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 C H A P T E R X LV I .
I N S TA L L AT I O N .

I have already said that nature had gifted me with strong legs,
and it was in days like the present that I appreciated the gift.
As yet, I knew not sufficient of Paris to be enabled to extricate
myself from the labyrinth of streets which joined the Rue St. Honoré,
and which stretched from the Rue Aubry le Boucher to the Rue
Boucherat, so that I spent six or seven minutes in making the
necessary inquiries, and at last arrived.
I saw a sombre house in a sombre street. It was No. 7. I mounted
a dark-looking staircase, and arrived at the second floor.
Three doors opened on the landing: one of them bore an
inscription:—
“Le Citoyen Maximilian de Robespierre, et Deputé à l’Assemblée
Nationale.”
I knocked.
I heard footsteps approaching the door, and then stop cautiously.
“Is it you, Maximilian?” asked a voice, in which could be discerned
traces of emotion.
“No, mademoiselle,” I replied; “but I bring news of him.”
The door was quickly opened.
“Nothing has happened to him?” asked a stately female of about
forty years.
“Here are a few words to reassure you,” I replied.
I then handed her the letter.
 It was too dark for her to be enabled to read it in the passage on
the landing.
Mademoiselle de Robespierre re-entered the apartment, inviting
me to follow her.
I entered a sort of dining-room, opening on a study and bed-
room.
All was cold, cheerless, and almost unfurnished. If not actually
miserable, it was far below mediocrity.
Mademoiselle Robespierre read her brother’s letter.
“When my brother thinks it needless to tell me where he is, he has
his reasons. You have seen him, sir?”
“I have just left him, mademoiselle.”
“Nothing has happened to him?”
“Nothing.”
“Give him my congratulations, sir, and thank for me those people
who have been hospitable to him. I would that, after the long walk
you have had, I could offer you refreshment; but my brother is so
sober, and has such few wants, that we have naught but water in
the house.”
At this moment, the tramp of footsteps was heard in the corridor.
A woman showed herself at the door of the dining-room, and, dimly,
a man could be perceived behind her.
Despite the semi-darkness, I recognised the female, and could not
resist crying out, “Madame Roland!”
Mademoiselle Robespierre repeated, in an accent of astonishment,
“Madame Roland!”
“Yes, I, myself, mademoiselle, and my husband, who, hearing that
Robespierre has been threatened by his enemies, are come to offer
him a shelter in our little house at the corner of the Rue
Guenegaud.”
 “I thank you in my brother’s name, madame,” replied
Mademoiselle Charlotte, with dignity. “He has already found the
asylum which you so nobly offer him, and which I know not myself.
Here is the gentleman who brought the news,” continued she,
pointing me out to Madame Roland.
“That proves, mademoiselle,” said, in his turn, the Citizen Roland,
“that other citizens are more favored than we;” and remarking that
he was unwilling to intrude longer on her privacy, he bowed, and
departed with his wife.
As my errand was fulfilled, I followed them, and returned in close
conversation with them. Madame Roland was at the Jacobin Club
when the paid guard made an irruption among them.
The terror was such among the few members of the society
present, that one of them, anxious to escape, escaladed the gallery
set aside for women. Madame Roland made him ashamed of himself,
and compelled him to descend the way that he had come.
They asked me about Robespierre. I told them that I was not
authorized to inform them of his place of shelter, but only could
assure them that he was in a place of safety among people who
would die for him.
Madame Roland asked me to tell Robespierre that they would
bring him to trial—that is to say, accuse him that evening at the
Feuillants. In that certainty, she and her husband were going to M.
Buzal, to pray him to defend his colleague.
We separated at the top of the Pont Neuf—M. Roland and Madame
to go down the Rue du Roule. I to follow the Rue St. Honoré.
It was quite night when I arrived at Duplay’s. Félicién had rejoined
the family during my absence; they were at table, and he regarded
askance the new arrival, who took the place of honor between
Madame Duplay and Mademoiselle Cornelie. I told M. Robespierre all
about the fulfilment of my message, and reported to him his sister’s
reply.
 I told him also that M. and Madame Roland had paid a visit to his
house.
Here he interrupted, and repeated after me,—“Citizen Roland!
Citizeness Roland!”
He appeared so astonished at the visit, that he was some time
asking me the cause.
I took my place at the table.
“Monsieur,” said Robespierre, after a moment’s silence, with his
habitual politeness, “does it please you to serve me to the end?”
“Not only will it be an honor, and a pleasure,” replied I, “but a
duty.”
