\ I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/truestoriesfromh01deno s.ni-npjDSEnS) ©AB'.#flira P THE REV. ELE/1ZHR WILLIAMS. TWO ERAS OF FRANCE, m 7 OR, TRUE STORIES FROM HISTORY. B Y HUGH DE NORMAN D. AUBURN: ALDEN, BEARDSLEY & CO. ROCHESTER: WANZER, BEARDSLEY * CO. 1854, Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by ALONZO G. BEARDSLEY, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Northern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 216 William St. w XH3 N selecting for our Stories the two periods in the Annals of France — The Massacre of St. Bar¬ tholomew, and The Revolution of 1789—we have fallen upon a portion of history confessedly of remark¬ able and intense interest as well to the general reader as to the scholar. And although the story — of the Revolution, especially — has often been told, under various forms of narrative and biography, yet I believe it will bear repetition. As regards that interesting historic question—the death of Louis XVII. in the Tower of the Temple, and the claims of Mr. Williams to identity with that personage, I have endeavored to state fairly, and as fully as my limits would allow, the arguments which have a bearing upon either side. This evidence, of course, is circumstantial, and requires to be examined VI PREFACE. and weighed with prudence and fairness. As a mere historical question, aside from the claims of justice and right, it is worthy of such examination. To the labors of the Rev. Mr. Hanson we are entirely indebted for the information we have on this subject, and his recent work, in which he deals with facts which go to prove the identity of Mr. Williams and the Dauphin, is replete with the highest interest. March, 1854. H. DE N. Contents. PAET I. THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. CHAPTER I. Catherine and Charles. MM Gynocracy and the Salic Law—Catherine de Medicis—Charles- Two Religious Parties, the Huguenots and Papists— Schemes against the Protestants—The time chosen.19 CHAPTER II. The Huguenots at Court. The King and Admiral Coligny—The Protestants resort to Paris— Death of the Queen of Navarre—The Espousals—The Marriage at Notre Dame—The Mask at the Hotel de Bourbon—Rumors and Suspicions—the King’s Dissimulation—The Faith of the Queen.27 CHAPTER III. Attempted Assassination. Tranquillity of the Huguenots—Conspiracy against the Admiral— He is wounded—The Assassin escapes—The King’s indigna¬ tion at the attempted assassination—Charles visits Coligny— Their interview.96 5A3 ft Contents. viii CHAPTER IV. The Massacre Begins. paotf The Huguenots safely quartered and protected—Military arrange¬ ments—Comprehensive plan of Murder—The Duke of Guise and the Soldiers—The signal and the Badge—Perplesity.and Alarm—The Midnight Tocsin—The City is illuminated, and the Massacre begins ...... r „ . 47 CHAPTER V. The Murder of Coligny. Cosseius and the Duke of Guise—The Admiral’s house entered— Beme—Coligny is murdered—The Duke of Guise’s indigni¬ ties—The Populace—The embalmed Head of the Admiral—His Body at Montfaucon—Charles and Catherine . . . .58 CHAPTER VI. The Massacre Goes on. Blood at the Louvre—Queen Margaret—Henry and the Prince of Condd—The signal from the Palais de Justice—The Massacre becomes general—Private Vengeance—The Seir e flows with its burden of the Dead—De Thou’s Description . . . .64 CHAPTER VII. Individual Victims. Teligny, the son-in-law of Admiral Coligny—He escapes for a time, but is finally slain—Peter Damns—Jacques Charpentier— Sieur de Guerchy—Taveroy and his sister—Insane Cruelties— Six hundred Houses pillaged—The Faubourg St. Germain— Contents. IX Bash confidence in the.JOng—Many escape—The King’s Proc¬ lamation—l^he Slaughter renewed the next day—The Massacre in the Provinces—The Plea of Self-Defence—Cavagnes and Briqueinaut—Their Execution witnessed by Charles and his Mother.71 CHAPTER VIII. Incidents of the Massacre. Aspect of the City—Coligny’s Blood—The number of the Vic¬ tims—Charles—Henry and the Prince of Cond4—The army of the Huguenots—Bethune—The use of the Breviary—L’Hospi- tal—Ambrose Parf—His reply to the King . . . .83 CHAPTER IX. Philip de Mornay. A Leader of the Huguenot Party—His apprehension—Protected by his landlord—The Attorney Girard—The Porte St. Denis— La Vilette—Expedients for Escape—From Chantilly to Nor¬ mandy—Safety in England.93 CHAPTER X. Madame de Fedqueres. Her previous history—The Bishop of Senlis—An asylum for hor child—Concealment—A Captain of the Watch—She refuses to go to Mass—M. de Voisenon—She escapes in a boat—Safe at the Chancellor’s—At Eprunes—Her Brother—Her marriage with De Mornay.104 X Contents. CHAPTER XI. The Escape of Marshal de la Force. paoe The Faubourg St. Germain—The Father of the Marshal—The Ransom—The Murder of the Father and Brother—The Escape —Admission to the Arsenal—His death at the age of ninety- four .115 CHAPTER XII. The St. Bartholomew Ends. The Designs of these individual narratives—The Enormity of the Massacre—What this History illustrates .... 122 PART II. THE REVOLUTION OF 1789. CHAPTER I Causes and First Steps of the Revolution. The Reigns of Louis XV. and Louis XVI.—Other Causes—A Free Press—Proiligacy of the Court—Irreligion and Dissolute¬ ness—The infamous Dubois—Pecuniary Embarrassments— Assembly of Notables—States-General—Tiers-Etat—The first day of the Revolution—Popular sympathy with the National Assembly—A Mob in the Faubourgs—Necker and the Three Days of July—Destruction of the Bastille.127 Contents. xi CHAPTER II. The Revolution Begun. page The Effect of Popular Commotion—Feudalism—August and Sep¬ tember—Versailles—The Mob at Versailles—La Fayette and the National Guards—The King goes to Paris—Decrees of the Assembly—The Clubs—The Jacobins—The King wishes to go to St. Cloud—The Koval Family attempt escape—The King arrested—The Girondists—The Legislative Assembly—The Count d’Artois and the Emigres—The Royal Family sent to the Temple—Slaughter of the Three Days—The Convention— The Mountain—England—La Vendee—The Reign of Terror— The New Era of the Republic.140 CHAPTER III. The Republic. The horrors thicken—Lyons-Marie Antoinette—Egalit4—Chris¬ tianity abolished—Robespierre—Decree to restore the doctrine of God and immortality—The Princess Elizabeth—Robespierre sent to the Guillotine—The Recoil—The Committees of Public Safety and Security restrained—The Course of the Legislature —New Constitution—Napoleon—His Return from Egypt— Monarchy, in effect, restored—First Consul .... 