The upheavals that had shaken France only two months earlier were of such magnitude that Roger expected many signs of their repercussion to be visible in so large a city as Le Havre; so he was somewhat surprised to find that, apart from the new uniforms of the National Guard, there was little overt evidence to show that the Revolution had ever taken place. The town was orderly and people going about their business in a normal fashion.
There being nothing to detain him there, next morning he bought a bay mare with a white star on her forehead, and set out for Paris. Inland, just as in the Pas de Calais, here and there the blackened walls of roofless châteaux told their horrifying tale; but others that had escaped the holocaust still dignified the countryside, and within sight of them the peasants were placidly working in the fields as they had for generations.
Paris, too, showed little outward change, except that fewer private equipages with footmen in attendance were to be seen in the streets than formerly; so it seemed at first sight that France had come through the birth-pangs of her regeneration surprisingly quickly.
But Roger soon learned that all was far from well beneath the surface. At La Belle Êtoile, his landlord answered an enquiry as to how he did with a glum shake of the head. Business had never been so bad as during the past month. Every man now considered himself as good as his master, which was foolish because the world could not go on that way; and what good did it do anyone to assume such superior airs if it brought no money into their pockets? The workpeople now had to be asked to do every little thing instead of accepting an order, and they did it or not as they felt inclined. Most of them idled away half the day, but they expected their wages just the same at the end of the week. In fact they were demanding more. In that Monsieur Blanchard would have sympathised with them, had they been willing to do an honest day’s work; as corn was still terribly scarce and the cost of living higher than ever. But one could not pay people higher wages when one’s own takings had fallen by more than 50 per cent. That stood to reason. Where all the money had gone he did not know. It was said that the thousands of aristocrats who had emigrated at the beginning of August had taken it all with them. There might be some truth in that. It was certainly no longer in Paris.
Wherever Roger went he heard the same gloomy story, and he soon became aware of the reason that lay behind it. On the 4th of August an extraordinary scene had taken place in the National Assembly. A report on the disorders in the Provinces had been presented the previous day and the deputies were considering how to produce some measure which would appease the fury of the peasants.
Two noblemen, the Vicomte de Noailles and the young Due d’Aiguillon, came forward and proposed that a solemn declaration should be made assuring future equality of taxation for all and the suppression of feudal burdens, except in certain cases where they should be redeemable by long-term purchase. Others rose to support the motion and there followed a stampede of self-denial which afterwards earned the session the name of “The Night of Sacrifices”.
The Bishop of Chartres proposed the abolition of the game laws; de Beauharnais that punishment for crime should be the same for all classes, and that all ranks in the Public Services should be thrown open to everyone; de la Rochefoucauld that the vote be given to all serfs remaining in the Kingdom. The Archbishop of Aix moved the abolition of the salt tax; the Duc de Châtelet that tithes in kind should be commuted, and the Bishop of Uzes recognised the right of the nation to dispose of the property of the Church. The deputies of the Third Estate, not to be outdone, then tumbled over themselves in their eagerness to renounce the privileges of the Provinces and cities they represented.
The renowned economist, Dupont de Nemours, was one of the very few to throw some doubt on the wisdom of this wholesale wrecking of the ancient order, and Count Lally-Tollendal, the foremost Liberal of all the nobles, the only man to keep his head. He sent a note up to the President that read “Nobody any longer has any self-control; break up the sitting.” But a positive madness had seized upon the assembly. Before dawn it had passed every motion; and, since there was no Upper House to send back the bills for reconsideration, they became forthwith the law of France.
The result was catastrophic. In a single night the whole economy of the nation had been destroyed. Already, for a year past, or more, there had been increasing difficulty in collecting taxes; now the people refused to pay any at all. The old courts of justice had continued to function, although with decreasing efficiency; now all feudal courts and many superior ones were wiped out entirely. Overnight the Assembly had destroyed the very foundations of French society without any attempt to create even a vestige of a new system.
It was no wonder that money was scarce. Everyone who had any was now clinging to it from fear that once it was gone they would not be able to get any more. The treasury was empty, the Army and the public services unpaid. And the King could not help, as he had given all his gold plate to the nation as a means of reducing the national debt. What the colossal extravagance of Louis XIV and XV had failed to achieve the National Assembly had accomplished. France was bankrupt.
From Monsieur Aubert Roger learned that there had been changes at the British Embassy in recent months. His last contact with it had been soon after his return from Italy, so he was unaware that early in July Mr. Daniel Hailes had left on a visit to Berlin, as a prelude to becoming Minister Plenipotentiary in Warsaw, and that early in August the Duke of Dorset had gone on leave from which he would not be returning. Lord Robert Fitzgerald had joined the Embassy as First Secretary, in the spring, and was in charge pending the appointment of a new Ambassador. Roger could well understand that His Grace would have little taste for Paris now that so many of his friends there had gone into exile, and he was glad to hear of the worthy Mr. Hailes’ promotion; but he did not feel that the departure of the latter would greatly affect him, as at their meetings he had generally been the giver, rather than the receiver, of information.
To acquaint oneself with the proceedings of the National Assembly it was no longer necessary to go there, or rely on the often garbled third and fourth-hand accounts of others. After the July insurrections the Press was freed from all restraint and a number of newspapers, independent of the Government, were now appearing in Paris. They were small in size and more on the lines of political essays than news-sheets, but their circulation, particularly that of the more violent ones, soon became immense. Loustallot’s The Revolutions of Paris reached a sale of 200,000 copies, and a paper called The Friend of the People, first issued in mid-September, bid fair to rival it as the organ of the extreme Left. The latter was the work of a doctor of forty-seven, named Marat, a man embittered by ill-success and diseased in body and mind, and his violent diatribes against the rich did more than any other single factor to inspire the bestial excesses later committed by the mobs.
But whatever their shade of opinion, these journals gave the gist of the problems with which the Assembly was concerning itself, so by obtaining a collection of back numbers Rogers quickly acquired a general view of the present situation.
