The Life of Marie Antoinette

by Charles Duke Yonge

  The powers exercised by the crown were more intolerable still. The sovereign was absolute master of the liberties of his subjects. Without alleging the commission of any crime, he could issue warrants-letters under seal, as they were called-which consigned the person named in them to imprisonment, which was often perpetual. The unhappy prisoner had no power of appeal. No judge could inquire into his case, much less release him. The arrests were often made with such secrecy and rapidity that his nearest relations knew not what had become of him, but he was cut off from the outer world, for the rest of his life, as completely as if he had at once been handed over to the executioner.[15]

  It was impossible but that such customs should produce general discontent, and a resolute demand for a complete reformation of the system. And one of the problems which the minister had to determine was, how to organize the States-general so that they should be disposed to promote such measures as reform as should be adequate without being excessive; as should give due protection to the middle and lower classes without depriving the nobles of that dignity and authority which were not only desirable for themselves, but useful to their dependents; and, lastly, such as should carefully preserve the rightful prerogatives of the crown, while putting an end to those arbitrary powers, the existence of which was incompatible with the very name of freedom.

  In making the necessary arrangements, the long disuse of the Assembly was a circumstance greatly in favor of the Government, if Necker had had skill to avail himself of it, since it wholly freed him from the obligation of being guided by former precedents. Those arrangements were long and warmly debated in the king's council. Though the records of former sessions had been so carelessly preserved that little was known of their proceedings, it seemed to be established that the representatives of the Commons had usually amounted to about four-tenths of the whole body, those of the clergy and of the nobles being each about three-tenths; and that they had almost invariably deliberated and voted in separate chambers; and the princes and the chief nobles presented memorials to the king, in which they almost unanimously recommended an adherence to these ancient forms; while, with patriotic prudence, they sought to obviate all jealousy of their own pretensions or views which might be entertained or feigned in any quarter, by announcing their willingness to abandon all the exclusive privileges and exemptions which they had hitherto possessed, and which were notoriously one chief cause of the generally prevailing discontent.

  But the party which had originated the clamor for the States-general, now, encouraged by their success, put forward two fresh demands; the first, that the number of the representatives of the Commons should equal that of both the other orders put together, which they called "the duplication of the Third Estate;" the second, that the three orders should meet and vote as one united body in one chamber; the two proposition taken together being manifestly calculated and designed to throw the whole power into the hands of the Commons.

  Necker had great doubts about the propriety and safety of the first proposal, and no doubt at all of the danger of the second. His own judgment was that the wisest plan would be to order the clergy and nobles to unite in an Upper Chamber, so as in some degree to resemble the British House of Lords; while the Third Estate, in a Lower Chamber, would be a tolerably faithful copy of our House of Commons. But he could never bring himself to risk his popularity by opposing what he regarded as the opinion of the masses. He was alarmed by the political clubs which were springing up in Paris; one, whose president was the Duc d'Orleans, assuming the significant and menacing title of Les Enrages;[16] and by the vast number of pamphlets which were circulated both in the capital and the chief towns of the provinces by thousands,[17] every writer of which put himself forward as a legislator,[18] and of which the vast majority advocated what they called the rights of the Third Estate, in most violent language; and, finally, he adopted the course which is a great favorite with vain and weak men, and which he probably represented to himself as a compromise between unqualified concession and unyielding resistance, though, every one possessed of the slightest penetration could see that it practically surrendered both points: he advised the king to issue his edict that the number of representatives to be returned to the States-general should be twelve hundred, half of whom were to be returned by the Commons, a quarter by the clergy, and a quarter by the nobles;[19] and to postpone the decision as to the number of the chambers till the Assembly should meet, when he proposed to allow the States themselves to determine it; trusting, against all probability, that, after having thus given the Commons the power to enforce their own views, he should be able to persuade them to abandon the same in deference to his judgment.

  Louis, as a matter of course, adopted his advice; and, after several different towns-Blois, Tours, Cambrai, and Compiegne among them-had been proposed as the place of meeting, he himself decided in favor of Versailles,[20] as that which would afford him the best hunting while the session lasted. The queen in her heart disapproved of every one of these resolutions. She saw that Necker had, as she had foreboded, sacrificed the king's authority by his advice on the two first questions; and she perceived more clearly than any one the danger of fixing the States- general so near to Paris that the turbulent population of the city should be able to overawe the members. She pressed these considerations earnestly on the king,[21] but it was characteristic of the course which she prescribed to herself from, the beginning, and from which she never swerved, that when her advice was overruled she invariably defended the course which had been taken. Her language, when any one spoke to her either of her own opinions and wishes, or of the feelings with which the different classes of the nation regarded her, was invariably the same. "You are not to think of me for a moment. All that I desire of you is to take care that the respect which is due to the king shall not be weakened;[22]" and it was only her most intimate friends who knew how unwise she thought the different decisions that had been adopted, or how deep were her forebodings of evil.