161 CHAPTER IV. Attempted Escape of the Royal Family. The King a Prisoner—Preparations for Flight—Marquis de Bou- ilR—Indecision and Delay—Disguised for Escape—The Queen loses her way—At last under way—They encounter delay—The Duke de Choiseul.. Contents. xii CHAPTER Y. The Capture and the Eeturn. PAGE The Fugiti es—At. Varennes—Delay and Apprehension—De¬ mand of passports—Alarm given—The Inhabitants and the National Guard aroused—The King appeals to his captors— They are moved by his distress—The Wife of the Mayor—The long night—Their flight discovered at Paris—The commotion there—Couriers despatched—The Eoyal Family return—The National Assembly provide for their reception and safe-keep¬ ing—The New Constitution—Vive le Eoi.191 CHAPTER VI. Louis XVI.— Present Evtls and Impending Perils. The Eoyal Family closely guarded—State of the City—Assault upon the Tuileries—Madame Elizabeth—The Queen and her children—The action of the Assembly—The Marseillais—The Marseillais Hymn.208 CHAPTER VII. Louis XVI.— Imprisonment and Execution. The Bishop of Lyons attempts to reconcile parties—Joy to the Eoyal Household—Fete in the Champ de Mars—The tide gath¬ ers strength—The Military forces collect at the Tuileries—The Eoyal Family take refuge in the Hall of the Assembly—Scenes at the Palace—The Swiss Guard—Massacre of the Guard and Servants—The Eoyal Family sent to the Temple—Trial of the King—His Condemnation—Preparation for Death—The last Interview—The Execution .228 Contents. xiii CHAPTER VIII. Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, and the Royal Children. PAGE The Queen’s Marriage—Her Beauty—She is hated and maligned —At the Tuileries and in the Temple—Her anguish at the death of Louis—Cruelties—Removal to the Conciergerie—Her Trial and Execution.245 CHAPTER IX. Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, and the Royal Children, in the Temple. The Princess Elizabeth, her beauty and her character—Her care of the Princess Royal—She is apprehended and conducted to the Conciergerie—Her Trial—Her Execution—Maria Theresa— Her Release—Subsequent History and Death—The Dauphin— M. de Beauehesne—Rev. Eleazar Williams—Sufferings of the Royal Family in the Temple—The Commune—Official Decrees and Cruel Severities.266 CHAPTER X. Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, and the Royal Children, in the Temple. Louis XVII. as King—The Family in Mourning—Tison—New Commissaries—The woman Tison becomes insane—The Dau¬ phin falls sick—He is separated from his mother—Beaucliesne’s account of the scene of the separation—Simon and his Wife— His degrading position—Madame Simon more humane—His Demoralization—Cruelties—The Simons leave the Temple— The Duchesse d’Angoulemc’s account of his condition—New Keepers—His final sickness and Death.273 XIV Contents. chapter XI. The Dauphin not Dead. page De Quincey’s views of the Bourbon Question—Louis XVII. did not die in the Temple—The action of the Convention and their secret treaty with Charette—The Duke de Provence—His Agents about the Temple—Desault—The idiocy of the Dauphin —Desault supposed to be poisoned—M. ^ellanger—Change in the appearance and mind of the child—June 8th—An Escape from the Temple, and arrests ordered—No Funeral Honors paid to the Dauphin—Monument and Epitaph ordered—The Duchesse d’ Angouleme believed him living—Mrs. Brown’s tes¬ timony.294 CHAPTER XII. The Dauphin brought to America.—Eleazar Williams. Putnam’s Monthly—A rl 'i va l at Albany—Monsieur Louis—Lake George—The Royal Family—The Duchesse d’Angouleme—Bel- langer—The Prince de Joinville’s disclosures to Mr. Williams —Mrs. Brown’s testimony—Mr. George Sumner—Mrs. Wil¬ liams’ affidavit—Marks of Person—Chevalier Fagnani’s testi¬ mony—Other Marks and Tokens.312 CHAPTER XIII. Charlotte Cordat. Marat—His S«lf-Estimate—Ami du Peuple—His True Character —The Republic in danger—Caen—The Girondists—Rouen— M. Corday—Charlotte—Death of her Mother—She enters a Convent—Her manner of life—Monasteries suppressed—Char¬ lotte goes to reside with Madame de Bretteville at Caen—Her life there—Development of character—Resolutions—Personal appearance.828 Contents. XV CHAPTER XIV. Charlotte Cordat.—Death oy Marat. PAGE The Girondists in Normandy—Frauqnelin—Plans of Charlotte Corday—She leaves Caen and goes to Paris—Her journey— Hotel de la Providence — M. Duperret — Charlotte writes to Marat—She goes to his lodgings—Albertine and his household —She succeeds in gaining admittance—Marat in his bath—His Murder—The arrest and examination of Charlotte—Her Trial and Execution.348 PART I. Clif Massacre of St. Itartfjolometo, 4 I. 6at(uniu gnb CJsrlM. HI HOUGH the throne of France has never been filled by a female, the government of that country has perhaps been as frequently, and as thoroughly, for a time, what, writers on the constitutions of States call a Oynocracy , as that of any other kingdom in Europe. Queens, queen- mothers, and royal mistresses, have repeatedly proved too strong for the Salic Law ; and without actually wearing on their brow “ the round and top of sovereignty,” have exercised, sometimes almost openly, its fullest prerogatives. At the period of which we are now about to speak—the year 1572—the actual ruler of France was the celebrated Catherine de Medicis, the widow of Henry II., and the mother of the reigning king, 20 True Stories from History. Charles IX. The spirit of ambition has rarely possessed any bosom more completely than it did * that of this remarkable woman. Unrestrained either by religion or humanity-—despising alike the law of God and the opinion of man—she was well fitted to move forward in the pursuit of her pur¬ poses with the reckless and unshrinking audacity which their nature demanded, and to brook neither obstacle nor competition in her path. If she had one weak point of character, and was even more than the generality of her contemporaries the slave of the popular superstitions of her age, her deference to the imaginary intimations of the stars was in no degree calculated to withhold her from any really wicked course, although it might sometimes make her fly from dangers of its own creation. Indeed, in thus scaring her with merely visionary terrors, it was likely only to plunge her deeper into crime than she might otherwise have fallen. Of crimes of a certain character there is no other of the passions which is so fruitful a master as Fear. Catherine, too, if not endowed in any Catherine and Charles. 