Having done so he pondered the problem of whether he should go to Versailles and present himself to the Queen. Now that so many of her friends had gone into exile, and small fry like himself were no longer likely to incur danger from associating with her, he felt confident that she would be pleased to see him. But he decided against it. Power to govern future events did not lie in the royal circle any longer. It was now vested in the leaders of the National Assembly, and a few outstanding men in Paris. Therefore, he felt, little of advantage was to be gained by dancing attendance at the emasculated Court; and, moreover, his hopeless longing for Isabella still made him so misanthropic that he shunned the thought of engaging again in the light social life he would find there.
This time he had brought with him a few old suits. They were serviceable garments that he wore during the day when at home at Lymington, and in them he could pass easily as a small property owner or respectable business man. So, eschewing his silks and satins, he now went about in honest broadcloth, intent on finding out what His Highness of Orléans was up to, and what was likely to be the outcome of the near-desperate depression in Paris.
As everyone was now equal a man could walk into any public building he liked without let or hindrance, and every committee in the city had its daily crowd of idlers overseeing its proceedings; so Roger found no difficulty at all in penetrating to the committee-rooms of the Hôtel de Ville.
There, he spent a morning watching the unfortunate Bailly grappling with the problems of feeding the capital. As Mayor it was his duty to ensure the daily bread of 700,000 people, and with commerce breaking down in all directions he could never be sure of more than a forty-eight hours’ supply.
Roger left the harassed man with deep sympathy for his unfortunate lot and a great admiration for the way in which he managed to keep a clear head during the often ill-informed digressions of his colleagues, and the frequent interruptions of the still less well-informed onlookers.
Next morning he went to have a look at General Lafayette, and was by no means so impressed. Lafayette was now responsible for the safety of Paris, and the job was clearly beyond his capabilities. His task was, admittedly, a superhuman one, as his troops, apart from the old Gardes Français, were all volunteers, and imbued with the new idea that the opinion of a private was as good as, or better than, that of a Colonel. But the orders he issued often appeared contradictory, and he showed great weakness in giving way to the wishes of deputations of the rank and file who presented themselves to him almost hour by hour, without any previous intimation of their coming.
It remained for Roger to see if he could get a dress-circle view of the Duc d’Orléans, and that, too, proved easy, as the Prince, anxious to court the maximum possible popularity, had now opened practically every room in the Palais Royal to the public. That evening, Roger found him in one of the larger salons, surrounded by a crowd of sycophants and being watched by groups of people, apparently composed of both obvious riot-raisers and casual spectators, who stood round the walls.
Louis-Philippe d’Orléans was then forty-two years old. He had the Bourbon cast of countenance, but his features were not so gross as those of the King, and his manner, in contrast to that of his awkward cousin, was gay, easy and affable. As Duc de Chartres, before the death of his father, he had already acquired the reputation of a rather stupid and very dissipated young man. He was a close friend of the equally dissipated Prince of Wales, and often stayed with him in England.
D’Orléans was not distinguished for his courage. With the prospect of succeeding his father-in-law, the Duc de Penthiévre, as Grand Admiral of France, he had been sent to serve in the Navy during the late war; but in the only engagement at which he was present, although then a man of thirty-one, he had hidden himself in the hold of the Flagship. Madame Marie Antoinette had protested that, after disgracing himself in such a fashion, it was unthinkable to give him the post of Grand Admiral, so he had been made Colonel-General of the Hussars instead; and it was this, added to the fact that while still a young girl she had repulsed his amorous advances, that had resulted in the bitter hatred he bore the Queen.
Roger mingled with some of the groups by the wall and got in conversation with them. Among other things he learnt that the pretty woman seated next to the Duke was his English mistress, Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott, who now shared his affections with the Comtesse de Buffon. At the moment, he gathered, Monsieur d’Orléans’ prospects were temporarily under a cloud, as the King had lost his sovereign power without the Duke gaining anything thereby, and the hopes of the nation were becoming more and more centred in the National Assembly, to the detriment of any individual who might aspire to personal aggrandisement through the eclipse of the throne.
While standing near one group Roger caught the phrase: “It would be folly to give out the women’s clothes until a really first-class opportunity presents itself.”
Greatly intrigued by this, he strained his ears to hear more; but, just at that second, he caught sight of a familiar figure hurrying past an open doorway on the far side of the big room. It was de Roubec.
Thrusting his way through the crowd Roger hastened in pursuit of his enemy. When he reached the door he found the corridor down which de Roubec had been passing to be empty; but there was a staircase at its far end. Running to the stairs Roger pelted down them, but de Roubec was nowhere to be seen. Turning, he dashed up them again, three at a time, and on up to the second floor. There was still no sign of the rogue whose ears and nose he had promised to cut off when next they met. Furious, and frantic now, he threw open door after door along the corridor, disturbing a score of people employed in either work or pleasure; and, without waiting to apologise, dashed on to invade other apartments. But his efforts were in vain. At length he was compelled to conclude that de Roubec must, after all, have gone down the stairs, and quickly enough to disappear among the crowd in the garden.
For the two days that followed, Roger haunted the Palais Royal. He did not care to risk enquiring for his enemy, in case his enquiry was reported and a description of himself given to de Roubec, which might put the villain on his guard. But he hoped that if he hung about long enough he would catch sight of him again and, with luck, be able to follow him unobserved to a quiet spot where vengeance could be exacted with small risk of interference.
His patience went unrewarded. For hours on end he scanned the faces in the Duke’s salon, patrolled the corridors, and occasionally made a hurried round of the garden. Not once did he see, even in the distance, a figure remotely resembling de Roubec’s. Neither did he overhear any further mention of the giving out of women’s clothes, which had so puzzled him. This fruitless hunt occupied most of his time during the opening days of October, and it was not until the evening of the 2nd that he heard anything about the banquet at Versailles.
The facts were as follows. The Flanders Regiment had recently arrived to do a tour of duty in the royal town and, following an ancient custom, the Garde du Corps gave a dinner of welcome to the officers, to which they also invited the officers of the local National Guard. On the evening of October 1st the dinner was held on the stage of the palace theatre. The orchestra was occupied by a military band, and the pit and boxes by numerous officials and servants of the palace.
Towards the end of the banquet the band played the air O Richard O mon Roi, and this was received with such thunderous applause that a deputation was sent to ask the Royal Family to honour the gathering with its presence.
The King had not yet returned from his day’s hunting, and the Queen, fearing that a royal appearance at a military gathering of such a nature might be misconstrued, at first refused. But the King came in at that moment, and on somebody remarking that the sight would amuse the Dauphin, it was agreed that they should go.
