VII. 1792. watched; the club of the Feuillants was closed; the CHAP. grenadiers and chasseurs of the national guard, who constituted the strength of the burgher force, were disbanded, and the troops of the line and Swiss Guard removed to a distance from Paris. The chiefs of the revolt met at Charenton; but none could be brought to accept the perilous duty of leading the attack. Robespierre spoke with alarm of the dangers which attended it; Danton, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud Varennes, and the other leaders of the popular party, professed themselves willing to second, Amis, viii. but not fitted to head the enterprise. At length Danton, Moll, vi presented Westermann, a man of undaunted courage and 347, 360. savage character, who subsequently signalised himself in 261. Mig.i the War of La Vendée, and ultimately perished on the 192, 193, scaffold.1 1 Deux 87,88. Bert. Lac. i. 255, 183. Th. ii. 83. Pétion. PÉTION, mayor of Paris, was the person most formidable to the royal family at this period, as well from his Character of official situation, which gave him the entire command of the physical force of the capital, as from his peculiar character. Unlike the other Girondists, he was a decided man of action; but he veiled his violent designs under the mask of the most profound hypocrisy. Like all the leading men of his party, he was bred to the provincial bar, and was translated to the Legislative Assembly from the town of Chartres, where he had practised. Poor and needy, rapacious and unprincipled, he early shared in the largesses of the Orleans family, and entered thoroughly into the views of its conspirators. But, with his violent associates, he soon passed the designs of the selfish and irresolute prince who formed their head, and joined the conspiracy-not for dispossessing the family on the throne to the advantage of the house of Orleans, but for overturning it altogether. He had an agreeable exterior, much address, and profound dissimulation. Though not a powerful speaker, his calmness and judgment procured him a lead, and constituted the secret of his power. He organised a revolt, prepared a massacre, or ordered VII. 1792. CHAP. assassinations, with as much sang-froid as a veteran general directs movements on the field of battle. When the work of destruction was in preparation, no anxiety on his countenance betrayed that he was privy to its preparation ; when it began, he looked with apathy on the suffering it produced. He was a stranger alike to pity or remorse; Vie de Marie virtue and vice, humanity and cruelty, were regarded by ii. 284, 287. him as means to be alternately used to advance his purposes, which were private gain and public elevation.1 1 Montjoye, Antoinette, 84. SANTERRE, the redoubtable leader of the faubourg St Of Santerre. Antoine, was an apt instrument in Pétion's hands to execute the designs which he had conceived. His influence in that revolutionary quarter was immense; a word from him at once brought forth its forests of pikemen and formidable cannoneers, so well known in all the worst periods of the Revolution. Lofty in stature, with a strong voice and an athletic figure, he possessed at the same time that ready wit and coarse eloquence which is often found to be the most powerful passport to the favour of the lowest class of the people. Vulgar and coarse in manners, and always foremost in the work of revolt, he became the object of unbounded horror to the royalists, who often suffered from his power. Still he was not destitute of good qualities. Unlike Pétion, he had a heart, though it was not easy in general to get at it. He engaged, and often took the lead, in many of the most violent revolutionary measures, but he was far from being of a cruel disposition. An unfortunate victim, of whatever party, generally found access to his pity; tears or affliction Vie de Marie disarmed his hands. He was a blind fanatic in politics; ii. 286, 287. but neither cruel in private, nor relentless in public measures.2 2 Montjove, Antoinette, 85. Dreadful suspense Assailed by so many dangers, both external and internal; without guards, and with an impotent ministry; and anxiety destitute alike of the means of escape or defence, the of the King King and Queen abandoned themselves to despair. In daily expectation of private assassination or open murder, and Queen. VII. 1792. the state of suspense in which they were kept, from the CHAP. 20th June till the final insurrection on the 10th August, was such that they had ceased to wish for life, and held by their station only from a sense of duty to their children. The Queen employed herself the whole day, and the greater part of the night, in reading; contrary to what was expected, her health became daily stronger as the danger increased. All feminine delicacy of constitution disappeared; not a vestige of nervousness was to be seen. She secretly made an under-vest, daggerproof, for the King, which was with great difficulty, and by stealth, given to Madame Campan to be conveyed to him; but so closely was he watched by the national guard on duty in the palace, that it was three days before she got an opportunity of conveying it to him. When she did so, he said, "It is to satisfy the Queen that I have agreed to this: they will not assassinate me; they will put me to death in another way." Already he anticipated