. yield. The minutes of the commune of Paris mention of Necker. Several members of the nobility declared a fact, which the historians have not always noticed, that, under the present circumstances, they had deterbut it is too significant to be passed over. In the midst mined to join in the deliberations of the National of the general rejoicing and exchange of congratulations Assembly, notwithstanding their instructions to mainbetween the members of the States-General and the tain the vote by order. The Cardinal de Larochefouelectors of Paris, one of the deputies of the National cauld made a similar declaration in the name of almost Assembly, while announcing the confirmation of the all the members of the clergy. The Assembly was civic militia, added that the king pardoned the French just going to vote on Mirabeau's proposition, when the guards. The deputy must have been the Duc de dismissal of all the ministers was announced. One of Liancourt. The word "pardon" produced a general the nobility also declared that he was authorised by the murmur. Some French guards, who were in the hall, king to say that he had resolved to go to the capital, advanced to the bureau, and said, "We do not want and he requested the Assembly to inform his good city any pardon, we do not require it; in serving the nation of Paris of his intentions. It was immediately resolved we serve the king, and what is taking place to-day that a large deputation of the Assembly should accomproves it." pany the king to Paris, and some of the members were sent to see the king on this matter. The king acceded to the wish of the Assembly, who appointed a hundred* of their members to accompany him. The king also sent to the Assembly a letter of recall, which he had written to Necker, a letter unsealed, and he requested the National Assembly to forward it. The Assembly also addressed a letter to Necker, in which they prayed him to conform to the king's wish: "the nation, its king, and its representatives expect you." This delusion did not last long. The Archbishop of Paris did not forget his functions on this occasion. A Te Deum was voted, and the archbishop, the new magistrates, the electors, mingled with the French guards and the militia, moved off to the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame. After the religious ceremony was over, Lafayette took the oath as commander of the new civic army. There were loud cries in the streets and in the Hôtel de Ville for the dismissal of the new ministers and the recall of Necker. "The inhabitants," said the report read by Mounier, "envied the happiness which the National Assembly had enjoyed, and expressed a desire to see their king among them, as we had had him among us. Thus Paris will enjoy the blessings of peace. The civic militia will prevent all disorder: it will be commanded not only by a hero whose name is dear to liberty in the two worlds, but by a French hero, who can at the same time love his prince and abhor slavery. We must regret, no doubt, the evils which the capital has suffered. But who is to be reproached for the blood that has been spilt? Is it not the perfidious counsellors of the king, who have prevailed upon him to close to the representatives of the nation the ordinary place of their sitting by soldiers, to transform the National Assembly into a bed of justice (lit de justice), to bring together an army at great cost, at a time in which the finances are in the greatest disorder, in which we are suffering a grievous famine; to bring this army to Paris, to Versailles, and the neighbourhood, and thus to alarm the people for the safety of its representatives; to place the pomp of war by the side of the sanctuary of liberty, and to remove the virtuous ministers who enjoyed public confidence; to stop all communication. between Paris and Versailles, and to treat the subjects of the king like enemies to the State. Among the acts of despair of the people of Paris, while we lament the death of several citizens, it will, perhaps, be difficult to resist a feeling of satisfaction at seeing the destruction of the Bastille, where, upon the ruins of this horrible prison of despotism, there shall soon be raised, in accordance with the wish of the citizens of Paris, the statue of a good king, the restorer of liberty and of the happiness of France." Mirabeau prepared an address to the king to dismiss his ministers, to which some members added the recall Louis XVI. had not resolved to visit Paris until after much deliberation. On the 16th a council was held, in which there were two propositions: to leave Versailles with the troops, which the king had already ordered to withdraw, or to go to Paris to quiet the fever there. The queen was for going away. On the evening of the 16th she ordered Madame Campan† to take all her jewels out of her coffers, in order to put them in a single one, which she could carry off with her. Madame Campan assisted her in burning a great number of papers. The queen told Madame Campan, that, after a long discussion, at which she was present, the king, who was apparently tired, said, "Well, gentlemen, we must decide. Must I go away, or stay? I am ready to do either." When the resolution was taken that he should go to Paris, the king heard mass, and received the communion. He appointed the Count of Provence lieutenant-general of the kingdom. It seemed as if he expected not to get back to Versailles alive. The final resolution was not taken till the evening; and it appears that Bailly had some share in deciding the king. At Paris they were busy with other matters. The permanent committee at the Hôtel de Ville ordered the demolition of the Bastille, and commissioners were appointed to execute the order. Nobody thought of first asking