UBRARY ^VERSITY OF CAUFOWtiA RIVERSIDE THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE ,.^y^f4x^3^(g^?ze- ^.^^-^/x^g^e^t^ ' OLD FRENCH COURT MEMOIRS TEE LIFE AND LETTEKS OF MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE FOLLOWED BY THE JOURNAL OF THE TEMPLE BY CLERY AND THE NARRATIVE OF MARIE THERESE DE FRANCE, DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME TBANHLATED BT KATHARINE PBESCOTT WOBMELEY ILLVSTBATED WITH PORTRAITS FROM THE ORIGINAL ^^ ^yic-^s^ VOLUME IX NEW YORK BRENTANO'S PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1901 By Hardy, Pratt & Company All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS. part i?irsc» LIFE AND LETTERS OF MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. CHAPTER L Pagk lutroductory. — Sketch of the Life of Madame Elisabeth from her Childhood until August 10, 1792 1 CHAPTER IL Letters of Madame Elisabeth to the Marquise de Bombelles, the Mar- quise de Raigecourt, the Abbe de Lubersac, and others 33 CHAPTER HI. Mailanie Elisabeth's Life in the Tower of the Temple recorded only by her Niece, Marie-Thercse de France, and by Clc'ry, Louis XVI.'s Valet. — Her Removal to the Conciergerie. — Her Examination, Condemnation, and Death 90 part ^econD* JOURNAL OF THE TOWER OF THE TEMPLE, BY CLfiRY. CHAPTER L The 10th of Aucjust, 1792. Clery permitted to serve the King and his Family. — Life and Treatment of the Royal Family in the Tower of the Temple Ill J Mem. Ver. !) VI CONTENTS. CIIAl'TER II. Paqk Coutinuation of their Life ami 'rroatiucnt. — Tlie King separated froiu his l'"aiuily, aud suminuned for Trial before the Couveutiou . . . 138 CHAPTER III. The King's Trial. — His Will. — The Decree of the Convention con- demning the King to Death. — Last Meeting with his Family. — Leaves the Temple for his Execution 175 part t\)itJi, NARRATIVE OF MARIE-TH^R^SE DE FRANCE, DUCHESSE D'ANGOULfiME. First Uprising of the Populace on the 5th and 6th of October, 1789. — . Removal of my Family to the Capital 210 Flight of my Father; his Stoppage at Varennes ; his Return to Paris 216 Assault on the Tuileries by the Populace, Jane 20, 1792 230 Massacre at the Tuileries ; Dethroueraeut of my Father. — The Days from the 10th to the 13th of August, 1792 236 Imprisonment of my Family in the Tower of the Temple, August 13, 1792, followed by the Trial and Martyrdom of my Fatlier, January 21, 1793 243 r.ife in the Tower of the Temple from the Death of Louis XVI. to that of the Queen, October 16, 1793 259 Life in the Temple till the ^Lartyrdom of Madame Eli.sabeth and the Death of the Dauphin, Louis XVII., June 9, 1795 278 Brief sketch of the Life of Marie-Thdr^se until her death, October 18, 1851 289 THE DUCHESSE D'ANGOULfiME. Homage to the Duches.se d'Angouleme, by C.-A. Sainte-Beuve . . . 295 CONTENTS. VU APPENDIXES. Page I. Moutreuil 311 II. First Examination of Madame Elisabeth bj Fouquier-Tiuville, May 9, 179-1 313 III. Extract from the Deliberations of the Commissioners of the Commune on the Service of the Temple 317 IV. Signs agreed upon to make known to the Princesses the Progress of the various Armies, etc.; and sundry Communications from Madame Elisabeth to M. Turgy 318 V. Louis XVI.'s Seal and Ring 323 INDEX 325 LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURE ILLUSTRATIONS. Madame Elisabeth de France Frontispiece By Mme. Vigee Le Bruu ; Portraits Nationaux. Tage Madame Elisabeth at Montreuil 20 By Richard ; Versailles. Locis XVI 80 By Duplessis; Versailles. The Princesse de Lamballe 122 By Mme. Vigee Lo Brun; MaUres du XIX Siecle. The Dauphin and Madame Royale 182 By Mme. Vigee Lo Brun ; Versailles. Madame Royale, Duchesse d'Angouleme 210 By Danloux; Vienna. Queen Marie-Antoinette leaving the Tribunal after her Condemnation to Death 273 Paul Delaroche. Typogravures. Fac-simile of a Fragment of Letter of Madame I^Ilisabeth . 87 Different Seals used by Madame I'Ilisaijeth and attached to HEii Letters 89 The Tower of the Temple 125 Fac-simile of Signatures to E.vamination of Mme. ^'lisabetii 310 LIFE AND LETTERS OF Madame Elisabeth de France. PART first. CHAPTER I. Introductory. — Sketch of the Life of Madame Elisabeth from her Child- hood until August 10, 1792. Many records of Madame ^Elisabeth exist, but only two of real authority : the " !6loge historique de Mme. Ellisabeth de France," by Antoine Ferrand, minister of State and peer of France, first published in 1814 and again in 1861 ; and the " Vie de Madame Ellisabeth," by M. A. de Beauchesne, Paris, 1869. Both works contain a number of her letters. From these volumes the following record has been made, chiefly in their own (translated) words. The parts selected are the simple historical facts of Mme. Elisabeth's story. The other parts may not be false, — far be it from us to say they are, — but they are so romantically tender as to convey a sense of extravagance, and thus do injury to the noble figure which the truth presents. For instance, it is recorded by her biog- raphers that as her head fell into the basket a perfume of roses was wafted over the Place Louis XV. The impression that we of the present day receive from such a statement is 2 LIFK AM) LKTl'KHS OK [cnAr. i. of fully and fuUunie flattery; yet the essential truth is in the simple facts, where the undying actions of tlic just Smell sweet, and Mossom in the dust. This record of Madame I^Uisabeth is here followed by the " Journal of the Temple," written by Clery, the valet who at- tended on Louis XVI. to the last hour of his life, and by the far more valuable and even precious Narrative of that em- bodiment of sorrow, ;Marie-Th(5rbse de France, daughter of Louis XVL and Marie-Antoinette, and later Duchesse d'An- gouleme. There we see the end of the great French mon- archy (for the restored kings were not the monarchy). No one can read this series of Memoirs — Saint-Simon, d'Argen- son, Bernis — ■without realizing the causes of that mighty fall ; not to be found so much in the career of the Great Monarch as in the lowered standards he left behind him, the corruption of the regency, and the long reign of his great-grandson's vice and ineptitude which consolidated the ■wrongs of France. One fact shines clear above this mass of evil ; and it is allowable to call the attention of the reader to it forcibly. Beside the enervating depravity of the Regent, the personal cowardice and sloth of Louis XV., the lack of firmness and regal assertion of Louis XVL and his brothers, stands the splendid courage, physical and moral, of the three women whose ends are here recorded. £lisabeth-PhLlippine-]\rarie-H(^lfene de France, daughter of the Dauphin Louis, son of Louis XV., and Marie-Josfephe de Saxe, was bom at Versailles, May 3, 1764. Her three brothers, the Due de Beny, the Comte de Provence, and the Comte d'Artois, were taken to the chapel on the same day, immediately after the king's mass, to witness her baptism, at ■which v.- ere present also the king and queen, the king's sis- 1792] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 3 ters Mesdames Adelaide, Victoire, Sophie, and Louise, the Due d'Oiidans, the Due de Chartres, the Prince de Condd, the Prince and Princesse de Conti, the Due de Penthievre, the Prince de Lamballe, and others. At her birth Madame lillisabeth was so delicate that for months her existence was a source of continual anxiety. Her father died the following year, and her mother, the wise and excellent Dauphine Marie- Jos^phe, in 17G7. The little orphan was then given wholly to the care of the Comtesse de Marsan (daughter of the Prince de Soubise), governess of the Children of France, who was already bringing up Elisa- beth's sister, Madame Clotilde de France, afterwards Queen of Sardinia, who was four years and eight months older than Elisabeth. The difference in character and temper was greater still. Clotilde was born with the happiest disposi- tion, which needed only to be encouraged and aided. Elisa- beth was very different ; it was often necessary to oppose her nature, and always to direct it. Proud, inflexible, passionate, she had defects to be mastered which would have been re- grettable in a lower rank ; in a princess of royal blood they were intolerable. The task of Mme. de Marsan was a diffi- cult one. ]\Iadame Elisabeth's self-will was powerful, proud of her birth, she exacted around her supple instruments of it ; she said she had no need to learn and tire herself use- lessly, inasmuch as princes had about them persons whose duty it was to think for thorn. She stamped with anger if one of her women did not immediately bring her the thing she asked for. The difference in the characters of the sisters made a difference in the feelings of their governess towards each. Jealousy came to increase the asperity of the younger sister's nature. "Tf Clotilde liad asked you," she said, one day, when Mme. de Marsan had refused a request, " she would have had it." 4 LIFE AND I.ETTF.KS OK [cnxp. i. Uut fUisnbelh was taken ill, and (lulilJe insisted on takijig nre of her. This illness developed between them feelings of the tenderost affection; Clotilde taught her little sister the alphabet and how to spell and form words, she gave her little counsels which tended to soften her character, and she inculcated in her the first notions of religion with which she was already nourishing her own soul. Still, Mme. de Marsan felt the want of aid in seconding the reform in the child's nature which she had so much at heart to bring about, and she cast her eyes on Mme. de Mackau, whose husband had been minister of the king at Ratisbon. This lady was educated at Saint-Cyr, an estab- lishment which kept notes of not only the character and merits of its pupils, but followed their careers in the world for which it had formed them. It was from information thus derived that ]\Ime. de Marsan asked the king to appoint Mme. de Mackau, who was living in retirement in Alsace, as sub-governess. This choice proved to have all the ele- ments required to work a happy change in the nature of a self-willed and haughty child. Mme. de Mackau possessed a firmness to which resistance yielded, and an affectionate kindness which enticed attachment. Armed with almost maternal power, she brought up the Children of France as she would have trained her own children ; overlooking no fault ; knowing, if need were, how to make herself feared ; all the while leading them to like virtue. To a superior mind she added a dignity of tone and manners which in- spired respect. "Wlien her pupil gave way to the fits of haughty temper to which she was subject, Mme. de Mackau showed on her countenance a displeased gravity, as if to re- mind her that princes, like other persons, could not be liked except for their virtues and their good qualities. Distressed and disconcerted by this sudden and unexpected change, 1792] MADAME ifeLISABETH DE FRANCE. 5 Elisabeth, whose nature it was to be unable to feign or to hide whatever was passing in her soul, gave in this way a great advantage to her governess, quick to profit by the knowledge she thus gained of the child's inner feelings. Little by little, Elisabeth yielded to wise and friendly management, and the defects which retarded her progress and prevented her from getting the advantages of her educa- tion gradually effaced themselves. Her wise governesses neglected nothing that could form her mind ; they ac- customed her to discuss questions with ease and without pedantry ; to pose an argument properly, to examine it with discernment, and to bring logic to bear upon it and solve it. As all progress is accomplished only by degrees, the young princess continued for some time to commit her early faults. On such occasions, becoming more and more rare, she met a stern look, a stiff manner ; and that simple show of displeas- ure was an efficacious correction. The proud and violent qualities changed, little by little, into firmness of principles, into a nobility and energy of feeling which made her in after years superior to the trials that filled her life. Deprived of her parents and of the tenderest emotions of nature, her heart turned to fraternal love, which became from childliood her dominant passion. She cherished her three brothers, but a sort of predilection drew her to the Due de Berry, the Dauphin. Was it that she already felt he would be unhappy because he was fated to be king ? This tender- ness of heart, which had so far served to correct Elisal)elh's defects, was destined to be the the source of her consolation, her courage, her sorrows, and her devotion. About this time, on certain days, when serious study was over, a few young ladies of merit, of religious principles and good education, were admitted to the privacy of the young princesses. It was a circle created to utilize their leisure 6 I.IFK AM) MllTKHS OK [riivr. i. as well fts to nnnise it, to form thcin to llie customs of the \vi>rlil, to toat^h them to oxprcsa tlioir ideas witli grace and concision, to jiulge of tilings willi accuracy, and state their judgments clearly. These meetings had the precious advan- tage of being recreations which, \inder yo\ithf\il gaycly and IK-rfect modesty, initialcil them unconsciously in tliat divin- ing tact, that knowledge of tlie world, so dillicult to ac([uire, whicli consists in discerning at first sight the value of indi- viduals, in estimating the nature and dominant spirit of each society under whatever form it presents itself : in short, the tact of sagacity, wliich became in the end so trained in fllisa- beth that she was rarely mistaken in the opinion she formed of persons or of the spirit of the society in which she found herself. Madame Elisabeth seldom amused herself with frivolous talk, she was never really interested in a con- versation unless there was something to gain from it. Time was precious to her. The Abb^ de Montt^gut, canon of Chartres, who was ap- pointed, in 1774, tutor to the Children of France, contributed to develop in IMadame Elisabeth the religious sentiments which never left her in after life. He explained to her the Gospels as being both the school of duty and the source of consolations. She ap[>lied herself to their study with a penetration above her age. One might almost say that a secret inspiration warned her that she was destined to find there the best and first of knowledge. As her intelli- gence developed, those two jtrecepts became deeply rooted in her. Religion seemed to her a chain of duties and conso- lations, the first link of which, attached in heaven, was ever drawing humanity towards its origin and its completion. Mme. de Marsan, on her side, took her often to Saint-Cyr. That royal establishment, which bore the imprint of a saintly and majestic thought, awakened all the sympathies 1792] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 7 of the young girl, who never left it without regret and promises to return. Louis XV. died on the 10th of May, 1774, when Elisa- beth was ten years old, and the Due de Berry, tlie Dauphin and his wife, Marie-Antoinette, became King and Queen of France ; the first nineteen years of age, the second a year younger. That year and the next were passed by the young princesses in their secluded school life, but always accompanying the Court, whether at Versailles, Fon- tainebleau, Marly, Compifegue, or La Muette. The following, year Madame Elisabeth was confirmed and made her first communion, and the sisters were parted by the marriage of Clotilde to the Prince of Piedmont, afterwards King of Sar- dinia. No sensation of sorrow had as yet affected Elisabeth's heart ; her sister's departure was her first experience of it, and when the moment of separation came, she clung to her with such force that they were obliged to tear them apart. Queen Marie-Antoinette, writing a few days later to her mother, the empress, says : — " My sister Elisabeth is a charming child, who has intelli- gence, character, and much grace ; she showed the greatest feeling, and much above her age, at the departure of her sister. The poor little girl was in despair, and as her health is very delicate, she was taken ill and had a very severe nervous attack. I own to my dear mamma tliat I fear I am getting too attached U) her, feeling, from the exanjple of my aunts, how essential it is for her happiness not to remain an old maid in this country." It was on the 12ih of iMay, 1776, that Turgot and Male- sherbes, the two ministers whom the philosophical party, the " party of progress," had brought into power to effect reforms at the beginning of the new reign, quitted their mini.str}\ " Ah ! " cried Louis XVI., as Malesherbes asked him to accept 8 LIFK AND LKTIKKS OF [cuap. i. his rcsigualion : " Imw fortunate you are ! wouKl that 1 could get away also!" h would take too long here to enter into public details which have not as yet a close ctjnnection with the life of ^ladame Elisabeth ; sutlice it to say briefly, that all efforts at reform on the part of these ministers and the young monarch miscarried. The king's edicts which sup- pressed the corirc (forced labour) and abolished corporations and their privilege, were bitterly opposed in parliament ; and it required a lit de justice to enforce their registration. All attempts to reform the army made by the Comte de Saint- Germain, minister of war, and his auxiliary, M. de Guibert,^ also failed. With singular unwisdom they contrived to dis- please the officers and discontent the troops at the very moment when it was so necessary to be able to count upon the in^dolable fidelity of the army. Nothing, therefore, of all that was attempted succeeded well, and Louis XVI. began the second portion of his reign with vanished illusions and fears for the future. On the 17th of May, 1778, the Court went to Marly. The king having determined to give his sister an establishment, she was on that day resigned into his hands by her then governess, the Princesse de Gu^ni^u^e, and His Majesty gave her the Comtesse Diane de Polignac as lady of honour, with the Marquise de S^rent as lady-in-waiting. From that moment there was question of her marriage. Her hand seemed, in the first instance, destined to the Infant of Portugal, Prince of Brazil, who was the same age as herself and would eventually have brought her the title of queen. AMiile she saw the conveniences of this alliance, Madame Elisabeth was far from wishing it, and though she personally- put no obstacle in the w'ay, she was comforted on learning that the negotiations were broken off. 1 The lover of Mile, de Lespinasse. — Te. 1792] MADAME ifcLISABETH DE FRANCE. 9 Shortly after, two other princes sought the honour of obtaining her hand. One was the Duke of Aosta, who was five years older than herself and could give her, in a neigh- bouring and friendly Court, a place on the steps of a throne beside her sister Clotilde; but the political pride of the government asserted that a secondary place at the Court of Sardinia was not becoming to a Daughter of France. Her third suitor was the Emperor Joseph II., brother of Marie- Antoinette, who on the occasion of his journey to France the preceding year had been struck by the vivacity of her mind and the sweetness of her nature. But the anti-Austrian party, which by that time (1783) prevailed at Court, where it had already sown around the queen distrust and hatreds, dreaded an alliance which might be contrary to its ascen- dancy, and set to work to prevent it. The intrigue succeeded. It was said, without grounds, that Madame Elisabeth felt some regret at this conclusion. The emperor had not yet shown in politics the eccentricities of his mind, and he had just lost a wife whose youth, virtues, and piety had won the love and benedictions of a whole people.^ But Madame Elisabeth, altliough she assuredly possessed all the qualities that fitted her for such an inheritance, seemed to attach no greater value to this union than to the other marriages with which policy had interfered. As time went on, Madame Elisabeth strengthened herself perceptibly against the dangers of her nature, her age, and the Court ; she felt more and more what was lacking in her. Her efforts increased from her self-distrust, and the more she acquired higher qualities the less she knew herself capable of the perfection she sought to attain. It was this feeling 1 She was the daughter of Madame Infanta Ducliess of Parma, oldest twin daughter of Louis XV., consequently the first cousin of Madame :felisabeth. — Tk. 10 l.n-'K AM) Ll/riKKS OK [iiiAi-. I. of luuiiility which gave to her speech an ex(|uisite resLiaint, to her actions a prudent reserve, and to her charity a wise discri'lion. All the yovmg ghls wlu) had been brought in contact with Madame Elisabeth or had grown up with her, sharing her studies and her pleasures, gave her a warm and sincere de- votion ; to them she was not the prmcess but the friend. " How lovable you are, my heart," she says in one place, " to wish to forget that I am princess ; nothing could give me greatei pleasure than to forget it myself; I say it as I think it. Friendship, you see, my Bombelles, is a second life, which sustains us in this low world." Among these young girls were two or three whom her heart distinguished specially, and wdth them she corre- sponded steadily to the last of her living life. One was Mile, de Mackau, the daughter of the lady to whom she owed so much, who was early married to the Marquis de Bombelles, then ambassador to Portugal, and at the time of the Eevolution ambassador to Venice. Another was Mile. Marie de Causans, third daughter of the Marquise de Causans, who was appointed by the king, at the time ^ladame l^]lisabeth's establishment was formed, as lady of honour and superintendent of his sister's household. Her second daughter, Virginie, was chanoinesse at Metz, who spent the months of her vacation in Madame Elisabeth's establish- ment. The love between them became so strong that the princess dreading the moment of the young girl's return to her Chapter endeavoured to make her one of her own ladies- in-waiting ; but the Marquise de Causans, although a widow of small means and a large family, made it a principle that none of her four daughters should hold office at Court unless she was married, and she turned a deaf ear to Madame Elis- abeth's entreaties. Then a thought came to the princess; 1 JMein. VtT. 9 1792] MADAME ifeLISABETH DE FRANCE. 11 she went one morning to the queen and said in her coaxing, gentle way : " Promise to grant me what I am going to ask of you." The queen, before promising, wished to know the request, and a playful battle ensued. Finally Madame Elisa- beth yielded and said : " I want to give Causans a dot ; ask the king to advance me for five years the thirty thousand francs he always gives me as a New Year's gift." The queen very willingly took charge of the commission, and the king as willingly gi-anted the request. The Marquis de Eaigecourt presented himself as a husband, and Louis XVI. appointed the young wife as lady-in-waiting to his sister. Her joy knew no bounds. For five years she received no presents, and when the matter was mentioned she would say, " I have no presents yet, but I have my Eaigecourt." The fifth year expired in 1789, but by that time public difficulties intervened, and the custom of years was given up. A brother of Mme. de Eaigecourt, the Marquis de Causans, a member of the States General, was also a friend of Madame Elisabeth, who kept up a close correspondence with him on the events of the time. Her letters were said by him to contain very just and lofty conceptions on passing events, and especially on what was taking place in the Assembly. That collection of letters, in which the energy of her spirit and the penetration of her views were visible, it is said, on every page, was confided by the Marquis de Causans, at the time he was compelled to emigrate, to hands which he had every reason to consider peculiarly safe ; but it disap- peared in one of those cataclysms of which the revolutionary tornado produced so many examples. Madame Elisabeth's letters to Mme. de Bombellos and Mme. de Eaigecourt, while somewhat cautious as to ])ublic affairs, nevertheless express, as we shall see later, a sound 2 Mem. Vcr. 9 12 LIFK AND LETTKKS OF [cuxf. i. aiid independent judgment i»n principles and passing events, and are the (.»nly personal revelatiun of her heart and mind which we possess before the black pall drops forever, on the 10th of August, 1792, between the family in the Tem]>le and the world. The domestic happiness which Madame Elisabeth now began to enjoy in her own little circle seems to have reigned in the palace of Versailles as well. Never before did the Court of France present such a sight : a young queen living in perfect harmony with two sisters-in-law of her own age, and a young king liking to lean on the friend- ship of his two brothers. " The greatest intimacy," says Mme. Campan, " existed between the three households [that of the king, that of Monsieur, the Comte de Provence, and that of the Comte d'Artois], " They met together at meals, and ate apart only when their dinners were in public. This manner of family living lasted until the time when the queen allowed herself to dine occasionally with the Du- chesse de Polignac, but the evening meeting for supper was never interrupted, and it took place always in the apartments of the Comtesse de Provence. Madame Elisabeth took her place there as soon as she had finished her education, and sometimes Mesdames, the king's aunts, were invited. This family intimacy, which had no precedent at Court, was the work of Queen Marie-Antoinette, and she maintained it with great perseverance." The interests and pleasures of a young Court nevertheless gave rise to intrigues which at times divided the members of the royal family. The king and his brothers were each of different natures. Louis XYI., who possessed the virtues of an honest man, was far from having all those which are required in a king. His self-distrust was extreme. ^Tiile he was still dauphin, if a question arose that was difficult 1792] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 13 to decide, "Ask my brother of Provence about that," he would say. Trustful in others, he surrendered his own will readily ; but if he discovered that any one deceived him he flew into fits of passion. He had neither firmness of char- acter nor grace of manner. Like certain excellent fruits with a knotty rind, his exterior was rough, but the heart perfect. Stern to himself alone, he kept the laws of the Church rigorously, abstained and fasted during the forty Lenten days, but thought it right that the queen should not imitate him. Sincerely pious, but trained to tolerance by the influence of the century in which he lived, he was also disposed, too disposed perhaps, to yield the prerogatives of the throne whenever the interests of his people were alleged to him ; forgetting that one of the first interests of a nation is the maintenance of a strong and incontestable power. A weak royalty is impotent both to do good and to prevent evil. There was in Louis XVI. something honest which did not accept complete liability {solidaritc) for the preceding reign ; but, heir of a regime of which he bore the weight, he was ill at ease between a past which roused repugnance and a future, not threatenmg as yet, but full of doubts and mys- tery. Simple, economical, liking to read and study, seeking to forget his throne in the exercise of hunting or of manual labour, detesting women without virtue and men without con- science, he seems a stranger in his own Court, where morals were light and consciences easy. A young king, given to moderation and faithful to duty, regarding himself as the father of all Frenchmen, but especially drawn to those who were weakest, could not be appreciated by courtiers, men for the most part frivolous and in debt, corrupters or con-upted, who regarded innovations as a danger and reforms as a crime. The Comte de Provence, whose intellect and education 14 MKK AND LiyPTKHS OF [ciiAr. t. woro on a \k\v, concoalod lu'iicalh a piuckMil digiiily his re- gret at not being put by fate in the lirst rank. Versed in the culture of letters, aided by a wonderful memory, he felt him- self, in a literary aspeet, to be far superior to the king his brother. This sentiment was born in him from childhood. One day the Due de Beiry, playing with his brothers, used ' the expression il pleura. " What a barbarism ! " cried the Comte de Provence, " a prince ought to know his own tongue." " And you ought to hold yours," retorted the elder. Monsieur took pleasure in the society of men of letters ; he endeavoured to explain to himself the source and inspiration of the new ideas that rose on the horizon, he prepared him- self for events that he might not be surprised by them ; he temporized with parties and united with none ; he lived with his brothers without dissensions and without confidence ; he toyed with opinion coldly ; and when the day came that un- fortimate arrangements made the king's departure a failure at Varennes, he cleverly kept out of danger and reserved himself for the future. The Comte d'Artois was a type of the Frenchman of the olden time ; careless in temperament, gay in mind, and with all the chivalrous graces. Well made, choice in his toilet, adroit at all exercises of the body, he never appreciated grandeur except for the advantages it gave him, nor fortune except for the pleasures it procures. The manner in which he regarded women followed him even into the sanctuary. " Monseigneur," said the Bishop of Limoges on one occasion, " I have a favour to ask of your Royal Highness, — it is that you will not come to mass." Born Ln a frivolous and vo- luptuous Court, he took the habits of it; but his heart was generous, and that quality survived exile, a throne, and disaster. It is easy to see how around three such princes men of 1792] MADAME ifeLISABETH DE FRANCE. 15 different morals and ideas grouped themselves ; honest men were near Louis XVI., politicians near the Comte de Pro- vence, the frivolous and volatile near the Comte d'Artois. Thus the friends of the king were few, those of Monsieur numerous, those of the Comte d'Artois innumerable. The last had the pretension to think themselves directly under the patronage of the queen, who, lively and brilliant, wanted the pleasures of her age and took delight in the Comte d'Ar- tois, who amused her and whose tastes were somewhat like her own. The jealous and malignant spirit of a swarm of courtiers endeavoured to make a crime of the queen's liking for the gay young brother-in-law, but they have not suc- ceeded, to the eyes of history, in poisoning amusements wit- nessed by the whole Com't, not to speak of the Comtesse d'Artois, whose affection for the queen remained unchanged. Such was the interior of the palace of Versailles during the years which preceded the Eevolution. The princes and princesses of the blood seldom appeared there ; their tastes and habits were different. " Of the three branches of the House of Bourbon," said the old Mar^chal de Eichelieu, one day, " each has a ruling and pronounced taste : the eldest loves hunting ; the Orleans love pictures ; the Cond^s love war." " And Louis XVI.," some one asked, " what does he love ? " " Oh, he is different, he loves the people." Except on occasions of formal etiquette, the absence from Court of the princes of the blood was noticeable. Exception must be made, however, of the Princesse de Lamballe, whose functions, as superintendent of the queen's household and her affection for the queen herself, kept her always at Court. The princes of the blood, whom the quarrels with parliament had tlnown into tlie Opposition, considered it advisable to add to the privileges of thtnr birth the advantages of popu- larity obtained by the so-called independence of their opiu- 16 LIKK AM) LKTTKUS OF [cnAr. i. ions. The time was coming when the great House of Bourbon was to weaken and condemn itself to impotence by the fall- ing apart of its sheaves. Madame FUisabeth was now, at the age of fifteen, to find herself mistress of her actions, surrounded by the splendours of fortime, inNited to share all pleasures, and observed by ever)' eye. What is libert}- at that age if not release from study, amusement, toilet, jewels, and fetes ? Such was not the programme of the king's young sister. Her conscience took upon itself the duty of exercising the same control and watchfulness over her conduct that her governesses had just laid down. " My education is not finished," she said ; " I shall continue it under the same rules; I shall keep my masters, and the same hours will be given to religion, the study of languages, belles-lettres, instructive conversations, and to my walks and rides on horseback." And she kept to all that she thus planned. Her appearance at this time has been described and painted, although she herself had a great repugnance to sitting for her picture. Her figure was not tall, neither had her bearing that majesty which was so much admired in the queen ; her nose had the shape which is characteristic of the Bourbon face ; but her forehead with its pure lines giving to her counte- nance its marked character of nobleness and candour, her dark blue eyes with their penetrating sweetness, her mouth with its smile that showed her pretty teeth, and the expres- sion of intelligence and goodness that pervaded her whole person formed a charming and sympathetic xjresence. It was at this time that she began to reflect on public affairs, and her first strong interest was in America. In spite of many ditficulties, Louis XVI. had succeeded in mak- ing certain useful reforms in the interior of the kingdom. He abolished the corvee, substituting for it taxes in money ; 1792] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 17 he created in Paris the Mont-de-Pict^ (pawn or loan shops) and the Caisse d'Escompte ; he also calmed the public fear of bankruptcy by securing the payment of the Funds (rentes) on the H6tel-de-Ville. The first political event of his reign was the war of independence in America. By an act recently put forth, the English Parliament declared it " had the right to force the colonies to obey all its laws and in all cases." It was this act, the execution of which destroyed the very shadow of freedom, which produced the American Kevolution, The representatives of the future United States assembled and by a solemn act declared the inhabitants of the colonies free and independent and released from all relations with England. This Congress called religion to the support of the dawning liberty, and placed America beneath the immediate protection of Providence. That august dedication was made with great ceremony: a crown, consecrated to God, was placed upon the Bible ; and that crown was then divided into thirteen parts for the deputies of the thirteen prov- inces, and medals were struck to commemorate this event. All the women of the country, at their head the wife of Washington, made themselves remarkable for their patriotic zeal ; acts of an ancient chivalry and heroism signalized this memorable war, the reading of which wrung tears of ad- miration and enthusiasm from Madame Elisabeth. We cannot enter into the details of the great events that follow. Our troops were fortunate in this war as auxiliaries ; America threw off the British yoke and secured her inde- pendence, but our navy and that of Spain, our ally, suffered cruelly. This war, although it was, like all war, contrary to the feelings of humanity in Madame Elisabeth, nevertheless flattered her national pride, and made the sacrifices which ended in her brother's glory and that of the nation less pain- ful to bear. But what she especially noted with warm satis- 18 LIFK AND LKITKUS OF [rn.M-. j. faction throughout the struggle was the generous spirit that ruled it ami sometimes lessened its evils. Thus she read with pleasure in a report, addressed November 26, 1781, to iho minister of the nav)-, by the Marquis de Bouill^, then gt)vernor of Martinicjue, that the Frencli troops under his orders had, on seizing the island of Saint-Eustache, shown a spirit of justice and loyalty equal to their patience and courage. " I found in the government house," writes M. de Bouill^, " the sum of a million sterling which was in sequestration, awaiting a decision of the court of London, It belonged to the Dutch ; and I made it over to them after obtaining authentic proofs of their ownership." And again, in another report to the minister of the navy, Captain de la P^rouse, commanding a squadron of the king, writing on board the " Sceptre " in the Hudson straits, Sep- tember 6, 1782, says : — " I took care, when burning the fort at York, to leave a rather considerable storehouse at a distance from the fire, in which I deposited provisions, powder, shot, guns, and a certain quantity of European merchandise, such as was suit- able to exchange with savages, in order that the English, who I know have taken refuge in the woods, may find, on their return to their old quarters, enough for their subsis- tence until the English authorities have been informed of their situation. I feel certain that the king v^rill approve my conduct in this respect, and that in thus providing for those unfortunates I have only forestalled the benevolent inten- tions of HLs Majesty." Such facts as these were collected and told by Madame lElisabeth with delight. In the year 1781 the king bought the property of the Princesse de Gu^m^n^e, at Montreuil, which the wreck of her husband's fortunes did not allow her to retain. He asked 1792] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 19 the queen, to whom he had confided his project, to invite Elisabeth to go to Montreuil when they next drove out to- gether, and take her (with a purpose) into the house of her former governess, of which he knew his sister was very fond. Delighted with the surprise she was to give to the yoimg girl, Marie-Antoinette gave the invitation : " If you like," she said, " we will stop on our way at Montreuil, where you were so fond of going when a child." ^Elisabeth replied that it would be a great pleasure. On arriving, they found everything arranged to receive them, and as soon as they had entered the salon the queen said : " Sister, you are in your own house. This is to be your Trianon. The king, who gives himself the pleasure of giving it to you, gives me the pleasure of telling you." The brotherly inspiration of Louis XVI. was not at fault. This gift became to Madame Elisabeth a source of infinite enjoyment ; for from this moment she was able to associate her dearest friends familiarly with her daily existence, and escape from the pomps of Court whenever her duty did not require her presence there. Madame l^lisabeth was born for private intimacy ; lively, confiding, and expansive in her familiar circle of a few friends, she was timid, reserved, and even embarrassed, not only in the queen's salons, but in her own, surrounded by all her ladies. It was therefore to her a source of the keenest enjoyment, or rather of happi- ness, to have this private home of her own with its rural delights. The park and mansion, of which she now took possession, was near the barrier at the entrance to Versailles on the road to Paris. .The park itself was of twelve acres, charmingly di- versified with greensward and trees, and with shrubbery })atli3 among the copses in all directions. A large section of the property Madame Elisabeth presently devoted to a cow- 'JO LllK AM) LKITKKS UF [iiiAi-. i. pasluro, ilairv. vof]jo(ableaiui fruit gardens, and a poultry -yard. In the middle of a lawn, sluuled with trees aud shrubs and brightened with beds of flowers, stood the house, the peri- style of wliich was supported by four iiiarblc columns. The first act of the young proprietor was to give a small house on the estate to Mme. de Mackau, whose permanent home it became. The king decided that until Madame filisabeth had reached her twenty-fifth year (she was uow eighteen) she should not sleep at Montreuil ; but as soon as she was put in possession of her dear domain she passed the entire day there, and was only at Versailles in the evening and at night, or for occasions of ceremony. She heard mass in the morning in the Chapel of the Chateau, and immediately after it went with certain of her friends in a carriage, or on horseback, an exercise of which she was very fond, or sometimes on foot to Montreuil. The life she led there was, uniform, like that of a family in some country chateau a hundred leagues from Paris. Hours for study, work, and rambles, either alone or with friends, occupied her time ; the dinner-hour brought them all together around the same table. Little by little her occupations increased. She laid out her farm, her dairy, her kitchen-gardens and poultry-yard, and became herself the farmer of the place ; she loved all rural interests. She had an overseer, to whom she gave full authority under herself; and this man and those under liim fulfilled her orders with such care and assiduity that no dis- putes and no complaints ever troubled that happy solitude. But Madame Elisabeth was not satisfied with her own en- joyment of the place. Soon she became the friend and providence of the neighbouring village and its environs. She knew all the inhabitants personally ; their interests became hers; young girls were dowered and married, the old 1792] MADAME :feLISABETH DE FRANCE. 21 and the worthy were cared for, the sick were nursed and doctored. The milk of her dairy went to the children, the vegetables and fruits to the sick ; often she could be seen at- tending to the distribution herself. All this was not done without personal sacrifice. Her means were comparatively small ; she had only the pension which she received as sister of the king, but she eked it out by economy, — economy on herself, be it said. " Yes, that is very pretty," she replied, when urged to buy a jewel which she fancied, " but with that money I could set up two little homes." Various other anecdotes of this kind have come down to us, but Madame Elisabeth herself frowned on any notice being taken of such deeds. On one occasion, when the Bishop of Alais made her a fulsome speech of admiration, she said, blushing, that he judged her far too favourably. " Madame," he replied, " I am not even on the level of my subject." " You are right," she said, with a certain little sarcasm that was all her own; " you are very much above it." One pleasure which she derived from her new way of liv- ing was that of seeing her brothers with greater freedom. Monsieur would often drive out to Montreuil and spend hours with her. " My brother, the Comte de Provence," she said one day, " is the most enlightened of advisers. His judgment on men and things is seldom mistaken, and his vast memory supplies him with an inexhaustible source of interesting anecdotes." The society of the Comte d'Artois gave her interests of another kind. More sensible than he, she often permitted herself to lecture him. Gay and heed- less, he laughed at her advice, but as he advanced in life he began to love her with a tenderness mingled with vener- ation, a feeling whicli increased as misfortunes closed down upon them. After he had left France, those about him could guess when he received a letter from her ; emotion showed 22 MKK AND LKTTEHS (»K [chap. i. on his features aiul his hands trembled as he opened it. lieciprciojil aflVction between a brother and sister was never keener, truer, or more expansive. Madame l^Uisabeth's relation to Louis XVI. was of still another character. They both seemed aware that she was, and would be, necessary to him. She liked to visit her aunt Louise, the Carmelite nun at Saint-Denis. The king became uneasy at the frequency of these visits. " I am very will- ing," he said to her one day, " that you should go and see your aunt, but only on condition that you will not imitate her. Elisabeth, I need you" Her heart had told her that already, and the time was swiftly approaching when she obeyed the inward call and gave up her life to him. Thus flowed the days of the happy young princess until the terrible winter of 1788-89, when the sufferings of the poor exhausted her means and made her run in debt to advance to the starved and frozen people what she called " their revenue." Her letters show that already she foresaw, and rightly, the public troubles that were soon to appear. She knew the character of the king ; she believed that his impolitic action on the 8th of May, 1788, could end only in the recall of the parliament, of M. Necker, and the con- vocation of the States-General. In a letter of hers dated June 9, 1788, she says : " The king returns upon his steps, as did our grandfather. He is always afraid of being mis- taken; his first impidse passed, he is tormented by a fear of doing injustice. ... It seems to me," she continues, " that it is in government as it is in education : one should not say / vjill, unless one is sure of being right ; then, once said, nothing should be given up of what has been ordained." Madame Elisabeth would fain have had the king take that princiyjle as his rule of conduct, and she foresaw the e\'ils that his kindness and his weakness would produce. "I 1792] MADAME ^LISABETH DE FRANCE. 