UNFORTUNATELY, in the queen's opinion, all the facts which had occurred were merely accidents, which a firm and active hand might remedy. It was only necessary to concentrate her power.
The queen, seeing that the Parisians had so suddenly transformed themselves into soldiers, and appeared to wish for war, resolved on showing them what real war was actually.
“Up to this time, they have only had to deal with the Invalides, or with Swiss, but ill supported and wavering; we will show them what it is to have opposed to them two or three well-disciplined and royalist regiments.
“Perhaps there may be a regiment of this description which has already put to flight some of these rebellious rioters, and has shed blood in the convulsions of civil war. We will have the most celebrated of these regiments ordered here. The Parisians will then understand that their best policy will be to abstain from provocation.”
This was after all the quarrel between the king and the National Assembly with regard to the veto. The king, during two months, had been struggling to recover some tattered shreds of sovereignty; he had, conjointly with the administration and Mirabeau, endeavored to neutralize the republican outburst which was endeavoring to efface royalty in France.
The queen had exhausted herself in this struggle, and was exhausted above all from having seen the king succumb.
The king in this contention had lost all his power and the remains of his popularity. The queen had gained an additional name, a nickname.
One of those words which were altogether foreign to the ears of the people, and from that reason more pleasing to the ears of the people,—a name which had not yet become an insult, but which was soon to become the most opprobrious of all; a witty saying, which afterwards was changed into a sanguinary rallying cry.
In short, she was called “Madame Veto.”
This name was destined to be borne in Revolutionary songs beyond the banks of the Rhine, to terrify in Germany the subjects and the friends of those who, having sent to France a German queen, had some right to be astonished that she was insulted by the name of the “Autrichienne" (the Austrian woman).
This name was destined in Paris to accompany, in the insensate dancing-rings, on days of massacre, the last cries, the hideous agonies of the victims.
Marie Antoinette was thenceforth called “Madame Veto,” until the day when she was to be called the “Widow Capet.”
She had already changed her name three times. After having been called the “Autrichienne,” she was next called “Madame Deficit.”
After the contests in which the queen had endeavored to interest her friends by the imminence of their own danger, she had remarked that sixty thousand passports had been applied for at the Hôtel de Ville.
Sixty thousand of the principal families of Paris and of France had gone off to rejoin in foreign countries the friends and relatives of the queen,—a very striking example, and one which had forcibly struck the queen.
And therefore, from that moment she meditated a skilfully concerted flight,—a flight supported by armed force should it be necessary; a flight which had for its object safety, after which the faithful who remained in France might carry on the civil war; that is to say, chastise the Revolutionists.
The plan was not a bad one. It would assuredly have succeeded, but behind the queen the evil genius was also watching.
Strange destiny! that woman, who inspired so many with enthusiastic devotedness, yet could nowhere find discretion.
It was known at Paris that she wished to fly before she had even persuaded herself to adopt the measure.
Marie Antoinette did not perceive that from the moment her intention had become known, her plan had become impracticable.
However, a regiment, celebrated for its royalist sympathies, the Flanders regiment, arrived at Versailles by forced marches.
This regiment had been demanded by the municipal authorities of Versailles, who, tormented by the extraordinary guards, and by the strict watch it was necessary to keep around the palace, incessantly threatened by fresh demands for distributions of provisions, and successive disturbances, stood in need of some other military force than the National Guards and the Militia.
The palace had already quite enough to do to defend itself.
The Flanders regiment arrived, as we have said; and that it should at once assume all the importance with which it was intended to be invested, it was necessary that a brilliant reception should be given to it, that it might at once attract the attention of the people.
The Count d'Estaing assembled all the officers of the National Guard and all those of the corps then present at Versailles and went out to meet it.
The regiment made a solemn entry into Versailles, with its park of artillery and its ammunition-wagons.
Around this group, which then became central, assembled a crowd of young gentlemen, who did not belong to any regular corps.
They adopted a sort of uniform by which they could recognize one another, and were joined by all the officers unattached, all the chevaliers of the Order of Saint Louis, whom danger or interest had brought to Versailles.
