Александр Дюма
The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI
She threw herself on a sofa, and hid her face in her hands.
Dumouriez dropped on one knee, and taking up the hem of her dress respectfully, he kissed it.
"Lady," he said, "from the time when I undertake this struggle, you will become the mighty queen and the happy woman once more, or I shall leave my life on the battle-field."
Rising, he saluted the lady and hurried out. She watched him go with a hopeless look, repeating:
"The mighty queen? Perhaps, thanks to your sword – for it is possible; but the happy woman – never, never, never!"
She let her head fall between the sofa cushions, muttering the name dearer every day and more painful:
"Charny!"
The Dumouriez Cabinet might be called one of war.
On the first of March, the Emperor Leopold died in the midst of his Italian harem, slain by self-compounded aphrodisiacs. The queen, who had read in some lampoon that a penny pie would settle the monarchy, and who had called Dr. Gilbert in to get an antidote, cried aloud that her brother was poisoned. With him passed all the halting policy of Austria.
Francis II., who mounted the throne, was of mixed Italian and German blood. An Austrian born at Florence, he was weak, violent, and tricky. The priests reckoned him an honest man; his hard and bigoted soul hid its duplicity under a rosy face of dreadful sameness. He walked like a stage ghost; he gave his daughter to a conqueror rather than part with his estate, and then stabbed him in the back at his first retreating step in the snows. Francis II. remains in history the tyrant of the Leads of Venice and the Spitzberg dungeons, and the torturer of Andryane and Silvio Pellico.
This was the protector of the French fugitives, the ally of Prussia and the enemy of France. He held Embassador Noailles as a prisoner at Vienna.
The French embassador to Berlin, Segur, was preceded by a rumor that he expected to gain the secrets of the King of Prussia by making love to his mistresses – this King of Prussia was a lady-killer! Segur presented himself at the same time as the envoy from the self-exiled princes at Coblentz.
The king turned his back on the French representative, and asked pointedly after the health of the Prince of Artois.
These were the two ostensible foes; the hidden ones were Spain, Russia, and England. The chief of the coalition was to be the King of Sweden, that dwarf in giant's armor whom Catherine II. held up in her hand.
With the ascension of Francis, the diplomatic note came: Austria was to rule in France, Avignon was to be restored to the pope, and things in France were to go back to where they stood in June, 1789.
This note evidently agreed with the secret wishes of the king and the queen. Dumouriez laughed at it. But he took it to the king.
As much as Marie Antoinette, the woman for extreme measures, desired a war which she believed one of deliverance for her, the king feared it, as the man for the medium, slowness, wavering, and crooked policy. Indeed, suppose a victory in the war, he would be at the mercy of the victorious general; suppose a defeat, and the people would hold him responsible, cry treason, and rush on the palace!
In short, should the enemy penetrate to Paris, what would it bring? The king's brother, Count Provence, who aimed to be regent of the realm. The result of the return of the runaway princes would be the king deposed, Marie Antoinette pronounced an adulteress, and the royal children proclaimed, perhaps, illegitimate.
The king trusted foreigners, but not the princes of his own blood and kingdom.
On reading the note, he comprehended that the hour to draw the sword for France had come, and that there was no receding.
Who was to bear the flag of the revolution? Lafayette, who had lost his fame by massacring the populace on the Paris parade-ground; Luckner, who was known only by the mischief he wrought in the Seven Years' War, and old Rochambeau, the French naval hero in the American Revolution, who was for defensive war, and was vexed to see Dumouriez promote young blood over his head without benefiting by his experience.
It was expected that Lafayette would be victorious in the north; when he would be commander-in-chief, Dumouriez would be the Minister of War; they would cast down the red cap and crush Jacobins and Girondists with the two hands.
The counter-revolution was ready.
But what were Robespierre and the Invisibles doing – that great secret society which held the agitators in its grasp as Jove holds the writhing thunder-bolts? Robespierre was in the shade, and many asserted that he was bribed by the royal family.
At the outset all went well for the Royalists; Lafayette's lieutenants, two Royalists, Dillon and Biron, headed a rout before Lille; the scouts, dragoons, still the most aristocratic arm of the service, turned tail and started a panic. The runaways accused the captains of treachery, and murdered Dillon and other officers. The Gironde accused the queen and Court party of organizing the flight.