21 surpassing degree with, general talent, was an Italian not more in blood and lineage than in the subtlety and wiliness which have been supposed, in modern times, to characterize her countrymen; and young as she was, only fourteen, when she left her native land, she seems to have brought away with her from her earliest instructors no small share of that art of intrigue and skill in political stratagem, for which the minor courts of Italy had long been famous. Charles himself inherited much of the ability of his mother ; but this bad woman, with the view to secure the more completely her own domination, had taken pains to surround her son, from the moment he became king (which he did when only a child of ten years of age, by the death of his elder brother, Francis II.) with every seduction most suited to corrupt and enfeeble his mind, and to pervert the bounty of nature. She did not altogether succeed in this design ; for, despite of his disadvantages of train¬ ing, Charles, when he reached manhood, displayed decidedly superior talents, even of a literary kind : 22 Tkue Stokies from History. as may be seen from some of bis compositions, both in prose and verse, Avbicb are still extant. But the influences to which he was exposed seem to have nearly stifled whatever had been originally good in his moral nature, and to have operated with all the intended effect, in giving preternatural expansion and growth to the seeds it contained of vice and weakness. This victim of a mother’s heartlessness and selfish ambition manifested, as he advanced in years, a character and disposition which fitted him to be partly that mother’s instru¬ ment, and partly her coadjutor. Catherine’s res¬ oluteness and stern inflexibility of purpose had degenerated in Charles into mere obstinacy and waywardness ; and when she proceeded to her end with a cool, single-eyed, invincible determination, he was only headstrong, precipitate, and driven forward by the caprice of the moment, to be im¬ mediately driven back as far, perhaps, by an op¬ posite gust of temper or inclination. But, on the other hand, making allowance for his youth and comparative inexperience—for he was as yet only Catherine and Charles. 2 3 twenty-two—liis capacity for perfidy and dissimu¬ lation was scarcely inferior to lier own; and his indifference to the sufferings of ethers, in the pur¬ suit of his own gratifications, equally hardened. Without any of his mother’s nerve, or as some may call it, strength of character, in treachery, in •cruelty, in selfishness, in all that constituted the mere baseness of her nature, he was the worthy son of such a parent. Such were the hands that held the royal author¬ ity. Meanwhile, the country was kept in a state ■of distraction, breaking out occasionally into open warfare, by the enmity of the two great religious parties into which the people were divided. At the head of the adherents of the ancient faith were the Duke of Guise and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, who were nearly connected with the royal family by the marriage of their niece, Mary of Scotland, with the late King, Francis II. The chiefs of highest rank among the Huguenots, or Protestants, were the two young princes of the blood, Henry, King of Navarre, and the Prince of 24 True Stories from History, Conde. The main stay of the party, however, and the individual who principally directed it, both by his councils and his popular influence, was the able, brave, and virtuous Coligny, or, as he was generally called in his own day, the Admiral of Chatillon. Of the mass of the population the im¬ mense majority were Papists, but still the Protest¬ ants formed also a very numerous and powerful body; and, although the recent battles of Jarnac and Montcontour, in both which they had been beaten by the King’s brother, the Duke of Anjou, had for the present somewhat broken their strength, the energy natural to a new and aggress¬ ive party was not likely to allow them to remain long depressed under the effects of their disasters. The peace concluded in August, 1570,* had put a stop, for the moment, to the active hostilities of the two parties, rather than united them, or composed their difficulties. Affairs were in this state when the Queen- mother resolved to strike a bold and decisive blow * Called La paix boitev . se —the lame peace. Catherine and Charles. 25 for the consolidation of her authority. She had hitherto succeeded, by management, in preserving her position at the head of affairs, but the suprem¬ acy she was enabled to maintain was far from the full and unfettered dictatorship to which her ambition aspired. Mistress of the State as she was, she had yet been obliged to share too much of her power with those under whose protection, as it were, she held it, and who, by merely withdraw¬ ing their aid and support, could, at any moment they chose, leave her in the hands of another fac¬ tion just as little disposed to allow her the exercise of an unparticipated sovereignty. Tired of this imperfect and precarious sway, Catherine appears to have resolved upon the adoption of a new policy. Instead of longer employing the two hostile parties to balance each other, she now determined to avail herself of the assistance of the one to effect, once for all, the extermination and destruction of the other. In carrying this deep and daring scheme into execution, she was in¬ fluenced, moreover, by her religious opinions. A 26 True Stories from History, bigoted adherent of the Papacy, she was taught to believe that she would be doing God service by the destruction of the new faith. Intolerance and the spirit of persecution aided her political schemes, and she resolved to immolate the enemies of her faith to her ferocious and devouring ambition. The occasion which Catherine determimed to seize upon for the perpetration of her diabolical design, was one singularly calculated to deepen the revolting character of the tragedy about to be enacted. To crown and consummate, as it was pretended, the reconcilement of the two religions, the Court had proposed that a marriage should take place between Charles 1 sister, Margaret, and Henry of Navarre. There is too much reason to conclude that Catherine and her son had, from the first, suggested this union with no other object than that of drowning the day of its celebration in the blood of their unsuspecting subjects. II. ©t* JjupMts at fart, anfo the Itarriagf. Tjl VERY expedient was now resorted to in order to make the Protestants forget their ancient jealousy of the Court, and to lull them into reli¬ ance and security. The King himself undertook the management of Coligny; and the royal hypocrite plied his chosen task with a depth of art so much beyond his years, that he soon had the Admiral as completely within his toils as he could desire. Having invited him to court, Charles re¬ ceived him with a degree of distinction which had scarcely ever before been accorded to a subject; and not only restored him immediately to all his ancient dignities, but took him into his intimacy, consulted him on all affairs of State, seemed on every occasion to be more swayed by his advice than by that of any of his other counsellors, and, 28 True Stories from History. in short, impressed liim with a conviction that he had not a more attached friend than his young sovereign. Coligny thus deceived, it was not wonderful that the great majority of the party who looked upon him as their head, should allow themselves to he caught in the same snare. The professions of the Court seem to have been almost universally relied upon as sincere; and when invitations to the royal marriage were sent to all the most dis¬ tinguished Huguenot lords and gentlemen through¬ out France, few thought of declining to repair to Paris from any apprehension that their lives would be in danger on an occasion which, to them especially, was one of so much triumph and promise, and which was to be graced and sanc¬ tioned by the presence, in the quality of the King’s confidant and advisor, of their most expe¬ rienced and most venerated chief. Some, how¬ ever, still retained their doubts and fears, and deemed it most prudent to remain at their homes. One circumstance which alarmed the more The Huguenots at Court. 