“Well,” said he, “this time you have only a few steps to go, and I
shall not have to write a letter. Go to the Rue St. Anne; on the left-
hand side, in going up the street, by the Boulevards, you will see the
Hotel de Berry; there you will inquire for a young man named St.
Just. He lives on the fourth floor, in a room overlooking the court. If
he be at home, tell him that I want him. My kind host, I hope, will
allow me to receive him here. At present, this young man is of no
account, but one day he will lead us all. If he be not at home, well;
you leave your name and the address of this house, where I have
found such good friends, and such noble protectors, and under the
address you write, ‘Urgent for the sake of the public safety.’
Whenever he returns, he will come straight here, you may be sure.”
I wished to leave the table, but, placing his hand on my shoulder,
he said, “Finish your supper. I am not in so great a hurry, and we
have all the night before us.”
Five minutes after, I was proceeding up the Rue St. Anne.
The Hotel de Berry led out of the Rue Neuve des Petits-champs
and the Rue Neuve St. Augustin.
I asked for Citizen St. Just.
 The concierge threw his eyes over the keys hung on the wall, and
saw that of St. Just was not there.
“No. 19, fourth story, at the bottom of the corridor.”
I mounted a dark staircase, and found the indicated corridor, and
in that corridor, No. 19.
I knocked; a powerful voice said, “Come in!”
I turned the key in the lock, and saw a young man in his shirt-
sleeves, working by an open window at the correction of proofs.
He was so absorbed in his work, that I approached and touched
him before he turned round.
The book, the proofs of which he was correcting, was, I could see,
entitled, “Mespasse temps ou le Voirvel organe.”
The preoccupation of the young poet was caused by the desire to
find a rhyme.
The rhyme found, he turned to me.
“Pardon,” said he; “what want you?”
“Citizen St. Just,” replied I, “I come on behalf of Citizen
Robespierre.”
“You?”
“Yes. He desires your presence immediately.”
“Where?”
“If you are not prepared, I will leave you the address; but if you
are, I will conduct you thither.”
“Is he at the Rue Saintange?”
“No; he is close by here—in the Rue St. Honoré.”
“At the Jacobins?”
“There are no longer Jacobins. The club is dead.”
 “Who dared do it?”
“The paid guard, who, an hour before, dared do another thing.”
“What was the other thing?”
“Fire on the people at the Champ de Mars—slay, perchance, six or
seven hundred persons!”
St. Just shouted with rage.
“What! you a patriot—the friend of M. Robespierre,—and not know
better than that what takes place in Paris?” said I.
“I promised my publisher to have those proofs corrected by
Thursday; and in order to accomplish this I told the servant not to
disturb me for anything. He brought my breakfast in my chamber,
and here is my dinner already served. I have not had time to eat. I
knew last night from the Jacobins they must withdraw the petition;
and I doubted not that, the petition withdrawn, there might be a
disturbance at the Champ de Mars. But let us not lose a moment.
Since Robespierre requires me, I am at his orders.”
The young man put on a white waistcoat, irreproachable in its
cleanliness; a gray coat; a sword and dagger he hung at his side;
then took his hat, and said but the words, “Show the way!”
I went in front, and he followed.
 C H A P T E R X LV I I .
A BREAK.

Here comes a break in my personal adventures during the course

of the great struggle for liberty throughout France. I leading the
way, and St. Just following, we went down the Rue St. Anne, and
had almost reached the Rue Neuve des Augustins, when the
powerful voice of St. Just (one that was soon to be heard by the
Nation, which was to hush at his first word) addressed me.
“Citizen!”
“Citizen St. Just?”
“Give me the address whither we are going!” he said.
“Why, I am leading you! Do you mistrust me?”
His face flushed.
“I mistrust no man,” he replied.
“Then why do you ask for the address?”
“By way of precaution.”
“What need is there of precaution?”
“Was not the Citizen Robespierre in danger not an hour since, by
being in the streets?”
“Yes.”
“Then the Citizen St. Just is equally in danger of a bullet from the
barrel of a paid guard.”
“I shall not desert you.”
“But——”
 “Yes, citizen.”
“What if you are killed?” St. Just replied calmly. “I should not know
whither you came.”
“True,” I replied; and he taking out his tablets, wrote upon them,
from my dictation, the address of the Citizen Duplay.
In this act may be seen an example of that forethought and
preparation which gave St. Just a position to which otherwise he
never would have attained.
“Good!” he said, having carefully taken down every particular. “Go
forward.”
How necessary was his precaution, the next few minutes showed.