After this they made excursions to Paris, where were seen these new enemies, fresh, insolent, and puffed up with a secret which was sure to escape them as soon as an opportunity should present itself.
At that moment the king might have escaped. He would have been supported, protected on his journey, and Paris perhaps, still ignorant and ill prepared, would have allowed his departure.
But the evil genius of the Autrichiefine was still watching.
Liége revolted against the emperor; and the occupation which this revolt gave to Austria prevented her from thinking of the queen of France.
The latter, on her side, thought that in delicacy she must abstain from asking any aid at such a moment.
Then events, to which impulsion had been given, continued to rush on with lightning-like rapidity.
After the ovation in honor of the Flanders regiment, the body-guards decided on giving a dinner to the officers of that regiment.
This banquet, this festival, was fixed for the 1st of October. Every important personage in the town was invited to it.
And what, then, was the object of this banquet? To fraternize with the Flanders soldiers. And why should not soldiers fraternize with one another, since the districts and the provinces fraternize?
Was it forbidden by the Constitution that gentlemen should fraternize?
The king was still the master of his regiments, and he alone commanded them; the palace of Versailles was his own property; he alone had a right to receive into it whomsoever he might please.
And why should he not receive brave soldiers and worthy gentlemen within it,—men who had just come from Douai, where they had behaved well.
Nothing could be more natural. No one thought of being astonished, and still less of being alarmed at it.
This repast, to be taken thus in union, was about to cement the affection which ought always to subsist between all the corps of a French army, destined to defend both liberty and royalty.
Besides, did the king even know what had been agreed upon?
Since the events of Paris, the king, free, thanks to his concessions, no longer occupied himself with public matters; the burden of affairs had been taken from him. He desired to reign no longer, since others reigned for him; but he did not think that he ought to weary himself by doing nothing all day long.
The king, while the gentlemen of the National Assembly were fraudulently cutting and contriving,—the king amused himself by hunting.
The king, while the nobility and the reverend bishops were abandoning, on the 4th of August, their dovecots and their feudal rights, their pigeons and their parchments,—the king, who was very willing, as all the world was doing it, to make some sacrifices, abolished all his hunting train; but he did not cease to hunt on that account.
Now, the king, while the officers of the Flanders regiment were to be dining with his body-guards, would be enjoying the pleasures of the chase, as he did every day; the tables would be cleared away before his return.
This would even inconvenience him so little, and he would so little inconvenience the banquet in question, that it was resolved to ask the queen to allow the festival to be given within the walls of the palace itself.
The queen saw no reason for refusing this hospitality to the Flanders soldiers.
She gave them the theatre for their banquet-room, in which she allowed them for that day to construct a flooring even with the stage, that there might be ample space for the guards and their guests.
When a queen wishes to be hospitable to French gentlemen, she is so to the full extent of her power. This was their dining-room, but they also required a drawing-room; the queen allowed them to use the salon of Hercules.
On a Thursday, the 1st of October, as we have already said, this feast was given, which was destined to fill so fatal a page in the history of the blindness and improvidence of royalty.
The king had gone out hunting.
The queen was shut up in her own apartments, sorrowful and pensive, and determined not to hear either the ringing of the glasses when the officers gave their toasts, or the sound of their enthusiastic cheers.
Her son was in her arms; Andrée was with her; two women were at work in one corner of the room; those were the only persons with her.
The brilliantly attired officers, with their waving plumes and bright gleaming arms, by degrees entered the palace. Their horses neighed before the grated gates of the royal stables; their clarions sounded as they approached; and the bands of the Flanders regiment and the guards filled the air with harmonious sounds.
Outside the gilded railings of the courtyard of the palace was a pale, inquisitive crowd, gloomily anxious, watching, analyzing, and commenting on the joyous festival within, and the airs played by the military bands.
In gusts, like the squalls of a distant tempest, there exhaled from the open portals of the palace the sounds of merriment with the odors of the savory viands.
It was very imprudent to allow this crowd of starving people to inhale the odors of the good cheer and wine,-to allow these morose people to hear these sounds of jovial festivity.