29 suspicious, was tlie sudden death of Henry’s mother, the Queen of Navarre, which occurred on the 9th of June, at the house of Guillart, Bishop of Chartres, in which she had taken up her abode on coming to Paris a few weeks before to assist in the preparations for her son’s nuptials. This lady was a person of distinguished ability and strength of character; and although the ex¬ citement in which men’s minds were at that time, from the expectation of coming events, may have caused her death to pass over with less observa¬ tion, it was afterwards very generally believed that she had been taken off by poison, perhaps from a fear on the part of the Court that her penetration, and the opportunities she enjoyed of mixing intimately with the royal circle, might enable her to detect or conjecture the meditated treachery. As the day on which the marriage was to take place approached, the Huguenot gentlemen, and even numbers of the humbler orders who be¬ longed to that party, flocked to Paris from all 30 True Stories from History. quarters ; and by the middle of August tbe capital bad collected within its walls nearly all the per¬ sons of consequence in France attached to the new faith. On the evening of Sunday the seventeenth, the espousals of the royal pair were celebrated in the Louvre with becoming festivities; and on the following morning the marriage ceremony was per¬ formed on an elevated platform erected before the great Cathedral of Notre-Dame, in the presence of a splendid company, composed both of Papists and Protestants. After the performance of the cere¬ mony, the bride and those of the company who were of the Eomish faith, advanced to the high altar to hear mass; while Henry, Admiral Co- ligny, and the rest of the Protestants, retired into the choir. On leaving the church the party returned to the archbishop’s palace, and there dined. In the even¬ ing, a supper and a masked ball again collected the revellers in the grand hall of the Louvre, although most of the Protestants were restrained, by the severity of their religious notions, from The Marriage. 81 attending this conclusion of the day’s festivities. Coligny himself was absent under the pretext of a slight indisposition. The next day, the nineteenth, was devoted to re¬ pose by the King and his exhausted guests; but on the evening of Wednesday, the twentieth, the hilarities of the Court were renewed by a very ex¬ traordinary entertainment given in the Hotel de Bourbon. On this occasion, a theatrical show or mask was exhibited to the company, which actu¬ ally pictured out, with daring distinctness, the horrible tragedy that was so soon to follow. The chronicles of the time* describe this exhibition minutely, and from their descriptions it would seem to have been easy to conjecture what were the thoughts of the King, and his secret counsel¬ lors, in the midst of all these scenes of festive abandonment. It is true that such a rehearsal of the intended massacre was unnecessary for the execution of the design, and might even seem * Mcmoires de l’Etat de la France, sous Charles IX. 32 True Stories from History. fraught with some risk of preventing its success; but the projectors of great crimes have often shown this wild propensity to sport with the chances of detection, by venturing to the very brink of a disclosure of their plans. Even before this dark and shadowy hint of the designs of the Court, various circumstances had troubled the confidence of the Protestants. So little care had their enemies taken to conceal their hostile intentions, that rumors of some terrible blow about to be struck were general among the populace, and had, in several instances, met the ears of the devoted Huguenots. Obscure, but ear¬ nest, intimations of impending danger had even been communicated to particular individuals by their Eomish friends. The uneasiness and appre¬ hension thus created were increased to the greatest degree of alarm, when at last a body of twelve hundred soldiers made their appearance in the city, and were seen, after being marched through the streets, to take up their stations under arms, in the vicinity of the palace, the arsenal, and other The Marriage. 33 strongholds. Several Protestant lords and gen¬ tlemen, on witnessing the entry of these troops, secretly withdrew themselves from the city; and even Coligny himself was induced, on the morn¬ ing of the twentieth, to seek the royal presence, and to request an explanation from his Majesty of a circumstance which had so greatly excited the fears of his friends. The Admiral was received by his sovereign with so much kindness, and such warm assurances of protection, that long before the close of their interview, whatever suspicions he had at first been inclined to entertain were completely dissipated. So far did Charles carry his dissimulation, that lie declared he had ordered the troops into the city for the express purpose of placing them as guards, in the excited state of the public feeling, around the houses of the Huguenots, to protect them from designs which he suspected to be entertained against them by their old ene¬ mies, the Guises. To enable him the more se¬ curely to attain this object, he suggested that all the principal persons of the reformed religion 3 34 True Stories from History, should be immediately collected from the different parts of the town, and lodged together in the neighborhood of the palace. Coligny,. completely- reassured by all this show of friendship, returned to his house, where he was soon after sought by many of his followers, anxious to consult with him on the circumstances in which they were placed. Eetiring to his apartment, he left his son-in-law, Teligny,* to receive his visitors; and with such encouraging animation did this ardent young man describe to them the conversation which the Ad¬ miral had just had with his Majesty, that most of them left the house convinced of the ground¬ lessness of their fears, and having their doubts of their sovereign’s honor converted into grati¬ tude for his provident watchfulness over their safety. The strange allegorical pastime with which the guests of the palace had amused themselves on the * Charles, Lord of Teligny in Rovergne, had, a few months before this, espoused Louisa de Coligny, the daughter of the Admiral. This lady afterwards married William of Nassau, Prinoe of Orange, the founder of the Republic of Holland. The Marriage. 