last days of the french monarchy - hilaire belloc

7/27/2019 Last Days of the French Monarchy - Hilaire Belloc

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THE LAST DAYS OF THEFRENCH MONARCHY


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THELASTDAYSOFTHEFRENCH MONARCHYBY

HILAIRE BELLOCAUTHOR OF " ROBESPIERRE," " MARIE

ANTOINETTE," ETC.

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONSFROM PAINTINGS AND PRINTS

ERRATA.-VHE author very much regrets to say that' r^.l_-.Vrf-v^vlr TTTOOr^ "mj.Aj-rf C**^VA*V j -

since the first edition of this book wasJL printed off and bound, he discovered its

title was identical with one on the same subjectwritten by Miss Maclehose some years ago, andhe trusts that this errata slip will correct anyconfusion between the two works,

LONDON -"< > ' CCHAPMAN & HALL LTD.1916

PD


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TOJAMES MURRAY ALLISON


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TABLE OF CONTENTSPART I

PAGETHE ROYAL SEANCE 15

PART IIINTRODUCTION 49THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 53

PART IIIINTRODUCTION 87THE STORMING OF THE TUILERIES 91

PART IVINTRODUCTION 117THE ROLE OF LAFAYETTE 119

PART VINTRODUCTION 169UNDER THE MILL OF VALMY 171

PART VIINTRODUCTION 197THE DEATH OF Louis XVI 199


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSThe Young Royalist frontispiece

To face PAGELouis XVI 15Louis-Stanislas-Xavier de Bourbon, Comte deProvence, afterward Louis XVIII 18

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand 22Jean-Sylvain Bailly, President of the Commons in

1789 27The Commons taking the oath in the Tennis-Courtat Versailles 31

Jacques Necker, Rector-General of Finances 34The meeting of the National Assembly at Versailles,June, 1789 39Emmanuel-Joseph Sieves, Deputy from Paris to theNational Assembly 42Gabriel Honore Riquetti, Comte De Mirabeau 46

Allegory of the oath-taking in the Tennis-Court atVersailles 51" Vive le Roi ! Vive la Nation ! " 55The National Assembly Petrified 58The National Assembly Revivified 58Madame Elisabeth 63

The end of the flight of the Royal Family at Varennes 66The Royal Family at Varennes, June 22, 1791 71Drouet, the Postmaster at Varennes 74The return to Paris 79The arrival of the Royal Family in Paris, June 25, 1791 82Enrolling volunteers in Paris on the Pont Neuf, be-

fore the statue of Henry IV 93The Storming of the Tuileries 94The Assault on the Tuileries 99A Soldier of the National Guard 100


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSPAGE

Grenadier of the Infantry of Ligne 100Marie-Antoinette and her Children 103Louis XVI The Forge in the Palace at Versailles 106The Tuileries and its Garden in 1757 inThe Struggle in the Halls of the Tuileries, August10, 1792 114Armand Gaston, Cardinal de Rohan 131Cartoon of the Three Orders [The Clergy, Nobilityand the Commons] in the National AssemblyForging the New Constitution 139A Popular Print at the time of the Revolution 142Maximilien Robespierre 147Georges Jacques Danton 149Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, Mar-quis de Lafayette 164Ceremonial Costume of the Clergy, the Nobility andthe Commons 171Uniforms of the Army of French Emigrants 172

Goethe, who was with the German Army at Valmy 177Marshal Francois-Christophe Kellermann, Duke ofValmy 183A Republican General 186A Colonel of Infantry 186Under the Mill at Valmy 192General Charles-Francois Dumouriez In Com-mand of the French at Valmy 197

Lamoignon de Malesherbes, Counsel for the Kingat his Trial 199

Republican soldiers in the Revolution 202Proclamation of the Provisional Executive Council 204The last victims of the Terror 209King Louis taking leave of his family in the towerof the Temple 211A Mass under the Terror 214The death of King Louis XVI, January 21, 1793 216


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PART ONETHE ROYAL SEANCE


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LOUIS XVIFrom a photograph by Braun, Clement & Co., New York, of the painting by

Antoine-Franeois Callet, in Museum of Versailles

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THE LAST DAYS OF THEFRENCH MONARCHYPART ONE

THE ROYAL SEANCE

UPON the crest of the steep and thicklywooded hills that rise from the left bank ofthe Seine below Paris, you may find a village, theold stones of which, and something spacious in itswhole arrangement, are consonant with its name.It is called " Marly of the King."There the great trees, the balustrade, and gates

still standing recall the palace to which the Frenchmonarchy retired when leisure or fatigue or mourn-ing withdrew it from Versailles ; for it was a placemore domestic and far less burdened with state.To the gates of that great country house there

came near ten o'clock, just after the hour when fulldarkness falls on a midsummer evening, a greatcoach, driving from Versailles. It was the coach ofthe Archbishop of Paris, coming urgently to see

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYthe king, and the day was Friday, the nineteenthof June, 1789. They were in the full crisis thatopened the Revolution. The tall windows of thepalace were fully lit as the coach came up the drive.The night air was cold, for those June days wererainy and full of hurrying cloud. The Archbishopof Paris and his colleague of Rouen, who was withhim, were summoned by their titles into the roomwhere Louis XVI sat discussing what should bedone for the throne.Two days before, upon the Wednesday, the com-

mons of the great Parliament the CommonsHouse in that great Parliament which had metagain after a hundred years, and which now feltbehind it the nation had taken the first revolu-tionary step and had usurped authority. Thequarrel which had hampered all reform since thisParliament of the States General had met six weeksbefore ; the refusal of the two privileged ordersand particularly of the nobles to vote with thecommons and to form with them one NationalAssembly ; the claim of the privileged orders andparticularly of the nobles to bar whatever the popu-lar representatives might decide all that had beendestroyed in spirit by a new act of sovereignty.

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THE ROYAL SEANCEUsing the title that was on all men's lips and

calling themselves the " National Assembly" thecommons had declared that the whole assembly wasan indivisible body, and alone the organ of thenation. They had used with conscious purpose thesolemn formula " Desires and decrees," whichhitherto throughout all these centuries had neverappeared above any seal or signature save that of aking. They clothed this spiritual thing with bodyby the enormous decision that no tax should bepaid in the kingdom that had not their approval.

This was the blow that had summoned thecouncil round the king at Marly upon this Fridaynight. For now two anxious days doubtful issuesand conflicting policies had pulled Louis this wayand that, whether to yield, whether to comprom-ise, or whether to strike back.

It was a fortnight since the sickly child who washeir to the throne had died, and this retirementof the royal family to Marly, consequent upon suchmourning, was confused by the numbness of thatshock also. The king perhaps more than the queenhad suffered in his powers and judgment ; forMarie Antoinette, the most vigorous and lucid of

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYthose gathered in council at Marly, the leastnational, and the least wide in judgment, wasactive at this moment for the full claims of thecrown.With her at the king's side in the taking of this

crucial decision stood other advisers. The king'stwo brothers, the elder and the younger, who, asLouis XVIII and Charles X, were to rule after therestoration, and who were now known under thetitles of Provence, and Artois were in the palacetogether. Provence, the elder, very dull and heart-less, was the more solid ; Artois, the younger,empty, poor in judgment, was the least unattrac-tive. They counted for their rank, and even Prov-ence for little else.

Barentin was there, the keeper of the seals. Hewas a man of very clear decision, of straightfor-ward speech and manner ; a man with somethingsword-like about him. He thought and said that theking had only to move troops and settle mattersat once.