Their appearance in the royal box was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm. O Richard ô mon Roi was played again, the officers nearly raised the roof with their shouts of “Vive le Roi!” and “Vive la Reine!” then they begged the Queen to bring the Dauphin down so that they might see him at close quarters. Accompanied by the King still in his hunting-clothes, and her little daughter, Madame Royale, aged ten and a half, she did so.
The Dauphin, who, until his elder brother’s recent death, had borne the title Duc de Normandie, was a fine healthy child of four. He was set down on the table and walked fearlessly along it, the sight raising still further the pitch of excited loyalty. Oaths of undying devotion were freely sworn to him, the King, Queen and whole Royal Family. Amidst renewed acclamations of faith and love, such as they had not heard for many months, they at length withdrew.
The officers of the National Guard were so affected by the scene that they reversed the tricolor cockades they were wearing, so that the royal white of their linings should show instead; and the private soldiers assembled outside, catching the enthusiasm, gathered under the King and Queen’s windows to sing loyal songs late into the night.
But the affair was very differently reported in Paris. It was said that the banquet had been deliberately planned to suborn the loyalty of the troops at Versailles from the Nation; that the Queen was plotting to use them to arrest the National Assembly, after which she meant to withdraw with the King to some strong place in the country from which the Army could be directed against Paris; and that the tricolor cockade had been trampled underfoot with the vilest insults.
On the 3rd and 4th of the month indignation meetings were held in many parts of the capital, and a renewed outbreak of bread riots added to the general unrest. The two issues—that Paris would not be safe from attack until the King came to live there, and that the city would be properly fed if only he were in it—coalesced in the minds of the agitated multitude. On the morning of the 5th a large crowd of fishwives set out from the market to march to Versailles with the object of demanding bread. A little later a mob of roughs broke into the armoury at the Hôtel de Ville, and, having seized the weapons there, followed them, with an unproclaimed but more sinister purpose.
Lafayette was sent for, and called out the National Guard. Instead of giving orders at once for the closing of the roads to Versailles, he spent most of the day in the Place de Grève debating with the officers and men what action, if any, should be taken. It was not until late in the evening that he finally decided to intervene and set off with his troops for the royal town.
In the meantime thousands more Parisians had taken the road to Versailles, Roger amongst them. As he was mounted he outdistanced most of the marchers, but on his arrival he learned that the poissardes, as the fishwives were called, had already invaded the Assembly and were demanding bread from the deputies.
The weather was wet, cold and windy, so as Roger rode on with his head well down, towards the royal stables, he failed to notice another horseman who passed through its arched gateway a hundred yards ahead of him. It was only on having dismounted that they came face to face and recognised one another. The man who had arrived just before him was Auguste-Marie, Comte de la Marck, the son of the Empress Maria Theresa’s great general, the Prince d’Arenberg.
“I thought you gone into exile, Mr. Brook,” exclaimed the handsome young Austrian.
“And I, that you had done so,” Roger smiled. “I went to England for a while, but returned to Paris last week.”
“I went no further than the capital, and have been living in the hotel of Monsieur de Mercy-Argenteau.”
Roger raised an eyebrow at the name of the Austrian Ambassador. “Since His Excellency has long been accounted Her Majesty’s closest adviser, I should have thought that far from wise.”
“The Embassy is Austrian territory,” shrugged de la Marck, “so it is probably as safe a place as any other in that now accursed city.”
As they were speaking they had hurried inside, and the Comte added: “I take it you, too, have come to warn Their Majesties of the dangerous mob advancing on Versailles?”
“They must be ill-served if they do not know of it already,” replied Roger. “But since it looks as if there may be serious trouble, I felt an urge to place myself at their disposal.”
De la Marck knew the ramifications of the vast palace, and its routine, much better than Roger, so he led the way to several places where it was likely the Queen might be at that hour of the afternoon; but she was in none of them, and after a wasted twenty minutes they learnt that, accompanied only by a single footman, she had gone for a walk in her garden at Trianon. With the King they were equally unlucky; he was out hunting. In the Council Chamber they found half a dozen gentlemen, apparently conversing idly, amongst whom there was only one Minister, the Comte de St. Priest.
But among them also, to Roger’s surprise and delight, was de Vaudreuil; so, leaving de la Marck to talk to the Minister, he ran over and shook hands English fashion with his old friend.
De Vaudreuil said that after taking his family to Brussels, he had decided that as a Lieutenant-General of Marine it was his duty to return. He had done so three weeks earlier; the Queen had received him most graciously, and told him of Roger’s generous but abortive attempt to clear up this misunderstanding on the night that she had sent so many of her best friends abroad.
De la Marck joined them at that moment. It appeared that the poissardes had left the Assembly and were now gathered outside the palace demanding to see the King. The Comte de St. Priest had sent messengers to find His Majesty, the Queen and also Monsieur Necker; but he was not in the least perturbed, and insisted that the trouble amounted to nothing graver than a bread riot.
Roger joined de la Marck in protesting. Both averred that they had passed armed bands advancing on Versailles. The young Austrian went further and declared that his Embassy had received intelligence that there was a plot on foot to assassinate the Queen, as the only person who had the courage to order armed resistance to the extremists.
The Minister still refused to be convinced, and he was now supported by his colleague the Comte de Montmorin, who had joined the party a few moments earlier.
With de la Marck, de Vaudreuil, the Marshal de Beauveau, the Duc de Luxembourg and the Comte de la Tour du Pin, Roger withdrew to a corner of the room. There they remained for a few moments muttering angrily together. The Foreign Minister, Montmorin, was known to be a creature of the weak-kneed Necker, and St. Priest had also fallen and risen again with the Swiss, so the Queen’s friends had good reason to suspect a policy of “better that the King should grovel than we should lose favour with the mob”; but they were powerless to take any steps for the defence of the palace without the Minister’s authority.
At last the King arrived and the Queen appeared shortly after him. The Council chamber was cleared and he agreed to receive a deputation of poissardes. The deputy Mounier presented six women, and the King told them that if he had had any bread to give they would not have had to walk to Versailles to ask for it, for he would have sent it to Paris already. Much affected by his sincerity they rejoined their companions outside and endeavoured to pacify them; but they were mobbed and narrowly escaped being hanged from lamp-posts as a result of their sudden change of heart.
