Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 49

One of them cried to his comrade in presence of Marie Antoinette: "If the hangman does not guillotine this accursed family, I will do it!"

When the royal family went down to take their walk in the garden, Santerre used to come up with a troop of soldiers. The sentries whom they pa.s.sed shouldered arms before Santerre; but as soon as he had pa.s.sed and the king came, they grounded their arms, and pretended not to see him. In the door that led into the garden, Rocher, the turnkey, used to stand, and take his pleasure in letting the royal family wait before unlocking, while he blew great clouds of smoke into their faces from his long tobacco-pipe. The National Guards who stood in the neighborhood used to laugh at this, and hurl all sorts of low, vile words at the princesses. Then, while the royal prisoners were taking their walk, the cannoneers used to collect in the allees through which they wandered, and dance to the music of revolutionary songs which some of them sang. Sometimes the gardeners who worked there hurried up to join them in this dance, and to encircle the prisoners in their wild evolutions. One of these people displayed his sickle to the king one day, and swore that he would cut off the head of the queen with it. And when, after their sad walk, they had returned to the Temple, they were received by the sentinels and the turnkey with renewed insults; and, as if it were not enough to fill the ear with this abuse, the eye too must have its share. The vilest of expressions were written upon the walls of the corridors which the royal party had to traverse. You might read there: "Madame Veto will soon be dancing again. Down with the Austrian she-wolf! The wolf's brood must be strangled. The king must be hanged with his own ribbon!" Another time they had drawn a gallows, on which a figure was hanging, with the expression written beneath, "Louis taking an air-bath!"

And so, even the short walks of the prisoners were transformed into suffering. At first the queen thought she could not bear it, and the promenades were given up. But the pale cheeks of her daughter, the longing looks which the dauphin cast from the closed window to the garden, warned the mother to do what the queen found too severe a task. She underwent the pain involved in this, she submitted herself, and every day the royal pair took the dear children into the garden again, and bore this unworthy treatment without complaint, that the children might enjoy a little air and suns.h.i.+ne.

One day, the 21st of September, the royal family had returned from their walk to their sitting-room. The king had taken a book and was reading; the queen was sitting near him, engaged in some light work; while the dauphin, with his sister Theresa, and his aunt Elizabeth, were in the next room, and were busying each other with riddles. In the open anteroom the two officials were sitting, their eyes fixed upon the prisoners with a kind of cruel pleasure.

Suddenly beneath their windows were heard the loud blast of trumpets and the rattle of drums; then followed deep silence, and amid this stillness the following proclamation was read with a loud voice:

"The monarchy is abolished in France. All official doc.u.ments will be dated from the first year of the republic. The national seal will be encircled by the words, 'Republic of France.' The national coat-of- arms will be a woman sitting upon a bundle of weapons, and holding in her hand a lance tipped with a liberty-cap."

The two officials had fixed their eyes upon the king and queen, from whose heads the crown had just fallen. They wanted to read, with their crafty and malicious eyes, the impression which the proclamation had made upon them. But those proud, calm features disclosed nothing. Not for a moment did the king raise his eyes from the book which he was reading, while the voice without uttered each word with fearful distinctness. The queen quietly went on with her embroidery, and not for a moment did she intermit the regular motion of her needle.

Again the blast of trumpets and the rattle of drums. The funeral of the royalty was ended, and the king was, after this time, to be known simply as Louis Capet, and the queen as Marie Antoinette.

Within the Temple there was no longer a dauphin, no longer a Madame Royale, no longer a princess, but only the Capet family!

The republic had hurled the crowns from the heads of Louis and Marie Antoinette; and when, some days later, the linen which had been long begged for, had been brought from the Tuileries, the republic commanded the queen to obliterate the crown which marked each piece, in addition to the name.

But their sufferings are by no means ended yet. Still there are some sources of comfort left, and now and then a peaceful hour. The crowns have fallen, but hearts still beat side by side. They have no longer a kingdom, but they are together, they can speak with looks one to another, they can seek to comfort one another with smiles, they can cheer each other up with a pa.s.sing grasp of the hand, that escapes the eye of the sentries! We only suffer half what we bear in common with others, and every thing seems lighter, when there is a second one to help lift the load.

