The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France - Charles Duke Yonge (ereader that reads to you .TXT) 📗

represent Mirabeau as unconnected with those horrors), Mirabeau said to La Marck, "Tout est perdu, le roi et la reine y periront et vous le verrez, la populace battra leurs cadavres."

[12] Lese-nation.


CHAPTER XXVII.

[1] Arthur Young's "Journal," January 4th, 1790, p. 251.

[2] Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 315.

[3] "Le mal deja fait est bien grave, et je doute que Mirabeau lui-meme puisse reparer celui qu'on lui a laisse faire."--_Mirabeau et La Marck_, i., p. 100.

[4] La Marck et Mirabeau, i., p. 315.

[5] _Ibid._, p. 111.

[6] Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 345.

[7] Mirabeau et La Marck, i., p. 125.

[8] He alludes to Maria Teresa's appearance at Presburg at the beginning of the Silesian war.

[9] "Il lui [a l'Assemblee] importait de faire une epreuve sur toutes les Gardes Nationales de France, d'animer ce grand corps dont tous les membres etaient encore epars et incoherents, de leur donner une meme impulsion.... Enfin, de faire sous les yeux de l'Europe une imposante revue des force qu'elle pourrait un jour opposer a des rois inquiets ou courrouces."-- LACRETELLE, vii., p. 359.


CHAPTER XXVIII.

[1] We learn from Dr. Moore that there was a leader with five subaltern officers and one hundred and fifty rank and file in each gallery of the chamber; that the wages of the latter were from two to three francs a day; the subaltern had ten francs, the leaders fifty. The entire expense was about a thousand francs a day, a sum which strengthens the suspicion that the pay-master (originally, at least) was the Duc d'Orleans.--DR. MOORE'S _View of the Causes, etc., of the French Revolution_, i., p. 425.

[2] Mirabeau et La Marck, ii., p. 47.

[3] Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 352.

[4] Marie Antoinette to Mercy, Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 355.

[5] _Ibid_., i., p. 365.

[6] Arneth, p. 140.

[7] It is remarkable that he, like one or two of the Girondin party, belonged by birth to the Huguenot persuasion, and Marat had studied medicine at Edinburgh.

[8] The Marquise de Brinvilliers had been executed for poisoning several of her own relations in the reign of Louis XIV.

[9] Madame de Campan, ch. xvii.; Chambrier, ii., p. 12.

[10] He said to La Marck, "Aucun homme seul ne sera capable de ramener les Francais an bon sens, le temps seul peut retablir l'ordre dans les esprits," etc., etc.--_ Mirabeau et La Marck_, i., p. 147.

[11] Feuillet de Conches, i., p, 376.

[12] Marie Antoinette to Leopold, date December 11th, 1790, Arneth, p. 143.


CHAPTER XXIX.

[1] The Marshal de Bouille, who was La Fayette's cousin, says, in October of this year, "L'eveque de Pamiers me fit le tableau de la situation malheureux de ce prince et de la famille royale ... que la rigueur et durete de La Fayette, devenu leur geolier, rendent de jour en jour plus insupportable."--_Memories de De Bouille_, pp. 175, 181. And in June he had remarked, "Que sa popularite (de La Fayette) dependait plutot de la captivite du roi, qu'il tenait prisonnier, et qui etait sous sa garde, que de sa force personnelle, qui n'avait plus d'autre appui que la milice Parisienne."

[2] _Ibid_., p. 130.

[3] The letter to the King of Prussia is given by Lamartine; its date is December 3d, 1790.--_Histoire des Girondins_, book v., § 12.

[4] Mercy to Marie Antoinette, from The Hague, December 17th, 1790, Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 398.

[5] Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 401.

[6] _Ibid., p. 403, date December 27th, 1790.

[7] "Mirabeau et La Marck," ii., pp. 57--61.

[8] Letter to the queen, date February 19th, 1791; "Correspondance de Mirabeau et La Marck," ii., p. 229.

