Part 6
At length the National Convention assembled on September 21; the Orleans party awaited with eager expectation that some distinguished member of the other side, with whom they had been tampering, should move the deposition of King Louis. They then intended to propose a Regent should be nominated in the person of Philippe of Orleans.[1] The Republicans, however, expected a motion for the total abolition of Royalty.
A solemn pause ensued. How the heart of Orleans must have palpitated! On a sudden the thunder burst from an unexpected quarter; it was reserved for an ecclesiastic to pronounce the doom of a throne which had existed for centuries. Gregoire,[1] Bishop of Blois, exclaimed:
Why debate when all are agreed? Kings are in the moral economy of the world what monsters are in the natural; Courts are the repositories of crimes and the dens of tyrants. The history of Kings is the martyrology of nations. As we are all convinced of these truths, why, I repeat, should we debate?
This speech operated like an electric shock upon the Convention, the members rose _en masse_, and called for _the question_. This proposition was then decreed: ROYALTY IS ABOLISHED IN FRANCE. Thus vanished the prospects of Orleans and his abettors, and so was a Republic established in France.
The fears and listlessness of Louis XVI. were the proximate causes which led to his ruin and overthrow. As a corroborating proof of this statement I give the evidence of a young and beautiful but fanatical girl, Mademoiselle Thérouanne de Mirecourt,[1] who has repeatedly declared to me _que c’était la poltronnerie seule du tyran qui sauva la France_.
[A] See Appendix.
Before I quit this subject I cannot avoid noticing the character of this young woman. During the attack upon the Tuileries she headed a body of pikemen and showed absolute fearlessness and marvellous courage. I have often been in her company, and remarked that she possessed by nature a fund of humanity and a tolerable share of information; but that vanity, desire of popularity and fanaticism made her wild, savage and ferocious. One day she invited me to breakfast with her, and on my entering her apartment I beheld a pike, a sword, a brace of pistols, and suspended over the chimney-piece the _bonnet rouge_; scattered about the floor lay above a hundred books and pamphlets, on her bed newspapers, on her table Marat’s _Ami du Peuple_. On my inquiry why a lady of her charms kept such dreadful instruments in her room, she replied: “No compliments, Citizen. Society is undergoing a change, a grand re-organisation, and women are about to resume their rights. We shall no more be flattered in order to be enslaved, these arms have dethroned the tyrant, and conquered freedom. Sit down and take your chocolate.”
With all this severity of character she possessed some attractions and captured the heart of John Sheares,[1] who was executed for treason during the late rebellion. His affection for her was so great that he proposed marriage to her. Had he been gratified in his inclination there is good reason to suppose _he_ might have been now alive, and _she_ in a happy situation. For he often assured me that should his suit prove successful he would abandon politics altogether and retire into private life. He was one of the finest young men I ever beheld, and a handsomer pair would have rarely been seen. But fortune decided their fate should be disastrous. When he tendered his proposals she pulled a pistol from her pocket and threatened to shoot him if he said another word upon the subject. _He_ returned to Ireland, to fall a victim five years later to offended justice. _She_ is now in a miserable state of insanity, confined in a madhouse in the Rue de Sèvre, Faubourg S. Germain.
[Sidenote: KNIGHTS OF THE POIGNARD]
The Garden of the Tuileries brings to my recollection the famous story of the Knights of the Poignard, when on February 23, 1791, a number of the Knights of S. Louis were _supposed_ to have entered into a conspiracy to carry off the King. I was present on the occasion, and a spectator of the scene. An immense concourse of people collected about the Palace, and there was much noisy talk about concealed daggers, but I saw none, nor any blade save that of La Fayette’s[1] sword, who, mounted on his white charger, galloped to and fro as if the fate of the world depended on his actions.