The original crowd of women had now been reinforced by hundreds of armed roughs; but the lattice gates in the iron railings that separated the Place d’Armes—as the great square of the town was called—from the courtyards of the palace had been closed against the first arrivals; and the courts were now manned by the Regiment de Flandres and the Garde du Corps. The Duc de Luxembourg, fearing that the gates would be forced, and having standing orders that without the King’s authority the people were never to be fired upon, went to the Monarch and asked for emergency orders.
“Orders!” laughed the King, who knew only what his Ministers had told him. “Orders for war against women! You must be joking, Monsieur de Luxembourg.”
Darkness fell and several times the mob attacked the gates. A number of skirmishes occurred with the more audacious who scaled the railings, but the troops succeeded in repelling the assaults without firing on the crowd. It was still pouring with rain, but the angry multitude would not disperse, and continued to howl without while the King held a series of Councils within.
The deputy Mounier had remained, and he importuned the King to sign a carte-blanche approval of the new Constitution, as a means of pacifying the people. The King protested against giving his consent to a Constitution that had not yet been formulated, but Necker was now present and urged him to, so eventually he gave way. His complaisance effected nothing, as the mob booed Mounier when he announced this triumph for democracy snatched in an emergency, and roared at him that it was not interested in political rights for tomorrow; it wanted bread today.
The Queen paid several visits to the Council Chamber and at other times paced restlessly up and down the long gallery; but even in her extreme agitation she gave smiles and a few words of recognition to de la Marck, Roger, and a number of other gentlemen who had arrived from Paris to offer their services.
From the scraps about the Council’s deliberations that leaked out, it appeared that Monsieur de St. Priest now, belatedly, realised that the lives of the Royal Family were actually in danger; so he and several other Ministers advised an immediate flight to Rambouillet and that the troops should be ordered into action against the insurgents. But the King’s evil genius, Necker, and Montmorin, opposed the plan; and by insisting to the Monarch that it must lead to civil war persuaded him to reject it.
At eleven o’clock news came in that Lafayette was advancing from Paris with the National Guard, and that their intention was to take the King forcibly to Paris. Only then did the irresolute man give way to the prayers of those who were begging him to save himself while there was still time. Six carriages were ordered and the Queen, courageously endeavouring to prevent a panic, quietly told her ladies to pack their immediate requirements as they would be leaving in half an hour’s time.
But, either through stupidity or treachery, the carriages were ordered round to the gate of the Orangerie, to reach which they had to cross the Place d’ Armes. The crowd, determined to remain where they were until morning despite the rain and wind, had now lit bonfires in the square, and were erecting rough bivouacs under the trees for the night. On seeing the carriages they at once guessed the King’s intention and rushed upon them. Four were instantly seized and stopped; the two leading ones, driven at greater speed, succeeded in reaching the Orangerie, but again, probably through treachery, the gates were found to be locked. The mob caught them up, cut the traces of the horses, and smashed the carriages to matchwood.
St. Priest and de la Tour du Pin then offered their carriages, which were round at a back entrance. In them the Royal Family might yet have escaped. The Queen urged the King to take this last chance; but once again the malignant Necker intervened, arguing that such an attempt was now too dangerous. The foolish King took the advice of the Minister who had done more to bring about his ruin than any other man, instead of that of his courageous wife. Again deferring to her husband’s judgment Madame Marie Antoinette made no further protest, nor did she suggest that she should seek safety with her children. With tears streaming down her face she rejoined her ladies, saying simply: “All is over; we are staying.”
At midnight Lafayette arrived. In one breath he assured the King that he would rather have died than appear before him in such circumstances as the present; but he had been forced to it and had covered the last few miles only because his men were pushing their bayonets into his back. In the next he said that all his men wanted was to see the King, vouched for their complete loyalty, and offered to be personally responsible for the safety of the Royal Family and everyone within the palace.
The King listened without comment to these heroics, and accepted the guarantee of protection for himself, his family and his servants. Others were not so sanguine. Their Majesties then retired. Lafayette posted detachments of his men round the palace; then went to bed and to sleep.
Meanwhile de Vaudreuil collected Monsieur de Beauveau, de la Marck, Monsieur de Chevenne, Roger, and several other gentlemen, and said to them that he believed the Queen’s life to be in extreme danger. The Marquise de Tourzel, who had succeeded Madame de Polignac as governess to the royal children, had told him that during the course of the evening Her Majesty had received not one but several warnings.
One note, from a Minister of the Crown, had contained the words: “Madame, make your plans; or tomorrow morning at six o’clock you will be murdered.”
A group of loyal deputies from the National Assembly had sought an audience, and assured her that she would be murdered during the night unless she saved herself by immediate flight. She had replied: “If the Parisians have come here to assassinate me it shall be at the feet of my husband. I will not fly.”
They had then asked permission to remain with her; but she said that they needed rest more than she did, and giving them her hand to kiss, had bid them leave her.
As a last resort they had begged her to pass the night with the King; but, knowing that the plot was directed against herself, she refused, and ordered Madame de Tourzel, in the event of trouble, to take the children to the King, in order that she might face the danger alone, and keep it away from those she loved.
Finally, when her women besought her to take heed of these warnings, she had said: “I learned from my mother not to fear death. I shall await it with firmness.”
When de Vaudreuil had finished telling of these sinister threats and superb courage, none of his hearers had a thought of sleep, in spite of the long day they had been through, and they arranged to post themselves in the various apartments which led to that of the Queen.
Roger was allotted the Œil de Bœuf, one of the principal salons of the palace, so named from being lit by one large circular window. If the mob did break in it was most unlikely that they would come that way, as it did not contain any of the regularly used approaches to the Queen’s apartments; but it was a good central post from which he could be called on for help from two directions.
It was now getting on for two o’clock in the morning. Most of the candles in the big room had been doused and the wood-fires flickered fitfully on the gilded carving of panel surrounds and door pediments. As Roger threw some more logs on one of the fires it flared up, lighting for a moment the pictures in the nearest panels, but the lights in the great crystal chandeliers had been put out and the painted ceiling was lost in shadow.
