The queen, with her brilliant retinue, made a monthly visit to these palaces and pleasure-grounds, and with music, illumination, and dances, endeavored to beguile life of its cares. A noisy concourse, glittering with diamonds and all the embellishments of wealth, thronged the embowered avenues and the sumptuous halls. And while the young, in the mazes of the dance, and in the uneasy witchery of winning and losing hearts, were all engrossed, the old, in the still deeper but ignoble passion of desperate gaming, forgot gliding time and approaching eternity. But the spirit of Maria was soon weary of this heartless gayety. Each succeeding visit became more irksome, and at last, in inexpressible disgust with the weary monotony of fashionable dissipation, she declared that she would never enter the gardens of Marly again. But she must have some occupation. What shall she do to give wings to the lagging hours?

"Has your majesty," timidly suggests a lady of the court, "ever seen the sun rise?"

"The sun rise!" exclaimed the queen; "no, never! What a beautiful sight it must be! What a romantic adventure! we will go to-morrow morning."

The plan was immediately arranged. The prosaic king would take no part in it. He preferred quietly to slumber upon his pillow. A few hours after midnight, the queen, with several gentlemen, and her attendant ladies, all in high glee, left the palace in their carriages to ascend the lofty eminence of the gardens of Marly to witness the sublime spectacle. Thousands of the humbler classes had already left their beds and commenced their daily toil, as the brilliant cavalcade swept by them on this novel excursion. It was, however, a freak so strange, so unaccountable, so contrary to any thing ever known before, that this nocturnal party became the theme of universal conversation. It was whispered that there must have been some mysterious wickedness connected with an adventure so marvelous. Groups upon the Boulevards inquired, "Why is the queen thus frolicking at midnight without her husband?" In a few days a ballad appeared, which was sung by the vilest lips in the warehouses of infamy, full of the most malignant charges against the queen. Maria Antoinette was imprudent, very imprudent, and that was her only crime.

Still, the young queen must have amusements. She is weary of parade and splendor and seeks in simplicity the novelty of enjoyment. Dressed in white muslin, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, she might often be seen walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the embowered paths which surrounded the Petit Trianon. Through lanes and by-ways she would chase the butterfly, and pick flowers free as a peasant girl, and lean over the fences to chat with the country maids as they milked the cows. This entire freedom from restraint was etiquette in the court of Vienna; it was regarded as barbarism in the court of Versailles. The courtiers were amazed at conduct so unqueenly. The ceremony-stricken dowagers were shocked. Paris, France, Europe, were filled with stories of the waywardness, and eccentricities, and improprieties of the young queen. The loud complaints were poured so incessantly in the ear of Maria Theresa, that at last she sent a special embassador to Versailles, in disguise, as a spy upon her daughter. He reported, "The queen is imprudent, that is all."

There happened, in a winter of unusual inclemency, a heavy fall of snow. It was a rare sight at Versailles. Maria Antoinette, reminded of the merry sleigh rides she had enjoyed in the more northern home of her childhood, was eager to renew the pleasure. Some antiquated sledges were found in the stables. New ones, gay and graceful, were constructed. The horses, with nodding plumes, and gorgeous caparisons, and tinkling bells, dazzled the eyes of the Parisians as they swept through the Champs Elysees, drawing their loads of lords and ladies enveloped in furs. It was a new amusement—an innovation. Envious and angry lips declared that "the Austrian, with an Austrian heart, was intruding the customs of Vienna upon Paris." These ungenerous complaints reached the ear of the queen, and she instantly relinquished the amusement.

Still the queen is weary. Time hangs heavily upon her hands. All the pleasures of the court have palled upon her appetite, and she seeks novelty. She introduces into the retired apartments of the Little Trianon, "blind man's buff," "fox and geese," and other similar games, and joins heartily in the fun and the frolic. "A queen playing blind man's buff!" Simpletons—and the world is full of simpletons—raised their hands and eyes in affected horror. Private dramatic entertainments were got up to relieve the tedium of unemployed time. The queen learns her part, and appears in the character and costume of a peasant girl. Her genius excites much admiration, and, intoxicated with this new pleasure, she repeats the entertainment, and alike excels in all characters, whether comic or tragic. The number of spectators is gradually increased. Louis is not exactly pleased to see his queen transformed into an actress, even in the presence only of the most intimate friends of the court. Half jocosely, half seriously, amid the rounds of applause with which the royal actress is greeted, he hisses. It was deemed extremely derogatory to the dignity of the queen that she should indulge in such amusements, and every gossiping tongue in Paris was soon magnifying her indiscretions.

Eight years had now passed away since the marriage of Maria Antoinette, and still she was in name only, the wife of Louis. She was still a young lady, for he had never yet approached her with any familiarity with which he would not approach any young lady of his court. But about this time the king gradually manifested more tenderness toward her. He began really and tenderly to love her. With tears of joy, she confided to her friends the great change which had taken place in his conduct. The various troubles and embarrassments which began now to lower about the throne and to darken their path, bound their sympathies more strongly together. Strenuous efforts were made to alienate the king from the queen by exciting his jealousy. Maria was accused of the grossest immoralities, and insinuations to her injury were ever whispered in to the ear of the king.

One morning Madame Campan entered the queen's chamber when she was in bed. Several letters were lying upon the bed by her side, and she was weeping as though her heart would break. She immediately exclaimed, covering her swollen eyes with her hands, "Oh! I wish that I were dead! I wish that I were dead! The wretches! the monsters! what have I done that they should treat me thus! it would be better to kill me at once." Then, throwing her arms around the neck of Madame Campan, she burst more passionately into tears. All attempts to console her were unavailing. Neither was she willing to confide the cause of her heart-rending grief. After some time she regained her usual serenity, and said, with an attempted smile, "I know that I have made you very uncomfortable this morning, and I must set your poor heart at ease. You must have seen, on some fine summer's day, a black cloud suddenly appear, and threaten to pour down upon the country and lay it in waste. The lightest wind drives it away, and the blue sky and serene weather are restored. This is just the image of what has happened to me this morning."

Notwithstanding, however, these efforts of the malignant, the king became daily more and more strongly attached to the queen. In the embarrassments which were gathering around him, he felt the support of her energetic mind, and looked to her counsel with continually increasing confidence. It was about nine years after their marriage when their first child was born. Three others were subsequently added to their family. Two, however, of the children, a son and a daughter, died in early childhood, leaving two others, Maria Theresa and Louis Charles, to share and to magnify those woes which subsequently overwhelmed the whole royal family.

During all these early years of their reign, Versailles was their favorite and almost constant abode. They were visited occasionally by monarchs from the other courts of Europe, whom they entertained with the utmost display of royal grandeur. Bonfires and illuminations turned night into day in the groves and gardens of those gorgeous palaces. Thousands were feasted in boundless profusion. Millions of money were expended in the costly amusements of kings, and queens, and haughty nobles. The people, by whose toil the revenues of the kingdom were furnished, looked from a humble distance upon the glittering throng, gliding through the avenues, charioted in splendor, and now and then a deep thinker, struggling against poverty and want, would thus soliloquize: "Why do we thus toil to minister to the useless luxury of these our imperious masters? Why must I eat black bread, and be clothed in the coarsest garments, that these lords and ladies may glitter in jewelry and revel in luxury? Why must my children toil like bond slaves through life, that the children of these nobles may be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day?" The multitude were bewildered by the glare of royalty. But here and there a sullen fish-woman, leading her ragged, half-starved children, would mumble and mutter, and curse the "Austrian," as the beautiful queen swept by in her gorgeous equipage. These discontents and portentous murmurs were spreading rapidly, when neither king, queen, nor courtiers dreamed of their existence.

A few had heard of America, its freedom, its equality, its fame even for the poorest, its competence. La Fayette had gone to help the Republicans crush the crown and the throne. Franklin was in Paris, the embassador from America, in garb and demeanor as simple and frugal as the humblest citizen, and all Paris gazed upon him with wonder and admiration. A few bold spirits began to whisper, "Let us also have no king." The fires of a volcano were kindling under the whole structure of French society. It was time that the mighty fabric of corruption should be tumbled into the dust. The splendor and the extravagance of these royal festivities added but fuel to the flame. The people began to compute the expense of bonfires, palaces, equipages, crown jewels, and courtiers. It is extremely impertinent, Maria thought and said, for the people to meddle in matters with which they have no concern. Slaves have no right to question the conduct of their masters. It was the misfortune of her education, and of the influences which ever surrounded her, that she never imagined that kings and queens were created for any other purpose than to live in luxury. The Empress Catharine II. of Russia, as these discontents were loud and threatening wrote to Maria Antoinette a letter, in which she says, "Kings and queens ought to proceed in their career undisturbed by the cries of the people, as the moon pursues her course unimpeded by the howling of dogs." This was then the spirit of the throne.