There also, lit by the candles of that night, wasthe vacuous, puffed face of Necker, the millionaire.This man, famous through his wealth, which wasill acquired and enormous, an alien in religion as in

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iOUIS-STANISLAS-XAVIER DE BOURBON, COMTE DE PROVENCE, AFTERWARD LOUIS XVIIIFrom a photograph by Braun, Clement & Co., New York, of a painting by Jean-MartialFredou, belonging to Marquis de Yirieu, at the Chateau de Lantilly

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THE ROYAL SEANCEblood, had become, by one of those ironies in whichthe gods delight, the idol of the national move-ment. He was pitifully inferior to such an oppor-tunity, empty of courage, empty of decision, andalmost empty of comprehension. No idea informedhim unless it was that of some vague financial" liberalism " (rather, say, moral anarchy) suitableto the crookedways bywhich he himselfhad arrived.Those protruding eyes, that loose mouth, and thatlethargic, self-satisfied expression were the idolthat stood in the general mind for the giant thingsthat were coming. Behind such cold dross wasreddening the creative fire of the nation ! Such adoorkeeper did Fate choose to open the gates forthe armies of Marceau and Napoleon ! All hisadvice was for something " constitutional." Indays better suited for such men as he Necker wouldhave been a politician, and a parliamentary poli-tician at that.To these, then, thus assembled entered the arch-bishops with their news. The news was this : thatbefore sunset, just before they had left Versailles,the clergy had rallied to the commons. The bishops,indeed, all save four, had stood out for the privi-leged orders ; but the doubt in which all minds

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYhad been since the revolutionary step of forty-eighthours before was resolved. The clergy had brokenrank with the nobles ; for that matter, many ofthe wealthier nobles were breaking rank, too.Decision was most urgent ; the moment wascritical in the extreme, lest in a few hours theNational Assembly, already proclaimed, alreadyhalf formed, should arise united and in full strengthover against the crown.

In not two hours after the arrival of the prelatesthe decision, nearly reached before they came, wasfinally taken by the king. He would follow Necker,and Necker was for a long, windy, complicatedcompromise. Necker was for a constitution, large," liberal," strangling the action of the popularlife, dissolving the yes and no of creative creeds,leaving to the crown as much as would preserveits power to dismiss the States General and tosummon a new body less national and, above all,less violent. There is an English word for thistemper, the word " Whig." But that word is associ-ated in the English language with the triumph ofwealth. Necker's muddy vision did not triumph.That decision was taken upon this Friday night,

the nineteenth of June, 1789 taken, I think, a20


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THE ROYAL SEANCElittle before midnight. Artois was off to bed, andProvence, too. The council was broken up. Itwas full midnight now when wheels were againheard upon the granite sets before the great doors,and the hot arrival of horses. The name announcedwas that of Talleyrand, the Bishop of Autun, andthe king, perhaps angrily, refused to see him.

This man, with eyes like a ferret and an intelli-gence as keen as it was witty and narrow, a brad-awl of a mind, as invincible at intrigue as in vice,given up wholly to the search for personal advan-tage, had about him all that the plain piety ofLouis XVI detested, and all that Louis XVTsslow mind most feared. The king had made himBishop of Autun against his every judgment, andonly at the call of Talleyrand's fellow-clergymen,who loved their comrade's amusing sallies againstreligion and his reputation of the brain. It was areputation that had led Rome to consider themaking of him a cardinal, and only Louis himselfhad prevented it. For Louis profoundly believed.It was Louis who had said in those days just beforethe Revolution, " I will give no man the see ofParis who denies his God."

Such was Talleyrand, thirty-five years of age,21


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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYdestined to compass the ruin of the French church,to ordain to the schismatic body which attemptedto replace it, to be picked out by Danton for hisvery vices as a good emissary to Pitt, to be one ofthe levers of Napoleon, to be the man that handedthe crown to Louis XVIII at the restoration.Such was the man, full of policy and of evil, whomon that midnight Louis XVI refused to see.The king refused to see him with the more deter-mination that Talleyrand had asked for a secretaudience. Talleyrand sent a servant to the king'syounger brother, Artois, who knew him well, andArtois, who was in bed, asked him to come to thebedroom to speak to him, which he did ; and therein that incongruous place, to the empty-headedman lying abed listening to him, Talleyrand, tillwell after midnight, set forth what should be done.He also came, he said, hot-foot from Versailles, awitness. He had twenty times the grip of any ofthese others (he said) to seize what had happened.He offered, as such men do, a bargain. He hadprepared it, as such men will, for immediate accep-tance ; "all thought out," as people say to-day ofcommercial *' propositions." Let him form a min-istry. (He had actually brought in his carriage

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CHARLES MAURICE DE TALLEYRAND

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THE ROYAL SEANCEwith him certain friends who would support himin it !) They would rapidly summon military force,dissolve the assembly at once, erect a new one thatwould be at the service of the crown. Artois dressedand went to see the king. But his brother gavehim short shrift, and bade him tell Talleyrandto go. Then Talleyrand, with that look in his eyes,I think, that was noted so often when, later, hefound himself thwarted in any one of his millionplots and forced to creep round by some new way,went out to serve the Revolution.At the same time there was sent through the

night to Versailles the royal order, to be proclaimedby heralds, that no meeting of the Parliamentshould take place until the Monday when, in thecommons' hall, the king would declare his will toall the three houses, clergy, commons and noblesassembled ; and that will, of course, was to be themuddled compromise of Necker.These things done, they slept at last in Marly,

and the very early dawn of the Saturday broke ina sky still troubled, rainy, and gray.

Bailly, the President of the Commons sitting atVersailles, was a man such as float to the surface

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYin times of peace. He was honest and rich, a fitdepaunchy, sober, and interested in astronomy. He

not without courage of the less vivid sort. Hefifty-three years of age.

Baflly, the


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THE ROYAL SEANCEhall, Bailly was at their head as indignant as sucha man could be. He found the door shut, a paperpinned upon it, whereon was written the royalorder, and a sentry who told him and all his follow-ers that no one could come in save the workmen ;for it would take all that day to prepare the hallfor the royal meeting upon Monday. They letBailly in to fetch his papers, no more.The Commons went off under their umbrellasin the rain, a straggling procession of men, mostlymiddle class, in good black knee-breeches andcoat, in dainty buckled shoes not meant for suchweather, Bailly leading them ; they picked theirway, this dripping lot of them over the paddfcs ofthe roadway, and made history quickly and well.They found in an adjoining street an empty tennis-court at their disposal, and there they met, organ-ised a session, and took the oath, with one dissen-tient, that they would not disperse until they hadachieved a new constitution for the French.The French do things themselves, a point in

which they differ from die more practical nations.For instance, Macmahon, the soldier and presi-dent, used to brush his own coat every morning.Barentin, the keeper of die seals, followed afl this

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYbusiness, but he followed it in person. From thewindow of a house just across the narrow way hehimself overlooked through the upper windowsof the tennis-court the swarm of the Commonswithin, and the public audience that thronged thegalleries or climbed to the sills of the windows. Hesaw the eagerness and the resolve. He scribbleda rough note to be sent at once to Marly a notethat has come to light only in the last few years," Ilfaut couper court." That is, " End things up atonce, or it will be too late."

The royal session and the king's declarationwere postponed. They did not take place upon theMonday for which they were planned ; they wereput forward to the Tuesday, the twenty-third ofJune. What passed during those two days menwill debate according as they are biased upon oneside or the other of this great quarrel. Neckerwould have it in his memoirs that he was overborneby Barentin, and, as one may say, by the queen'sparty ; that his original compromise was made alittle stronger in favour of the crown. To thischange, like the weak and false man he was, heascribed all the breakdown that followed. I do

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JEAN-SYLVAIN BAILLY, PRESIDENT OF THE COMMONS IN 1789

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THE ROYAL SEANCEnot believe him. I think he lied. We know how hemade his fortune, and we know how to contrastthe whole being of a man like Necker with thewhole being of a man like Barentin. Read Barentin'snotes on those same two days, and you will havelittle doubt that Necker lied. That he muddledthings worse through the delay and through theincreasing gravity of the menace to the throne isprobable enough. That he showed any vision ordetermination or propounded any strict policy isnot morally credible. The foolish document whichthe king was to read was drawn up wholly inNecker 's own hand, and he was wholly respon-sible.Now turn to Versailles upon the morning of that

Tuesday, the twenty-third of June, 1789, the courthaving come in from Marly, and all being readyfor the great occasion. Remember that in the in-terval the Commons had met again ; the mass ofthe lower clergy had joined them, not by vote thistime, but in person, and two archbishops and threebishops with them, and even from the nobles twomen had come.

It was therefore to be a set issue between theNational Assembly now rapidly forming, that is,27


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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYthe Commons triumphant, and the awful antiqueauthority of the crown.