23 see a thousand things," she says, " which he does not even suspect, because his soul is so good that intrigue is foreign to it." The note of foreboding, not, perhaps, fully compre- hended by her own mind, is in much that she says and writes at this period. Instinctively she turns to the support of her life — to the spirit of faith — and we find her in- most thoughts in a prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, written at this time and given to Mme. de Raigecourt, the manuscript of which, in her own handwriting, is preserved in the Bibliothfeque Nationale : — " Adorable heart of Jesus, sanctuary of the love that led God to make himself man, to sacrifice his life for our salva- tion, and to make of his body the food of our souls : in gratitude for that infinite charity I give you my heart, and with it all that I possess in this world, all that I am, all that I shall do, all that I shall suffer. But, my God, may this heart, I implore you, be no longer unworthy of you ; make it like unto yourself ; surround it with your thorns and close its entrance to all ill-regulated affections ; set there your cross, make it feel its worth, make it willing to love it. Kindle it with your divine flame. May it burn for your glory ; may it be all yours, when you have done what you will with it. You are its consolation in its troubles, the remedy of its ills, its strength and refuge in temptation, its hope during life, its haven in death. I ask you, heart so loving, the same favour for my companions. So be it." " Aspiration. " divine heart of Jesus ! I love you, I adore you, I invoke you, with my companions, for all the days of my life, but especially for the hour of my death. vere adorator ct unice amator Dei, miserere nobis. Amen." 24 I. IKK AND KKTPKUS OF [riiAr. i. It was on the 5111 of October, 1789, the day wheu the Parisian mob of men and women marched to Versailles and compelled tlie king to take the fatal step of going to Paris, thai Madame Elisabeth was suddenly, without warning, hurried from her dear Montreuil, never to enter it again. From the terrace of her garilen she saw the first coming of the populace, and, mounting her horse, she rode to the palace. Tlie king was out hunting, but messengers had gone for him, and when he returned she urged him to stand firm against this vanguard of anarchy, saying that a vigorous and immedi- ate repression would avert great future evils, and advising witli true instinct that if the royal family left Versailles at all, it should be for a town at a distance from Paris, where loyal men could rally to the king and enable him to break through the tyranny that the factions were beginning to exercise. For a moment he seemed to listen to her and to the coun- sels of M. de Saint-Priest, minister of the interior, whose opinions agreed entirely with hers. But his firmness gave way before the views of M. Necker, and he consented to negotiate, as power to power, with the rioters. Prompted by its leaders, the mob demanded that the king should instantly fix his residence in Paris, and M. de la Fayette sent message after message urging him to comply. Madame ^Elisabeth expressed her contrary opinion : " It is not to Paris, Sire, that you should go. You have still devoted battalions and faithful guards to protect you. I implore you, my brother, not to go to Paris." The king, pulled this way and that by conflicting opin- ions, hesitated too long ; the moment for resistance went by ; the troops, indignant at a thoughtless neglect of them, lost ardour, and the king, without initiative, without will, deferred to the clamoiu- of the multitude and gave his promise to 1792] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 25 depart. As the miserable procession passed Montreuil, Madame Elisabeth bent forward in the carriage to look at the trees of her dear domain. " Are you bowing to Montreuil, sister ? " asked the kiug. " Sire, I am bidding it farewell," she answered gently. From this time she shared the captivity — for such it was — of her brother and his family. At first a semblance of social life was kept up at the Tuderies. The Princesse de Lamballe tried to gather a society about her, and the queen for a while appeared at her assemblies ; but confidence and safety were gone ; this last effort of gayety, begun by the princess to brighten the queen's life, ceased, and the royal family took up a system of living which they followed ever after, even in the Temple. During the mornings the queen and Madame Elisabeth superintended the lessons of Madame Eoyale and the dauphin, and worked at large pieces of tapestry. Their minds were too preoccupied by the events of the day, the perils of the present and the threats of the future, to allow them to read books, as they did later in the awful silence and monotony of the Tower; needlework be- came their sole distraction. Mile. Dubuquois, who kept a shop for wools and tapestries, long preserved and exhibited a carpet made by the two princesses for the large room of the queen's apartment on the ground floor of the Tuileries. During this time Madame Elisabeth continued whenever the opportunity came to her to urge the king to assert him- self and firmly maintain his power and the monarchy. When M. de Favras was executed (February 19, 1790) and the king did not, or could not, interfere to save him, she exclaimed in the bitterness of her heart : " They have killed Favras because he tried to save the king, and the days of October 5th and 6th remain unpunished ! Oh, if the king would only he king, how all would change ! " She saw with 26 LIKK ANn I.KTTKUS OK [cuai-. i. dread the cominfr crisis which, hrenking the lines of govern- ment, would render the king's will impotent and repression impossible This conviction appears in many details of her life. Noticing that one of her ladies looked attentively into the garden of the Tuileries (May, 1791), she asked what attracted her attention. " jMadame, I am looking at our good master, who is walking there." "Our master!" she exclaimed. " Ah ! to our sorrow, he is that no longer." The queen shared the anxiety that the king's weakness inspired in Madame Elisabeth, but she had a hope which Madame Elisabeth did not share. She was convinced that the safety of the royal family and the French monarchy would be vmdertaken by Austria, and that some efficacious succour would come from that direction, without her making any appeal for it. This was attributing to her brother and the cabinet of Vienna a generosity they were far from hav- ing, and admitting a hope which her enemies were not slow in turning into a crime. It should here be remarked that Madame Elisabeth judged the politics of the European cabinets with severity. She was ver}' far from approving the official advice and crafty insinu- ations which made their way to Queen Marie-Antoinette. Having a profound aversion for all that did not seem to her upright, just, and straightforward, she was convinced that the secret proceedings of the Comte de Mercy — " that fox," as she called him — would prove fatal; but being without power to combat that influence, she could only pity Marie-Antoi- nette for enduring it, and for lending an ear to counsels which, without serving the family welfare, compromised, in her opinion, the stability of her brother's throne. To be just, we must here remark that Madame Elisabeth had been brought up, like all the princesses of the House of France, to distrust Austria. The same feelings could not be expected 'jucjuiie.- wi. J here be remarked that M: •at that ', she c< ^m^^" 1792] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 27 of the daughter of Maria Theresa. Equitable history will recognize that Marie-Antoinette never dreamed of sacrificing France to her native country ; but she did hope and believe that the alliance with the House of Austria, of which her marriage had been a pledge, would serve the interests of the two nations, and be a support to the French monarchy now shaken to its foundations. The day came at last when Louis XVI., goaded by his vir- tual captivity and exposed to the virulent actions of the clubs as well as to the monstrous insults of the street populace, attempted to recover power. He resolved to leave Paris and raise his standard elsewhere in France, thus following, on the 20th of June, 1791, the advice his sister had given him October 5, 1789. The story of the escape from Paris and the stoppage at Varennes is too fully told elsewhere to repeat it here. Ma- dame Elisabeth makes only brief allusion to it in her letters of that date. After their return to Paris M. de la Fayette, ap- pointed by the National Assembly governor of the Tuileries and keeper of the king and royal family, offered to allow Madame Elisabeth to leave the kingdom. This she refused to accept, and that decision sealed her fate. Nevertheless, she shuddered as she contemplated with clear eyes the posi- tion of the king and queen, deprived of all military support, reduced to beg their friends to go away from them, isolated henceforth on a throne without power, captives in a palace which was really a prison, and forbidden the last right of misfortune, that of complaint. She saw that in vain the king had sacrificed his prerogatives, given up his rights, abandoned his honours ; the factions by this time disputed even his right to think, and measured out to him and his family the very air they breathed. Madame l^lisabeth made herself no illusions as to the projects of the anarchists ; on 3 Mem. Ver. 9 28 LIKK AND LKTTKHS OF [ciiai-. i. the l20th of June, 1792, the anniversary of the capture at Vareunes, they justitied her fears. She relates the events of that day in a letter, omitting, however, certain acts of her own which redound to her glory. As the king left his family to face the mob, she followed him, and darting through the dt)or, which was instantly locked behind her, she placed herself beside him as he stood on a table which the pressure of the mob had forced him to moimt with the bonnet rouge upon his head. The populace took her for the queen and threatened her. " Do not unde- ceive them," she said. There she remained for several hours, exposed to the vilest insults. Once when a bayonet almost touched her breast, she turned it aside with her hand, saying : " Take care, monsieur, you might wound me, and I am sure you would be sorry for that." A woman of the people, speaking the next day of the fail- ure of the attack, said : " We could do nothing ; they had their Sainte Genevifeve with them," giving her the name the fish-wives applied to her as the carriage entered Paris on the fatal 5th of October, the last day of the French monarchy. It was on the day following this 20th of June, that Louis XVI. wrote to his confessor : " Come and see me this even- ing, I have done with men ; I can now concern myself only with heaven." In spite of the vast emigration of nobles and gentlemen who abandoned their countr}' and their king from the time of the first revolutionary alarms in 1789, — which has been, perhaps, too much condoned by history in view of their great misfortunes, — a few faithful men remained in Paris after June 20th, resolved to save the king and his family if it were still possible. They knew that the attack of June 20th was an organized blow, missed for the moment, but certain to be repeated. As early as the morning of the 1792] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 29 7th of August they had precise information as to what was to happen on the 10 th, and they formed a definite plan for the rescue of the royal family. Malouet, in his " Memoirs of the Constituent Assembly," of which he was a member, gives a clear account of this. Even the Constitutional party, alarmed at the rapidity with which the Revolution was rushing towards anarchy, was ready to rally to the king, and would have supported any action that removed him from Paris and placed him with the army ; it was even proposed among them to bring a division under General de la Fayette to Compifegne to favour the escape of the royal family. This plan, conceived as early as May, 1792, failed, owing to the king's incurable distrust of the constitutionals and his remembrance that to them he owed the failure at Varennes. Malouet says : — "M. de la Fayette, who now judged the state of things more soundly than he did at the beginning of the Eevolution, was sincere in his desire to devote himself to the king and the Constitution, after having contributed to put them in great peril. He was sure of his army and that of his colleague Luckner, if the king decided to put himself at their head. He came to Paris in May to make the proposal, and as he knew the king had confidence in me he asked me to meet him." Louis XVI. rejected this proposal, and Malouet adds: " Whatever were the desh-es, the hopes of the royal family, nothing justifies the imprudence of the king in isolating himself without defence in the midst of his enemies, and in not being willing, or not knowing how, to rally to himself a national party. . . . Can it be believed that the king, whose judgment was accurate, that the queen, who did not lack enlightenment or courage, that Madame l^Uisabeth, who had much of both, should have willingly reduced themselves :?0 LIFK AND I.KlTKliS OK [ciiai>. !. in ihe midst of the greatest dangers to complete iuactiuu ? ... 1 do not doubt that the security and hopes of the queen and Madame l^lisabeth fastened themselves on help from the foreign Powers, which the king never invited ex- cept with much circumspection and always in hopes of avert- ing a national war. These tentatives were as inconsequent as all else that he did. There was nothing precise, nothing complete in his plan ; the secret powers given to the Baron de Breteuil were only contingent ; more vague than un- limited, they appealed neither to the foreign armies, nor to the great body of emigres assembled on the frontier; they simply tended to the mediation of the allies of France." Meantime the crisis was approaching. The 5th of October and the 20th of June foretold it; on the 10th of August it came. There is comfort in feeling that a few generous hearts remained in Paris watching for a chance to save the royal family even at the last moment. Malouet was one of them, and he thus tells of their final ei'fort, their forlorn hope : — " M. de Lally [Tollendal]," he says, " came frequently to our meetings at the house of M. de Montmorin with MM. de Malesherbes, Clermont-Tonnerre, Bertrand, la Tour-du- Pin, Sainte-Croix, and Gouverneur Morris, envoy of the United States, for whom the king had a liking, and who gave His Majesty (but as uselessly as the rest of us) the most vigorous advice. It was on the 7th of August that we dined together for the last time. Our conference had for its object to attempt a fresh effort to carry off, by means of the Swiss Guard, the royal family and take them to Pontoise. Being fully warned in detail of all the preparations for the 10th of August, we had been assembled in consultation ever since the morning at M. de Montmorin's. He had written to the king informing him of everything, and saying that 1792] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 31 now there could be no holding back; that we should be the next morning before daylight, to the number of seventy, at the royal stables, where the order must be given to have saddle-horses ready for us ; that the National Guard of the Tuileries, commanded by Acloque, would aid our expedition ; that four companies of the Swiss Guard would start at the same hour from Courbevoie and come to meet the king ; that we ourselves should escort him to the Champs-Ellys^es and put him in a carriage with his family. The bearer of the letter came back without reply. M. de Montmorin went at once to the king. Madame Elisabeth informed him that the insurrection would not take place ; that Santerre and Potion had pledged themselves to that ; that they had received seven hundred and fifty thousand francs to prevent it and to bring the Marseillais over to the king's side. The king was none the less anxious and agitated, though fully de- cided not to leave Paris. . . . He said he preferred to ex- pose himself to all dangers than begin civil war." This is not the place to relate the public events of those days, so well known, with their causes and actors, to history ; suffice it to say that the plan which miscarried June 20th was carried out on the 10th of August, when the king was persuaded, against the will of his wife and sister, to seek refuge in the National Assembly, while the Swiss Guard, believing he was still in the palace, fought to defend him and were butchered to a man. " Nail me to that wall," said Marie-Antoinette, "if I consent to go." But before this day Madame Elisabeth had abandoned hope ; she no longer sought to arm the king with courage ; the lines of her face, and the look from her eyes now said, " Resignation," and such was her history from that moment. Her last letter bore date August 8, 1792, — two days before the fatal 10th ; in it she spoke of the " de^th of the execu- 32 I.IFi: AND LETTERS OF [rnAi-. i. tive power," adding, " I can enter into no doLails." The last glimpse we have of her as a comparatively free woman on her way through the Tuileries to the National Assembly, is given by M. de La llochefoueauld, in his unpublished Memoirs : — " They issued," he says, " by the centre door [of the Tuile- ries]. M. de Ibchmann, major of the Swiss Guard, came first through two ranks of his soldiers. M. de PoLx followed him at a little distance, walking immediately before the king. The queen followed the king, leading the dauphin Ijy the hand. Madame Elisabeth gave her arm to Madame the king's daughter ; the Princesse de Lamballe and Mme. de Tourzel followed. I was in the garden, near enough to offer my arm to Madame de Lamballe, who was the most dejected and frightened of the party ; she took it. The king walked erect ; his countenance was composed, but sorrow was painted on his face. The queen was in tears ; from time to time she wiped them and strove to take a confident air, which she kept for a while ; nevertheless, having had her for a moment on my arm, I felt her tremble. The dauphin did not seem much frightened. Madame Elisabeth was calm, resigned to all; it was religion that inspired her. She said to me, looking at the ferocious populace : ' All those people are misguided ; I wish their conversion, but not their punishment.' The little Madame wept softly. Madame de Lamballe said to me, ' We shall never return to the Chateau.' " The Tower of the Temple, that historical purgatory of the royalty of France, is now to be the last scene and witness of the virtues of Madame Elisabeth ; and it is also to witness a transformation in the character of its chief captive. Louis XVI., no longer feeble and irresolute, blundering and inert, becomes a patient, tranquil man, brave unto death, with charity to all, a true Christian, the innocent expiator of the crimes and faults of other reigns. 1786] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 33 CHAPTER 11. Letters of Madame Elisabeth to the Marquise de Bombelles, the Marquise de Raigecourt, the Abbe' de Lubersac, and others, from 1786 to August 8th, 1792. To the Marquise de Bombelles. September, 1786. I possess in the world two friends, and they are both far away from me. That is too painful ; one of you must posi- tively return. If you do not return, I shall go to Saint-Cyr without you, and I shall still further avenge myself by mar- rying our protegee without you. My heart is full of the hap- piness of that poor girl who weeps with joy — and you not there ! I have visited two other poor families without you. I pray to God without you. But I pray for you, for you need his grace, and I have need that he should touch you — you who abandon me ! I do not know how it is, but I love you, nevertheless, tenderly. Elisabeth-Marie. November 27, 1786. You see that I obey you, my child, for here I am again. You spoil me ; you write to me punctually ; that gives me pleasure, but I am afraid it may give you a headache. I preach against my interests, for I am very happy when I see your handwriting ; I love you, but I love your health better than all. You say that Eontainebleau has not spoilt me ; I like to believe it. Perhaps you will think that rather vain- glorious, but I assure you, my heart [^mon coeur'], that I am very far from thinking I can remain good ; I feel I have very much to do to be good according to God. The world judges 34 LII'K AND I.KrPKKS OF [oiiac. ii. lightly ; on a mere nothing it gives us a gotul or a bad repu- tation. Not so with Ciod ; he judges us internally ; and the more the outward imposes, the sterner he will be to the in- ward. ... I have been at Montreuil since nine o'clock, the weather is charming. I have walked about with Eaigecourt for an hour and three-quarters. Mme. Albert de Rioms is coming to dine with me, so that my letter cannot be long. March 15, 1787. You ask me, my friend, how I pass my time ; I shall an- swer: Rather sadly, because I see many things that grieve me. The famous Assembly of Notables has met. Wliat will it do ? Nothing, except make known to the people the criti- cal situation in which we are. The king is sincere in asking their advice. Will they be the same in giving it ? I think not. I have little experience, and the tender interest I take ?n my brother alone induces me to concern myself with these subjects, much too serious for my nature. I do not know, but it seems to me they are taking a course directly the op- posite of that they ought to take. ... I have a presenti- ment that all will turn out ill. As for me, if it were not for my attachment to the king I would retire to Saint-Cyr. In- trigues fatigue me ; they are not in accordance with my nature. I like peace and repose ; but it is not at the mo- ment when my brother is unfortunate that I will separate from him. The queen is very pensive. Sometimes we are hours to- gether alone without her saymg a word. She seems to fear me. Ah ! who can take a keener interest than I in my brother's happiness ? April 9, 1787. M. de Calonne was dismissed yesterday ; his malversation was so proved that the king decided upon it ; I do not fear 1787] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 35 to tell you the extreme joy I feel, which is shared by every one. He is ordered to remain at Versailles until his suc- cessor is appointed, so as to render him an account of affairs and of his projects. One of my friends said to me some time ago that I did not like him, but that I should change my opinion before long. I don't know if his dismissal will contribute to that ; he would have to do a good many things before I could change in regard to him. He must feel a little anxious about his fate. They say his friends put a good face upon it ; but I believe the devil loses nothing and that they are far from being satisfied. It was M. de Mont- morin who gave him his dismissal. I hoped the Baron de Breteuil would not take that upon himself; it does him honour not to have done so.^ The Assembly continues as before and with the same plans. The Notables talk with more freedom (though they have never cramped themselves in that), and I hope good may come of it. My brother has such good intentions, he desires the right so much and to make his people happy, he has kept himself so pure, that it is impossible God should not bless his good qualities with great successes. He did his Easter duties to-day. God will encourage him, God will show him the right way : I hope much. The preacher in his address encouraged him immensely to take counsel of his own heart. He was right, for my brother is very good and very superior to the whole Court united. 1 The Baron de Breteuil, then minister of the kinf,''s household and of the department of Paris, had heen the representatiye of the king towards the Elector of Cologne, Catherine II., Empress of Russia, Gustavus III., King of Sweden, and the Emperors Joseph II. and Leopold. In the various phases of his career he had won the esteem of all honourahle men. — Fk. Ed. He was later sent by Louis XVI. to negotiate measures with all the European Powers for the rescue of the king and his family and the restora- tion of the monarchy. See Diary and Corr. of Count Fersen, of the present Hist. Series. — Tb. 36 lilFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. I am at Montreuil since midday. I have been to vespers in the parish church. They were quite as long as they were last year, and your dear vicar sang the filii in a manner quite as agreeable. Des Escars expected to burst out laugh- ing, and I the same. I am in despair at the sacrifice you make me of your mon- key, and all the more because I cannot keep it; my Aunt Victoii-e has a dread of those animals and would be angry if I had one. So, my heart, in spite of all its graces and of the hand that gives it to me, I must relinquish it. If you like, I wUI send it back to you ; if not, I will give it to M. de Gu^mdn^e. I am in despair, I feel it is very churlish, that it will vex you very much, and so I am all the more sorry. "What consoles me is that you would have had to get rid of it soon on account of your children, because it might become dangerous. Your philosophy enchants me, my heart; you will be happier, and you know how I desired you to be that. I do not understand why you say that M. de C [Mar^chal de Castries] is a bad politician ; they seem to me well satisfied with him ; he has done rather fine things, and M. de S^gur has just committed the most egregious blunder in accom- panying the Empress Catherine on her journey to the Crimea. She is terribly restless, that good lady, which displeases me much. I am a partisan of repose.^ June 25, 1787. The queen is very kind to me just now; we are going together to Saint-Cyr, which she calls my cradle. She calls Montreuil my little Trianon. I have been to hers the last few days with her, without any consequences, and there was no attention she did not show me. She prepared for me one 1 See the account of this journey in the Memoirs of the Prince de Ligne vol. V. 'if this Hist. Series. — Tr. 1788] MADAME I:LISABETH DE FRANCE. 37 of those surprises in which she excels ; but what we did most was to weep over the death of my poor little niece [Madame Sophie de France, daughter of Louis XVI., who died an infant] . ... I am in a state of enchantment at the enormous gratuity they have given you. I am afraid the king will ruin himself with such liberalities. If I were your husband I would leave it with M. d'Harvelay to prove to M. de Vergennes that you demand more because you have an actual need of it ; let him see it is to pay your debts for the embassy, and that as he gives you so little on account, when you get more you will have to employ it in the same way. I began by reading M. de Vergennes' letter first, thinking I was to see superb things, and I was rather shocked. However, after reflecting upon it well, I believe it is not ill-will on his part, but being obliged to give gratuities for the fetes, he is hampered and is forced to diminish this one. Adieu, my heart. I hope your medicine will do you good. Try to calm yourself. June 6, 1788. The king returns upon his steps, just as our grandfather did. . . . It. seems to me that government is like education. We should not say / will until we are sure of being right. But once said, there should be no yielding of what has been ordained. I think that my sister-in-law would act thus ; but she does not yet know the soul of my brother, who fears always to make a mistake, and who, his first impulse over, is tormented by the dread of doing injustice. You will see that the parlia- ment will be recalled within six months, and with it Necker and the States-General ; that is an evil we shall not escape, and I wish thej'- had been convoked a year ago that we might have them over and done with. Instead of that everybody 3S LIKK AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. wraugles and all are getting embittered. What the king tloes from clemency they will say he does from fear, for they will not do liim the justice he deserves. As for me, who read his heart, I know well that all his thoughts are for the welfare of his people. But he would make that more sure by isolating himself less from his nobles. He is advised to the contrary. God grant he may never repent it ! I dare not speak to him openly about many things that I see and that he does not suspect because his soul is so fine that intrigue is foreign to it. Ah ! why cannot I get away and live as I Hke! To 3flle. Marie de Caasans} March, 1789. Yes, certainly, my heart, I will write to you before you enter the novitiate ; but I hope that you will not be forbidden to receive letters afterwards. It is true that we shall be hampered by the inspection of a mistress, but that will not prevent me from saying to you what I think. You will per- haps be astonished, my heart, when I tell you that in spite of all the reflections, consultations, and tests that you have made, I am not yet sufficiently con\'iiiced of the solidity and reality of your vocation to escape a fear that you have not reflected duly. In the first place, my heart, we cannot know whether a vocation is really the work of God until, with a desire to follow his will, we have nevertheless com- bated, in good faith, the inclination which leads us to con- secrate ourselves to him ; otherwise, we run the risk of deceiving ourselves, and of following a transient fervour that is often only a need of the heart which, having no objects of attachment, thinks to save itself from the danger of forming 1 The third daughter of Mme. de Causans, and next younger sister of Mme. de Raigecourt. The Revolution, which broke up the convents, prevented her from becoming a nun. — Tr. 1789] MADAME f:LISABETH DE FRANCE. 39 any that Heaven may disapprove by consecrating itself to God. That motive is praiseworthy, but it is not sufficient; it comes from passion, it comes from the desire and need of the heart to form a tie which shall fill it, for the moment, wholly. But, I ask you, my heart, will God approve of that offering ? can he be touched by the sacrifice of a soul that gives itself to him only to rid itself of responsibility ? You know that in order to make any vow of any kind we must have a free, reflecting will, devoid of all species of passion ; it is the same in making the religious vows, and even more essential. The world is odious to you ; but is that disgust or regret ? Do not think that if it is the latter your vocation is true or natural. No, my heart. Heaven sent you a tempta- tion ; you ought to bear it, and not take a resolution to con- secrate yourself to God until it has passed. Secondly, my heart, we must have our minds humbled before taking the engagements you wish to take. This is the essential thing, the true vocation. All that concerns the body costs little, one can get used to that ; but not so with all that belongs to the mind and heart. . . . If d'Ampurie [her younger sister] is not married within three years, and is obliged to go to her Chapter, can you trust to her eighteen years and believe that she will always lead a virtuous and decorous life, that she will never need the counsel of a friend, of a sister who stands in place of her mother, and for whom she has all the feelings of a daughter ? Do you think that in abandoning her to herself you fulfil the most sacred duty you have ever had to fulfil, — that to a dying mother who relied upon you, who chose you as the one most fitted to replace her, a mother who would certainly not have abandoned her children to the seductions of the world that she might yield to a taste for retreat and devotion which she would never have thought incumbent upon her ? 40 LIFE AND LKTTERS OF [chap. n. No, my lioart, it will be impossible for me to think that you fullil your duty, tluit you accomplish the will of God by consecialiiig yourself to him at this time. lu the name of that God you seek to serve in the most perfect manner, con- sult with others once more; but, my heart, let it be with more enlightened persons, persons who have no interests either for or against the course you wish to take ; explain to them your position ; let yourself be examined in good faith ; you would be as wrong to exaggerate your desire as to conceal it. . . . Eeassure me, my heart, by telling me the tests to which you have put youi-self. I do not speak of those of the body; those are absolutely null to me because they belong to mere habits ; but have you struggled against your vocation ? have you felt perfectly calm and free from all pains of mind ? are you sure it is not from excitement that you give yourself to God ? . . . Do not suppose, my heart, that a convent is exempt from evils in the eyes of a nun ; the more perfect she may be, the more she will want to find the same sentiments in others, and you will not be safe from that temptation, for, I admit, it is one. There are very few convents in which charity reigns sufficiently for that fault to be un- known there. Nevertheless, my heart, in whatever position you find yourself, rely upon my friendship and the keen interest that I feel in you, and speak to me with confidence of all that touches you. I dare to say that I deserve it, because of the true feelings that I have for you, and the tender interest inspired in me by all the children of your honoured and loving mother. I kiss you and love you with all my heart. I ask of you the favour not to be satisfied by reading my letter once. 1789] MADAME ^LISABETH DE FRANCE. 41 To the Marquise de Bomhelles. May 29, 1789. My heart is so full of the king's troubles that I cannot write to you of other things. All goes worse than ever. The king alone seems satisfied with the turn that things are taking. Few sovereigns in his place would be ; but he has about it all a manner of seeing which is too lucky for him. The deputies, victims of their passions, of their weakness, or of seduction, are rushing to their ruin, and that of the throne and the whole kingdom. If at this moment the king has not the necessary sternness to cut off at least three heads, all is lost, I do not ask you to return ; you might find the roads all bloody. As for me, I have sworn not to leave my brother, and I shall keep my oath. Versailles, July 15, 1789. How kind you are, my heart ! All the dreadful news of yesterday [storming and destruction of the Bastille by the populace] did not make me weep, but your letter, bring- ing consolation into my heart through the friendship you show me, made me shed many tears. It will be sad for me to go without you. I do not know if the king will leave Versailles. I will do what you wish if there is a question of it. I do not know what I desire as to that. God knows the best course to take. We have a pious man at the head of the Council [Baron de Breteuil] and perhaps he will en- lighten it. Pray much, my heart ; spare yourself, take care of yourself, do not trouble your milk. You would do wrong I think, to go out ; therefore, my dear, I make the sacrifice of seeing you. Be convinced of how much it costs my heart. I love you, dear, more than I can tell. At all times, in all moments I shaU think the same. 42 LIFK AND LK'n-KHS OF [chap. ii. 1 hope the evil is not as great as they think it. What makes me believe this is the calmness at Versailles. It was not very certain yesterday that M. de Launay was hanged ; they had mistaken another man fur him in the course of the day. I will attach myself, as you advise, to the chariot of Monsieur, but I think its wheels are worthless. I don't know why it is, but I am always ready to hope. Do not imitate me ; it is better to fear without reason than to hope without it ; the moment when the eyes open is less painful. Paris, October 8, 1789. My date alone will tell you to what a point our misfortunes have come. AVe have left the cradle of our childhood — what am I saying ? left ! we were torn from it. What a jour- ney ! what sights ! Never, never will they be effaced from my memor}'. . . . What is certain is that we are prisoners here ; my brother does not believe it, but time will prove it to him. Our friends are here ; they think as I do that we are lost. To the Ahhe de Lubersac. October 16, 1789. I cannot resist, monsieur, the desire to give you news of me. I know the interest that you are kind enough to feel, and I doubt not it will bring me help. Believe that in the midst of the trouble and horror that pursued us I thought of you, of the pain you would feel, and the sight of your hand- writing has brought me consolation. Ah ! monsieur, what days were those of Monday and Tuesday [5th and 6th of October] ! But they ended better than the cruelties that took place during the night could have made us expect. As soon as we entered Paris we began to feel hope in spite of the dreadful cries that we heard. But those of the people who surrounded our caniage were better. The queen, who 1789] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 43 has incredible courage, begins to be better liked by the people. 1 hope that with time and steadily sustained con- duct we may recover the atfection of the Parisians, who have only been misled. But the men of Versailles, monsieur ! Did you ever know a more frightful ingratitude ? No, I think that God in his anger has peopled that town with monsters from hell. How much time will be needed to make them conscious of their crimes ! If I were king, I should need much to make me believe in their repentance. How ungrateful to an honest man ! Will you believe, monsieur, that our misfortunes, far from bringing me to God, give me a positive disgust for all that is prayer. Ask of Heaven for me the grace not to aban- don it wholly. I ask of you this favour ; and also, preach to me a little, I beg of you ; you know the confidence that I have in you. Pray also that all the reverses of France may bring back to their better selves those who have con- tributed to them by their irreligion. Adieu, monsieur; believe in the esteem I have for you, and the regret I feel at yoiu- being so far away from me. To the Marquise de Bombelles. December 8, 1789. I am very glad. Mademoiselle Bombeliuette, that you have received my letter, as it gives you pleasure, and I am angry with it for being so long on the way. You have no idea what an uproar there has been to-day at the Assembly. We heard the shouts in passing along the terrace of the Feuillants. It was horrible. They wanted to rescind a decree passed Saturday ; I hope they will not do it, for the decree seems to me very reasonable. You will see it all in the newspapers. T have not made it a point of courage to refrain from 4 Mem. Ver. i) 44 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. speaking to you of MontreuiL You judge rae, my heart, too favourably. Apparently I was not thinking of it when I wrote to you. I often have news of it. Jacques comes daily to bring my cream. Fleury, Coupr}'-, ^larie, and Mrae. du Coudray come to see me from time to time. They all seem to love me still; and M. Huret — I forgot him — is not very bad. Now, about the house. The salon was being furnished when I left it; it promised to be very pleasant. Jacques is in his new lodging. Mme. Jacques is pregnant ; so are all my cows ; a calf has just been born. The hens I will not say much about, because I have rather neglected to inquire for them. I don't know if you saw my little cabi- net after it was finished. It is very pretty. My library is almost finished.^ As for the chapel, Corille is working there all alone ; you can imagine how fast it goes on ! It is out of charity to him that I let him continue to put on a little plaster ; as he is quite alone it cannot be called an expense. I am grieved not to go there as you can easUy believe ; but horses are to me a still greater privation. However, I think as little as I can about it ; though I feel that as my blood grows calmer, that particular privation makes itself more and more felt ; but I shall have all the more pleasure when I can satisfy that taste. And that poor Saiut-Cyr, ah ! how unfortunate it is ! Do you remember Croisard, the son of my sister's wardrobe woman? Well, he is to-day attached to my steps in the quality of captain of the guard. I say attached, because the guards never quit us more than the shadow of our bodies. You need not think it annoys me. As my move- ments are not varied, I do not care. After all, I can walk in the garden as much as I like. To-day I walked a full hour. 1 See Appendix. 1790] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE 45 February 20, 1790. You will only have a line from me to-day, my poor Bombe ; I was told too late of an opportunity, and besides, my head and heart are so full of what happened yesterday that I have no possibility of thinking of anything else. Poor M. de Favras was hanged yesterday. I hope that his blood may not fall back upon his judges. No one (except the populace, and that class of beings to whom we must not give the name of men — it would be to degrade human- ity) understands why he was condemned. He had the imprudence to wish to serve his king ; that was his crime. I hope that this unjust execution will have the effect of persecutions, and that from his ashes will arise men who still love their country, and will avenge it on the traitors who are deceiving it. I hope also that Heaven, in favour of the courage he showed during the four hours he was kept at the Hotel-de-Ville before his execution [when he was tortured and insulted], will have pardoned him his sins. Pray to God for him, my heart; you cannot do a better work. The Assembly is still the same ; the monsters are the masters. The king — can you believe it ? — is not to have the necessary executive power to keep him from being a])solutely null in his kingdom. For the last four days they have discussed a law to pacify the disturbances, but they have not ceased to busy themselves about other things far less essential to the happiness of men. Well, God will reward the good in heaven, and punish those who deceive the people. The king, and others, from the integrity of their own natures, cannot bring themselves to see the evil ^such as it is. Adieu, my little one ; I am well ; I love you much ; be the same, for love of your princess, and let us hope for 46 LIFE AND LKTTErvS OF [chap, ii happier days. Ali : liow we sliall enjoy them. I kiss your little chiKlivn wiih all my heai't. You know the rules just made for monks and nuns. Say nothing to any one, but I think many men, and even nuns will leave their convents. I hope that Saint-Cyr will undergo uo change ; but its fate is not yet decided. March 1, 1790. Since the king has taken that step [his appearance before the Constituent Assembly Feb. 4, 1790], a step which puts him, they say, at the head of the Ee volution, and which, to my mmd, takes from him the remains of the crown that he still had, the Assembly has not once thought of doing any- thing for him. Madness follows madness, and good will certainly never come of it. . . . If we had known how to profit by occasions, believe me, we could have done well. But it was necessary to have firmness, it was necessary to face danger; we should have come out conquerors. ... I consider civil war as necessary. In the first place, I think it already exists ; because, every time a kingdom is divided into two parties, every time the weaker party can only save its life by letting itself be despoiled, it is impossible, I think, not to call that civil war. Moreover, anarchy never can end without it ; the longer it is delayed, the more blood will be shed. That is my principle ; and if I were king it would be my guide ; and perhaps it would avert great evils. But as, God be thanked, I do not govern, I content myself, while approv- ing my brother's projects, with telling him incessantly that he caimot be too cautious and that he ought to risk nothing. I am not surprised that the step he took on the 4th of Feb- ruary has done him gi-eat harm in the eyes of foreigners. I hope, nevertheless, that it has not discouraged our allies, and that they will at last take pity on us. Our stay here is a 1790] MADAME SLISaBETH DE FRANCE. 47 great injury to our prospects. I would give all the world to be out of Paris. It will be very difficult, but still, I hope it may come about. Though I thought for a moment that we did right in coming to Paris, I have long changed my mind. If we had known, my heart, how to profit by that moment, be sure that we could then have done great good. But it needed firmness, it needed not to fear that the provinces would rise against the capital; it needed that we should face dangers ; had we done so, we should have issued victors. May 18, 1790. You will have seen by the public papers, my dear child, that there has been some question of your husband in the Assembly, but you will also have seen that they would not even listen to M. de Lameth. So, my heart, you need not be uneasy. Some one said, apropos of M. de Lameth's speech, that he apparently feared that your husband would make Venice aristocratic, and so, wanted to get him away. I thought that charming. Your mother, who assuredly is not cold as to your interests, is not at all troubled by what took place. Therefore, my heart, let the storm growl, and do not worry. At last we are let out of our den. The king is to ride out on horseback to-day for the third time ; and I have been out once. I was not very tired, and I hope to go again on Fri- day. I am going this morning to Bellevue. I want to see an English garden and I am going for that. During that time the Assembly will probably be busy in taking from the king the right to wear his crown, which is about all that is left to him. June 27, 1700. It is long since I have written to you, my little Bombeli- nette ; so I do it to-night in advance, not to be taken short 48 Ml"''' AND LKITERS OF [chap. ii. bv tlio ]x"»st, which often happens to those who have a taste for sacred idleness. I shall not talk to you about the decrees that are issued daily, not even of the one put forth on a cer- tain Saturday [abolition of titles of nobility]. It does not grieve the persons it attacks, but it does afflict the malevolent and those who issued it, because in all societies it has been made a subject of much diversion. As for me, I expect to call myself Mademoiselle Capet, or Hugues, or Eobert, for I don't think I shall be allowed to take my real name, — de France. All this amuses me much, and if those gentlemen would issue only such decrees as that, I would add love to the profound respect I already feel for them. You will think my style a little frivolous, considering the circumstances, but as there is no counter-revolution in it, I can be forgiven. Far from thinking of counter-revolutions we are about to rejoice (two weeks hence) with all the mili- tia of the kingdom and celebrate the famous days of July 14 and 15, of which you may perhaps have heard. They are making ready the Champs de Mars, which can contain, they say, six hundred thousand souls. I hope for their health and mine, that it will not be as hot as it is this week, other- wise, with the liking that I have for heat, I believe I should explode. Pardon this nonsense ; but I was so suffocated last week, at the review and in my own little room, that I am still dazed. Besides, one must laugh a little, it does one good. Mme. d'Aumale always told me, when I was a child, to laugh, because it dilated the lungs. I finish my letter at Saint-Cloud ; here I am, established in the garden, with my desk and a book in my hand, and here I get patience and strength for the rest that I have to do. Adieu ; I love and kiss you with all my heart. Have you weaned your little monster, and how are you ? 