[9] "Mirabeau et La Marck," ii., pp. 153, 194, _et passim._

[10] "Souvenirs de Quarante Ans," p. 54.

[11] "Mirabeau aurait prefere que Louis XVI. sortit publiquement, et en roi, M. de Bouille pensait de meme."--_Mirabeau et La Marck_, i., p. 172.

[12] 1789, see _ante_, p. 256.

[13] Date February 18th, 1791, Feuillet de Conches, i., p. 465.

[14] "Mirabeau et La Marck," ii., p., 216 date February 3d, 1791.


CHAPTER XXX.

[1] Feuillet de Conches, ii., p. 14, date March 7th.

[2] Arneth, p. 146, letter of the queen to Leopold, February 27th, 1791.

[3] Feuillet de Conches, ii., p. 20, date March 20th, 1791.

[4] Letter of M. Simolin, the Russian embassador, April 4th, 1791, Feuillet de Conches, ii., p. 31.

[5] "Souvenirs sur Mirabeau," par Etienne Dumont, p. 201.

[6] In her letter to Mercy of August 16th, of which extracts are given in ch. xi., she takes credit for having encountered the dangers of the journey to Montmedy for the sake of "the public welfare."

[7] Arneth, p. 155.

[8] Letter of Leopold to Marie Antoinette, date May 2d, 1791, Arneth, p. 162.

[9] "Cette demarche est le terme extreme de reussir ou perir. Les choses en sont-elles au point de rendre ce risque indispensable?"--_Mercy to Marie Antoinette_, May 11th, 1791, Arneth, p. 163.

[10] The day on which the king and she had been prevented from going to St. Cloud.

[11] The king.


CHAPTER XXXI.

[1] Chambrier, ii., p. 86-88.

[2] Lamartine's "Histoire des Girondins," ii., p. 15.

[3] Moore's "View," ii., p. 367.

[4] The Palais Royal had been named the Palais National. All signs with the portraits of the king or queen, all emblems of royalty, had been torn down. A shop-keeper was even obliged to erase his name from his shop because it was Louis.--MOORE'S _View_, etc., ii., p. 356.


CHAPTER XXXII.

[1] A certain set of writers in this country at one time made La Fayette a subject for almost unmixed eulogy, with such earnestness that it may be worth while to reproduce the opinion expressed of him by the greatest of his contemporaries--a man as acute in his penetration into character as he was stainless in honor--the late Duke of Wellington. In the summer of 1815, he told Sir John Malcolm that "he had used La Fayette like a dog, as he merited. The old rascal," said he, "had made a false report of his mission to the Emperor of Russia, and I possessed complete evidence of his having done so. I told him, the moment he entered, of this fact; I did not even state it in the most delicate manner. I told him he must be sensible he had made a false report. He made no answer." And the duke bowed him out of the room with unconcealed scorn.--Kaye's _Life of Sir J. Malcolm_, ii., p. 109.

[2] Lamartine calls the Cordeliers the Club of Coups-de-main, as he calls the Jacobins the Club of Radical Theories.--_Histoire des Girondins_, xvi., p. 4.

[3] Dr. Moore, ii., p. 372; Chambrier, ii., p. 142.

[4] Mercy to Marie Antoinette, May 16th, Feuillet de Conches, ii., p. 60.

[5] _Ibid._, p. 140.

[6] A resolution, that is, to recognize the Constitution.

[7] Arneth, p. 188; Feuillet de Conches, ii, p. 186.

[8] The letter took several days to write, and was so interrupted that portions of it have three different dates affixed, August 16th, 21st, 26th. Mercy's letter, which incloses Burke's memorial, is dated the 20th, from London, so that the first portion of the queen's letter can not be regarded as an intentional answer to Burke's arguments, though it is so, as embodying all the reasons which influenced the queen.

[9] The manifesto which he left behind him when starting for Montmedy.

[10] The king.