For a time he sat by the fire and idly followed the chain of events that had led to his being there. This was not his quarrel, and he wondered now at the impulse that had sent him galloping to Versailles in the middle of the day. In part it had been curiosity to see at first hand the outcome of this new crisis; but it had also been something more than that. He recognised that as a class the nobles and prelates were now getting no more than they deserved as a result of generations of indolence and avarice, but many of the present generation were liberal-minded men and quite a number of them had shown him friendship. The cause of the people might be just, but the great bulk of them would also become sufferers in the long run unless order could be maintained; so it was fitting that every man, whatever his nationality, should lend his hand to resist violence.
Above all there was the Queen. As he thought of her innocence, kindheartedness and courage, he was glad to be sitting there; and knew that if the attack matured, and he lived through it, he would always feel proud and honoured at having drawn his sword in her defence.
Each time he found his thoughts drifting he stood up and walked about for a little to keep himself awake. An officer and two gentlemen of the bodyguard came through the apartment on their rounds every hour, otherwise the palace now seemed sunk in exhausted sleep. But it was not so with a large part of the 30,000 troops and 10,000 brigands massed outside. The drums beat all night and, sodden with the rain, gave out a hollow menacing note.
It was half-past four in the morning when Roger started up from his reverie at the sound of a musket-shot. There followed a dull clamour pierced with yells and more firing, but muffled by the passages and walls. Roger had been asked to remain at his post, unless called on for help, so he eased his sword in its scabbard and with straining ears listened to the tumult that had broken out somewhere on the ground-floor of the palace.
After a few minutes there suddenly came a sharp rapping on the wall near which he stood, and a voice cried: “Open! Open! Let us through! Let us through!”
Moving quickly to the place from which the sounds were coming, he stared at it. Only then, in the dim light, did he perceive the crack of a small doorway, which had been skilfully concealed. It was barely five feet high and two and a half across; the upper part of it cut through the corner of a panel that contained a picture, and it followed so exactly the moulding of the wall as to be imperceptible to the casual glance. De Vaudreuil had not told him of its existence when posting him in the Œil de Bœuf, and he had no idea where it led.
The banging and shouts on the far side of the door had now reached a crescendo. Roger thought that it was the mob who were trying to break through, and he hastily looked to either side along the dim passages for help to defend it when it gave way. But both the long corridors leading from the room were deserted. From the distance, shouts, shots, shrieks and the trampling of many feet could be heard.
Suddenly he realised that the voices beyond the panel held an imploring note and were those of women. It was possible that some of the inmates of the palace were endeavouring to escape that way from an attack on a range of apartments that lay beyond the door. Yet he could not be certain, and if he opened it he might be overwhelmed by the mob in a matter of seconds.
Still he stared at the door, desperately uncertain what to do; then he caught a cry above the rest: “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Ouvre la porte ou nous sommes mortes!”
Hesitating no longer, he found the small catch lock and, inserting his finger in the shallow slot, pulled it back. The door burst open, and the Queen almost fell into his arms.
She was in her nightdress with only a petticoat pulled loosely over it, and clutched her stockings in her hand. Stumbling past him, and followed by two of her women, she ran across the wide parquet of the Œil de Bœuf, wrenched open another low, concealed door on the far side of it and disappeared.
Later Roger learned that the door he had opened gave on to her dressing-room, and was used only as a private means of communication between her and the King, the similar door through which she had disappeared giving on to his apartments. And that normally the little door was kept locked only on her side of it, so that night some murderous hand must have locked it on the side of the Œil de Bœuf to prevent her escaping that way from her assassins.
He learnt too that had it not been for the loyalty of her women she would certainly have been murdered. Madame Auguié and Madame Thibaut, with their two femmes de chambre, had ignored her orders to go to bed, and the four of them had sat up with their backs against her bedroom door. At the first sounds of commotion Madame Auguié had run to the door of the ante-chamber and found one of the bodyguard, Monsieur de St. Marie, his face covered with blood, defending it against a horde of poissardes, who were screaming: “We have come in our white aprons to get the Queen’s bowels, that we may make red cockades out of them!”
Slamming and relocking the door Madame Auguié had rushed back to the bedroom. Madame Thibaut had in those few seconds roused the Queen; and they had succeeded in getting her away before the doors of the ante-room were broken in.
The Queen had hardly entered the King’s apartments when a dozen Garde du Corps and other gentlemen came running into the Œil de Bœuf with drawn swords. Among them was Madame de Tourzel with the Royal children. When they had followed the Queen, their escort drew themselves up in front of the door, ready to defend it with their lives.
Pandemonium had now broken loose in the Queen’s apartments. Drawing his sword Roger ran through the dressing-room. He found the bedroom empty, but in the ante-chamber beyond it a fierce struggle was taking place. Some of Lafayette’s National Guard had arrived upon the scene and were fighting with the members of the bodyguard, whom they had been told were plotting to surprise and massacre them.
De Vaudreuil was there standing on a table, shouting that they had been told a pack of lies, and begging both sides to put up their weapons. His Liberal sentiments were known, so some notice was taken of him. Then Monsieur de Chevanne ran forward and, baring his breast, offered himself as a victim if the citizen soldiers demanded one. With the swift change of sentiment so typical of the French the attackers immediately acclaimed him a hero, embraced the members of the bodyguard and swore to defend them from their comrades.
But all was not yet over. The mob had fought its way up the great marble staircase and penetrated to the Œil de Bœuf. By another entrance Lafayette had arrived and reached the King, whose only reproach to him was: “Monsieur, had I foreseen that you would be obliged to sleep, I should have remained awake.”
Although belatedly, Lafayette now showed both loyalty and considerable courage. Out in the courtyard he saved the lives of ten bodyguards by offering his life for theirs; then declared that he would no longer command cannibals, and would resign his post unless his men would accept his orders. This turned the tide and his troops began to clear the palace of the sans-culottes.
They were assisted in their task by the bodyguards and courtiers. In a hundred rooms, scores of corridors and on a dozen staircases, altercations and scuffles were going on. The majority of the rabble, now finding the National Guards against them, offered no resistance and slouched off, hurling curses over their shoulders; but, here and there, groups put up a fight and could not be turned out without bloodshed. In one such group, Roger saw a tall fishwife slash at a soldier with a hatchet, wound him in the arm, duck under the guard of another and run from the room. Sword in hand, he went after her.