35 evening of the 20th, again awakened the misgiv¬ ings of some, and on the following day Coligny repaired to the Queen-mother, to inform her of the dissatisfaction which these extraordinary revels had occasioned. Catherine affected to laugh at his alarm. “Mon dieu! Admiral,” she exclaimed, “ give yourself no further uneasiness about these festivities of ours—leave us to make merry in our own way, and in the course of four days, on the faith of a Queen, I promise you that you and those of your religion shall have such proofs of my regard as shall satisfy your utmost desires.” She kept her word! III. gU cmjJttii 3$sa$s i na ti a it. HE seeming frankness of tire assurances of Queen Catherine appears again to have allayed all suspicion; and notwithstanding the successive warnings, as we may almost call them, which they had received of the destruction preparing for them, the devoted victims remained in tranquillity under the descending stroke of their oppressors. But the conspirators were now about to proceed to a more daring act than anything they had yet ventured upon. It was resolved to assassinate the admiral. In the obscurity which hangs over much of the interior mechanism of these dark transactions, we are left almost to mere conjecture with regard to the motives which may have prompted the contrivers of the plot to preface their work of general slaughter, by this attack on Attempted Assassination. 37 the life of an individual. Perhaps they had be¬ come afraid, from the repeated occasions on which Coligny had evinced some suspicion of the inten¬ tions of the Court, that he had his eye upon them too watchfully, ymd might yet defeat their plans unless he were instantly got rid of. Or they may have calculated that such an incident as the mur¬ der of their chief in open day was the most likely of all things to strike the whole body of the Pro¬ testants with consternation, and, by the terror and confusion into which it threw them, to prepare them the more certainly for falling a prey, when their destro} r ers should be let loose upon them. It may have even been expected that this act of treachery would perchance precipitate them, in the first fury of their indignation, into some course of violence or aggression, such as might afford a seeming justification for the meditated massacre. At all events, if, as it seems likely, the assassina¬ tion of Coligny was the project of the heads, or most determined partners of the conspiracy, it was a stroke well-contrived, by its tendency to bring 88 True Stories from History. matters to extremities, to fix their less resolute confederates, and nerve them to enter with decision upon that line of action to which they might not otherwise have been easily brought to make up their minds. There were appearances of vaccilla- tion — whether arising from fear, or some more creditable feeling—on the part of Charles himself, before his mother and her more intimate coadju¬ tors had found means to fix his resolution, by per¬ suading him that matters had now come to such a pass that, if he should delay attacking the Hugue¬ nots, they would assuredly rise and destroy him, and that the question was simply whether they should perish, or himself and a vast multitude of his other subjects. But to return to our story. Towards eleven o’clock on the morning of the 22d, which was Friday, the Admiral, after having spent some time in the Louvre with the king’s brother, the Duke of Anjou, who had sent for him—was returning on foot to his hotel to dinner, when he met the King coming out of a chapel which stood opposite Attempted Assassination. 39 to the palace. They walked together to the tennis- court of the palaee, where, finding the Duke of Guise and Teligny, Charles and the former engaged in a game against the latter and another gentleman. After having stood by for a short time, Coligny took his leave, followed by about a dozen lords and gentlemen of his party, and proceeded on his way home. lie had not advanced more than a hundred paces, when as he was moving leisurely along, engaged in reading a paper which some one had presented to him, he was suddenly struck by two balls from an arquebuse, one of which carried away the forefinger’ of his right hand, while the other wounded him more severely in his left arm. He immediately dropped the paper he held, and fell into the arms of his friends who were near him. The shot had come from the right, and looking up in that direction, the Admiral pointed ■out at onee to those who were with him, the win- clow from which it had been fired. The house was that of the Canon Pierre de Pille de Vi llemur, who had formerly been preceptor to the Duke of 40 True Stories from History. Guise. It stood contiguous to the cloister of a church, into which there was an opening by a back door. The window at which the assassin had taken his station was darkened by an iron trellis. Several of Coligny’s followers immediately pro¬ ceeded to the house, and forced their way into it, but when they reached the apartment from which the assassin had taken aim, they found only the arcjuebusc remaining where he had rested it on the window. He, himself, as it afterwards appeared, had made his escape through the cloister of the church, to a horse which stood ready saddled for him on the bank of the river, and on which he was soon after seen riding from the city at full speed.* Meanwhile Coligny had been carried home by his friends and placed in bed. The news of the attack that had been made upon his life spread rapidly over the city, and the Protestants flocked * His name was Maurevel, or Manrevert, a creature of the Duke of Guise, in whose service this is said not to have been his first exploit of a similar character. Attempted Assassination. 