And now the days of calamity began to grow darker. Intrigues were multiplied, involving Maria in interminable difficulties. There were instinctive presentiments of an approaching storm. Death came into the royal palace, and distorted the form of her eldest son, and by lingering tortures dragged him to the grave. And then her little daughter was taken from her. Maria watched at the couch of suffering and death with maternal anguish. The glowing heart of a mother throbbed within the bosom of Maria. The heartlessness and emptiness of all other pursuits had but given intensity to the fervor of a mother's love. Though but twenty-three years of age, she had drained every cup of pleasure to its dregs. And now she began to enter upon a path every year more dark, dreary, and desolate.



CHAPTER IV.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

1786

Remark of Talleyrand.—The Cardinal de Rohan.—Rohan's smuggling operations.—He is disgraced.—The Countess Lamotte.—The queen's jewelry.—Boehmer, the crown jeweler.—The diamond ear-rings.—Change in the queen's life.—The diamond necklace.—The queen inspects the necklace.—Answer of their majesties.—Boehmer's embarrassment.—His interview with the queen.—The queen's remarks.—Boehmer's confusion.—Alleged disposal of the necklace.—Present to the king's son.—Boehmer's note to the queen.—The queen's perplexity.—Boehmer's interview with Madame Campan.—The necklace again.—The Cardinal de Rohan.—Indications of a plot.—Boehmer's perplexity.—The cardinal's embarrassment.—Boehmer's terror.—The queen's amazement.—The cardinal before the king and queen.—His agitation.—The queen's indignation.—The forged letter.—The cardinal's confused statements.—He is arrested.—Arrest of Madame Lamotte.—Great excitement.—The queen's anguish.—The cardinal's trial.—The cardinal's acquittal.—Chagrin of the king and queen.—Trial of the Countess Lamotte.—Her cool effrontery.—The countess found guilty.—Barbarous sentence.—Brutal punishment of the countess.—Her unhappy end.—Innocence of the queen.—Of de Rohan's criminality.—The three suppositions.—Influence of the first.—The third supposition.—Probably the true one.

About this time there occurred an event which, though apparently trivial, involved consequences of the most momentous importance. It was merely the fraudulent purchase of a necklace, by a profligate woman, in the name of the queen. The circumstances were such as to throw all France into agitation, and Europe was full of the story. "Mind that miserable affair of the necklace," said Talleyrand; "I should be nowise surprised if it should overturn the French monarchy." To understand this mysterious occurrence, we must first allude to two very important characters implicated in the conspiracy.

The Cardinal de Rohan, though one of the highest dignitaries of the Church, and of the most illustrious rank, was a young man of vain and shallow mind, of great profligacy of character, and perfectly prodigal in squandering, in ostentatious pomp, all the revenues within his reach. He had been sent an embassador to the court of Vienna. Surrounding himself with a retinue of spendthrift gentlemen, he endeavored to dazzle the Austrian capital with more than regal magnificence. Expending six or seven hundred thousand dollars in the course of a few months, he soon became involved in inextricable embarrassments. In the extremity of his distress, he took advantage of his official station, and engaged in smuggling with so much effrontery that he almost inundated the Austrian capital with French goods. Maria Theresa was extremely displeased, and, without reserve, expressed her strong disapproval of his conduct, both as a bishop and as an embassador. The cardinal was consequently recalled, and, disappointed and mortified, he hovered around the court of Versailles, where he was treated with the utmost coldness. He was extremely anxious again to bask in the beams of royal favor. But the queen indignantly repelled all his advances. His proud spirit was nettled to the quick by his disgrace, and he was ripe for any desperate adventure to retrieve his ruined fortunes.

There was, at the same time, at Versailles a very beautiful woman, the Countess Lamotte. She traced her lineage to the kings of France, and, by her vices, struggled to sustain a style of ostentatious gentility. She was consumed by an insatiable thirst for recognized rank and wealth, and she had no conscience to interfere, in the slightest degree, with any means which might lead to those results. Though somewhat notorious, as a woman of pleasure, to the courtiers who flitted around the throne, the queen had never seen her face, and had seldom heard even her name. Versailles was too much thronged with such characters for any one to attract any special attention.

Maria Antoinette, in her earlier days, had been extremely fond of dress, and particularly of rich jewelry. She brought with her from Vienna a large number of pearls and diamonds. Upon her accession to the throne, she received, of course, all the crown jewels. Louis XV. had also presented her with all the jewels belonging to his daughter, the dauphiness, who had recently died, and also with a very magnificent collar of pearls, of a single row, the smallest of which was as large as a filbert. The king, her husband, had, not long before, presented her with a set of rubies and diamonds of a fine water, and with a pair of bracelets which cost forty thousand dollars. Boehmer, the crown jeweler, had collected, at a great expense, six pear-formed diamonds, of prodigious size. They were perfectly matched, and of the finest water. They were arranged as ear-rings. He offered them to the queen for eighty thousand dollars. The young and royal bride could not resist the desire of adding them, costly as they were, to her casket of gems. She, however, economically removed two of the diamonds which formed the tops of the clusters, and replaced them by two of her own. The jeweler consented to this arrangement, and received the reduced price of seventy-two thousand dollars, to be paid in equal installments for five years, from the private purse of the queen. Still the queen felt rather uneasy in view of her unnecessary purchase. Murmurs of her extravagance began to reach her ears. Satiated with gayety and weary of jewels, as a child throws aside its play-things, Maria Antoinette lost all fondness for her costly treasures, and began to seek novelty in the utmost simplicity of attire, and in the most artless joys of rural life. Her gorgeous dresses hung neglected in their wardrobes. Her gems, "of purest ray serene," slept in the darkness of the unopened casket. The queen had become a mother, and all those warm and noble affections which had been diffused and wasted upon frivolities, were now concentrated with intensest ardor upon her children. A new era had dawned upon Maria Antoinette. Her soul, by nature exalted, was beginning to find objects worthy of its energies. Rapidly she was groping her way from the gloom of the most wretched of all lives—a life of pleasure and of self-indulgence—to the true and ennobling happiness of benevolence and self-sacrifice.

Boehmer, the jeweler, unaware of the great change which had taken place in the character of the queen, resolved to form for her the most magnificent necklace which was ever seen in Europe. He busied himself for several years in collecting the most valuable diamonds circulating in commerce, and thus composed a necklace of several rows, whose attractions, he hoped, would be irresistible to the queen. In the purchase of these brilliant gems, the jeweler had expended far more than his own fortune. For many of them he owed large sums, and his only hope of paying these debts was in effecting a sale to the queen.

Boehmer requested Madame Campan to inform the queen what a beautiful necklace he had arranged, hoping that she might express a desire to see it. This, however, Madame Campan declined doing, as she did not wish to tempt the queen to incur the expense of three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, the price of the glittering bawble. Boehmer, after endeavoring for some time in vain to get the gems exposed to the eye of the queen, induced a courtier high in rank to show the superb necklace to his majesty. The king, now loving the queen most tenderly, wished to see her adorned with this unparalleled ornament, and sent the case to the queen for her inspection. Maria Antoinette replied, that she had already as many beautiful diamonds as she desired; that jewels were now worn but seldom at court; that she could not think it right to encourage so great an expense for such ornaments; and that the money they would cost would be much better expended in building a man-of-war. The king concurred in this prudent decision, and the diamonds were returned to the jeweler from their majesties with this answer: "We have more need of ships than of diamonds."

Boehmer was in great trouble, and knew not what to do. He spent a year in visiting the other courts of Europe, hoping to induce some of the sovereigns to purchase his necklace, but in vain. Almost in despair, he returned again to Versailles, and proposed the king should take it, and pay for it partly in instalments and partly in life annuities. The king mentioned it again to the queen. She replied, that if his majesty wished to purchase the necklace, and keep it for their daughter, he might do so. But she declared that she herself should never be willing to wear it, for she could not expose herself to those censures for extravagance which she knew would be lavished upon her.

The jeweler complained loudly and bitterly of his misfortune. The necklace having been exhibited all over Europe, his troubles were a matter of general conversation. After several months of great perplexity and anxiety, Boehmer succeeded in gaining an audience of the queen. Passionately throwing himself upon his knees before her, clasping his hands and bursting into tears, he exclaimed,

"Madame, I am disgraced and ruined if you do not purchase my necklace. I can not outlive my misfortunes. When I go hence I shall throw myself into the river."

The queen, extremely displeased, said, "Rise, Boehmer! I do not like these rhapsodies; honest men have no occasion to fall upon their knees to make known their requests. If you were to destroy yourself, I should regret you as a madman in whom I had taken an interest, but I should not be responsible for that misfortune. I not only never ordered the article which causes your present despair, but, whenever you have talked to me about fine collections of jewels, I have told you that I should not add four diamonds to those I already possessed. I told you myself that I declined taking the necklace. The king wished to give it to me; I refused him in the same manner. Then never mention it to me again. Divide it, and endeavor to sell it piecemeal, and do not drown yourself. I am very angry with you for acting this scene of despair in my presence, and before this child. Let me never see you behave thus again. Go!"

Boehmer, overwhelmed with confusion, retired, and the queen, oppressed with a multitude of gathering cares, for some months thought no more of him or of his jewels. One day the queen was reposing listlessly upon her couch, with Madame Campan and other ladies of honor about her, when, suddenly addressing Madame Campan, she inquired,

"Have you ever heard what poor Boehmer did with his unfortunate necklace?"

