The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France by Charles Duke Yonge (reading books for 5 year olds txt) 📖

scanty means of resisting them. A few companies of the National Guard formed the whole protection of the palace; and with them the agents of Orleans and the Girondins had been briskly tampering all the morning. Many had been seduced. A few remained firm in their loyalty; but those on whom the royal family had the best reason to rely were a band of gentlemen, with the veteran Marshal de Noailles at their head, who had repaired to the Tuileries in the morning to furnish to their sovereign such defense as could be found in their loyal and devoted gallantry. Some of them besides the old marshal, the Count d'Hervilly, who had commanded the cavalry of the Constitutional Guard, and M. d'Acloque, an officer of the National Guard, brought military experience to aid their valor, and made such arrangements as the time and character of the building rendered practicable to keep the rioters at bay. But the utmost bravery of such a handful of men, for they were no more, and even the more solid resistance of iron gates and barriers, were unavailing against the thousands that assailed them. Exasperated at finding the gates closed against them, the rioters began to beat upon them with sledge-hammers. Presently they were joined by Sergent and Panis, two of the municipal magistrates, who ordered the sentinels to open the gates to the sovereign people. The sentinels fled; the gates were opened or broken down; the mob seized one of the cannons which stood in the Place du Carrousel, carried it up the stairs of the palace, and planted it against the door of the royal apartments; and, while they shouted out a demand that the king should show himself, they began to batter the door as before they had battered the gates, and threatened, if it should not yield to their hatchets, to blow it down with cannon-shot.

Fear of personal danger was not one of the king's weaknesses. The hatchets beat down the outer door, and, as it fell, he came forth from the room behind, and with unruffled countenance accosted the ruffians who were pouring through it. His sister, the Princess Elizabeth, was at his side. He had charged those around him to keep the queen back; and she, knowing how special an object of the popular hatred and fury she was, with a fortitude beyond that which defies death, remained out of sight lest she should add to his danger. For a moment the mob, respecting, in spite of themselves, the calm heroism with which they were confronted, paused in their onset; but those in front were pushed on by those behind, and pikes were leveled and blows were aimed at both the king and the princess, whom they mistook for the queen. At first there were but one or two attendants at the king's side, but they were faithful and brave men. One struck down a ruffian who was lifting his weapon to aim a blow at Louis himself. A pike was even leveled at his sister, when her equerry, M. Bousquet, too far off to bring her the aid of his right hand, called out, "Spare the princess." Delicate as were her frame and features, Elizabeth was worthy of her blood, and as dauntless as the rest. She turned to her preserver almost reproachfully: "Why did you undeceive him? it might have saved the queen." But after a few seconds, Acloque with some grenadiers of the National Guard on whom he could still rely, hastened up by a back staircase to defend his sovereign; and, with the aid of some of the gentlemen who had come with the Marshal de Noailles, drew the king back into a recess formed by a window; and raised a rampart of benches in front of him, and one still more trustworthy of their own bodies. They would gladly have attacked the rioters and driven them back, but were restrained by Louis himself. "Put up your swords," said he; "this crowd is excited rather than wicked." And he addressed those who had forced their way into the room with words of condescending conciliation. They replied with threats and imprecations; and sought to force their way onward, pressing back by their mere numbers and weight the small group of loyal champions who by this time had gathered in front of him.

So great was the uproar that presently a report reached the main body of the insurgents, who were still in the garden beneath, that Louis had been killed; and they mingled shouts of triumph with cheers for Orleans as their new king, and demanded that the heads of the king and queen should be thrown down to them from the windows; but no actual injury was inflicted on Louis, though he owed his safety more to his own calmness than even to the devotion of his guards. One ruffian threatened him with instant death if he did not at once grant every prayer contained in their petition. He replied, as composedly as if he had been on his throne at Versailles, that the present was not the time for making such a demand, nor was this the way in which to make it. The dignity of the answer seemed to imply a contempt for the threateners, and the mob grew more uproarious. "Fear not, sire," said one of Acloque's grenadiers, "we are around you." The king took the man's hand and placed it on his heart, which was beating more calmly than that of the soldier himself. "Judge yourself," said he, "if I fear." Legendre, the butcher, raised his pike as if to strike him, while he reproached him as a traitor and the enemy of his country. "I am not, and never have been aught but the sincerest friend of my people," was the gentle but fearless answer. "If it be so, put on this red cap," and the butcher thrust one into his hand on the end of his pike, prepared, as Louis believed, to plunge the weapon itself into his breast if he refused. The king put it on, and so little regarded it that he forgot to remove it again, as he afterward repented that he had not done, thinking that his conduct in allowing it to remain on his head bore too strong a resemblance to fear or to an unworthy compromise of his dignity.