Perhaps the enemies of the king and queen have an instinctive feeling of this, and their hate makes them sympathetic, in order to teach them to invent new tortures and new sufferings.

Yes, there are unknown pangs still to be felt; their cup of sorrows was not yet full! The parents are still left to each other, and their eyes are still allowed to rest upon their children! But the "one and indivisible republic" means to rend even these bonds which bind the royal family together, and to part those who have sworn that nothing shall separate them but death! The republic--which had abolished the churches, overthrown the altars, driven the priesthood into exile--the republic cannot grant to the Capet family that only death shall separate them, for it had even made Death its servant, and must accept daily victims from him, offered on the Place de Liberte, in the centre of which stood the guillotine, the only altar tolerated there.

In the middle of October the republic sent its emissaries to the Temple, to tear the king from the arms of his wife and his children.

In spite of their pleadings and cries, he was taken to another part of the Temple--to the great tower, which from this time was to serve as his lodgings. And in order that the queen might be spared no pang, the dauphin was compelled to go with his father and be separated from his mother.

This broke the pride, the royal pride of Marie Antoinette. She wrung her hands, she wept, she cried, she implored with such moving, melting tones, not to be separated from her son and husband, that even the heart of Simon the cobbler was touched.

"I really believe that these cursed women make me blubber!" cried he, angry with the tears which forced themselves into his eyes. And he made no objection when the other officials said to the queen, with trembling voices, that they would allow the royal family to come together at their meals.

One last comfort, one last ray of suns.h.i.+ne! There were still hours in these dismal, monotonous days of November, when they could have some happiness--hours for which they longed, and for whose sake they bore the desolate solitude of the remaining time.

At breakfast, dinner, and supper, the Capet family were together; words were interchanged, hands could rest in one another, and they could delight in the pleasant chatter of the dauphin when the king told about the lessons he had given the boy, and the progress he was making.

They sometimes forgot, at those meetings, that Death was perhaps crouching outside the Temple, waiting to receive his victims; and they even uttered little words of pleasantry, to awaken the bright, fresh laugh of the dauphin, the only music that ever was heard in those dismal rooms.

But December took this last consolation from the queen. The National a.s.sembly, which had now been transformed into the Convention, brought the charge of treason against the king. He was accused of entering into a secret alliance with the enemies of France, and calling the monarchs of Europe to come to his a.s.sistance. In an iron safe which had been set into the wall of the cabinet in the Tuileries, papers had been discovered which compromised the king, letters from the refugee princes, from the Emperor of Germany, and the King of Prussia. These monarchs were now on the very confines of France, ready to enter upon a b.l.o.o.d.y war, and that was the fault of the king! He was in alliance with the enemies of his country! He was the murderer of his own subjects! On his head the blood should return, which had been shed by him.

This was the charge which was brought against the king. Twenty members of the Convention went to the Temple, to read it to him, and to hear his reply. He stoutly denied haying entertained such relations with foreign princes; he declared, with a solemn oath, that he had declined all overtures from such quarters, because he had seen that, in order to free an imprisoned king, France itself must be threatened.

The chiefs of the revolution meant to find him guilty. Louis Capet must be put out of the way, in order that Robespierre and Marat, Danton, Petion, and their friends, might reach unlimited power.

There may have been several in the Convention who shrank from this last consequence of their doings, but they did not venture to raise their voices; they chimed in with the terrorism which the leaders of the revolution exercised upon the Convention. They knew that behind these leaders stood the savage ma.s.ses of the streets, armed with hatred against monarchy and the aristocracy, and ready to tear in pieces any one as an enemy of the country who ventured to join the number of those who were under the ban and the sentence of the popular hate.

Still there were some courageous, faithful servants of the king who ventured to take his part even there. Louis had now been summoned to the bar as an accused person, and the Convention had transformed itself into a tribunal whose function was to pa.s.s judgment on the guilt or innocence of the king!