"I have heard nothing of it since he left you," was the reply, "though I often meet him."

"I should really like to know how the unfortunate man got extricated from his embarrassments," rejoined the queen; "and, when you next see him, I wish you would inquire, as if from your own interest in the affair, without any allusion to me, how he disposed of the article."

In a few days Madame Campan met Boehmer, and, in reply to her interrogatories, he informed her that the sultan at Constantinople had purchased it for the favorite sultana. The queen was highly gratified with the good fortune of the jeweler, and yet thought it very strange how the grand seignior should have purchased his diamonds at Paris. Matters continued in this state for some time, until the baptism of the Duke d'Angouleme, Maria Antoinette's infant son. The king made his idolized boy a baptismal present of a diamond epaulette and buckles, which he purchased of Boehmer, and directed him to deliver to the queen. As the jeweler presented them, he slipped into the queen's hand a letter, in the form of a petition, containing the following expression:

"I am happy to see your majesty in the possession of the finest diamonds in Europe; and I entreat your majesty not to forget me."

The queen read this strange note aloud, again and again exclaiming, "What does the man mean? He must be insane!" She quietly lighted the note at a wax taper which was standing near her, and burned it, remarking that it was not worth keeping. Afterward, as she reflected more upon the enigmatical nature of the communication, she deeply regretted that she had not preserved the note. She pondered the matter deeply and anxiously, and at last said to Madame Campan,

"The next time you see that man, I wish that you would tell him that I have lost all taste for diamonds; that I never shall buy another as long as I live; and that, if I had any money to spare, I should expend it in purchasing lands to enlarge the grounds at St. Cloud."

A few days after this, Boehmer called upon Madame Campan at her country house, extremely uneasy at not having received any answer from the queen, and anxiously inquired if Madame Campan had no commission to him from her majesty. Madame Campan faithfully repeated to him all that the queen had requested her to say.

"But," rejoined Boehmer, "the answer to the letter I presented to her! To whom must I apply for that?"

"To no one," was the reply; "her majesty burned your memorial, without even comprehending its meaning."

"Ah, madame!" exclaimed the man, trembling with agitation, "that is impossible; the queen knows that she has money to pay me."

"Money, M. Boehmer!" replied the lady, "your last accounts against the queen were discharged long ago."

"And are you not in the secret?" he rejoined. "The queen owes me three hundred thousand dollars, and I am ruined by her neglect to pay me."

"Three hundred thousand dollars!" exclaimed Madame Campan, in amazement; "man, you have lost your senses! For what does she owe you that enormous sum?"

"For the necklace, madame," replied the jeweler, now pale and trembling with the apprehension that he had been deceived.

"The necklace again!" said Madame Campan. "How long is the queen to be teased about that necklace? Did not you yourself tell me that you had sold it at Constantinople?"

"The queen," added Boehmer, "requested me to make that reply to all who inquired upon the subject, for she was not willing to have it known that she had made the purchase. She, however, had determined to have the necklace, and sent the Cardinal de Rohan to me to take it in her name."

"You are utterly deceived, Boehmer," Madame Campan replied; "the queen knows nothing about your necklace. She never speaks even to the Cardinal de Rohan, and there is no man at court more strongly disliked by her."

"You may depend upon it, madame, that you are deceived yourself," rejoined the jeweler. "She must hold private interviews with the cardinal, for she gave to the cardinal six thousand dollars, which he paid me on account, and which he assured me he saw her take from the little porcelain secretary next the fire-place in her boudoir."

"Did the cardinal himself assure you of this?" inquired Madame Campan.

"Yes, madame," was the reply.

"What a detestable plot! There is not one word of truth in it; and you have been miserably deceived."

"I confess," Boehmer rejoined, now trembling in every joint, "that I have felt very anxious about it for some time; for the cardinal assured me that the queen would wear the necklace on Whitsunday. I was, however, alarmed in seeing that she did not wear it, and that induced me to write the letter to her majesty. But what shall I do?"

"Go immediately to Versailles, and lay the whole matter before the king. But you have been extremely culpable, as crown jeweler, in acting in a matter of such great importance without direct orders from the king or queen, or their accredited minister."

"I have not acted," the unhappy man replied, "without direct orders. I have now in my possession all the promissory notes, signed by the queen herself; and I have been obliged to show those notes to several bankers, my creditors, to induce them to extend the time of my payments."

Instead, however, of following Madame Campan's judicious advice, Boehmer, half delirious with solicitude, went directly to the cardinal, and informed him of all that had transpired. The cardinal appeared very much embarrassed, asked a few questions, and said but little. He, however, wrote in his diary the following memorandum:

"On this day, August 3, Boehmer went to Madame Campan's country-house, and she told him that the queen had never had his necklace, and that he had been cheated."

Boehmer was almost frantic with terror, for the loss of the necklace was his utter and irremediable ruin. Finding no relief in his interview with the cardinal, he hastened to Little Trianon, and sent a message to the queen that Madame Campan wished him to see her immediately. The queen, who knew nothing of the occurrences we have just related, exclaimed, "That man is surely mad. I have nothing to say to him, and I will not see him." Madame Campan, however, immediately called upon the queen, for she was very much alarmed by what she had heard, and related to her the whole occurrence. The queen was exceedingly amazed and perplexed, and feared that it was some deep-laid plot to involve her in difficulties. She questioned Madame Campan very minutely in reference to every particular of the interview, and insisted upon her repeating the conversation over and over again. They then went immediately to the king, and narrated to him the whole affair. He, aware of the many efforts which had been made to traduce the character of Maria Antoinette, and to expose her to public contumely, was at once convinced that it was a treacherous plot of the cardinal in revenge for his neglect at court.

The king instantly sent a command for the cardinal to meet him and the queen in the king's closet. He was, apparently, anticipating the summons, for he, without delay, appeared before them in all the pomp of his pontifical robes, but was nevertheless so embarrassed that he could with difficulty articulate a sentence.

"You have purchased diamonds of Boehmer?" inquired the king.

"Yes, sire," was the trembling reply.

"What have you done with them?" the king added.

"I thought," said the cardinal, "that they had been delivered to the queen."

"Who commissioned you to make this purchase?"

"The Countess Lamotte," was the reply. "She handed me a letter from the queen requesting me to obtain the necklace for her. I truly thought that I was obeying her majesty's wishes, and doing her a favor, by taking this business upon myself."

"How could you imagine, sir," indignantly interrupted the queen, "that I should have selected you for such a purpose, when I have not even spoken to you for eight years? and how could you suppose that I should have acted through the mediation of such a character as the Countess Lamotte?"

The cardinal was in the most violent agitation, and, apparently hardly knowing what he said, replied, "I see plainly that I have been duped. I will pay for the necklace myself. I suspected no trick in the affair, and am extremely sorry that I have had any thing to do with it."

He then took a letter from his pocket directed to the Countess Lamotte, and signed with the queen's name, requesting her to secure the purchase of the necklace. The king and queen looked at the letter, and instantly pronounced it a forgery. The king then took from his own pocket a letter addressed to the jeweler Boehmer, and, handing it to de Rohan, said,

"Are you the author of that letter?"

The cardinal turned pale, and, leaning upon his hand, appeared as though he would fall to the floor.

"I have no wish, cardinal," the king kindly replied, "to find you guilty. Explain to me this enigma. Account for all those maneuvers with Boehmer. Where did you obtain these securities and these promissory notes, signed in the queen's name, which have been given to Boehmer?"

The cardinal, trembling in every nerve, faintly replied, "Sire, I am too much agitated now to answer your majesty. Give me a little time to collect my thoughts."

"Compose yourself, then, cardinal," the king added. "Go into my cabinet. You will there find papers, pens, and ink. At your leisure, write what you have to say to me."

In about half an hour the cardinal returned with a paper, covered with erasures, and alterations, and blottings, as confused and unsatisfactory as his verbal statements had been. An officer was then summoned into the royal presence, and commanded to take the cardinal into custody and conduct him to the Bastile. He was, however, permitted to visit his home. The cardinal contrived, by the way, to scribble a line upon a scrap of paper, and, catching the eye of a trusty servant, he, unobserved, slipped it into his hand. It was a direction to the servant to hasten to the palace, with the utmost possible speed, and commit to the flames all of his private papers. The king had also sent officers to the cardinal's palace to seize his papers and seal them for examination. By almost superhuman exertions, the cardinal's servant first arrived at the palace, which was at the distance of several miles. His horse dropped dead in the court-yard. The important documents, which might, perhaps, have shed light upon this mysterious affair, were all consumed.