If one had looked from the windows of thepalace of Versailles upon that morning, still grayand rainy, still cold in weather, out toward thescene where so much was to be done, one wouldhave caught beyond the great paved, semi-circularplace, beyond the gilded, high railings of the court-yard, in the central one of the three divergingavenues (the broad road leading to Paris) the roofof a great barn-like building, a long parallelogramof stone and brick, with an oval skylight atop.There was but little to hide it, for the ground aboutwas only beginning to be built over ; young trees,just planted, marked each side of the road uponwhich one end of this building abutted. Withinthis hall, ungainly, and oddly apparent above thelower roofs about it and the unfinished lowerbuildings of the quarter, was to be acted a dramawhich deflected and, as some believe, destroyedthe immemorial institution of personal govern-ment in Europe, and launched those experimentsby which the French people in arms proposed tochange the face of Christendom.Under the rain and in the cold air of that morning

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THE ROYAL SEANCEthere was not much movement in Versailles.The great desert of hard paving-stones before thegilded railings of the palace yard was almost emptysave of troops, and these, not yet arrived in verygreat numbers, seemed to be doing the work of apolice rather than of an army. They were drawnup in lines that cut the Paris road and its approachesguarding on all sides this hall of the Commons.The side streets which led past the back doors ofthat hall, the Street of St. Martin and the Streetof the Works, had each their cordon of men. Smallgroups of soldiery, not patrolling, but watching,were distributed here and there.The eye caught in the glistening, empty spaces

of that wet, gray morning the red of the SwissGuard and the blue and white of the militia. Be-yond these uniforms there was little else ; no crowdwas yet gathered. Nor was there as yet any paradeor any standing to arms.The ear could no more judge Versailles that

morning than the eye. The rain was too soft forany noise, the early life of the town too dulledunder such weather to send up any echo from thestreets. But there could still be distinguished fromthat quarter of a mile away the occasional sound

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYof hammering where the workmen within the hallwere finishing the last of its decorations for theceremony that was to take place that day. It wasa little before nine o'clock in the morning.That large hall had its main entrance upon the

new wide, bare Avenue de Paris, with its sprigs oftrees. Years before it had been built to house therackets and the tennis nets, perhaps the scenery ofplays all the material of the lesser pleasures ofthe court ; for which reason it was still called the" Menus-Plaisirs," that is, the " Petty Pleasures."It had stood for some forty years, and the thingsto be warehoused had come in by its principalopening upon this great main road.By this main door you might have seen, under

the rain, one after another entering as the morningwore on to ten o'clock. Some came on foot, mostin the carriages of their equipage ; but every in-dividual, driven or walking, first halted at the lineof armed men that barred the avenue, showed acard to prove that he was a deputy of the privilegedorders, cleric, or noble, and only then was letthrough. But though the public gathered slowly(in such weather !) the careful policing of thestreets by these armed men was maintained, and

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THE ROYAL SEANCEthe lines of red and blue still stood across theAvenue de Paris. They so came slowly up and in,the two privileged orders for one hour, six hun-dred in all.The hour drew to its close. Before the bugles

up in the low, wooded heights to the south hadsounded for the ten o'clock meal of the camp,before the hour had struck from the clocks of thechurches, files drew up to line the street on eachside, and a guard stood before the porch.Much farther down the road, beyond a secondline of soldiery which barred access from that farside also, a small, but gathering, crowd of citizensshowed far and small. Mixed with them and pass-ing through them were figures hurrying toward anarrow side street which ran to a back entrance ofthe Menus-Plaisirs men in knee-breeches andshort coats, all in black, solemn. Those distantfigures in black thus mixing with the crowd andgetting in by a back way were the Commons, themen who had just claimed to be all France, to besovereign. They had not been permitted to comein by the main door of their hall ; they were underorders to reach the place in this fashion by themeaner street behind it.

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYEven that back door was shut against them. Of

the four thousand soldiers all told who formed theornament, the patrol, and the barriers of thosestreets, one guard was set at this closed back doorforbidding entry. The six hundred Commons,crowded and pushing under their dripping um-brellas, began loud complaints, suggested protests,egged on their officials and in particular their presi-dent. He, Bailly, the middle-aged astronomer,full of rectitude, simple, and pompous, still calledit an insult to be kept thus. But the guard had noorders and would not open. Such citizens as hadassembled in the street mixed now with theCommons, supported their indignation. The rainstill fell.

It was not until nearly a full hour had passed,until a commotion farther up toward the palace,and the shouted presenting of arms announcedthe arrival of the king that these six hundred, nowat the limit of their restrained and profound ex-asperation, were at last admitted to the ramshacklewooden corridor that was their only vestibule.They folded their umbrellas, shook the rain fromtheir cloaks, and, hat under arm, filed throughthe inner way which led to the back of the hall.

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THE ROYAL SEANCEThus did they meanly enter it, at last, humiliatedand angry, they who would be the nation itself.The Commons filed in two by two through the

side door at the end of the great hall. They sawbefore them, under the great veiled, oval skylightof the place, the ranks of the clergy and of thenobles already assembled, rows deep, upon eachside of the central gangway. They saw the throne,with its noble purple hangings roof-high andspangled with the golden lilies, upon the raisedplatform at the farther end. They saw the wholeplace draped and painted and upholstered as ithad been for the great ceremony of the Parlia-ment's opening seven weeks before. It was eleveno'clock.Upon the king's right the queen, suffering some-

what from that theatrical dignity which had beenthe bane of her carriage at the court, and had sooffended the French sense of measure, courtesieddeep, and would not be seated while the king stillstood. Before the throne the ministry sat in rank ;but one chair was empty, and all men gazed at it.It was amazing that this chair should be empty,for it was the chair of the chief minister ; it wasNecker's chair.

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYWhat was about to be done was Necker's doing.

It was he who had written the words the king wasto read. But that very morning he had grownafraid. He had ordered his carriage to take himwith the rest ; then, seeing how feeling had risen,persuaded partly by his women, partly by a nativeduplicity, that something was to be gained by adramatic absence and a show of displeasure atwhat he knew would clash with opinion, he had atthe last moment shirked and remained at home.He betrayed the king by that shirking. He left itto be thought that he was not the author of hisown words. Unlike most traitors, he reaped noreward.Whether rumours of what was to come had

leaked out or not we cannot tell. Some of that greataudience afterward said that they knew what wastoward, and certainly among the two privilegedorders there were a few who had heard the tenorof the speech. There were even one or two amongthe Commons. But for the great bulk of those whowaited curiously for the fruition of so dreadful amoment, the fruit of that moment was still un-known until the herald gave forth his cry, untilthe rustle of seating was over, and the king spoke.

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JACQUES NECKER, RECTOR-GLXERAL OF FINANCES

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THE ROYAL SEANCEWhat he spoke in his simple, good-natured,

rather thick voice was, for those who heard it,enormous. His first words raised the issue directly,before men had well realized the shock the royalauthority was advising a reversal of all that hadbeen done in the six days :" I thought, gentlemen, that I had done all inmy power for the good of my subjects. . . . TheStates General " [not the National Assembly]" have been open now near two months, and theyare not yet agreed upon the preliminaries of theirbusiness. ... It is my duty, it is a duty which Iowe to the common weal, and to my realm and tomyself, to end these divisions. ... I come torepress whatever has been attempted against thelaws."He sat down, and every phrase in the five

minutes or so of the declaration drawn up for himhad seemed to the Commons and their partizansa challenge.The king's face, if witnesses may be trusted,

showed some surprise. There is an air in assem-blies which can be felt, though not defined, andthe dense rows in black at the end of the hall werehostile.

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYBarentin came up the steps of the throne and

knelt, as custom demanded, then turned and saidin a loud voice, " The king orders you to becovered."

Bailly put on his hat, sundry of his Commonsfollowed his example. The privileged orders forsome reason made no such gesture. In the passionsof the moment it was thought that they deliber-ately insulted the third order, as though not caringfor the privilege of remaining covered before theking, if the Commons were to share that privilege.At any rate, Bailly nervously uncovered again,and those who had first followed his examplefollowed it once more. There was a little laughter,a little subdued challenging. They ceased as thearticles of the king's main declaration Necker'sdocument were read for him by his minister.There were twenty-five of them ; each was

short, and their delivery no great matter in time.But in effect they were capital. They maintainedthe separation of the three orders. They broke theunity of the National Assembly. They permittedcommon sessions only to debate questions whichwere common to all three.