We had only reached the end of the Rue St. Anne, when a sudden
rush of people along the Rue Neuve des Augustins warned us that
danger was at hand.
I turned and looked at St. Just.
Without regarding me, while apparently his sight was on the alert
on all sides, he repeated his direction, “Go forward.”
Suddenly, shots were heard, and, in a few moments, the street
surged with people, who poured out from the houses and joined
those who were speeding down the street, running by their sides
and asking what the commotion meant. So far, very few of the
citizens were aware of the massacres that had taken place upon the
altar of the country.
Paris, in fact, was that day, for the first time, wholly shadowed by
the red flag—which was not to be furled again until a reign of terror,
never equalled in the history of the world, was to be followed by the
inauguration of Napoleon’s splendor.
We were proceeding as rapidly as possible past the current of
excited people, when, unquestionably, a deadly fire opened from a
small turning on the left.
 Suddenly, I turned to the left, to see who had struck me; for I felt
that a blow had been aimed at my shoulder which had nearly sent
me off my feet.
As I turned, no man faced me, and I was wondering where the
blow came from; when, as suddenly and unexpectedly as I received
the blow, I felt sick and weak.
It was a woman who screamed, “Blood!”
She pointed to the ground.
As though looking through a mist, I followed the direction of her
pointing finger.
There was blood upon the ground.
All this had passed in a space not longer than six moments.
“Citizen” said the voice of St. Just, “you are wounded; the ball,
however, was meant for me.”
The last words sounded faintly in my ears, and I thought that he,
too, was hurt.
“And you, citizen—are you wounded?”
“No,” he replied, in a still fainter voice, as it appeared to me; but it
was my senses forsaking me.
“Citizens,” I heard him say, “if I fall, you will find an address in my
pocket, which is the home of this lad.”
That was all I heard. Suddenly, the earth appeared to slip from
under me, and there was an end of my consciousness.
When next I knew myself, I awoke to life with the feeling of a
beating red-hot hammer upon my left shoulder; I appeared to be
struggling out of a state of fearful horror. When this cleared off and I
knew myself to be once more alive, once more Citizen Réné Besson,
I was in a little room, which I soon learnt was an apartment
belonging to Citizen Duplay; and, at my side, reading a book, was
Citizeness Cornelie Duplay, who had constituted herself my nurse.
 And inasmuch as this history is not so much one of myself as of
the Revolution, and of my part in it, I will only briefly recount the
events of the next few weeks—of the next few months, in relation to
myself.
It appeared that I had been wounded in the shoulder, not
dangerously; but the loss of blood was very great, and I was weak
as a little child. I could not raise my hand even to my head, while I
had scarcely voice sufficient with which to thank my kind nurse for
the offices she performed about me.
For weeks I lay upon that narrow bed, my constitution, and the
temperate life I had hitherto led, fighting well in my favor. I could tell
through chapters how gradually the memory of Sophie Gerbaut
faded from my mind, and of how Cornelie Duplay took her place in
my heart.
But I said nothing of my love; and when, weak, but quite safe, I
sat once more at Citizen Duplay’s hospitable table, I still kept my
passion to myself.
Released, however, as I was, from my bed, I was still a prisoner in
the house, which I did not quit for a couple more months.
Meanwhile the Revolution was progressing.
The sight of the altar of the country, after the flight of the people
from its steps, was terrible. It is said that the great mass of the dead
lying bleeding upon that mighty structure was composed of women
and children.
As the National Guard marched back to the city, after this
massacre of many hundreds—a massacre which would have been
multiplied by ten, had not Lafayette thrown himself before the
cannon—they were greeted with low cries of “Murder!” “Murder!”
“Vengeance!”
That day utterly parted the people from the thought of royalty.
Paris was now ready to spill blood, for massacre would now take the
name of vengeance. In many a street in the common parts of Paris
were to be found the surviving relatives of those who had been
slain. These were naturally prompted by a spirit of revenge—by a
determination to pay blood with blood.
Nothing could wash out this hate—no words uttered by the weak
and vacillating King could now stem the torrent of hate. Louis XVI
and Marie Antoinette were already condemned to death in the hearts
of the people. Nothing could save them.