the fate of Charles I., and studied incessantly the history of that unhappy but noble-minded prince. "All my anxiety," said he to Bertrand de Molleville, "is for the Queen, my sister, and my children; for myself, I do not fear death! nay, I wish it; for it would increase the chances of safety to them if I am sacrificed. I will not attempt to escape, nor will I make resistance; if I did so I should probably fail, and certainly increase their dangers. My only hope is, that my death may prove their salvation !" "As for me," said the Queen, “I am a stranger; they will assassinate me. It will be a blessing; for it will relieve me from a painful life but what will become of our poor children ?" and with these words she burst into a flood of tears. But she was perfectly strong, and refused all antispasmodic remedies. "Don't speak to me of such things," said she: "when I Campan, was prosperous I had nervous affections: they are the malady of the happy; but now I have no need of ii. 327. them."1 ii. 216, 220. Bert. de Moll. Mém. СНАР. VII. 1792. 86. The Court, surrounded by such dangers, and amidst the general dissolution of its authority, had no hope but on the approach of the allied armies. The Queen was Indecision acquainted with their proposed line of march; she knew preparation when they were expected at Verdun and the intervening of the Court. towns-the unhappy princess hoped, at times, to be and want of delivered in a month. All the measures of the Court were taken to gain time for their approach. In the meanwhile, the royal family laboured under such apprehensions of being poisoned, that they ate and drank nothing but what was secretly prepared by one of the ladies of the bed-chamber, and privately brought by Madame Campan after the viands prepared by the cook had been placed on the table. Great numbers of the royalists, with faithful devotion, daily repaired to the Tuileries to offer their lives to their sovereign, amidst the perils which were evidently approaching; but though their motives command respect, the diversity of their counsels confirmed the natural irresolution of his character. Some were for transporting him to Compiègne, and thence, by the forest of Ardennes, to the banks of the Rhine; others, amongst whom was Lafayette, besought him to seek an asylum with the army; while Malesherbes strongly counselled his abdication, as the only chance of safety. Bertrand de Molleville strenuously recommended a retreat into Normandy, and all the arrangements were made to carry it into effect with every prospect of success; but the King, on the 6th August, when it was to have been put in execution, decided against it, alleging that he would reserve it for the last extremity, and that till then it was too hazardous for the Queen and his family. In the midst of such distracting counsels, and in the presence of such evident dangers, nothing was done. A secret flight ii. 123, 129. was resolved on one day, and promised every chance of 213. Camp. success; but, after reflecting on it for the night, the King 230. determined to abandon that project, lest it should be deemed equivalent to a declaration of civil war.1 Royalist 1 Bert. de Moll. viii. 284, 300; and Mém. Th. ii. 209, ii. 125, 188, VII. 1792. committees were formed, and every effort was made to CHAP. arrest the progress of the insurrection-but all in vain. The Court found itself surrounded by a few thousand resolute gentlemen, who were willing to lay down their lives in its defence, but could not, amidst revolutionary millions, acquire the organisation requisite to insure its safety. 87. and procla the Duke of The conspiracy, which was originally fixed for the 29th July, and afterwards for the 4th August, was postponed Advance more than once, from the people not being deemed by mation of the leaders in a sufficient state of excitement to insure Brunswick. the success of the enterprise. But this defect was soon removed, by the progress and injudicious conduct of the allied troops. The Duke of Brunswick broke up from Coblentz on the 25th of July, and advanced at the head July 25. of seventy thousand Prussians, and sixty-eight thousand Austrians and Hessians, into the French territory. His entry was preceded by a proclamation, in which he reproached "those who had usurped the reins of government in France with having troubled the social order, and overturned the legitimate government; with having committed daily outrages on the King and Queen; with having, in an arbitrary manner, invaded the rights of the German princes in Alsace and Lorraine, and proclaimed war unnecessarily against the King of Hungary and Bohemia." He declared, in consequence, that the allied sovereigns had taken up arms to arrest the anarchy which prevailed in France; to check the dangers which threatened the throne and the altar; to give liberty to the King, and restore him to the legitimate authority of which he had been deprived--but without any intention whatever of individual aggrandisement; that the national guards would be held responsible for the maintenance of order 1 Bert. de till the arrival of the allied forces, and that those who Moll. ix. 33, 36. Mig. i. dared to resist must expect all the rigour of military 186. Hist. execution.1 Finally, he warned the National Assembly, 276, 281. the municipality and city of Paris, that if they did not Parl. xvi. |