Louis spoke again for a moment. Next were36


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THE ROYAL SEANCEread the thirty-five articles Necker meant for a11 liberal " constitution to the nation.Those who have attended the ritual of assemblies

know how superficial and imperfect is the effectof such a preliminary single reading. Men straintheir ears for this point and for that, but theydo not grasp the details of what has been putbefore them. What reaches from the lips of thereader to his audience is not, as in book-work, aprecise and complete plan ; it is only a generaleffect. Those thirty-five articles, droned out inthe official accent, liberally as many of them wereinterpreted upon a further study, tolerably co-ordinated as they may have seemed to Necker andto those who drafted them in the clique of thecouncil-chamber, were taken by the Commons asa direct challenge. And the Commons were right.The French Revolution was not permitted forpoliticians' work of this kind. Flame is not madefor pap. Yet challenging as Necker 's futilities wereto the ardour of the time, it was not they thatdetermined the gravity of that short hour. Whatdetermined it was the last and third speech of theking.

Louis rose for the third time at the conclusion37


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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYof this reading, and in brief sentences told themthey had heard his will. He reminded them thatthey could do nothing without his specific appro-bation ; he used the famous phrase that, if he wereabandoned in his enterprise, " he would alonecarry out the good of his peoples." His last sentencewas this :

" I order you, gentlemen, to separate at once,and to-morrow to come each of you to the placeset apart for your respective orders, there to resumeyour debates. To this effect I have ordered theGrand Master of Ceremonies to prepare the placeswhere you are to meet."During each brief interlude of the king's ownspeaking all had preserved a profound attention.During the reading of the articles there had beennow and then a slight applause, especially fromcertain of the nobles at the article in favour of theold feudal dues, and to that applause there hadcome isolated cries of " Silence ! " from theCommons. Nothing else had disturbed the ease,the dignity, and the rapidity of this one hourpregnant with war : one hour ; for it was elevenwhen the king first entered ; as he rose to dismissthem and leave the hall it was noon.

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THE ROYAL SEANCEWhen the king had passed behind the glorious,

roof-high curtains of the throne, and so gone out,there was a noise of men moving.

All the three hundred of the nobility rose andfollowed him. A great number of the clergymost of that order trooped after. The hall wasleft desolate in its centre ; most desolate where itsgreat empty dais, splendid with the purple drapingsand the embroidered lilies of gold, and the emptythrone dominated the floor below.The far end and the dark aisles behind the

columns were still filled with the Commons in acrowd. Some remained still seated, some few morehad risen ; all were keeping silent, and only a veryfew crept shamefacedly along the walls toward thedoors.With the Commons there now mixed such of

the clergy as had dared to remain, and not a fewof the public audience ; of these last many lingeredcuriously, hanging on in the corners and sides ofthe place, watching for what was to come.One could not see from that hall any part of the

life without. Its windows were high. Its principallight was from the glazed, oval skylight in the roof,covered and tempered by a veil of cloth. One could

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYnot hear the crowd which had gathered outsidein the broad avenue to see the king and his coachesgo by, and which remained in great numbers toattend the exit of the Commons when these shouldleave. That inner place was isolated. But the sevenor eight hundred men standing at bay thereincould feel all about them the great mass of soldieryupon the heights in the woods, the regimentsmarching in from the frontiers, the counter-gatherings of mobs and of armed civilians downthe valley in Paris, two hours away all theexpectancy of arms.Workmen entered to remove the hangings andto dismantle the hall. Still the Commons kept

their places, as yet undecided ; no general de-cision taken, none proposed ; but yet the mass ofthem unmoving, and by their mere unmovingrefusing the command of the crown.

It was at this moment, before as yet the artisanshad begun their business of ladders and hammer-ing, that there came out from the robing-roomand from behind the cloths of the throne a figurewith which the ceremony of the States Generalhad already rendered them familiar : it was youngDreux Breze, elegant, a trifle effeminate, little

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THE ROYAL SEANCEmore than a boy. He carried his white wand ofthe master of ceremonies, as he had carried itwhen the session opened, and his person was, bythe costume of his office, all gold and plumes andmany diamonds.He performed his simple duty : he came up to

Bailly, the president, and said :"

Sir, you heard the order of the king ?"

Bailly answered in silence, while men cranedforward to hear :

" Sir, the Assembly stands adjourned only byits own vote. I cannot disperse it until it has de-bated upon that adjournment." A pompous rig-marole enough, but thick with coming years.

Said young Breze :" Am I to give that to the king as your reply ? "And Bailly answered :" Yes."Then, turning to his colleagues, Bailly had

begun to give his reasons to them, when he foundstriding up to his side, and facing Breze, the heavyvigour of Mirabeau. It was Mirabeau, so stridingup, who in his powerful voice interposed. Withno official right to mandate, he spoke most famouswords, of which tradition has made a varied and


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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYdoubtful legend, but which were in substancethese :

" Go tell those that sent you we are here by thewill of the nation." He added either that forcealone (of bayonets or what-not) could drive theCommons out, or, as some say, that such forcewas powerless.Even as Mirabeau was speaking, Breze, having

had his answer from Bailly the official head ofthe Commons, thus recalcitrant, moved away.The custom of the court was on him, and hemoved out backward with his white wand. Of themen who saw that piece of ritual, some saidwithin themselves that the thing was a sign, andthat sovereignty had passed from the Bourbons.When he had gone, there was silence again for alittle while. It was broken by the workmen settingto their labour of dismantling the hall. Baillyordered them to cease, and they obeyed the order.The genius of the French people for decision

and for manifold co-operation appeared again andagain throughout the Revolution, in debate, instreet fighting, upon the battle-field. Nowhere didit appear more clearly than at this origin of all themovement.

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BMANUEL JOSEPH SIEYES

A Paru,clier T dea Aa^n{lins K?/i aa 3?EMMANUEL-JOSEPH SIEYES, DEPUTY FROM PARIS TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

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THE ROYAL SEANCEWithout traditional procedure, with no waiting

on initiative from above, immediate, spontaneousand collective action decided all.One voice, proposing an adjournment until to-

morrow, was voted down at once. Next Sieves,with his firm, accurate mouth, pronounced agraven phrase expressing the mind of all : ' * Youare to-day what you were yesterday." Immedi-ately, upon the motion of Camus, a man too legal,but well able to define, the Commons and such ofthe clergy as had remained with them votedunanimously their contradiction to the throne.They voted that all that they had passed, and allthat they had done, they still maintained.As the hands which had been raised everywhere

to vote this motion fell again, the corner of Frenchhistory was turned ; and those curious to choose aprecise point at which the outset of any mattermay be fixed, should choose that moment, the fallof those hundreds of hands, for the origin ofmodern Europe, its vast construction, its stillimperilled experiment.One thing more remained to be done, though the

general sense of those present did not at first graspits necessity ; the proposal and the carrying of it

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYproceeded from the vivid sanity of Mirabeau. Heit was who proposed that they should vote the in-violability of themselves, the deputies of the nation.To pass that decree meant that if the Assembly

should win, it would have, for the punishment ofany that had attempted to defeat it by force, theawful weapon which a solemn declaration ofintention gives. But it also meant that if theCommons were defeated, they had been guiltyof treason.