The popular clamor compelled Marie Antoinette to let the Constitutional Guard be abolished – another name for a royal life-guard – and it was superseded by the Paris National Guards.
Oh! Charny, Charny, where were you? – you who, at Varennes, nearly rescued the queen with but three hundred horsemen – what would you not have done at Paris with six thousand desperadoes?
Charny was happy, forgetting everything in the arms of his countess.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FOES FACE TO FACE
While the queen was looking from the palace to see the Austrians coming, another was watching in her little reception-rooms. One was revolution embodied, the other its opponents intensified; that was Madame Roland, this the queen from Austria.
The real war at this period was between this pair.
A singular thing, both had such influence over their husbands as to lead them to death, although by different roads.
Dumouriez had thrown a sop to the Jacobins without knowing who the Colonel Servan was whom he took for Minister of War. He was a favorite of Madame Roland. Like all the Girondists, of whom she was the light, the fire, the egeria, he was inspired by that valiant spirit.
But he and Roland were neutralized at the council by Dumouriez. They had forced the Royalist Constitutional Guards to disband, but they had merely changed their uniform for that of the Swiss Guards, the sworn defenders of royalty, and swaggered about the streets more insolently than before.
Madame Roland suggested that, on the occasion of the July festivals, a camp of twenty thousand volunteers should be established in Paris. Servan was to present this as a citizen, apart from his being a minister. In the same way, Roland was to punish the rebellious priests who were preaching from the pulpits that taxpayers would be damned, by ordering their exile.
Dumouriez supported the volunteer proposition at the council, in the hope that the new-comers would be Jacobins; that is, the Invisibles, by whom neither the Girondists nor the Feuillants would profit.
"If your majesty vetoes it," he said, firmly, "instead of the twenty thousand authorized, we shall have forty thousand unruly spirits in town, who may with one rush upset Constitution, Assembly, and the throne. Had we been vanquishers – But we must give in – I say accept."
But the queen urged the king to stand firm. As we know, she would rather be lost than be saved by Lafayette.
As for the decree against the priests, it was another matter. The king said that he wavered in temporal questions as he judged them with his mind, which was fallible; but he tried religious matters with his conscience, which was infallible!
But they could not dispense with Dumouriez at this juncture.
"Accept the volunteer act," said the queen, at last; "let the camp be at Soissons, where the general says he will gradually draft them off out of the way; and – well, we will see about the decree aimed at the priests. Dumouriez has your promise, but there must be some way of evading the issue when you are the Jesuits' pupil!"
Roland, Servan, and Clavieres resigned, and the Assembly applauded their act as deserving the thanks of the country.
Hearing of this, and that Dumouriez was badly compromised, the pupil of Vauguyon agreed to the Volunteer Camp Bill, but pleading conscientious scruples, deferred signing the decree banishing the refractory priests. This made the new ministers wince, and Dumouriez went away sore at heart. The king had almost succeeded in baffling him, the fine diplomatist, sharp politician, and the general whose courage was doubled by intrigue!
He found at home the spies' reports that the Invisibles were holding meetings in the working quarters, and openly at Santerre's brewery. He wrote to warn the king, whose answer was:
"Do not believe that I can be bullied; my mind is made up."
Dumouriez replied, asking for an audience, and requested his successor to be sought for. It was clear that the anti-revolutionist party felt strong.
Indeed, they were reckoning on the following forces:
The Constitutional Guards, six thousand strong, disbanded, but ready to fly to arms at the first call; seven or eight thousand Knights of the Order of St. Louis, whose red ribbon was the rallying token; three battalions of Switzers, sixteen hundred men, picked soldiers, unshaken as the old Helvetic rocks.
Better than all, Lafayette had written: "Persist, sire; fortified with the authority the National Assembly has delegated to you, you will find all good citizens on your side!"
The plan was to gather all the forces at a given signal, seize the cannon of each section of Paris, shut up the Jacobin's Club-house and the Assembly, add all the Royalists in the National Guard, say, a contingent of fifteen thousand men, and wait for Lafayette, who might march up in three days.
The misfortune was that the queen would not hear of Lafayette. Lafayette was merely the Revolution moderated, and might prolong it and lead to a republic like that he had brought round in America; while the Jacobins' outrageous rule would sicken the people and could not endure.
