The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France Part 27

[21] "La reine adopta ce dernier avis [that the States should meet forty or sixty leagues from the capital], et elle insista aupres du roi que l'on s'eloignat de l'immense population de Paris. Elle craignait des lors que le peuple n'influencat les deliberations des deputes."--MADAME DE CAMPAN, ch 83.

[22] Chambrier, i., p. 562.

CHAPTER XXIII.

[1] It was called "L'insurrection du Faubourg St. Antoine."

[2] The best account of this riot is to be found in Dr. Moore's "Views of the Causes and Progress of the French Revolution," i., p. 189.

[3] Madame de Campan specially remarks that the disloyal cry of "Vive le Duc d'Orleans" came from "les femmes du peuple" (ch. xiii.).

[4] Afterward Louis Philippe, King of the French.

[5] "View of the Causes and Progress of the French Revolution," by Dr.

Moore, i., p. 144.

[6] The dauphin was too ill to be present. The children were Madame Royale and the Duc de Normandie, who became dauphin the next month by the death of his elder brother.

[7] "Aucun nom propre, excepte le sien, n'etait encore celebre dans les six cents deputes du Tiers."--_Considerations sur la Revolution Francaise_, pp. 186, 187

[8] In the first weeks of the session he told the Count de la Marck, "On ne sortira plus de la sans un gouvernement plus ou moins semblable a celui d'Angleterre."--_Correspondance entre le comte de la Marck_, i., p. 67.

[9] He employed M. Malouet, a very influential member of the a.s.sembly, as his agent to open his views to Necker, saying to him, "Je m'adresse donc a votre probite. Vous etes lie avec MM. Necker et de Montmorin, vous devez savoir ce qu'ils veulent, et s'ils ont un plan; si ce plan est raisonnable je le defendrai."--_Correspondance de Mirabeau et La Marck_, i., p. 219.

[10] There is some uncertainty about Mirabeau's motives and connections at this time. M. de Bacourt, the very diligent and judicious editor of that correspondence with De la Marck which has been already quoted, denies that Mirabeau ever received money from the Duc d'Orleans, or that he had any connection with his party or his views. The evidence on the other side seems much stronger, and some of the statements of the Comte de la Marck contained in that volume go to exculpate Mirabeau from all complicity in the attack on Versailles on the 9th of October, which seems established by abundant testimony.

CHAPTER XXIV.

[1] A letter of Madame Roland dated the 26th of this very month, July, 1789, declares that the people "are undone if the National a.s.sembly does not proceed seriously and regularly to the trial of the ill.u.s.trious heads [the king and queen], or if some generous Decius does not risk his life to take theirs."

[2] This story reached even distant province. On the 24th of July Arthur Young, being at Colmar, was a.s.sured at the _table-d'hote_ "That the queen had a plot, nearly on the point of execution, to blow up the National a.s.sembly by a mine, and to march the army instantly to ma.s.sacre all Paris." A French officer presumed but to doubt of the truth of it, and was immediately overpowered with numbers of tongues. A deputy had written it; they had seen the letter. And at Dijon, a week later, he tells us that "the current report at present, to which all possible credit is given, is that the queen has been convicted of a plot to poison the king and monsieur, and give the regency to the Count d'Artois, to set fire to Paris, and blow up the Palais Royal by a mine."--ARTHUR YOUNG'S _Travels, etc., in France_, pp. 143, 151.

[3] "Car des ce moment on menacait Versailles d'une incursion de gens armes de Paris."--MADAME DE CAMPAN, ch. xiv.

[4] Lacretelle, vol. vii., p. 105.

[5] She meant to say, "Messieurs, je viens remettre entre vos mains l'epouse et la famille de votre souverain. Ne souffrez pas que l'on desunisse sur la terre ce qui a ete uni dans le ciel."--MADAME DE CAMPAN, ch. xiv.

[6] Napoleon seems to have formed this opinion of his political views: "Selon M. Gourgaud, Buonaparte, causant a Ste. Helene le traitait avec plus de mepris [que Madame de Stael]. 'La Fayette etait encore un autre niais. Il etait nullement taille pour le role qu'il avait a jouer....

C'etait un homme sans talents, ni civils, ni militaires; esprit borne, caractere dissimule, domine par des idees vagues de liberte mal digerees chez lui; mal concues.'"--_Biographie Universelle_.

[7] In his Memoirs he boasts of the "gaucherie de ses manieres qui ne se plierent jamais aux graces de la Cour," p. 7.

[8] See her letter to Mercy, without date, but, apparently written a day or two after the king's journey to Paris, Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 238.

[9] "Souvenirs de Quarante Ans" (by Madame de Tourzel's daughter), p. 30.

[10] Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 240.

CHAPTER XXV.

[1] "Memoires de la Princesse de Lamballe," i., p. 342.

[2] Les Gardes du Corps.

[3] Louis Blanc, iii., p. 156, quoting the Procedure du Chatelet.

[4] "Souvenirs de la Marquise de Crequy," vol. vii, p. 119.

[5] There is some uncertainty where La Fayette slept that night.

Lacretelle says it was at the "Maison du Prince de Foix, fort eloignee du chateau." Count Dumas, meaning to be as favorable to him as possible, places him at the Hotel de Noailles, which is "not one hundred paces from the iron gates of the chapel" ("Memoirs of the Count Dumas," p. 159).

However, the nearer he was to the palace, the more incomprehensible it is that he should not have reached the palace the next morning till nearly eight o'clock, two hours after the mob had forced their entrance into the Cour des Princes.

[6] Weber, i., p. 218.

[7] Le Boulanger (the king), la Boulangere (the queen), et le pet.i.t mitron (the dauphin).

[8] "Souvenirs de la Marquise de Crequy," vii., p. 123.

[9] Weber, ii, p. 226.

[10] "Souvenirs de Quarante Ans," p. 47.

CHAPTER XXVI.

[1] Madame de Campan, ch. xv.

[2] F. de Conches, p. 264.

[3] Madam de Campan, ch. xv.

[4] See a letter from M. Huber to Lord Auckland, "Journal and Correspondence of Lord Auckland," ii, p. 365.

[5] La Marck et Mirabeau, ii., pp. 90-93, 254.

[6] "Arthur Young's Travels," etc., p. 264; date, Paris, January 4th, 1790.

[7] Feuillet de Conches, iii., p. 229.

[8] Joseph died February 20th.

[9] "Je me flatte que je la meriterai [l'amitie et confiance] de votre part lorsque ma facon de penser et mon tendre attachement pour vous, votre epoux, vos enfants, et tout ce qui peut vous interesser vous seront mieux connus."--ARNETH, p. 120. Leopold had been for many years absent from Germany, being at Florence as Grand Duke of Tuscany.

[10] Feuillet de Conches, iii., p. 260.