The Countess Lamotte was also arrested, and held in close confinement to await her trial. She had just commenced living in a style of extraordinary splendor, and had vast sums at her disposal, acquired no one knew how. It is difficult to imagine the excitement which this story produced all over Europe. It was represented that the queen was found engaged in a swindling transaction with a profligate woman to cheat the crown jeweler out of gems of inestimable value, and that, being detected, she was employing all the influence of the crown to shield her own reputation by consigning the innocent cardinal to infamy. The enemies of the queen, sustained by the ecclesiastics generally, rallied around the cardinal. The king and queen, feeling that his acquittal would be the virtual condemnation of Maria Antoinette, and firmly convinced of his guilt, exerted their utmost influence, in self-defense, to bring him to punishment. Rumors and counter rumors floated through Versailles, Paris, and all the courts of the Continent. The tale was rehearsed in saloon and cafe with every conceivable addition and exaggeration, and the queen hardly knew which way to turn from the invectives which were so mercilessly showered upon her. Her lofty spirit, conscious of rectitude, sustained her in public, and there she nerved herself to appear with firmness and equanimity. But in the retirement of her boudoir she was unable to repel the most melancholy imaginings, and often wept with almost the anguish of a bursting heart. The sunshine of her life had now disappeared. Each succeeding day grew darker and darker with enveloping glooms.

The trial of the cardinal continued, with various interruptions, for more than a year. Very powerful parties were formed for and against him. All France was agitated by the protracted contest. The cardinal appeared before his judges in mourning robes, but with all the pageantry of the most imposing ecclesiastical costume. He was conducted into court with much ceremony, and treated with the greatest deference. In the trying moment in which he first appeared before his judges, his courage seemed utterly to fail him. Pale and trembling with emotion, his knees bent under him, and he had to cling to a support to prevent himself from falling to the floor. Five or six voices immediately addressed him in tones of sympathy, and the president said, "His eminence the cardinal is at liberty to sit down, if he wishes it." The distinguished prisoner immediately took his seat with the members of the court. Having soon recovered in some degree his composure, he arose, and for half an hour addressed his judges, with much feeling and dignity, repeating his protestations of entire innocence in the whole affair.

At the close of this protracted trial, the cardinal was fully acquitted of all guilt by a majority of three voices. The king and queen were extremely chagrined at this result. During the trial, many insulting insinuations were thrown out against the queen which could not easily be repelled. A friend who called upon her immediately after the decision, found her in her closet weeping bitterly. "Come," said Maria, "come and weep for your queen, insulted and sacrificed by cabal and injustice." The king came in at the same moment, and said, "You find the queen much afflicted; she has great reason to be so. They were determined through out this affair to see only an ecclesiastical prince, a Prince de Rohan, while he is, in fact, a needy fellow, and all this was but a scheme to put money into his pockets. It is not necessary to be an Alexander to cut this Gordian knot." The cardinal subsequently emigrated to Germany, where he lived in comparative obscurity till 1803, when he died.

The Countess Lamotte was brought to trial, but with a painfully different result. Dressed in the richest and most costly robes, the dissolute beauty appeared before her judges, and astonished them all by her imperturbable self-possession, her talents, and her cool effrontery. It was clearly proved that she had received the necklace; that she had sold here and there the diamonds of which it was composed, and had thus come into possession of large sums of money. She told all kinds of stories, contradicting herself in a thousand ways, accusing now one and again another as an accomplice, and unblushingly declaring that she had no intention to tell the truth, for that neither she nor the cardinal had uttered one single word before the court which had not been false. She was found guilty, and the following horrible sentence was pronounced against her: that she should be whipped upon the bare back in the court-yard of the prison; that the letter V should be burned into the flesh on each shoulder with a hot iron; and that she should be imprisoned for life. The king and queen were as much displeased with the terrible barbarity of the punishment of the countess as they were chagrined at the acquittal of the cardinal. As the countess was a descendant of the royal family, they felt that the ignominious character of the punishment was intended as a stigma upon them.

As the countess was sitting one morning in the spacious room provided for her in the prison, in a loose robe, conversing gayly with some friends, and surrounded by all the appliances of wealth, an attendant appeared to conduct her into the presence of the judges. Totally unprepared for the awful doom impending over her, she rose with careless alacrity and entered the court. The terrible sentence was pronounced. Immediately terror, rage, and despair seized upon her, and a scene of horror ensued which no pen can describe. Before the sentence was finished, she threw herself upon the floor, and uttered the most piercing shrieks and screams. The tumult of agitation into which she was thrown, dreadful as it was, relaxed not the stern rigor of the law. The executioner immediately seized her, and dragged her, shrieking and struggling in a delirium of phrensy, into the court-yard of the prison. As her eye fell upon the instruments of her ignominious and brutal punishment, she seized upon one of her executioners with her teeth, and tore a mouthful of flesh from his arm. She was thrown upon the ground, her garments, with relentless violence, were stripped from her back, and the lash mercilessly cut its way into her quivering nerves, while her awful screams pierced the damp, chill air of the morning. The hot irons were brought, and simmered upon her recoiling flesh. The unhappy creature was then carried, mangled and bleeding, and half dead with torture, and terror, and madness, to the prison hospital. After nine months of imprisonment she was permitted to escape. She fled to England, and was found one morning dead upon the pavements of London, having been thrown from a third story window in a midnight carousal.

Such was the story of the Diamond Necklace. Though no one can now doubt that Maria Antoinette was perfectly innocent in the whole affair, it, at the time, furnished her enemies with weapons against her, which they used with fatal efficiency. It was then represented that the Countess Lamotte was an accomplice of the queen in the fraudulent acquisition of the necklace, and that the Cardinal de Rohan was their deluded but innocent victim. The horrible punishment of Madame Lamotte, who boasted that royal blood circulated in her veins, was understood to be in contempt of royalty, and as the expression of venomous feeling toward the queen. Both Maria Antoinette and Louis felt it as such, and were equally aggrieved by the acquittal of the cardinal and the barbarous punishment of the countess.

Whether the cardinal was a victim or an accomplice is a question which never has been, and now never can be, decided. The mystery in which the affair is involved must remain a mystery until the secrets of all hearts are revealed at the great day of judgment. If he was the guilty instigator, and the poor countess but his tool and victim, how much has he yet to be accountable for in the just retributions of eternity! There were three suppositions adopted by the community in the attempt to solve the mystery of this transaction:

1. The first was, that the queen had really employed the Countess Lamotte to obtain the necklace by deceiving the cardinal. That it was a trick by which the queen and the countess were to obtain the necklace, and, by selling it piecemeal, to share the spoil, leaving the cardinal responsible for the payment. This was the view the enemies of Maria Antoinette, almost without exception, took of the case; and the sentence of acquittal of the cardinal, and the horrible condemnation of the countess, were intended to sustain this view. This opinion, spread through Paris and France, was very influential in rousing that animosity which conducted Maria Antoinette to sufferings more poignant and to a doom more awful than the Countess Lamotte could by any possibility endure.

2. The second supposition was, that the cardinal and the countess forged the signature of the queen to defraud the jeweler; that they thus obtained the rich prize of three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, intending to divide the spoil between them, and throw the obloquy of the transaction upon the queen. The king and queen were both fully convinced that this was the true explanation of the fraud, and they retained this belief undoubted until they died.

3. The third supposition, and that which now is almost universally entertained, was, that the crafty woman Lamotte, by forgery, and by means of an accomplice, who very much, in figure, resembled Maria Antoinette, completely duped the cardinal. His anxiety was such to be restored to the royal favor, that he eagerly caught at the bait which the wily countess presented to him. But, whoever may have been the guilty ones, no one now doubts that Maria Antoinette was entirely innocent. She, however, experienced all the ignominy she could have encountered had she been involved in the deepest guilt.



CHAPTER V.

THE MOB AT VERSAILLES.

1789

A gathering storm.—Condition of the French people.—Forces assembled at Versailles.—The populace rise upon the troops.—Terror and confusion.—Attack on the Bastile.—The Bastile taken.—Awful tumult.—Energy of the queen.—Resolution of the king.—The king visits Paris.—Strange cavalcade.—Painful suspense of the queen.—Return of the king.—The banquet at Versailles.—Enthusiastic loyalty.—News of the banquet.—Famine in Paris.—The mob marches to Versailles.—Heroic reply of the queen.—Violence of the mob.—The queen retires to rest.—Peril of the queen.—Her narrow escape.—The mob in the palace.—Heroic conduct of the queen.—The queen appears on the balcony.—Her composure.—The queen applauded.—The royal family taken to Paris.—An army of vagabonds.—The royal family grossly insulted.—The royal family in the Tuileries.—The queen's self-sacrificing spirit.—Rioting and violence.—The dauphin's question.—The king's explanation to his son.—Flight of the nobility.—Inflammatory placards.—The Duke of Orleans.—The Duke of Orlean's plans frustrated.—Rumors of an invasion.—The leaders of the populace.—The queen urged to attend the theater.—Dignified reply of the queen.—Her unpopularity increases.—The queen's vigorous action.—Ultimate cause of the popular fury.—Transgressors visited in their children.