1790] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 49 July 10, 1790. I received your letter by the gentleman who has re- turned to Venice, but too late to answer it by him. We touch, my dear child, as the song says, the crucial moment of the Federation. It will take place Wednesday, and I am convinced that nothing very grievous will happen. The Due d'Orl^ans is not yet here ; perhaps he will come to-night or to-morrow ; perhaps he will not come at all. I am of opinion that it is of no consequence. He has fallen into such contempt that his presence will cause but little excitement. The Assembly seems decidedly sepa- rated into two parties : that of M. de la Fayette, and that of the Due d'Orl^ans formerly called that of the Lameths. I say this because the public believes it ; but, I myself am of opinion that they are not as ill together as they want it to appear. Whether that is so, or is not so, it seems that M. de la Fayette's party is much the more considerable ; and that ought to be a good thing, because he is less sanguinary, and seems to wish to serve the king by con- solidating the immortal work to which Target gave birth February 4, of this year 90. All the reflections you make on the stay of the king [in Paris] are very just; I have long been convinced of it. But nothing of all that will happen, unless Heaven takes part therein. Pray for that strongly, for we need it much. To the Marquise de Raigecourt. July 20, 1790. Do not come here, my heart; all is calm, but you are better in the country ; I do not need you for the week's ser- vice ; your husljaud wishes you to stay with your sister-in- law ; therefore as a submissive wife, do not stir. Paris was in great disturbance yesterday, but to-night all ia ilO UVK AND LETTERS OF [cnxr. u. very quiet The States-General are still issiiing decrees that have not common-sense. I am anxious lest the little line I wrote you may bring you back ; reassure me and tell me you are still at Marseille [the chateau de Marseille in Picardy]. Be at ease about your husband, your brother, and all who are dear to you ; they run no risks, and will run none. Adieu ; I kiss you with all my heart; I am very tranquil, and you can be so entirely. To the Marquise de Montiers} August 20, 1790. I have received your letter, my dear child; it touched me very much ; I have never doubted your feelings for me, but the signs you show of it give me great pleasure. It would have been infinitely agreeable to me to have seen you again this autumn, but I feel the position of your husband and I consent strongly to the plan he has formed of spending the winter in foreign countries. I will even own that your position makes me desire it ; this country is tranquil, but from one moment to another it may be so no longer. You are too excitable to allow of your confinement in a place where from day to day an uprising is to be feared; your health could not resist it ; moreover, with your disposition, recovery from confinement would be much more serious. Use all these reflections to aid you, my heart, in making the sacrifice that your husband's fortune and his position oblige you to make. If telling you that T approve of it can 1 The Marquise des iSfontiers (Mile, de la Briffe) had pjrown up from childhood with the princess; she was gay, vivacious, and full of imagina- tion. Madame Elisaheth's letters to her take an almost maternal tone in advising, warning, and directing " my dear Demon," as she often called her. These friends were all Madame Elisabeth's ladies-in-waiting, and all were anxious to return to her in her cruel isolation ; but although she was BO dependent herself on friendship she would not, for their sakes, let them come to her. — Tb. 1790] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 51 make you bear it better, I shall repeat it to you incessantly. But, my heart, what I cannot repeat to you too often, what I wish could be engraved upon your heart and mind, is that this is a decisive moment for your happiness and your reputation. You are about to be trusted to yourself in a foreign country, where you can receive no coimsel but your own. Perhaps you will meet there Parisian men whose reputations are not very good ; it is difficult in a foreign country not to receive one's compatriots, but do so with such prudence and regulate your actions with so much reason that no one can make talk about you. Above all, my heart, seek to please your husband. Though you have never spoken to me about him, I know enough of him to know that he has good qualities, though he may also have some that do not please you so well. Make to yourself a law not to dwell upon those, and above all, not to let any one speak of them to you ; you owe this to him, and you owe it to yourself. Try to fix his heart. If you possess it, you will always be happy. Make his house agreeable to him ; let him find in it a wife eager to give him pleasure, interested in her duties and her children, and you will gain his confidence. If you once have that, you can do, with the intelligence that Heaven has given you and a little skill, all that you wish. But, dear child, above all sanctify your good qualities by loving God ; practise your religion; you will find strength in that, a resource in all your troubles, and consolations that it alone can give. Ah! is there a happiness greater than that of being well with one's conscience ? Preserve it, that happLuess, and you will see that the tortures of life are little, indeed, com- pared to the tortures of those who give themselves up to all the passions. Do not let the piety of your mother-in-law disgust you. 52 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [rnxP. ii. There are persons to whom Heaven has not given the grace of knowing it in its true light ; pray to Heaven to enlighten her, I am glad that your husband sees her defects, but I should be sorry if by jesting or otherwise, you made him re- mark upon them. Forgive, my dear heart, all this prating ; but I love you too well not to say to you that which I think will be useful to your happiness. You tell me with the amiability of which you are so capable, that if you are worth anything in life you owe it to me ; take care, that is encour- aging me to tire you again. Adieu, my heart ; write me as often as you have the desire to do so. If you have need to open your heart, open it to me, and believe that you cannot do so to any one who loves you more tenderly than I. I am forgetting to reply about M. d'A. Not being able, in view of the present position of my affairs to do anything for him just now, I desire you to tell the person who spoke to you to send you word if he should be in a more critical position ; then, I will do what I possibly can. Say many things from me to your mother-in-law, to whom I will write before long. To the Marquise de Raigecourt. August 29, 1790. Good-morning, my poor Raigecourt; here we are back at Saint-Cloud to my great satisfaction ; Paris is fine, but in perspective ; here I have the happiness of seeing as much of it as I wish ; indeed, in my little garden I can scarcely see more than the sky. I no longer hear those villanous criers who, of late, not content with standing at the gates of the Tuileries, have roamed the gardens, that no one might fail to hear their infamies. For the rest, if you want news of my little health I shall 1790] MADAME ifeLISABETH DE FRANCE. 53 tell you that I still have torpor in my legs.^ Still, if I may trust the symptoms of that horrid malady, I fancy the cure is at hand. But I have already been mistaken so many times, that I dare not flatter myself much ; in fact, sincerely, I do not believe in it. Perhaps, if I had courage, I might even say I do not desire it ; but you know that I am weak, and that I dread to expose myself to great pain. . . . I am very impatient to get news of you, to know you are settled ; I wish I could say happy, but that, I feel, is very difficult [Mme. de Eaigecourt had just lost a little son]. Fortunately, you can give yourself up to devotion. That will be your consolation, your strength. Do not burden your spirit with scruples ; that would insult God who has done you so many favours, and who deserves that you should go to him with the confidence of a child. Make use of the instructions you have received and of your rector's counsels to quiet the over-sensitiveness of your feehngs towards God. , . . Yes, your soul is too sensitive : a trifle hurts it ; God is more indulgent to his creatures ; he knows our weak- ness, but in spite of it, he wants to crown us with all his favours, and, in return for so much kindness he asks for our confidence and our complete abandonment to his will. Ah ! how, at this present moment do we need to repeat to our- selves that truth ! You will often need to have recourse to him to fortify yourself ; do not therefore put yourself in a position to be deprived of the divine nourishment. This is a real temptation which you ought to fight at its birth ; if you let it make progress you will be very unhappy, you ^ This expression, and others of the same kind, Madame Elisabeth uses to express her wish that the king would leave Paris, the hopes he gave her of it, and the efforts made to prevent it. Her letters to Madame de Raige- court, who was in France, where correspondence might he dangerous, seem less free tlian those to Madame de Bombelles, which went probably in the ambassador's bag, or by private hand. — Tr. 54 l.IFK AND LETTERS OF [cu.w. u. will ofTend God ceaselessly. Here am I preaching like the peasant to his priest ! but when the public news worries me 1 liing myself into sermonizing. October 24, 1790. I have just received your second letter. Make ready to receive a reproach in my style. Tell me why you think yourself obliged to be always in violent states ? That is bad judgment, my dear child. You w^LU make yourself ill, and give your child an inevitable tendency towards melan- choly. And why ? because you are not in Paris or at Eaige- court, and because all the stories people tell you seem truths in your eyes. For pity's sake, do not do so. Put into the hands of Providence the fate of those who interest you, and rub your eyes very hard to prevent their seeing black ! ^ As for news, I only know that infamous tales are still told of the queen. Among others, they say there is an intrigue with Mir [abeau], and that it is he who advises the king ! My patient [the king] still has stiffness of the legs, and I am afraid it will attack the joints and there will be no cure for it. As for me, I submit myself to the orders of Providence. To each day its own evil. I shall await the last moment to fall into despair, and in that moment I hope I shall do nothing. . . . We are going to-morrow, H. and I, to Saint-Cyr, to feed a little on that celestial food, which does me much good. November 3, 1790. Well, my poor Rage, are you getting accustomed to the life you lead ? The late master of this place is being perse- cuted by his creditors who will end by killing all his friends 1 Madame ^felisabeth had exacted that Mme. de Raigecourt, who was pregnant, should leave Paris, events becoming more and more alarming. Mme. de K. fell into a sort of despair at the separation, and wanted to be allowed to return to Madame ifelisabeth at any cost. — Fk. Ed. 1790] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 55 with grief. Nothing that happens can decide him to part from his property : offers are made on all sides ; nothing comes of them. What is to be done ? we must pray to Providence to be with him. Here we are back in Paris ; if we knew how to profit by it I would not complain ; but, as you know, the chateau of the Tuileries will be our habitual promenade. "Well, as God wills ; if I thought of myself only I do not know what I should prefer. Here I am more conveniently placed for my little devotions : but for walks and the gaiety of the place, Saint-Cloud is preferable ; and then the neighbourhood of Saint-Cyr. On the other hand, the evenings were very long ; you know I have a horror of lights, or rather they make me so sleepy that I cannot read long at a time. So on the whole I conclude that God arranges all for the best, and that I ought to be very glad to be here. December 1, 1790. Mon Dieu, my poor Eaigecourt, what extraordinary thing have they been telling you ? I puzzle my head to guess, and cannot do so. Nothing has happened here. We are still in perfect tranquillity, and I cannot conceive what you mean. I have made a mistake of twenty-four hours as to the post-day, which is the reason this letter did not go by the last courier. You now know the decree about the clergy, and I can see from here, all that you are saying, all that you are thinking, how you are wringing your arms, and shutting your eyes, and saying, " Ah ! God wills it ; it is well, it is well, we must submit;" and then you do not submit any more than others. Do not go and think you do because you are so resigned at the first moment ; my Raigecourt's head will heat; this reflection will agitate her, that fear will torture her ; such a person runs risks, what will happen to 56 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chjo'. il. him ? will they force him to act against his duty and his conscience ? etc., etc. And then, beliuld my llaigecourt be- side herself, all the while saying: " My God, I offer you sub- mission." Have the goodness, mademoiselle, not to torture yourself in that way. M. de Condorcet has decided that the Church is not to be persecuted because it would make the clergy interesting ; and that, he says, would do an infinite injuiy to the Constitution. Therefore, my heart, no martyr- dom, thank God, for I own that I have no fancy for that sort of death. December 30, 1790. I see persecution coming, being in mortal anguish at the acceptance that the king has just given. God reserved us this blow ; may it be the last, and may he not suffer that schism be established : that is all I ask. But if the days of persecu- tion do retm-n, ah ! I should ask of God to take me from this world, for I do not feel within me the courage to bear them. This acceptance [of the decree against the clergy] was given on Saint Stephen's day ; apparently that blessed martyr is now to be our model. Well, as you know, I am not afraid of stones ; so that suits me. They say that seven of the rectors of Paris have taken the oath. I did not think the number would be so large. All this has a very bad effect on my soul; far from rendering me devout, it takes away from me all hope that God's anger will be appeased Your rector decides to follow the law of the Gospel and not the one just made. I am told that a member of the Com- mune, wanting to persuade the rector of Sainte-Marguerite, said to him that the esteem felt for him, the preponderance that he had in the world, would do much to restore peace by influencing minds. To which he answered, " Monsieur, the reasons that you give me are the very ones that oblige me to refuse the oath and not act against my conscience." 1791] MADAME :feLISABETH DE FRANCE. 57 May God not abandon us wholly ; it is to that we must limit our hopes. I have no taste for martyrdom ; but I feel that I should be very glad to have the certainty of suffering it rather than abandon one iota of my faith. I hope that if I am destined to it, God will give me strength. He is so good, so good ! he is a Father, so concerned for the true welfare of his children that we ought to have all contidence in him. Were you not touched on the Epiphany with God's goodness in calling the Gentiles to him at that moment ? Well, we are the Gentiles. Let us thank him well ; let us be faithful to our faith ; let us not lose from sight what we owe to him ; and as to all the rest, let us abandon ourselves to him with true filial confidence. February 15, 1791. I am grieved at the unnecessary fear that M. de B. has caused you. We are still far from all those evils he has put into your head. ... I am sorry to be so far from you and to be unable to talk as I would like to do ; but, my heart, calm yourself. I know that that seems difficult, but it is neces- sary. You excite your blood ; you make yourself more un- happy than you need be : all that, my heart, is not in the order of Providence. We must submit to God's decrees, and that submission must bring calmness. Otherwise, it is on our lips only, not in our heart. When Jesus Christ was be- trayed, abandoned, it was only his heart which suffered from those outrages ; his exterior was calm, and proved that God was really in him. We ought to imitate him, and God ought to be in us. Therefore, calm yourself, submit, and adore in peace the decrees of Providence, without casting your eyes upon a future which is dreadful to whose sees with human eyes alone. Happily, you are not in that case; God has crowned you with so many favours that you will apply your virtue to wait patiently for the end of his wrath. 58 LIFE AND LETTKKS OF [ciiai-. ii. As for me, I am not in your condition. I will not say that virtue is the cause of this ; but in the midst of many troubles and anxieties, I am more within reach of consolations ; I am calm, and I hope for a happy eternity. ... As for what you say of me, believe, my heart, that I shall never fail in honour, and that I shall always know how to fulfil the obligations that my principles, my position, and my reputation impose upon me. I hope that God will give me the light necessary to guide me wisely, and to keep me from wandering from the path that he marks out for me. But to judge of all that, my heart, others must be near me. From a distance, a chival- rous act appears enchanting ; seen near-by it is often found to be an act of vexation, or of some other feeling not worth more in the eyes of the wise and good. March 2, 1791. I have received your little letter. I do not think that the person of whom you speak ever had the intention towards others that is attributed to her. She has defects, but I never knew her to have that one. If D. [d'Artois] would break off his alliance with Calonne, by travelling in another direc- tion, that would give pleasure, I am sure. As for me, I de- sire it eagerly for the good of one I love so well, and for whom, I own to you, I dread the intimacy with Calonne. Do not say this to the man you have seen, but you can send word of it under the greatest secrecy, to her whose ideas you approve, even for interested persons ; I cannot myself enter into any explanation with them, and you would do me a kindness to take charge of this. March 18, 1791. I profit by the departure of M. de Chamisot to tell you many things. I am infinitely uneasy at the course my brother is about to take. I believe that the wise counsels that have been given him are not to be followed. The little 1791] MADAME ^LISABETH DE FRANCE. 59 unity, the little harmony that there is among the persons who ought to be bound together by an indissoluble tie, make me tremble. I wish I could see in all that only God's will ; but I own to you that I often put self into it. I hope that M. de Firmont will make me attain, by his counsels, to that necessary point of safety. You will see from this that it is he whom I have chosen to take the place of the Abb^ Madier in my confidence. I confessed yesterday, and I was perfect- ly content with him. He has intelligence, gentleness, a great knowledge of the human heart. I hope to find in him what I have long lacked to enable me to make progress in piety. Thank God for me, my heart, that he has thus, by a peculiar stroke of his providence, led me to M. de Firmont, and ask him to make me faithful in executing the orders he may give me through that organ. I have no news to send you from here ; all is much the same. The evil-minded amuse themselves at our expense. France is about to perish. God alone can save it. I hope he will. Extract from a letter of the Abbe Edgeioorth de Firmont to a frieiid, published in his Memoirs} Though a foreigner, and very little worthy to be distin- guished by the princess, I soon became her friend. She gave me her unlimited confidence, but I was known to neither the king nor the queen. Nevertheless, they often heard me men- tioned, and during the last period of their reign they several times expressed their surprise at the facility with which I was allowed to enter the palace, while around them there was nothing but surveillance and terror. It is a fact that I never saw the danger for what it really was ; and while no other 1 He was an Irishman, and was recommended to Madame Elisabeth, for her confessor, by the Superior of Foreign Missions. It was to him that Louis XVI. sent in his last extremity. — Tr. 5 Mem. Ver. 9 60 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. ecclesiastic could appear at Court unless completely disguised, I weut there in opeu day, two or three times a week without changing my dress, lu truth, when I remember those days of horror 1 am surprised at my courage, but I suppose that Providence blinded me to danger intentionally. Though my presence excited some mm*murs among the guards, I never received the slightest insult from them. I continued thus until the fatal day of the arrest of the royal family. On the 9th of August, 1792 — I remember it well ! — Madame Elisabeth desired to see me, and I spent the greater part of the morning in her room, not imagining the scene of horror that was then being prepared for the next day. To the Marquise de Raigecourt. April 3, 1791. Ah ! my heart, you ought not to complain, your pregnancy has brought you great good luck in keeping you away from schism and these awful divisions. ... I ask no better than to be godmother to your little one. If you like, I will give her the name of H^lfene ; and if you will be pleased to give birth to her at one o'clock in the morning of the 3rd of May [her own birthday and hour] it will be very well, pro- vided it gives her a happier future than mine, where she wdl never hear of States-Generals or schisms. Mirabeau has taken the course of going to see in another world if the Eevolution is approved of there. Good God ! what an awakening his will be. They say he saw his rector for an hour. He died tranquilly, believing himself poisoned ; though he had no symptoms of it. They showed him to the people after his death ; many were grieved ; the aristocrats regret him much. For the last three months he had put himself on the right side, and they hoped in his talents. For my part, though very aristocratic, I cannot help regard- 1791] MADAME IlLISABETH DE FRANCE. 61 ing his death as a mercy of Providence to this country. I do not believe that it is by men without principles and with- out morals that God intends to save us. I keep this opinion to myself, as it is not policy — but I prefer a thousand times religious policy, and I am sure you will be of my opinion. I counted on having the happiness to take the commimion on Holy Thursday and at Easter; but circumstances will deprive me of it ; I fear to cause disturbance in the chateau, and have it said that my devotion was imprudent ; a thing that above all others I desire to avoid, because I have always thought it should be a means to make one's self loved. The rumour is spread about Paris that the king is going to-morrow to high-mass in the parish church ; I cannot bring myself to believe it until he has actually been there. All-powerful God ! what just punishment are you reserving for a people so misguided ? May 1, 1791. I think the reflections you make are perfectly just ; we ought to guard ourselves from extremes in all opinions. I am far from thinking that to be attached to those I love forms an exclusive claim to put them in offices ... I think it needs perfect equality in merit, or some great distinction to give a veritable claim to preference. In all things I want justice alone to guide my choice ; I will even go further and say that I want it to carry the day over any desire I may have to prefer one person to another person, and that friend- ship should yield to it. A disinterested friendship is the only kind that touches me (yours is that, and therefore I can speak thus freely to you). I feel that in my position (of other days) my influence was employed to obtain favours, and I lent myself to it too zealously. 62 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. May 18, 179L T have received your letter; it gives me great pleasure in spite of its glodiu. Believe, my heart, that I am less unhappy than you imagine ; my vivacity sustains me, and in crucial moments God overwhelms me with kindness. I suffered much in Holy Week, but that over, I have calmed myself. . . . The more the moment approaches,^ the more I become, like you, incredulous. Nevertheless the news my brother receives is satisfactory. Every one says that the principalities [German States] are interested for us. I desire it eagerly, perhaps too eagerly. ... It seems to me that our Court is rather badly informed as to the policy of the cabinets of Europe. I do not know if they distrust us, or whether we have flattered ourselves too much. I own to you that if I see the end of this month arrive with no appearance of any- thing, I shall have need of great resignation to the will of God, to bear the thought of passing another summer like that of 1790 ; and all the more because things have grown much worse since then ; religion is weakened, and those who were attached to us have left for other countries where it still exists. "What will become of this one, if Heaven be not merciful ! . . . We take so few precautions that I believe we shall be here when the first drum beats. If things are managed wisely I do not think there will be much danger; but up to this mo- ment, I do not see clear to bid farewell to my dear country. Nevertheless, I would not answer that it may not happen some day, when no one thinks of it. Lastic, Tily, Serent, [her ladies] they will all be gone within a month, forced away by circumstances ; would that I were gone too ! I am 1 This is evidently an allusion to the approaching effort of the king to leave Paris. The parts omitted are omitted by the French Editor, not by the translator. — Tk. 1791] MADAME fcLISABETH DE FRANCE. 63 not sustained by your fine zeal ; I feel the need of addressing myself to some one who will shake (as you call it) my soul. I see that, perfect as I thought myself, I should have had to spend at least some centuries in purgatory if Providence had not interfered. Happily it has sent me a confessor gentle without being weak, educated, enlightened, knowing me already better than I do myself, and who will not let me stay in my languor. But it is now, my little one, that I need prayers ; for if I do not profit by this mercy I shall have a terrible account to render. I regret I did not know him earlier, and if I have to leave him soon it will be a great disappointment. June 29, 1791.1 I hope, my heart, that your health is good, and that it does not suffer from the situation of your friend. Hers is excel- lent; you know that her body is never conscious of the sen- sations of her soul. This latter is not what it should be towards its Creator, the indulgence of God is its only hope of mercy. I neither can nor will I enter into details as to all that concerns me ; let it suffice you to know that I am well, that I am tranquil, that I love you with all my heart, and that I will write to you soon — if I can. July 9, 1791. I have just received from you the tiniest letter it is possible to see ; but it gives me great pleasure because you send me word that H^l^ne and you are both well ; try to have it last. For that reason do not think of com- ing here. No, my heart, the shocks to the soul are less dangerous where you are than in Paris. Stay there until minds are calmer than they are now. What should I 1 This letter is written directly after the fatal return from Varennes. — Te. 64 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. (io if anythmg happened here aud you were here, too ? I should be doubly unhappy, for with your acute sensibility your milk would How into your blood, aud you would be very ill. Paris is tranquil in appearance. They say that minds are in fermentation. But, in fact, I know nothing. There is some excitement, — to-day the women of one of the clubs came to present a petition which the Assembly would not receive. They said they would return to-morrow. The peti- tion is to be read at the opening of the Assembly ; I think it demands that there shall be no longer a king. It seems to me impossible to foresee the action of the Assembly. Duport, Lameth, Barnave, Dandr^, La Fayette, are for the monarchy, but I do not know if they can carry the day. I have been very unhappy, my heart ; I am still, especially in not being able to get sure news from foreign countries. I was able to see my abb^ yesterday ; I talked very deeply with him and that wound me up again. At present I suffer much less than you would do in my place ; therefore be tran- quil about me. Try to discover if a staff-officer named Goguelat, escaped with M. de Bouilld ; we are uneasy about him. Ah ! my heart, pray for me, but especially for the salvation of those who may be the victims of all this. If I were sure about that, I should not suffer so much ; I could say to my- self that an eternity of happiness awaits them. Collect for this prayer all the souls you know ; some are more in- terested than others, and have certainly thought of this. What troubles each individual is enduring ! More fortu- nate than some, I have this week resumed my usual way of life, but my soul is far from being able to take pleasure in it. Yet I am calm, and if I did not fear more for others than for myself, it seems to me that I could support with ease 1791] MADAME ^LISABETH DE FRANCE. 65 my position, which, though I am not a prisoner, is never- theless annoying. Adieu, my heart; I love and kiss you tenderly. To the Abbe de Lubersac} July 29, 1791. I have just received your letter. I hope, monsieur, that you do not doubt the interest with which I have read it. Your health seems to me less bad : but I fear that the last news you will have received from this country will make too keen an impression on you. More than ever is one tempted to say that a feeling heart is a cruel gift. Happy he who can be indifferent to the woes of his country, and of all that he holds most dear ! I have experienced how desirable that state is for this world, and I live in the hope that the con- trary will be useful in the other. Nevertheless, I own to you that I am far from the resignation I desire to have. Aban- donment to the will of God is so far only on the surface of my mind. Still, having been for nearly a month in a violent state, I am beginning to return to my usual condition ; events seem to be calming down and that has caused it. God grant that this may last awhile and that Heaven will pity us. You cannot imagine how fervent souls are redoubling their zeal. Surely Heaven cannot be deaf to so many prayers, offered with such trustfulness. It is from the heart of Jesus that they seem to await the favours of which they are in need ; the fervour of this devotion appears to redouble ; the more our woes increase, the more those prayers are offered up. All the communities are making them ; but indeed the whole world ought to unite to petition Heaven. Unhappily, 1 The Abbe de Lubersac, being Madame Victoire's rhaplain, had ac- companied her to Rome. Madame :^Iisabeth's last letter to him is dated (as we shall see) July 22, 1792. His heart clung passionately to France. Unable to live away from it he returned to Paris in August and perished in the massacres of September 2 and 3. — Tr, 00 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. it is much easier to speak strongly as to this than to execute it; I feel this constantly, and it angers me instead of humili- ating me. You ask me for my advice on the project you have formed. If you wish me to speak to you frankly, I shall say that I would not, if I were you, take the subject you have chosen. "We are still too corrupted for the virtues in which many persons do not believe at all to have much effect. It would be impossible for me to give you any information upon it, for 1 possess none. But I believe that if you have the desire to write, all subjects of Christian morality would be well treated by you ; and if you are willing that I should still further give you my opinion I shall say that, if I were you, I would choose a subject strong in reason rather than in senti- ment; it is more suited to the situation in which your soul now is. Remember, in reading this, that you wished me to say to you what I think ; and do not doubt, I entreat you, the perfect esteem I have for you, or the pleasure your letters give me. To the Marquise de Bombelles. July 10, 1791. I have received your little letter, dear Bombe ; I answer it in the same way. Though we differ in opinion the signs it contains of friendship give me great pleasure. You know I am always sensitive to that, and you can imagine that in a moment like this friendship has become a thousand-fold more precious to me .... Paris and the king are still in the same position ; the former tranquil, the second guarded and not lost sight of a moment, and so is the queen. Yester- day a species of camp was established under their windows, for fear they might jump into the garden which is hermetically closgd and full of sentinels ; among them two or three under 1791] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 67 my windows. Adieu, my heart, I kiss you tenderly, as well as your little one. They say that the affair of the king will be reported on soon, and that he will then be set at liberty. The law against the emigres is very severe; they forfeit three-fifths of their property. {The end of this letter is written in " white ink.") No, my heart, I am very far from permitting your return. It is not, assuredly, that I should not be charmed to see you, but because I am convinced that you would not be safe here. Preserve yourself for happier times, when we may perhaps enjoy in peace the friendship that unites us. I have been very unhappy ; I am less so. If I saw an end to all this I could more easily endure what is taking place ; but now is the time to give ourselves wholly into the hands of God — a thing that indeed the Comte d'Artois ought to do. We ought to write to him and urge it. Our masters wish it. I do not think it will influence him. Our journey with Barnave and Potion went on most ridi- culously. You believe, no doubt, that we were in torture ; not at all. They behaved well, especially the first, who has much intelligence and is not ferocious as people say. I began by showing them frankly my opinion as to their actions, and after that we talked for the rest of the journey as if we ignored the whole thing. Barnave saved the gardes du corps who were with us and whom the National guards wanted to massacre. September 8, 1791. The Constitution is in the hands of the king since Satur- day, and he is reflecting on the answer he will make. Time will tell us what he decides upon in his wisdom. We must ask the Holy Spirit to give him of its gifts ; he has great need of them. 68 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. I wish I had something amusing to tell yon, but we do not abound in that commodity ; all the more because the price of bread is rising and makes us fear many riots this winter, not counting those with which the autumn threatens us. It is very sad, and there is no way to make ourselves illusions because the Assembly itself speaks of them, the riots, as an evil it expects. It is true that the strength given by the love of liberty is very reassuring, and patriotism can easily take the place of order and the subordination of troops. . , . Yes, my heart, I wish I could transport myself near you. How sweet it would be to me ! But Providence has placed me where I am ; it is not I who chose it ; Providence keeps me here and to that I must submit. We are still quite tran- quil. A letter has appeared from the Prince, and a declara- tion from the emperor and the King of Prussia [at Pillnitz]. The letter is strong, but the other is not. Yet some persons think they see the heavens opening. As for me I am not so credulous ; I lift my hands to heaven and ask that God will save us from useless evils. You will do the same, I think. To the Marquise, de Raigecourt. September 12, 1791. At last I have an opportunity to write to you ; I am charmed, for I have a hundred thousand things to say ; but I do not know where to begin ; besides, I do not want to have to render an account of this letter in the next world, for, just now, charity is a dif3&cult virtue to put in practice. I begin by telling you that the Constitution is not yet signed, but it is safe to wager that it will be by the time this letter reaches you, perhaps before I close it, even. Is it a good, is it an evil ? Heaven alone knows which it is. Many persons think, from their point of view, that they are certain about it. 1791] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 69 I am in no way called upon to give my advice, or even to speak of the matter. I am still floating as to the view to take ; there are so many fors and ifs and luts to be considered that I remain uncertain. One must see all things very near to judge; these are too far-off to be able to bring them enough into one's thoughts to fix one's ideas. To speak to you a little of myself, I will tell you that I am about what you have always seen me; rather gay, though there are moments when my position makes me feel keenly ; nevertheless, on the whole, I am more calm than agitated or anxious, as you certainly fancy I am. The knowledge you have of my nature will make you understand what I say. The life I lead is about the same. We go to mass at mid- day ; dine at half-past one. At six I return to my own apartments ; at half-past seven the ladies come ; at half-past nine we sup. They play billiards after dinner and after supper, to make the king take exercise. At eleven every- body goes to bed, to begin again on the morrow. Sometimes I regret my poor Montreuil, especially when the weather is warm and fine ; there may come a time, perhaps, when we shall all be there again ; what happiness I should then feel ! but everything tells me that moment is very far-off ; we are walking on a quicksand. One thing alone affects me deeply. It is that they are trying to put coldness into a family whom I love sincerely.^ Consequently, as you are in the way of seeing a person who might have some influence, I wish you would talk to him in private and fill him with the idea that all will be lost if the son should have other ideas for the future than those of con- fidence and submission to the orders of the father. All 1 Between the king and his brothers. In the above letter the name father means the king ; that of mother-in-law, the queen ; that of son the Comte d'Artois. — Fk. Ed. 70 LITE AND LETTERS OF [chap. n. views, all ideas, all feelings ought to yield to that. You must feel, yourself, how necessary this is. To speak quite clearly : remember the position of that imfortunate father ; events which prevent him from any longer managing his own estate throw him into the arms of his sou. That son has always had as you know, a perfect conduct towards his father, in spite of all that has been done to make him quarrel with his mother-in-law. He always resisted it. I do not think it made him bitter, because he is incapable of bitterness ; but I fear that those who are now allied with him may give him bad advice. The father is nearly well ; his affairs are recovering ; he may shortly take back the manage- ment of his estate, and that is the moment that I fear. The son, who sees the advantages of leaving them in the hands in which they now are, will hold to that idea ; the mother-in- law will never allow it ; and this struggle must be averted by making the young man feel that, even for his personal interests, he ought not to put forward that opinion, and so avoid placing himself in a painful position. I wish therefore that you would talk this over with the person I indicated, and make him enter into my meaning (without telling him I have spoken thus) by making him believe the idea is his own, and then he will more readily communicate it. He ought to feel better than any one the rights of the father over his sons, for he has long experi- enced it. I wish also that he could persuade the young man to be a little more gracious to his mother-in-law, if only by the charm a man can employ when he chooses, and thus convince her that he wants to see her what she has always been. In this way he would avoid much vexation and could enjoy in peace the friendship and confidence of his father. But you know very well that it is only by talking tranquilly to that person, without closing the eyes 1791] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 71 or lengthening the face, that you can make him feel what I say. For that you must be convinced yourself. Therefore, read my letter over again, try to understand it thoroughly, and start from that to do my commission. They will tell you harm of the mother-in-law ; but the sole means of preventing that from becoming a reality is the one I tell you. The young man made a blunder in not allying him- self with a friend of the said lady. If no one speaks to you of this do not mention it. P. S. I knew it ! here is the Constitution settled and accepted in a letter which you vdll certainly hear of soon. In reading it, you will know all that I think of it, therefore I will say no more. I have much anxiety as to the results. I wish I could be in all the cabinets of Europe. The con- duct of Frenchmen becomes difficult. One single thing supports me, it is the joy of knowing that those gentlemen are out of prison.^ I go to the Assembly at midday, to follow the queen ; were I mistress of myself, I certainly would not go. But, I do not know how it is, all this does not cost me as much as it does others, though assuredly I am far from being constitutional. M. de Choiseul came out of prison to-day, the others yesterday. Adieu ; give me, in white ink, all the news you know, but try to have it true. That about the imperial troops does not please me. What is said in your region ? The colonies are not to be subjected to the decrees. Barnave spoke with such force that he carried the day. That man has much talent; he has in- tellect, he might have been a great man had he willed it ; he may still be one ; but heaven's anger is not over. How should it be ? what are we doing to make it so ? 1 All the gentlemen captured during the flight to Varennes were released on the king's accepting the Constitution. — Tr. 72 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. October 4, 1791. They say there is to be a congress at Aix-la-Chapelle ; they eveu quote an extract of a letter from Mar(5chal de Broglie saying positively that the emperor has received answers from all the other Courts, adhering to the declara- tion of Pillnitz, and that in consequence their ministers and ambassadors are to assemble at Aix-la-Chapelle. God giant it may be so ! Then, indeed, we might have a hope of seeing our evils at an end. But this slow progress demands great prudence, much union of wills ; to this all our desires should tend. I own to you that this position works upon my mind more than it should. I am pursued in my prayers with counsels that I want to give ; I am very discontented with myself ; I wish to be calm — but that will come. October 12, 1791. Very happy news is being spread here. The emperor has, they say, recognized the National flag ; thus, all fears are calmed. It must be owned that in the eyes of the cen- turies, present and future, such pacific moderation will have a superb effect. Already I see histories relating it with enthusiasm, the people blessing it for their happiness, peace reigning in my hapless country, constitutional re- ligion fully established, philosophy enjoying its work, and we, poor Roman-apostolicals, moaning and hiding ourselves ; for if this Assembly is not driven out by the Parisians, things will be terrible for non-conformists. But, my heart, God is master of all ; let us work to save ourselves ; let us pray for the evil-doers, and not imitate them ; God will reward us how and when he will. All is tranquil here, but who knows how long it will last ? I think it may last long, because the people, meeting with no resistance, have no reason for excitement. The 1791] MADAME ^LISABETH DE FRANCE. 73 king is at this moment the object of public adoration; you cannot form an idea of tlie uproar there was on Saturday night at the Italian comedy; but we must wait and see how long such enthusiasm will last. I do not number my letters any longer, because I burned all the papers I did not care to have read on my return here. I think, as you do, that the young man of whom you speak [Comte d'Artois] will never be happy in his family ; but I do not think that his mother-in-law is altogether the cause of it ; I think he is tricked by the old fox [Comte de Mercy] who is the intimate friend of her brother. If the young man did wisely he would try to win him over, but there are so many conflicting interests to defeat it ! What is greatly to be feared is that the mother-in-law should be as much the fox's victim as any one. An extraordinary thing has happened within a day or two; a corporal took it upon himself to lock the king and queen into their rooms from nine o'clock at night till nine the next morning. This went on two days before it was discovered. The guard is furious, and there is to be a coun- cil of war. By rules, the corporal ought to be hanged ; but I do not think he will be, and I should be sorry for it. The rumour in Paris is that the king is under arrest. No doubt you read the newspapers, therefore I give you no news when I tell you that the decree on the priests passed yesterday, with all possible severity. It was taken to the king in spite of its unconstitutional faults. At the same time there came a deputation of, I believe, twenty- four members, to beg the king to take steps towards the Powers inviting them to prevent the great assemblages of emigres, or else to declare war against them. In their speech they assured the king that Louis XIV. would not 74 LIKK AND LEITKHS OF [chai-. ii. have sulTered such assemblages. "What do you tliink of that? — a pretty thing of them to talk iu these days of Louis XIV., '-that despot!" To the Marquise de Bomhelles. November 8, 1791, Do you know, my Bombe, that if I did not rely on your friendship, your indulgence, I should be rather ashamed of the long time since I have written to you. But it was to do better that I did wrong. I wanted to write you a long letter and I never have found time. Your mother wrote you a week ago, so that you know that all with us is still standing, and that, m spite of the blasphemies they never cease to vomit against God and his ministers, the skies have not yet fallen upon us. . . . \_The rest is in white ink.'] At last they feel here the necessity of drawing closer to Coblentz [the headquarters of the princes and emigres]. Some one is to be sent from here who will remain there, and will be in correspondence with the Baron de Breteuil.^ But I feel one fear as to this step ; I am afraid it is taken only 1 Louis XVI.'s confidential agent towards the Courts of Europe. The following is a copy of his full powers : — " Monsieur le Baron de Breteuil, knowing your zeal and your fidelity, and wishing to give you a proof of my confidence, I have chosen you to confide to you tlie interests of my crown. Circumstances do not allow me to give you instructions on this or that object, nor to hold with you a con- tinuous correspondence. I send you the present to serve you as full powers [pleins pouvoirs] and authorization towards the different Powers with whom you may have to negotiate for me. You know my intentions ; and I leave it to your prudence to make what use you judge necessary of these powers for the good of my service. I approve of all that you may do to attain the end that I propose to myself, which is the re-establishment of my legitimate authority and the welfare of my people. On which, I pray God, M. le Baron de Breteuil, etc." The Baron de Breteuil's headquarters were at Brussels. See " Diary and Correspondence of Count Axel Fersen," the preceding volume of this Hist. Series. — Te. 1791] MADAME :&LISABETH DE FRANCE. 