41 in crowds to liis Louse. Among otLers the cele¬ brated surgeon, Ambrose Pere, was quickly in attendance, and proceeded to dress tlie wounds of the old man, and to extract tire ball, wbile a numerous circle of Lis friends stood around, watch- ing the process with intense solicitude. But we must omit all further description of this scene, and return for a moment to the tennis-court, where the King was at play. That j)art of the street where the Admiral was when he was fired at, was so near the palace, that the report of the arquebuse, ringing through the tennis-court, startled his majesty and those who were with him, and the next minute some one running into the palace from the street, informed them what had happened. There is no good reason to suppose that Charles had been intrusted by his mother with her plan of assassin¬ ating the Admiral. She seems rather, as we have already observed, to have determined upon the perpetration of the crime principally for the pur¬ pose of steadying the wavering resolution of her son, by producing a state of circumstances in 42 True Stories from History. which he should imagine it impossible for him to draw back in his design. When Charles, therefore, was now told of the daring outrage which had been committed almost within the precincts of his palace, his instant emo¬ tion was that of furious indignation. Throwing down his racket, he rushed into the palace, declar¬ ing that he would be avenged on the bold ruffian who had thus broken the laws and insulted his authority. He had not been long in his apartment when the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde sought his presence, having just come from the house of their wounded friend. To their vehement suit for justice on the authors of the assassination he replied, with the most terrific oaths, that the Admiral’s blood should be amply atoned for. His mother, and the Duke of Anjou, who were also present, deemed it prudent in the meantime, to counterfeit the same indignation, and to join in the King’s assurances, that nothing should be left undone to detect the perpetrators of so heinous an atrocity. Attempted Assassination. 43 Soon after this Tcligny presented himself, bring¬ ing a request to Charles from his father-in-law, that he would deign to pay him a visit at his hotel, as he had some matters to communicate to him which he was unwilling to confide to any other ear. With this petition the King promised to comply, and about two o’clock Charles set out to make his promised visit, accompanied by his mother, his brothers, and a retinue composed of several of the most distinguished members of the Court, among whom were the Marshal de Tavan- nes, the Count de Rctz, and the Duke de Nevers, all principal confidants of Catherine, and confeder¬ ated with her in her scheme for the massacre of the Protestants. When they reached the house, they were ushered into the apartment where Co- ligny was, surrounded by many of his friends, among whom were the King of Navarre, the Prince of Conde, and other individuals of rank. Charles and his mother having taken their seats by his bed-side, the wounded man entered into conversation with them. In a long discourse 44 True Stories from History. which lie addressed to tlie King, he began by tak¬ ing God to witness, that in all his actions he had never had any other object in view except the good of his country, and his sovereign’s true honor, declaring that he was ready to render an account of his conduct to his Maker, if it should be His will now to take him to Himself. Passing from that topic, he proceeded to urge upon his Majesty the duty of doing something to check the growing ascendency of Spain, or at least of so ordering matters that the Duke of Alba should no longer be immediately informed, by means of his salaried spies, of whatever took place in the council of the King of France. But the subject to which he besought the King’s attention with the greatest earnestness, was the necessity, if he wished to pre¬ serve the tranquillity of the kingdom, of his giving orders that the different edicts which had been published for the protection of the adherents of the reformed faith, and especially the articles of the recent peace, should be more strictly main¬ tained. Charles replied in somewhat guarded Attempted Assassination. 45 terms. He expressed Id’s conviction of the Admi¬ ral’s loyalty and patriotism, and added that it had ever been his wish to observe religiously his com¬ pact with his Protestant subjects, and that such was still his determination. He then professed to feel anxious that Coligny, in his weak state, should not agitate himself by any further exertion; and, adverting to his wound, declared, with an oath, that he would punish the crime that had been committed in such a manner that the memory of his revenge should never be forgotten. The con¬ versation continued for a short time longer, when it was proposed by the Count de Eetz that Co¬ ligny should be removed to the palace, where the Queen of Navarre would willingly give up her apartment to his use. This, however, was opposed by Mazille, the physician in attendance, who stated that a removal would be attended with danger to his patient. The royal party remained to see the wounds dressed, when Charles, taking up one of the bandages that was steeped in blood, looked at it with every appearance of reverential 46 True Stories from History. concern, and then handed it to his mother. The hall which had been extracted from the Admiral’s arm, was also examined by both. They then took their departure, and hurried back to the Louvre. On arriving at the palace, Charles, Catherine, the Duke of Anjou, and their chief advisers, remained for some time in secret consultation; after which the King was busily engaged in giving orders and making up despatches, with which couriers were sent off to the provinces in rapid succession. IV. lire Pass acre § eg ins. O N the following day, the 23d, the municipal functionaries of the different quarters of the city were employed in going through the streets of their several districts, and taking down the names of the Protestants, professedly with the object of having as many of them as possible removed to the neighborhood of the Louvre, for their greater safety. Accordingly, a great number of the principal lords and gentlemen of the party were accommodated with lodgings immediately around the hotel of the Admiral; those who re¬ sided in the different houses giving up their apart¬ ments to these new tenants. A guard of fifty soldiers was also stationed around Coligny’s hotel, for the protection, as it was pretended, of himself and friends; but some surprise and apprehension 48 True Stories from History. was felt at its being put under the command of Cosseius, a well-known minion of the Queen-moth¬ er, and an old enemy of the Admiral’s. Cosseius and his men seem to have repaired to their post towards night-fall; and at the same time other detachments of military were placed around the palace, along the bank of the river, and at other stations in the same neighborhood. These arrange¬ ments appear to have been determined upon at a final consultation which had been held in the earlier part of the day, in the garden of the Tuileries, by Catherine, the King, the Duke of Anjou, the Mar¬ shal de Tavannes, and the other chiefs of the con¬ spiracy. It is said to have been on this occasion that Catharine first proposed to her son the imme¬ diate execution of the design which had been so long in preparation, urging upon him with especial earnestness the favorable circumstances in which the attempt might be made while the Admiral was confined to his bed, and the minds of his followers perplexed by anxiety on his account. Her em¬ ployment of this language would give countenance The Massacre Begins. 