeated, it could only be by action as bold as their own. Unhappily, La Fayette's courage had usually found vent rather in blustering words than in stout deeds; and those were the only weapons he could bring himself to employ now. He resolved to remonstrate with the Assembly; but instead of bringing up his army, or even a detachment, to back his remonstrance, he came to Paris with a single aid-de-camp, and, on the 28th of June, presented himself at the bar of the Assembly and demanded an audience. A fortnight before he had written a letter to the president, in which he had denounced alike the Jacobin leaders of the clubs and the Girondin ministers, and had called on the Assembly to suppress the clubs; a letter which had produced no effect except to unite the two parties against whom it was aimed more closely together, and also to give them a warning of his hostility to them, which, till he was in a position to show it by deeds, it would have been wiser to have avoided.

He now repeated by word of mouth the statements and arguments which he had previously advanced in writing, with the addition of a denunciation of the recent insurrection and its authors, whom, he insisted, the Assembly was bound instantly to prosecute. His speech was not ill received; for the Constitutionalists, who knew what he designed to say, had mustered in full force, and had packed the galleries beforehand with hired clappers; and many even of the Deputies who did not belong to that party cheered him, so obvious to all but the most desperate was the danger to the whole State, if Santerre and his brigands should be allowed to become its masters. But they cared little for a barren indignation which had no more effectual weapon than reproaches. He had said enough to exasperate, but had not done enough to intimidate; while those whom he denounced had greater boldness and presence of mind than he, and had the forces on which they relied for support at hand and available. They instantly turned the latter on himself, and in their turn denounced him for having left his army without leave. He was frightened, or at least perplexed, by such a charge. He made no reply, but seemed like one stupefied; and it was only through the eloquence of one of his friends, M. Ramond, that he was saved from the impeachment with which Guadet and Vergniaud openly threatened him for quitting the army without leave.

Ramond's oratory succeeded in carrying through the Assembly a motion in his favor, and several companies of the National Guard and a vast multitude of the citizens showed their sympathy with his views by escorting him with acclamations to his hotel. But neither their evident inclination to support him, nor even the danger with which he himself had been threatened, could give him resolution and firmness in action. For a moment he made a demonstration as if he were prepared to secure the success of his designs by force. He proposed that the king should the next morning review Acloque's companies of the National Guard, after which he himself would harangue them on their duty to the king and Constitution. But the Girondins persuaded Petion to exert his authority, as mayor, to prohibit the review. La Fayette was weak enough to submit to the prohibition; and, quickened, it is said, by intelligence that Petion was preparing lo arrest him, the next day retired in haste from Paris and rejoined the army.

He had done the king nothing but harm. He had shown to all the world that though the Royalists and Constitutionalists might still be numerically the stronger party, for all purposes of action they were by far the weaker. He had encouraged those whom he had intended to daunt, and strengthened those whom he had hoped to crush; and they, in consequence, proceeded in their treasons with greater boldness and openness than ever. Marie Antoinette, as we have seen, had expressed her belief that they designed to assassinate Louis, and she now employed herself, as she had done once before, in quilting him a waistcoat of thickness sufficient to resist a dagger or a bullet; though so incessant was the watch which was set on all their movements that it was with the greatest difficulty that she could find an opportunity of trying it on him. But it was not the king, but she herself, who was the victim whom the traitors proposed to take off in such a manner; and in the second week of July a man was detected at the foot of the staircase leading to her apartments, disguised as a grenadier, and sufficiently equipped with murderous weapons. He was seized by the guard, who had previous warning of his design; but was instantly rescued by a gang of ruffians like himself, who were on the watch to take advantage of the confusion which might be expected to arise from the accomplishment of his crime.