One moment he formed the National Guard into line. At the next he ordered them to file off, then he dismounted and bolted into the Palace--in a trice he was again on horseback--in short he created more alarm among the people than if an Austrian army had reached the barriers. At length, after a great deal of marching, counter-marching, bustling and puffing, the Marquis assured the mob that all was safe. Here followed great applause, and the populace quietly dispersed. Some Knights of S. Louis were present and were very roughly handled by the people, but no other motive had carried them to the Tuileries except an anxious desire to defend the King against attacks by the mob. There is one fact established by this event, that even at that period Louis XVI. was respected by the people, and they considered their security to be identified by his person. I have not the least doubt that a decided majority of the people of France would at this day rejoice in the restoration of their ancient line of Princes.
The Hall used by the National Convention stands on one side of the Tuileries garden. It was formerly the King’s stables. It is the intention of the First Consul to restore it to its original purpose.
Curiosity induced me to enter a place which had been the focus of so many revolutions, where the Republic was declared, the unhappy King tried, and more bloody tragedies performed in one twelvemonth than in all Europe in the space of two hundred years.
I found it completely dismantled, the galleries, the Tribune, the flag of Liberty that was planted over the Bastille and suspended in triumph over the centre of the hall, all have been destroyed, even the floor removed, and we trod upon the bare earth. The place was, however, so familiar to me that I was able to give my companion a very accurate description of it, and to point out the spot on which the unfortunate King was placed during his trial.
Now that I am upon this subject I will mention some circumstances respecting this event which have not, I believe, been ever made known to the public. I was present at the trial and sat very near to the King. Before he was brought to the bar, it was decreed, on the motion of one Legendre,[1] a butcher, that “No person, except the President, should be permitted to speak a word while Louis Capet was present.” Legendre premised his motion by this remark: “Citizen President, I demand that this Assembly preserves the mournful silence of the tomb, so that when the bloody tyrant enters it may strike his guilty soul with horror.” This speech was received with unbounded applause, and the bloodstained hypocrite Barrère,[1] who was President, apostrophised the people on the propriety of observing silence. There were very few people of respectable or even decent appearance in the galleries; they were filled with the vilest rabble. During the night preceding this mock trial the people in the galleries kept themselves awake by singing the Marseillaise hymn, which was vociferated more than a hundred times. The officers of the National Guard provided wine and cakes for those who were willing to purchase them. In the morning the deputies assembled and proceeded upon the order of the day, Santerre,[1] the brewer, being despatched to the Temple to conduct the King to the Convention.
[Sidenote: THE NATIONAL CONVENTION]
It was arranged the President should first read the whole of the charges and then propose them severally to the King, demanding answers. He was authorised to interrogate the monarch, and any refusal to answer was to be construed into a confession of guilt. Santerre now presented himself at the bar, and thus addressed the President:
“Citizen President, Louis Capet awaits your orders.”
Before Barrère[1] had time to reply, Mailhé, one of the Secretaries, exclaimed: “Bring him in!” The King attended by several of the officers of the Paris Etat[AAÉtat?]-Majeur, and followed by Santerre, then advanced to the bar, standing erect and firm, and casting (as it seemed to me) a look of defiance upon the silent Assembly. A little before the King entered a member of the Convention said to an Englishman who was present: “This will give you a correct idea of your country in the last century.” To which he replied with uncommon spirit: “No, indeed, we shall see too many tricks here.”
I watched the King with the minutest attention, and I observed that in looking round the assembly, he cast his eye upon the standards taken from the Austrians and Prussians, and gave a sudden start, from which, however, he recovered himself in an instant.
A wooden chair was brought, upon which Barrère invited him to be seated. He then read the whole of the charges, during which the King fixed his eyes attentively upon him. To every charge he answered directly, without premeditation, and with such skilful propriety that the audience were astonished.
When he was accused of shedding the blood of Frenchmen he raised his voice with all the conscientiousness of innocence, and replied: “No, sir, I have never shed the blood of any Frenchman.” His spirit was evidently wounded at this charge, and I perceived a tear trickle down his cheek; but, as if unwilling to give his enemies an opportunity of weakness in his conduct, he instantaneously wiped his face and forehead to denote he was oppressed by heat.