the king's consent. Lafayette proposed that the Paris militia should be called the National Guard, and his proposal was adopted. Measures were taken for its organization; but every thing proceeded from the Hôtel de Ville, which had usurped all the func *Hist. Parlem.,' ii., 130; two hundred, Thiers, 'Hist.," &c., c. 4; two hundred and forty, Louis Blanc, 'Hist.,' &c ; a small matter, but similar discrepancies continually occur. Madame Campan's 'Mémoires,' ii., 51. and re-established the collection of the octrois-that is, the duties levied at the barriers on certain articles brought into Paris. tions of government at Paris. The committee com-guished brethren, by forming a double line, and holdmenced a search after grain and flour in the convents, ing their swords crossed over his head. As soon as Louis set his foot on the ground, to ascend the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, the vault of steel,' as the crossing of swords was called, was formed. He walked with a firm step beneath this canopy of swords; and as soon as he appeared in the hall, there were loud shouts of " Vive le Roi!" which lasted till he took his seat. Bailly presented him with a cockade, of the kind which the citizens had adopted-a cockade of three colours, blue, red, and white-and the king put it in his hat. The king left Versailles at eight on the morning of the 17th of July, to visit his good city of Paris. He took with him Maréchal Beauvau, the Dukes of Villeroy and Villequier, and two popular nobles, the Comte d'Estaing, and the Marquis de Nesle. The horses went at a walk, and the journey was very slow. The peasants of the villages on the road joined the procession, armed with scythes and forks. The militia. of Versailles formed the escort to Sèvres; and from Sèvres the militia of Paris: the king's body-guards were purposely left behind.* The king was not a crown to birth; timid man, and his countenance was calm, but it ex-your virtues." * pressed uneasiness. Moreau de St. Méry, president of the assembly of electors of Paris, made an address to the king, which contained the following words :-" You owed your you are now indebted for it only to The king had to listen to the reading of the minutes of the proceedings of the commune, and by his silence to give his assent to the formation of the bourgeois militia, the order for the demolition of the Bastille, and to the appointment of Bailly and Lafayette. During the king's absence the queen was in the greatest alarm. She sent for several persons about the court, but their doors were locked-they were gone. In the palace there reigned the silence of death. She prepared an address, of a few lines, to read to the Ethys de Corny, who was procureur du roi for the National Assembly, to which she intended to go with city of Paris, and had fought with Lafayette in Ameher children, if the king should be detained a prisoner | rica, proposed that, in commemoration of the events in Paris. With tears, she said to Madame Campan, of the day, a monument should be erected, on the site "They will never let him come back." of the Bastille, to Louis XVI., the regenerator of public liberty, the restorer of national prosperity, the father of the French people. The permanent committee of electors being informed of the king's intended visit to the Hôtel de Ville, had sent its orders to the sixty districts, and, from an early hour in the morning, one hundred and fifty thousand armed men were arranged in double line from the Place de Grève to the barrier of Passy. It was near three in the afternoon before the king reached the barrier. Bailly was there with the keys of the city, which he presented to Louis, with these words: "Sire, I present to your majesty the keys of your good city of Paris: they are the same which were presented to Henry IV. He had conquered his people: here the people have conquered their king." The only cry which was heard, during the king's progress, was, "Vive la Nation!" The cannon taken at the Bastille and at the Hôtel des Invalides, were dragged before him by the French guards. Lafayette, mounted on horseback, with his sword in his hand, and the new cockade and a feather in his hat, rode before the king's carriage. On reaching the Place de Grève, the freemasons, who were there in great numbers, received the king with the honours which their craft pay to distin* Twelve guards attended him as far as Sèvres, as Madame de Campan says; and she had good means of knowing, as she saw the king set out. Discrepancies in minor facts are so numerous in the histories of the French Revolution and the Mémoires, that it would be wearisome and useless to notice them always. † Dumont, Souvenirs,' &c., p. 116., says, that on hearing these words, Louis turned to Beauvau, and said in a low tone, "I don't know if I ought to hear this." Beauvau made him a sign, and Bailly went on speaking. Bailly's speech is printed in the 'Hist. Parlem.,' ii., 133. Louis attempted to speak, twice, as some authorities say; but his emotion, or some other cause, did not allow him to read his address. Bailly approached the king, and, after receiving his orders, told the Assembly that the king had visited Paris to calm the uneasiness, and to enjoy the presence and the affection of his people; that he was anxious for the restoration of tranquillity; and that, if the laws were not observed, the guilty should be handed over to justice. Bailly then added, that his majesty gave permission to speak; and Lally-Tolendal spoke. This ardent orator, like the mass of the deputies, sincerely wished to reconcile the king and the insurgents: he looked to the throne as a barrier against popular violence, and as a security against power being thrown into the hands of the poorer classes. "Are you satisfied, citizens?" he said; "here is the king, whom you called for with loud cries, and whose name alone excited your enthusiasm two days ago, when we pronounced it in the midst of you. Enjoy his presence and his benefits. It is he who has restored to you your National Assemblies, and who desires to perpetuate them. It is he who has desired to establish your liberties, your It is he . property, upon an immoveable foundation. who has proposed to you, as one may say, to share his authority with him; only reserving to himself that power which is necessary for your happiness, that which ought always to belong to him, and which your * Manuscript Letter of Robespierre, quoted by Louis Blanc, 'Histoire de la Rév. Franç.,' ii., 420. Robespierre was one of the deputies who accompanied the king to Paris. selves ought to entreat him never to part with.