In order to satisfy all the forms of the law, the king should have had an advocate allowed him, and the benefit of legal counsel. The Convention demanded that those who were ready to undertake this task should send in their names. It was a form deemed safe to abide by, because it was believed that there would be no one who would venture to enter upon so momentous and perilous a duty.

But there were such, nevertheless. There were still courageous and n.o.ble men who pitied the forsaken king, and who wanted to try to save him; not willing to see him atone for the debts of his predecessors, and bleed for the sins of his fathers. And scarcely had the consent of the Convention been announced, that Louis Capet should have three advocates for his defence, when from Paris and all the minor cities letters came in from men who declared themselves ready to undertake the defence of the king.

Even from foreign lands there came letters and appeals in behalf of the deposed monarch. One of them, written in spirited and glowing language, conjured France not to soil its n.o.ble young freedom by the dreadful murder of an innocent man, who had committed no other offence than that he was the son of his fathers, the heir of their crown and their remissness. It was written by a German poet, Frederick Schiller. [Footnote: Schiller's defence of the king is preserved in the national archives--See Beauchesue vol. i., p. 366.]

From the many requests to serve as his advocates, Louis chose only two to defend him. The first of these was his former minister, the philosopher Lamoignon des Malesherbes, then the advocate Trouchet, and finally, at the pressing request of Malesherbes, the distinguished young advocate Deseges. To those three men was committed the trust of defending the king against the dreadful charge of treason to his country, to be substantiated by hundreds and hundreds of letters and doc.u.ments.

After the preliminary investigations were closed, the public charge was made in the Convention, which still held its sessions in the Manage. To this building, situated near the Tuileries, the king, accompanied by his three defenders and two munic.i.p.al defenders, and surrounded by National Guards, was conducted from the Temple. The people danced around the carriage with wild shouts of joy and curses of the king. Within the vehicle sat Louis, completely calm and self- possessed.

"This man must be filled with a singular fanaticism," said Colombeau, one of the leading officials, in the report which he gave to the Convention of the ride. "It is otherwise inexplicable how Louis could be so calm, since he had so much reason to fear. After we had all entered the carriage, and were driving through the streets, Louis entered upon conversation, which soon turned upon literature, and especially upon some Latin authors. He gave his judgments with remarkable correctness and insight, and it appeared to me that he took pleasure in showing his learning. One of us said that he did not enjoy Seneca, because his love for riches stood in marked contrast with his pretended philosophy, and because it could not easily be forgiven him that before the senate he apologized for the crimes of Nero. This reflection did not seem to affect Louis in the least. When we spoke of Livy, Capet said that he seemed to have taken satisfaction in composing great speeches which were never uttered to any other audience than that which was reached from his study-table; 'for,' he added, 'it is impossible that generals really delivered such long speeches in front of their armies.' He then compared Livy with Tacitus, and thought that the latter was far superior to the former in point of style." [Footnote: See Beauchesne, vol. i., p. 396.] The king went on talking about Latin authors while the carriage was carrying him through the roaring mob to the Convention, which Desege addressed in his defence in these courageous words: "I look for judges among you, but see only accusers."

The king was completely calm, yet he knew that his life was threatened, and that he was standing before a tribunal of death. As on the day when he was first taken to the Convention, he requested Malesherbes to forward a note to the priest whose attendance he desired, and who he believed would not deny his presence and attentions. His name was Edgewarth de Pirmont. The time was not distant when not the services of advocates were wanted by the king, but exclusively those of the priest.

The sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced on January 26, 1793. Louis received it calmly, and desired merely to see his family, to have a confessor come to him, and to prepare himself for his death.

During these dreadful weeks Marie Antoinette was separated from her husband, alone with her children, who no longer were able to smile, but who sat day after day with fixed eyes and silent lips. The queen knew that the king had been accused, had made a private reply to the charges brought against him, and had been brought before the Convention. But not a word, not a syllable of the trial which followed, reached her. Madame Tison, the female dragon who guarded her, watched her too well for any tidings to reach her.