75 to stop rash enterprises, which are much to he dreaded, and not to bring about deserved confidence. Yet, if that confi- dence does not exist what will happen ? We shall be the dupe of all the Powers of Europe. I hope your husband will urge the Baron de Breteuil to enter sincerely into this new order of things. Here we are at the gates of winter ; this is the moment for negotiations ; they might have a happy issue, but only if done with harmony of action. If that does not exist, remember what I tell you : in the spring, either the most dreadful civil war will be established in France, or each province will set up its own master. Do not think that the policy of Vienna is disinterested ; it is far short of that. Austria never forgets that Alsace once belonged to her. AH the other Powers are very glad to have a reason to leave us in a state of humiliation. Think of the time that has passed since our return from Varennes ! Did those events stir the emperor ? Has he not been the first to show uncertainty as to what he would do ? To believe, as many persons assert, that it is the queen who holds him back, seems to me devoid of sense, and almost a crime. But I do permit myself to think that the policy pursued towards that Power has not been conducted with sufficient skill. If that is so, I think there is some blame ; but it would be unpardonable if, after the decree given yesterday against the emigres, the present danger were not felt. Judge by the quantity of Frenchmen who are over there how impossible it will be to restrain them ; and what will become of France and her king if they take such a course without foreign help ? Pteflect on all this, my Bombe; and if your husband sees there is real danger that . . . \the paper is torn at this place"] ... or that he urges his friend to act in good faith ; I expect tliat at first the man sent to Coblentz will meet with some difficulties ; but he must not be alarmed ; speaking in the king's name (! Mom. Vcr. 9 7U LIK1-: AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. ami putting no iniU'xibility into his manner of maintaining liis opinion while arj^uiug it well, he will lead the others. Adieu ; let me know that you receive this letter ; if your husband takes any steps towards the baron he must not let him know that I asked it, or that I have even written to you on the subject. To the Comte d'Artois. February 19, 1702. You know, my dear brother, what my friendship is for you, and how I rejoice to hear of your well-being. I believe, I who am here on the spot, that you are unjust towards that person ; you have not at bottom a better friend. I pray God that he will shed upon you his blessing and his ligKt, and you will then judge better. This estrangement is on all sides a calamity and a suffering ; for it casts shadows where friendship ought to shine, I will write to you more at length by ttie opportunity you know of, and I will prove to you that you will never find a truer, tenderer, more devoted friend than I am to you. To the Marquise de Baigecourt. February 22, 1792. I will see, my heart, when my purse is a little less empty, what I can do for those good and saintly Fathers of the sacred Valley [La Trappe] What a life is theirs ! how we ought to blush in comparing it with ours ! But perhaps a part of those saints have not as many sins to expiate as we have. What ought to console us is that God does not re- quire from everybody what he does from them, and that, pro- vided we are faithful in the little we do, he is content. The queen and her children were at the theatre last night, where the audience made an infernal uproar of applause. The Jacobins tried to make a disturbance, but they were 1792] MADAME :fcLISABETH DE FRANCE. 77 beaten. The others called for the repetition four times of the duet between the valet and the maid in " Ev^nements impr^vus," in which they tell of the love they feel for their master and mistress ; and at the passage where they say, " We must make them happy," the greater part of the audience cried out, " Yes, yes ! " — Can you conceive of our nation? It must be owned, it has its charming moments. On which, good-night. Your sister spent a happy day lately at the " Calvaire." Vive la Liberie ! As for me, who enjoy as much as I can of it for the last three years, I envy the fate of those who can turn their steps where they will ; if I could only spend a few calm days it would do me great good. It is a year since I have dared to go to Saint-Cyr. To the Comte d'Artois. February 22, 1792. Your last letter was brought to me this morning, my dear brother, and I have been made very happy by finding it less bitter than the one that preceded it. Nevertheless, I prom- ised to add a few words to one I wrote you three days ago, and I am too sincerely your friend not to do so. I think that the son has too much severity towards his mother-in-law. She has not the faults for which he blames her. I think she may have listened to suspicious advice ; but she bears the evils that overwhelm lier with sti'ong courage ; and she should be pitied far more than blamed, for she has good mtentions. She tries to fix the vacillations [^incerfitudts^ of the father, who, to the misfortune of the family, is no longer master, and — I know not if God wills that I deceive myself, but — I greatly fear that she will be one of the first victims of what is taking place, and my heart is too wrung with that presentiment to allow me to blame her. 7?! 1,1 KK AND LKTTERS OF [chap. il. God is good ; he will not sulTer discord to continue in a family to which unity and a good understanding would be so useful. 1 shudder when 1 think of it; it deprives me of sleep, for discord will kill us all. You know the difference in habits and societies that your sister had always had with the mother-in-law ; in spite of that she feels drawn to her when she sees her unjustly accused, and when she looks the future in the face. It is very mifortunate that the son has not been willing, or perhaps able, to win over the intimate friend of the mother-in-law's brother [Comte de Mercy]. That old fox is tricking her ; and the son ought to have taken the duty upon himself, if possible, and made the sac- rifice of being on terms with him in order to foil him and prevent an evU which has now become alarming. Of two eA^ls, the least. All men of his sort frighten me ; they have intellect, but what good is it to them ? Heart is needed as well, and they have none. They have nothing but intrigue ; into which it is unfortunate that they drag so many persons. Others should have been more shrewd than they. . . . The idea of the emperor racks me : if he makes war upon us there will be an awful explosion. ]\Iay God watch over us ! He has heavily laid his hand on this kingdom in a visible manner. Let us pray to him, my dear brother ; he alone knows hearts, in him alone is our worthy hope. I have passed this Lent in asking him to look with pity upon us, and to arrange these matters in the family I love so much. I have that so deeply at heart that I would conse- crate my life to asking it on my two knees, if that would make me worthy of being heard. It is only God who can change our fate, make the vertigo of this nation (good at bottom) cease, and restore it to health and peace. Adieu — what was it you asked me ? how I pass my time ? what are my occupations ? whether I ride on horseback ? whether I 1792] MADAME ifeLISABETH DE FEANCE. 79 still go to Saint-Cyr ? I scarcely dare for a whole year past to do my duties, I kiss you with all my heart. Miserere nobis. To the Marquise de Raigecourt. April 6, 1792. As I do not wish you to scold me, I write on Holy Thurs- day, but only a little line. The King of Sweden is assas- sinated ! Every one has his turn. He had incredible courage. We do not yet know if he is dead; but it is likely that he is from the way the pistol was loaded. Adieu, my heart ; when you wean the baby I will busy myself in finding you a lodging in the chateau, for yours has been given to others. April 18, 1792. You think perhaps we are still in the agitation of the fete at Chateauvieux ; not at all ; everything is very tranquil. The people flocked to see Dame Liberty tottering on her triumphal car, but they shrugged their shoulders. Three or four hundred sans-culottes followed her shouting : " The Na- tion ! Liberty ! The Sans-Culottes ! " It was all very noisy, but flat. The National guards would not mingle ; on the contrary, they were angry, and Potion, they say, is ashamed of his conduct. The next day a pike with a bonnet rouge walked about the garden, without shouting, and did not stay long. The King of Sweden died with much courage. What a pity that he was not Catholic ; he would have been a true hero. His country seems tranquil. Adieu, my heart. June 23, 1792. For three days before the 20th a great commotion was felt to exist in Paris, but it was thought that all necessary pre- so Ml'H AND LirrrKUS OF [chap. ii. cautions were taken to w aid of! danger, "Wednesday morn- ing the courtyard.s and garden were full of troops. At niidilay we heard that the faubourg 8aint-Antoine was on the march ; it bore a petition to the Assembly, and did not propose to cross the Tuileries. Fifteen hundred persons filed into the Assembly ; few National guards and some Invalids, the rest were sans-culottcs and women. Three municipal officers came to ask the king to aUow the troops to enter the garden, saying that the Assembly was hampered by the crowd, and the passages so incumbered that the doors might be forced. The king told them to arrange with the com- mandant to defile along the terrace of the Feuillants and go out by the gate of the riding-school. Shortly after this the other gates of the garden were opened in spite of these orders. Soon the garden was filled. The pikes began to defile in order under the terrace in front of the chateau where there were three lines of National guards. They went out by the gate to the Pont Eoyal and seemed to intend to pass through the Carrousel on their way back to the faubourg Saint- Antoine. At three o'clock they showed signs of wishing to force the gate of the grand courtyard. Two municipal officers opened it. The National Guard, which had not been able to obtain any orders since the morning, had the sorrow of seeing them cross the court- yard without being able to bar the way. The department had given orders to repulse force by force, but the munici- pality paid no attention to this. We were, at this moment, at the king's window. The few persons who were with his valet de chamhre came and joined us. The doors were closed. A moment later we heard raps. It was Acloque with a few grenadiers and volunteers whom he had collected. He asked the king to show himself, alone. The king passed into the first antechamber. There M. 1792] MADAME :feLISABETH DE FRANCE. 81 d'Hervilly came to join him, with three or four grenadiers whom he had induced to come with him. At the moment when the king passed into the antechamber the persons attached to the queen forced her to go into her son's room. More fortunate than she, no one tore me from the king's side. The queen had scarcely gone when the door was burst in by the pikes. The king, at that instant, mounted one of the coffers which stand in the windows. The Mar6- chal de Mouchy, MM. d'Hervilly, Acloque, and a dozen grenadiers surrounded him. I stood against the wall with the ministers, M. de Marcilly, and some National guards around me. The pikes entered the chamber like a thunder- bolt ; they looked for the king, especially one of them, who used the most dangerous language. A grenadier turned aside his weapon, saying, " Unhappy man ! this is your king." All the grenadiers then began to shout Vive le Roi! The rest of the pikes responded mechanically to the cry ; the chamber was filled in less time than I can tell it, the pikes demanding the sanction, and the dismissal of the ministers.^ During four hours the same shouts were repeated. Mem- bers of the Assembly came. M. Vergniaud and Isnard spoke well to the people ; told them they did wrong to demand the king's sanction thus, and urged them to withdraw; but it was as if they did not speak at all. At last Potion and the municipality arrived. The first harangued the people, and after praising the " dignity " and " order " with whicli they had come, he invited them to retire with " the same calm- 1 This was the moment, recorded by all other witnesses and forgotten by Madame Elisabeth, when, being mistaken for the queen and threatened witli death, she stopped tliose who wished to correct the blunder. " No, no," she said, "let them think I am she." One witness mentions that slitf added, " Their crime would be less." It was on this occasion that a woman of the people said, the next day: "We could do nothing then; they had their Sainte Genevieve with them." — Tr. 82 LIFE AND LF/ITEKS OF [ciiAr. n. ness," in order that they might not be reproached for com- mitting excess at " a civic fete." At last the populace began to depart. I forgot to tell you that, shortly after the crowd entered, the grenadiers made a space and kept the people from press- ing on the king. As for me, I had mounted the window- seat on the side towards the king's room. A gi-eat number of persons attached to the king had come to him that morn- ing; but he sent them orders to go away, fearing another 18th of April. I should like to express myself as to that, but not being able to do so, I will simply say that I shall recur to it. All that I say now is that he who gave the order did well, and that the conduct of the others was perfect. But to return to the queen, whom I left dragged against her will to my nephew's room ; they had carried the latter so quickly into hiding that she did not see him on entering his apartment. You can imagine her despair. But M. Hue, usher, and M. Saint- Vincent were with him and soon brought him to her. She did everything possible to return to the king, but MM. de Choiseul and d'Haussonville, also those of our ladies who were there, prevented it. A moment later they heard the doors burst in, all but one which the people did not find. Meantime the grenadiers had entered the Council Chamber, and there they placed her, with her chil- dren, behind the Council table. The grenadiers and other attached persons surrounded her, and the populace defiled before her. One woman put a bonnet rouge upon her head, also on that of my nephew. The king had worn one from almost the first moment. Santerre, who conducted the pro- cession, harangued her, and told her they deceived her by saying that the people did not love her. He assured her she had nothing to fear. "We fear nothing," she replied. 1792] MADAME ^LISABETH DE FRANCE. 83 "when we are with brave men." So saying, she stretched out her hand to the grenadiers who were near her, and they fell upon it. It was very touching. The deputies who came, came with good-will. A true deputation arrived which requested the king to return to his own room. I was told of this, and not being willing to stay behind in the crowd, I left about an hour before he did, and rejoined the queen. You can judge with what joy I em- braced her, though I was then ignorant of the risks she had run. The king retm'ned to his room, and nothing could be more touching than the moment when the queen and his children threw themselves into his arms. The deputies who were there burst into tears. The deputations relieved each other every half-hour until quiet was completely restored. They were shown the violences that had been committed. They behaved very well in the apartment of the king, who was perfect to them. At ten o'clock the chateau was empty, and every one went to bed. The next day, the National Guard, after expressing the greatest grief at its hands being bound, and having had be- fore its eyes, helplessly, all that had taken place, obtained an order from Potion to fire, if necessary. At seven o'clock it was said that the faubourgs were marching, and the Guard put itself under arms with the greatest zeal. Deputies of the Assembly came with good-will and asked the king to let the Assembly come to him, if he thought there was danger. The king thanked them. You will see their dialogue in the newspapers, also the one with Potion, who came to tell the king that the crowd was only a few persons who wanted to plant a May tree. At this moment we are tranquil. Tlie arrival of M. dc la Fayette from the army creates a little excitement in people's minds. The Jacobins are sleeping. These are the details of 84 LIFI-: AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. the 20th of Juiu'. Adieu ; I am well; I kiss you, and I am thankful you arc uoL here in the fray. To the Abbe de Lubersac. June 25, 1792. This letter will be rather long on its way ; but I prefer not to let this opportunity of talking with you pass. I am convinced that you will feel almost as keenly as ourselves the blow that has just been struck us ; it is all the more di-eadful because it lacerates the heart, and takes away our peace of mind. The future seems an abyss, from which we can only issue by a miracle of Providence. Do we deserve it ? At that question I feel my courage fail me. "NMiich of us can expect the answer, " Yes, you deserve it " ? All suffer, but alas ! none are penitent, none turn their hearts to God. As for me, what reproaches I have to make to my- self ! Swept along by the whirlwind of misfortune I have not asked of God the grace we need ; I have relied on human help ; I have been more guilty than others, for who has been as much as I the child of Providence ? But it is not enough to recognize our faults; we must repair them. I cannot alone. Monsieur, have the charity to help me. Ask of God, not a change which it may please him to send us when, in his wisdom, he thinks suitable, but let us limit ourselves and ask him only to enlighten and touch all hearts, and es- pecially to speak to two most unhappy beings, who would be more unhappy still if God did not call them to him. Alas ! the blood of Jesus Christ flowed for them as much as for the solitary hermit who mourns for trivial faults incessantly. Say to God often, " If thou wilt, thou canst cure them," and give to him the glory of it. God knows the remedies to be applied. I am sorry to write to you in so gloomy a style ; but my 1792] MADAME :fcLISABETH DE FllANCE, 85 heart is so dark that it is difficult for me to speak otherwise. Do not think from this that my health suffers; no, I am well ; and God has given me grace to keep my gaiety. I earnestly hope that your health may be restored ; I wish I • could know that it was better ; but how can one hope that with your sensibilities ? Let us think that there is another life where we shall be amply compensated for the troubles of this one ; and let us live in the hope of meeting there once more — but not until after we have the pleasure of see^ ing each other again in this world ; for, in spite of my exces- sive gloom, I cannot believe that all is hopeless. Adieu, monsieur; pray for me, I beg of j^ou, after having prayed for those others, and send me news of yourself at times ; it is a consolation to me. To the Marquise de Raigecourt. July 8, 1702. It would really require all the eloquence of Mme. de S^vigne to describe what happened yesterday ; for it is, in- deed, the most surprising thing, the most extraordinary, the grandest, the pettiest, etc., etc. Happily, experience aids comprehension. In short, behold the Jacobins, the Feuil- lants, the Eepublicans, the Monarchists, all abjuring their discords, and, uniting beneath the immovable arch of the Constitution and Liberty, promising one another very sin- cerely to walk together, laws in hand, and never to deviate from them ! Happily, the month of August is approaching, when, its foliage being fully developed, the tree of liberty will offer a safer shade. The city is tranquil and will be so during the Federation. I tremble lest there be no religious ceremonies ; you know my taste for them. Ask of God, my heart, that he will give me strength and counsel. Adieu ; I embrace and love you with all my heart. 86 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. ii. July 11, 1792. Our good patriots in the Assembly have just, iny heart, declared the country to be in danger, in view of the conduct of the kings of Hungary and Prussia (not to speak of others) towards poor peaceable beings like us ; for why should any one blame us ? However that may be, the nation is about to rise as one man. Our ministers have taken the course of resigning, all six at once ; which astonishes many persons, — all the more be- cause their determination was sudden and confided to no one. I had attached myself to two of them, and you will agree that that was hardly worth while. Our Federation is making ready quietly. A few Federals are already here ; they do not come in troops as they did two years ago, but gradually. I have just seen some disem- barking, and they have not an elegant appearance. Adieu ; I kiss you with all my heart, and I beg of you the favour of not fretting because you are not here ; the reasons are good why you should stay where you are, and you must think of the matter no longer. July 18, 1792. Your prayers, unworthy as you pretend they are, brought us good fortune, my heart ; the famous day of the 14th [fete of the Federation] passed off tranquilly. There was much shouting of Vive Petion ! and the Sans Culottes ! As we re- turned the whole guard which accompanied the king never ceased shouting, Vive le roi ! they were all heart and soul for us ; that did good. Since then Paris is very calm. They have just sent away three regiments and two battalions of the Swiss Guards to the camp at Soissons. I am well, my heart, except for the heat, which is scarcely endurable just now. We had a frightful storm the night l'?92] MADAME :feLISABETH DE FRANCE. 87 before last ; it lasted an immense time ; the lightning fell upon the gardens at Versailles, Adieu, my heart ; my letters must tire you ; I think that before long you will not have patience to read them ; but how can I help it ? I do not know what to tell you. I kiss you with all my heart. . q,u. V^^^i^ ^^ anuU-lL- matt cc^cu'^ ^ ^/.v*- /jiUlia- eftu^ y *///*/ fj-iHu^J<., run uc' ^rut^t^J^im^ To the Ahbe de Lubersac. July 22, 1792. You will soon receive a letter from me which is a perfect jeremiad. From its style one would think I had foreseen what was to follow. I do not wish you to think, monsieur, that that is my habitual state. No, God grants me the grace to be quite otherwise ; but at times my heart has need to let itself go, and I must speak of the agitations that fill it ; it seems as if, by giving relaxation to the nerves, they gained more strength. You, who are more sensitive than others, must feel this need. Since the dreadful day of the 20th we are more tranquil ; but we do not the less need the prayers of saintly souls. Let those who, sheltered from the storm, feel only, so to speak, its repercussion, lift their hearts to God, Yes, God has given them the favour to live in quiet that tli(!y may make that use of their freedom. Those on whom the storm lowers meet at times with such shocks that it is difficult to 88 LIFK AND L1:TTERS OF [cuai-. n. practise the great resource — that of prayer. Happy the lieart of whoso can feel iu the great agitations of this world that (Jod is with it! happy the saints who, pierced by stabs, can yet praise God in every moment of their day ! Ask that grace, monsieur, for those who are feeble and little faithful like me ; it would be a true w^ork of charity to do. My aunt thanks me often for making her know you [the Abbe de Lubersac was with Madame Yictou-e in Eomel. It seems to me very simple that she should be pleased, and I think myself fortunate to have procured for her that advan- tage — or, to speak more truly, to have been one of the mstruments that God has used for that work of salvation. I will not say as to that all that I think ; but I am very glad to be able to speak of it to you in order that you may put your shyness more to one side, if you are still a victim to it — I can use that expression, for shyness is a real affliction. Paris is in some fermentation ; but there exists a God who watches over the city and its inhabitants. Therefore be tranquil. I wish I could think that the great heats will not make you suffer; but that is difficult. Adieu, monsieur, I hope that you do not forget me before God, and that you are convinced of the esteem I have for you. To the Marquise de Baigecourt. July 25, 1792. Good-day, my Eaigecourt. Your H^lfene must be a jewel. I do not doubt it, but I am charmed to hear it ; though I should be still more charmed, I assure you, if I could see her instead of believing what you say of her. But patience ! your health, I hope, will not be long in getting strong, and then you might soon come and join me. Wliat a fine moment, my heart, will that be ! we shall have bought it by a very long parting. But there is an end to all things. I 1792] MADAME Elisabeth de France. 89 do not flatter myself that I can see you before the autumn; but it is always sweet to be able to talk of it. Our days pass tranquilly. The last few have not been quite the same ; the people tried to force the gates ; but the National Guard behaved admirably and stopped it all. There is talk of suspending the executive power to pass the time. To pass mine in another manner I go, in the mornings, for three or four hours into the garden, — not every day, how- ever ; but it does me a great deal of good. Adieu ; I kiss you with my whole heart and end because there is nothing I am able to tell you. Madame Elisabeth's last letter bore date August 8, 1792 ; two days before the fatal 10th, when silence fell forever between her and her friends. In that letter she spoke of the " death of the executive power," adding, " I can enter into no details." 90 LlFl': AND I.KITEUS Ob' [ciiAi . iii CHAPTER III. Madame Elisabeth's Removal to the Conciergerie. — Iler Examination. Condemnation, and Death. ^ [The only authentic records of Madame ]*]lisabeth's life from the day she entered the Tower of the Temple, August 13, 1792, to May 9, 1794, the day when she was torn from the arms of her young niece, are in the simple Narrative of that niece, Marie-Tlidi-^se de France, and in the Journal of the Temple by Clery, Louis XVI.'s valet. These narratives could be, and have been rewritten and elaborated in tender words by loving hearts, but their plain simplicity is more befitting the sacred figure of this brave, self-forgetting, wise, and truly Christ-like woman. They are given later. We take her now as she emerges from the Temple, for a last brief moment, into the sight and hearing of men.] On the 25th of November, 1793, the municipality of Paris addressed to the National Assembly the following petition : " Legislatoes " You have decreed Equality ; source of public welfare ; it is established on foundations henceforth immovable ; never- theless, it is violated, this Equality, and in the most revolt- ing manner, by the vile remains of tyranny, by the prisoners in the Tower of the Temple. Could they still, those abomi- nable remains, be of any account under present circum- stances, it could be only from the interest the country has 1 Madame felisaheth's Life in the Temple, being recorded only by her niece and by Cle'ry, will be found later, in their narratives. — Tr. ^^^^^ -<5»«^/:<4^ zyy 1793] MADAME ^LISABETH DE FRANCE. 91 in preventing them from rending her bosom, and renew- ing the atrocities committed by the two monsters who gave them birth. If, therefore, such is the sole interest of the Eepublic in respect to them, it is beneath her sole surveil- lance that they ought to be placed. We are no longer in those horrible days when a Liberticide faction (on whom the blade of the law has already done justice) assumed, as a means of vengeance against a patriotic Commune which it abhorred, a responsibility which outraged all laws, and has weighed for more than fifteen months on every member of the Commune of Paris. " Keason, justice, equality cry to you, legislators, to make that responsibility cease. " And as it is more than time to return to their regular work two hundred and fifty sans-culottes, now unjustly employed in guarding the prisoners of the Temple, the Commune of Paris expects of your wisdom : — " 1st, That you will send the infamous ^^lisabeth before the Eevolutionary tribunal at the earliest moment. " 2d, That in regard to the posterity of the tyrant you will take prompt measures to transfer them to a prison chosen by you, there to be locked up with suitable precautions and treated by the system of equality in the same manner as all other prisoners whom the Eepublic has need to secure. " Drouy, Eenaed, Le Clerc, Legeand, Dorigny." Eeferred to the Committee on Public Safety, this petition slumbered there for six months, but it was not forgotten in that hotbed of the Eevolution. Madame Elisabeth had, from the hour that she left Mon- treuil, expressed the resolution to share the trials and the perils of her brother and his family. She kept that resolu- 7 Mem. Ver. t) 92 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [cuA^•. iii. tion : at Versailles ou the 6tli of October ; iii Paris, through years of gloomy solitude in the Tuileries ; on the road to and from Varennes ; on that day of evil omen, the 20th of June ; on the bloody night of the 10th of August ; in the box at the Assembly, facing insults and threats ; in the Tower of the Temple, witness and actor in those heart-rending farewells. Yes, she kept all the promises she made to God, and God was now about to keep all his to her : strength and faithful- ness unto death were hers, and pity passes from om- minds as we read of these last scenes, so all-triumphant are they. In a pouring rain she was taken on foot across the garden and courtyard of the Temple, placed in a hackney-coach, and driven to the Conciergerie, May 9, 1794 It was then eight o'clock in the evening. At ten she was taken to the council hall of the Revolutionary tribunal, and there subjected to her first examination before Gabriel Deliege, judge, Fouquier- Tinville, prosecutor, and Ducray, clerk.^ After placing her signature with that of the three men at the foot of each page of her indictment, Madame Elisabeth was taken back to prison. She made herself no illusions as to the fate that awaited her. She knew it would be in vain to ask for the help of a Catholic priest ; she resigned herself to that deprivation, and offered direct to God the sacrifice of her life, drawing from her living faith the strength to make that sacrifice worthily. She was alone; no human help could reach her. It is said that, imknown to her, a lawyer, M. Chauveau-Lagarde, hearing of her arraignment, went to the prison to offer himself for her defence. He was not permitted to see her. He appealed to Fouquier-Tinville, who replied : " You cannot see her to-day ; there is no hurry ; she will not be tried yet." Nevertheless, spurred by a vague anxiety, M. Chauveau-Lagarde went the next morning to the assize court, 1 See Appendix IL 1793] MADAME ifeLISABETH DE FRANCE. 93 and there, according to his presentiment, was Madame Elisa- beth seated, among twenty-four other prisoners, on the upper bench, where they had placed her that she might be conspic- uously in view of every one. It was then impossible to confer with her, and she was ignorant that one man stood in that court seeking to defend her.^ Een^-Fran^ois Dumas, president of the Eevolutionary tribunal, opened the session ; Gabriel Deli^ge and Antoine- Marie, judges, were seated beside him. Gilbert Liendon, deputy public prosecutor, read the accusation; Charles-Adrien Legris, clerk, wrote down the examination. The jurors, to the number of fifteen, were the following citizens [names given], Tlie Indictment. " Antoine-Quentin Fouquier, Public Prosecutor of the Eevolutionary Tribunal, established in Paris by the decree of the National Assembly, March 10, 1793, year Two of the Eepublic, without recourse to any Court of Appeal, in virtue of the power given him by article 2 of another decree of the said Convention given on the 5 th of April following, to the effect that ' the Public Prosecutor of said Tribunal is au- thorized to arrest, try, and judge, on the denunciation of the constituted authorities, or of citizens,' — " Herewith declares that the following persons have been, by various decrees of the Committee of general safety of the Convention, of the Eevolutionary committees of the different sections of Paris, and of the department of the Yonne, and by virtue of warrants of arrest issued by the said Public Prosecutor, denounced to this Tribunal : — 1 The following account of the proceedings is taken from the official report in the " Moniteur." 94 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. in. * 1st, Marie filisabech Capet, sister of Louis Capet, the last tyrant of the French, aged thirty, and bom at Versailles." [Then foll&w the nawus and description of twenty-four other prisoners.'l " And, also, that it is to the family of the Capets that the French people owe aU the evils under the weight of which they have groaned for so many centuries. " It was at the moment when excessive oppression forced the people to break their chains, that this whole family united to plunge them into a slavery more cruel than that from which they were trying to emerge. The crimes of all kinds, the guilty deeds of Capet, of the Messalina Antoi- nette, of the two brothers Capet, and of Elisabeth, are too well known to make it necessary to repaint here the hor- rible picture. They are written in letters of blood upon the annals of the Eevolution; and the unheard-of atrocities exercised by the barbarous ^.Tnigrh and the sanguinary Satel- lites of despots, the murders, the incendiarisms, the ravages, the assassinations unknown to the most ferocious monsters which they have committed on French territorv, are still commanded by that detestable family, in order to deliver a great nation once more to the despotism and fury of a few individuals. " Elisabeth has shared aU those crimes ; she has co-operated in all the plots, the conspiracies formed by her infamous broth^s, by the wicked and impure Antoinette, and by the horde of conspirators collected around them ; she associated herself with their projects ; she encouraged the assassins of the nation, the plots of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, the conspiracy of the 6th of October fol- lowing, of which the dTIstaings, the Villeroys, and others. 1793] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRA>'CE. 95 who have now been struck by the blade of the law, were the agents, — in shon, the whole uninteirapced chain of conspiracies, lasting four whole years, were followed and seconded by all the means which Elisabeth had in her power. It was she who in the month of June, 1791, sent diamonds, the property of the nation, to the in&moos d'Artois, her brother, to put him in a condition to exe- cute projects concerted with him, and to hire assassins of the nation. It was she who maiutained with her other brother, now become an object of derision and contempt to the coalized Powers on whom he imposed his imbecile and ponderous nullity, a most active correspondence ; i: ^as she who chose by the most insulting pride and disdain to degrade and humiliate the free men who consecrated their time to guarding the tyrant ; it was she who lavished atten- tions on the assassins, sent to the Champs Ely sees by the despot to provoke the brave Marseillais; it was she who stanched the wounds they received in their {sensieur ,^ A. I do not remember having done so since it was prohibited. Q. Did you not yourself stanch and dress the wounds of the assassins sent to the Champs Elys^es by your brother against the brave Marseillais ? A. I never knew that my brother did send assassins against any one, no matter who. Although I gave succour to some wounded men, humanity alone induced me to dress their wounds ; I did not need to know the cause of their ills to occupy myself with their relief. I make no merit of this, and I cannot imagine that a crime can be made of it. Q. It is difficult to reconcile the sentiments of humanity in which you now adorn yourself with the cruel joy j'ou showed on seeing the torrents of blood that flowed on the 10th of August. All things justify us in believing that you are humane to none but the murderers of the people, and that you have all the ferocity of the most sanguinary ani- mals for the defenders of liberty. Far from succouring the latter you instigated their massacre by your applause ; far from disarming the murderers of the people you gave them with your own hands the instruments of death, by which you flattered yourselves, you and your accomplices, that tyranny and despotism would be restored. That is the hu- manity of despots, who, from all time, have sacrificed mil- lions of men to their caprices, to their ambition, and to their 1793] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 101 cupidity. The prisoner Elisabeth, whose plan of defence is to deny all that is laid to her charge, will she have the sin- cerity to admit that she nursed the little Capet in the hope of succeeding to his father's throne, thus instigating to royalty ? A. I talked familiarly with that unfortunate child, who was dear to me from more than one cause, and I gave him, in consequence, all the consolations that I thought might com- fort him for the loss of those who gave him birth. Q. That is admitting, in other terms, that you fed the little Capet with the projects of vengeance which you and yours have never ceased to form against liberty; and that you flattered yourself to raise the fragments of a shattered throne by soaking it in the blood of patriots. The president then proceeded to the examination of the other prisoners, confining himself to a few insignificant questions. [Here the " Moniteur," and after it historians, omit all mention of the speech of Madame Elisabeth's defender, thus leaving it to be supposed that no voice was raised in her behalf. Though the trial was rapid, and all communi- cation was prevented between her and her defender, it is a known fact that Chauveau-Lagarde rose after the president had ended Madame Elisabeth's examination, and made a short jjlea, of which he has given us himself the substance : "I called attention," he says, "to the fact that in this trial there was only a bold accusation, without documents, without examination, without witnesses, and that, conse- quently, as there was in it no legal element of conviction there could be no legal conviction at all. " I added that they had nothing against the august prisoner but her answers to the questions just put to her, and that 102 LIFE AND LETTERS OF [chap. hi. those answers, far from coudenming her, ouglil to honour her to all eyes, because they proved absohitely uothmg but the goodness of her liourl ami the heroism of her friendship. " Then after developing those ideas I ended by saying that as there was no ground for a defence, I could only present for ^ladame GlisabeLh an apology, and even so, I found it impossible to make more than one that was worthy of her, namely : that a princess who had been a perfect model of virtue at the Court of France could not be the enemy of Frenchmen. " It is impossible to paint the fury with which Dumas apostrophized me; reproaching me for having had the ' audacity to speak ' of what he called ' the pretended virtue of the accused, thus attempting to corrupt the public morals.' It was easy to see that Madame ^Elisabeth, who until then had remained calm, as if unconscious of her own danger, was agitated by that to which I was exposing myself.] The report in the " Moniteur " continues : — After the Public Prosecutor and the defenders had been heard, the president declared the debate closed. He then summed up the cases and gave to the jury the following written paper: — " Plots and conspiracies have existed, formed by Capet, his wife, his family, his agents and his accomplices, in conse- quence of which external war on the part of a coalition of tyrants has been provoked, also civil war in the interior has been raised, succour in men and money have been furnished to the enemy, troops have been assembled, plans of campaign have been made, and leaders appointed to murder the people, annihilate liberty, and restore despotism. " Is ^Elisabeth Capet an accomplice in these plots ? " The jury, after a few moments' deliberation, returned to 1793] MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 103 the audience chamber and gave an affirmative declaration against Madame Elisabeth and the other prisoners [here follow the names], who were then condemned to the Penalty of Death. ... It was then ordered that, by the diligence of the Public Prosecutor, the present judgment shall be ex- ecuted within twenty-four hours on the Place de la Revolu- tion of this city, and be printed, read, published, and posted throughout the extent of the Eepublic. As Madame Ellisabeth left the Tribunal, Fouquier turned to the president and said : " It must be owned she never uttered a complaint." — " What has she to complain of, that Elisabeth de France ? " replied Dumas, with ironical gaiety ; " have n't we just given her a court of aristocrats who are worthy of her ? There will be nothing to prevent her from fancying she is back in the salons of Versailles when she finds herself at the foot of the guillotine surrounded by all those faithful nobles." When Madame Elisabeth returned to the prison she asked to be taken to the common room, in which were the twenty- four persons condemned to die with her on the morrow. This room, long, narrow, and dark, was separated from the office of the Conciergerie by a door and a glass partition. It had no furniture but wooden benches fastened to the walls. These, and the following details are given by two eye-witnesses who happened to be in the room that night though not among the number condemned to death.'^ ^ One was Geoffroy Ferry, who was there as usual to take an inventory of the clothes and other articles on the condemned persons ; he pave these details to his nephew, attached in 1825 to the 6cole des Beaux Arts, who gave them to the author of the " "Vie de Madame ^felisabeth." The other was Marguerite, a maid in the service of the Marquis dc Fenouil, imprisoned in the Conciergerie for refusing to testify against her master. The same author obtained these facts from her own lips in 1828. — Fk. Ed. 104 LIKK AM) LKTriCUS OF [ciiai>. m. Joining the jhkh- unfortunates, who were now in different stages of agi>ny and fear, IMadanie Elisabeth took her place among them naturally. Such as she had been at Versailles and at ^lonlreuil in the midst of other friends, she was here, forgetful of herself, mindful of them, and dropping into each poor heart by simple words the balm of God's own com- fort. She seemed to regard them as friends about to accom- pany her to heaven. She sj)oke to them calmly and gently, and soon the serenity of her look, the tranquillity of her mind subdued their anguish. The Marquise de Sdnozan, the oldest of the twenty-four victims, was the first to recover courage and offer to God the little that remained to her of life. Madame de Montmorin, nearly all of whose family had been massacred in the Kevolution, could not endure the thought of the immolation of her son, twenty years of age, who was doomed to die with her. " I am willing to die," she said sobbing, " but I cannot see him die." — " You love your son," said Madame Elisabeth, " and yet you do not wish him to accompany you ; you are going yourself to the joys of heaven and you want him to stay upon earth, where all is now torture and sorrow." Under the influence of those words Mme. de Montmorin's heart rose to a species of ecstasy, her fibres relaxed, her tears flowed, and clasping her son in her arms, " Yes, yes ! " she cried," we will go together." M. de Lomdnie, former minister of war, and lately mayor of Brienne, whom that town and its adjoining districts had vainly endeavoured to save, was indignant with a species of exaltation, not at being condemned to die, but at hearing Fouquier impute to him as a crime the testimony of affection and gratitude shown for him by his department. Madame Elisabeth went to him and said gently: "If it is fine to merit the esteem of your fellow-citizens, think how much 1793] MADAME ELISABETH DE FKANCE. 105 finer it is to merit the goodness of God. You have shown your compatriots how to live rightly ; show them now how men die when tlieir conscience is at peace." It sometimes happens that timid natures, the most suscep- tible of fear in the ordinary course of life, will heroically brave death when a great sentiment inspires them. Madame Elisabeth's presence conveyed that inspiration. The Mar- quise de Crussol-Amboise was so timid that she dared not sleep without two women in her room ; a spider terrified her ; the mere idea of an imaginary danger filled her with dread. Madame Elisabeth's example transformed her suddenly ; she grew calm and firm, and so remained till death. The same species of emotion was conveyed to all the others. The calm presence of Madame Elisabeth seemed to them in that ter- rible hour as if illumined by a reflection from the Divine. " It is not exacted of us," she said, " as it was of the ancient martyrs, that we sacrifice our beliefs ; all they ask of us is the abandonment of our miserable lives. Let us make that feeble sacrifice to God with resignation." So, in these last moments of life a great joy was given to her ; she revived the numbed or aching hearts, she restored the vigour of their faith to fainting souls, she blunted the sting of death, and brought to eyes despairing of earth, the light of the true deliverance. The next morning the gates of the prison opened and the carts of the executioner, called by Barfere " the biers of the living," came out. Madame Elisabeth was in the first with others, among them Mme. de S^nozan and Mme. de Crussol- Amboise, to whom she talked during the passage from the Conciergerie to the Place Louis XV. Arriving there, she was the first to descend ; the executioner offered his hand, but the princess looked the other way and needed no help. At the foot of the scaffold was a long bench on which the Iu6 lAVE AND LirrrEKS OF [cuAi-. III. victims were lold to sk. Uy a refinement of cruelty Ma- dame Elisabeth was placed nearest the steps to the scaffold, but she was the last of the twenty-five called to ascend them ; she was to see and hear the killing of them all before her turn should come. During that time she never ceased to say the De profundis ; she who was about to die prayed fur the dead. The first to be called was Mme. de CrussoL She rose im- mediately; as she passed Madame Elisabeth she curtsied, and then, bending forward, asked to be allowed to kiss her. " Willingly, and with all my heart," replied the princess. All the other women, ten in number, did likewise. The men, as they passed her, each bowed low the head that an instant later was to fall into the basket. When the twenty- fourth bowed thus before her, she said : " Courage, and faith in God's mercy." Then she rose herself, to be ready at the call of the executioner. She mounted firmly the steps of the scaffold. Again the man offered his hand, but withdrew it, seeing from her bearing that she needed no help. With an upward look to heaven, she gave herself into the hands of the executioner. As he fastened her to the fatal plank, her neckerchief came loose and fell to the ground. " In the name of your mother, monsieur, cover me," she said. Those were her last words. At this execution alone, no cries of " Vive la Revolution ! " were raised ; the crowd dispersed silently. The eye-witness from whose lips this account was written down, added : " "When I saw the cart on which they were placing the bodies and heads of the victims, I fled like the wind." The cart held two baskets ; into one of which they threw the mound of bodies ; into the other the heap of heads. These were taken to the cemetery at Mon^eaux, and flung into a grave twelve feet square, one upon another, naked, because the 1 J3;f MADAME ELISABETH DE FRANCE. 