The clothes of the poissardes amounted almost to a uniform, so it was easy to distinguish them. Most of the women were great muscular creatures, coarse-mouthed and brutal-faced; but Roger had been surprised to see that many of them were much above the average height. The one that he was chasing looked as tall as himself.
Seeing two Swiss guards approaching along the corridor, she darted up a service staircase. Roger dashed after her and caught sight of her again on the next floor. Shouting at her that if she halted and agreed to leave the palace quietly he would not harm her, he pursued her down the passage. At its end she came to a door and, finding it locked, turned at bay.
As Roger came pounding up he saw her face clearly for the first time. It was not that of a woman, but of a man. Next second he realised that his quarry was de Roubec.
Instantly there recurred to his mind the words he had overheard in the Palais Royal a few nights before—about not giving out the women’s clothes until a first-class opportunity presented itself. This, then, explained why so many of the poissardes were much taller than the average woman. The Orleanists had taken advantage of the ancient liberty accorded to the fishwives of Paris to approach the King and Queen without formality, to disguise a number of assassins in the type of garments the poissardes always wore, so that they could mingle with the real poissardes and under that cover commit the heinous task they had been given.
The revelation of this new piece of treachery added fuel to Roger’s wrath. He had no thought now of settling his old score by slicing off the villain’s ears and nose. With a cry of rage he rushed forward, intent to kill. De Roubec was half-crouching against the locked door with his hatchet raised to strike, but he never delivered the blow. It had been only a second before that he had recognised his pursuer. The knowledge that it was Roger now seemed to paralyse him with fear. The blood drained from his face. His unshaven chin showed blue in the early-morning light, making his lean visage more than ever incongruous under its woman’s bonnet. His mouth dropped open, showing his yellowed teeth. It seemed that he was about to scream for mercy; but there was time neither for him to ask nor receive it. Roger leapt the last few paces that separated them. His feet landed with a thud upon the floor. At the same instant he drove his sword through the cowering man’s body.
De Roubec’s eyes started from his head, a long low moan issued from his lips; suddenly he slid sideways and collapsed in a heap. Roger put his foot on the torso, gave his sword a twist, drew it out, and wiped it on the hem of the dark skirt beneath the poissarde’s white apron.
For a moment he stood there frowning down upon the man who had caused Isabella and himself so much misery. They might by now be married and gloriously happy together in England had it not been for de Roubec’s evil activities in Florence. Roger felt not an atom of compunction at having struck him down like a rat in a corner. To his mind the self-styled Chevalier had earned death thrice over; twice for having wrecked Isabella’s life, and his own, by bringing about their separation, and a third time for having participated in the attempt to assassinate the Queen.
The sound of more firing and fresh tumult down below recalled Roger to the present, and while he was still staring at de Roubec’s body an idea flashed into his mind.
It was by no means certain yet that Lafayette would succeed in clearing the palace of the insurgents. The National Guards were not to be relied on; at any moment some incident might turn them from their grudging obedience to renewed fraternisation with the mob, then support of it. Should that happen the bodyguard would be overwhelmed and the Royal Family again in dire peril. Even if Lafayette’s men did continue to obey him for the next few hours there was still the persistent rumour that they meant to take the King to Paris, and if they did it was certain that the Queen would refuse to be separated from him. In either case, it seemed to Roger, if things went well his presence would be redundant, but if they went badly he would stand a better chance of keeping near the Queen and, perhaps, being able to defend her in an emergency, if he disguised himself as a poissarde than if he remained in his ordinary clothes.
Hastily pulling off his coat and unbuckling his sword-belt, he began to strip de Roubec of the coarse female garments he was wearing. On stepping into the petticoats and ragged skirt he found that they came to within an inch of the floor, hiding his riding-boots. Untying the queue at the back of his neck he shook his head hard, and ran his fingers through his medium-long brown hair until it was sticking out wildly in all directions; then he put on the bonnet and pulled its frill low down over his forehead. To his grim amusement he found that de Roubec had been wearing breast-pads, so he put on this false bosom and over it the high-necked cotton blouse. His sword he picked up to carry in his hand, as most of the poissardes were armed and one of them might easily have taken it from a fallen bodyguard.
Looking out of a window he saw that the mob was now steadily being ejected from the front entrances of the palace, and decided that he had better join it; but in his new role he knew it might go hard with him if he fell foul of a group of angry Loyalists, so, hiding from time to time, he cautiously made his way down a back staircase and out through a side entrance.
As he mingled with the mob no one took any notice of him, and he gradually worked through the crush till he got to its densest part, which was swaying in a tightly packed mass that jammed the whole of the Cour de Marbre. From time to time there were sporadic shouts for the King, and in the course of an hour they steadily increased till they became a loud, imperative demand to see him.
At length he came out on the balcony, and the fickle populace cheered him; but after a few moments the cries of “Vive le Roi!” died away and the crowd began to call for the Queen.
The King retired and the Queen appeared; she led Madame Royale by the hand and carried the Dauphin in her arms. The crowd hissed and booed, then a shout went up: “We want you without your children! No children! No children!”
Madame Marie Antoinette withdrew. A moment later she reappeared on the balcony alone. Her eyes were lifted to Heaven and she held her beautiful hands shoulder high, in an attitude of surrender.
Roger’s heart missed a beat and he closed his eyes. The same thought had leapt into his mind as was already in hers. The conspirators had demanded her presence alone because they did not wish to risk harming the children, but intended to shoot her.
She was standing no more than twenty feet above the crowd, so an easy target, even for a pistol-shot; but her extraordinary courage seemed to stun her enemies. The vast crowd suddenly fell completely silent, then, forced to it by admiration, they began to cry, “Vive la Reine!’
After the Queen had gone in, the crowd called for the King again. When he came out there were more cheers, but a few voices started up the cry: “To Paris! To Paris!”
He went in, but they had him out again, a dozen times in the next hour; and every time the voices grew more insistent, until the cry became a chant: “To Paris! To Paris! To Paris!”
Afterwards Roger heard from de la Marck that each time the King had gone in, he had flung himself down in an elbow-chair, moaning: “I know not what to do! I know not what to do!”