  CHAPTER XXIII. The Reveillon Riot.-Opening of the States-general.-The Queen is insulted by the Partisans of the Duc d'Orleans.-Discussions as to the Number of Chambers.-Career and Character of Mirabeau.-Necker rejects his Support. -He determines to revenge himself.-Death of the Dauphin.

  The meeting of the States-general, as has been already seen, was fixed for the 4th of May, 1789; and, as if it were fated that the bloody character of the period now to be inaugurated should be displayed from the very outset, the elections for the city of Paris, which were only held in the preceding week, were stained with a riot so formidable as to be commonly spoken of in the records of the time as an insurrection.[1]

  One of the candidates for the representation of the Third Estate was a paper-maker of the name of Reveillon, a man eminent for his charity and general liberality, but one who was believed to regard the views of the extreme reformers with disfavor. He was so popular with his own workmen, who were very numerous, and with their friends, who knew his character from them, that he was generally expected to succeed. The opposite party, who had candidates of their own, and had the support of the purse of the Duc d'Orleans, were determined that he should not; and no way seemed so sure as to murder him. Bands of ferocious-looking ruffians were brought in from the country districts, armed with heavy bludgeons, and, as was afterward learned, well supplied with money; and on the morning of the 28th of April news was brought to the Baron de Besenval, the commander of the Royal Guards, that a mob of several thousand men had collected in the streets, who had read a mock sentence, professing to have been passed by the Third Estate, which condemned Reveillon to be hanged, after which they had burned him in effigy, and then attacked his house, which they were sacking and destroying. They even ventured to attack the first company of soldiers whom De Besenval sent to the rescue; and it was not till he dispatched a battalion with a couple of field-pieces to the spot that the plunderers were expelled from the house and the riot was quelled. Nearly five hundred of the mob were killed, but when the Parliament proc
eeded to set on foot a judicial inquiry into the cause of the tumult, Necker prevailed on the secretary of state to suppress the investigation, as he feared to exasperate D'Orleans further by giving publicity to his machinations, which he did not yet suspect either the extent or the object.[2]

  A momentary tranquility was, however, restored at Paris; and all eyes were turned from the capital to Versailles, where the first few days of May were devoted to the receptions of the States-general by the king and queen, ceremonies which might have had a good effect, since the bitterest adversaries of the court were favorably impressed by the grace and affability of the queen; but which many shrewd judges afterward believed to have had a contrary influence, from the offense taken by the representatives of the Commons at some of the details of the ancient etiquette, which on so solemn an occasion was revived in all its stately strictness. The dignitaries of the Church wore their most sumptuous robes. The Nobles glittered with silk and gold lace; jeweled clasps fastened plumes of feathers in their hats; orders glittered on their breasts; and many a precious stone sparkled in the hilts of their swords. The representatives of the Commons were allowed neither feathers, nor embroidery, nor swords; but were forced to content themselves with plain black cloaks, and an unadorned homeliness of attire, which seemed as if intended to exclude all idea of their being the equals of those other orders of which they had for a moment become the colleagues. And, in a similar spirit it was arranged that, after the folding-doors of the saloon in which the sovereigns were awaiting them were thrown wide open to admit the representatives of the higher orders, the Commons were let in through a side door. And though in the eyes of persons habituated to the ceremonious niceties of court life these distinctions seemed matters of course, and, as such, unworthy of notice, it can hardly be wondered at if they were galling to men accustomed only to the simpler manners of a provincial town; and who, proud of their new position and deeply impressed with its importance, fancied they saw in them a settled intention to degrade both them and their constituents by thus stamping them with a badge of inferiority before all the spectators.

  The opening of the States-general was fixed for the 5th of May, and on the day before, which was Sunday, a solemn mass was performed at the principal church in Versailles, that of Notre Dame; after which the congregation proceeded to another church, that of St. Louis, to hear a sermon from the Bishop of Nancy. It was a stately procession that moved from one church to the other, and it was afterward remembered as the very last in which the royal pair appeared before their subjects with the undiminished magnificence of ancient ceremony. First, after a splendid escort of troops, came the members of the States in their several orders; then the king marched by himself; the queen followed; and behind her came the princes and princesses of the royal family of the blood, the officers of state and of the household, and companies of the Body-guard brought up the rear. The acclamations of the spectators were loud as the deputies of the States, and especially as the representatives of the Commons, passed on; loud, too, as the king; moved forward, bearing himself with unusual dignity; but, when the queen advanced, though still the main body of the people cheered with sincere respect, a gang of ruffians, among whom were several women,[3] shouted out "Long live the Duke of Orleans!" in her ear, with so menacing an accent that, she nearly fainted with terror. By a strong mastery over herself she shook off the agitation, which was only perceived by her immediate attendants; but the disloyal feeling thus shown toward her at the outset was a sad omen of the spirit in which one party at least was prepared to view the measures of the Government; and, so far as she was concerned, of the degree in which her enemies had succeeded in poisoning the minds of the people against her, as the person whose resistance to their meditated encroachments on the royal authority was likely to prove the most formidable.