107 clothes were a perquisite of the State. In 1816, Louis XVIII., wishing to give his sister Christian burial, ordered a search to be made for her remains. The searchers fancied they discovered her body, but her head was never found. Mom. Vi-r. !) JOUENAL OF THE TOWEE OF THE TEMPLE DUEING THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. By Cl]^ky, His Valet de Chamhre. PART SECOND JOURNAL OF THE TOWER OF THE TEMPLE DURING THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI, BY CL^RY. CHAPTER L The 10th of August, 1792.— Clery permitted to serve the King and his Family. — Life and Treatment of the Royal Family in the Tower of the Temple. I SERVED the king and his august family five months in the Tower of the Temple ; and in spite of the close watching of the municipal officers who were the keepers of it, I was able, either in writing or by other means, to take certain notes on the principal events which took place in the interior of that prison. In combining these notes in the form of a journal, my intention is more to furnish materials to those who may write the history of the deplorable end of the unfortunate liouis XVL than to compose memoirs myself ; for which I have neither talent nor pretension. Sole and continual witness of the injurious treatment the king and his family were made to endure, I alone can write it down and affirm the exact truth. Though attached since the year 1782 to the royal family, and witness, through the nature of my service, of the most disastrous events during the course of the Revolution, it would be going outside of my subject to describe them; they are. UJ MADAME KLlbABETll DK FJiANCK. [tiiAi. i. for the. most pari, already collected in different works. I shall begin this journal at the period of August 10, 1792, dreadful day, when a few men overturnetl a throne of four- teen centuries, put their king in fetters, and precipitated France into an abyss of horrors. I was on service with the dauphin at that period. From the morning of the 9th the agitation in the minds of all was extreme ; groups were forming throughout Paris, and we heard with certainty in the Tuileries that the conspirators had a plan. The tocsin was to ring at midnight in all parts of the city, and the Marseillais, uniting with the inhabitants of the faubourg Saint-Antoine, were to march at once and besiege the chateau. Detained by my functions in the apart- ment of the young prince and beside his person, I knew only in part what was happening outside. I shall here relate none but events which I witnessed during that day when so many different scenes took place even in the palace. On the evening of the 9th at half-past eight o'clock, hav' ing put the dauphin to bed, I left the Tuileries to try to learn what was the state of public opinion. The courtyards of the chateau were filled with about eight thousand National guards from the different sections, placed there to defend the king. I went to the Palais-Royal, of which I foimd all the exits closed ; National guards were there under arms, ready to march to the Tuileries and support the battalions already there ; but a populace, excited by factious persons, filled the neighbouring streets, and its clamour resounded on all sides. I re-entered the chateau towards eleven o'clock through the king's apartments. The persons belonging to the Court, and those on duty were collected there in a state of anxiety. I passed on to the dauphin's apartment, where, an instant later, I heard the tocsin rung and the generale beaten in all quarters of Paris. I remained in the salon until five in the 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 113 niorning with Mme. de Saint-Brice, waiting-woman to ' the young prince. At six o'clock the king went down into all the courtyards of the chateau and reviewed the National Guard and the Swiss Guard, who swore to defend him. The queen and her children followed the king. A few seditious voices were heard in the ranks, but they were soon smothered by the shouts, repeated hundreds of times, of " Vive le roi ! Vive la nation ! " The attack on the Tuileries not seeming near as yet, I went out a second time and followed the quays as far as the Pont Neuf. I met everywhere collections of armed men whose bad intentions were not doubtful; they carried pikes, pitch- forks, axes, and pruning-hooks. The battalion of the Mar- seillais marched in fine order with cannon, matches lighted ; they invited the people to follow them " to aid," they said, " in dislodging the tyrant and proclaiming his dethronement before the National Assembly." Too certain now of what was going to happen, but consulting only my duty, I went ahead of this battalion and re-entered the Tuileries. A numerous body of National guards were pouring out in dis- order through the gate of the gardens opposite the Pont-Eoyal. Distress was painted on the faces of most of them. Several said : " We swore this morning to defend the king, and at the moment when he runs the greatest danger we abandon him ! " Others, on the side of the conspirators insulted and thi-eatened their comrades and forced them to go away. The good men let themselves be ruled by the seditious ; and this culpable weakness, which, so far, had produced all the evils of the Revolution, was the beginning of the misfortunes of that fatal day. After many fruitless attempts to re-enter the chateau, I was recognized by the Swiss Guard of one of the gates, and I succeeded in entering. I went at once to the king's apart- 114 MADAMH MMSAHKTII DH FRANCE. [chap. i. iiuMit.and bt-'g^'oil that some Diie on service would inform His Majesty of what I liad seen and heard. At seven o'clock, anxiety was greatly increased by the baseness of several battalions which successively abandoned the Tidleries. Those of the National Guard who remained at their post, in number about four or five hundred, showed as much fidelity as courage. They were placed, indiscrimin- ately with the Swiss, about the interior of the palace, on the staircases, and at all the exits. These troops had passed the night without food ; I hastened, with other servants of the king, to carry them bread and wine, and encourage them not to abandon the royal family. It was then that the king gave the command of the interior of his palace to the Mar^- chal de Mailly, the Due du Chatelet, the Comte de Puys^gur, the Baron de Viomesnil, the Count d'Hervilly, the Marquis du Pajet, etc. The persons of the Court, and those on ser- vice were distributed into the different rooms, after swearing to defend till death the person of the king. We were, in all, about three or four hundred, but without other arms than swords and pistols. At eight o'clock the danger became pressing. The Legis- lative Assembly held its meetings in the Riding-school, which looked upon the garden of the Tuileries. The king sent sev- eral messages informing it of the position in which he was placed, and inviting it to appoint a deputation which would aid him with advice. The Assembly, although the attack on the chateau was preparing before its eyes, made no reply. A few moments later the department of Paris and several municipals entered the chateau, with Ptoederer, then prosecu- tor-general, at their head. Roederer, doubtless in collusion with the conspirators, urged His Majesty eagerly to go with his family to the Assembly ; he assured the king that he could no longer rely on the National Guard, and that if he 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 115 remained in the palace, neither the department nor the mmii- cipality of Paris would be answerable for his safety. The king listened without emotion ; he retired to his cham- ber with the queen, the ministers, and a small number of persons ; and, soon after, came out of it to go with his family to the Assembly. He was surrovmded by a detachment of the Swiss and the National Guard. Of all the persons on duty, the Princesse de Lamballe and Mme. de Tourzel were the only ones who had permission to follow the royal family. Mme. de Tourzel was obliged, in order that the young prince might not go unattended, to leave her daughter, seventeen years of age, ui the Tuileries among the soldiers. It was then nearly nine o'clock. Forced .to remain in the apartments, I waited with terror the results of the king's action ; I was near the windows that looked into the garden. It was more than an hour after the royal family had entered the Assembly, when I saw on the terrace of the Feuillants four heads on pikes which were being carried towards the Assembly. That was, I think, the signal for the attack on the chateau, for, at the same moment, a terrible fire of cannon and musketry was heard. The balls and the bullets riddled the palace. The king no longer being there, every one thought of his own safety ; but .all the exits were closed and certain death awaited us. I ran hither and thither ; already the apartments and the staircases were heaped with dead ; I determined to spring upon the terrace through one of the windows of the queen's apartment. I crossed the parterre rapidly to reach the Pont-Tournant. A number of the Swiss Guard who had preceded me were rally- ing under the trees. Placed thus, between two fires, I re- turned upon my steps to reach the new stairway to the terrace on the water-side. I meant to jump upon the quay, but a continual fire from the Pont-lloyal prevented me. I IK) MAHAMK ICLISABETH DK FRANCP:. [( hap. r. wi'iii along the same side to the pate of tlie dauphin's gai- ilou ; there, some Marseillais wlio had just massacred several Swiss were stripping the bodies. One of them came to me. " What, citizen," he said, " have you no arms ? Take this sword and help us to kill." Another Marseillais snatched the weapon. I was, in fact, without arms and wearing a plain coat ; had anything indicated that I was on service in the palace, I should certainly not have escaped. Several Swiss, being pursued, took refuge in a stable not far off. I myself hid there ; the Swiss were soon massacred at my side. Hearing the cries of those unhappy victims, the master of the house, M. le Dreux, rushed in. I profited by that moment to slip into his house. Without knowing me, M. le Dreux and his wife asked me to remain until the danger was over. I had in my pocket some letters and newspapers ad- dressed to the young prince; also my entrance-card to the Tuileries, on which was written my name and the nature of my service ; these papers would have made me known. I had barely time to throw them away before an armed troop searched the house to make sure that no Swiss were hidden there. M. le Dreux told me to pretend to be working at some drawings lying on a large table. After a fruitless search, the men, their hands stained with blood, stopped to coldly relate their murders. I remained in that asylum from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon, having before my eyes the horrors committed on the Place Louis XV. Some men murdered, others cut off the heads of the bodies, women, forgetting all decency, mutilated the bodies, tore off the fragments, and carried them in triumph. During this interval, Mme. de Eambaut, waiting-woman to the dauphin, who had with difficulty escaped from the massacre at the Tuileries, came to take refuge in the same 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 117 house ; a few signs that we made to each other enjoined silence. The sons of our host, coming in at that moment from the National Assembly, informed us that the king, " suspended from his functions," was closely guarded, with the royal family, in the box of the reporter of the " Logo- graphe," and that it was impossible to approach him. That being so, I resolved to go to my wife and children, in a country place, five leagues from Paris, where I had had a house for two years ; but the barriers were closed, and, moreover, I could not abandon Mme. de Eambaut. We agreed to take the route to Versailles, where she lived ; the sons of our host accompanied us. We crossed the bridge, Louis XV., which was covered witli naked dead bodies, already putrefying in the great heat, and after many dangers we left Paris through a breach which was not guarded. On the plain of Grenelle, we were met by peasants on horseback, who shouted at us from a distance, and threat- ened us with their guns : " Stop, or death ! " One of them, taking me for a guard, aimed and was about to shoot me, when another proposed to take us to the municipality of Vaugirard. "There is already a score of them there," he said ; " the killing will be all the greater." Peaching the municipality, our host's sons were recognized: the mayor questioned me : " Why, when the country is in danger, are you not where you belong ? Why are you leaving Paris ? That shows bad intentions." " Yes, yes," cried the populace, " to prison, those aristocrats, to prison ! " " It is precisely because I am on my way to where I belong, that you find me on the road to Versailles, where I live ; tliat is my post just as much as this is yours." They questioned Mme. de Eambaut; our host assured them we spoke the truth, and they gave us passports. I ought to render thanks 118 MADAMK f;LISABi;TII DE FRANCE. [riiAi-. i. to rr(>\iilenco for not having been taken to the prison of Vaugirard ; wliere they had just put twenty-three of the king's guards, who were afterwards taken to the Abbaye and massacred there, on the 2d of September. From Vaugirard to Versailles, patrols of armed men stopped us continually to examine our passports. I took Mme. Eambaut to her parents, and then started to return to my family. A fall I had in jumping from the window of the Tuileries, the fatigue of a tramp of twelve leagues, and my painful reflections on the deplorable events which had just taken place, overcame me to such a degree that I had a very high fever. I was in bed three days, but, impatient to know the fate of the king, I surmounted my illness and returned to Paris. On arriving there I heard that the royal family, after being kept since the 10th at the Feuillants, had just been taken to the Temple ; that the king had chosen to serve him M. de Chamilly, his head valet de chamhre, and that M. Hue, usher of the king's bedchamber, was to serve the dauphin. Tlie Princesse de Lamballe, Mme. de Tourzel, and her daughter, Mile. Pauline de Tourzel, had accom- panied the queen. Mmes. Thibaut, Bazire, Navarre, and Saint-Brice, waiting-women, had followed the three prin- cesses and the young prince. I then lost all hope of continuing my functions towards the dauphin, and I was about to return to the country when, on the sixth day of the king's imprisonment, I was informed that all the persons who were in the Tower with the royal family, had been removed, and, after examination before the council of the Commune of Paris, were consigned to the prison of La Force, with the sole exception of M. Hue, who was taken back to the Temple to serve the king. Potion, then mayor of Paris, was charged with the duty of 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 119 selecting two others. Learning of these arrangements, I resolved to try every possible means to resume my place in the service of the young prince. I vt^ent to see Potion; he told me that as I had belonged to the household of the king, I could not obtain the consent of the Commune. I cited M. Huii, who had just been sent by the council itself, to serve the king. Potion promised to support a memorial which I gave him, but I told him it was necessary above all, that he should inform the king of this step. Two days later, he wrote to His Majesty as follows : — '* Sire, — The valet de chamhre attached to the prince-royal from infancy asks to be allowed to continue his service with him ; as I think the proposal will be agreeable to you, I have acceded to his request," etc. His Majesty answered in writing that he accepted me for the service of his son, and, in consequence, I was taken to the Temple. There, I was searched ; they gave me advice as to the manner in which, they said, I must conduct my- self ; and the same day, August 26, at eight in the evening, I entered the Tower of the Temple. It would be difficult for me to describe the impression made upon me by the sight of that august and unfortunate family. The queen was the one who spoke to me. After a few words of kindness, she added : " You will serve my son, and you will arrange with M. Hue in all that concerns us." I was so oppressed with feeliogs that I could scarcely answer her. During the supper, the queen and the princesses, who had been a week without their women, asked me if I could comb their hair ; I replied that I would do whatever they desired of me. A municipal officer thereupon came uj) to me, and told me to be more circumspect in my answers. I was frightened at such a beginning. 120 MADAME ^:LISABETII 1)10 FRANCE. [chap. i. During the first eight days that I passed in the Temple, I hail no communication with the exterior. M. Hue was alone chai'ged wiili asking for and receiving the things necessary for the royal family ; I served conjointly and indiscrimi- nately with him. My service to the king was confined to dressing his hair in the morning and rolling it at night ; I noticed that I was watched incessantly by the municipal officers ; a mere nothing displeased them ; I kept on my guard to avoid any imprudence, which, would infallibly have mined me. On the 2d of September, there was much disturbance around the Temple. The king and his family went down as usual to walk in the garden ; a municipal who followed the king said to one of his colleagues : " "VVe did wrong to con- sent to let them walk this afternoon." I had noticed all that morning the uneasiness of the commissioners. They now hurried the royal family into the building ; but they were scarcely assembled in the queen's room before two municipal officers who were not on duty at the Tower entered. One of them, Matthieu, an ex-capucin friar, said to the king : " You are ignorant of what is going on; the country is in the great- est danger; the enemy has entered Champagne; the King of Prussia is marching on Chalons ; you are answerable for all the harm that will come of it. We, our wives and children, may perish, but you first, before us; the people will be avenged." — "I have done all for the people," said the king ; " I have nothing to reproach myself with." This same Matthieu said to M. Hue : " The Council has ordered me to put you under arrest." " Who ? " asked the king. " Your valet de chamhre." The king wished to know of what crime he was accused, but could learn noth- ing, which made him. very uneasy as to M. Hue's fate ; he recommended him earnestly to the two municipal officers. 1792] THE CArTlViTY OF LOUIS XVI. l2l They put the seals on the little room he had occupied, and he went away with them at six o'clock in the evening after having passed twenty days in the Temple. As he went out, Matthieu said to me : " Take care how you behave, or the same thing may happen to you." The king called me a moment after, and gave me some papers which M. Hue had returned to him ; they were ac- counts of expenditures. The uneasy air of the municipals, the clamour of the people in the neighbourhood of the Tower, agitated his heart cruelly. After he had gone to bed, he told me to pass the night beside him ; I placed a bed be- side that of His Majesty. On the 3d of September, while I was dressing the king, he asked me if I had heard anything of M. Hue, and if I knew any news of Paris. I answered that during the night I had heard a mimicipal say that the people were attacking the prisons, and that I would try to get more information. " Take care not to compromise yourself," said the king, " for then we should be left alone, and I fear their intention is to surround us with strangers." At eleven o'clock that morning, the king being with his family in the queen's room, a municipal told me to go into that of the king, where I should find Manuel and several members of the Commune. Manuel asked me what the king had said about M. Hue's removal. I answered that His Majesty was uneasy at it. "Nothing will happen to him," he said, " but I am ordered to inform the king that he will not return, and that the Council will put some one in his place. You can warn the king of this." I begged him to excuse me from doing so ; I added that the king desired to see him in regard to many things, of which the royal fam- ily was in the greatest need. Manuel, with difficulty, made up his mind to go into the room where His Majesty was ; he 122 MADAiME KLISABETU DE FUANCE. [chap. i. then lold him of tlie ileoision of the Council, in relation to M. Hue, ami warneil him lluit another person would he sent. " I thank you," replied the kmg, " hut 1 sluUl use the ser- vices of my son's valet de chamhre, and if the Council op- poses it, I shall serve myself. I am resolved on this." Manuel said he would speak of it to the Council, and retired. I asked him, as I showed him out, if the disturb- ances in Paris continued. He made me fear by his answers that the people would attack the Temple. " You are charged with a diliicult duty," he added. " I exhort you to courage." At one o'clock the king and his family expressed a wish to take their walk ; it was refused. During dinner the noise of drums and the shouts of the populace were heard. The royal family left the dinner table iu a state of anxiety, and again collected in the queen's room. I went down to dine with Tison and his wife, who were employed as servants in the Tower. We were hardly seated before a head at the end of a pike was presented at the window. Tison's wife screamed loudly ; the murderers thoilght it was the queen's voice, and we heard the frantic laughs of those barbarians. Thinking that Her Majesty was still at table, they had raised the victim's head so that it could not escape her sight ; it was that of the Prin- cesse de Lamballe. Though bloody, it was not disfigured ; her blond hair, still curling, floated around the pike. I ran at once to the king. Terror had so changed my face that the queen noticed it ; it was important to hide the cause from her ; I meant to warn the king and Madame Elisabeth ; but the two municipals were present. " Wliy do you not go to dinner ? " asked the queen. " Madame," I answered, " I do not feel well." At that moment a municipal entered the room and spoke mysteriously with his colleagues. The king asked if his family were in safety. "There is a .^-<«i^ ..^.^^^i^^^^y^'T^'^^' 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 123 rumour going," they replied, " that you and your family are no longer in the Tower ; the people want you to appear at the window, but we shall not allow it ; the people ought to show more confidence in their magistrates." The cries and shouts outside increased ; we heard, very distinctly, insults addressed to the queen. Another munici- pal came in, followed by four men deputed by the people to make sure that the king and his family were in the Tower. One of them, in the uniform of the National Guard, wearing two epaulets and carrying a large sabre, insisted that the pris- oners should show themselves at the window. The munici- pals opposed it. The man then said to the queen in the coarsest tone : " They want to prevent your seeing the Lamballe's head, which has been brought here to show you how the people avenge themselves on tyrants ; I advise you to appear." The queen fainted ; I ran to her support ; Ma- dame illisabeth helped me to place her in an arm-chair ; her children burst into tears and tried by their caresses to bring her to. The man did not go away ; the king said to him firml} : " We expect everything, monsieur; but you might have refrained from telling the queen of that dreadful thing." The man then went out with his comrades ; their object was accomplished. The queen, recovering her senses, wept with her children, and passed with the family into the room of Madame Tillisa- beth, where less was heard of the clamours of the populace. I remained a moment longer in the queen's room, and, look- ing out of the window through the blinds, I saw the head of Madame de Lamballe a second time ; the man who canied it had mounted a pile of rubbish, fallen from the houses they were demolishing to isolate the Tower ; another man beside him carried the bloody heart of the unfortunate princess. They wanted to force in the door of the Tower ; a municipal, 9 Mem. Vcr. 9 124 MADAME i:LlSAIJETlI DE FRANCE. [cuap. i. named Panjeon, harangued them, and I very distinctly heard him say : " The head of Antoinette does not belong to you ; the department has rights ; France confided the keeping of these great criminals to the city of Paris; it is for you to help us to keep them until national justice avenges the people." It was only after one hour's resistance that he succeeded in making them go away. On the evening of the same day one of the commissioners told me that the populace had attempted to enter with the deputation, and to carry into the tower the naked and bloody corpse of Madame de Lamballe, which they had dragged from the prison of La Force to the Temple; he said that the mu- nicipals, after struggling for some time with the mob, finally opposed them by tying a tri-colour ribbon across the prin- cipal entrance to the Tower ; that they had vainly requested the help of the Commune of Paris, of General Santerre, and of the National Assembly, to stop designs which were not concealed, and that for six hours it was uncertain whether the royal family would or would not be massacred. The truth is the factious were not yet all-powerful ; the leaders, though agi-eed as to the regicide, were not agreed as to the method of executing it, and perhaps the Assembly desired that other hands than its own should be the instrument of the conspiracy. A cncumstance sufficiently remarkable is that the municipal made me pay him forty sous which the tri-colour ribbon had cost him. By eight o'clock that evening all was quiet in the neigh- bourhood of the Tower, but the same tranquillity was very far from reigning in Paris, where the massacres continued for four or five days. I had an opportunity while undress- ing the king to tell him what I had seen and give him the details I had heard. He asked me which were the muni- cipals who had shown the greatest firmness in defending the 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 125 lives of his family. I told him of Daujeon, who had checked the impetuosity of the people, though he was far from being in favour of the king. That municipal did not retiu-n to the Tower until four months later, but the king remembered his conduct and thanked him then. The scenes of horror of which I have just spoken were followed by some tranquillity, so that the royal family con- tinued the uniform system of life which they had adopted on entering the Temple. That the reader may follow its details easily, I think I ought to place here a description of the small tower in which the king was then confined. It backed upon the large Tower, without any interior com- munication between the two, and it formed an oblong square flanked by two small, corner towers [tourelles]. In one of these small towers was a little staircase that started from the second floor and led up to a gallery along the eaves ; in the other were little cabinets which were alike on each floor of the tower. The building had four floors. The first was composed of an antechamber, a dining-room, and a cabinet made in one of the tourelles, in which was a library of some twelve to fifteen hundred volumes. The second floor was divided in about the same manner. The largest room was made the bed-chamber of the queen and the dauphin ; the second room, separated from the first by a small and dark antechamber, was the bedroom of Ma- dame Elisabeth and Madame Royale. It was necessary to cross this room to enter the cabinet made in the tour die, and that cabinet, which served as a privy to the entire main building, was common to the royal family, the municipal officers, and the soldiers. The king lived on the third floor, and slept in the large room. The cabinet made in the tourelle was used by him 120 MADAME Elisabeth de France. [cuap. i. as a reading-room. On one side was a kitchen, separated from the king's bedchamber by a small dark room, occupied at first by MM. de Chamilly and lluii and now sealed up. The fourth floor was closed and locked. On the ground-floor were kitchens of which no use was made. The king rose usually at six in the morning ; he shaved himself, and I arranged his hair and dressed him. He went at once into his reading-room. That room being very small the municipal guarding the king sat in the bedroom, the door being half-open in order that he might not lose sight of the person of the king. His Majesty prayed on his knees for five or six minutes, and then read till nine o'clock. Dur- ing that time, and after having done his room and prepared the table for breakfast, I went down to the queen. She never opened her door until I came, so as to prevent the municipal from entering her bedroom. I then dressed the young prince and arranged the queen's hair ; after which I went to perform the same service to ISIadame Elisabeth and Madame Royale. This moment of their toilet was one of those in which I could tell the queen and the princess what I heard and what I knew. A sign told them I had some- thing to say, and one of them would then talk to the muni- cipal officer to distract his attention. At nine o'clock the queen, her children and Madame iSlisabeth went up to the king's room to breakfast ; after having served them I did the bedrooms of the queen and the princesses ; Tison and his wife helped me only in that sort of work. It was not for service only that they had been placed where they were ; a more important role was confided to them, namely : to observe all that might escape the vigi- lance of the municipals, and also to denounce the municipals themselves. Crimes to be committed no doubt entered the plan of those who selected them, for the Tison woman, who 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 127 seemed then of a rather gentle nature and who trembled before her husband, afterwards revealed herself by an infa- mous denunciation of the queen, which was followed by a fit of insanity. Tison himself, formerly a clerk in the customs, was an old man, hard and malignant by nature, incapable of an emotion of pity, and destitute of all feelings of humanity. Beside those who were the virtuous of the earth the con- spirators had chosen to place those that were vilest. At ten o'clock the king came down with his family into the queen's room and passed the day there. He occupied himself with the education of his son, made him recite pas- sages from Corneille and Eacine, gave him lessons in geog- raphy, and taught him to colour maps. The precocious intelligence of the young prince responded perfectly to the tender care of the king. His memory was so good that on a map covered with a sheet of paper he could point out the departments, districts, towns, and the course of the rivers ; it was the new geography of France that the king was teaching him. The queen, on her side, was occupied with the educa- tion of her daughter, and these different lessons lasted till eleven o'clock. The rest of the morning she spent in sewing, knitting, and doing tapestry. At midday the three princesses went into Madame Elisabeth's room to change their morning gowns ; no municipal went with them. At one o'clock, if the weather was fine, the royal family were taken down into the garden ; four municipal officers and a captain of the National Guard accompanied them. As there were quantities of workmen about the Temple, employed in pulling down houses and building new walls, the royal family were allowed to walk only in the horse-chestnut alley. I was permitted to share these walks, during which I made the young prince play either at quoits, or football, or running, or other games of exercise. 128 MADAMK ]f:LlSABKTII I)E FKANCE. [cnxi-. i. At two o'clock they returned to the Tower, where I served the dinner ; and every day at the same hour Santerre, a brewer, general-commanding the National Guard of Paris, cAme to the Temple, accompanied by two aides-de-camp. He searched the different rooms. Sometimes the king spoke to him ; the queen never. After the meal, the royal family returned to the queen's room where Their Majesties usually played games at piquet or backgammon. It was during that time that I dined. At four o'clock the king took a short rest ; the princesses sat by him, each with a book in her hand ; the deepest si- lence reigned during that nap. What a spectacle ! a king pursued by hatred and calumny, fallen from a throne to a prison, yet sustained by his conscience and sleeping peace- fully the sleep of the just ! his wife, his sister, his children contemplating with respect those august features, the serenity of which seemed increased by troubles, so that even then there could be read upon them the peace he enjoys to-day ! No, that sight will never be effaced from my memory. When the king awoke, conversation was resumed. He made me sit beside him. I gave, under his eyes, writing- lessons to the yoimg prince ; and I copied out, under his selection, passages from the works of Montesquieu and other celebrated authors. After this lesson, I took the little prince into Madame Elisabeth's chamber, where I made him play ball or battledore and shuttlecock. At the close of the day the royal family sat round a table ; the queen read aloud books of history or other well-chosen works suitable to instruct and amuse her children ; some- times unexpected scenes corresponding to her own situation occurred and gave rise to painful thoughts. Madame Elisa- beth read also in turn, and the reading lasted till eight o'clock. I then served the supper of the young prince in 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 129 Madame Elisabeth's bedroom ; the royal family were present ; the king took pleasure in amusing his children by making them guess the answers to conundrums taken from a file of the " Mercure de France " which he had found in the library. After the dauphin's supper, I undressed him ; it was the queen who heard him say his prayers ; he said one especially for the Princesse de Lamballe ; and by another he asked God to protect the life of Mme. de Tourzel, his governess. If the municipals were very near, the little prince himself took the precaution to say these last two prayers in a low voice. I then made him go into the cabinet, and if I had anything to tell the queen, I seized that moment. I told her what the newspapers contained, for none were allowed to enter the Tower; but a street-crier, sent expressly, came every evening at seven o'clock and stood near the wall on the rotunda side within the Temple inclosure, where he cried, with several pauses, a summary of what was taking place in the National Assembly, the commune, and the armies. I stationed myself in the king's cabinet to listen ; and there, in the silence, it was easy to remember what I heard. At nine o'clock the king supped. The queen and Ma- dame Elisabeth took turns to remain with the dauphin during this meal ; I carried to them what they desired for supper ; that was another opportunity to speak to them with- out witnesses. After supper the king went up for a moment into the queen's room, gave her his hand in sign of adieu, also to his sister, and kissed his children ; then he went to his own room, retii-ed into his cabinet and read there till midnight. The queen and the princesses closed the doors of their rooms ; one of the municipals remained all night in the little room between their two chambers ; the other followed the king. loO MADAME AlISABETII DE FRANCE. [chap. i. I then placed my bed beside that of the king; but His Majesty waited, before going to bed, till the municipals were changed and the new one came up, in order to know which one it was, and if he was one the king did not know, he always told me to ask his name. The municipals were re- lieved at eleven in the morning, at five in the afternoon, and at midnight. The above manner of life lasted the whole time tliat the king was in the little tower, that is to say, until September 30. I now resume the course of events. September 4th Potion's secretary came to the Tower to remit to the king a sum of two thousand francs in assignats ; he exacted from the king a receipt. His Majesty requested him to pay M. Hue five hundred and twenty-six francs, which he had advanced in his service ; the secretary promised that he would. That sum of two thousand francs was all that was ever paid, although the Legislative Assembly voted five hun- dred thousand francs for the expenses of the king in the Tower of the Temple ; but this was before it perceived the real intentions of its leaders, or dared to share them. Two days later, Madame Elisabeth made me collect a number of little articles belonging to the Princesse de Lam- balle which she had left in the Tower when suddenly taken away from it. I made a package and addressed it, with a letter, to the princess's waiting-woman. I heard later that neither package nor letter reached her. At this period, the character of most of the municipals chosen to come to the Temple shows what manner of men had been used by the leaders for the revolution of August 10, and for the massacres of the 2d of September. A municipal named James, a teacher of the English language, chose, one day, to follow the king into his little reading-room, and sit beside him. The king told him in a 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 131 mild way that his colleagues always left him alone there ; that, the door remaining open, he could not escape his sight, and that the room was so small two persons could not re- main in it. James insisted in a harsh and vulgar way, and the king was forced to yield ; he gave up his reading for that day, and returned to his chamber, where the same municipal continued to torment him with the same tyran- nical surveillance. One day, when the king rose, he mistook the municipal on guard for the one of the night before, and he said with interest that he was sorry they had forgotten to relieve him; the municipal answered this impulse of kind feeling on the part of the king with insults. " I come here," he said, " to keep watch on your conduct, and not for you to take notice of mine." Then, coming close up to the king, his hat on his head, he added : " No one, and you less than any one, has the right to meddle with me." He was inso- lent for the rest of the day. I heard afterwards that his name was Meunier. Another commissioner, named Le Clerc, a doctor by profession, was in the queen's room while I was giving a writing lesson to the dauphin. He affected to interrupt our work, with a dissertation on the republican education that ought to be given to the young prince ; he wished to have the most revolutionary works substituted for the books the child read. A fourth was present when the queen was reading to her children a volume of the history of France, at the period when the Conn^table de Bourbon took arms against his country; he declared that the queen wished by that example to inspire her son with feelings of vengeance against France, and he made a formal denunciation to the Council. I warned the queen, who, after that, chose her 132 MADAME Elisabeth de fkance. [ciur. i. subjects in a way that prevented any one from calumniat- ing her intentions. A man named Simon, a shoemaker and a municipal ofhcer, was one of six commissioners charged with the duty of inspecting the works and expenditures of the Temple; but he was the only one who, under pretence of properly fulfilling his office, never quitted the Tower. This man affected the lowest insolence whenever he was in presence of the royal family; often he would say to me, close to the king, so that His Majesty might hear him : " Cl^ry, ask Capet if he wants anything, for I can't take the trouble to come up a second time." I was forced to answer, " He wants nothing." It was this Simon who, at a later period, was put in charge of the young Louis, and who, by a well-calculated barbarity, made that interesting child so wretched. There is reason to think that he was the tool of those who shortened the prince's life. To teach the young prince how to reckon, I made, by order of the queen, a multiplication-table. A municipal declared that she was showing her son how to talk in cipher, and they made her renounce the lessons in arithmetic. The same thing happened in regard to the tapestry at which the queen and the princesses worked when they were first imprisoned. Several chair-backs being finished, the queen directed me to have them sent to the Duchesse de S^rent. The municipals, from whom I asked permission, thought the designs represented hieroglyphics, destined to open a correspondence wdth the outside ; consequently they obtained a decree by which it was forbidden to allow any work done by the princesses, to leave the Tower. Some of the commissioners never spoke of the king and queen, the prince and the princesses, without adding the most insulting epithets to their names. A municipal, 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 133 named Turlot, said one day before me, " If the executioner does n't guillotine that s . . . family, I '11 do it myself." The king and his family, when going to walk, had to pass before a great many sentinels, some of whom, even at this time, were posted in the interior of the little tower. They presented arms to the municipals and ofificers of the National Guard, who accompanied the king, but when the king passed them, they grounded their muskets, or pointedly reversed them. One of these sentinels, posted inside the tower, wrote one day on the door of the king's chamber: " The guillotine is permanent, and is awaiting the tyrant, Louis XVI." The king read the words; I made a motion to efface them, but His Majesty opposed it. One of the two porters of the Tower, named Eocher, a horrible object, dressed as a Sapcur, with long moustaches, a black fur cap on his head, a large sabre and a belt from which hung a bunch of big keys, presented himself at the door whenever the king wished to go out; he would never open it till the king was close beside it, and then, under pretence of choosing the right key from his enor- mous bunch, which he rattled with a frightful noise, he kept the royal family waiting, and drew back the bolt with a crash. Then he would hurry down the stairs, and stand by the last door, a long pipe in his mouth, and as each member of the royal family passed him he would puff the smoke in their faces, especially those of the prin- cesses. Some of the National guards, who were amused by such insolence, would gather near him, and laugh loudly at each puff of smoke, permitting themselves to say the coarsest things ; some, to enjoy the spectacle more at their ease, would even bring chairs from the guard-room, and, sitting down, obstructed the passage, already very narrow. 