The festival was however continued, without anything disturbing its conviviality; for a time all was conducted with sobriety and order. The officers, full of respect for the uniform they wore, at first conversed in an undertone and drank moderately; during the first half hour, the programme which had been agreed upon was strictly adhered to.
The second course was put on the table.
Monsieur de Lusignan, the colonel of the Flanders regiment, rose and proposed four toasts.They were to the health of the king, the queen, the dauphin, and the royal family.
Four shouts of applause re-echoed from the vaulted roofs, and struck the ears of the sorrowful spectators outside the palace.
An officer rose; perhaps he was a man of judgment and of courage,—man of sound good sense, who foresaw the issue of all this; a man sincerely attached to that royal family whose health had just been drunk so noisily.
This man comprehended that among these toasts there was one which was omitted, which probably might present itself to their attention.
He therefore proposed this toast, “The Nation.”
A long murmur preceded a long shout.
“No, no!” cried every person present except the proposer of the toast.
And then the toast to the nation was contemptuously rejected.
The festival had just assumed its real character; the torrent had found its real course.
It has been said, and it is still repeated, that the person who proposed this toast was but an instigator of an opposing manifestation.
However this might be, his words produced an untoward effect. To forget the nation might have been but a trifle, but to insult it Was too much. It avenged itself.
As from this moment the ice was broken, as to the reserved silence succeeded boisterous cries and excited conversation, discipline became but a chimerical modesty; the dragoons, the grenadiers, the “hundred Swiss” were sent for, and even all the private soldiers in the palace.
The wine was pushed round quickly; ten times were the glasses filled; when the dessert was brought in, it was absolutely pillaged. Intoxication became general; the soldiers forgot that they were drinking with their officers; it was in reality a fraternal festival.
From all parts were heard shouts of “Long live the king! long live the queen!” So many flowers, so many lights, illuminating the brilliantly gilded arches, so many faces bright with happiness, so many loyal lightning darting from the eyes of these brave men,—was a spectacle which would have been grateful to the eyes of the queen, and reassuring to those of the king.
This so unfortunate king, this so sorrowful queen, why were they not present at such a festival I
Some officious partisans withdrew from the dining-room, and ran to Marie Antoinette's apartments, and related, exaggerated to her what they had seen.
Then the sorrowing eyes of the queen become reanimated, and she rises from her chair. There is, then, some loyalty left, some affection in French hearts!
There is therefore something still to hope!
At the doors were soon assembled a crowd of courtiers; they entreat, they conjure the queen to pay a visit, merely to show herself for a moment in the festive hall, where two thousand enthusiastic subjects are consecrating, by their hurrahs, veneration for monarchical principles.
“The king is absent,” she sorrowfully replied. “I cannot go there alone.”
“But with Monseigneur the Dauphin,” said some imprudent persons who still insisted on her going.
“Madame! Madame!” whispered a voice into her ear, “remain here; I conjure you to remain.”
The queen turned round; it was the Count de Charny.
“What!” cried she; “are you not below with all those gentlemen?”
“I was there, Madame, but have returned. The excitement down yonder is so great that it may prejudice your Majesty's interests more than may be imagined.”
Marie Antoinette was in one of her sullen, her capricious days, with regard to De Charny. It pleased her on that day to do precisely the contrary of everything that might have been agreeable to the count.
She darted at him a disdainful look, and was about to address some disagreeable words to him, when, preventing her by a respectful gesture:—
“For mercy's sake, Madame,” added he, “at least await the king's advice!”
He thought by this to gain time.
“The king! the king!” exclaimed several voices; “the king has just returned from hunting.”
Marie Antoinette rose and ran to meet the king, who, still booted and covered with dust, entered the room.
“Sire,” cried she, “there is below a spectacle worthy of the King of France Come with me! come with me!”
And she took the king's arm and dragged him away without looking at De Charny, who could not conceal his distress.
Leading her son with her left hand, she descended the staircase. A whole flood of courtiers preceded or urged her on. She reaches the door of the theatre at the moment when for the twentieth time the glasses were being emptied with shouts of “Long live the king! long live the queen!”