-And tion continually increased, could only utter these you, Sire, allow a subject, who is neither more faithful words, which were repeated: "My people may always nor more devoted than all those who surround you, rely on my affection." but who is as much so as any one of those who obey you; allow him to raise his voice towards you, and to say to you, there they are-this people that adores you; this people, whom your mere presence fills with transports of joy, and whose sentiments towards your sacred person can never be a matter of doubt. There is not here a single man who is not ready to shed for you-for your legitimate authority-even the last drop of his blood." The addresses which were delivered on this memorable occasion were interrupted whenever any words occurred which expressed the disposition of the people with respect to their king, by the acclamations of all the Assembly. The king, whose emo*This sentence is taken from the report of "the testimonials of affection which his majesty received in the capital," made by M. Sallé de Choux, one of the deputation which accompanied the king to the capital on the evening of the 17th of July, at a sitting of the National Assembly. The colouring of the whole report is obvious enough. Compare Madame Campan, Mémoires,' ü., 58. At the close of the business the king showed himself at a window to the immense crowd assembled in the Place de Grève, and waved his hat, with the cockade in it which Bailly had given him. The crowd applauded, not the king—as it has been well remarked— but the cockade. The king returned to Versailles; and his countenance gladdened as he approached the heights of Sèvres, and recognized his body-guard. It was a relief to escape from the tumult of Paris and its dubious demonstrations. The queen ran to throw herself into the king's arms; but the sight of the revolutionary cockade shocked and disgusted her; and she said in a contemptuous tone, "I did not think that I had married a plebeian." * Mercier, 'Nouveau Paris,' cited by Louis Blanc, 'Hist.,' &c., ii., 422. CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST EMIGRATION AND THE FAMINE. THE capture of the Bastille, and the order for the retreat of the troops that had been collected round Versailles and Paris, were followed by the emigration of many persons of rank. The Duchess de Polignac, the queen's favourite, and the object of popular hatred, left Versailles at midnight, in the disguise of a chamber-maid. She was accompanied by her husband, their daughter the Duchess de Guiche, and some others. They made their escape to Switzerland, in continual fear of being apprehended on the route. At the same time with the retreat of the troops, on the 17th of July, the Maréchal de Broglie, Breteuil, the Prince of Condé, the Duke de Bourbon, the Duke d'Enghien, the Prince de Conti, and the king's own brother, the Comte d'Artois, made their escape. The life of the Comte d'Artois was supposed to be in danger: he stole away from the palace like a criminal, and made his way to Turin. Thus the king was deserted by those who were bound by duty to rally round the throne; and such was the effect of the recent events, that even his own servants forgot the respect due to their master. Besenval, one day, observed one of them looking over the king's shoulder, to see what he was writing. The first emigration was not only the symptom of the fears of those who fled, but it was the signal of the fall of the French monarchy. Those who were the chief enemies of the revolution looked upon the king as their greatest cause of embarassment; for he had an invincible repugnance to all severe measures, to any step that might cause the shedding of blood. He would not make himself the leader of the nobility; and he had already yielded so far, that further concession was a necessary consequence. His irresolution was another cause of danger to himself and the anti-revolutionary party. He would neither guide the revolution, nor resist it in fact, he could do neither. The torrent had set in, and, like a mighty inundation, it swept every thing before it. Among the rumours that take the place of historical facts, not because they were true, but because they were believed, is the story of an attempt made on the life of the king, and attributed to some great personage about the court. The facts are confusedly told, the evidence is insufficient, but many of the royalist party believed that the king's life had been attempted; and some even mentioned the Comte d'Artois as the assassin. But there is not the slightest evidence for this abominable imputation against the king's brother; and his character, with all his faults, rendered him incapable of plotting so useless a crime. The Duke of Orleans was also the object of atrocious calumnies; and a report was current, of his hiring a man to poison the Comte d'Artois; a report for which no evidence was ever pro |