Lafayette asked the Queen her intentions, and she replied coldly: “I know the fate that awaits me in Paris, but my duty is to die protecting my children at the feet of the King.”
Eventually Lafayette came out on the balcony, and announced that the King and his family would accompany the National Guard back to Paris at midday.
Expecting that the royal party would catch up with them, a part of the mob left at once, bearing on poles the heads of Messieurs Deshuttes and de Varicourt, two of the bodyguard whom they had murdered. At Sèvres they halted, and seizing upon a wretched barber compelled him to undertake the gruesome task of dressing the hair on the dead heads.
By one o’clock the main contingent began to follow them to Paris. Several battalions of the National Guard, and another section of the mob, led the miles-long procession. Then came the royal coach, containing the King, Queen, Dauphin, Madame Royale, the King’s young sister Madame Elizabeth, the Comte and Comtesse de Provence, and Madame de Tourzel. There followed carriages containing the royal household and then, since the National Assembly had declared its inseparability from the neighbourhood of the King, more than a hundred additional carriages filled with the deputies. The rear was brought up by sixty waggon-loads of grain seized from the municipality of Versailles, and more National Guards mingled with the last of the rioters.
Roger was now both very tired and very hungry. He had not slept for thirty hours and had had nothing to eat since a light snack taken in the palace the previous evening at a hastily arranged buffet. But as the procession moved off he elbowed, cursed, jostled and joked his way through the crush until he was within twenty feet of the royal carriage. He could get no nearer as the press was so great that it appeared to be borne on the shoulders of the sea of poissardes that surrounded it.
Craning his head above the crowd now and then, he kept as constant a look-out as he could. He had thrust his sword through a hip-high hole in his skirt, and had his pistols stuffed into his false bosom; but he realised now that though his having dressed as a poissarde had secured him a place within sight of the Queen, there was very little chance of his being able to intervene if any of the canaille attempted to harm her. Several times while the procession had been forming up lank-haired, brutal-faced ruffians had screamed out: “Death to the Austrian harlot!”, levelled their muskets at her and fired them off. Whether their aim had been bad, or others near by had knocked their muskets up, Roger could not tell, but each time the bullets had whizzed harmlessly over her head. In no instance had he been near enough to grapple with her attacker, and he knew now that if she was shot all he could hope to do was to endeavour to mark her murderer down and later exact vengeance.
The King, with his usual bravery in the face of personal danger, had sought to shield her with his body, then, placing a hand on her shoulder, forced her to kneel down in the bottom of the carriage until the procession got under way. His complaisance in agreeing to go to Paris had once again brought him a wave of false popularity, and the firing ceased. Since their fat puppet had done as they wished the mob were pleased with him. Their mood became jocular, and they began to shout: “We’ve got the baker, the baker’s wife and the baker’s boy, so now we shall have bread.” But they still took delight in insulting the Queen; the whole way to Paris they sang the filthiest songs and threw the most obscene epithets at her.
The march seemed never-ending. Actually, owing to the slow pace of the multitude, and the frequent halts caused by lack of march discipline in the long column, it occupied seven hours. At long last Paris was reached, and Bailly, with more fulsomeness than tact, greeted the King with the words: “What a beautiful day this is, when the Parisians are to possess Your Majesty and your family in their town.”
Night had fallen, but the ordeal was not yet over. The Royal Family was dragged to the Hôtel de Ville, and there compelled to listen for nearly two hours longer to windy speeches. Bailly again spoke of “this beautiful day” and the King replied that he came with joy and confidence into his good town of Paris.
His voice was so low that Bailly shouted in order that the people could hear. “His Majesty wishes me to tell you that he comes with joy into his good town of Paris.”
At that the exhausted but still defiant Queen roused herself and cried: “Monsieur, you omitted to say ‘with confidence’.”
When these gruelling proceedings had at last concluded the royal party were allowed to get back into their carriages and, among further scenes of uproar, driven to the Palais des Tuileries. There, nothing had been prepared for their reception; all the living-rooms had either been granted to poor pensioners of the Court or long remained unoccupied. They were damp and dirty and, as it was now ten o’clock, pitch dark. With the few candles that could be found, the Royal Family started to settle themselves in, as well as circumstances permitted, for night. While the few available beds were being made up the bewildered little Dauphin remarked to his mother: “Everything is very ugly here, Madame.”
“My son,” replied Madame Marie Antoinette, “Louis XIV lodged here and found it very comfortable; we must not be more particular than he was.”
Seeing her utter exhaustion, Madame de Tourzel then took the child from her and to the room which someone had hastily allotted them. It contained only one small bed, had entrances on three sides, and all of the doors having warped none of them would shut. She put the Dauphin to bed, barricaded the doors with all the movable furniture, and spent the night in a chair at his bedside.
After seeing the Queen enter the Tuileries, Roger had staggered back to La Belle Étoile. At first, not recognising him in his strange garments, Monsieur Blanchard refused to let him in. But, croaking out who he was, Roger pushed past him and swayed, drunk with fatigue, up to his room. He was now long past hunger. He had not closed his eyes for two days and a night. Flinging himself down on his bed still dressed in his woman’s clothes, he slept the clock round.
In that he was luckier than the Queen. Next morning thousands of Parisians, who had not seen the Sovereigns during the recent crisis, surrounded the Tuileries and called on them to show themselves. They spent most of the day in satisfying the demands of an ever-changing crowd.
The King’s arrival in Paris temporarily quelled the more general discontent. Although bread was as scarce as ever it was felt that by some miracle he would now soon ensure an ample supply of it. Whenever he appeared shouts of “Vive le Roi!” rent the air, and even the Queen reaped a little of his reflected popularity.
But all this was on the surface, and no more than the natural expression of a loyalty to the throne which still animated a great part of the people. The real fact was that on July 16th the King had lost his power to continue as an absolute Monarch, and on October 6th he had lost his personal liberty. National Guard sentries now stood on duty at all the exits of his palace, in the corridors, and even along the walls of the room in which he fed. It was no longer easy for the Royal Family even to converse in private.
Such was already the situation when, on the morning of October 8th, clad once more in a quiet suit of his own, Roger went to the Tuileries to pay his respects to the Queen.