The people were now ripe for rage, and therefore the terrible
Danton gained power. The total reverse of Robespierre, they were to
rise to power together. Robespierre was feeble, small, thin, and
excessively temperate. Habitually, he ate little, drank water, and
used perfumes when he was not surrounded by flowers; for he was
as passionate an admirer of flowers as Mirabeau himself. Danton, on
the other hand, was a huge monster—athletic, rude, coarse. He
pleased the worst rabble of the city, because he resembled them. His
eloquence was as thunder, and his very phrases were short, clear,
and plain, like the words of a general accustomed to command. His
very gestures intoxicated the people, who, however, more than by
anything, were attracted by his wit, which, coarse, brutal, and often
unjust, was never obscure, and always to the point. Men who went
to hear his wit, remained to be converted to his ways of thinking.
His one quality was ambition—his one passion, excitement. He
was quite devoid of honor, principles, or morality—he was already
drunk with the Revolution; but it was a drunkenness which produced
madness—not sleep. Moreover, he had the peculiar power of
controlling himself even in his most excited moments—times when
he would launch a bitter joke in the midst of his denunciations—a
joke which should compel his hearers to yell with laughter, while he
himself remained perfectly impassive. He laughed contemptuously at
all honesty. He despised a man who could pity. In a word, he was a
wild beast gifted with speech, but who could no more think beyond
himself and his wants or desires, than can the beasts that perish.
The first great act of the people after the massacre upon the altar
of the country, was the expression of a desire to honor the remains
of Voltaire—the man whose writings, together with those of
Rousseau, had actually sown the seed of revolution against that
royalty which in Gaul and France had unceasingly mastered the
people through two weary thousand years, before the death of
Voltaire, in 1778—thirteen years before the events I am now
recording. The power of the Court and the Church still maintained
such sway over the minds and hearts of the people, that it was
impossible to hope to bury the great man without creating a popular
outrage. His nephew, therefore, secretly removed the body from
Paris, where Voltaire died, and bore it far away to the Abbey of
Sellières, in Champagne, where it found a resting-place.
Now it was the National Assembly ordered the removal of
Voltaire’s remains to the Pantheon, the cathedral of philosophy,
where lie buried many great men—that building upon the face of
which has been carved “France, in gratitude to great men.”
“The people owe their freedom to Voltaire!” cried Regnault de St.
Jean d’Angely; “for by enlightening them he gave them power.
Nations are enthralled by ignorance alone; and when the torch of
reason displays to them the ignominy of bearing these chains, they
blush to wear them, and they snap them asunder!”
Like a conqueror, seated on his trophies, they placed Voltaire’s
coffin in the midst of the spot upon which the horrible Bastille had
stood, and upon a great heap of stones which had formed part of
that stronghold; and thus Voltaire, dead, triumphed over those
stones which had gained a victory over him in life, for Voltaire had
been a prisoner in the Bastille.
On one of the blocks which formed this second altar of the
country they carved this inscription:

“R eceive on this spot , where despotism once fettered thee , the honors
decreed to thee by thy country .”

All Paris poured out to walk in the triumphal procession which

accompanied the quiet ashes to their last resting-place. The car
upon which the coffin lay was harnessed by twelve horses, four
abreast, their manes plaited with golden tassels and beautiful
flowers, the reins being held by men dressed in ancient Greek
costume. On the car was a sort of altar upon which lay a waxen
statue of the philosopher crowned with laurel. This was placed over
the remains.
The money spent upon this pageant was immense; whence it
came, no one has ever learnt. It was almost miraculous. Meanwhile,
the people were living upon a couple of ounces of bread apiece, and
a few miserable vegetables. That passion and vengeance could have
been kept alive upon such reducing diet, is the truest evidence of
the justice of the national cause.
The military formed a portion of the procession, while cannon
boomed incessantly during the march. Finally—and it is the most
significant fact of this remarkable pageant—a printing-press was
made to take part in the procession. At this press, agile printers
were taking off impressions of sentences in honor of Voltaire, the
printed papers being cast to the seething multitude fresh printed as
they were.
Here and there the red cap—the cap of liberty—might be seen,
surmounting the ominous pike.
Every actor and actress in Paris followed, dressed in the costumes
of the characters of Voltaire’s plays. Members of all the learned
bodies followed; a gigantic pyramid was carried along, bearing the
titles of all his works; and, finally, the statue of the demigod himself
—a statue of gold—was borne upon the shoulders of men dressed in
Grecian costume, this being followed by a casket of gold, containing
a copy of each of his works.
Troops of singing-girls dressed in white met the quiet cause of all
this demonstration, and showered white flowers upon the
catafalque; hymns to his genius were sung, the air was sick with
perfume, and the city trembled with the roar of adoration.
 Night fell before the procession reached the temple dedicated to
the remains of great men, and here Voltaire was enthroned, for he
was King of France in that hour; and the weak, vacillating, and
kindly Louis XVI, away there in the Tuileries, was crownless, awaiting
to pay in his person—he the least odious of his race—for the
unceasing crimes and cruelties of his forefathers.