[11] Feuillet de Conches, ii., p. 228; Arneth, p. 203.

[12] The Emperor Leopold died March 1st, 1792.

[13] The declaration of Pilnitz, drawn up by the emperor and the King of Prussia at a personal interview, August 21st, 1791, did not in express words denounce the new Constitution (which, in fact, they had not seen), but, after declaring "the situation of the King of France to be a matter of common interest to all European sovereigns," and expressing a hope that "the reality of that interest will be duly appreciated by the other powers whose assistance they invoke," they propose that those other powers "shall employ, in conjunction with their majesties, the most efficacious means, in order to enable the King of France to consolidate in the most perfect liberty the foundation of a monarchical government, conformable alike to the rights of sovereigns and the well-being of the French nation."-- Alison, ch. ix., Section 90.

[14] Arneth, p. 208.

[15] _Ibid_, p. 210; Feuillet de Conches, ii., p. 325.

[16] Letter, date December 3d, 1791. Feuillet de Conches, iv., p. 278.

[17] Madame de Campan, ch xix.

[18] "Leurs touffes de cheveux noirs volaient dans la salle, eux seuls a cette epoque avaient quitte l'usage de poudrer les cheveux."--_Note on the Passage by Madame de Campan_, ch xix.

[19] This first Assembly, as having framed the Constitution, is often called the Constituent Assembly; the second, that which was about to meet, being distinguished as the Legislative Assembly.


CHAPTER XXXIII.

[1] "Memoires Particuliers," etc., par A.F. Bertrand de Moleville, i., p. 355. Brissot, Isnard, Vergniaud, Gaudet, and an infamous ecclesiastic, the Abbe Fauchet, are those whom he particularly mentions, adding: "Mais M. de Lessart trouva que c'etait les payer trop cher, et comme ils ne voulurent rien rabattre de leur demande, cette negociation n'eut aucune suite, et ne produisit d'autre effet que d'aigrir davantage ces cinq deputes contre ce ministre."

[2] Feuillet de Conches, ii., p.414, date October 4th: "Je pense qu'au fond le bon bourgeois et le bon peuple ont toujours ete bien pour nous."

[3] "Memoires Particuliers," etc., par A.F. Bertrand de Moleville, i., p. 10-12. It furnishes a striking proof of the general accuracy of Dr. Moore's information, that he, in his "View" (ii., p. 439), gives the name account of this conversation, his work being published above twenty years before that of M. Bertrand de Moleville.

[4] "La reine lui repondit par un sourire de pitie, et lui demanda s'il etait fou.... C'est par la reine elle-meme que, le lendemain de cette etrange scene, je fus instruit de tous les details que je viens de rapporter."--BERTRAND DE MOLEVILLE, i., p. 126.

[5] She herself called him so on this occasion, and he belonged to the Jacobin Club; but he was also one of the Girondin party, of which, indeed, he was one of the founders, and it was as a Girondin that he was afterward pursued to death by Robespierre.

[6] Narrative of the Comte Valentin Esterhazy, Feuillet de Conches, iv., p. 40.

[7] The queen spoke plainly to her confidants: "M. de La Fayette will only be the Mayor of Paris that he may the sooner become Mayor of the Palace. Petion is a Jacobin, a republican; but he is a fool, incapable of ever becoming the leader of a party. He would be a nullity as mayor, and, besides, the very interest which he knows we take in his nomination may bind him to the king."--Lamartine's _Histoire des Girondins_ vi., p.22.

[8] "Elle [Madame d'Ossun, dame d'atours de la reine] m'a dit, il y a trois semaines, que le roi et la reine avaiet ete neuf jours sans un sou." _Letter of the Prince de Nassau-Siegen to the Russian Empress Catherine_, Feuillet de Conches, iv., p. 316; of also Madame de Campan, ch. xxi.

[9] Letter of the Princess to Madame de Bombelles, Feuillet de Conches, v., p.267.