Oh, had Charny been at hand! But it was not even known where he was; and were it known, it would be too low an abasement for the woman, if not the queen, to have recourse to him.
The night passed tumultuously at the palace, where they had the means of defense and attack, but not a hand strong enough to grasp and hurl them.
Dumouriez and his colleagues came to resign. They affirmed they were willing to die for the king, but to do this for the clergy would only precipitate the downfall of the monarchy.
"Sire," pleaded Dumouriez, "your conscience is misled; you are beguiled into civil war. Without strength, you must succumb, and history, while sorrowing for you, will blame you for causing the woes of France."
"Heaven be my witness that I wished but her happiness!"
"I do not doubt that; but one must account to the King of kings not only for purity of intentions, but the enlightened use of intentions. You suppose you are saving religion, but you will destroy it; your priests will be massacred; your broken crown will roll in your blood, the queen's, your children's, perhaps – oh, my king, my king!"
Choking, he applied his lips to the royal hand. With perfect serenity, and a majesty of which he might not be believed capable, Louis replied.
"You are right, general. I expect death, and forgive my murderers beforehand. You have well served me; I esteem you, and am affected by your sympathy. Farewell, sir!"
With Dumouriez going, royalty had parted with its last stay. The king threw off the mask, and stood with uncovered face before the people.
Let us see what the people were doing on their side.
CHAPTER V.
THE UNINVITED VISITORS
All day long a man in general's uniform was riding about the St. Antoine suburb, on a large Flanders horse, shaking hands right and left, kissing the girls and treating the men to drink. This was one of Lafayette's half dozen heirs, the small-change of the commander of the National Guard – Battalion Commander Santerre.
Beside him rode, on a fiery charger, like an aid next his general, a stout man who might by his dress be taken to be a well-to-do farmer. A scar tracked his brow, and he had as gloomy an eye and scowling a face as the battalion commander had an open countenance and frank smile.
"Get ready, my good friends; watch over the nation, against which traitors are plotting. But we are on guard," Santerre kept saying.
"What are we to do, friend Santerre?" asked the working-men. "You know that we are all your own. Where are the traitors? Lead us at them!"
"Wait; the proper time has not come."
"When will it strike?"
Santerre did not know a word about it; so he replied at a hazard, "Keep ready; we'll let you know."
But the man who rode by his knee, bending down over the horse's neck, would make signs to some men, and whisper:
"June twenty."
Whereupon these men would call groups of twenty or so around each, and repeat the date to them, so that it would be circulated. Nobody knew what would be done on the twentieth of June, but all felt sure that something would happen on that day.
By whom was this mob moved, stirred, and excited? By a man of powerful build, leonine mane, and roaring voice, whom Santerre was to find waiting in his brewery office – Danton.
None better than this terrible wizard of the Revolution could evoke terror from the slums and hurl it into the old palace of Catherine di Medicis. Danton was the gong of riots; the blow he received he imparted vibratingly to all the multitude around him. Through Hebert he was linked to the populace, as by the Duke of Orleans he was affixed to the throne.
Whence came his power, doomed to be so fatal to royalty? To the queen, the spiteful Austrian who had not liked Lafayette to be mayor of Paris, but preferred Petion, the Republican, who had no sooner brought back the fugitive king to the Tuileries than he set to watch him closely.
Petion had made his two friends, Manuel and Danton, the Public Prosecutor and the Vice, respectively.
On the twentieth of June, under the pretext of presenting a petition to the king and raising a liberty pole, the palace was to be stormed.
The adepts alone knew that France was to be saved from the Lafayettes and the Moderates, and a warning to be given to the incorrigible monarch that there are some political tempests in which a vessel may be swamped with all hands aboard; that is, a king be overwhelmed with throne and family as in the oceanic abysses.
Billet knew more than Santerre when he accompanied him on his tour, after presenting himself as from the committee.
Danton called on the brewer to arrange for the meeting of the popular leaders that night at Charenton for the march on the morrow, presumably to the House, but really to the Tuileries.
The watchword was, "Have done with the palace!" but the way remained vague.