The year 1789 opened upon France lowering with darkness and portentous storms. The events to which we have alluded in the preceding chapters, and various others of a similar nature, conspired to foment troubles between the French monarch and his subjects, which were steadily and irresistibly increasing. The great mass of the people, ignorant, degraded, and maddened by centuries of oppression, were rising, with delirious energy, to batter down a corrupt church and a despotic throne, and to overwhelm the guilty and the innocent alike in indiscriminate ruin. The storm had been gathering for ages, but those who had been mainly instrumental in raising it were now slumbering in their graves. Mobs began to sweep the streets of Paris, phrensied with rum and rage, and all law was set at defiance. The king, mild in temperament, and with no force of character, was extremely averse to any measures of violence. The queen, far more energetic, with the spirit of her heroic mother, would have quelled these insurrections with the strong arm of military power.



The king at last was compelled, in order to protect the royal family from insult, to encamp his army around his palaces; and long trains of artillery and of cavalry incessantly traversed the streets of Versailles, to prop the tottering monarchy. As Maria Antoinette, from the windows, looked down upon these formidable bands, and saw the crowd of generals and colonels who filled the saloons of the palace, her fainting courage was revived. The sight of these soldiers, called to quell the insurgent people, roused the Parisians to the intensest fury. "To arms! to arms! the king's troops are coming to massacre us," resounded through the streets of Paris in the gloom of night, in tones which caused the heart of every peaceful citizen to quake with terror. The infuriated populace hurled themselves upon the few troops who were in Paris. Many of the soldiers of the king threw down their arms and fraternized with the people. Others were withdrawn, by order of Louis, to add to the forces which were surrounding his person at Versailles. Paris was thus left at the mercy of the mob. The arsenals were ransacked, the powder magazines were broken open, pikes were forged, and in a day, as it were, all Paris was in arms. Thousands of the noble and the wealthy fled in consternation from these scenes of ever-accumulating peril, and bands of ferocious men and women, from all the abodes of infamy, with the aspect and the energy of demons, ravaged the streets.

When the morning of the 14th of March, 1789, dawned upon the city, a scene of terror and confusion was witnessed which baffles all description. In the heart of Paris there was a prison of terrible celebrity, in whose dark dungeons many victims of oppression and crime had perished. The Bastile, in its gloomy strength of rock and iron, was the great instrument of terror with which the kings of France had, for centuries, held all restless spirits in subjection. Now, the whole population of Paris seemed to be rolling like an inundation toward this apparently impregnable fortress, resolved to batter down its execrated walls. "To the Bastile! to the Bastile!" was the cry which resounded along the banks of the Seine, and through every street of the insurgent metropolis; and men, women, and boys poured on and poured on, an interminable host, choking every avenue with the agitated mass, armed with guns, knives, swords, pikes—dragging artillery bestrode by amazons, and filling the air with the clamor of Pandemonium. A conflict, fierce, short, bloody, ensued, and the exasperated multitude, many of them bleeding and maddened by wounds, clambered over the walls and rushed through the shattered gateways, and, with yells of triumph, became masters of the Bastile. The heads of its defenders were stuck upon poles upon the battlements, and the mob, intoxicated with the discovery of their resistless power, were beginning to inquire in what scenes of violence they should next engage. At midnight, couriers arrived at Versailles, informing the king and queen of the terrible insurrections triumphant in the capital, and that the royal troops every where, instead of being enthusiastic for the defense of the king, manifested the strongest disposition to fraternize with the populace. The tumult in Paris that night was awful. The rumor had entered every ear that the king was coming with forty thousand troops to take dreadful vengeance in the indiscriminate massacre of the populace. It was a night of sleeplessness and terror—the carnival of all the monsters of crime who thronged that depraved metropolis. The streets were filled with intoxication and blasphemy. No dwelling was secure from pillage. The streets were barricaded; pavements torn up, and the roofs of houses loaded with the stones.

All the energies of the queen were aroused for a vigorous and heroic resistance. She strove to inspire the king with firmness and courage. He, however, thought only of concessions. He wished to win back the love of his people by favors. He declared openly that never should one drop of blood be shed at his command; and, with the heroism of endurance, which he abundantly possessed, and to prove that he had been grossly calumniated, he left Versailles in his carriage to go unprotected to Paris, into the midst of the infuriated populace. Just as he was entering his carriage on this dangerous expedition, he received intelligence that a plot was formed to assassinate him on the way. This, however, did not in the slightest degree shake his resolution. The agony of the queen was irrepressible as she bade him adieu, never expecting to see him again.

The National Assembly, consisting of nearly twelve hundred persons, was then in session at Versailles, the great majority of them sympathizing with the populace, and yet were alarmed in view of the lawless violence which their own acts had awakened, and which was every where desolating the land. As, on the morning of the 17th of July, the king entered his carriage with a slender retinue, and with no military protection, to expose himself to the dangers of his tumultuous capital, this whole body formed in procession on foot and followed him. A countless throng of artisans and peasants flocked from all the streets of Versailles, and poured in from the surrounding country, armed with scythes and bludgeons, and joined the strange cavalcade. Every moment the multitude increased, and the road, both before and behind the king, was so clogged with the accumulating mass, that seven hours passed before the king arrived at the gates of the city. During all this time he was exposed to every conceivable insult. As Louis was conducted to the Hotel de Ville, a hundred thousand armed men lined the way, and he passed along under the arch of their sabers crossed over his head. The cup of degradation he was compelled to drain to its dregs.

While the king was absent from Versailles on this dreadful visit, silence and the deepest gloom pervaded the palace. The queen, apprehensive that the king would be either massacred or retained a prisoner in Paris, was overwhelmed with the anguish of suspense. She retired to her chamber, and, with continually gushing tears, prepared an appeal to the National Assembly, commencing with these words: "Gentlemen, I come to place in your hands the wife and family of your sovereign. Do not suffer those who have been united in heaven to be put asunder on earth." Late in the evening the king returned, to the inexpressible joy of his household. But the narrative he gave of the day's adventure plunged them all again into the most profound grief.

The visit of the king had no influence in diminishing the horrors of the scenes now hourly enacted in the French capital. His friends were openly massacred in the streets, hung up at the lamp-posts, and roasted at slow fires, while their dying agonies were but the subjects of derision. The contagion of crime and cruelty spread to every other city in the empire. The higher nobility and the more wealthy citizens began very generally to abandon their homes, seeing no escape from these dangers but by precipitate flight to foreign lands. Such was the state of affairs, when the officers of some of the regiments assembled at Versailles for the protection of the king had a public banquet in the saloon of the opera. All the rank and elegance which had ventured yet to linger around the court graced the feast with their presence in the surrounding boxes. In the midst of their festivities, their chivalrous enthusiasm was excited in behalf of the king and queen. They drank their health—they vowed to defend them even unto death. Wine had given fervor to their loyalty. The ladies showered upon them bouquets, waved their handkerchiefs, and tossed to them white cockades, the emblem of Bourbon power. And now the cry arose, loud, and long, and enthusiastic, for the king and queen to come and show themselves to their defenders. The door suddenly opened, and the king and queen appeared. Enthusiasm immediately rose almost to phrensy. The hall resounded with acclamations, and the king, entirely unmanned by these expressions of attachment, burst into tears. The band struck up the pathetic air, "O Richard! O my king! the world abandons you." There was no longer any bounds to the transport. The officers and the ladies mingled together in a scene of indescribable enthusiasm.

The tidings of this banquet spread like wildfire through Paris, magnified by the grossest exaggerations. It was universally believed that the officers had contemptuously trampled the tri-colored cockade, the adopted emblem of popular power, under their feet; that they had sharpened their sabers, and sworn to exterminate the National Assembly and the people of Paris. All business was at a stand. No laborer was employed. The provisions in the city were nearly all consumed. No baker dared to appear with his cart, or farmer to send in his corn, for pillage was the order of the day. The exasperated and starving people hung a few bakers before their own ovens, but that did not make bread any more plenty. The populace of Paris were now starving, literally and truly starving. A gaunt and haggard woman seized a drum and strode through the streets, beating it violently, and mingling with its din her shrieks of "Bread! bread!" A few boys follow her—then a score of female furies—and then thousands of desperate men. The swelling inundation rolls from street to street; the alarm bells are rung; all Paris composes one mighty, resistless mob, motiveless, aimless, but ripe for any deed of desperation. The cry goes from mouth to mouth "To Versailles! to Versailles!" Why, no one knows, only that the king and queen are there. Impetuously, as by a blind instinct, the monster mass moves on. La Fayette, at the head of the National Guard, knows not what to do, for all the troops under his command sympathize with the people, and will obey no orders to resist them. He therefore merely follows on with his thirty-five thousand troops to watch the issue of events. The king and queen are warned of the approaching danger, and Louis entreats Maria Antoinette to take the children in the carriages and flee to some distant place of safety. Others join most earnestly in the entreaty. "Nothing," replies the queen, "shall induce me, in such an extremity, to be separated from my husband. I know that they seek my life. But I am the daughter of Maria Theresa, and have learned not to fear death."