 C H A P T E R X LV I I I .
T H E T H R E AT I S L O U D E R .

Throughout August, affairs were tending more and more to

dangerous threats. The National Assembly were ostensibly framing a
new constitution; but the delegates proceeded very slowly, except in
the matter of contradiction, at which they were very brisk.
The King’s brothers became still further estranged from him; while
the efforts made beyond the frontier, tending to liberate the royal
family from the state of imprisonment in which they lived, only
tended to hasten the growing belief of the people that by the death
of the King, alone could the nation hope to destroy the chances and
the plans of those Royalists who had escaped from France, and were
blindly endeavoring to serve their own interests by inducing foreign
Courts to declare war against France, and march upon Paris.
Throughout this period the King gave little expression of opinion,
worked and read incessantly, and bore the threatening aspect of
affairs about him and his family with great patience. He was an
estimable man, honest to a degree, but stupid, hopelessly
prejudiced, and apparently without any capability of experiencing
tenderness or sorrow.
It was now that Roland, the husband of the celebrated Madame
Roland, rose to eminence. Nothing in himself, he became notorious
through his wife—one of the most beautiful, accomplished, and
brilliant, as one of the most unfortunate, the world has yet seen. Her
husband was much older than herself—cold, deadly, impassive; but,
on the other hand, his steady principles were never for one moment
shaken.
 She was a republican, heart and soul; and when the people,
towards the close of the year 1791, began to believe that the
differences between the King and the nation would be amicably
settled, she never swerved one moment in maintaining that a
republic, and only a republic, could save France from invasion.
General Dumouriez was also rising to power. He was rather a
courtier than a soldier, although he was destined to win victories:
especially amongst women, he was very successful. He attempted to
obtain favor from Madame Roland herself; but that single-hearted
lady, true to her ice-cold husband, put down the General’s
pretensions with calm contempt. He, however, gained much
attention from Marie Antoinette, as the man who, amongst those
who had acquired the confidence of the people, was the most
aristocratic, and who had, therefore, the most sympathy with the
falling royal cause. The Queen was right. After gaining several
battles for France against the Austrians, he turned his army upon
Paris, intending to intimidate the Republicans. The army revolted,
and Dumouriez himself had to take refuge in the camp of those very
Austrians whom but a short time previously he had conquered. They
would have nothing to do with him; and, finally, he fled to England,
always open to the refugee, and there he died in obscurity.
This general, therefore, helped to destroy the royal family. At his
first interview with the King, he said, “Sire, I devote myself wholly to
your service. But a minister of to-day is no longer the minister of
yesterday. Without ceasing to be your Majesty’s devoted servant, I
am the slave of the nation.”
The Queen sent for him privately when he had become the idol of
the people.
“Sir,” said she, “you are all-powerful at this moment; but it is
through popular favor, and that soon destroys its idols. I tell you I
oppose the changes which are being made in the constitution, so
beware!”
 “I am confounded,” the General replied; “but I am more the
servant of my country than of your Majesty. Think of your safety, of
the King’s, of that of your children! You are surrounded by enemies.
If, in the King’s interests, you oppose the new constitution made by
the Assembly you will endanger the royal family, and in no way
prevent the course of events.”
“Sir,” the Queen frantically replied, “this state of things cannot last
for ever. Beware for yourself.”
“Madame,” said Dumouriez, who had accepted the post of Premier
of the Ministry, and who, at this time, appears to have very faithfully
served the nation—his great fault was his fickleness,—“madame,
when I became Prime Minister, I knew that my responsibility was not
my greatest danger.”
The Queen shrank back. “Do you think me capable of having you
assassinated?”
Tears were upon the Queen’s face.
“Far be such a fearful thought from me, your Majesty. Your soul is
great and noble, and the bravery you have shown on many
occasions has for ever made me your Majesty’s most devoted slave.”
The Queen’s anger was appeased in a moment, and she placed
her right hand upon the General’s arm in token of reconciliation.
Thus it was that this unhappy woman, who had begun life so
extravagantly, while the masses were starving, irritated the people,
and especially all those who had dealings with her, by the apparent
childishness and weakness of her general character. It was felt that
no reliance could be placed upon her. Born of the great feudal
Austrian family about whom etiquette was so plastered, that only
nobles could sit down in the presence of the royal family, and then
upon a very low stool, she was brought to France at a very early
age, to a Court almost as ridiculous as the one she had left. But
while the Austrians had been excited to no feelings of hate against
their Emperor, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, had taught the French to
look upon royalty as made up of merciless, greedy puppets; and,
unfortunately, Marie Antoinette—a pure and noble-hearted woman in
herself—had the appearance of totally agreeing with this description.