On the evening of the nineteenth, the queen saw a woman clad in scarlet, with a belt full of pistols, gallop, bold and terrible, along the main streets. It was Theroigne Mericourt, the beauty of Liege, who had gone back to her native country to help its rebellion; but the Austrians had caught her and kept her imprisoned for eighteen months.
She returned mysteriously to be at the bloody feast of the coming day. The courtesan of opulence, she was now the beloved of the people; from her noble lovers had come the funds for her costly weapons, which were not all for show. Hence the mob hailed her with cheers.
From the Tuileries garret, where the queen had climbed on hearing the uproar, she saw tables set out in the public squares and wine broached; patriotic songs were sung and at every toast fists were shaken at the palace.
Who were the guests? The Federals of Marseilles, led by Barbaroux, who brought with them the song worth an army – "the Marseillaise Hymn of Liberty."
Day breaks early in June. At five o'clock the battalions were marshaled, for the insurrection was regularized by this time and had a military aspect. The mob had chiefs, submitted to discipline, and fell into assigned places under flags.
Santerre was on horseback, with his staff of men from the working district. Billet did not leave him, for the occult power of the Invisibles charged him to watch over him.
Of the three corps into which the forces were divided, Santerre commanded the first, St. Huruge the second, and Theroigne the last.
About eleven, on an order brought by an unknown man, the immense mass started out. It numbered some twenty thousand when it left the Bastile Square.
It had a wild, odd, and horrible look.
Santerre's battalion was the most regular, having many in uniform, and muskets and bayonets among the weapons. But the other two were armed mobs, haggard, thin, and in rags from three years of revolutions and four of famine.
Neither had uniforms nor muskets, but tattered coats and smocks; quaint arms snatched up in the first impulse of self-defense and anger: pikes, cooking-spits, jagged spears, hiltless swords, knives lashed to long poles, broad-axes, stone-masons' hammers and curriers' knives.
For standards, a gallows with a dangling doll, meant for the queen; a bull's head, with an obscene card stuck on the horns; a calf's heart on a spit, with the motto: "An Aristocrat's;" while flags showed the legends: "Sanction the decrees, or death!" – "Recall the patriotic ministers!" – "Tremble, tyrant; your hour has come!"
At every crossing and from each by-way the army was swollen.
The mass was silent, save now and then when a cheer burst from the midst, or a snatch of the "It shall go on" was sung, or cries went up of "The nation forever!" – "Long live the Breechless!" – "Down with Old Veto and Madame Veto!"
They came out for sport – to frighten the king and queen, and did not mean murdering. They demanded to march past the Assembly through the Hall, and for three hours they defiled under the eyes of their representatives.
It was three o'clock. The mob had obtained half their programme, the placing of their petition before the Assembly. The next thing was to call on the king for his sanction to the decree.
As the Assembly had received them, how could the king refuse? Surely he was not a greater potentate than the Speaker of the House, whose chair was like his and in the grander place?
In fact, the king assented to receiving their deputation of twenty.
As the common people had never entered the palace, they merely expected their representatives would be received while they marched by under the windows. They would show the king their banners with the odd devices and the gory standards.
All the palace garden gates were closed; in the yards and gardens were soldiers with four field-pieces. Seeing this apparently ample protection, the royal family might be tranquil.
Still without any evil idea, the crowd asked for the gates to be opened which allowed entrance on the Feuillants Terrace.
Three municipal officers went in and got leave from the king for passage to be given over the terrace and out by the stable doors.
Everybody wanted to go in as soon as the gates were open, and the throng spread over the lawn; it was forgotten to open the outlet by the stables, and the crush began to be severe. They streamed before the National Guards in a row along the palace wall to the Carrousel gates, by which they might have resumed the homeward route. They were locked and guarded.
Sweltering, crushed, and turned about, the mob began to be irritated. Before its growls the gates were opened and the men spread over the capacious square.
There they remembered what the main affair was – to petition the king to revoke his veto. Instead of continuing the road, they waited in the square for an hour, when they grew impatient.
They might have gone away, but that was not the aim of the agitators, who went from group to group, saying:
"Stay; what do you want to sneak away for? The king is going to give his sanction; if we were to go home without that, we should have all our work to do over again."
The level-headed thought this sensible advice, but at the same time that the sanction was a long time coming. They were getting hungry, and that was the general cry.
Bread was not so dear as it had been, but there was no work going on, and however cheap bread may be, it is not made for nothing.