He thought that she had aged a lot in the past few days, but she received him with her unfailing courtesy, charm and awareness. She at once recalled his having come to Versailles on the 5th to offer his services, and thanked him on behalf of the King and herself.
When he asked if there was any further way in which he could be of service to her, she replied: “Our friends are all too few in these days, Mr. Brook. If, without danger to yourself, you feel that you can come here from time to time, I shall always be pleased to see you.”
One good thing at least resulted from the terrible scenes at Versailles on the 5th and 6th of October. Many people averred that they had actually seen the Duc d’Orléans, wearing a heavy great-coat and with a broad-brimmed hat pulled well down over his eyes, standing at the top of the marble staircase, pointing out to his assassins the way to the Queen’s apartments. In any case it was universally accepted that His Highness had organised the attack on the palace. In consequence he had lost overnight the support of all but the vilest of the mob and a few personal adherents.
There was good reason to believe that men of such diverse views as Necker, Mirabeau, St. Priest, Montmorin, de Périgord and the Duc de Liancourt had all been involved to a greater or lesser degree in a conspiracy to force Louis XVI to abdicate and make d’Orléans Regent. But none of these leaders was prepared to countenance murder as a means of achieving that end, and all of them realised the danger of inciting the mob to such acts of violence. They condemned the outbreak in the strongest terms and insisted that a public enquiry should be set on foot to investigate its origins.
The Marquis de St. Huruge, who had been definitely identified as one of the men dressed up as poissardes, and several others of d’Orléans’ intimates, were arrested and, to the consternation of his remaining supporters, on October 14th the Duke left Paris without warning. It later transpired that he had had a brief, frigid interview with the King, and accepted a mission to England; and it was generally assumed that since he dared not face a public enquiry the King had sent him away rather than have a member of his own family exposed as a potential murderer.
During the few weeks that followed the installation of the Royal Family at the Tuileries, Roger took the Queen at her word, although, as things seemed to be settling down again, he made no further attempt to play the part of watchdog. He still could not rid himself of his heartache, and the tormenting thoughts of Isabella, so far away in Naples, that harassed him each night continued to rob him of all joy in life by day; but he did not allow that to interfere with his work, and stuck to it with dogged, if somewhat gloomy, persistence. The National Assembly now met in the Riding School of the Tuileries, and he spent most of his time in its vicinity, cultivating as many as possible of its members in order to gather material for his reports to Mr. Pitt; and every few days he made one of the little group of gentlemen who continued to wait upon the Queen.
It was on November 3rd, while he was attending one of these small gatherings, that Madame de Tourzel came up to him and said in a low voice: “Please to remain, Monsieur, until Her Majesty’s visitors have gone. She wishes to speak with you in private.”
Roger obediently outstayed the other ladies and gentlemen who were present, and when they had taken their leave the Queen beckoned him to follow her into a smaller room. Two National Guards had been posted inside the doors of the salon. There were none here, but evidently she feared that one of the many spies who were set about her might walk in without permission—as now often happened—for she gave Roger a skein of silk to hold, motioned him to sit down on a stool near her embroidery-frame, and sitting down herself, began to wind the silk into a ball. Without raising her eyes from the work, she said in a whisper:
“Mr. Brook, six months ago you undertook a dangerous mission for me, and executed it with skill and courage. I am now in an even more difficult position than I was then, and in much greater need. Nearly everyone who comes here is suspect, but you are less so than most because you are an Englishman; and also because you have been sufficiently discreet not to show the sympathy I know you bear us, by daily attendance at this mockery of a Court to which we have now been reduced. Would you be willing to serve me again by going on another journey?”
Roger felt that the chances were all against his gaining anything by undertaking another mission for her. He had already won as much of her confidence as it was possible for any man in his circumstances to obtain. Moreover another mission would mean his leaving Paris to the detriment of his secret work, and this time there would be no adequate excuse for his doing so which he could give to Mr. Pitt.
Nevertheless, he was not at present involved in any particular undertaking of great moment to his country, and he felt that any displeasure he might incur for having temporarily abandoned his post must not be allowed to weigh against the urgent need of this unfortunate but courageous woman. Better men than himself had jeopardised their careers in causes far less deserving, and he knew that if he refused he would feel ashamed at having done so for the rest of his life. So, loath as he was to risk possible dismissal by his own master, after only a moment’s hesitation, he said:
“Madame, I will serve you willingly, in any way I can. Pray give me your orders.”
She smiled her thanks, and said with tears in her voice: “It is my son. How I will bring myself to part with him I cannot think. But I have reached the conclusion that it is my duty to do so. He is France—the France of the future—and it is my belief that if he remains here he will be murdered with the rest of us.”
“No, Madame, no!” Roger protested, “The situation is now becoming more tranquil every day.”
Impatiently, she shook her head. “Do not be deceived, Mr. Brook. This quiet is but the lull before another and greater storm. Yet I think we may be granted a few months in which to take such measures as we may; and it is my dearest wish that before the tempest breaks the Dauphin should be conveyed to a place of safety. More, if ’tis known that he is beyond the power of our enemies, and in a situation to continue the royal line, that might well prove an additional safeguard to the King, his father.”
Roger nodded. “There is much in that, Madame, and your personal sacrifice may prove to have been well worth while in the long run.”
“But my problem has been where to send him,” she went on. “The people will be furious when they learn that he has been sent abroad, and the National Assembly may demand his return; so it must be to some country which would be prepared to reject such a demand, and if need be incur the ill will of France on that account. I had at first thought of my brother, the Emperor Joseph, but he is again too ill, and his dominions in too great disorder, for me to burden him with such an additional care.”
She was crying now, and as she paused to dab her eyes with a handkerchief, Roger threw a quick glance of apprehension at her. The obvious alternative seemed her other brother, Leopold of Tuscany, and Florence was the one city in Europe to which he could not go without exposing himself to very considerable danger.
After a moment she went on: “The Grand Duke Leopold would, I am sure, take M. le Dauphin at my request; but he needs a mother’s care, and I feel that my sister is more to be relied upon to bring him up as I would wish. First, though, she will have to obtain her husband’s consent to receiving a guest whose presence may embroil his Kingdom with France. Will you go for me, Mr. Brook, on a mission to Queen Caroline, and bring me back word whether King Ferdinand is willing to give my son asylum at the Court of Naples?”