From the windows of their mansion the disorderly multitude were soon descried, in a dense and apparently interminable mass, pouring along through the broad avenues toward the palaces of Versailles. It was in the evening twilight of a dark and rainy day. Like ocean tides, the frantic mob rolled in from every direction. Their shouts and revels swelled upon the night air. The rain began to fall in torrents. They broke into the houses for shelter; insulted maids and matrons; tore down every thing combustible for their watch fires; massacred a few of the body-guard of the queen, and, with bacchanalian songs, roasted their horses for food. And thus passed the hours of this long and dreary night, in hideous outrages for which one can hardly find a parallel in the annals of New Zealand cannibalism. The immense gardens of Versailles were filled with a tumultuous ocean of half-frantic men and women, tossed to and fro in the wildest and most reckless excitement.

Toward morning, the queen, worn out with excitement and sleeplessness, having received from La Fayette the assurance that he had so posted the guard that she need be in no apprehension of personal danger, had retired to her chamber for rest. The king had also retired to his apartment, which was connected with that of the queen by a hall, through which they could mutually pass. Two faithful soldiers were stationed at the door of the queen's chamber for her defense. Hardly had the queen placed her head upon her pillow before she heard a dreadful clamor upon the stairs—the discharge of fire-arms, the clashing of swords, and the shouts of the mob rushing upon her door. The faithful guard, bleeding beneath the blows of the assailants, had only time to cry to the queen, "Fly! fly for your life!" when they were stricken down. The queen sprang from her bed, rushed to the door leading to the king's apartments, when, to her dismay, she found that it was locked, and that the key was upon the other side. With the energy of despair, she knocked and called for help. Fortunately, some one rushed to her rescue from the king's chamber and opened the door. The queen had just time to slip through and again turn the key, when the whole raging mob, with oaths and imprecations, burst into the room, and pierced her bed through and through with their sabers and bayonets. Happy would it have been for Maria if in that short agony she might have died. But she was reserved by a mysterious Providence for more prolonged tortures and for a more dreadful doom.

A few of the National Guard, faithful to the king, rallied around the royal family, and La Fayette soon appeared, and was barely able to protect the king and queen from massacre. He had no power to effectually resist the tempest of human passion which was raging, but was swept along by its violence. Nearly all of the interior of the palace was ransacked and defiled by the mob. The bloody heads of the massacred guards, stuck upon pikes, were raised up to the windows of the king, to insult and to terrify the royal family with these hideous trophies of the triumph of their foes.

At length the morning succeeding this dreadful night dawned lurid and cheerless. It was the 8th of October, 1789. Dark clouds over-shadowed the sky, showers of mist were driven through the air, and the branches of the trees swayed to and fro before the driving storm. Pools of water filled the streets, and a countless multitude of drunken vagabonds, in a mass so dense as to be almost impervious, besieged the palace, having no definite plan or desire, only furious with the thought that now was the hour in which they could wreak vengeance upon aristocrats for ages of oppression. Muskets were continually discharged by the more desperate, and bullets passed through the windows of the palace. Maria Antoinette, in these trying scenes, indeed appeared queenly. Her conduct was heroic in the extreme. Her soul was nerved to the very highest acts of fearlessness and magnanimity. Seeing the mob in the court-yard below ready to tear in pieces some of her faithful guard whom they had captured, regardless of the shots which were whistling by her, she persisted in exposing herself at the open window to beg for their lives; and when a friend, M. Luzerne, placed himself before her, that his body might be her shield from the bullets, she gently, but firmly, with her hand, pressed him away, saying, "The king can not afford to lose so faithful a servant as you are."

At length the crowd began vigorously to shout, "The queen! the queen!" demanding that she should appear upon the balcony. She immediately came forth, with her children at her side, that, as a mother, she might appeal to their hearts. The sight moved the sympathies of the multitude; and execrating, as they did, Maria Antoinette, whom they had long been taught to hate, they could not have the heart, in cold blood, to massacre these innocent children. Thousands of voices simultaneously shouted, "Away with the children!" Maria, apparently without the tremor of a nerve, led back her children, and again appearing upon the balcony alone, folded her arms, and, raising her eyes to heaven, stood before them, a self-devoted victim. The heroism of the act changed for a moment hatred to admiration. Not a gun was fired; there was a moment of silence, and then one spontaneous burst of applause rose apparently from every lip, and shouts of "Vive la reine! vive la reine!" pierced the skies.



And now the universal cry ascends, "To Paris! to Paris!" La Fayette, with the deepest mortification, was compelled to inform the king that he had no force at his disposal sufficient to enable him to resist the demands of the mob. The king, seeing that he was entirely at the mercy of his foes, who were acting without leaders and without plan, as the caprice of each passing moment instigated, said, "You wish, my children, that I should accompany you to Paris. I can not go but on condition that I shall not be separated from my wife and family." To this proposal there was a tumultuous assent. At one o'clock, the king and queen, with their two children, entered the royal carriage to be escorted by the triumphant mob as captives to Paris. Behind them, in a long train, followed the carriages of the king's suite and servants. Then followed twenty-five carriages filled with the members of the National Assembly. After them came the thirty-five thousand troops of the National Guard; and before, behind, and around them all, a hideous concourse of vagabonds, male and female, in uncounted thousands, armed with every conceivable weapon, yelling, blaspheming, and crowding against the carriages so that they surged to and fro like ships in a storm. This motley multitude kept up an incessant discharge of fire-arms loaded with bullets, and the balls often struck the ornaments of the carriages, and the king and queen were often almost suffocated with the smoke of powder. The two body-guard, who had been massacred while so faithfully defending the queen at the door of her chamber, were beheaded, and, their gory heads affixed to pikes, were carried by the windows of the carriage, and pressed upon the view of the wretched captives with every species of insult and derision. La Fayette was powerless. He was borne along resistlessly by this whirlwind of human passions. None were so malignant, so ferocious, so merciless, as the degraded women who mingled with the throng. They bestrode the cannon singing the most indecent and insulting songs. "We shall now have bread," they exclaimed; "for we have with us the baker, and the baker's wife, and the baker's boy." During seven long hours of agony were the royal family exposed to these insults, before the unwieldy mass had urged its slow way to Paris. The darkness of night was settling down around the city as the royal captives were led into the Hotel de Ville. No one seemed then to know what to do, or why the king and queen had been brought from Versailles. The mayor of the city received them there with the external mockery of respect and homage. He had them then conducted to the Tuileries, the gorgeous city palace of the kings of France, now the prison of the royal family. Soldiers were stationed at all the avenues to the palace, ostensibly to preserve the royal family from danger, but, in reality, to guard them from escape.

A moment before the queen entered her carriage for this march of humiliation, she hastily retired to her private apartment, and, bursting into tears, surrendered herself to the most uncontrollable emotion. Then immediately, as if relieved and strengthened by this flood of tears, she summoned all her energies, and appeared as she had ever appeared, the invincible sovereign. Indeed, through all these dreadful scenes she never seemed to have a thought for herself. It was for her husband and her children alone that she wept and suffered. Through all the long hours of the night succeeding this day of horror, Paris was one boiling caldron of tumult and passion. Rioting and violence filled all its streets, and the clamor of madness and inebriation drove sleep from every pillow. The excitement of the day had been too terrible to allow either the king or the queen to attempt repose. The two children, in utter exhaustion, found a few hours of agitated slumber from the terror with which they had so long been appalled. But in the morning, when the dauphin awoke, being but six or eight years of age, hearing the report of musketry and the turmoil still resounding in the streets, he threw his arms around his mother's neck, and, as he clung trembling to her bosom, exclaimed, "O mother! mother! is to-day yesterday again?" Soon after, his father came into the room. The little prince, to whom sorrow had given a maturity above his years, contemplated his father for a moment with a pensive air, went up to him and said, "Dear father, why are your people, who formerly loved you so well, now, all of a sudden so angry with you? And what have you done to irritate them so much?"



The king thus replied. "I wished, my dear child, to render the people still happier than they were. I wanted money to pay the expenses occasioned by wars. I asked the Parliament for money, as my predecessors have always done. Magistrates composing the Parliament opposed it, and said that the people alone had a right to consent to it. I assembled the principal inhabitants of every town, whether distinguished by birth, fortune, or talents, at Versailles. That is what is called the States-General. When they were assembled, they required concessions of me which I could not make, either with due respect for myself or with justice to you, who will be my successor. Wicked men, inducing the people to rise, have occasioned the excesses of the last few days. The people must not be blamed for them."

While these terrific scenes were passing in Paris and in France, the majority of the nobility were rapidly emigrating to find refuge in other lands. Every night the horizon was illumined by the conflagration of their chateaux, burned down by mobs. Many of them were mercilessly tortured to death. Large numbers, however, gathering around them such treasures as could easily be carried away, escaped to Germany on the frontiers of France. Some fifteen hundred of these emigrants were at Coblentz, organizing themselves into a military band, seeking assistance from the Austrian monarchy, and threatening, with an overwhelming force of invasion, to recover their homes and their confiscated estates, and to rescue the royal family. The populace in Paris were continually agitated with the rumors of this gathering army at Coblentz. As Maria was an Austrian, she was accused of being in correspondence with the emigrants, and of striving to rouse the Austrian monarchy to make war upon France, and to deluge Paris with the blood of its citizens. Most inflammatory placards were posted in the streets. Speeches full of rancor and falsehood were made to exasperate the populace. And when the fish-women wished to cast upon the queen some epithet of peculiar bitterness, they called her "The Austrian."