But still the uproar increased, and above it rose loud cries for the queen, till at last she also came forward. As yet, from the motives that have already been mentioned, she had consented to remain out of sight; but each explosion of the mob increased her unwillingness to keep back. It was, she felt, her duty to be always at the king's side; if need be, to die with him; to stand aloof was infamy; and at last, as the demands for her appearance increased, even those around her confessed that it might be safer for her to show herself. The door was thrown open, and, leading forth her children, from whom she refused to part, and accompanied by Madame de Tourzel, Madame de Lamballe, and others of her ladies, the most timid of whom seemed as if inspired by her example, Marie Antoinette advanced and took her place by the side of her husband, and, with head erect and color heightened by the sight of her enemies, faced them disdainfully. As lions in their utmost rage have recoiled before a man who has looked them steadily in the face, so did even those miscreants quail before their pure and high-minded queen. At first it seemed as if her bitterest enemies were to be found among her own sex. The men were for a moment silenced; but a young girl, whose appearance was not that of the lowest class, came forward and abused her in coarse and furious language, especially reviling her as "the Austrian." The queen, astonished at finding such animosity in one apparently tender and gentle, condescended to expostulate with her. "Why do you hate me? I have never injured you." "You have not injured me, but it is you who cause the misery of the nation." "Poor child," replied Marie Antoinette, "they have deceived you. I am the wife of your king, the mother of your dauphin, who will be your king. I am a Frenchwoman in every feeling of my heart. I shall never again see Austria. I can only be happy or unhappy in France, and I was happy when you loved me." The girl was melted by her patience and gentleness. She burst into tears of shame, and begged pardon for her previous conduct. "I did not know you," she said; "I see now that you are good.[2]" Another asked her, "How old is your girl?" "She is old enough," replied the queen, "to feel acutely such scenes as these." But, while these brief conversations were going on, the crowd kept pressing forward. One officer had drawn a table in front of the queen as she advanced, so as to screen her from actual contact with any of the rioters, but more than one of them stretched across it as if to reach her. One fellow demanded that she should put a red cap, which he threw to her, on the head of the dauphin, and, as she saw the king wearing one, she consented; but it was too large and fell down the child's face, almost stifling him with its thickness. Santerre himself reached across and removed it, and, leaning with his hands on the table, which shook beneath his vehemence, addressed her with what he meant for courtesy. "Princess," said he, "do not fear. The French people do not wish to slay you. I promise this in their name." Marie Antoinette had long ago declared that her heart had become French; it was too much so for her to allow such a man's claim to be the spokesman of the nation. "It is not by such as you," she replied, with lofty scorn; "it is not by such as you that I judge of the French people, but by brave men like these;" and she pointed to the gentlemen who were standing round her as her champions, and to the faithful grenadiers. The well-timed and well-deserved compliment roused them to still greater enthusiasm, but already the danger was passing away.

The Assembly had seen with indifference the departure of the mob to attack the Tuileries, and had proceeded with its ordinary business as if nothing were likely to happen which could call for its interference. But when the uproar within the palace became audible in the hall, the Count de Dumas, one of the very few men of noble birth who had been returned to this second Assembly, with a few other deputies of the better class, hastened to see what was taking place, and, quickly returning, reported the king's imminent danger to their colleagues. Dumas gave such offense by the boldness of his language that some of the Jacobins threatened him with violence, but he refused to be silenced; and his firmness prevailed, as firmness nearly always did prevail in an Assembly where, though there were many fierce and vehement blusterers, there were very few men of real courage. In compliance with his vehement demand for instant action, a deputation of members was sent to take measures for the king's safety; and then, at last, Petion, who had carefully kept aloof while there seemed to be a chance of the king being murdered, now that he could no longer hope for such a consummation, repaired to the palace and presented himself before him. To him he had the effrontery to declare that he had only just become apprised of his situation. From the Assembly, at a later hour in the evening, he claimed the credit of having organized the riot. But Louis would not condescend to pretend to believe