134 MADAME 1^:LISABETII DE FRANCE. [chap. i. During the promenade of the family the artillery-men assembled to dance and sing songs, — always revolutionary, and sometimes obscene. A\'hen the royal family returned to the Tower they were forced to endure the same insults ; often the walls were covered with most indecent apostrophes, written in such large letters that they could not escape their eye, such as : " Madame Veto shall dance ; " " We will put the fat pig on diet ; " " Down with the Cordon rouge ; " " Strangle the cubs ; " etc, Once they drew a gibbet on which dangled a figure, and beneath it was written : " Louis taking an air bath." At another time it was a guillotine with these words : " Louis spitting into the basket." Thus the little walk in the garden granted to the royal family became a torture. The king and queen might have escaped it by remaining in the Tower, but their children, the objects of their tenderness, needed the air ; it was for them that Their Majesties endured daily without complaint these innumerable outrages. Nevertheless, some signs of fidelity or pity came at times to soften the horror of these persecutions, and were all the more remarked because so rare. A sentinel mounted guard one day at the queen's door ; he belonged to the faubourgs, and was clean in his dress, which was that of a peasant. I was alone in the first room read- ing. He looked at me attentively and seemed much moved. I rose and passed before him. He presented arms and said in a trembling voice, " You caimot go out." " WTiy not ? " " My orders are to keep you within sight." " You mistake me," I said. " WTiat ! monsieur, are you not the king ? " " Then you do not know him ? " "I have never seen him, and I would like to see him away from here." " Speak low;" I said, "1 shall enter that room and leave the door 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 135 half open ; look in and you will see the king ; he is sitting by the window with a book in his hand." I told the queen of the sentry's desire, and the king, whom she informed, had the kindness to go from one room to the other and walk before him. I then went back to the sentry. " Ah ! mon- sieur," he said, " how good the king is ! how he loves his children ! " He was so moved that he could hardly speak. " No," he continued, striking his chest, " I cannot believe he has done us all that harm." I feared that his extreme agita- tion would compromise him, and I left him. Another sentry, posted at the end of the alley where the royal family took their walk, still very young and with an interesting face, expressed by his looks the desire to give us some information. Madame Elisabeth, on the second turn of their walk, went near him to see if he would speak to her. Whether from fear or respect he did not dare to do so ; but tears fell from his eyes, and he made a sign to indicate that he had laid a paper near him in a rubbish heap. I began to look for it, under pretence of finding quoits for the dauphin. But the municipal officers stopped me, and for- bade me to go near the sentinels in future. I have never known the intentions of that young man. This hour for their walk brought another kind of spectacle to the royal family which often rent their hearts. A num- ber of faithful subjects daily profited by that brief hour to see their king and queen by placing themselves at the windows of houses which look into the garden of the Temple. It was impossible to be mistaken as to their sentiments and their prayers. Once I was sure I recognized the Marquise de Tourzel. I judged especially by the extreme attention with which she watched the movements of the little prince when he left his parents' side. I said this to Madame T5lisa- beth, who believed her a victim of September 2d. The tears 13 1) MADAME Elisabeth de France. [cn>p. i. came into her eyes on hearing the name. " Oh ! " she said, " can she be living still ! " The next day I found means to get information. The ^lartjuise de Tourzel was living on one of her estates. I also learned that the Princesse de Tarente and the Marquise de la Roche- Ay mon, who were at the Tuileries on the 10th of August, had escaped the massacre. The safety of these persons, whose devotion was manifested on so many occa- sions, gave some moments of consolation to the royal family ; but they heard soon after the awful news that the prisoners of the upper court of Orleans had all been massacred at Ver- sailles on the 9 th. September 29, at nine in the evening, a man named Lubin, a municipal, arrived, surrounded by gendarmes on horseback and a numerous populace, to make a proclamation in front of the Tower. The trumpets somided, and great silence suc- ceeded. Lubin had the voice of Stentor. The royal family could hear distinctly the proclamation of the abolition of royalty, and the establishment of a republic. Hubert, so well-known under the name of P^re Duchesne, and Des- tournelles, afterwards minister of public taxation, happened to be on guard that day over the royal family ; they were seated at the moment near the door, and they stared at the king, smiling treacherously. The king noticed them ; he had a book in his hand and continued to read ; no change ap- peared upon his face. The queen showed equal firmness ; not a word, not a motion that could add to the enjoyment of those two men. The proclamation ended, the trumpets sounded again. I went to the window; instantly all eyes turned to me ; they took me for Louis XVI. ; I was loaded with insults. The gendarmes made threatening motions towards me with their sabres, and I was obliged to retire in order to stop the tumult. 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 137 The same evening I informed the king that his son had need of curtains and covering for his bed, as the cold was beginning to be felt. The king told me to write the request and he would sign it. I used the same expressions I had hitherto employed: "The king requests for his son, etc." " You are very daring," said Destournelles, " to use a title abolished by the wdl of the people, as you have just heard." I replied that I had heard a proclamation, but I did not know its object. " It is," he said, " the abolition of royalty, and you can tell monsieur (pointing to the king) to cease to take a title the people no longer recognize." " I cannot," I said to him, " change this note, because it is already signed; the king would ask me the reason, and it is not for me to tell it to him." " You can do as you choose," he re- plied, " but I shall not certify your request." The next day Madame Elisabeth ordered me to write in future for such purposes as follows : " It is necessary for the service of Louis XVI. — or Marie-Antoinette — or Louis-Charles — or Marie-Thdrfese — or Marie-filisabeth." Up to that time I had been forced to repeat these requests often. The small amount of linen the king and queen had was lent to them by persons of the Court during the time they were at the Feuillants. They could get none from the chateau of the Tuileries, where, on the 10th of August, every- thing had been pillaged. The royal family lacked clothing of every kind, and the princesses mended what they had daily. Often Madame Elisabeth was obliged to wait until the king went to bed, in order to darn his clothes. I ob- tained at last, after many requests, that a small amount of new linen should be made for tliem. Unfortunately, the work-people marked it with crowned letters, and the muni- cipals insisted that the princesses should pick out the crowns ; they were forced to obey. 13S MADAME iiLISABKTU DE FRANCE. tcuAP. ii. CHAPTER II. Continuation of tlioir Life and Treatment. The King separated from his Family, and summoned for Trial before the Convention. On the 26Lh of September, I learned from a municipal that it was proposed to separate the king from his family, that an apartment was being prepared for him in the great Tower, and that it was then nearly ready. It was not without pre- caution that I announced to the king this new tyranny ; I showed him how much it cost me to distress him. " You could not give me a greater proof of attachment," said His Majesty. " I exact of your zeal that you will hide nothing from me ; I expect everything ; try to learn the day of this cruel separation and inform me of it." On the 29 th of September, at ten o'clock in the morning, five or six municipals entered the queen's room where the royal family was assembled. One of them, named Char- bonnier, read to the king a decree of the council of the Commune which ordered " the removal of paper, pens, ink, pencils, and written papers, whether on the persons of the prisoners or in their rooms ; also from the valet de chamhre, and all other persons on service in the Tower." Charbonnier added : " If you have need of anything, Clery will come down and write your requests on a register which will be kept in the council-chamber." The king and his family, without making the slightest observation, searched their persons and gave up their papers, pencils, pocket-cases, etc. The commissioners then searched the rooms, the closets, and carried off the articles designated x^ctne^^^^c^te^e'f'yG^^'^n^ <^^e^?9^^/ey 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 13d in the decree. I learned then, from a member of the depu- tation, that the king was to be transferred that very evening to the great Tower. I found means to inform the king by- means of Madame Elisabeth. True enough, after supper, as the king was leaving the queen's room to go up to his own, a municipal told him to wait, as the council had something to communicate to him. A quarter of an hour later, the six municipals who, in the morning, had carried away the papers, etc., entered, and read to the king a second decree of the Commune, which ordered his removal to the great Tower. Though already informed of that event, the king was greatly affected on being notified of it ; his distressed family tried to read in the eyes of the commissioners to what length their projects went. The king, in bidding them adieu, left them in the utmost alarm and uncertainty, and this separation, forecasting as it did so many other misfortunes, was one of the most cruel moments Their Majesties had yet passed in the Temple. I followed the king to his new prison. The apartment of the king in the great Tower was not ready ; there was only one bed and no other furniture in it. The painters and paperers were still at work, which caused so intolerable a smeU that I feared His Majesty would be made ill by it. They intended to give me a room very far from that of the king, but I insisted vehemently on being nearer to him. I passed the first night in a chair beside His Majesty ; the next day the king, with great difficulty, ob- tained for me a room adjoining his own. After His Majesty had risen, I wished to go into the small tower to dress the young prince. The municipals refused. One of them, named V^ron, said : " You are to have no com- munication in future with the other prisoners, nor your mas- ter either ; he is never to see his children again." 10 Mem. Vor. 9 140 MADAM !•: ^:LISABET1I 1)K FUANCK. [c.iAr. II. At nine (»Vlook the king asked to be taken to lils family. " Wo have no orders for that," rrplii'd the (.•oniini.ssioners. His Majesty made a few observations, to which they did not reply. Half an hour later, two munioijials entered, followed by a serving-man who brought the king a i)iece of bread and a lx)ttle of lemonade iov his breakfast. The king expressed his desire to dine with his family ; they replied that they would inquire the orders of the Commune. " But," said the king, "my valet de chambre can surely go down; he has the care of my son, and nothing prevents him from continu- ing that ser\dce." " That does not depend on us," said the commissioners, and they retired. I was then in a corner of the room, overcome with distress and tilled wiih heart-rending fears for that august family. On one side, I saw the suffering of my master ; on the other, I thought of the young prince, abandoned perhaps to strange hands. The municipals had already talked of separating him from his parents, and what fresh suffering that would cause to the queen ! I was full of these distressing ideas when the king came to me holding in his hand the bread they had brought him ; he offered me half, saying : " They seem to have forgotten your breakfast; take this, the rest is enough for me." I refused, he insisted. I could not restrain my tears; the knig saw them, and his own flowed. At ten o'clock other municipals brought the workmen to continue their work in the apartment. One of them said to the king that he had just been present at the breakfast of his famUy, and they were all in good health. " I thank you," said the king, " and I beg you to give them news of me ; tell them ihat I am well. Can I not," he continued, "have a few books which I left in the queen's room ? You would do 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 141 me a great pleasure if you would send them to me, for I have nothing to read here." His Majesty named the books he wanted. The municipal consented to the king's request ; but, not knowing how to read, he proposed that I should go with him to get the books. I congratulated myself on the man's ignorance, and I blessed Providence for giving us that moment of consolation. The king charged me with certain orders, his eyes told me the rest. I found the queen in her room, with her children and Madame Elisabeth. They were weeping, and their grief increased on seeing me. They asked a thousand questions about the king, to which I could only answer with reserve. The queen, addressing the municipals who accompanied me, eagerly urged her request to be with the king at least a few moments a day, and during meals. No longer complaints and tears, it was cries and sobs of grief. " Well, they shall dine together to-day at least," said a municipal officer, " but as our conduct is subordinate to the decrees of the Commune we must do to-morrow what they prescribe." His colleagues consented. At the mere idea of being again with the king, a senti- ment that was almost joy came to soothe the afilicted family. The queen holding her children in her arms, and Madame Elisabeth, raising her eyes to heaven and thankmg God for the unexpected mercy, presented a very touching sight. Some of the municipals could not restrain their tears (the only ones I ever saw them shed in that dreadful place). One of them, the shoemaker Simon, said aloud : " I believe those b ... of women will make me cry." Then turning to the queen he added : " When you murdered the people on the 10th of August you did not cry." — " The people are greatly deceived about our sentiments," answered the queen. I then took the books the king asked for and carried them \ ri MAPAMK f;i,ISAIU;TH DR FKANCI-:. [< lur. ii. to him; tlir luuuicipalswent willi nic ti> iiifnini Ilis Majesty that ho inii^ht sec his family. I saiil (<• tlii'se commissictners that I supitDsed I couhl without lioultt contiiuie to serve tlie young prince and [\\o princesses ; they consented. T thus had an opi>oi-tunity to inform (lie MADAM i; feLlSABl.TH I>K KKANCK. Iciur. ii. and 1 wa^ confrontod with the sentinel, who was sentenced to twonty-foar hours imj>risonnH'nt. 1 thought the atl'air ended when, t)n the 26th of October, while the royal family were dining, a municipal entered, fol- lowed by six gendarmes, sabre in hand, a clerk, and a sherilT, IxHh in uniform. 1 was in terror, thinking they had come to seize the king. The royal family rose ; the king asked what was wanted of him ; but the municipal, without replying to him, called me into the next room ; the gendarmes followed, and the clerk having read to me a warrant of arrest they seized me to take me before the Tribunal. I asked permis- sion to inform the king, and was told that from that moment I should not be allowed to speak to him. " Take nothing but a shirt," added the municipal, " it will not be long." I believed I understood him and took nothing but my hat. I passed beside the king and his family who were standing and seemed in consternation at the manner in which I was carried off. The populace collected round the Temple as- sailed me with insults and demanded my head. An officer of the National Guard said it was necessary to preserve my life until I had revealed secrets of which I was the sole de- positary. The same vociferations continued the whole way. As soon as I reached the Palais-de-Justice I was put in solitary confinement. There I remained six hours, vainly endeavouring to imagine what could be the motives for my arrest. I could only remember that on the morning of the 10 th of August, during the attack on the chateau of the Tuileries, a few persons who were caught there and were try- ing to get away, asked me to hide in a bureau that belonged to me several precious articles, and even papers by which they might be recognized. I thought that perhaps those papers had been seized and might be my ruin. At eight o'clock I was taken before judges, who were un- 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 147 known to me. This was a revolutionary tribunal, established August 10, to make a selection among those who had escaped the fury of the people on that occassion and put them to death. What was my astonishment when I saw on the prisoner's bench the same young man who was suspected of giving me a letter three weeks earlier, and when I recog- nized in my accuser the municipal officer who had de- nounced me to the council of the Temple. They questioned me, and witnesses were heard. The municipal renewed his accusation ; I retorted that he was not worthy to be a mag- istrate of the people, because, if he had heard the rustle of a paper and saw the man give me a letter he ought to have had me searched at once, instead of waiting eighteen hours to de- nounce me to the council of the Temple. After the debate, the jury voted, and on their declaration I was acquitted. The president ordered four of the municipals present to take me back to the Temple ; it was then midnight. I arrived at the moment when the king was going to bed, and I was allowed to inform him of my return. The royal family had taken the keenest interest in my fate, and thought I was already condemned. It was at this time that the queen came to live in the apartment prepared for her in the great Tower ; but that day so earnestly desired, and which seemed to promise TJieir Majesties some consolation, was marked, on the part of the municipal officers, with a fresh proof of animosity against the queen. Since her arrival at the Temple they saw her devot- ing her existence to the care of her son and finding some relief to her troubles in his affection and his caresses ; they now separated the two without warning her; her distress was extreme. The young prince being placed with his father, I had sole charge of his service. With what tenderness the queen begged me to watch incessantly over his life. 143 MAOAMi: KLISAIvKril nr. KRANCE. [niAr. II. The events i)f which I sliall henceforth have to speak hav- ing hapjvneil in a din'eront li»c;ility from that I have already described, I think I ought to make known the new habitatitni of Their Majesties. The great Tower, about one hundred and fifty feet high, had four storeys, all vaulted and supported up the middle from base to roof by a huge shaft [what was called the little tower flanked it, but without communication, on one side]. The interior is about thirty feet square. The second and third floors allotted to the king and queen, being, like the other floors, of one room each, were divided by board partitions into four rooms. The ground-floor was used by the municipals, the floor above was the guardroom, the next was that of the king. The first room of his floor (divided as above stated) was an antechamber from which three doors led into the other three rooms. Opposite to the entrance was the king's bedroom, in which a bed was now placed for the dauphin ; my room was on the left, so was the dining-room, which was separated from the antechamber by a glass partition. In the king's room was a chimney; a great stove in the antechamber heated the other rooms. Each of these rooms was lighted by a window ; but thick iron bars and shutters on the outside pre- vented the air from circulating freely. The embrasures of these windows were nine feet deep. The floors of the great tower communicated by a staircase placed in one of the tuurellcs at the corner of it. This staircase went up to the battlements, and wickets were placed upon it at iiiter\'als, to the number of seven. From this staircase each floor was entered through two doors, one of oak, very thick and studded with nails, the other of iron. The other tourelle, opening into the king's chamber, was made into a reading-room ; on the floor above, it was turned 1792] THE CAPTIVITY" OF LOUIS XVI. 149 into a privy, and above that the firewood was stored in it and during the day the flock beds of the municipals who guarded the king at night were placed there. The four rooms on the king's floor had canvas ceilings ; the partitions were covered with paper ; that of the ante- chamber represented the interior of a prison, and on one of the panels hung, in very large type, " The Declaration of the Eights of Man " framed in a border of the three colours. A washstand, a small bureau, four covered chairs, one arm-chair, four straw chairs, a mirror on the fireplace, and a bed of green damask composed the furniture ; these articles, together with those used in the other chambers were taken from the palace of the Temple. The king's bed was the one used by the captain of the guards of the Comte d 'Artois. The Due d'Angouleme, in his capacity of grand-prior of France, was proprietor of the palace of the Temple. The Comte d 'Artois had furnished it and made it his residence whenever he came to Paris. The Tower, separated from the palace by about two hundred feet and standing in the middle of the garden, was the storehouse of the archives of the Knights of Malta. The queen lodged on the third floor, above the king, the distribution of the rooms being nearly the same as that of the king's apartment. The bedroom of the queen and Madame Eoyale was over that of the king and dauphin ; Madame Elisa- beth occupied the room above mine ; the municipal sat in the antechamber all day and slept there. Tison and his wife lodged in the room above the dining-room of the king's apartment. The upper (fourth) floor was unoccupied ; a gallery ran round the inside of the battlements and was sometimes used as a promenade ; but blinds had been placed between the bat- tlements to prevent the royal family from seeing and being seen. ir.O MAPAMK f'-LlSAIlF/ni DK FKANCK. [.iiai-. u. AfUT llu^ roui\ioii of 'I'luMr Majesties in the great Tower ihore was liillo change in the hours of meals, readings, walks, or in the time given by the king and queen to the education of their children. After the king rose, he read the ser- vice of iho Knights of the Saint-Esprit, and as they had refused to allow mass to be said m the Temple, even on feast- days, he ordered me to buy for him the breviary that was used by the diocese of Paris. Louis XVI. was truly religious, but his pure and enlightened religion never caused him to neglect his other duties. Books of travel, the works of Mon- tesquieu, those of the Comte de Buffon, " The Spectacle of Nature " by Pluche, Hume's History of England, the Imitation of Jesus Christ in Latin, Tasso in Italian, the drama of our different schools, were his habitual reading from the time he entered the Temple. He always gave four hours a day to Latin authors. Madame Elisabeth and the queen desiring to have the same books of devotion as those of the king, His Majesty ordered me to obtain permission to buy them. How often have I seen Madame Elisabeth on her knees at her bedside praying fervently ! At nine o'clock they came to fetch the king and his son to breakfast in the queen's room ; I accompanied them. I then did the hair of the three princesses, and, by order of the queen, I showed Madame Eoyale how to dress hair. Dur- ing this time the king played chess or dominoes with the queen or with ^ladame Elisabeth. After dinner the young prince and his sister played in the antechamber at battledore and shuttlecock, at Siam, or other games. Madame Elisabeth was always present, sitting near a table, with a book in her hand. I remained in the room, sometimes reading ; and I then sat down, to obey the orders of the princess. This dispersal of the royal family 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 151 often made the municipals very uneasy ; unwilling to leave the king and queen alone, they were still more unwilling to separate from one another, so much did each distrust his fellow. This was the moment that Madame Elisabeth snatched to ask me questions or give me orders. I listened to her and answered without turning my eyes from the book which I held in my hand, so as not to be detected by the muni- cipals. The dauphin and Madame Eoyale, in collusion with their aunt, facilitated these conversations by their noisy games, and often warned her by certain signs of the entrance of the municipals into the room. I was distrustful above all of Tison, suspected by the Commissioners themselves, whom he had more than once denounced ; it was in vain that the king and queen treated him kindly ; nothing could conquer his natural malignity. In the evening, at bed-time, the municipals placed their beds in the antechamber so as to barricade the room in which His Majesty slept. They then locked the door leading from my room into that of the king and took away the key. I was obliged therefore to pass through the antechamber whenever His Majesty called me during the night, bear the ill-humour of the commissioners, and wait till one of them chose to get up and let me pass. On the 7th of October, at six in the evening, I was made to go down to the council-chamber, where I found some twenty of the municipals assembled, presided over by Manuel, who, from being a prosecutor for the Commune of Paris had risen to be a member of the National Convention. His pres- ence surprised me and made me anxious. They ordered me to take from the king, that very evening, tlie orders with which he was still decorated, such as those of Saint-Louis and the Golden Fleece ; His Majesty no longer wore that of the Holy-Spirit, which had been suppressed by the first Assembly. 1;"'J MADAMK flLlSAlIKTlI DK FUANCK. [iii,vi-. ii. I roprosontod that T could not olu\v ; that it was not my place tt) make known to the king the (Iccri'es of the council. 1 made this answer in order to gain time to warn His Ma- jesty, anil I then saw by the embarrassment of the municipals that they were acting this time, at least, without being autho- rized by any decree, either of the Conmiune or the Conven- tion. The commissioners refused at first to go up to the king ; but Manuel induced them to do so by offering to accompany them. The knig was seated, reading ; Manuel addressed him, and the conversation that ensued was as remarkable for the indecent familiarity of Manuel as for the calmness and moderation of the king. "How are you?" asked Manuel; "have you all that ift necessary ? " — " I am content with what I have," replied His Majesty. — "You are informed no doubt of the victories of our armies, of the taking of Spue, and of Nice, and the con- quest of Savoie 1" — "I heard them mentioned a few days ago by one of those messieurs, who was reading an evening journal " — • " A\Tiat ! do not you see the newspapers which are now so interesting ? " — "I receive none." — " Messieurs" said Manuel, addressing the municipals "give all the newspapers to monsieur (pointing to the king) ; it is well that he should be informed of our successes." Then, addressing His Ma- jesty again, " Democratic principles are propagating them- selves ; you know, of course, that the people have abolished royalty and adopted a republican government ? " — "I have heard it said, and I hope that Frenchmen will liud the hap- piness that I always wished to give them." — " Do you also know that the National Assembly has suppressed all orders of knighthood ? They ought to have told you to take off those decorations. Eelegated to the class, of other citizens you must be treated in the same manner as they. As for the rest, ask for what is necessary and they will hasten to 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 153 procure it." — "I thank you," said the king, " I have need of nothing ; " and he resumed his reading. Manuel had hoped to discover regrets or provoke impatience ; he found a great resignation and an unalterable serenity. The deputation retired ; one of the municipals told me to follow it to the council-room, where I was again ordered to remove from the king his decorations. Manuel added : " You wUl do well to send to the Convention the crosses and ribbons. I ought to warn you," he continued, " that the im- prisonment of Louis XVI., may last long, and if your inten- tion is not to remain here, you had better say so now. It is intended, in order to make the surveillance easier, to lessen the number of persons employed in the Tower. If you re- main with the cidevant king you will be absolutely alone, and your work will become much heavier. Wood and water for one week will be brought to you ; but you will have to clean the apartment and do all the other work." I replied that being determined not to leave the kiag I would submit to everything. They then took me back to the apartment of His Majesty, who said to me: "You heard what was said ; you will take my decorations off my coats this evening." The next day, when dressing the king, I told him I had locked up the crosses and the cordons, though Manuel had told me it was proper to send them to the Convention, " You did right," said His Majesty. The tale has been spread that Manuel came to the Temple in the month of September to request His Majesty to write to the King of Prussia at the time of his entrance into Champagne. I can assure every one that Manuel apjjeared in the Temple only twice during the time tliat I was there, on the 3d of September and the 7th of October ; that each time he was accompanied by a large number of municipals, and that he never spoke to the king in private. ir.l MAPAMi: fcLISAHKTII DK FRANCE. [( lur. n. On ilu' Oih of Oct<»ber, ihoy brouplit to the king the journal of tho doliates in tlio Convention; hut a few days later, a niunieii'a!, named Michel, a jierfuiner, obtained an onler whieli again forbade the entrance of all public prints to the Tower; he called me into the council-chamber and asked me by whose order journals were sent to my address, li was true that, without being myself infornu'd how or why, four newspapers were daily brought to the Tower, bearing this printed address : "To the valet de chainbre of Louis XVI., in the Tower of the Tem])le." I have always been ignorant, and still am, of the name of the person who paid the subscription. Michel wanted to force me to point it out to him, and he made me write to editors and publishers and get an exjilanation from them ; but their answers, if they made any, were not communicated to me. This rule of not permitting newspapers to enter the Tower had exceptions, however, when they gave an opportunity for fresh outrage. If they contained insulting remarks about the king or queen, atrocious threats, infamous cal- umnies, certain of the municipals had the deliberate wick- edness to leave them on the mantel or the waslistand in the king's room, in order that they might fall into his hands. Once he read in one of those sheets the speech of an artillery-man who demanded " the head of the tyrant, Louis XVI., that he might load his cannon with it and send it to the enemy." Another paper, speaking of Madame Elisabeth and seeking to destroy the admiration which her devotion to the king and queen inspired in the public mind, tried to destroy her virtue by the most absurd calumnies. A third said they ought to strangle the two little wolflings in the Tower, meaning thereby the dauphin and Madame Eoyale. The king was not affected by such articles, except on 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 155 account of the people. " The French," he said, " are most unfortunate in letting themselves be thus deceived." I took care to abstract those journals if I chanced to be the first to see them ; but they were often laid there when my duties took me out of his room, and there were very few of these articles, written for the purpose of outraging the royal family, either to provoke to regicide or to prepare the people to let it be committed, which were not read by the king. Those who know the insolent writings published in those days can alone form an idea of this intolerable form of torture. The influence of those sanguinary writings could be seen in the conduct of most of the municipal officers, who, until then, had not shown themselves so harsh or so malignant. One day, after dinner, I wrote a memorial of expenditures in the council-chamber and locked it up in a desk of which they had given me the key. I had hardly left the room before Marino, a mimicipal officer, said to his colleagues (though he was not on duty) that the desk must be opened and examined to prove whether or not I was in correspond- ence with the enemies of the people. " I know him well," he added, " and I know that he receives letters for the king." Then accusing his colleagues of connivance, he loaded them with insults, threatened to denounce them as accomplices, and went off to execute that purpose. The others immediately drew up a proch-verhal of all the papers contained in my desk and sent it to the Commune before whom Marino had already made his denunciation. This same man declared, another day, that a back-gam- mon-board, which I had had mended with the consent of his colleagues, contained a correspondence ; he took it en- tirely apart and finding nothing he had it glued together again in his presence. 11 '\lom. Ver. 1) ir)0 MADA.Mi: I'.LISAnKTII DK FKANCE. (chap. h. One Thursday, my wife and her friend having come to the Temple as usual, I talked with them in the council- chamber ; the royal family, who were walking iu the garden, saw us, and the queen and Madame Elisabeth gave us a little nod. That motion, one of simple interest, was noticed by Marino ; nothing more was needed to make him arrest my wife and her friend the moment they left the council- chamber. They were questioned separately ; they asked my wife who the lady was who accompanied her. " My sister," she replied. The other, being asked the same ques- tion, said she was her cousin. This contradiction served as the matter of a long j^focts-verbal and the gravest sus- picions, — Marino declaring that the lady was a page of the queen disguised. At last, after three hours of the most painful and insulting examination, tliey were set at liberty. They were allowed to return to the Temple, but we re- doubled our prudence and precautions. I often managed, in our short interviews, to give them notes which Madame Elisabeth had contrived to secrete from the searches of the municipals; these notes usually related to information de- sired by Their Majesties. Luckily, I had not given any on that occasion ; had one of those notes been found upon them we should all three have run the greatest danger. Other municipals made themselves remarkable by ridicu- lous actions. One broke up all the macaroons to see if they contained writings ; another, for the same purpose, ordered the peaches cut in two before him, and their stones cracked. A third forced me one day to drink some essence of soap with which the king shaved himself, affecting to fear there was poison in it. After each meal Madame Elisabeth used to give me a little knife with a gold blade to clean ; often the commissioners would snatch it from my hands to see if a note had been slipj)ed into the sheath. 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 157 Madame Elisabeth ordered me one day to send back to the Duchesse de Sdrent a book of devotions ; the municipals cut off the margins of every page, fearing she had written something on them with invisible ink. One of them forbade me one day to go up into the queen's room to do her hair. Her Majesty was forced to come down into the king's room, and bring with her all that was required for her toilet. Another wanted to follow her when, according to her cus- tom, she went into Madame Elisabeth's room to change her morning dress. I represented to him the indecency of that proceeding. He insisted ; Her Majesty then left the room and renounced dressing herself. W^ien I received the linen from the wash, the municipals made me unfold every piece and examine it in broad day- light. The washerwoman's book and all other papers were held to the fire to see if there was secret writing on them. The linen the king and the princesses took off was subjected to the same examination. Some municipals, however, did not take part in the harsh- ness of their colleagues ; but most of these, becoming sus- pected by the Committee of Public Safety, died victims of their humanity ; those who still live have languished long in prison. A young man named Toulan, whom I thought, from his talk, to be one of the worst enemies of the royal family, came one day close to me and said, with mystery, " I cannot speak to the queen to-day on account of my comrades ; tell her that the commission she gave me is done, and that in a few days I shall be on duty, and then I will bring her the answer." Astonished to hear him speak thus, and fearing that he was laying a trap, I replied, " Monsieur, you are mis- taken in addressing yourself to ine for such commissions." ir>S MAPAMK ftLlSAUKTlI DK KKANCK. [chap. m. • Nn. 1 am not mistaken," lie ivi»lieil, grasping my liaml as he left nie. 1 related the eonversation to the ([ueen. " Yuu ean trust Toulan," she said. This young man was afterwards iuiplieated in the queen's trial, with nine other municipal ofticers accused of wishing to favour the escape of the (lueeu from the Temi>le. Toulan perished in the last executions. Their Majesties, shut up in the Tower for three months, had so far seen none but the municipal officers, when, on the 1st of November, a deputation from the National Conven- tion was announced to them. It was composed of Drouet, post-master at Varennes, Chabot, an ex-capuchin, Dubois- Cranet5, iJuprat, and two others whose names I forget. This deputation asked the king how he was treated and whether they gave him all necessary things. " I complain of noth- ing," answered His Majesty. " I merely request that the commissioners will remit to my valet de chambre, or deposit with the council, the sum of two thousand francs for small current expenses ; also, that we may receive linen and other clothing of which we are greatly in need." The deputies promised all this, but nothing was sent. Some days later the king had quite a considerable swelling of his face ; I asked urgently that his dentist, M. Dubois, might be sent for. They deliberated three days, and then refused the request. Fever set in, and then, at last, they permitted His Majesty to consult his head physician, M. le Monnier. It would be difficult to picture the distress of that respectable old man when he saw his master. The queen and her children almost never left the king during the day ; they nursed him with me, and often helped me in making his bed. I passed the nights alone beside him. M. le Monnier came twice a day, accompanied by a large number of municipals. His person was searched, and he was not allowed to speak except in a loud voice. One day 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 159 when the king had taken medicine, M. le Monnier asked to he allowed to remain a few hours. As he remained stand- ing, — the municipals being seated with their hats on their heads, — the king asked him to take a seat ; he refused, out of respect, and the commissioners murmured loudly. The king's illness lasted ten days. A few days later the young prince, who slept in His Majesty's room, the munici- pals refusing to transfer him to that of the queen, had fever. The queen felt all the more anxiety because she could not obtain permission, though she urged it eagerly, to stay during the night with her son. She gave him the most tender care during the hours she was allowed to be with him. The same illness was communicated to the queen, to Madame Eoyale, and to Madame Elisabeth. M. le Monnier obtained permission to continue his visits. I fell ill in my turn. The room I occupied was damp and without a chimney ; the shutter of the window intercepted what little air there was. I was attacked by rheumatic fever with severe pains in the side which forced me to keep my bed. The first day I rose to dress the king, but His Majesty, seeing my state, refused my care, ordered me to go to bed, and himself dressed his son. During that first day tlie dauphin hardly left me ; that august child gave me drink ; in the evening, the king took advantage of a moment when he seemed to be less watched, to enter my room ; he gave me a glass of some drink, and said, with a kindness that made me slied tears : " T sliould like to take care of you myself, but you know how we are watched ; take courage ; to-morrow you shall see my doctor." At supper-time, the royal family came into my room and Madame Elisabeth gave me, without the municipals observ- ing it, a bottle containing syrup of squills ; the princess, although she had a heavy cold, deprived herself of that 100 MADAMK Kl.lSAnKTII DK FRANCE. |( hat. ii. renioily for iiic 1 wanted to refuse it, luit she insisted. After supixT, the queen undressed tlie dau]>hin and put liini to l)ed ; and Madame Klisahelh rolled the kinf];'s hair. The next morning M. le Monnier ordered nie to be bled ; but the eonsent of the Conmume had to be obtained to the enlranee of a surgeon. Tliey talked of transferring me to the palace of the Temple. Fearing that I should never get back into the Tower if I once went out of it, 1 pretended to feel much better. That evening new nnuiicipals arrived and there was no further question of transferring me. Turg}- asked to pass the night with me. The request was granted, also to his two comrades who took turns in sitting up with me. I was six days in bed, and each day the royal family came to see me; IMadame Elisabeth often brought me things she used for herself. So much kindness restored a portion of my strength, for instead of the feeling of my sufferings, I had tliat of gratitude and admiration. Who would not have been touched to see that august family sus- pend, as it were, the thought of its great misfortunes, to busy itself with those of its servant? I ought not to forget here a trait of the dauphin which proves the goodness of his heart and how much he profited by the examples of virtue he had always before his eyes. One night, after putting him to bed, I retired to make way for the queen and the princesses, who always came to kiss him for good-night in his bed. Madame Elisabeth, with whom the close watchfulness of the municipals had that day prevented me from speaking, took advantage of that moment to give him a little box of ipecacuanha tablets, telling him to give them to me when I returned. The princesses went up to their rooms, the king jjassed into his cabinet, and I went to supper. I returned about eleven o'clock to prepare the king's bed ; I was alone ; the little prince called me in a low 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 161 voice. Much surprised at finding him awake and fearing he was ill, I went to him. " My aunt gave me this little box for you," he said, " and 1 would not go to sleep without giving it to you ; it was high time you came, for my eyes have shut up several times." Mine filled with tears ; he saw them and kissed me, and in two minutes more he was sound asleep. To this sensibility the young prince added many graces and the lovability of his age. Often by his naivete, the gaiety of his nature, and his little rogueries he made his parents forget for a moment their cruel situation. But he felt it himself; although so young, he knew he was in a prison and watched by enemies. His behaviour and his talk acquired that reserve which instinct, in presence of a danger inspires perhaps at any age. Never did I hear him mention the Tuileries, or Versailles, or any subject that might remind the queen or the king of painful memories. When he saw some municipal kinder than his colleagues on guard, he would run to his mother and say with an expres- sion of great satisfaction : " Mamma, it is Monsieur Such-a- one to-day." Once he fixed his eyes so long on a municipal, seeming to recognize him, that the man asked where he had seen him. The little prince refused for sometime to answer ; at last, leaning towards the queen, he said to her in a whisper, " It was when we went to Varennes." Here is still another proof of his sensitive feelings. A mason was employed in making holes in the wall of the antechamber so as to put enormous bolts to the door. While the man ate his breakfast the little prince amused himself with his tools ; the king took the hammer and chisel from his son's hands and showed him how to use them. The mason, touched at seeing the king work, said to His Majesty : 1(12 MADAMi: (n.lSAIJKTll DK KUANCi:. [ciiai-. n. " WluMi yiui gi't out i)f here yi>u can say lliaL you worked yourself at your prison." — " Ah ! " said the king, " when and how shall 1 get out?" The little prince hurst into tears; the king let fall the hammer and chisel and went hack to liis rcxim, where he widked u}> and down with hasty strides. Dccemher 2d, the municipality of the 10th of Augu.