While the people were starving, her passion for jewels became
absorbing; while mothers were begging meals for their little ones,
she was taking parts in little comedies at Versailles.
Her memory can scarcely be blamed. She had never seen the
people; and, as a proof that she knew nothing about them and their
wants, we hear about her the celebrated anecdote, which helped to
send her to the scaffold. Being told the people wanted bread, she
replied, “If there is no bread, why do they not eat cake?”
The people never forgave that—she washed those words only
partly out with her blood. Did she really mean what she said, or
were the words intended for a joke? Did she really think that if there
was no bread there must be cake; or did she utter that fatal
sentence as a witticism? I venture to think that she was ignorant of
the very meaning of starvation; for courtiers treat kings and queens
like children. A misfortune this, when the people expect them to be
men and women—the condition of things when the Revolution broke
out.
Louis XVI was incapable of managing anything but a lock; his wife
thought she could govern for him, and she made a sorry mistake.
The King’s grandfather, Louis XV, the preceding King, had said,
“After me, the deluge.” The deluge was upon the royal family,
sweeping around them, and was to overwhelm the family.
The popular feeling was far stronger against the Queen than the
King.
“See,” she said, one day, before Dumouriez and the King, and
pointing through a window near her; “a prisoner in this palace, I
dare not venture to present myself at a window that overlooks the
garden. But yesterday I wished to breathe the air, and went to the
window. An artilleryman used the language of a guard-room, and
hurled his words at me; held up his sword, and said he should like to
see my head on it. I have seen them murdering a priest, and
meanwhile, not ten yards away, children and their nurses are playing
at ball. What a country, and what people!”
That the Queen incessantly conspired to induce a foreign army to
march into France, is very certain.
The King soon mistrusted Dumouriez, who at once offered to
resign his position of Minister. The King at once accepted, and
another friend was lost by royalty.
On taking his leave, Dumouriez foretold what was to happen.
“Sire,” said he, “you think you are about to save religion. You are
destroying it. The priesthood will be killed; your crown will be taken
from you; perhaps even the Queen and the royal children——”
Dumouriez could not finish the sentence.
“I await—I expect death!” said the King, much moved; “and I
pardon my enemies.”
He turned away, with quivering lips.
Dumouriez never saw Louis XVI again.
He fled from Paris, and especially from La Belle Liègoise, who, in
her blood-colored dress, was now rising to utter power.
“Build the new parliament,” she cried, “on the site of the Bastille;
and let every woman give her jewels, that the gold may be coined to
pay for the work.”
And taking the golden earrings from her ears, the rings from her
fingers, she cast them before her hearers.
Her power was so great, that during every sudden outbreak her
“nod” condemned any man brought before her, to death; her “Let
him go,” set him at liberty.
She was mad for years before she was placed in the asylum where
she ended her days, twenty years after the death of the King and
Queen. Not a Frenchwoman, but born at Liège, she had been
brought up respectably; she was even accomplished; but at
seventeen she had fallen a victim to the snares of a young French
nobleman.
Thus fallen, she threw herself into all shapes of debauchery; and
when the Revolution broke out, she came to France, to hunt down
and destroy the man who had destroyed her.
This she did in the raging time to come, of which I have to tell,
and she showed him no mercy.
Neither found she any mercy for herself. The furies of the
Revolution—the tricoteuses—seized her, stripped her to the skin, and
whipped her in public, as an obscene prostitute. This act brought
into active force the latent madness from which she had been
suffering for some time. She was removed to a madhouse, and there
she dragged through twenty years of life. In fierce memory of the
indignity which had been put upon her, she would never put on any
clothing; and so she lived, clutching the bars of her den, screaming,
alternately, “Blood!” and “Liberty!”
It took twenty years to enfeeble her constitution, and to wear her
life away into the peacefulness of death.
She was the greatest enemy the Queen had. She declared Marie
Antoinette as frail as herself; for this demon in woman’s shape
insanely gloried in her condition. And when she gloried in this
statement against the “Austrian”—the most opprobrious name the
people could find to cast at the Queen—her hearers applauded
loudly.
So the months drifted on, the events of every day darkening the
fortunes of the royal family.
And now came the time when the palace was besieged. The King,
looking from his window, saw the meeting of a huge crowd without
any alarm: he was, by this time, accustomed to sudden crowds.