Bailly, perhaps from confusion, perhaps fromtimidity, himself hesitated, until Mirabeau, under-standing well what force it is that governs men,said :

" If you do not pass this motion, sixty of us,and you the first, will be arrested this very night."A column of troops had already been formedoutside the doors, though the decision to strike atonce was, perhaps in fear of Paris, not acted on bythe crown. Five hundred and twenty-seven mem-bers passed the decree, and of these thirty-fourvoted " No," four hundred and ninety-three," Yes." Its operative words are significant :

" The National Assembly declares . . . that44


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THE ROYAL SEANCEevery individual, corporation, tribunal, court orcommission, which may dare during or after thepresent session to pursue, seek out, arrest, orcause to be arrested ... a deputy upon theground of any profession, advice, opinion, orspeech made by him in the States General, nomatter by whom such attempts may be ordered,is guilty of treason and subject to capital punish-ment.'*

This voted, there was no more to be done.The many men who had thus risked all looked

at one another ; Bailly declared the session at anend. They came out upon the crowds that stillwaited in the lifting weather outside, that cheereda little, and that wonderingly followed the dis-persion of the deputies to their homes.The king and those who had left with him had

lunched at the mid-day hour. They were past theircoffee when the business of their antagonists wasthus accomplished. The Commons and the curiouswho had waited in the streets for their exit werelate for luncheon that day.A week later, and two days more than a week,

the battle was won. The clergy had joined the45


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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYCommons in a body, the nobles in batch afterbatch. The National Assembly was fully com-posed at last, and Louis himself, writing to theprivileged orders such as still refused to bowto the Commons, had accepted defeat. His sover-eignty was from that moment lost.

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GABRIEL HONORE RIQUETTI, COMTE DE M1RABEAU

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INTRODUCTIONAfter the successful assertion by the Commons

of their new usurped powers over the crown, justdescribed, a second attempt at coercion, backedby the foreign mercenary troops in the serviceof the king, failed. The depots of arms at theInvalides and the Bastille in Paris were sacked bythe populace, and the latter was taken by forceupon the same day, July i4th, 1789. The firstprinciples of the Revolution were laid in resolu-tions of the parliament at Versailles during thesummer, notably the declaration known as that ofthe " Rights of Man " and the abolition of thefeudal property of the nobility.Another popular rising in the capital in themonth of October brought the court back to Paris,and the parliament followed it. For eighteenmonths the tide of democratic reform rose withgreater and greater violence, and while the crownstill remained the sole executive of the nation,possessed of all immediate control over the regulararmed forces and the disbursement of publicmoney, the personal peril of the royal family grewgreater, and the term within which it seemed cer-tain that the executive would lose its authoritydrew near.

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INTRODUCTIONThere stood between the monarchy the onerital institution of the French and its ruin no

real forces save the personality of Mirabeau andthe regular troops. As against the latter there hadbeen raised and organized a considerable militia,duly armed by law and present in every villageand town in the country ; while the mass of theregular troops had purposely been stationed at adistance from Paris through the growing powerof the parliament.A foreign war was threatened through the desireof every ancient authority in Europe to repressthe movement, and with this approaching threatof invasion, which could not but serve the king,the unpopularity, and therefore the danger, of hisfamily grew greater still.Mirabeau, who dominated the parliament byhis personality even more than by his oratoryand his prodigious industry, had secretly enteredinto the service of the court in his determinationto save the monarchy, in the fall of which he be-

lieved would be involved the breakdown of thecountry. He had drawn up a regular plan pre-supposing and inviting civil war. He would havethe king leave Paris for some town such as Com-piegne, not more than a day's posting away, andfrom that point appeal to the people and to thearmy to support him. All this work of Mirabeauwas being done in the winter of 1790-91.Meanwhile the personal alarm of the queen,


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INTRODUCTIONbacked by her rare energy, preferred a completeflight with her husband and children, either to thefrontier itself or beyond it, a total undoing of theRevolution if that flight were successful, and thereturn of the monarchy, backed, not only by thearmy, but by the threat of foreign powers and ofinvasion.

In this perhaps impracticable and too heroicscheme, utterly anti-national, her great ally wasFersen, a Swedish nobleman who had loved herwith devotion from his first youth, and whom she,since her misfortunes began, had come to love asdevotedly in return.

It seems certain that the overmastering abilityof Mirabeau would have carried his plan and wouldprobably have saved the French monarchy hadhe lived. But he died from overwork upon thesecond of April, 1791. With him lacking, nothingcould prevent the maturing of the queen's plan.A fortnight after Mirabeau 's death the mobhad prevented the king from leaving Paris, in aperfectly open manner, for a visit to one of hissuburban palaces, and the great militia guard ofthe palace had not shown discipline or loyalty.

After that nothing remained but to fix a date forsecret flight, and this date was ultimately fixedfor the night of the twentieth of June.

Fersen worked out all the plans in detail. Hehad the great travelling-coach, or " Berline,"specially built. The commander of the army upon


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INTRODUCTIONthe eastern frontier, Bouille was warned andprovided a succession of cavalry outposts to re-ceive the fugitives when they should have pro-ceeded a little more than a hundred miles fromParis, and to pass them on in safety to Montmedyupon the extreme frontier. Thence, when heshould safely have reached it, the king was to issuehis proclamation to the army and to the people.The travelling disguises for the royal family wereprepared ; three gentlemen of their former guardwere trusted to accompany the flight. A passportin the name of a Mme. de Korff, a Russian ladyresident in Paris, was obtained, and the queenwas to travel in that name with her two children,and her husband as a servant.


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PART TWOTHE FLIGHT TO VARENNES

UPONthe evening of Monday, the twentieth

of June, 1791, a little before nine o'clock,Axel de Fersen was leaning, with his chin in hishands, his elbows upon the parapet, looking overthe bridge called the Pont Royal, which leadsfrom the Tuileries to the southern bank of theSeine. He watched the dying light upon the riverbelow, and waited with desperate impatience inhis heart, his body lounging in affected indolence.The sky above was cloudy. The day had been

hot, but its last hours not sunlit. A freshness wasnow coming up from the Seine over the town, andthe noises of life and movement that rise with theclosing of the working hours in the capital filledthe streets. He was dressed in the rough habit ofa cabman, and the poor coach of which he had thedriving stood in rank with others a little way fromthe gate of the palace.As he so gazed, two men, one with a sunken,

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYlong-jawed face and small, peering eyes, the otherfrail, slight, and younger, both dressed in a fadedyellow livery as of servants to some rich man of atime before the Revolution had abolished liveries,came up to him. He knew already who they were.They were Moustier and Valory, two gentlemenof the king's disbanded guard who, in the disguiseof servants, had volunteered to serve Louis in hisflight. Fersen gave them the instructions theyawaited. One was to find and conduct the greatcoach Fersen had had built and to keep it waitingfor him at the gates of the city ; the other was toact as outrider and to go before to prepare therelays. A third, Maiden, remained hidden in theapartments of the king.Night fell, an hour passed, and two women in

the conduct of a man who hurried them across thebridge were put into a chaise that there awaitedthem and drove off. Fersen knew that missionalso. These were the two waiting-women of thequeen, going on ahead through the night to thesecond posting-station at Claye upon the easternroad. A little while later it was eleven o'clock,or a little past a woman came to him leadingtwo children, two girls, it seemed, one old enough

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VIVE LE ROI ! VIVE LA NATION !A Cartoon of 1789

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESto walk alone, the other whom she held by thehand. It was Mme. de Tourzel, the governess ofthe royal children. The elder girl was the princessRoyal. The young child, disguised as her sister,was the Dauphin, the little heir to the throne.Many were going in and out of the palace at thatmoment. This small group in sombre clothingattracted no one's eye in the half-light. The child-ren were put into the cab, the woman followed,and Fersen, with the most cabman-like way in theworld, climbed slowly up to his box and drove ata very quiet pace westward along the quay thatflanks the Tuileries gardens. He came to the greatopen place which to-day is called the Place de laConcorde, where the half-finished bridge had onlyjust lost its last workman with the end of the day ;he turned to the right across its paving and up theunfinished Rue Royale until he came to the narrowRue St. Honore, where again he turned his shabbyteam to the right and drove as leisurely eastward.There is a place, now rebuilt out of all recogni-

tion, the ways broadened, all the houses modern,where a street still called by the name of " LadderStreet" (the Rue de 1'Echelle) comes into the RueSt. Honore. It is a very short street leading toward

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYthe palace. Between the Tuileries and those fewyards of way there stood in those days a numberof great houses, the homes of certain nobles whohad been about the court, and in the midst of theirconfused carved fronts was an archway that ledto the royal stables, and by a narrow lane to thecourtyard of the palace itself.