It is confidently asserted that the mob was instigated to the march to Versailles by the emissaries of the Duke of Orleans, the father of Louis Philippe. The duke hoped that the royal family, terrified by the approach of the infuriated multitude, would enter their carriages and flee to join the emigrants at Coblentz. The throne would then be vacant, and the people would make the Duke of Orleans, who, to secure this result, had become one of the most violent of the Democrats, their king. It was a deeply-laid plot and a very plausible enterprise. But the king understood the plan, and refused thus to be driven from the throne of his fathers. He, however, entreated the queen to take the children and escape. She resolutely declared that no peril should induce her to forsake her husband, but that she would live or die by his side. During all the horrors of that dreadful night, when the palace at Versailles was sacked, the duke, in disguise, with his adherents, was endeavoring to direct the fury of the storm for the accomplishment of this purpose. But his plans were entirely frustrated. The caprice seized the mob to carry the king to Paris. This the Duke of Orleans of all things dreaded; but matters had now passed entirely beyond his control. Rumors of the approaching invasion were filling the kingdom with alarm. There was a large minority, consisting of the most intelligent and wealthy, who were in favor of the king, and who would eagerly join an army coming for his rescue. Should the king escape and head that army, it would give the invaders a vast accession of moral strength, and the insurgent people feared a dreadful vengeance. Consequently, there were great apprehensions entertained that the king might escape. The leaders of the populace were not yet prepared to plunge him into prison or to load him with chains. In fact, they had no definite plan before them. He was still their recognized king. They even pretended that he was not their captive—that they had politely, affectionately invited him, escorted him on a visit to his capital. They entreated the king and queen to show that they had no desire to escape, but were contented and happy, by entering into all the amusements of operas, and theaters, and balls. But in the mean time they doubled the guards around them, and drove away their faithful servants, to place others at their tables and in their chambers who should be their spies.

But two days after these horrid outrages, in the midst of which the king and queen were dragged as captives to Paris, the city sent a deputation to request the queen to appear at the theater, and thus to prove, by participating in those gay festivities, that it was with pleasure that she resided in her capital. With much dignity the queen replied, "I should, with great pleasure, accede to the invitation of the people of Paris; but time must be allowed me to soften the recollection of the distressing events which have recently occurred, and from which I have suffered so severely. Having come to Paris preceded by the heads of my faithful guards, who perished before the door of their sovereign, I can not think that such an entry into the capital ought to be followed by rejoicings. But the happiness I have always felt in appearing in the midst of the inhabitants of Paris is not effaced from my memory; and I hope to enjoy that happiness again, so soon as I shall find myself able to do so."

The queen was, however, increasingly the object of especial obloquy. She was accused of urging the king to bombard the city, and to adopt other most vigorous measures of resistance. It was affirmed that she held continual correspondence with the emigrants at Coblentz, and was doing all in her power to rouse Austria to come to the rescue of the king. Maria would have been less than the noble woman she was if she had not done all this, and more, for the protection of her husband, her child, and herself. She inherited her mother's superiority of mind and mental energy. Had Louis possessed her spirit, he might have perished more heroically, but probably none the less surely. Maria did, unquestionably, do every thing in her power to rouse her husband to a more energetic and manly defense. Generations of kings, by licentiousness, luxury, and oppression; by total disregard of the rights of the people, and by the naughty contempt of their sufferings and complaints, had kindled flames of implacable hatred against all kingly power. Circumstances, over which neither Louis nor Maria had any control, caused these flames to burst out with resistless fury around the throne of France, at the time in which they happened to be seated upon it. Though there never had been seated upon that throne more upright, benevolent, and conscientious monarchs, they were compelled to drain to the dregs the poisoned chalice which their ancestors had mingled. Perhaps this world presents no more affecting illustration of that mysterious principle of the divine government, by which the transgressions of the parents are visited upon the children. Louis XIV., as haughty and oppressive a monarch as ever trod an enslaved people into the dust, died peacefully in his luxurious bed. His descendant, Louis XVI., as mild and benignant a sovereign as ever sat upon an earthly throne, received upon his unresisting brow the doom from which his unprincipled ancestors had escaped. It is difficult for us, in the sympathy which is excited for the comparatively innocent Maria Antoinette and Louis, to remember the ages of wrong and outrage by which the popular exasperation had been raised to wreak itself in indiscriminating atrocities. There is but one solution to these mysteries: "After death comes the judgment."



CHAPTER VI.

THE PALACE A PRISON.

1789-1791

Condition of the royal family.—Ignominiously insulted.—The royal family surrounded by spies.—The queen refuses to escape.—Excuse for the emigrants.—Their plans.—Profligate women.—Their talk with the queen.—Bravos of the women.—Plan for the queen's escape.—Letter from the queen.—Her employments.—The king's unwillingness to flee.—Execution of the Marquis of Favras.—Imprudence of some of the queen's friends.—Her embarrassment.—The queen weeps.—Present to Madame Favras.—The king continues inactive.—Plan of Count d'Inisdal.—Indecision of the king.—The queen's disappointment.—Displeasure of Count d'Inisdal.—An alarm.—Attempts to assassinate the queen.—Removal to St. Cloud.—Another plan for flight.—It is abandoned.—Exhibitions of attachment.—Emotions of the queen.—The assassin in the garden.—Midnight interviews.—Deliberations of the king's friends.—Taunting gift.—The king's aunts leave France.—They are arrested.—Exciting debate.—The ladies permitted to depart.—The royal family start for St. Cloud.—They are compelled to return.—Preparations for flight.—Imprudence of the king and queen.—Garments for the children.—The queen's diamonds and jewels.—The queen's dressing-case.—The faithful Leonard.

The king and queen now found themselves in the gorgeous apartments of the Tuileries, surrounded with all the mockery of external homage, but incessantly exposed to the most ignominious insults, and guarded with sleepless vigilance from the possibility of escape. The name of the queen was the watchword of popular execration and rage. In the pride of her lofty spirit, she spurned all apologies, explanations, or attempts at conciliation. Inclosing herself in the recesses of her palace, she heard with terror and resentment, but with an unyielding soul, the daily acts of violence perpetrated against royalty and all of its friends. All her trusty servants were removed, and spies in their stead occupied her parlors and her chambers. Trembling far more for her husband and her children than for herself, every noise in the streets aroused her apprehensions of a new insurrection. And thus, for nearly two years of melancholy days and sorrowful nights, the very nobleness of her nature, glowing with heroic love, magnified her anguish. The terror of the times had driven nearly all the nobility from the realm. The court was forsaken, or attended only by the detested few who were forced as ministers upon the royal family by the implacable populace. Every word and every action of Maria Antoinette were watched, and reported by the spies who surrounded her in the guise of servants. To obtain a private interview with any of her few remaining friends, or even with her husband, it was necessary to avail herself of private stair-cases, and dark corridors, and the disguise of night. The queen regretted extremely that the nobles, and others friendly to royalty, should, in these hours of gathering danger, have fled from France. When urged to fly herself from the dangers darkening around her, she resolutely refused, declaring that she would never leave her husband and children, but that she would live or die with them. The queen, convinced of the impolicy of emigration, did every thing in her power to induce the emigrants to return. Urgent letters were sent to them, to one of which the queen added the following postscript with her own hand: "If you love your king, your religion, your government, and your country, return! return! return! Maria Antoinette." The emigrants were severely censured by many for abandoning their king and country in such a crisis. But when all law was overthrown, and the raging mob swayed hither and thither at its will, and nobles were murdered on the high way or hung at lamp-posts in the street, and each night the horizon was illumined by the conflagration of their chateaux, a husband and father can hardly be severely censured for endeavoring to escape with his wife and children from such scenes of horror.

A year of gloom now slowly passed away, almost every moment of which was embittered by disappointed hopes and gathering fears. The emigrants, who were assembled at Coblentz, on the frontiers of Germany, were organizing an army for the invasion of France and the restoration of the regal power. The people were very fearful that the king and queen might escape, and, joining the emigrants, add immeasurably to their moral strength. There were thousands in France, overawed by the terrors of the mob, who would most eagerly have rallied around the banners of such an invading army, headed by their own king. Louis, however, with his characteristic want of energy, was very unwilling to assume a hostile attitude toward his subjects, and still vainly hoped, by concessions and by the exhibition of a forgiving spirit, to reconcile his disaffected people.

On the morning after the arrival of the king and queen at the Tuileries, an occurrence took place highly characteristic of the times. A crowd of profligate women, the same who bestrode the cannon the day before, insulting the queen with the most abusive language, collected under the queen's windows, upon the terrace of the palace. Maria, hearing their outcries, came to the window. A furious termagant addressed her, telling her that she must dismiss all such courtiers as ruin kings, and that she must love the inhabitants of her good city. The queen replied,

"I have loved them at Versailles, and will also love them at Paris."