Again a soldier had led the way for the mob. An artillery officer,
instead of obeying orders, and retiring his guns to defend the
palace, pointed to its windows, and cried, “The enemy is there!”
 Two minutes after, the people had got possession of the Tuileries.
The king—who, whatever his faults, was no coward—rushed
forward towards the massive folding-doors, which the populace
finding bolted, were breaking open.
As he approached, the panels fell at his feet. He ordered a couple
of valets to open these folding-doors.
“What have I to fear,” he said, “from my people?”
A ragged man rushed forward, and thrust a stick, pointed with
iron, at the King. A grenadier of the guard struck it down with his
bayonet. And now the man fell, whether in a fit or not will always
remain a question. Certainly, as he rushed forward, he was foaming
at the mouth. All that is known farther of him is this—that the mass
pressing forward, he was trampled to death.
For a moment, the power of majesty was once more asserted.
He had left the Queen, the royal children, and his noble sister,
Madame Elizabeth, in an inner room, and had ordered the door to be
closed after him. This had been done.
The king now moved to another room, larger, pretending that
there he could speak to a greater number of citizens. Suddenly,
hearing a scuffle, the King turned, to find the mob surrounding
Madame Elizabeth, who was endeavoring to reach the King’s side.
“It is the Queen!” screamed several fierce voices. And they were
the voices of women.
In a moment, they turned upon her.
The abhorred Queen was before them, as they thought. In
another moment she would have been killed.
“It is Madame Elizabeth!” cried the soldiers.
The mob fell back with reverence. Even at that point they could
respect Elizabeth, the purity and simplicity of whose life formed the
one favorable point in the united lives of the royal family, and one to
which the whole mass of the people gave implicit credence.
But she was to die with her family.
“Ah! what have you done?” she cried. “Had they been allowed to
take me for the Queen, and have killed me, I had perhaps saved the
Queen’s life!”
By this time, about twenty of the King’s friends stood about him,
their swords drawn.
“Put up your swords,” said the King; “this multitude’s more excited
than guilty.”
“Where is the Austrian?” now resounded upon all sides.
The question which excited the multitude was against the
priesthood, whose members, known to favor royalty, were abhorred
by the people. The king had refused to sign an act by virtue of which
the priesthood would have been annihilated.
A butcher, named Legendre, cried to the King, “The people are
weary of being your plaything and your victim!”
Meanwhile, those who could not gain an entrance to the besieged
palace called loudly to those within, “Are they dead? Show us, then,
their heads!”
“Let him put it on!” cried the butcher, thrusting a coarse red cap of
liberty towards the King on the end of a pike.
The King smiled, and put the symbol of liberty upon his head.
“Long live the King!” now cried some voices.
The people now called upon the King to restore Roland—Madame
Roland’s husband—to power, from which he had been dismissed.
The King was inflexible.
“This is not the moment for deliberation,” said the King.
“Do not be afraid!” whispered a grenadier to Louis.
 “My friend,” said the King, “does my heart beat rapidly?”
And he placed the man’s left hand upon his breast.
The pulsation of the King’s heart was perfectly equable.
“If you love the people, drink their health!” cried a man in rags,
pushing forward a common bottle.
The King smiled and took the bottle, saying, “To the nation!”
And now the cries of “Long live the King!” were so strong that
they floated out upon the crowd waiting to see the King’s body cast
amongst them; and, instead, they learnt that once more the King
had—if only for a time—reconciled himself to his people.
Meanwhile the Queen was undergoing her agony.
Only the conviction that she was more immeasurable hated than
the King, prevented her from joining him before the people. She
feared her presence might exasperate the people beyond all control.
She remained in her bed-room, pressing her two children to her
heart.
Suddenly, a beating at the door, and the screams of many fierce
women, upon hearing the words, “The Austrian is there!”
But they had to call masculine help before they forced the door.
They found the Queen unprotected, except by her children, whose
presence probably saved their mother from assassination.
Only a few ladies were with her, one of whom was that unhappy
Princess de Lamballe, who would not remain in England, who
returned to France, and who was one of the first to fall a victim to
the Reign of Terror.
The Queen was found by the screaming crowd of women standing
as I have described, in a bay window, while between her and the
mob, a long, heavy table had been placed across the window.
By the Queen stood her daughter—near fourteen years of age.
 The Dauphin—then seven years of age, and extremely handsome
—was placed upon the table before her.
The men in the crowd were for the greater part silent; the women
were implacable: one of these thrust forward a republican red cap,
and told the Austrian to put it on Louis’s head. This she did.