^t was replaceil by another, under the title of Provisional Municipality. Many of the former members were re-elected. I thought, at lirst, that the new set were l)etter than the old, and I hoped for some favourable changes in the system of the prison. I was mistaken. Many of the new commis- sioners gave me reason to regret their predecessors ; the latter were coarser, it is true, but it was easy to take ad- vantage of their natural indiscretion to find out all they knew. I had to study the commissioners of the new mmii- cipality to judge of their conduct and their character ; their malignity was much more premeditated. Until this time only one municipal was constantly on guard over the king, and one over the queen. The new municipality ordered two, and henceforth it was much more difficult for me to speak with the king and the princesses On the other hand, tlie council, which until then had been held in one of the halls of the Temple palace, was trans- ferred to a room on the ground-floor of the Tower, The new municipals wished to surpass the former ones in zeal, and this zeal was emiilation of tyranny. December 7, a municipal, at the head of a deputation from the Commune, came to read to the king a decree which ordered him to take from the prisoners " knives, razors, scis- sors, penknives, and all other sharp instruments of which prisoners presumed criminal are deprived ; and to make a most minute search of their persons and of their apartments." During the reading, the municipal's voice shook, and it 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 163 was easy to see the violence he was putting upon himself; and he afterwards proved by his conduct that he had allowed himself to be sent to the Temple solely to endeav- our to be useful to the royal family. The king took from his pockets a knife and a little case of red morocco, from which he drew scissors and a penknife. The municipals made the most careful search through the apartments, taking razors, a ruler for rolling hair, a toilet-knife, little instruments for cleaning the teeth, and other articles in gold and silver. The same search was made in my room, and I was ordered to give up whatever was on my person. The municipals then went up to the queen : they read the same decree to the three princesses and took away from them even the little articles that were necessary for their work. An hour later, I was made to go down into the council- chamber, and they asked me if I knew what articles re- mained in the red morocco case the king had put back into his pocket. "I order you," said a municipal named Ser- maize, " to take that case away from him to-night." " It is not my place," I said, " to execute the decrees of the Con- vention, nor to search the king's pockets." " Cl^ry is right," said another municipal ; " it was your place," addressing Sermaize, " to make that search." Tliey then drew up a jiroccs-verhal of all tlie articles taken from the royal family, and sorted them into packets, which they sealed up ; they next ordered me to sign m} name at the bottom of a decree which enjoined me to re- port to the council if I discovered on the king or the prin- cesses, or in their apartments, any sharp instruments ; these different documents were sent to the Commune. On looking through the registers of the Temple it will be seen that I was often forced to sign decrees of wliich I was very far from approving either the object or the wording. I 164 MAPAMK KMSAIU: Til DK riCANCK. [cukv. ii never signed ntiytliing, never said anything, never did any- thing, except l>y the special order of tlie king or of tiie queen. A refusal on my part wouhl have caused my sep- aration from Thi'ir Majesties, to whom 1 had consecrated my existence ; my signature at tlie foot of certain decrees had no other meaning than to admit tliat those documents had been read to me. This Sermaize of whom I have just spoken took me back to the apartment of His Majesty. The kiiig was sitting near the fireplace, tongs in hand. Sermaize asked him, in the name of the council, to show what remained in the red morocco case. The king drew it from his pocket ; in it was a screw-driver, a corkscrew, and a flint. Sermaize took pos- session of them. " Are not these tongs which I have in my hand sharp instruments ? " said the king, turning his back upon him. At dinner-time an argument arose among the commission- ers. Some were opposed to the use by the roj-al family of knives and forks; others consented to allow forks; at last it was decided to make no change; but to take away the knives and forks at the conclusion of each meal. This deprivation of their little articles was all the more tr}-Lng to the queen and the princesses because it obliged them to give up various kinds of work which until then had served to occupy and amuse those long days in prison. One day, when Madame Elisabeth was mending the king's clothes, she broke ofif the thread with her teeth, having no scissors. " What a contrast ! " said the king, looking at her fixedly and tenderly ; " you lacked for nothing in your pretty house at ^lontreuil." " Ah 1 brother," she replied, " can I have regrets when I share your sorrow ? * ' Madame Elisabeth was always notable and clever at work of all kinds. One of her ladies, watching her one day, said what a pity it was that such 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 165 Day after day brought new decrees each of which was a fresh tyranny. The roughness and harshness of the muni- cipals towards me was greater than ever. The three men from the kitchen were forbidden to speak to me ; this, and other things made me fear some fresh catastrophe. The queen and Madame Elisabeth, struck by the same presenti- ment, asked me constantly for news, which I could not give them. At last, on Thursday, my wife and her friend arrived. I was taken down to the council-chamber. She talked, as usual, in a loud voice to disarm the suspicions of our new jailers ; and while she was giving me details of our domestic affairs her friend said : " Next Tuesday, they take the king to the Convention ; his trial will begin ; he may get coun- sel; all this is certain." I did not know how to announce this dreadful news to the king ; I wanted to inform the queen or Madame Elisa- beth of it first ; but I was in great alarm ; time was passing, and the king had forbidden me to conceal anything from him. That night, as I undressed him, I told him what I had heard ; I made him foresee that they would certainly during his trial separate him from his family ; and I added that there were but four days in which to concert with the queen some method of communication between them. I assured him that I was determined to undertake everything that would facilitate that object. Tlie entrance of a munici- pal did not allow me to say more and prevented His Majesty from replying to me. The next day, when he rose, I could not find a chance to speak to him. He went up with his son to breakfast a faculty was wasted on one who did not need it. "Ah!" e.xelaiined Madame ^'lisabeth, " it is good to do everything as well as one can ; and, besides, who knows ? I may have to get my living in this way." — Tk. ir.f) MADAMK f-.MSAHiyni DK rUANCK. [.hap. ii. with the princesses ami 1 followed him. After breakfast he talkeil some time with the (lueeii and I saw by her look of sorrow that he was telling her wliat I had said to him. 1 found, in the course of the day, an o}>portunity to talk with Madame Elisabeth ; I explained to her how much it had cost me to inform tlie king of his coming trial and tlius increase his troubles. She reassured me, saying that the king was much touched by that mark of my attach- ment. " \Vliat troubles him most," she added, " is the fear of being separated from us ; try to get more information." That evening the king told me how glad he was to have lieard in advance that he was to appear before the Conven- tion. " Continue," he said, " to try to discover what they mean to do with me ; do not fear to distress me. I have agreed with my family not to seem informed, in order not to compromise you." The nearer the day of the trial approached, the more dis- trust was shown to me ; the municipals would not reply to any of my questions. I had already employed, in vain, various pretexts to go down into the council-chamber, where I might have picked up some new details to communicate to the king, when the commission appointed to audit the expenses of the royal family came to the Temple. They were obliged then to let me go down to give information, and I heard from a well-intentioned municipal that the separation of the king from his famUy, though decreed by the Commune, was not yet decided in tlie National As- sembly, That same day Turgy brought me a newspaper in which I found the decree, which ordered that the king be brought before the bar of the Convention ; he also gave me a memorial on the king's trial, published by M. Necker. I had no other means of conveying the paper and memorial to the king than to place them under one of the articles of 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 167 furniture in the privy, telling the king and the princesses that they were there. December 11, 1792, at five o'clock in the morning, we heard the generate beaten throughout Paris, and cavalry and cannon were brought into the garden of the Temple. This uproar would have cruelly alarmed the royal family if they had not already known its cause. Nevertheless, they feigned to be ignorant of it, and asked an explanation of the commissioners on duty, who refused to reply. At nine o'clock the king and the dauphin went up to breakfast in the queen's ax3artment. Their Majesties re- mained about an hour together ; always under the gaze of the municipals. This continual torture for all the family of never being able to show any emotion, any effusion of feeling at a moment when so many fears agitated them, was one of the most refined cruelties of their tyrants and the one in which those tyrants took most delight. The time came to separate. The king quitted the queen, Madame Elisabeth, and his daughter ; their looks expressed what they could not say. The dauphin went down, as usual, with the king. The little prince, who often persuaded his father to play a game of Siam with him, was so mgent that day that the king, in spite of his situation, could not refuse. The dauphin lost all the games, and twice could not go higher than six- teen. "Every time I get to that point Seize I lose the game," he said with some vexation. The king made no reply; but I thought I saw that the sound of that word made a certain impression on him. At eleven o'clock, while the king was giving his son a reading-lesson, two municipals entered and told His Majesty that they had come to fetch young Louis and take him to his mother. The king wislied to know the reason of this 168 MADAME KMSAliKlll DK FKANCK. [chap. h. removal ; the commissioners replied that they executed the orders of the couucil of the Commuue. His ^lajesty kissed his sou tenderly, and charged nie to go with him. When I returned to the king, I told him 1 hiul left the young prince in his mother's arms, and that seemed to tranquillize His Majesty. One of the commissioners entered to inform him that Chambon, mayor of Paris, was in the council-chamber and was coming up to see him. " AVhat does he want of me ? " asked the king. " I do not know," replied the municipal. His Majesty walked hastily up and down his room for some moments ; then he seated himself in an arm-chair close to the head of his bed; the door was half closed and the mimicipal dared not enter, to avoid, as he told me, questions. Half an hour passed thus in the deepest silence. The com- missioner became uneasy at not hearing the king ; he entered softly, and found him with his head on one of his hands, apparently deeply absorbed. " "Wliat do you want ? " asked the king, in a loud voice. " I feared you were ill," replied the mimicipal. " I am obliged to you," said the king, in a tone of the keenest sorrow, " but the manner in which my son has been taken from me is infinitely painful to me." The mimicipal said nothing and withdrew. The mayor did not appear for an hour. He v/as accom- panied by Chaumette, public prosecutor of the Commime, Colombeau, secretary, several municipal officers, and Santerre, commander of the National Guard, who brought his aides-de- camp with him. The mayor told the king that he had come to fetch him to take him before the Convention, in virtue of a decree w4iich the secretary of the Commune would read to him. This decree stated that " Louis Capet would be arraigned before the bar of the National Convention." " Capet is not my 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 169 name," said the king ; " it is the name of one of mj ances- tors. I could have wished, monsieur," he added, " that the commissioners had left me my son during the two hours I have passed in waiting for you. This treatment is but the sequel of all that I have borne here for the past four months ; I shall now follow you, not to obey the Convention, but 'because my enemies have the power to force me." I gave His Majesty his overcoat and his hat, and he followed the mayor of Paris. A numerous escort awaited him at the gate of the Temple. Left alone in the room with a municipal I learned from him that the king would never see his family again, but that the mayor was to consult with some of the deputies about the separation. I asked the commissioner to take me to the dauphin, who was with the queen, which he did. I did not leave the little prince until six o'clock, when the king re- turned from the Convention, The municipals informed the queen of the king's departure for the Assembly, but they would not enter into any details. The princesses and the dauphin went down as usual to dine in the king's room, and returned to their own immediately. After dinner a single municipal remained in the queen's room ; he was a young man about twenty-four years of age, belonging to the section of the Temple ; he was on guard at the Tower for the first time, and seemed to be less suspicious and more civil than most of his colleagues. The queen be- gan a conversation with him, asked him about his profession, his parents, etc. Madame Elisabeth seized the moment to pass into her own room, and made me a sign to follow her. Once there, I told her that the Commune had decreed the separation of the king from his family, that I feared it would take place that very evening, for although the Convention 170 MADAMK KLISAHKIH DK FUANCK. [<;iiai-. ii. had not UetonuiiKHl on it, the mayor luul i^one there to make the request, which woiikl, no doubt, be granted. " The queen and 1," answered Madame Elisabeth, "expect tlie worst ; we make oui-selves no ilhisions as to tlie fate they are preparing for the king. He will die a victim to his kind- ness and his love for his people, for whose happiness he has never ceased to work since he ascended the throne. How cruelly that people is deceived ! The king's religion and his great confidence in Providence will sustain him in this cruel adversity. " And now, Cldry," added the virtuous princess, her eyes filling with tears, " you will be alone with my brother ; redouble, if possible, your care of him, and neg- lect no means of making news of him reach us ; but for any other purpose do not expose yourself, for if you do we shall be left with no one in whom we can trust." I assured Madame Elisabeth of my devotion to the king, and we agreed upon the means to employ to keep up a correspondence. Turg}' was the only one whom I could put into the secret ; but I could seldom speak to him, and then with precaution. It was agi'eed that I should continue to take care of the linen and clothes of the dauphin ; that eveiy two days I should send him what was necessary, and that I should use that opportunity to convey to them news of what was happen- ing with the king. This suggested to Madame Elisabeth the idea of giving me one of her handkerchiefs. " Keep it," she said, " as long as my brother is well ; if he should be ill send it to me in my nephew's linen." The manner of folding it was to indicate the sort of illness. The grief of the princess in speaking to me of the king, her indifference as to her personal situation, the value she deigned to set on my poor services to His Majesty affected me deeply. " Have you heard anything said of the queen ? " she asked with a species of terror. " Alas ! what can they 1792] THE CAPTIVITY 0^ LOUIS XVl. 171 bring against her ? " " No, Madame," I replied, " but what can they bring against the king ? " " Oh, nothing, nothing," she said, "but perhaps they regard the king as a victim necessary to their safety. The queen, on the contrary, and her children cannot be obstacles to their ambition." I took the liberty of remarking that probably the king would be sentenced only to transportation ; that I had heard it spoken of, and that Spain, being the only country that had not de- clared war, it was likely that the king and his family would be taken there. " I have no hope," she said, " that the king will be saved." I thought I ought to add that the foreign Powers were consulting as to the means of drawing the king out of prison ; that Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois were again assembling the emigres around them, and would unite them with the Austrian and Prussian troops; that Spain and England would take steps ; that all Europe was interested in prevent- ing the death of the king, and therefore that the Convention would have to reflect very seriously before deciding his fate. This conversation lasted an hour, and then Madame lllisa- beth (to whom I had never before spoken at such length), fearing the entrance of the new municipals, left me to return to the queen's apartment. Tison and his wife, who watched me incessantly, remarked that I had stayed a long time with Madame Elisabeth, and they were afraid that the com- missioner would notice it. I told them that the princess had been talking to me about her nephew, who would probably be in future with his mother. At six o'clock the commissioners sent for me into the council-room. They read me a decree of the Commune which ordered me to have no further communication with the three princesses and the little prince, because I was to serve the king only. It was also decreed, in order to put the 12 Mem. Vcr. I) 172 MADAMK f:LISAHr.!"lI 1)E FRANCE. [ciiai-. n. king into more solitary confinement, that I should no longer sleep in his apartment, but in the small tower, and be con- ducted to the king at such times only as lie liad need of me. At half-past six o'clock the king returned from the Con- vention. He seemed fatigued, and his first desire was to be taken to his family. The request was refused under pretext of having no orders ; he insisted that the queen should at least be told of his return, and this was promised to him. He ordered me to ask for his supper at half-past eight o'clock ; and he employed the interval in his usual reading, surrounded by four municipals. At half-past eight I went to inform His Majesty that his supper was served ; he asked the commissioners if his family were not coming down ; they made him no answer. " But at least," said the king, " my son will pass the night with me, his bed and clothes being here." Same silence. After supper the king again insisted on his desire to see his family. They answered that he must await the decision of the Con- vention. I then gave out what was necessary for the young prince's bedtime. That evening, while I was undressing the king, he said : " I was very far from expecting the questions that were put to me." He went to bed tranquilly. The decree of the Commime relating to my removal during the night was not executed ; it would have been too troublesome to the muni- cipals to have fetched me every time the king needed me. The next day, 12th, the king no sooner saw the municipals than he asked if a decision had been made on his request to see his family. They told him they were still awaiting orders. The king commanded me to have the young prince's bed taken up to the queen's room, where he had passed the night on one of her mattresses. I begged His Majesty to 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 173 wait for the decision of the Convention. " I do not expect any justice, any consideration," replied the king, " but I will wait." The same day a deputation of four members of the Con- vention brought to the king a decree authorizing him to obtain counsel. He declared that he chose M. Target, and failing him, M. Tronchet, or both of them if the National Convention consented. The deputies made the king sign his request, and signed it themselves after him. The king added that it would be necessary to furnish him with paper, pens, and ink. On the 13th, in the morning, the same deputation returned and told the king that M. Target refused to be his counsel ; that M. Tronchet had been sent for and would doubtless ap- pear during the day. They also read to him several letters ad- dressed to tlie Convention by MM. Sourdat, Huet-Guillaume, and Lamoignon de Malesherbes, formerly president of the cour des aides and afterwards minister of the king's house. Malesherbes' letter was as follows : — • Paris, December 11, 1792. Citizen Peesident, — I do not know whether the Conven- tion will give Louis XVI. counsel to defend him, or whether it will leave the selection to him. In tlie latter case, I desire that Louis XVI. should know that if he chooses me for that function I am ready to devote myself to it. I do not ask you to lay my offer before the Convention, because I am far from thinking myself of enough importance to occupy its time ; but I have twice been called to the counsel of him who was once my master, in days wlien every one was ambitious of that function ; I owe him the same service when that function is one which many persons would think dangerous. If I knew any possible means of letting him Icnow my in- 174 MADAME f<:LISABETII DE FIIANCE. [chap. ii. clinations, I would not take Uu; liberty of addressing you. I think that in the position you occupy, you will have better means than any one to convey to him this suggestion. I am, with respect, etc., Lamoignon de Malesherbes. His Majesty replied as follows to the deputation: "I am sensible of the ofifers that so many persons have made, asking to serve me as counsel, and I beg you to express to them my gratitude. I accept IM. de ]\Ialesherbes as my counsel ; if ]M. Trouchet cannot lend me his services, I will consult M. de Malesherbes and choose some one to 1111 his place." 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVL 175 CHAPTEK III. The King's Trial — His "Will — The Decree of the Convention con- demning the King to Death — Last Meeting with his Family — Leaves tlie Temple for his Execution. December 14, M. Tronchet had, as the decree permitted, a conference with His Majesty. The same day M. de Male- sherbes was brought to the Tower. The king ran forward to meet that respected old man, whom he tenderly pressed in his arms. The former minister burst into tears on seeing his master, whether because he recalled the past years of his reign, or, more probably, because he faced at that moment a virtuous man in the grasp of misfortune.^ As the king had permission to confer with his counsel in private, I closed the door of his room that he might speak more freely with M. de Malesherbes. A municipal blamed me, ordered the door to be opened, and forbade me to shut it again ; I opened the door, but the king was already in the tourelle. On the 15th, the king received the reply regarding his family, which was, in substance, as follows : the queen and Madame Elisabeth could not communicate with the king during the course of his trial ; his children might go to him if he desired it, but on condition that they should not see their mother or their aunt until the trial was over. As soon as it was possible to speak to the king freely, I asked his orders. " You see," he said, " the cruel alternative in which they place me ; I caimot resolve to have my cliildren with 1 Lamoignon de Malesherbes, aged 73, was guillotined just before the 9th thermidor (July 27, 1704), the end of tiie Ueign of Terror. — Tu. 176 MADAME feLISARETII DE FRANCE. [niAi-. in. me; as for my (lau«j;h(or, it is impossible; as for my son, I feel the grief it would occasion to the ([ucen ; I inust consent to this fresh sacrifice." His Majesty then ordered me for the second time to have tlie dauphin's bed sent up to the ([ueen's room, which 1 tliil immediately. I kept his linen and liis clothes, and every second day I sent up what was necessary as agreed upon with ^ladame Elisabeth. On the IGth, at four in the afternoon, came another depu- tation of four members of the Convention, accompanied by a secretar}-, a sheriff, and an officer of the Gardes. They brought the king his arraignment, and certain documents on which the accusations were based ; most of them found at the Tuileries in a secret closet of His Majesty's apartment, called by the minister Eoland " the iron closet," The reading of these documents, one hundred and seven in all, lasted from four o'clock till midnight ; all were read to and signed by the king, and copies of each were left in his hands. The king was seated at a large table ; M. Tron- chet beside him, the deputies opposite. His Majesty inter- rupted the long session by asking the deputies if they would sup ; they accepted, and I served them a cold cliicken and some fruit in the dining-room. M. Tronchet would take nothing, and remained alone with the king in his room. A municipal, named ]\Ierceraut, then a stone-cutter and lately president of the Commune of Paris, though a porter of sedan chairs at Versailles before the Eevolution, was on guard that day in the Tower for the first time. He wore his working-clothes in tatters, with a very old round hat, a leather apron, and liis three-coloured scarf. The man affected to stretch himself out in an arm-chair beside the king, who was in a common chair; he thee'd and thou'd, with his hat on his head, all who spoke to him. The members of the Convention were amazed, and while they supped, one of them 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 177 asked me several questions as to how the hing was treated. I was about to answer when a commissioner told the con- ventional it was forbidden to speak to me, and that they would give him in the council-chamber all the details he could require. The deputy, fearing no doubt to compromise himself, said no more. Among the bundles of documents were plans for the Con- stitution, annotated by the king's own hand, sometimes in ink, sometimes in pencil. There were also police registers iu which were denunciations made and signed by the king's own servants ; this ingratitude seemed to affect him much ; these accusers rendered an account of what occurred in the king's room and the queen's room at the Tuileries in order to give a more truthful air to their calumnies. From the 14th to the 26th of December, the king saw his counsel regidarly. They came at five in the evening and rethed at nine. M. de Sfeze was added to them. Every morning M. de Malesherbes brought the newspapers to his Majesty with the printed opinions of the deputies relating to his trial. He prepared the work for the evening, and re- mained with the king for one or two hours. His Majesty deigned to sometimes let me read those opinions ; once he asked : " Wliat do you think of that man's opinion ? " adding, " I have learned how far the malignancy of men can go ; I did not believe that there were such men." His Majesty never went to bed without reading all the different papers, and, in order not to compromise M. de Malesherbes, he took the precaution to burn them himself in the stove in his cabinet. By this time I had found a favourable moment to speak to Turgy and send news to Madame Elisabeth about the king. The next day he told me that in giving liini her napkin after dinner she had slipped in a little note in pin- 17S MAnAMi: KLlSAnr/ni DK rUANCK. [vuxr. III. pricks asking tlie kiufj to write her a line himself. The day after, 1 ti)ok the note to Turgy, who brought me the answer inside a ball of cotton, which he threw on my bed as he passed it. His Majesty took gi-eat comfort in the success of this means of communicating with his famil}-. The wax-candles which the commissioners gave me came tied up with twine in bundles. As soon as I had twine enough I told the king that we could give greater activity than before to the correspondence, by sending up a part of it to Madame Elisabeth whose room was directly over mine, with its window perpendicularly above that of a little corri- dor upon which my room opened. During the night the princess could attach letters to the string and lower them down to the passage window. The same means would serve to send answers to the princess, also paper and ink, of which she was deprived. " That is a good project," the king said to me ; "we will use it if the other means become impracticable." In point of fact, he soon used it exclusively. He always waited till eight in the evening ; I then shut the door of my room and that of the corridor, and went to talk to the com- missioners or get them to play cards, which diverted their attention. After his separation from his family the king refused to go into the garden, and when it was proposed to him to do so he answered : " I cannot resolve to go out alone ; walking was only agreeable to me when I enjoyed it with my family." But, in spite of being thus parted from objects so dear to his heart, no complaints or murmurs escaped him ; he had al- ready pardoned his oppressors. Each day he gathered in his 'reading-room the strength that maintained his courage; when he left it he entered the detaUs of a life always uni- form yet embellished by him with little traits of kindness. He deigned to treat me as if I were more than his servant ; 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 179 he treated the municipals who guarded his person as if he had no reason to complain of them ; he talked to them, as formerly with his subjects, on matters relating to their condi- tion, their family, their children, the advantages and duties of their profession. Those who listened were astonished at the accuracy of his remarks, at the variety of his knowledge, and at the manner in which it was aU classified in his memory. His conversations did not have as their object the distraction of his mind from his troubles ; his sensibility was keen and deep, but his resignation rose superior to his sorrows. On the 19th of December the king said to me while din- ing: "Fourteen years ago you got up earlier than you did to-day." I understood His Majesty at once. " That was the day my daughter was born," he continued tenderly, "and to-day, her birthday, I am deprived of seeing her ! " A few tears rolled from his eyes, and a respectful silence reigned for a moment. The day for his second appearance before the bar of the Convention was approaching. He had not been able to shave since they took away his razors; he suffered much in consequence, and was obliged to bathe his face in cold water several times a day. He asked me for scissors or a razor; but he was not willing to speak to the municipals about it himself. I took the liberty of remarking to him that if he appeared in his present condition before the Con- vention the people would see with what barbarity the coun- cil of the Commune had acted. " I ought not to try to interest persons in that way in my fate," replied the king; " I will address the commissioners." The following day the Commune decided to return the razors to the king, but for use only in presence of two municipals.^ During the three days that preceded Christmas, 1792, the ^ See Appendix III. 180 MAPAME f:LISAnETIl DE FKANCK. [ciiAr. iii. king wrote iiiDre than usual. There was then a project of making liim stay at the Fouillants for two or three days iii order that he might he trietl continuously. They had even given me orders to prepare to follow him and to get ready all that he might need ; but that plan was changed. It was on Christmas Day that the king wrote his will. I read it and copied it at tlie time it was handed over to the council of the Temple ; it was written entirely by the king's own hand, with a few erasures. I think I ought to give here this monument, already celebrated, of his innocence and his piety : — THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF LOUIS XVI., KING OF FRANCE. In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This day, twenty-tifth of December, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two, I, Louis, sixteenth of the name. King of France, being for the last four months shut up with my family in the Tower of the Temple by those who were my subjects, and deprived of all communication whatsoever since the eleventh of the present month with my fanuly ; involved moreover in a trial of which it is impos- sible to foresee the issue, because of the passions of men, and for which no pretext or means can be found in existing laws ; having God as the sole witness of my thoughts and the only being to whom I can address myself, I here declare in his presence my last will and sentiments. I leave my soul to God, my Creator ; I pray him to re- ceive it in his mercy ; not to judge it according to its own merits, but by those of our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered himself a sacrifice to God, his Father, for us men, however unworthy we may be, and I first of any. 1792] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 181 I die in the union of our Holy Mother, the Catholic, Apostolical, and Eoman Church, which derives its powers by an uninterrupted succession from Saint Peter to whom Jesus Christ confided them. I believe firmly and confess all that is contained in the symbol and the commandments of God and of the Church, the sacraments and the mysteries such as the Catholic Church teaches and has always taught them. I have never pretended to make myself a judge of the different manners of explaining the dogmas that rend the Church of Jesus Christ; but 1 have relied, and shall always rely, if God gives me life, on the decisions which the ecclesiastical su- periors of the holy Catholic Church give and will give in conformity with the discipline of the Church, followed since Jesus Christ. I pity with all my heart our brothers who may be in error ; but I do not pretend to judge them, and I do not love them, one and all, less in Jesus Christ, following what Christian charity teaches. I pray God to forgive me all my sins ; I have scrupulously tried to know them, to detest them, and to humiliate my- self in his presence. Not being able to have the ministry of a Catholic priest, I pray God to receive the confession which I have made to him, and, especially, the deep repen- tance which I feel for having put my name (though against my will) to acts which may have been contrary to tlic dis- cipline and the belief of the Catliolic Church, to which I have always remained sincerely united in heart. I pray God to receive the firm resolution in whicli I am to employ, if he grants me life, as soon as I can, the ministry of a Catholic priest to confess all my sins and to receive the sacrament of repentance. I beg all those whom I may have injured througli inad- 1S2 MADAMK fCUSARETII DE IKANCE. [chai-. in. veiteiico (fi>r I do not remember to have knowingly injured any one), and those to whom I may have set a bad example or caused offence, to forgive me the %vTong they may think that I have done them ; I beg all those who have charity to unite their prayers to mine to obtam of God the pardon of my sins. I pardon with all my lieart those who have made them- selves my enemies without my having given them any cause, and I pray God to pardon them, as well as those who, from false zeal or misdirected zeal, have done me much harm. I commend to God my wife and my children, my sister, my aunts, my brothers, and all those who are attached to me by ties of blood, or by any other manner whatsoever. I pray God especially to cast the eyes of his mercy on my wife, my children, and my sister, who have suffered so long with me ; to support them by his grace if they lose me, and for as long as they remain in this perishable world. I commend my children to my wife ; I have never doubted her maternal tenderness for them ; I entreat her, above all, to make good Christians and honest beings of them, to teach them to regard the grandeurs of this world (if they are condemned to experience them) as dangerous and perish- able benefits, and to turn their eyes towards the only solid and durable glory of eternity. I beg my sister to continue her tenderness to my children, and to stand to them in place of a mother should they have the misfortune to lose theirs. I beg my wife to forgive me for all the ills she has suffered for me, and the griefs I may have caused her in the course of our union; just as she may be sure that I keep nothing against her should she think she has anything for which to blame herself. I request very earnestly of my children, after what they owe to God who comes before all, to remain united with each other, submissive and obedient to their mother and grateful 1792J THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 183 for all the care and trouble she gives herself for them, and in memory of me. I beg them to regard my sister as a second mother. I beg my son, if he has the misfortmie to become king, to reflect that he owes himself wholly to the welfare of his co- citizens ; that he ought to forget all hatred and all resent- ment, especially that which relates to the misfortunes and griefs that I have borne ; that he cannot make the happiness of the people except by reigning according to the laws ; but, at the same time, that a king cannot make the laws respected and do the good which is in his heart to do unless he has the necessary authority ; otherwise, being fettered in his operations and inspiring no respect, he is more harmful than useful. I commend to my son to take care of all the persons who have been attached to me, so far as the circumstances in which he may be placed wUl give him the ability ; to re- member that this is a sacred debt contracted by me towards the children and relatives of those who have perished for me, and towards those who are unfortunate for my sake. I know that there are several persons among those who were attached to me who have not acted towards me as they should have done, and have even shown me ingratitude ; but I pardon them (often in moments of trouble and excitement persons are not masters of themselves), and I beg my son, should the occasion come to him, to remember only their misfortunes. I wish that I could manifest here my gratitude to those who have shown me a veritable and disinterested attach- ment ; if, on the one hand, I have keenly felt the ingratitude and disloyalty of persons to whom I had never shown any- thing but kindness (to them, or their relatives, or to the friends of both), T have had the consolation of seeing the 184 MADAMK feLISABiyril I)K 1-KANCE. [chap. in. gratuitous attai-hmcnt and interest that many persons have shown me ; 1 beg those persons to recei\'e my thanks. In the condition in which things now are, I should fear to com- promise them if I spoke more explicitly, ])ut I specially recjuest my son to seek occasions of being able to recognize them. Nevertheless, I think I should calumniate the sentiments of the nation if I did not commend openly to my son ^IM. de ChamLUy and Hue, whose true attachment to me led them to shut themselves up in this sad place, and who came so near being also the unfortunate victims of it. I like- wise recommend to him Cldry, whose care I have every reason to praise since he has been with me ; as it is he who will re- main with me to the end, I beg the gentlemen of the Commime to give him my clothes, my books, my watch, my purse, and whatever little property has been deposited with the coun- clI of the Commune. I pardon once more, very willingly, those who guard me for the Ql-treatment and the annoyances they have thought it their duty to practice towards me. I have met with some compassionate and feeling souls ; may they enjoy in then- hearts the tranquillity that their way of thinking will give them. I beg MM. de Malesherbes, Tronchet, and de Sfeze to receive here my thanks and the expression of my feelings for the cares and trouble they have taken for me. I end by declaring before God, and about to appear before him, that I do not reproach myself with any of the crimes laid to my charge. Done, in duplicate, at the Tower of the Temple, the twenty-fifth day of December, one thousand, seven hundred and ninety-two. Louis. 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 185 On the 26th of December, the kmg was taken for the second time before the bar of the Convention. I had warned the queen, lest the noise of the drums and the movements of the troops should frighten her. His Majesty started at ten in the morning and returned at five in the afternoon. His counsel came that evening just as the king was finishing dinner ; he asked them to take some refreshment ; M. de Seze was the only one who accepted the offer. The kuig thanked him for the pains he had taken in making his speech. The next day His Majesty deigned to give me himself his printed defence, after asking the commissioners if he could do so without impropriety. Commissioner Vincent, a contractor for buildings, who had done the royal family all the services in his power, undertook to carry a copy secretly to the queen. He took advantage of the moment when the king thanked him for this little service to ask for the gift of somethmg that had belonged to him. His Majesty unfastened his cravat and gave it to him. At another time he gave his gloves to a municipal, who desired to have them from the same motive. Even to the eyes of several of his guards, his remains were already sacred. On the 1st of January, 1793, I went to the bedside of the king and asked him in a low voice to be allowed to offer my earnest wishes for the end of his troubles. " I receive those wishes," he said affectionately, holding out his hand , which I kissed and wet with my tears. As soon as he rose, he begged a municipal to go from him to inquhe news of his family and give them his wishes for the new year. The municipals were much moved by the tone m which these words, so heart-rending in view of the king's situation, were said. " Why," said one of them to me after the king had gone into his cabinet, " why does he not ask to see his family ? Now that the examinations are over there would 186 MADAME f:LISABETH DE FRANCE. [ciiai-. hi. bo no difficulty ; but it is to the Conventiou that he ought to make the request." The municipal who had gone to see the queen returned and announced to the kmg that his family thanked him for his good wishes and sent him their own. " \niat a New-Year's day ! " exclaimed His Majesty. That same evening I took the liberty of telling him I was almost certain of the consent of the Convention if he asked to be permitted to see his family. " In a few days," he replied, " they will not refuse me that consolation ; I must wait." The nearer the day for the verdict approached, — if one can use that term [Jugement] for the proceedings the king was made to undergo, — the more my fears and anguish in- creased. I asked a hundred questions of the municipals, and everything I heard added to my terror. My wife came to see me every week, and gave me an exact account of what was going on in Paris. Public opinion seemed to be still favourable to the king ; it was shown in a startling way at the Theatre Franqais and at the Vaudeville. At the first, they were playing "L'Ami des Lois;" all the allusions to the trial of the king were seized and applauded vehemently. At the Vaudeville, one of the personages in "La Chaste Suzanne " says to the two old men, " How can you be accusers and judges both ? " The audience insisted on the repetition of that speech many times. I gave the king a copy of " L'Ami des Lois." I often told him, and I also almost brought myself to believe it, that the members of the Convention, being opposed to one another, could pronoimce only for the penalty of imprisonment or transportation. "May they have that moderation for my family," said the king ; " it is only for them that I fear." Certain persons sent me word through my wife that a con- siderable sum of money, deposited with M. Pariseau, editor line viqee Le L)i.i 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 187 of the " Feuille du jour," was at the king's disposal ; they requested me to ask his orders and say that the money would be paid to M. de Malesherbes if the king wished it. " Thank those persons much, for me," he replied. " I cannot accept their generous offer, it would be to expose them." I begged him at least to mention the matter to M. de Malesherbes, and he promised to do so. The correspondence between Their Majesties continued. The king, informed of Madame Eoyale's illness, was very uneasy for some days. The queen, after much entreaty, obtained permission for M. Brunier, her children's physician, to come to the Temple ; this seemed to tranquillize him. On the 16th of January, at six in the evening, four muni- cipals entered the king's chamber and read to him a decree of the Commune, the substance of which was " that he be guarded night and day by four municipals; two of whom were to pass the night beside his bed." The king asked if his sentence had been pronounced. One of them (Du Eoure) began by sitting down in the arm-chair of the king, who was standing ; he answered that he did not trouble him- self to know what went on in the Convention, but he had heard some one say they were still calling the votes. A few moments later M. de Malesherbes arrived and told the king that the call of the votes [Vappel nominal'] was not yet ended. While he was there the chimney of a room in the palace of the Temple took fire. A considerable crowd of people entered the courtyard. A commissioner came in alarm to tell M. de Malesherbes that he must go away im- mediately, M. de Malesherbes withdrew, after promising the king he would return to ioform him of his sentence. " Why are you so alarmed ? " I asked the commissioner. "They have set fire to the Temple/' he said, " in order to rescue Capet in the tumult ; but I have surrounded the walls with a strong 13 Mem. Vor. 9 ISS MADAME f'.MSAnF/ni DE FKANCE. [( map. IIX. j^mnl." The lire was sodii out, auil it was shown to have been a more aeeident. Thursday, Jauuaiy 17th, M. de Malesherbes came at nine in the morning ; I went to meet him. " All is lost," he said ; "the king is condemned to death." The king, who saw him coming, rose to receive him. The minister threw him- self at his feet, his sobs choked him, and it was some time before he could speak. The king raised him and pressed him against his bosom with afifection. M. de Malesherbes told him of his condemnation to death ; the king made no movement that showed either surprise or emotion ; he seemed to be affected only by the grief of the old man, and tried to comfort him. M. de Malesherbes gave an account to the king of the voting. Denouncers, relatives, personal enemies, laymen, ecclesiastics, absent deputies, all had voted, and, in spite of this violation of the forms, those who had voted for death — some as a political measure, others on pretence that the king was guilty — carried it by a majority of only five votes. Sev- eral deputies voted for death with respite [sursis]. A second vote was taken on this latter point, and it is to be presumed that the votes of those who wished to retard the commission of the regicide, joined to the votes of those who were against the death penalty, would have formed a majority. But, at the doors of the Convention, assassins devoted to the Due d'Orl^ans and to the deputation of the Paris Commune, terrified by their cries and threatened with their knives who- ever refused to listen to them ; and whether it was stupor, indifference, or fear, no one dared to undertake anything further to save the king. His Majesty obtained permission to see M. de Malesherbes in private. He took him into his cabinet, shut the door, and was alone with him for about an hour. His Majesty then 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 189 conducted him to the entrance door, and asked him to come early that evening, and not to abandon him in his last mo- ments. " The sorrow of that good old man has deeply af- fected me," said the king, returning to the room where I waited for him. From the moment of M. de Malesherhes' entrance a great trembling had seized me ; nevertheless I prepared what was necessary for the king to shave himself. He himself put the soap on his face, standing before me while I held the basin. Forced to control my grief, I had not yet dared to raise my eyes to my unfortunate master ; by chance I looked at him and my tears flowed in spite of myself. I do not know if the state in which I was reminded the king of his position, but a sudden paleness overspread his face ; his nose and his ears blanched suddenly. At that sight my knees gave way under me ; the king, who noticed my fainting state, took me by both hands, pressed them hard, and said in a low voice, " Come, more courage." He was watched ; a mute reply showed him my affection ; he seemed to feel it ; his face recovered its tone, he went on shaving tranquilly, and then I dressed him. His Majesty remained in his chamber till dinner-time reading or walking up and down. In the evening I saw him go towards his cabinet, and I followed him, under pretext that he might need my services. " Have you read the report of my sentence ? " asked the king. " Ah, Sire ! " 1 said, " let us hope for a respite. M. de Malesherhes thinks it cannot be refused." " I seek for no hope," replied the king ; " but I am much grieved that M. d'0rl(5ans, my relative, should liave voted for my death. Eead that list." He gave nie the list of the call of the House {^appel nominal] which he lield in his hand. " The public are murmuring loudly," I said to him. " Dumouriez is in Paris ; they say he is the bearer of 190 MADAME Elisabeth de fuance. [chap. m. a request fnuu liis army against the tiial lliat has just taken place. Tlie ]teoj)le revolt against the infamous conduct of the Due d'Orlt^ans. There is a rumour that the ambassadors of the foreign Powers are to assemble and go before the Con- vention. They say that the members are in fear of a popular uprising." " I should be very sorry if it took place," said the king ; " there would be more victims. I do not fear death," he added, " but I cannot contemplate without a shud- der the cruel fate that I leave behind me for my family, for the c[ueen, for my unfortunate children! — and those faithful servants who never abandoned me, those old men who have no other means of subsistence than the modest pensions that I gave them, who will help them ? I see the people given over to anarchy, becoming the victim of all the factions, crimes succeeding one another, perpetual dissensions rending France ! " Then after a short silence : " my God ! is that the price I must receive for all my sacrifices ? Did I not do all to procure the happiness of Frenchmen ? " As he said those words he clasped my hand. Filled with a sacred re- spect I watered his with my tears. I was obliged to leave him in that state. The king waited vainly all that evening for M. de Males- herbes. At night he asked me if he had come. I had asked the same question of the commissioners, and they answered no. Wednesday, 18th, the king, hearing nothing of M, de Malesherbes, became very uneasy. An old "Mercure de France " falling into his hands, he there read a riddle which he gave me to guess. I tried in vain to make it out. " What ! you cannot find it out ? " he said ; •' yet it is very applicable to me at this moment. The word is Sacrifice" He ordered me to look in the library for the volume of the History of England that contained an account of the death of Charles I. 