After all his answers had been obtained several papers were handed to him, with some degree of politeness, by one of the Huissiers. This civility was a contrast to the brutal behaviour of Mailhé,[1] the Secretary, who was afterwards desired to present some papers to the King. These papers were said to have been signed by the monarch, and to have been found in a box concealed in a secret part of his cabinet. Their contents were not of great importance, but the object of the Convention was to identify the King’s handwriting. A chair was placed for Mailhé close to the King, but within the bar. Immediately he was seated the unfeeling monster turned it completely round, so as to face the President and show his back to the King. The insulted monarch felt the affront, and showed by the manner in which he resented it a proud superiority over his dastardly enemy. He rose from his seat and remained on his legs during the whole of the examination. Mailhé retained his position, and, sitting with one leg crossed over the other, read aloud each paper and then handed it over his right shoulder to the sovereign, accompanied each time by the query: “Louis, is that your handwriting?” The unfortunate monarch snatched it abruptly from his hand and answered indignantly: “No, it is _not_ my writing.”
A multitude of papers were presented on the one part and denied on the other, in the same style.
Finally Mailhé rose from his seat, exclaiming dramatically, “Louis denies everything! Louis recollects nothing at all!”
A voice from the boxes, behind the Deputies, shouted: “Take off his head!” but it was not noticed.
Thus far victory was on the side of the King. Never were charges more completely refuted by a forsaken individual, deprived of the support of friends or counsel.
The President was at a loss how to proceed. Barbaroux[1] and several Deputies rushed up to his chair and whispered in his ear. This confused him the more. At length Manuel,[1] nicknamed the Solon or Solomon or Socrates of France (I forget which), advanced into the area of the hall, and in a bungling manner said: “President, the representatives of the people have decreed that none of us shall speak while the King--Louis, I mean--is amongst us. Now I propose that Louis be made to withdraw for a little while, so that every member may deliver his opinion.”
[Sidenote: THE NATIONAL CONVENTION]
No words can give an idea of the silly appearance of Manuel when he found the word _King_ had escaped from his lips. At the sound of that name I perceived Legendre,[1] his body writhing and distorted, preparing to bellow. As he was sitting down he gave Bourdon l’Oise[1] a tremendous box on the ear for calling him to order, which the other returned by a sound blow in the face.
Several Deputies parted them. In the midst of this confusion, when all the members were talking together, Barrère rang his bell and told the King he might withdraw. The King then said to the President: “I request to have the assistance of counsel,” and then withdrew before an answer could be given.
That artful and infernal villain, Barrère, during this trial affected great sympathy towards his injured sovereign, articulated all the charges in a faltering accent, and remained uncovered during the whole time the King was present. Most of the members wore their hats. The Duke of Orleans, who seated himself in full view of his fallen relative, was, however, uncovered.
The King was plainly dressed in an olive silk coat, and looked remarkably well. Barrère wore a dark coat and scarlet waistcoat, lead-coloured kerseymere breeches and white silk stockings. Robespierre wore black. Orleans was habited in blue. The majority of the members looked like blackguards. Legendre wore no neckcloth, but an open collar _à la_ Brutus.
Manuel was much agitated by the misapplication of the word King. Not so the monarch, who dropped a similar expression. As he was giving an account of the invitation to the entertainment at Versailles, which the Queen had received from the Gardes de Corps, he caught up his words and said: “La ci-devant Reine, ma femme.” The rest of this affecting spectacle is sufficiently known. I have mentioned the incidents above because I have never seen them in any printed accounts of that melancholy day.