The child took it for a plaything, and smiled.
And now a pretty, rosy, youthful girl came forward, and using the
coarsest possible language, upbraided the Queen savagely.
“Pray what harm have I done you?”
“Me?—perhaps not. But what harm have you not done the
nation?”
“Poor child!” the Queen replied. “You but repeat what you have
been told. Why should I make the people miserable? Though not
born a Frenchwoman, my children are French, and I shall never see
my native land again. I was happy when you loved me!”
The girl’s head fell.
“I did not know you,” she said; “and I see now that you are good!”
And now Santerre—good name for a leader of the people—
approached.
“Take the cap off the child!” he cried; “don’t you see that he is
stifling?”
The crowd was tremendous.
And approaching the Queen he whispered, “You have some
awkward friends here. I know of some who would serve you better.”
This was the first intimation the Queen really had that there was a
party amongst the people actually willing to raise the royal family
they had so utterly degraded.
Five hours that torture lasted before the palace was cleared. The
King and Queen had also been forced to put the national cockades
upon their heads. When once more the royal house was free, the
unhappy people could scarcely find strength with which to embrace.
Several of the members of the National Assembly wept.
To one, Merlin, the Queen said, “You weep, sir.”
“Yes, madame,” he replied, gravely; “I weep over the misfortunes
of the woman, the wife, and the mother; but, beyond this, my heart
is stone. I hate kings and queens.”
These words were the key-stone to French feeling. Louis XVI and
his wife were driven to the block, not as a man and a wife, as father
and mother—but as King and Queen.
 CHAPTER XLIX.
THE KING QUITS THE TUILERIES.

The National Assembly had ordered the provinces to send 20,000

troops to Paris. With them they brought the revolutionary hymn, the
“Marseillaise.” It was written and composed by a young artillery
officer, named De Lisle. It was completed at the piano, after a night’s
bout. He fell asleep over the instrument, and at length awakening,
gradually recalled the air and words of a song, the fierceness of
which sent more French men and women to the block than did any
other motive.
That song drove revolutionary France mad, and took from the
royal family all hope of mercy.
The royal family, however, were still at the Palace of the Tuileries;
and while they remained there, the semblance of royalty was kept
up—albeit, in fact, they were utterly prisoners.
The Queen, early in August, still utterly relied upon Lafayette, who
did not disguise his desire to retain the monarchy, under a
protectorate—he himself to be the Protector.
“Mistrust Lafayette,” had said Mirabeau; but the Queen’s faith was
strong, and her confidence hastened events.
However, one Gaudet, only twenty years of age, was rising to
power amongst the Girondists; and he having intimated that he felt
great interest in the royal family, matters were so managed that he
had an interview with Marie Antoinette, who, poor lady, took him by
the hand, and led him to the little cot in which her child was
sleeping.
“Educate him to liberty, madame,” said the orator. “It is the one
condition of his life.”
 He kissed the child. Nine months afterwards he was one of those
who sent the King and Queen to the scaffold.
The royal family were now prohibited from shutting a door, and so
much did they dread poison, that they only pretended to eat of the
dishes prepared and set before them, and really subsisted upon
cakes, and other food brought to them in the pockets of their
attendants, who purchased the eatables at obscure shops.
The Queen made the King wear as a breastplate fifteen-fold silk;
but while the poor man complied, he said, “They will not assassinate
me, but put me to death like a King, in open daylight.”
He never appears to have thought of the possible execution of the
Queen herself.
“He is no coward,” she said of the King; “but he is calm in the
presence of danger. His courage is in his heart, only it does not show
itself—he is so timid.”
The family now only showed themselves when going to church on
Sunday, and then they were assailed with cries of “No King!” Louis
said it was as though God himself had turned against him.
One night, a chamber-valet, who slept at the Queen’s door, was
awakened, to find an assassin, dagger in hand, stealing into the
Queen’s room.
Murders now became quite common. One D’Epremesnil, who had
been a great favorite with the people, showed signs of moderation.
Suddenly turned upon by the mob, he was cut down, dragged
through the gutters, and was about to be thrown into a common
sewer, when he was rescued by a squad of the National Guard. As
he lay dying, Pétion, the Mayor of Paris, looked upon him, and
fainted. Recovering his senses, the victim said to the Mayor, “And I—
I, too, was once the idol of the people! May you meet with a better
fate!”
The sound of the soul-stirring “Marseillaise” had maddened Paris.
The hourly news of the march of the Prussians upon France fatally