"Yes! yes!" answered another. "But you wanted to besiege the city and have it bombarded. And you wanted to fly to the frontiers and join the emigrants."

The queen mildly replied, "You have been told so, my friends, and have believed it, and that is the cause of the unhappiness of the people and of the best of kings."

Another addressed her in German, to which the queen answered, "I do not understand you. I have become so entirely French as even to have forgotten my mother tongue."

At this they all clapped their hands, and shouted, "Bravo! bravo!" They then asked for the ribbons and flowers out of her hat. Her majesty unfastened them herself, and then tossed them out of the window to the women. They were received with great eagerness, and divided among the party; and for half an hour they kept up the incessant shout, "Maria Antoinette forever! Our good queen forever!"

In the course of a few weeks some of the devoted friends of the queen had matured a plan by which her escape could be, without difficulty, effected. The queen, whose penetrating mind fully comprehended the peril of her situation, replied, while expressing the deepest gratitude to her friends for their kindness, "I will never leave either the king or my children. If I thought that I alone were obnoxious to public hatred, I would instantly offer my life as a sacrifice. But it is the throne which is aimed at. In abandoning the king, no other advantage can be obtained than merely saving my life; and I will never be guilty of such an act of cowardice."

The following letter, which she wrote at this time to a friend, in reply to a letter of sympathy in reference to the outrage which had torn her from Versailles, will enable one to form a judgment of her situation and state of mind at that time. "I shed tears of affection on reading your sympathizing letter. You talk of my courage; it required much less to go through the dreadful crisis of that day than is now daily necessary to endure our situation, our own griefs, those of our friends, and those of the persons who surround us. This is a heavy weight to sustain; and but for the strong ties by which my heart is bound to my husband, my children, and my friends, I should wish to sink under it. But you bear me up. I ought to sacrifice such feelings to your friendship. But it is I who bring misfortune on you all, and all your troubles are on my account."

The queen now lived for some time in much retirement. She employed the mornings in superintending the education of her son and daughter, both of whom received all their lessons in her presence, and she endeavored to occupy her mind, continually agitated as it was by ever-recurring scenes of outrage and of danger, by working large pieces of tapestry. She could not sufficiently recall her thoughts from the anxieties which continually engrossed them to engage in reading. The king was extremely unwilling to seek protection in flight, lest the throne should be declared vacant, and he should thus lose his crown. He was ever hoping that affairs would soon take such a turn that harmony would be restored to his distracted kingdom. Maria Antoinette, however, who had a much more clear discernment of the true state of affairs, soon felt convinced that reconciliation, unless effected by the arm of power, was hopeless, and she exerted all her influence to rouse the king to vigorous measures for escape. While firmly resolved never to abandon her husband and her family to save her own life, she still became very anxious that all should endeavor to escape together.

About this time the Marquis of Favras was accused of having formed a plan for the rescue of the royal family. He was very hastily tried, the mob surrounding the tribunal and threatening the judges with instant death unless they should condemn him. He was sentenced to be hung, and was executed, surrounded by the insults and execrations of the populace of Paris. The marquis left a wife and a little boy overwhelmed with grief and in hopeless poverty. On the following Sunday morning, some extremely injudicious friends of the queen, moved with sympathy for the desolated family, without consulting the queen upon the subject, presented the widow and the orphan in deepest mourning at court. The husband and father had fallen a sacrifice to his love for the queen and her family. The queen was extremely embarrassed. What course could she with safety pursue? If she should yield to the dictates of her own heart, and give expression to her emotions of sympathy and gratitude, she would rouse to still greater fury the indignation of the populace who were accusing her of the desire to escape, and who considered this desire as one of the greatest of crimes. Should she, on the other hand, surrender herself to the dictates of prudence, and neglect openly to manifest any special interest in their behalf, how severely must she be censured by the Loyalists for her ingratitude toward those who had been irretrievably ruined through their love for her.

The queen was extremely pained by this unexpected and impolitic presentation; for the fate of others, far dearer to her than her own life, were involved in her conduct. She withdrew from the painful scene to her private apartment, threw herself into a chair, and, weeping bitterly, said to an intimate friend, "We must perish! We are assailed by men who possess extraordinary talent, and who shrink from no crime. We are defended by those who have the kindest intentions, but who have no adequate idea of our situation. They have exposed me to the animosity of both parties by presenting to me the widow and the son of the Marquis of Favras. Were I free to act as my heart impels me, I should take the child of the man who has so nobly sacrificed himself for us, and adopt him as my own, and place him at the table between the king and myself. But, surrounded by the assassins who have destroyed his father, I did not dare even to cast my eyes upon him. The Royalists will blame me for not having appeared interested in this poor child. The Revolutionists will be enraged at the idea that his presentation should have been thought agreeable to me." The next day the queen sent, by a confidential friend, a purse of gold to Madame Favras, and assured her that she would ever watch, with the deepest interest, over her fortune and that of her son.

Innumerable plans were now formed for the rescue of the royal family, and abandoned. The king could not be roused to energetic action. His passive courage was indomitable, but he could not be induced to act on the offensive, and, still hoping that by a spirit of conciliation he might win back the affections of his people, he was extremely reluctant to take any measures by which he should be arrayed in hostility against them. Maria, on the contrary, knew that decisive action alone could be of any avail. One night, about ten o'clock, the king and queen were sitting in their private apartment of the Tuileries, endeavoring to beguile the melancholy hours by a game of cards. The sister of the king, Madame Elizabeth, with a very pensive countenance, was kneeling upon a stool, by the side of the table, overlooking the game. A nobleman, Count d'Inisdal, devotedly attached to the fortunes of the royal family, entered, and, in a low tone of voice, informed the king and queen that a plan was already matured to rescue them that very night; that a section of the National Guard was gained over, that sets of fleet horses were placed in relays at suitable distances, that carriages were ready, and that now they only wanted the king's consent, and the scheme, at midnight, would be carried into execution. The king listened to every word without the movement of a muscle of his countenance, and, fixing his eyes upon the cards in his hand, as if paying no attention to what had been said, uttered not a syllable. For some time there was perfect silence. At last Maria Antoinette, who was extremely anxious that the king should avail himself of this opportunity for escape, broke the embarrassing silence by saying, "Do you hear, sir, what is said to us?" "Yes," replied the king, calmly, "I hear," and he continued his game. Again there was a long silence. The queen, extremely anxious and impatient, for the hour of midnight was drawing near, again interrupted the silence by saying earnestly, "But, sir, some reply must be made to this communication." The king paused for a moment, and then, still looking upon the cards in his hand, said, "The king can not consent to be carried off." Maria Antoinette was greatly disappointed at the want of decision and of magnanimity implied in this answer. She, however, said to the nobleman very eagerly, "Be careful and report this answer correctly, the king can not consent to be carried off." The king's answer was doubtless intended as a tacit consent while he wished to avoid the responsibility of participating in the design. The count, however, was greatly displeased at this answer, and said to his associates, "I understand it perfectly. He is willing that we should seize and carry him, as if by violence, but wishes, in case of failure, to throw all the blame upon those who are periling their lives to save him." The queen hoped earnestly that the enterprise would not be abandoned, and sat up till after midnight preparing her cases of valuables, and anxiously watching for the coming of their deliverers. But the hours lingered away, and the morning dawned, and the palace was still their prison. The queen, shortly after, remarking upon this indecision of the king, said, "We must seek safety in flight. Our peril increases every day. No one can tell to what extremities these disturbances will lead."

La Fayette had informed the king, that, should he see any alarming movement among the disaffected, threatening the exposure of the royal family to new acts of violence, he would give them an intimation of their danger by the discharge of a few cannon from the battery upon the Pont Neuf. One night the report of guns from some casual discharge was heard, and the king, regarding it as the warning, in great alarm flew to the apartments of the queen. She was not there. He passed hastily from room to room, and at last found her in the chamber of the dauphin, with her two children in her arms. "Madame," said the king to her, "I have been seeking you. I was very anxious about you." "You find me," replied the queen pointing to her children, "at my station."

Several unavailing attempts were made at this time to assassinate the queen. These discoveries, however, seemed to cause Maria no alarm, and she could not be induced to adopt any precautions for her personal safety. Rarely did a day pass in which she did not encounter, in some form, ignominy or insult. As the heat of summer came on, the royal family removed to the palace of St. Cloud without any opposition, though the National Guard followed them, professedly for their protection, but, in reality, to guard against their escape. Here another plan was formed for flight. The different members of the royal family, in disguise, were to meet in a wood four leagues from St. Cloud. Some friends of the royal family, who could be perfectly relied upon, were there to join them. A large carriage was to be in attendance, sufficient to conduct the whole family. The attendants at the palace would have no suspicion of their escape until nine o'clock in the evening, as the royal carriages were frequently out until that hour, and it would then take some time to send to Paris to call together the National Assembly at midnight, and to send couriers to overtake the fugitives. Thus, with fleet horses and fresh relays, and having six or seven hours the start, the king and queen might hope to escape apprehension. The queen very highly approved of this plan, and was very anxious to have it carried into execution. But for some unknown reason, the attempt was relinquished.