49 to the supposition that the assassination of Coligny had been designed to bring about the state of things which she now described, or at least to aid her in overcoming the irresolution of Charles, by enabling her to assert that such a result had fol¬ lowed from it. The scheme which she proposed for the massacre was of the most sanguinary and comprehensive description, involving the destruction of the King of Navarre, and the Prince of Conde, as well as all of their followers. The arguments of another member of the confederacy, however, succeeded in determining the King to spare the two young princes, on condition of their consenting to em¬ brace the Roman Catholic faith. It was their own persons only, however, which it was agreed to respect. It was resolved that, although untouched themselves, they should have their full share in the terrors of the coming slaughter, by beholding it raging, in its direst fury, close around them. With this view, Charles, under pretence of a fear which he professed to en- 4 50 True Stories from History. tertain of some attempt upon their lives about to be made b}r the Guises, invited them to assemble the principal gentlemen of tbeir suites for that night at the Louvre, and to have them lodged around their own apartments-. This seemingly friendly counsel was accepted and acted upon; and by ten o’clock the two princes had retired to tbeir respective chambers, while the most faith¬ ful of their attendants occupied the adjoining rooms, unarmed, and secure, as they imagined, from all violence, under the pledged honor, and in the fortified and guarded residence, of their sovereign. After the military had been disposed in the manner that has been already described, the Duke of Guise assembled the principal officers of the different corps, and stated to them, in a short ad¬ dress, the nature of the service in which they were about to be engaged. At the same time, Charron, the Provost of the Merchants, in conformity with the instructions he had received, having collected the captains and lieutenants of the city night* The Massacre Begins. 51 guard in the great hall of the Hotel de Yille, pre¬ pared them in like manner for taking their part in the massacre. The signal, it was intimated, for the commencement of the bloody work, would be given towards the break of day, from the clock of the Palais de Justice—immediately on hearing which they would break into the houses where the Protestants were lodged in all the different parts of the city, and proceed to slaughter the in¬ mates, without regard to age or sex. The doors of these devoted dwellings had already been marked with white crosses. The assassins, also, that they might know each other when they met, were commanded to wrap each a white scarf around his left arm, and to place a cross of the same color in his hat. These badges, after the massacre had begun, seem to have been generally adopted by the Romish population, both as a means of mutual recognition, and as tokens of the right of those who bore them to walk unharmed amidst the bloody storm that raged through the inhospitable and treacherous city. 52 True Stories from History. Such, then, was the state of things at the Louvre, and in the neighborhood of that royal castle, in the earlier part of the night of the 28d of August, 1572. Most of the persons of note among the Huguenots, to the number of several hundred, were lodged in the streets near the palace. The Admiral of Chatillon lay ill of his wound in his hotel, where his son-in-law, Telignj', and several others of his more intimate friends, also resided. The King of Navarre and the Prince of Condo were asleep in their apartments in the Louvre, Avith the principal gentlemen attached to their persons assembled around them, under cover of the same roof. Many Protestants who had not found accommodation in this quarter, were dis¬ persed over the other parts of the city; and in the Faubourg St. Grermain especially, on the other side of the river, the persons of rank of that party were collected together in considerable numbers. With feiv exceptions, all these individuals, though well aware that they dwelt in the midst of a hos¬ tile population, believed that they were in the The Massacre Begins. 53 meantime secure under the protection of their king ; and, trusting to the arrangements which he had made professedly for their safety, had retired to take their repose, unarmed, and fearing no evil. On the other hand, among their enemies all was active preparation for the great blow that was about to be struck. Already had the armed bands, who were to commence the massacre, re¬ ceived their instructions and been drawn up around the dwellings of their unsuspecting vic¬ tims. Parties of the king’s troops and of the city guard were planted at the Louvre, in front of the residence of Ooligny, and at different stations in the streets, and along the bank of the river, as far east as the arsenal, all under the command of minions of Guise or of the Court. Throughout the town the houses tenanted by Protestants were all marked by white crosses on the doors. Meanwhile the different chiefs of the conspiracy were busily employed, some in riding from post to post, to see that the arrangements for the attack were complete, or to convey new orders from the 64 True Stories from History. Louvre ;—others assisting at the consultations which continued to be held by Catherine, Charles, and their associates, within that central seat of the blood}'- design, in which the preparations for it had been contrived and thus far brought to matu¬ rity, and where the match was now about to be applied to that well-laid train, in the explosion of which so many thousands of helpless and innocent human beings were miserably to perish. As the night advanced, however, the tranquillity to which the Protestants had resigned themselves, gave place, among some of them, to considerable perplexity and alarm. The different movements which Avere going on in the neighborhood of the palace—the frequent opening and shutting of the gates, as couriers departed to, or arrived from, the several parts of the city with which it was neces¬ sary to be in communication—the introduction of quantities of arms into that stronghold—the con¬ stant passing of horsemen and pedestrians bearing torches along the streets—and all the increasing- bustle unavoidably attendant upon the eve of so The Massacre Begins. 