Everybody had risen at five, workmen and their wives, with their children, and come to the palace with the idea that they had but to get the royal sanction to have hard times end. But the king did not seem to be at all eager to give his sanction.
It was hot, and thirst began to be felt. Hunger, thirst, and heat drive dogs mad; yet the poor people waited and kept patient. But those next to the railings set to shaking them. A municipal officer made a speech to them:
"Citizens, this is the king's residence, and to enter with arms is to violate it. The king is quite ready to receive your petition, but only from twenty deputies bearing it."
What! had not their deputation, sent in an hour ago, been attended to yet?
Suddenly loud shouts were heard on the streets. It was Santerre, Billet, and Huruge on their horses, and Theroigne riding on her cannon.
"What are you fellows hanging round this gate for?" queried Huruge. "Why do you not go right in?"
"Just so; why haven't we?" said the thousands.
"Can't you see it is fast?" cried several voices.
Theroigne jumped off her cannon, saying:
"The barker is full to the muzzle; let's blow the old gate open."
"Wait! wait!" shouted two municipal officers; "no roughness. It shall be opened to you."
Indeed, by pressing on the spring-catch they released the two gates, which drew aside, and the mass rushed through.
Along with them came the cannon, which crossed the yard with them, mounted the steps, and reached the head of the stairs in their company. Here stood the city officials in their scarfs of office.
"What do you intend doing with a piece of artillery?" they challenged. "Great guns in the royal apartments! Do you believe anything is to be gained by such violence?"
"Quite right," said the ringleaders, astonished themselves to see the gun there; and they turned it round to get it down-stairs. The hub caught on the jamb, and the muzzle gaped on the crowd.
"Why, hang them all, they have got cannon all over the palace!" commented the new-comers, not knowing their own artillery.
Police-Magistrate Mouchet, a deformed dwarf, ordered the men to chop the wheel clear, and they managed to hack the door-jamb away so as to free the piece, which was taken down to the yard. This led to the report that the mob were smashing all the doors in.
Some two hundred noblemen ran to the palace, not with the hope of defending it, but to die with the king, whose life they deemed menaced. Prominent among these was a man in black, who had previously offered his breast to the assassin's bullet, and who always leaped like a last Life-Guard between danger and the king, from whom he had tried to conjure it. This was Gilbert.
After being excited by the frightful tumult, the king and queen became used to it.
It was half past three, and it was hoped that the day would close with no more harm done.
Suddenly, the sound of the ax blows was heard above the noise of clamor, like the howling of a coming tempest. A man darted into the king's sleeping-room and called out:
"Sire, let me stand by you, and I will answer for all."
It was Dr. Gilbert, seen at almost periodical intervals, and in all the "striking situations" of the tragedy in play.
"Oh, doctor, is this you? What is it?" King and queen spoke together.
"The palace is surrounded, and the people are making this uproar in wanting to see you."
"We shall not leave you, sire," said the queen and Princess Elizabeth.
"Will the king kindly allow me for an hour such power as a captain has over his ship?" asked Gilbert.
"I grant it," replied the monarch. "Madame, hearken to Doctor Gilbert's advice, and obey his orders, if needs must." He turned to the doctor: "Will you answer to me for the queen and the dauphin?"
"I do, or I shall die with them; it is all a pilot can say in the tempest!"
The queen wished to make a last effort, but Gilbert barred the way with his arms.
"Madame," he said, "it is you and not the king who run the real danger. Rightly or wrongly, they accuse you of the king's resistance, so that your presence will expose him without defending him. Be the lightning-conductor – divert the bolt, if you can!"
"Then let it fall on me, but save my children!"
"I have answered for you and them to the king. Follow me."
He said the same to Princess Lamballe, who had returned lately from London, and the other ladies, and guided them to the Council Hall, where he placed them in a window recess, with the heavy table before them.
The queen stood behind her children – Innocence protecting Unpopularity, although she wished it to be the other way.
"All is well thus," said Gilbert, in the tone of a general commanding a decisive operation; "do not stir."
There came a pounding at the door, which he threw open with both folds, and as he knew there were many women in the crowd, he cried:
"Walk in, citizenesses; the queen and her children await you."
The crowd burst in as through a broken dam.