Meanwhile the Assembly wavered, hesitated, and did nothing; the Girondins and Jacobins were fertile in devising plots, and active in carrying them out. One day, as if seized with a panic at some report of the strength of the Austrian and Prussian armies, the Assembly again passed a vote declaring the country in danger; on another, roused by a letter which a Madame Gouges, a daughter of a fashionable dress-maker, a lady of more notoriety than reputation, but who cultivated a character for philosophy, took upon herself to write to them, and still more by a curiously sentimental speech of the Bishop of Lyons, with the appropriate name of Lamourette,[5] the members bound themselves to have for the future but one heart and one sentiment; and for some minutes Jacobins, Girondins, Constitutionalists, and Royalists were rushing to and fro across the floor of the hall in a frenzy of mutual benevolence, embracing and kissing one another, and swearing an eternal friendship. They even sent a message to Louis to beg him to come and witness this new harmony. He came at once. With his disposition, it was not strange that he yielded to the illusion of the strange spectacle which he beheld. He shed tears of joy, declared the complete agreement of his sentiments with theirs, and predicted that their union would save France. They escorted him back to the Tuileries with cheers, and the very same evening, after a stormy debate, which was a remarkable commentary on the affection which they had just vowed to one another, they set him at defiance, insulting him by annulling some decrees to which he had given his assent, and passing a vote of confidence in Petion as mayor.

The Feast of the Federation, as it was called, passed off quietly. The king again recognized the Constitution before the altar erected in the Champ de Mars, and, as he drove back to the palace, the populace accompanied him the whole way, never ceasing their acclamations of "Vivent le roi et la reine![6]" till they had dismounted and returned to their apartments. Such a close of the day had been expected by no one. La Fayette, who seems at last to have become really anxious to save the lives of the king and queen, and to have been seriously convinced that they were in danger, had now formally opened a communication with the court. He concerted his plans with Marshal Luckner, and had learned so much wisdom from his recent failure that he now placed no reliance on any thing but a display of superior force. He accordingly proposed to Louis to bring up a battalion of picked men from his and the marshal's armies to escort him to the Champ de Mars; and, judging that, even if the feast should pass off without any fresh danger, the king could never be considered permanently safe while he remained in Paris, he recommended that on the next day, Louis, still under the protection of the same troops, should announce to the Assembly his departure for Compiegne, and should at once quit the capital for that town, to which trusty officers would in the mean time have brought up other divisions of the army in sufficient strength to set all disaffected and seditious spirits at defiance.

The plan was at all events well conceived, but it was declined. Louis did not apparently distrust the marquis's good faith, but he doubted his ability to carry out an enterprise requiring an energy and decision of which no part of La Fayette's career had given any indication; while the queen distrusted his loyalty even more than his capacity. One of those with whom she took counsel expressed his opinion of the marquis's real object by saying that he might save the monarch, but not the monarchy; and she replied that his head was still full of republican notions which he had brought from America, and refused to place the slightest confidence in him. We may suspect that she did not do him entire justice, and may rather believe, with Louis, that he was now acting in good faith; but, with a recollection of all that she had suffered at his hands, we can not wonder at her continued distrust of him.[A7]

But his was not the only plan proposed for the escape of the royal family. Bertrand de Moleville, though no longer Louis's minister, retained his undiminished confidence, and he had found a place which he regarded as admirably suited for a temporary retreat-the Castle of Gaillon, near the left bank of the Seine, in Normandy, the people of which province were almost universally loyal. It was within the twenty leagues from Paris which the Assembly had fixed for the limit of the royal journeys; while yet, in case of the worst, it was likewise within easy distance of the coast. An able engineer officer had pronounced it to be thoroughly defensible; and the Count d'Hervilly, with other officers of proved courage and presence of mind, undertook the arrangement of all the military measures necessary for the safe escort of the entire royal family, which they themselves were willing to conduct, with the aid of some detachments of the Swiss Guards; while the necessary funds were provided by the loyal devotion of the Duke de Liancourt, who placed a million of francs at his sovereign's disposal, and of one or two other nobles who came forward with almost equally lavish offerings. Louis certainly at first regarded the plan with favor, and, in the opinion of M. Bertrand, it would not have been difficult to induce him to adopt it, if the queen could have been brought over to a similar view.