It has been generally asserted that no effort was made to rescue the captive monarch. This assertion is false. I am personally acquainted with a man who had 15,000 livres deposited in his hands for the purpose of rescuing the King. This sum was so prudently distributed and the plan so judiciously made, that if Santerre had not ordered drums to beat, to drown the forcible appeal the Royal sufferer was making to the people, I surely believe it would have been carried into effect. There were persons on the fatal spot prepared to seize the moment of opportunity, had the fickle character of the Parisian populace, who would send up shouts to Heaven to-morrow at the execution of the First Consul, whom they adore to-day, made it likely that they would have joined or divided in the enterprise.
There is not a spot in this Hall of Convention which does not revive a thousand sublime and painful recollections.
I remember seeing Mirabeau,[1] Barnave[1] and the Lornettes,[1] and on the same side of the Hall those conspicuous members who thundered against the Clergy, the Feudal Laws, and the despotism of the Throne. I have heard the virtuous Mounier[1] pour forth the language of generous indignation against the motion of Barnave on the emigration of the aunts of the King. Methinks I hear again the nervous eloquence of Cazalis[1] on behalf of his King and the established laws of the country. Here I have heard Mirabeau on the Veto; the celebrated speech of Cardinal Moury[1] on Avignon and the Comtal Venaissin,[1] the gloomy metaphysics of Condorcet[1] and the eloquent if mistaken enthusiasm of Grégoire.
[Sidenote: GARDEN OF THE PALAIS ROYALE]
I have also beheld, O wretched change!--this Hall polluted by monsters breathing nothing but death and devastation. I have heard in that Tribune the sanguinary suggestions of Danton and Robespierre, the howlings of Marat--the ravings of Brissot, Anarcharsis Cloots[1] and Gondet,[1]1 and the _calembours_ of the Gascon Barrère.
There, too, I have seen Tom Paine[1] stand up like a post, while another read a translation of his speech. What noise, what uproar and cabals have originated within these walls! They seem besmeared with human blood. The images they excite arise in dreadful succession, and stalk before my imagination like the shades of Banquo’s line.
Never shall I forget the day when in the midst of a solemn speech Gensonne[1]1 was delivering, the impudent little Marat,[1]1 who could scarcely reach his throat, gave him a box on the ear. The other took him in his arms and threw him neck and heels out of the Tribune.
XIII
GARDEN OF THE PALAIS ROYALE. MANNERS OF THE PEOPLE
The greatest beauty in the world becomes by pollution an odious and repulsive creature. Health and charm flourish only in the practice of virtue and in the abodes of innocence. The prostitute is shunned by every woman of honour and reputation, and dens of vice are avoided by every man to whom virtue is not an empty word.
I am now about to treat of the Palais Royale, that hot-bed of revolution and crime, that nursery of every loathsome vice, that abomination of all virtue and profanation of all religion.
This infernal sink of iniquity is situated in the very centre of Paris, and by certain vicious inhabitants of the capital is considered its brightest ornament, just as the Devils in Milton’s “Paradise Lost” admired the Palace of the Pandemonium. In my last letter I mentioned that Duke of Orleans, who styled himself Philippe Egalité, during the Revolution. This wretch was the proprietor of the Palais Royale. His great grandfather, who was nearly though not quite as great a scoundrel as his great grandson, was the first who made this place the focus for his illicit pleasures; it has ever since been dedicated to Cabal, Bloodshed, Rapine and Debauchery.
During the first moments of the Revolution it was the rendezvous of the desperate, the ambitious and the cut-throat. Political mountebanks, mounted on tables, harangued the people on the Rights of Man. The Palais Royale became the arsenal wherein were forged the instruments of anarchy and murder. Here could an unsophisticated provincial, newly arrived in Paris, listen to provocatives to civil discord and learn those arts by which the repose of France has been disturbed for above ten years. The orators had the words Liberty and Virtue continually in their mouths, but their hearts were rank and rotten to the core, and the real objects they courted were licentiousness and vice.