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 191 On this occasion, I discovered that the king had read two hundred and fifty volumes since his imprisonment in the Temple. That evening I took the liberty of saying to him that he could not be deprived of his counsel, except by a decree of the Convention, and that he ought to ask for their admission to the Tower. " I will wait till to-morrow," replied the king. Saturday, 19 th, at nine in the morning, a municipal named Gobeau entered, a paper in his hand. He was accompanied by the porter of the Tower, named Mathey, who canied an inkstand. The municipal told the king he had orders to make an inventory of all his property and effects. His Majesty left me with him and retired into the tourelle. Then, imder pretence of the inventory, the municipal began to rummage with the most minute care, to be certain, he said, that no weapon or dangerous instrument had been hidden in the king's room. Presently nothing was left to search but a little bureau in which were papers. The king was obliged to come and open all the drawers, to unfold and show every paper one after the other. There were three rolls of coin at the back of one drawer ; they wished to examine them. " That money," said the king, " is nofe mine; it belongs to M. de Malesherbes." I had prepared it to retm-n to him. The three rolls contained three thousand francs in gold ; on the paper that wrapped each roll the king had written with his own hand, " Belonging to ^M. de Malesherbes." While the same search was made in the tourelle the king returned to his chamber and wanted to warm himself. The porter, Mathey, was at that moment before the fire, holding his coat-tails up with his back to the fire. Tlie king could not warm himself on either side of the man, and tlie in- solent porter not moving, the king told him with some 102 MAT1AMK f:LISARKTlI DK IRANCK. [chap. hi. nsixrity to stand a little aside. Malhey withdrew, and the numicipals went (nit sdou after, having faik'd in their search. That evening the king told tlie commissioners to ask the Commune the reason why his counsel were denied admission to the Tower, saying that he desired at least to consult with M. de Malesherhes. They ]>romised to speak of it, but one of them said they were forbidden to take any com- numication from the king to the coimcil of the Comnnine unless it were ^^Titten and signed by his own hand. " Then why," replied the king, " have I been left for two days in ignorance of that change ? " He wrote the request and gave it to the municipals ; but they did not take it to the Commune until the next day. The king asked to see his counsel freely, and complained of the decree which ordered the municipals to keep him in sight day and night. " They ought to feel," he wrote to the Commune, " that in the posi- tion I am in it is very painful not to have the tranquillity necessar}' to enable me to collect myself." Sunday, January 20, the king, as soon as he rose, in- quired of the municipals if they had taken his request to the Commune. They assured him that they had taken it immediately. Towards ten o'clock I entered the king's room ; he said to me : " M. de Malesherbes has not yet come." " Sire," I replied, " I have just learned that he has been here several times, but his entrance to the Tower is always refused.'' " I shall know the reason of that refusal," replied the king, " when the Commune decides upon my letter." He walked about his room and read and wrote, occupying himself thus the whole morning. Two o'clock had just struck when the door was suddenly opened to admit the Executive council. Twelve or fifteen persons came in at once : Garat, minister of justice ; Lebnin, 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 193 minister of foreign affairs ; Grouville, secretary of the coun- cil ; the president and the prosecuting-syndic of the depart- ment ; the mayor and public prosecutor of the Commune ; the president and prosecuting attorney of the criminal tribunal. Santerre, who advanced before the others, said to me: " Announce the Executive council." The king, who heard the noise of the arrival, had risen and made a few steps forward; but, on seeing this procession, he stopped in the doorway between his room and the antechamber, in a most noble and imposing attitude. I was beside him. Garat, his hat on his head, spoke and said : " Louis, the National Con- vention has ordered the Provisional Executive council to make known to you its decree of the 15th, 16th, 17th, 19th and 20th of January, 1793 ; the secretary of the council will now read it to you." Then Grouville, the secretary, unfolded the decree and read it in a weak and trembling voice : — Decree of the National Convention of the Ihth to the 20th of January. Akticle I. The National Convention declares Louis Capet last King of the French, guilty of conspiracy against the liberty of the Nation, and of criminal attempts against the general safety of the State. Article II. The National Convention declares that Louis Capet shall suffer the penalty of death. Article III. The National Convention declares null the act of Louis Capet brought to the bar of the Convention by his counsel, called an appeal to the nation from the judg- ment rendered against him by the Convention ; it forbids all persons from taking it up, under pain of being tried and punished as guUty of criminal attempts against the safety of the Eepublic. 194 MADAMK t-:LISAnETII DE FRANCE. [. iivr. iii. Akticlf, IV. The Provisional Executive council will notify the prosont decree in the course of tliis day to Louis Capet, and lake the necessary police and safety measures to carry out the execution within twenty-four hours from the time of its notification ; rendering an account of all to the National Convention immediately after the execution. During the reading of the decree not the slightest change appeared on the face of the king. I noticed only that in the lirst Article, when the word " conspiracy " was uttered, a smile of indignation came upon his lips ; but at the words " suffer the penalty of death," a heavenly look which he cast on all those who surrounded him told them that death was without terrors for innocence. The king made a step towards Grouville, the secretary, took the decree from his hand, folded it, drew his portfolio from his pocket, and put the paper into it. Then, taking another paper from the same portfolio, he said to Garat : " Monsieur the minister of justice, I beg you to send this letter at once to the National Convention." The minister seeming to hesitate, the king added, " I will read it to you," and without any change of tone he read what follows : — " I ask for a delay of three days that I may prepare my- self to appear before God. I demand for the same purpose to be able to see freely the person I shall name to the com- missioners of the Commune, and that the said person shall be protected from all anxiety about the act of charity which he will do for me. " I ask to be delivered from the incessant watching which the council of the Commune established recently. " I ask to be able, during that interval, to see my family when I ask it, and without witnesses. " I much desire that the National Convention shall at once concern itself with the fate of my family, and that it 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 195 will permit them to retire freely wherever they may wish to go. " I commend to the beneficence of the Nation all the per- sons who have been attached to me. Many have put their whole fortunes into their offices, and now, receiving no sal- aries, they must be in need ; the same must also be the case with those who had only their salaries to support them ; and among the pensionaries, there are many old men, women, and children who have nothing but their pensions to live upon. "Done in the Tower of the Temple, January 20, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three. Louis." Garat took the king's letter and assured him that he would take it to the Convention. As he was leaving, the king drew another paper from his pocket and said : " Mon- sieur, if the Convention grants my request for the person I desire, here is his address." That address, in another handwriting than that of the king ^ was as follows : " Mon- sieur Edgeworth de Firmont, No. 483 rue du Bac." The king then walked a few steps back ; the minister and those who accompanied him went away. His Majesty paced for a moment up and down his room ; I stood leaning against the door as if deprived of all feeling. The king came to me and said, " Cldry, ask for my dinner." A few moments later, two municipals entered the dining- room ; they read me an order which was as follows : " Louis is not to have knife or fork at his meals; a knife is to be given to his vald de chamhre to cut his bread and meat in presence of two commissioners, and the knife will then be removed." The two municipals told me to inform the king. I refused. On entering the dining-room the king saw the basket in 1 Doubtless that of Madame li^lisabeth. — Tu. 196 MADAME i^XISABETH DE FRANCE. [chai-. in. which was the queen's dinner. He asked why they had made his family wait an hour; adding that the delay might have made them anxious. He sat down to table. " I have no knife," he said. The municipal Minier informed His Majesty of the order of the Commune. " Do they think me so cowardly as to take my own life ? " said the king. " They impute to me crimes, but I am innocent and I can die with- out fear ; I would that my death might make the welfare of Frenchmen and avert from them the evils I foresee." A great silence fell. The king cut his beef with a spoon, and broke his bread; he ate little, and his dinner lasted only a few minutes. I was in my room, given over to frightful grief, when, about six in the evening, Garat returned to the Tower. I went to announce to the king the arrival of the minister of justice. Santerre, who preceded him, approached His Ma- jesty and said in a low voice, with a smiling air, " Here is the Executive council." The minister, advancing, told the king that he had taken his letter to the Convention, which charged him to deliver the following answer : " Louis is at liberty to call for any minister of worship that he thinks proper ; and to see his family freely and without witnesses ; the nation, always grand and always just, will concern itself with the fate of his family ; the creditors of his house will be granted just indemnities ; as to the three days' respite, the National Convention passes to the order of the day." The king listened to the reading of this reply without making any obser\'ation ; he returned to his room, and said to me : "I thought, from Santerre's air, that the delay was granted." A young municipal, named Boston, seeing the king speak to me, came nearer. " You seem to feel what has happened to me," the king said to him ; " receive my thanks." The man, surprised, did not know what to answer, 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 197 and I was myself amazed at the expressions of His Majesty, for this municipal, not twenty-two years of age, with a sweet and interesting face, had said a few moments earlier : " I asked to come to the Temple that I might see the grimaces he will make to-morrow " (meaning the king). " And I, too," said Merceraut, the stone-cutter of whom I have already spoken. " Everybody refused to come ; but I would not give up this day for a great deal of money." Such were the vile and ferocious men whom the Commune of Paris appointed to guard the king in his last moments. For four days the king had not seen his counsel ; those of the commissioners who had showed some feeling for his mis- fortunes, avoided coming near him ; of all the subjects whose father he had been, of all the Frenchmen whom he had loaded with benefits, one single servant alone remained to him as confidant of his sorrows. After the reading of the answer of the Convention, the commissioners addressed the minister of .justice and asked him how the king was to see his family. " In private," re- plied Garat ; " that is the intention of the Convention." Tlie municipals then told him of the decree of the Commune ordering them not to lose sight of the king " day or night." It was agreed between the Commissioners and the minister that in order to combine these two opposing decrees, the king should receive his family in the dining-room where he could be seen through the glass partition, but that the door should be shut so that he could not be heard. The king here recalled the minister of justice to ask if he had notified M. de Firmont. Garat replied tliat he had brought him in his carriage, that he was then in the council- room, and would come up, immediately. His Majesty now, in the presence of Garat, gave to a municipal, named Beau- drais, who was talking with the minister, the sum of 3000 198 MADAME Elisabeth de France. [chap. m. francs in golil, requesting him to return it to ^I. de Males- herbes to \vhoni it belonged. The nuinicipal promised to do so ; but he took the money to tlie council-room, and it was never returned to M. de Malesherbes. M. de Firmont ap- peared ; the king took him into the tourcUc and closed the door. Garat having gone, no one remained in his Majesty's apartment but the four municipals. At eight o'clock the kinsT came out of his cabinet and told the commissioners to take him to his family. They replied that that could not be done, but they would bring his family to him if he desired it. " Very well," said the king, " but I can, at least, see them alone in my room." " No," replied one of them, " we have arranged with the minister of justice that you shall see them in the dining-room." " You have heard the decree of the Convention," said His Majesty, " which permits me to see them without witnesses." " That is true," said the mimicipal, " you will be in private, the door will he shut, hut we shall have our eyes upon you through the glass partition." " Bring down my family," said the king. During this interval. His Majesty went to the dining- room; I followed him. I drew the table to one side and placed the chairs at the farther end of the room to give more space. " Bring some water and a glass," said the king. There was then on the table a bottle of iced water ; I brought only a glass and placed it beside the water-bottle. " Bring water that is not iced," said the king. "If the queen drank the other it might make her ill Tell M. de Firmont," added His Majesty, " not to leave my cabinet ; I fear the sight of him would make my family too unhappy." The commissioner who was sent to fetch the royal family was absent a quarter of an hour ; during that time the king went back to his cabinet, returning several times to the en- trance-door, with signs of the deepest emotion. 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 199 At half -past eight the door opened ; the queen appeared first, holding her son by the hand ; then Madame Royale and Madame Elisabeth ; they ran to the arms of the king. A gloomy silence reigned for several minutes, interrupted only by sobs. The queen made a movement to draw the king into his room, " No," he said, " let us go into the dining- room, I can see you only there." They went there, and I closed the door, which was of glass, behind them. The king sat down, the queen on his left, Madame Elisabeth on his right, Madame Eoyale nearly opposite to him, and the little prince between his knees. All were bending towards him and held him half embraced. This scene of sorrow lasted seven quarters of an hour, during which it was impossible to hear anything ; we could see only that after each sentence of the king the sobs of the princesses redoubled, lasting some minutes ; then the king would resume what he was saying. It was easy to judge from their motions that the king him- self was the first to tell them of his condemnation. At a quarter past ten the king rose first ; they all followed him ; I opened the door ; the queen held the king by the right arm ; Their Majesties each gave a hand to the dauphin ; Madame Royale on the left clasped the king's body ; Ma- dame Elisabeth, on the same side but a little behind the rest, had caught the left arm of her brother. They made a few steps towards the entrance, uttering the most sorrowful moans. " I assure you," said the king, " that I will see you to-morrow at eight o'clock." " You promise us ? " they all cried. " Yes, I promise it." " Why not at seven o'clock ? " said the queen. " Well, then, yes, at seven o'clock," replied the king. "Adieu — " He uttered that " adieu " in so ex- pressive a manner that the sobs redoubled. Madame Royale fell fainting at the king's feet, which she clasped ; I raised her and helped Madame Elisabeth to hold her. The king, 200 MADAME ^ILISAHETn 1)E FUANCK. [omai-. hi. wishing tt^ put nii eml to this ht>nrt-reiulin<^ scone, gave them all a, most tender embraee, and then had the strength to tear himself from their arms. " Adieu — adieu," he said, and re-entered his chamber. The jtrineesses went up to theirs. I wislied to go too tx) support Madame Eoyale ; the municipals stoj)petl me on the second stair and forced me to go back. Though the two do«:>rs were shut, we continued to hear the sobs and moans of the princesses on the staircase. The king rejoined his con- fessor in the tourellc. Half an hour later he came out and I served the supper. The king ate little, but with appetite. After supper, His Majesty having returned to his cabinet in the tourelle, his confessor came out an instant later and asked the commissioners to take him to the council-room. This was for the purpose of obtaining the sacerdotal robes, and other tilings necessary to say mass on the following morning. M. de Firmont obtained with difficulty the grant- ing of this request. It was to the church of the Capuchins in the Marais, near the hotel de Soubise, which had lately been made a parish church, that they sent for the articles required for divine service. Eeturning from the council-room, M. de Firraont went back to the king. They both re-entered the tourelle, where they remained until half an hour after midnight. Then I undressed the king, and as I was about to roll his hair, he said to me, " It is not worth while." When I closed the curtains after he was in bed, he said, " Cldry, wake me at five o'clock." He was hardly in bed before a deep sleep took possession of his senses; he slept until five o'clock without waking. M. de Firmont, whom His Majesty had urged to take a little rest, threw himself on my bed, and I passed the night on a 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 201 chair in the king's room, praying God to preserve both his strength and his courage. I heard five o'clock strike on the city clocks and I lit the fire. At the noise I made, the king awoke and said, opening his curtaia," Is it five o'clock ? " " Sire, it has struck five on several of the city clocks, but not here." The fire being lighted I went to his bedside. " I have slept well," he said ; " I needed it, for yesterday tired me very much. Where is M. de Firmont ? " " On my bed." " And you, where did you sleep ? " " In this chair." " I am sorr}^," said the king. " Ah Sire ! I exclaimed, " how can I think of myself at such a moment ? " He held out his hand to me and pressed mine with affection. I dressed the king and did his hair; while dressing, he took from his watch a seal, put it in the pocket of his waist- coat, and laid the watch upon the chimney-piece ; then, tak- ing from his finger a ring, which he looked at many times, he put it in the same pocket where the seal was. He changed his shirt, put. on a white waistcoat which he had worn the night before, and I helped him on with his coat. He took from his pockets his portfolio, his eye-glass, his snuff-box, and some other articles ; he laid them with his purse on the chimney-piece; all this in silence and before the municipals. His toilet completed, the king told me to inform M. de Firmont. I went to call him ; he was already up, and he followed His Majesty into the tourelle. I then placed a bureau in the middle of the room and pre- pared it, like an altar, for the mass. At two o'clock in the morning all the necessary articles had been brought. I took into my own room the priest's robe, and then, when every- thing was ready, I went to inform the king. He asked me if I could serve the mass. I answered yes, but that I did not know all the responses by heart. He had a book in his 202 MADAM K Elisabeth de riiANCE. [niAi-. m. hand which he oj)Oiied, found the place of the mass, and gave it to nic, taking another book for himself. During this time the priest robed himself. 1 had placed an arm-chair before the altar and a large cushion on the floor for His Majesty. The king made me take away the cushion, and went himself into his cabinet to fetch another, smaller and covered with horsehair, which he used daily to say his prayers. As soon as the priest entered, the municipals re- tired into the antechamber, and I closed one half of the door. Mass began at six o'clock. During that august ceremony a great silence reigned. The king, always on his knees, listened to the mass with deep absorption, in a most noble attitude. His Majesty took the communion. After mass, he went into his cabinet, and the priest into my room to remove his sacerdotal garments. I seized that moment to enter the king's cabinet. He took me by both hands and said in a touching voice : " Cl^ry, I am satisfied with yom- services." "Ah, Sire ! " I cried, throw- ing myself at his feet. " Why can I not die to satisfy your murderers and save a life so precious to good Frenchmen ! Hope, Sire, — they dare not strike you." " Death does not alarm me," he replied. " I am quite prepared ; but you," he continued, " do not expose yourself ; I shall ask that you be kejjt near my son ; give him all your care in this dreadful place; remind him, tell him often, how I have grieved for the misfortunes he must bear : some day he may be able to reward your zeal." " Ah ! my master, my king, if the most absolute devotion, if my zeal and my care have been agree- able to you, the only reward I ask is to receive your bless- ing — do not refuse it to the last Frenchman who remains beside you." I was already at his feet, holding one of his hands ; in 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 203 that position he granted my prayer and gave me his bless- ing ; then he raised me, and pressing me to his bosom said : " Give it also to all who are attached to me ; tell Turgy I am content with him. Now, go back," he added ; " give no cause for complaint against you." Then, calling me back and taking a paper from the table, he said, " See, here is a letter Potion wi-ote me at the time of your entrance to the Temple. It may be useful to you for remaining here." I caught his hand again and kissed it, and went out. " Adieu," he said to me again, " Adieu." I returned to my chamber, where I found M. de Firmont praying on his knees beside my bed. " What a prince ! " he said to me as he rose ; " with what resignation, with what courage he looks at death ! he was as tranquil as if he were hearing mass in his palace in the midst of his Court." " I have just received the most affecting farewell," I said to him. " He has deigned to promise me that he will ask to have me remain in the Tower to wait on his son. Monsieur, I beg of you to remind him, for I shall not have the happi- ness to speak to him in private again." " Be at ease about that," replied M, de Firmont as he turned to rejoin His Majesty. At seven o'clock the king came out of his cabinet and called me ; he took me into the embrasure of the window and said : " You will give this seal to my son — and this ring to the queen ; tell her that I part from it with pain and only at the last moment. This little packet incloses the hair of all my family ; you will give her that also. Say to the queen, to my dear children, to my sister, that althougli I promised to see them this morning, I wish to spare them the pain of so cruel a separation. — How much it costs me to go without receiving their last embraces ! " He wiped away a few tears ; then he added, with a most sorrowful accent, 14 Mem. Vcr. 9 204 MADAME Elisabeth de France. [chap. m. " I cliiirgo ytui to take them my farewell." He immediately re-entered his eabiiiet. The municipals who were eh)se at hand had heard His Majesty, and had seen him give me the different articles which I still held iu my hands. They told me to give them up to them ; but one of their number proposed to leave them in my hands for a decision of the council about them, and this advice prevailed.^ A quarter of an hour later the king came out of his cabinet. " Ask," he said to me, " if I can have scissors ; " and he went in again. I made the request of the commis- sioners. " Do you know what he wants to do with them ? " I said I did not. " You must let us know." I knocked at the door of the cabinet. The king came out. A municipal who followed me said to him : " You have asked for scissors, but before we take your request to the council we must know what you wish to do with them." His Majesty replied, " I wish Cl^ry to cut my hair." The municipals retired ; one of them went down to the council-chamber, where, after half an hour's deliberation, they refused the scissors. The muni- cipals returned and announced that decision to the king. " I should not have touched the scissors," said His Majesty ; " I should have requested Cl^ry to cut my hair in your presence ; inquire again, monsieur; I beg you to take charge of my request." The municipal returned to the council, which persisted in its refusal. It was then that I was told to be ready to accompany the king and undress him on the scaffold. At this announce- ment I was seized with terror ; but collecting all my strength I was preparing to render this last duty to my master, to whom this service done by the executioner would be repugnant, when another municipal came to tell me that I was ^ See Appendix V. 1793] THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. 205 not to go; adding, "The executioner is good enough for him." Paris was under arms from five o'clock in the morning ; nothing was heard outside but the beating of the generale, the rattle of arms, the tramp of horses, the movement of cannon, which they placed and displaced incessantly. All this echoed through the Tower. At nine o'clock the noise increased, the gates opened with a crash ; Santerre, accompanied by seven or eight municipals, entered at the head of ten gendarmes, whom he ranged in two lines. At this disturbance the king came out of his cabinet. " Have you come to fetch me ? " he said to Santerre " Yes." " I ask you for one minute." The king entered his cabinet and came out again immediately, his confessor with him. He held his will in his hand, and, addressing a mu- nicipal, Jacques Roux by name, a priest who had taken the oath, who was the man nearest to him, he said : " I beg you to give this paper to the queen, to my wife." " It is not my business," replied the priest, refusing to take the document. " I am here to conduct you to the scaffold." His Majesty then addressed Gobau, another municipal. " Give this paper, I beg you, to my wife. You can read it ; it contains dispo- sitions which I desire that the Commune should know." Gobau took the document. I was behind the king, near the chimney; he turned to me and I offered him his overcoat. " I have no need of it," he said, " give me only my hat." I gave it to him. His hand touched mine, which he pressed for the last time. " Messieurs," he said, addressing the municipals, " I desire that Cl^ry should remain near my son, who is accustomed to his care ; I hope that the Commune will accede to my re- quest." Then, looking at Santerre, he said, " Let us go." Those were the last words that he said in his apartment. 206 MAUAMK /'.LISAnKTll DK FUANCE. [chap. iir. At tlie top of the staircase he met Mathey, porter of the Tower, and said to him: " I was a little hasty to you day before yesterday; do not bear me ill-will." Matliey made no answer; ho even affected to turn away when the king spoke to him. I remained alone in the room, my heart wrunjr with sorrow, and almost without sensation. The drums and the trumpets announced that His ]\Iajesty had left the Tower. An hoiu- later salvos of artillery and cries of Vive la nation ! Vive la repuhliq}U ! were heard. The best of kings was no more 1 NARRATIVE OF MARIE-THERESE DE FRANCE, DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME. NARRATIVE Op Madame TeiiRisE de France. Relating : I, Events from October 5, 1789, to August 10, 1792. II. Events taking place in the Tower of the Temple from August, 1792, to the Death of the Dauphin, June 9, 1795. [The latter part of this Narrative^ was the part first written by Marie-Thdrfese, Madame Royale de France, only surviving child of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette. She wrote it in the Temple after the death of her brother in 1795, when her own captivity became less rigorous, and she was allowed the use of pencil and paper. The first part of the Narrative, that which relates the various events taking place from October 5, 1789, to August 10, 1792, was written by her in 1799, during her exile and soon after her marriage to her cousin, the Due dAngou- leme, son of the Comte d'Artois, subsequently Charles X. This manuscript was corrected and copied, in his own handwriting, by her uncle, Monsieur, Comte de Provence, subsequently Louis XVIII., with whom she lived during his two exiles and his two Restorations till his death. This copy, now in possession of the family of Frangois Hue, a devoted attendant of the royal family of France, to whom the Duchesse d'Angouleme gave it, was first published by M. de Saint-Amand (Firmin Didot, Paris, no date). From that edition this translation is made. The additions by Louis XVIII. are placed in the text between brackets ; his omissions, which are chiefly of words and brief sentences, * Beginning on page 243. — Ts, 210 MADAMK f:i,lSAlU:ril DK KKANCE. [1789 nituie to oorrert his niin-e's Kronch slvlc, ;iii', necessarily, not shown in the transhilion.] /'i>5/ Uprising of the Populace on the 5th and 6th of October 1781). J\c}iwval of my Famili/ to the Cajrital. It >vas on the 5th of October, 1789, of a Monday, that the first liisfin-bances which, in tlie end, convulsed all France, broke forth. In the morning of that too memorable day every one was still tranquil at Versailles. My father had gone to hunt at Meudon, a royal chateau midway to Paris ; my motlier had gone alone to her garden at Trianon ; my uncle Monsieur, \^ith. Madame, remained at Versailles; my Aunt Elisabeth had ridden out on horseback to dine at her garden on the road to Paris; my brother and I had also gone out in the morning and returned towards half- past one to dine with my mother. Hardly had my Aunt Elisabeth reached Montreuil and begun her dinner when they came to tell her that all the women and all the rabble of Paris were coming, armed, to Versailles. A few moments later the news was confirmed ; they were already verj' near Versailles, where my father had not yet returned. My aunt went back at once to Versailles accom- panied by her two ladies-in-waiting. Going to my uncle's apartment, she asked if he knew what was happening; he said he had heard talk of all Paris coming out to Versailles armed, but he did not believe it; my aunt assured him that the thing was true, and together they went to my mother. We had just finished dinner when it was announced that Monsiexir and Mme. Elisabeth were there and wished to speak to the queen. My mother was surprised, because 1789] NARRATIVE OF MADAME ROYALE. 211 it was not her usual hour for seeing them. She passed into another room [to speak with them], and returned almost immediately, much agitated by what she had heard and still more uneasy about my father; she was not aware that the moment the news of the insurrection reached Versailles two gentlemen, named Puymontbrun and La Devfeze, had hastened on liorseback to warn my father. He returned at five o'clock, and by six the whole troop of rioters were in Versailles; the iron gates of the chateau were closed and defended by the Gardes du Corps. M. de la Fayette was at the head of this Parisian army. [None but the rabble came first; M. de la Fayette did not come, with troops little disciplined, until eleven at night.] They entered the hall of the Assembly, where they declaimed much against the king and the govern- ment. The president of the Assembly, M. Mounier, came several times to the chateau to speak to my father. The Due d'Orl^ans was with la Fayette [they were not to- gether], and it was said they intended to make him king. However that may be, the object of these rioters was not well known to themselves ; none but the leaders were in- formed of their true purpose. Their [principal] purpose was to murder my mother, on whom the Due d'Orleans wished to avenge himself for affronts he said she had put upon him ; also to massacre the Gardes du Corps, the only ones who remained faithful to their king [they were then commanded by the Due de Guiche]. Towards midnight the crowd retired, seeming to want rest ; many of the women lay down on the benches of the National Assembly. M. de la Fayette himself went to bed, saying that everything was tranquil for the night ; so that my father and mother, seeing that all was really quiet, re- tired to their rooms, and so did the rest of the family. 212 MAPAMi: Kl.ISAlir.TII DH KIJANCE. [1789 My mother know that their chief object was to kill her; nevertheless*, in spite of that, she made no sign/but retire+1 t*) her riHMH with all |>ossil)le coolness and courage [after ordering all \vhi> had gathered there to retire also]. She went li» K'll, directing Mnie. do Tourzel to take her son instantly to the king if she heard any noise during the night; she ordered all her servants to go to bed. The rest of the night was (juiet till live in the morning ; but then the iron gates of the chateau were forced and the vagabond.*?, led, it was said, by the Due d'0rl6ans himself, rushed straight to my mother's apartment. The Swiss Guard stationed at the foot of the staircase, which could have dis- puted their passage, gave way, so that the villains, without any hindrance, entered the hall of the Gardes du Corps wounding and killing those who tried to oppose their pas- sage. Two of these guards, named Miomandre de Sainte- Marie and Durepaire, though grievously wounded, dragged themselves to my mother's door, crying out to her to fly and bolt the doors behind her. Their zeal was cruelly rewarded ; the wretches flung themselves upon them and left them bathed in their blood, for dead. Meantime, my mother's women, wakened by the shouts of the insurgents and the Gardes du Corps, rushed to the door and bolted it. My mother sprang from her bed and, half-dressed, ran to my father's apartment ; but the door of it was locked within, and those who were there, hearing the noise, would not open it, thinking it was the rioters trying to enter. Fortunately, a man on duty named Turgy (the same Nvho afterwards served us in the Temple as waiter), having recognized my mother's voice, opened the door to her immediately. At the same moment the wretches forced the door of my mother's room ; so that one instant later she would have been taken without means of escape. As soon as she 1789] NARRATIVE OF MADAME ROYALE. 213 entered my father's rooms she looked for him, but could not find him; having heard she was in danger he had rushed to her apartment, but by another way. Fortunately, he met my brother, brought to him by Mme. de Tourzel, who urged him to return to his own rooms, where he found my mother awaiting him in mortal anxiety. Eeassured about my father and brother, the queen came in search of me ; I was already awakened by the noise in her rooms and in the garden under my windows ; my mother told me to rise, and then took me with her to my father's apartment. My great-aunts Adelaide and Victoire arrived soon after. "We were very uneasy about Monsieur, Madame, and my Aunt Elisabeth, of whom nothing had been heard. My father sent gentlemen to know where they were. They were found sleeping peacefully ; the brigands not having gone to their side of the chateau, neither they nor their servants knew what was happening. They all came at once to my father. My Aunt Elisabeth was so troubled by the danger that the king and queen had run that she crossed the rooms inundated with the blood of the Gardes du Corps without even perceiving it. . . . The courtyard of the chateau presented a horrible sight. A crowd of women, almost naked, and men armed with pikes threatened our windows with dreadful cries. M. de la Fayette and the Due d'Orl^ans were at one of the windows, pretending to be in despair at the horrors which were being committed during that morning. I do not know who advised my mother to show herself on t|je balcony, but she went out upon it with my brother. The mob demanded that her son should be sent in; having taken him into the room my mother returned alone to the balcony [expecting to perish, but happily], this great courage awed the whole crowd of people, who confined themselves 214 MAHAMK /:L1SAHKTII VK I'KANCE. [1789 to liMiilinp luT with insults witlumt daring,' to attack her jiorson. M. de la Fnyotte, on liis side, never ceased to harangue the rintors, but his words had no effect and the tumult still continued. He ttdd them that my father consented to ri'lurn wiili them to Paris; he said he could assure them of this as my father had given him his word. This promise calmed them a little, and while the Court carriages were W'ing made ready to start, all the family returned to their riK)ms to make their toilet, for up to this time we still wore our night-oaps. All heing arranged for the departure, there was fresh embarrassment alx)ut how to leave the chateau, because they wished to prevent my father from crossing the great guard- nx)ms which were inundated with blood. We therefore went down by a small staircase, crossed the Cour des Cerfs and got into a carriage for six persons ; on the back seat were my father, mother and brother; on the front seat Madame, my Aunt Elisabeth and I, in the middle my uncle Monsieur and Mme. de Tourzel. My great-aunts, Adelaide and Victoire started for their country-seat, Bellevue, at the same time. The crowd was so great it was long before we could ad- vance. In front of the cortege were carried the heads of the two Gardes du Corps who had been killed. Close to the carriage was M. de la Fayette on horseback surrounded by troops of the Flanders regiment on foot, and of the grena- diers of the French guard. [In the ranks of the latter and mingling with them, though with very different sentiments, were several of the Gardes du Corps, who gave to their king in these cruel moments the last mark of devotion which it was ever possible for their regiment to give.] We started at one in the afternoon. Though the journey 1789] NARRATIVE OF MADAME ROYALE. 215 from Versailles to Paris is usually done in two short hours we did not reach the barrier till six in the evening. Along the whole way the brigands never ceased firing their muskets, and it was useless for M. de la Fayette to oppose them ; they shouted : Vive la nation ! A has les Calotins ! X has Ics Frctres ! M. Bailly, Mayor of Paris, in conformity with an ancient custom [so insolent and derisory at this moment], presented my father with the keys of the city on a gold plate, and made him a long speech in which he spoke of the pleasure the good city of Paris would have in possessing the king, whom he urgently requested to go at once to the Hotel de Ville. My father was unwilling to consent, say- ing it would take too long and fatigue his children too mucL Nevertheless, M. Bailly insisted, and M. de la Fayette being of the same opinion, — because he thought it better to go the same day rather than wait for the morrow when they would be forced to go, — my father decided to do so. Having entered Paris, the shouts, the clamour, the insults increased with the mob of the populace ; it took us two hours to reach the HStel de Ville. My father had ordered all per- sons in his suite who were in the other carriages to go straight to the Tuileries ; he therefore went alone with his family to the Hotel de Ville, where the municipality and M. Bailly received him, still civilly, and made him another speech on their joy at seeing that he wished to establish himself in Paris. My father answered in a few words, from which they could see that he felt his position much. They asked him to rest there a moment, as he had now been eight hours in the carriage. The People, who filled the square, shouted loudly and demanded to see the king ; he placed himself therefore at a window of the Hotel de Ville, and as it was now dark they brought torches in order to recognize 210 MADAMi: Elisabeth dk france. [km him. Then wo ajjain Rot iiUo the carriaj^c luul reached the TuiK>rie.>< jiL ten i)'eh»ek. Thus i»ftsseil that fatal day, the opening epoch of the im- prisonment of the royal family and the beginning of the outrages and cruelties it was to bear in the end. The rest of this year, and the year of 1790 were passed in a continual struggle between the Koyal Power ami that arrogated to itself by the Assembly, the latter always gaining the upper hand, although no very remarkable events happened during tliat time relating to the personal situation of my family. Flight of my Father ; Stoppage at Varennes ; his Return to Paris. On the 20th of June, 1790, my father and mother seemed to me greatly agitated during the whole day and much oc- cupied, without my knowing the reason. After dinner they sent us, my Ijrother and me, into another room, and shut themselves into their own, alone with my aunt. I knew later that this was the moment when they told the latter of their plan for escaping by flight from the durance under which they were living. At five o'clock my mother went to walk with my brother and me ; during our walk my mother took me aside from her suite, and told me not to be uneasy at anything that I might see ; that we might be separated, but not for long ; I understood nothing of this confidence. Thereupon she kissed me and said that if the ladies of the suite questioned me as to this conversation I was to say that she had scolded me and forgiven me. We returned about seven o'clock and I went to my room very sad, not knowing what to think of what my mother had said to me. I passed the rest of the evening alone ; my mother had induced 1790] NARRATIVE OF MADAME ROYALE. 217 Mme. de Mackau, my subgoverness, to go and spend a few days in a convent of which she was very fond, and had also sent into the country a young girl who was usually with me ; besides which she ordered me to send away all my servants except one woman. I was hardly in bed before my mother came in ; she told me we were to leave at once, and gave her orders for the ar- rangements ; she said to Mme. Brunyer, my waiting-woman, that she wished her to follow us, but that, having a husband, she was free to remain. That [good] woman replied im- mediately that they did right to go, and as for her she should not hesitate to leave her husband and follow us everywhere. My mother was touched by that mark of attachment. She then went down to bid good-night to Monsieur and Madame, who had supped with her as usual. Monsieur was already informed of the departure ; on returning to his own apart- ment he went to bed, and then, having sent away all his people, he rose [without noise and, disguising himself as an English merchant] he started with one of his gentlemen, M. d'Avaray, who, by his intelligence and devotion enabled him to escape [or surmount] all the dangers of the route. As for Madame, she was wholly ignorant of the intended journey, and it was not until after she was in bed that one of her women came and told her she was ordered by the king and Monsieur to take her without delay out of the kingdom. She started at once, and met Monsieur at the first post where they relayed, without appearing to know each other, and so arrived safely at Brussels. My mother had already been to wake my brother, whom Mme. de Tourzel took down to her entresol. Having gone there with him we there found awaiting us one of the Gardes du Corps who was to be our guide. My mother came several 218 MAI "A. mi: f:i.iSAnKTii ni: kkance. (ituo lime^ to oast uix eyo uium us wliilo luy brother was beiiig ilrosstnl us a little girl; lie was lunxvy with sleep, and did nut kiu»w what was haj)i)eniiig. Al hall-i>asl icn we were ready; inv inolhiT tt»ok us hei-self to the carriage iu the middle of the courtyan.1 aiul }«ut us into it, my brother and me and Mine, do Tourzel. M. de Fersen, a Swedish noble in the service of France, served us as coachman. To throw people off the .scent we made several turns in Paris and retiuned to the little Carrousel near the Tuileries to wait for my father and mother. My brother was lying at the bottom of the carriage under Mme. de Tourzel's gown. "NVe saw M. de la Fayette pass close by us, going to the king's coucher. "We waited there a full hour in the greatest iinj>atieuce and uneasiness at my parents ' long delay. Dur- ing the journey Mme. de Tourzel was to pass for a Baronne de Korff, my mother as Mme. Bonnet, governess of the lady's children; my father, under the name of Durand, as valet de chambre ; my aunt, named Eosalie, as the lady's companion, and my brother and I for the two daughters of Mme. de Korfl", named Am