"Where is the Austrian? where is the Lady Veto?" demanded five hundred voices.
It was the critical moment.
"Be calm," said Gilbert to the queen, knowing that all was in Heaven's hand, and man was as nothing. "I need not recommend you to be kind."
Preceding the others was a woman with her hair down, who brandished a saber; she was flushed with rage – perhaps from hunger.
"Where is the Austrian cat? She shall die by no hand but mine!" she screamed.
"This is she," said Gilbert, taking her by the hand and leading her up to the queen.
"Have I ever done you a personal wrong?" demanded the latter, in her sweetest voice.
"I can not say you have," faltered the woman of the people, amazed at the majesty and gentleness of Marie Antoinette.
"Then why should you wish to kill me?"
"Folks told me that you were the ruin of the nation," faltered the abashed young woman, lowering the point of her saber to the floor.
"Then you were told wrong. I married your King of France, and am mother of the prince whom you see here. I am a French woman, one who will nevermore see the land where she was born; in France alone I must dwell, happy or unhappy. Alas! I was happy when you loved me." And she sighed.
The girl dropped the sword, and wept.
"Beg your pardon, madame, but I did not know what you were like. I see you are a good sort, after all."
"Keep on like that," prompted Gilbert, "and not only will you be saved, but all these people will be at your feet in an hour."
Intrusting her to some National Guardsmen and the War Minister, who came in with the mob, he ran to the king.
Louis had gone through a similar experience. On hastening toward the crowd, as he opened the Bull's-eye Room, the door panels were dashed in, and pikes, bayonets, and axes showed their points and edges.
"Open the doors!" cried the king.
Servants heaped up chairs before him, and four grenadiers stood in front, but he made them put up their swords, as the flash of steel might seem a provocation.
A ragged fellow, with a knife-blade set in a pole, darted at the king, yelling:
"Take that for your veto!"
One grenadier, who had not yet sheathed his sword, struck down the stick with the blade. But it was the king who, entirely recovering self-command, put the soldier aside with his hand, and said:
"Let me stand forward, sir. What have I to fear amid my people?"
Taking a forward step, Louis XVI., with a majesty not expected in him, and a courage strange heretofore in him, offered his breast to the weapons of all sorts directed against him.
"Hold your noise!" thundered a stentorian voice in the midst of the awful din. "I want a word in here."
A cannon might have vainly sought to be heard in this clamor, but at this voice all the vociferation ceased. This was the butcher Legendre. He went up almost to touching the king, while they formed a ring round the two.
Just then, on the outer edge of the circle, a man made his appearance, and behind the dread double of Danton, the king recognized Gilbert, pale and serene of face. The questioning glance implying: "What have you done with the queen?" was answered by the doctor's smile to the effect that she was in safety. He thanked him with a nod.
"Sirrah," began Legendre.
This expression, which seemed to indicate that the sovereign was already deposed, made the latter turn as if a snake had stung him.
"Yes, sir, I am talking to you, Veto," went on Legendre. "Just listen to us, for it is our turn to have you hear us. You are a double-dealer, who have always cheated us, and would try it again, so look out for yourself. The measure is full, and the people are tired of being your plaything and victim."
"Well, I am listening to you, sir," rejoined the king.
"And a good thing, too. Do you know what we have come here for? To ask the sanction of the decrees and the recall of the ministers. Here is our petition – see!"
Taking a paper from his pocket, he unfolded it, and read the same menacing lines which had been heard in the House. With his eyes fixed on the speaker, the king listened, and said, when it was ended, without the least apparent emotion:
"Sir, I shall do what the laws and the Constitution order me to do!"
"Gammon!" broke in a voice; "the Constitution is your high horse, which lets you block the road of the whole country, to keep France in-doors, for fear of being trampled on, and wait till the Austrians come up to cut her throat."
The king turned toward this fresh voice, comprehending that it was a worse danger. Gilbert also made a movement and laid his hand on the speaker's shoulder.
"I have seen you somewhere before, friend," remarked the king. "Who are you?"
He looked with more curiosity than fear, though this man wore a front of terrible resolution.
"Ay, you have seen me before, sire. Three times: once, when you were brought back from Versailles; next at Varennes; and the last time, here. Sire, bear my name in mind, for it is of ill omen. It is Billet."