In that Street of the Ladder Fersen halted,drawing his cab up toward the curb. The longdetour over which he had purposely lingered hadtaken him nearly three-quarters of an hour ; it wasnear twelve. He got down from the box, went tothe carriage window, and said a word or two, bid-ding the woman and the two children wait inpatience. Then he paced up and down the roughpaving as midnight deepened, sauntering in thefashion of cabmen that await a fare.

Such light as there was between the high housescame from dim oil lamps slung from wall to walland far apart. There was light also in the guard-room at the corner of the archway, and there amilitiaman stood sentry with fixed bayonet, forevery issue from the palace was thus guarded. Thestreet was full of people coming and going fromthat little town the Tuileries, and as the hour wore

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESon, the great equipages of those who attended courtpassed in to take their masters up at the royalporch and passed out again on their way home-ward.

Fersen knew that the last ceremonies would notbe over until very late, but that did not relievehis increasing anxiety. The darkness seemed togrow more profound as he waited. He watchedwith as little show as might be the throngs thatpassed back and forth through the archway. Hesaw no figure of those he was awaiting until, whenit was quite dark for though there was a moon,the curtain of clouds grew thick he saw, orthought he saw, seated upon a stone bench againstone of the great houses, a woman whose attitudeeven in that gloom he thought he recognised.With the same leisurely pace of a man free fromemployment he sauntered past, noted the graydress and broad, gray veiled hat under the dimlight of the distant lamps, and the veil about theface, and coming closer still, knew that it wasMadame Elizabeth, the king's sister. He spoke in awhisper, without turning to her or stopping as hewent slowly by. He made an imperceptible move-ment of the head toward the cab, saying, " They

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYwait for you." She did not move, and he fearedfor a moment that she might not have understoodwhat he had said nor recognized him, for he darednot linger. He paced back again toward his chargeand again whispered the words as he passed, stilllooking down at the ground ; and this time thewoman rose, went to the cab, and entered it.The lights behind the shutters of the great

houses had gone out, the distant noises in thepalace hard by had ceased, the last of the equipageswere rumbling through the archway, and still therewas no sign of new-comers for him. It was longpast midnight, nearly one o'clock. Another of thecabmen in the rank spoke to him. He answered asbest he could with the manner, accent, and slangof the trade. He offered this unwelcome friend apinch of snuff from a rough box ; then he wentback as though to look to his horses, felt their legs,stood about them a little, and patted them.There was still, but very rarely, a belated servant

or so passing out from under the arch, and at last,when his fever of expectation was at the height,he distinguished two such, a man and a woman,coming toward him unhurriedly. As they camenearer, and the feeble glimmer of the lamps showed

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THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY PETRIFIED. THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY REVIVIFIEDCaricatures by Gillray

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESthem less confusedly, he marked the lumberingwalk of the man. He wore a round soft hat, and abig overcoat against the freshness of the night air,and had the air of a familiar upper servant. At hisside, with an upright gait and a certain poise ofthe head that Fersen knew, alas ! for him, betterthan anything else on earth, went the woman.Fersen went forward, mastering his respect, andled them to the carriage ; and then, without delay,but still careful to give no cause for remark by hishaste, he drove northward over the noisy granitesets of the streets.By what tortuous ways Fersen drove the king

and his family one may hardly guess. They werepuzzled to find him following many street turningsother than those that would lead them to thenearest gate of the city on the north and so to thegreat frontier road. But Fersen did what he didknowingly. It was his business in this turn of thenight to make sure that the last point of his planhad been obeyed and that the great travelling-carriage had gone on before and was waiting forthem outside the limits of the city. He called atthe stables and found one trusted servant of histo assure him that the thing had been sent and that

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYall was ready. Then only did he turn toward theeast and the north and make for the barrier at theend of the Rue St. Martin, which was then thegate of Paris and the beginning of stragglinghouses and the open country.They did not reach that barrier till two o'clock.

Already they breathed some faint air of morning.No one challenged them. It was one cab like

another, driving to the suburbs with some belatedmiddle-class party that had dined in Paris thatnight. There were lights and music still in thehouse of the gate-keeper at the barrier, for therehad been a wedding in his family that day, andthey were feasting. After the glare of that light,Fersen looked in vain through the night forthe Berline. Then, with some few minutes so lost,he saw the black hump at last, drawn up well tothe right and close to the bordering ditch. Theguardsman, Moustier, and Balthazar, his owncoachman, were sitting their horses immovable.They had waited thus immovable for some hours.Very rapidly the travellers passed from the cabto the coach, and leaned back in the comfortablewhite velvet cushions of its upholstering. Fersenhimself, sending back the cab I know not how,

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNEStook his place upon the broad box of the Berline,and the four horses felt the traces and started. Thejourney had begun.

Toward the north-east, to which the great roadran, there was already a hint of dawn, and greatParis just behind would not sleep long into thelight. Therefore the horses, Fersen's own, withonly a short stage before them, were urged to avigorous pace through the short, lonely suburband still more lonely fields beyond, and Fersen'scoachman, who rode as postillion upon the leader,spared them little.

It was near three o'clock when they reached thefirst posting-house at Bondy, three miles from theboundary of the city, and just outside the wall andrailings of the park in that place. The guardsmanValory, who was outrider, had been there foran hour. The six horses for the carriage wereawaiting it, as also the two horses which he andthe third guardsman, Maiden were to ride, to thenext stage. As they unharnessed Fersen's steamingbeasts, Fersen himself, as coachman coming downfrom the box, waited a moment until the freshteam was in and the postillions mounted. Then helooked in at the window of the coach, and taking

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYoff his hat to the queen, he said, " Good-bye,Madame de Korff," and under the growing lightwould no longer linger. He was off at once by theby-lane to the Brussels road beyond. He andthose whom he had so worked to save were tomeet at Montmedy.The postillions urged on their mounts, the short

whips cracked, and they were gone. Fersen sawthe great mass go swaying up the road, darkagainst the growing dawn, and went off lonelyupon his separate flight to the north.As for the travellers, touched by that effect of

morning which all feel, by the unnatural exhilara-tion of those strained hours of no sleep, and of arelease apparently begun, they broke into makingplans for their disguise, reassuring themselveswith every mile that passed and feeling the firstsense of relief that they had known for two torturedyears. The sleepy little boy who was their fortuneand the heir was set more comfortably backagainst the white cushions in his girl's clothesthat he might rest. The five others, wakeful andeager, pretended to learn their roles. Mme. deTourzel was to be the mistress ; the queen, thegoverness Rochet ; the Princess Elizabeth, a

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MADAME ELISABETHFrom a photograph by Braun, Clement & Co., New York, of a painting by Mme. Vigee

Lebruu, iu the possession of Mme. la Marquise du Blaisdel

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNEScompanion ; and the king a steward under thename of Durand. There was almost a spirit ofcomedy in the coach. The king talked of his newliberty and of riding, perhaps of the autumnhunting that he loved ; and they conversed alsoof the nature of their journey, where and uponthis perhaps they were more guarded theremight be peril, especially as they passed throughthe one considerable town of Chalons ; but alsoof how, not two hours beyond that place, at Somme-Vesle, a posting-house in the midst of Cham-pagne, they

would meet the firsttroop

of theirchain of mounted escorts thrust out from thearmy, and how with these they would henceforwardbe safe.They were late. They were already a full hour

behind that time-table which men who understoodthe essentials of order as the king had neverunderstood them had laid down for their guidance.But the pace was brisk, the road was passing swiftlyby, and the accident of such trifling unpunctualityso early in their adventure did not oppress them.There was no one with them accustomed to com-mand or to understand the all-importance ofexactitude in any military affair.