At last, however, the word was brought which the heart of the queen had so long antic.i.p.ated tremblingly, for which she had prepared herself during the long nights with tears and prayers, and which now filled her with grief, anger, and despair. The king was condemned to death! He wanted only to see his family, to take his leave of them!

The Convention had granted this privilege to him, and had even gone so far in its grace as to permit the family to be without the presence of witnesses. The meeting was appointed, however, in the little dining-room of the king, because a gla.s.s door led into the adjoining room, and the officials could then look in upon the royal family. The functionary had withdrawn in order to conduct the queen, the children, and the king's sister from the upper tower. The king was awaiting them, walked disquietly up and down, and then directed Clery, who was arranging the little room, to set the round table, which was in the middle of the apartment, on one side, and then to bring in a carafe of water and some gla.s.ses. "But," he added, considerately, "not ice-water, for the queen cannot bear it, and she might be made unwell by it."

But all at once the king grew pale, and, standing still, he laid his hand upon his loudly-beating heart. He had heard the voice of the queen.

The door opened and they came in--all his dear ones. The queen led the dauphin by the hand; Madame Elizabeth walked with the Princess Theresa.

The king went toward them and opened his arms to them. They all pressed up to him and clasped him in their midst, while loud sobs and heart-rending cries filled the room. Behind the door were the officials, but they could not look in upon the scene, for their own eyes were filled with tears. In the king's cabinet, not far away, the Abbe Edgewarth de Firmont was upon his knees, praying for the unfortunates whose wails and groans reached even him.

Gradually the sobs died away. They took their places--the queen at the left of her husband; Madame Elizabeth, his sister, at his right; opposite to him, his daughter, Maria Theresa, and between his knees the dauphin, looking up into his father's face with widely-opened eyes and a sad smile.

Louis was the first to speak. He told them of his trial, and of the charges which they had brought against him. But his words were gentle and calm, and he expressed his pity for the "poor, misled men" who had condemned him. He asked his family, too, to forgive them. They answered him only with sobs, embraces, tears, and kisses.

Then all was still. The officials heard not a word, but they saw the queen, with her children and sister-in-law, sink upon their knees, while the king, standing erect in the midst of the group, raised his hands and blessed them in gentle, n.o.ble words, which touched the heart of the Abbe Edgewarth, who was kneeling behind the door of the neighboring cabinet.

The king then bade the family rise, took them again in his arms, and kissed the queen, who, pale and trembling, clung to him, and whose quivering lips were not able to restrain a word of denunciation of those who had condemned him.

"I have forgiven them," said the king, seriously. "I have written my will, and in it you will read that I pardon them, and that I ask you to do the same. Promise me, Marie, that you will never think how you may avenge my death."

A smile full of sadness and despair flitted over the pale lips of the queen.

"I shall never be in a situation to take vengeance upon them," she said. "But," she added quickly, "even if I should ever be able, and the power should be in my hands, I promise that I will exact no vengeance for this deed."

The king stooped down and imprinted a kiss upon her forehead.

"I thank you, Marie, and I know that you all, my dear ones, will sacredly regard my last testament, and that my wishes and words will be engraven on your hearts. But, my son"--and he took the dauphin upon his knee, and looked down into his face tenderly--"you are still a child, and might forget. You have heard what I have said, but as an oath is more sacred than a word, raise your hand and swear to me you will fulfil my wish and forgive all our enemies."

The boy, turning his great blue eyes fixedly on the king, and his lips trembling with emotion, raised his right hand, and even the officials in the next room could distinctly hear the sweet child's voice repeating the words: "I swear to you, papa king, that I will forgive all our enemies, and will do no harm to those who are going to kill my dear father!"

A shudder pa.s.sed through the hearts of the men in the next room; they drew back from the door with pale faces. It seemed to them as if they had heard the voice of an angel, and a feeling of inexpressible pain and regret pa.s.sed through their souls.

Within the king's room all now was still, and the abbe in the cabinet heard only the gentle murmuring of their prayers, and the suppressed weeping and sobs.