1Throughout 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.

2The 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.

3Throughout 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.

4It 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.

5She 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.

6General 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.

7This 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.”

8The Queen sent for him privately when he had become the idol of the people.

9“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!”

10“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.”

11“Sir,” the Queen frantically replied, “this state of things cannot last for ever. Beware for yourself.”

12“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.”

13The Queen shrank back. “Do you think me capable of having you assassinated?”

14Tears were upon the Queen’s face.

15“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.”

16The Queen’s anger was appeased in a moment, and she placed her right hand upon the General’s arm in token of reconciliation.

17Thus 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.

18While 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.

19Her 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?”

20The 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.

21Louis XVI was incapable of managing anything but a lock; his wife thought she could govern for him, and she made a sorry mistake.

22The 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.

23The popular feeling was far stronger against the Queen than the King.

24“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!”

25That the Queen incessantly conspired to induce a foreign army to march into France, is very certain.

26The 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.

27On taking his leave, Dumouriez foretold what was to happen.

28“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——”

29Dumouriez could not finish the sentence.

30“I await—I expect death!” said the King, much moved; “and I pardon my enemies.”

31He turned away, with quivering lips.

32Dumouriez never saw Louis XVI again.

33He fled from Paris, and especially from La Belle Liègoise, who, in her blood-colored dress, was now rising to utter power.

34“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.”

35And taking the golden earrings from her ears, the rings from her fingers, she cast them before her hearers.

36Her 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.

37She 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.

38Thus 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.

39This she did in the raging time to come, of which I have to tell, and she showed him no mercy.

40Neither 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!”

41It took twenty years to enfeeble her constitution, and to wear her life away into the peacefulness of death.

42She 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.

43So the months drifted on, the events of every day darkening the fortunes of the royal family.

44And 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.

45Again 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!”

46Two minutes after, the people had got possession of the Tuileries.

47The king—who, whatever his faults, was no coward—rushed forward towards the massive folding-doors, which the populace finding bolted, were breaking open.

48As he approached, the panels fell at his feet. He ordered a couple of valets to open these folding-doors.

49“What have I to fear,” he said, “from my people?”

50A 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.

51For a moment, the power of majesty was once more asserted.

52He 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.

53The 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.

54“It is the Queen!” screamed several fierce voices. And they were the voices of women.

55In a moment, they turned upon her.

56The abhorred Queen was before them, as they thought. In another moment she would have been killed.

57“It is Madame Elizabeth!” cried the soldiers.

58The 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.

59But she was to die with her family.

60“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!”

61By this time, about twenty of the King’s friends stood about him, their swords drawn.

62“Put up your swords,” said the King; “this multitude’s more excited than guilty.”

63“Where is the Austrian?” now resounded upon all sides.

64The 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.

65A butcher, named Legendre, cried to the King, “The people are weary of being your plaything and your victim!”

66Meanwhile, those who could not gain an entrance to the besieged palace called loudly to those within, “Are they dead? Show us, then, their heads!”

67“Let him put it on!” cried the butcher, thrusting a coarse red cap of liberty towards the King on the end of a pike.

68The King smiled, and put the symbol of liberty upon his head.

69“Long live the King!” now cried some voices.

70The people now called upon the King to restore Roland—Madame Roland’s husband—to power, from which he had been dismissed.

71The King was inflexible.

72“This is not the moment for deliberation,” said the King.

73“Do not be afraid!” whispered a grenadier to Louis.

74“My friend,” said the King, “does my heart beat rapidly?”

75And he placed the man’s left hand upon his breast.

76The pulsation of the King’s heart was perfectly equable.

77“If you love the people, drink their health!” cried a man in rags, pushing forward a common bottle.

78The King smiled and took the bottle, saying, “To the nation!”

79And 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.

80Meanwhile the Queen was undergoing her agony.

81Only 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.

82She remained in her bed-room, pressing her two children to her heart.

83Suddenly, a beating at the door, and the screams of many fierce women, upon hearing the words, “The Austrian is there!”

84But they had to call masculine help before they forced the door.

85They found the Queen unprotected, except by her children, whose presence probably saved their mother from assassination.

86Only 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.

87The 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.

88By the Queen stood her daughter—near fourteen years of age.

89The Dauphin—then seven years of age, and extremely handsome—was placed upon the table before her.

90The 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.

91The child took it for a plaything, and smiled.

92And now a pretty, rosy, youthful girl came forward, and using the coarsest possible language, upbraided the Queen savagely.

93“Pray what harm have I done you?”

94“Me?—perhaps not. But what harm have you not done the nation?”

95“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!”

96The girl’s head fell.

97“I did not know you,” she said; “and I see now that you are good!”

98And now Santerre—good name for a leader of the people—approached.

99“Take the cap off the child!” he cried; “don’t you see that he is stifling?”

100The crowd was tremendous.

101And approaching the Queen he whispered, “You have some awkward friends here. I know of some who would serve you better.”

102This 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.

103Five 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.

104Several of the members of the National Assembly wept.

105To one, Merlin, the Queen said, “You weep, sir.”

106“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.”

107These 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.