Unhappily several motives combined to disincline her to it. The insurrection which the Girondins[8] were preparing had originally been fixed for the 29th of July; but, a few days before, M. Bertrand learned that it had been postponed till the 10th of August. This gave him time to mature his arrangements, all of which, as he reckoned, could be completed in time for the king to leave Paris on the evening of the 8th. But before that day arrived news had reached the court that the Duke of Brunswick, the Prussian commander-in-chief, had put his army in motion, and that he was not likely to meet any obstacle sufficient to prevent him from marching at once on Paris; a measure which, to quote the language of M. Bertrand, "the queen was too anxious to see accomplished to hesitate at believing in its execution.[9]" And at the same time some of the Jacobin leaders-Danton, Petion, and Santerre-had opened communications with the Government, and had undertaken for a large bribe to prevent the threatened outbreak. The money had been paid to them, and Marie Antoinette more than once boasted to her attendants that they were now safe, as having gained over Danton; placing the firmer reliance on this mode of extrication because it coincided with her belief that the mutual jealousy of the two parties would dispose one of them at least eventually to embrace the cause of the king, as their beat ally against the other. The result seems to show that the Jacobins only took the bribe the more effectually to lull their destined victims into a false security.

A third consideration, and that apparently not the weakest, was Marie Antoinette's rooted dislike of the Constitutionalist party. In their rants the Duc de Liancourt had taken his seat in the first Assembly; though, as he assured M. Bertrand, the king himself was aware that his object in so doing had been to serve his majesty in the most effectual manner; and he was also the statesman whose advice had mainly contributed to induce the king to visit Paris after the destruction of the Bastile, a step which she had always regarded as the forerunner and cause of some of the most irremediable encroachments of the Revolutionists. Even the duke's present devotion to the king's cause could not entirely efface from her mind the impression that he was not in his heart friendly to the royal authority. She urged these arguments on the king. The last probably weighed with him but little: the two former he felt as strongly as the queen herself; and he delayed his decision, sending word to M. Bertrand that he had resolved to defer his departure "till the last extremity.[10]" His faithful servant was in amazement. "When," he exclaimed, "was the last extremity to be looked for, if it had not already come?" But his astonishment was turned to absolute despair when the next day M. Montmorin informed him that the project had been entirely given up, the queen herself remarking "that M. Bertrand overlooked the circumstance that he was throwing them altogether into the hands of the Constitutionalists."

She has been commonly blamed for this decision, as that which was the chief cause of all the subsequent calamities which overwhelmed her and the whole family. Yet it is not difficult to understand the motives which influenced her, and it is impossible to refrain from regarding them with sympathy. She was now at the decisive moment of a crisis which might well perplex the clearest head. There could be no doubt that the coming insurrection would be the turning-point of the long conflict which had now lasted three years; and it was a conflict in which her husband's throne was certainly at stake, perhaps even his and her own life. They had indeed been so for three years; and throughout the whole contest her view had constantly been that honor was still dearer than life; and honor she identified with the preservation of her husband's crown, her children's inheritance. Mirabeau had said that she would not care to save her life if she could not save the crown also; and, though she can not have decided without a terrible conflict of feeling, her decision was now in conformity with Mirabeau's judgment of her. In the preceding year the journey to Varennes had been treated by the Republicans as a plea for pronouncing the deposition of the king; and, though they were defeated then, they were undoubtedly stronger in the new Assembly. On the other hand, she suspected that they themselves had some misgivings as to the chance of a second attack on the palace being more successful than the former one had proved; and that the openness with which the preparations for it were announced was intended to terrify Louis and herself into a second flight; and she might not unreasonably infer that what their enemies desired was not the wisest course for them to adopt. To fly would evidently be to leave the whole field in both the Assembly and the city open to their enemies. It might save their lives, but it would almost to a certainty forfeit the crown. To stay and face the coming danger might indeed lose both, but it might also save both; and she determined rather to risk all, both crown and life, in the endeavor to save all, rather than to save the one by the deliberate sacrifice of the other. It was a gallant and unselfish determination: if in one point of view it was unwise, it was at least becoming her lofty lineage, and consistent with her heroic character.