Their ignorance was only equalled by their effrontery; they talked of subjects they did not understand; they encouraged their countrymen to revolt, they passed their days in exciting the populace to murder, and rioted away their nights in taverns and styes of prostitution. They promoted confusion and civil strife; covetous without economy, and bold without courage, they were deaf to the voice of honour and honesty. The frequenters of this place are in the present day[1] no better than their predecessors. The former march of the Parisian cannibals to Versailles was arranged at and begun from this spot, it was also the rendezvous of the apostles of Marat and the sbirri of Robespierre.
I remember the last interview had in this garden with the mad Colonel Oswald, who asserted that a representation of the people was as great a despotism as absolute monarchy. He asserted as a man could not _eat_ by proxy, so he could not _think_ by proxy. He proposed, therefore, that men and women should assemble in an open plain and there make and repeal laws. I endeavoured to persuade him that his plan was not sufficiently extensive, as he had excluded from this grand assembly the most populous portion of his fellow creatures, _i.e._, cats, dogs, horses, chickens, sheep, cattle, &c.
Oswald was originally a captain of a Highland regiment in the British service, and when quartered in India lived some considerable time with some Brahmins, who turned his head. From that period he never tasted flesh meat. He did not, however, embrace the whole Brahmin theology, for he was a professed atheist and denied the metempsychosis, and drank plentifully of wine. Such a man, living in a fermented capital, was capable of doing much mischief. He dined on his roots one day at a party of some members of the Convention at which I was present, and coolly proposed, as the most effectual way of averting civil war, to put to death every suspected man in France. I was deeply shocked to hear such a sentiment proceed from the mouth of an Englishman. The expression was not suffered to pass unnoticed, and the famous Thomas Paine remarked: “Oswald, you have lived so long without tasting flesh that you have now a most voracious appetite for blood.”
[Sidenote: GARDEN OF THE PALAIS ROYALE]
In consequence of my remarks upon this occasion, Oswald invited me to meet him in the gardens of the Palais Royale. As soon as I arrived I found him already there. He darted forward, drew his sword and exclaimed: “You are not fit to live in civilised society!” Having uttered these words he returned his sword into the scabbard and disappeared in a moment. His regiment was ordered to La Vendée, when, while bravely leading on his men at the battle of Pont-de-Cé, he was killed by a cannon ball; and at the same instant a discharge of grape shot laid both his sons, who served as drummer boys in the corps he commanded, breathless on their father’s corpse. He had two wives, who still reside in Paris. They were both singularly handsome, and, strange to say, lived together in friendship and harmony.
The history of this warrior brings to my recollection a curious rencontre I had in this place with Anarcharsis Clootz, who called himself “Orator of the human race.” For four hours did this man expose his political dreams. In six months the tri-colour flag was to wave over the dome of S. Sophia at Constantinople. A month later it would be seen on Mount Caucasus, and then at St. Petersburg and Pekin.
Paris would be the capital of the world, mankind composed of one family, subordinate to one government, and French be the sole international language.
All this would be accomplished in the short space of three years. Before these wonders could come about Anarcharsis was publicly executed, together with many other fanatics. I have actually heard this man propose at the Jacobin Club that the moment the French army came in sight of the Austrian and Prussian soldiers, they should, instead of attacking the enemy, throw down their own arms and advance towards them, dancing in a friendly manner. Such a measure, he was persuaded, would strike the wretched victims of tyranny with a sentiment of affection, which would be announced by an equally sympathetic movement.
After such a proposition I suspected that the accusation by which he perished, namely that he was a pensioner of the King of Prussia, had some foundation.
Unquestionably Clootz, by his speeches and conduct, cast more ridicule than any man else upon the Revolution. His abominable deification and worship in the Cathedral Church of Notre Dame of an abandoned woman, whom he created Goddess of Reason, and the manœuvres he employed to induce Gobel, Archbishop of Paris, to renounce his character and belief at the bar of the Convention, are proofs either of madness or conspiracy.
[Sidenote: GARDEN OF THE PALAIS ROYALE]