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYThat little company, if we think of it, was an

isolated thing and most imperfect for such a task :three women bred to a court and to the habits ofleisure or of successive pleasures ; two children ;the unwilled, heavy king and husband, who neverdid or could decide, and whose judgment wasslow to the point of disease. Beyond these wereonly the three guardsmen, almost servants.At Claye, the next relay, they found the queen's

two waiting-women, who, abandoned for hours,had awaited them in their chaise, and were be-wildered, wondering if they were lost. From Clayeonward, the sun having now risen, though hiddenbehind the level roof of clouds and the dayfully begun, they passed through fields withoutvillages, with scarcely a house, where the peasantsin the eager work of the high summer were alreadyabroad. The fourfold rank of great trees whichdignified the road went by in monotonous proces-sion. The quick change of horses at Meaux raisedtheir hopes still higher, and as they opened theirpicnic-bags, bringing out bread and meat andwine to break their fast, they spoke in jests,increasingly secure. To Maiden riding by thecarriage door, the queen beckoned, and offered

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESwine and food, and she told him familiarly of howthe king had laughedroundly, saying that Lafayette,the master of the militia in Paris, and officially theguardian of the court, would be woundily puzzledthat day. So much for that fresh early morningwhen all was well.The wide royal road, full of the Roman in-

heritance, breasts beyond Meaux a sharp, high,wooded hill, and the drag up that hill was long andslow. Upon its farther side, on to the Marne again,goes a sharp pitch, down which the shriekingbrakes created an equal delay. It was fully eighto'clock when they had come along the riversideto the lovely valley of the Sellot, winding betweenits wooded guardian hills to join the greaterriver.There two roads part, each leading equally to

Chalons and to the east ; the main one still followsthe Marne, but the second, somewhat shorter, cutsacross the plateau to the south of the river, whichfew, even in the travelling of to-day, know, andwhich those who had planned the flight had chosenon account of its few towns and villages and lessfrequented inns. Yet it was precisely in this chosenstretch of thirty miles, by this less-frequented of

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYthe two roads to Chalons, that their evil was tocome upon them.The hour's delay which one accident and anotherthe lateness of the moment in which the last of

the court had left the palace, the slight time lostin peering for the Berline through the darknessat the gate, the long drag up and down the forestof Meaux had burdened them with, was nowperhaps more nearly grown to an hour and a half ;but not one of that little company could guess howmuch this meant, or how such errors breed ofthemselves and add, how one strained and anxiousman, watching during that Tuesday at the head ofa little troop of horse in the lonely plains beyondChalons, would be broken, and with him all theirfortunes, by such incapacity. For save where itwalked the hills, as heavy coaches must, theBerline went bravely enough, covering its eightmiles an hour or more ; and the sense of speedmade up with them for the realities of time and ofco-ordinated distance wherein they were incom-petent indeed.Nor was that error, that growing error in exacti-

tude, all that they had to face.

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESTHE PURSUIT

It was perhaps at eight o'clock in Paris thatmorning, at the most half an hour later, that thewhole populace became alive towhat had happened.The drums were beating, rallying the militia, thecrowd was filling the square in front of the palace.At that moment, when strong action in pursuit ofthe fugitives could not be long delayed, they wereonlyjust upon this upland road leaving the Marne ;they had a start of, say, forty-five miles, fifty atthe most, before the first rider could surely mountand be galloping in pursuit. The carriage rolledon fairly with Valory, its outrider, on before,Maiden trotting at the door, and the chaise withthe queen's two waiting-women swaying in a cloudof dust behind. It rolled on eastward through thathigh, little-known land of wide, hedgeless fields ;it was about ten o'clock when it came down into asort of shallow cup lower than the plain, whereinlies that little place called " Old Houses " Viels-Maisons. Very few men, I think, of those whotravel or speak of their travels know the tiny groupof roofs. It has not thirty families round its church.It meant to the travellers nothing but an insignifi-cant posting-house and a relay. But it was there

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYthat their fate first touched them, for there a chancepostillion, one called Picard, glanced at their faces,and knew them for the king and queen.

Like so many upon that full and dreadful day,he yielded entirely to caution. The king was stillthe king. There was divided authority in France ;and whether reward or punishment would followany act no man could tell on such a day as this untilit was known which of the two combatants, thecrown or the parliament, would rule at last. SoPicard said nothing ; but he had seen. Others alsowere to prove discreet, but a little less discreetthan he.The coach went on through the lonely land,

past one small town, Montmirail, which laterNapoleon's resistance was to render famous, andon again into the empty fields, still eastward. Itgrew to be noon, hot and almost stormy under thelowering sky. Louis the King, with his road-bookspread upon his knee, followed with curiouslydetached interest the correspondence of the mapwith the dull landscape outside. As the carriagestopped at one posting-house after another, andas he would plunge his hand into his leather money-bag to give his guardsman the wages of the

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESpostillions, he was not content thus to show hisface at the window, he would even stretch hislegs a bit and get down from the carriage to paceto and fro while each fresh team was harnessing." We are safe now," he said ; and again, " Thereis no fear of our being recognized now." All theair of that little company had come to be one ofsecurity, though one man had already markedthem down, and already the galloping out in pursuitfrom the gates of Paris had begun.The governess and the royal children caught

that air of security, and where a long hill put thehorses at a walk, they got out and climbed it onfoot. There was only one small incident of whichto this day we cannot tell whether it was of anymoment or no. The little princess had noted itand had been disturbed. It was the presence of atraveller who for a time rode alone upon his horsebehind them, walking when they walked, trottingwhen they trotted. It may have been no more thana coincidence that his way lay with theirs. Longbefore Chalons he had turned off by a by-road anddisappeared.

There is, making a sort of western wall for theChampagne country, a very sharp and even range

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYof hills running north and south. These are theescarpment of that plateau of which I have justspoken, and over which for many hours the coachhad been travelling on. These hills end abruptlyto the south, but just beyond the precipitous slopein which they terminate there stands across anarrow, clean-cut valley one isolated height calledthe Mont Aime ; so that the gap is a sort of gateinto the flat country below, which stretches east-ward in a wide, rolling, chalky plain, the lowerChampagne, of which Chalons is the capital andcentre. Beyond that plain, eastward and very faraway, another low, level line of hills, the Forestof the Argonne, marks the very distant horizon.Through this gate, which is a landmark for

miles throughout the plain, passes the road ; andhalf an hour beyond, or a little more, where theroad crosses the small water of the Soude, threeor four houses round one posting-house, by nameChaintrix, break the monotony of the fields. Thetravellers reached it just in the sultriest part ofthe day. They had not greatly added to their errorin time ; they were not much, if at all, behind thehour and a half of debt against fate which theyhad already suffered to accumulate, when fate

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNEStouched them again. This time it was with astronger gesture than when, four hours before,the postboy at Viels-Maisons had looked askanceand known them for what they were.Here lived one Lagny with certain married and

unmarried daughters, and with him, by just onecoincidence, his son-in-law from miles away,Vallet by name, who for that one day was there.That son-in-law had been to Paris the year beforefor the Revolutionary feast upon the Champ-de-Mars. He had there stared at the king, and whenthe Berline stopped at his father-in-law's door,and while yet the relay was waiting to be harnessed,he recognized his sovereign. Now it happenedso the doom of the king willed it that all thesmall household, father and daughter and son-in-law, were Royalists of the old kind. They madeobeisance openly ; the king and the queenaccepted that homage with delight, and at partinggave them gifts which still remain in testimonyto the truth of this tale. Vallet insisted upon drivingthem himself, with what consequences we shallsee, and what was more, this spontaneous littlescene of enthusiasm added by some few minutesagain perhaps a quarter, perhaps half an hour


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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYto the delay. The royal children had gone in to resta little from the heat and from their fatigue. Whenthey came out and the coach started, the postmasterand his daughters openly acknowledged theirRoyal guests before the servants of the farm and thepostboys around.