  It was a significant hint, too, of the projects already formed by the worthless prince whose adherents these ruffians proclaimed themselves. The Duc d'Orleans conceived himself to have lately received a fresh provocation, and an additional motive for revenge. His eldest son, the Duc de Chartres,[4] was now a boy of sixteen, and he had proposed to the king to give him Madame Royale in marriage; an idea which the queen, who held his character in deserved abhorrence, had rejected with very decided marks of displeasure. He was also stimulated by views of personal ambition. The history of England had been recently studied by many persons in France besides the king and queen; and there were not wanting advisers to point out to the duke that the revolution which had taken place in England exactly a century before had owed its success to the dethronement of the reigning sovereign and the substitution of another member of the royal family in his place. As William of Orange was, after the king's own children, the next heir to James II., so was the Duc d'Orleans now the next heir, after the king's children and brothers, to Louis XVI.; and for the next five months there can be no doubt that he and his partisans, who numbered in their body some of the most influential members of the States- general, kept constantly in view the hope of placing him on the throne from which they were to depose his cousin.

  The next day the States were formally opened by Louis in person. The place of meeting was a spacious hall which, two years before, had been used for the meeting of the Notables. It had been the scene of many a splendid spectacle in times past, but had never before witnessed so imposing or momentous a ceremony. The town itself had not risen into notice till the memory of the preceding States-general had almost passed away. And now, after all the deputies had ranged themselves to receive their sovereign, the representatives of the clergy on the right of the throne, the Nobles on the left, the Commons in denser masses at the bottom of the hall;[5] as the king, accompanied by the queen, leading two of her children[6] by the hand, and attended by all the princes of the royal family and of the blood, by the dukes and peers of the kingdom, the ministers and great officers of state, entered and took his seat on the throne, the most unimpassioned spectator must have felt that he was beholding a scene at once magnificent and solemn; and one, from long desuetude, as novel as if it had been wholly unprecedented, such as might well inaugurate a new policy or a new constitution.

  Could those who beheld it as spectators, could those who bore a part in the solemnity, have looked into futurity; could they have divined that no other hall would ever again see that virtuous and beneficent king surrounded with that pomp, or received with that reverential homage which was now paid to him as as unquestioned right; nay, that the end, of which this day was the beginning, scarcely one single person of all those now present, whether men in the flower of their strength, women in the pride of their beauty, or even children in their infantine innocence and grace, would live to behold; but that sovereigns and subjects were destined, almost without exception, to perish with circumstances of unutterable, unimaginable horror and misery, as the direct consequence of this day's pageant; we may well believe that the most sanguine of those who now greeted it with eager hope and exultation would rather have averted his eyes from the ill-omened spectacle, and would have preferred to bear the worst evils of which he was anticipating the abolition, to bringing on his country the calamities which were about to fall upon it.

  A large state arm-chair, a little lower than the throne, had been set beside it for the queen; the princes and princesses were ranged on each side on a row of chairs without arms; and, when all had taken their places, the king opened the session with a short speech, leaving the real business to be unfolded at greater length by his ministers. In order to feel assured of the proper emphasis and expression, he had rehearsed his speech frequently to the queen; and, as he now delivered it with unusual dignity and gracefulness, it was received with frequent acclamations, though some of those who were watching all that passed with the greatest anxiety fancied that one or two compliments to the queen which it contained met with a colder response; while, at its close, the representatives of the Third Estate gave an indication of their feeling toward the other orders, and provoked a display on their part
which promised little cordiality to their deliberations. The king, who had uncovered himself while speaking, on resuming his seat replaced his hat. The Nobles, according to the ancient etiquette, replaced theirs; and many of the Commons at once asserted their equality with them by also covering themselves. Such an assumption was a breach of all established custom. The Nobles were indignant, and with angry shouts demanded the removal of the Commons' hats. They were met with louder clamor by the Commons, and in a moment the whole hall was in an uproar, which was only allayed by the presence of mind of Louis himself, who, as if oppressed by the heat, laid aside his own hat, when, as a matter of course, the Nobles followed his example. The deputies of the Commons did the same, and peace was restored.

  The king's speech was followed by another short one from the keeper of the seals, which received but little attention; and by one of prodigious length from Necker, which was equally injudicious and unacceptable to his hearers, both in what it said and in what it omitted. He never mentioned the question of constitutional reform. He said nothing of what the Commons, at least, thought still more important-the number of chambers in which the members were to meet; and, though he dilated at the most profuse length on the condition of the finances, and on his own success in re-establishing public credit, they were by no means pleased to hear him assert that success had removed any absolute necessity for their meeting at all, and that they had only been called together in fulfillment of the king's promise, that so the sovereign might establish a better harmony between the different parts of the Constitution.