Vallet himself rode upon the leaders theywhipped off before three o'clock proud to bedriving his king and filled with zeal. But his zealwas indiscreet. Twice he let the horses fall. Oncehis off wheel caught the parapet of a bridge. Atleast twice the traces broke, and time, now soheavily against them, turned still more heavilyagainst them in the necessity of finding ropes andof mending. There must have been one more hourlost somewhere in that stage of the road.When, well after four o'clock, the fugitives

clattered into Chalons, the whole matter was publicknowledge. Whether Vallet had spoken, or whetherthe news shouted across the fields had been carriedby some galloper, or in whatever other way itspread, many knew it while the two carriages werehalted for the next relay in the town. The littleknot that

gatheredround the carriage knew what

they were gazing at ; the bolder among them72


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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESmurmured thanks that the king had escaped hisenemies. The postmaster of Chalons knew it, themayor knew it, and many others whose names havenot been preserved, but whose words and attitudeshave. None would take upon himself any respon-sibility in the great quarrel, and only one obscurethreat reached their ears. An unknown man did sayin a low voice one thing which has been recorded :at least we have it at second hand, but at goodsecond hand, that the travellers heard duringa halt a passer-by cry to them that their plans hadmiscarried and that sooner or later they would beheld.But this general recognition at Chalons disturbed

them not at all. They were now not only secure inmind, as they had been for many hours, but alsowithin touch of certain and physical security. Forat the very next relay, not two hours along theroad, was not the first of those armed posts ofescort waiting for them, to surround them ? Toform a rear-guard, which should forbid all pursuit ?To roll up further posts as the carriage still wenteastward ? And to form at last a whole body ofcavalry, leading them on to the main army beyondVarennes ? At that town, not fifty miles on, was

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYthe limit beyond which lay stationed in greatnumbers the army of Bouille, the General privyto the plot and ready to do all things for the king.

Here, if we are to seize the last act of this dis-aster, we must have some picture of the scene inwhich it was played.The lower Champagne, " The Champagne of

the Dust," as the peasants call it, heaves in wide,low billows that barely disturb the vast samenessof its flat until the Argonne, its limit and its wall,is reached to the east. With the Argonne are greattrees again, and lively waters, and the recovery ofrich land.That countryside of the " Champagne Pouil-

leuse " is strange ; it has remained for centuriesthus empty to the sky, land often too poor for theplough, everywhere hungry and half deserted. Thesluggish streams that make theirway slowly throughits shallow depressions are milk-white with theworthless chalky soil, and though now too regularplantations of stunted pines diversify it, planted inthe hope of reclamation, it is of its nature a countrywithout trees, as almost without men. Small,scattered villages hold its few people, and againand again one comes to patches as great as a rich

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x

DROUET, THE POSTMASTER AT VAUEXXES

To /acs ^. 74


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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESman's estate that are left untilled and have lostalmost all feature save the records of past wars.For here has been a great battle-field for ages.Across its flat one may still trace the lines of theRoman military roads. Here the French have madetheir chief modern ranges for the training of theirgunners. Here Attila was broken in his great defeat,and you may see his enormous oval camp stillstanding, so large that it looks like the ruin of atown in the midst of the plain. Here also in thevery next year that followed the flight of the kingwere to meet for the first time the armies of theRevolution and of Europe, and from these poorfields were to retreat the forces of the invasion,which did not return until, after twenty-two years,the republic and Napoleon had transformed theworld. Here, yesterday, the fate of the world wasdecided once again in the Battle of the Marne.

Right across the sweep drives the great roadfrom Chalons, twenty-five miles, till it strikesSainte-Menehould, a country town at the foot ofthe Argonne. Only two relays break this longday's stretch, Somme-Vesle and Orbeval, each anisolated farm and standing in one of those slightlydepressed muddy-watered dips to which the road

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYfalls, and from which it as slightly rises again in itseastward progress across the plain. And there, atSomme-Vesle, at the Chalons end of the stretch,barely ten miles away, should be the first cavalryawaiting them, Choiseul's troop.

It was in the hours between half-past four andsix that the Berline was passing through this stage.That hour and a half of debt to fate which theloyalty of Lagny at Chaintrix had increased perhapsto two, the avoidable accidents under Vallet'sposting had stretched to nearly three.Young Choiseul, the duke, had come in to

Somme-Vesle. He had his orders to expect some-what after noon at the earliest, at the latest bythree, the carriage which held his master and thequeen. His exact time-table said one, and at onethat carriage had not yet reached Chaintrix ! Theofficer was mounted, and his troop of forty alsoforty German mercenaries esteemed more trust-worthy in such a task than any troops of the nation.From one till two they still sat their horses, waitingin the road before the posting-house, with thewidth of the Champagne all about : a strangesight to see, so considerable an escort thus gathered,waiting for they would not say what ! But here

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESagain, so oddly fast did the news travel, one manknew. As the afternoon wore on, and men sentriding up to the crest of the rise could see nothingcoming down the road, the postmaster, as thoughto make conversation, strolled up to one man insubordinate command and said, " It seems thatthe king is to pass this way ? " He was answeredneither yes nor no.

Peasants came in from the fields ; a little knot ofmen gathered ; rumours went about. In those daysall the French had evil words for the foreignmercenaries in the army. Some of the more ignorantof the field-workers began whispering that theywere a press-gang, that they had come to seizemen for the service. The better instructed werefar more suspicious of something far more probable.Three o'clock passed, and there began to be somepressure upon the mounted men. A few werehustled ; the gathering of peasants grew. Beyondall essentials was it essential, thus far from anysupport, to avoid a rumour of the truth, or at leastthe spreading of it ; and for Choiseul to preventany conflict between his little line of Germansand the gathering peasantry about. And in one ofthose agonies that soldiers always feel, whether

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYthe command be great or small, when synchronyfails and when they are waiting hopelessly forsomething that never comes, torn as soldiers alwaysare in such delays between two necessities, Choiseulas the afternoon still drew on and the road formiles still showed quite empty, decided for themore immediate duty. A little longer, and histroop would have suffered assault, and the king, ifafter such inexplicable delay he did come at all,would come to find a country-side beginning torise and his chances ruined.

But was the king coming ? How often had notChoiseul been told of the

perils,of the necessities,

of the last moment of the repeated postponements!How well did he not know himself the chances of apostponement, he who had left Paris as a fore-runner just before, and who had a good eye forthe faults of the court ! Hour after hour had passed ;the king could not be coming, and to linger longerwith his little German troop was in any case toensure failure. He would ride away with his menacross Argonne and join the main body at Varennes.He would not further rouse the growing talk ofthe fields by swelling the contingents to the eastwith his own, and by showing more soldiers than

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESneed be along the road. He would cut across theplain and through the woods. He rode away, andhis men after him.As the horses drawing the Berline topped the

slight rise which hides from that approach theposting-house of Somme-Vesle, and as the flatdip, with the steading and the long wall of thecourtyard, appeared before the travellers, the kingfrom the window, the guardsmen riding at theside, saw in one moment a sudden nothingness,which struck them as though the whole of theirchances had turned. Lounging before the gate ofthe stables were the few hostlers and servants ofthe place. Ofthe soldiers in their blue and white, andof their mounts, not a sign. It was inexplicable, butit spoke loudly. And the emptiness of Champagnebecame in that unexpected shock far emptier thanbefore. The travellers did not speak to one another ;they did not even press the relay. For the first timethat day a sense of dread was growing in them.They went on under the evening.For it was now already evening. The reddening

sun broke for a moment through a rift in thewestern clouds ; it shone upon tumbled, whitefields, bare or with a meagre harvest, and, upon

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THE LAST DAYS OF THE FRENCH MONARCHYits ridge to the left, on the mill which was to belifted into such fame fourteen months later underthe name of Valmy : they were crossing thatbattle-field.One more halt, one more relay under the failing

light, and the hoofs of the horses rang over thepaving of Sainte-Menehould with the high woodsof Argonne right before them. And as they camethrough the evening street, with all the peopleout to enjoy the new coolness of the air, that townmore than any other they had yet passed knewthoroughly what was toward.

Gossip of it had been passing in the inns forhours. The post of hussars there waiting hadangered men, but had been also too well explained,and their captain, as the coach waited for its horses,forgot the official secret and saluted when thosewithin beckoned him to hear the news. Drouet,the son of the postmaster, himself now acting aspostmaster of the place, sullenly ordered theharnessing, glancing ill-naturedly at the huge,yellow thing, with its heaped luggage, and tarpaulinatop, and telling his men in that hill country tospare their cattle. It was perhaps a close thingwhether, amid the growing suspicion and anger

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THE FLIGHT TO VARENNESof the place, one and then another and then a thirdpassing the news, and all aflame against the foreignmercenaries set there for a guard, the coach wouldbe allowed to start at all.

But the

last days of the french monarchy - hilaire belloc

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