55 'terrible an enterprise, had awakened from their sleep many of those who were lodged in the •quarter principally disturbed by these noises, raising from their beds they left their houses and proceeded to the Louvre, in order, if possible, to ascertain the meaning ef sueh unusual commotion. On addressing their inquiries to the soldiers whom they found stationed around the palace, they were informed that the whole was occasioned merely by the preparations for a nocturnal fete which the Court was about to give. This answer was ambiguous rather than literally false. Meanwhile it would appear that Catherine had not yet succeeded in working up the froward and irresolute temper of her son to the pitch of daring at which he would venture actually to give orders for commencing the massacre. It seems to have been originally intended that the signal for the murderers to fall upon their prey should sound from the city, immediately before daybreak, or about half-past two in the morning. But the un¬ decided state of the King’s mind determined 56 True Stories from History. Catherine to take advantage of a moment of ex¬ citement in which he had been prevailed upon to express his consent that they should proceed with the business, and to order the tocsin to be rung immediately from the steeple of the adjacent Church of St. Germain TAuxerrois. This was about midnight. As the bell flung its sounds of omen over the city and its suburbs, the people everywhere started from their slumbers. The windows of the Louvre, the Tuileries, and of many other public buildings and private residences, were lighted up with all haste. The tenants of other houses, fol¬ lowing these examples, the town was speedily illuminated in every part. Some time further, however, seems to have been spent in preparation on one side, and perplexity, terror, and confusion on the other, before the slaughter was begun. The agents commissioned to execute the plot were now all in motion. The order for striking the blow had gone forth and could not be recalled. Catherine’s purpose was attained, now that she The Massacre Begins. 57 had contrived to have the King committed to the terrible work. At half-past two, just as the dawn began to appear, the massacre began. The infu¬ riated soldiery, the abandoned bigot of the Papacy, the man who had his private malice to seek re¬ venge, all mingled in that awful hour, in the work of death. V. $ju Jptttfou 0f C 0 Xigits. OSSEINS, as already mentioned, commanded ^ the guard stationed in front of tlie Admiral’s house. Seeing the Duke of Cruise approaching at the head of a body of armed men, he immediately proceeded to make the dispositions already com certed between them. He first placed five or six soldiers opposite to each window of the house, that they might be ready to fire upon any one who should attempt to make his escape. He then knocked with violence at the gate of the court. This brought down the person who kept the keys, and who, on being informed that admission was desired to the Admiral by a messenger from the King, immediately opened the gate. Cosseins in¬ stantly fell upon the man, and despatched him by repeated strokes of his dagger. He then, fol- The Murder of Coligny. 59 lowed by bis men, forced bis way into tbe Court. Tbe attendants, in tbeir alarm and consternation, after a brief and ineffectual resistance, took refuge witbin tbe bouse, the door of which they shut. By this time all tbe inmateswere aroused; and means were forthwith taken to barricade the door, by bringing down tbe heaviest articles of furni¬ ture and placing them behind it. But these im¬ pediments did not long withstand the fury of the assailants. Having forced their way into the house, they rushed up the stairs to the rooms where the Admiral and his friends were. Coligny himself had already risen from the bed, and, seeing that all chance of defence was gone, had desired his friends to leave him, and to hasten, if it were yet possible, to secure their own safety by flight. On this all who were in the apartment with¬ drew except a servant named Nicholas Muss; and ascending to the upper part of the house, they got out by a window on the roof. Very few of them, however, effected their escape. The greater number were slain in the adjacent 60 Teue Stoeies from Histoey. Louse, through which they endeavored to gain the street. Meanwhile Cosseins, accompanied by a German of the name of Berne, one of the servants of the Duke of Guise, and several other persons, sud¬ denly rushed, with their drawn swords in their hands, into the room where Coligny was. The old man looked on them with an unmoved coun¬ tenance. “Are you not the Admiral?”—cried B£me, extending his sword towards him. “I am,” he replied calmly; and then fixing his eye upon the naked blade with which he was menaced, he added, “ Young man, you ought to have respected my age and my infirmity; but you will only shorten my life by a few days or hours. Yet I could have wished”—he continued, after a momentary pause, with the feelings natural to a soldier—“ I could have wished that I were to perish by the hand of a man, and not of this menial.” Berne then, uttering an oath, first thrust his The Murder of Coligny. 61 sword into his breast, and afterwards struck him with it repeatedly on the head. At the same time the rest assailed him with like ferocity, till he fell down dead upon the floor. The voice of the Duke of Guise was now heard from below, in¬ quiring if the deed were done? On being an¬ swered in the affirmative, he ordered them to throw the dead body from the window, that he might see with his own eyes whether or not it was really the Admiral they had slain. At first, when he looked on the hacked and blood-besmeared carcass, he could scarcely recognize it. But hav¬ ing bent down over it, and with his own hand wiped the face with a cloth, he exclaimed, “ Yes, I know it; it is he himself.” He then spurned it with his foot, and calling to his men,‘led them out of the court. As soon as the soldiers of the Duke had left the Admiral’s hotel, a party of the populace, hearing the tocsin ringing from the bell of the Palais de Justice, rushed into the street, and were soon col¬ lected in a tumultuous throng around and within G2 True Stories from History. the court and mansion which had just been the scene of such sanguinary atrocities. Having found, among the slain, the mangled body of Coligny, they gathered round it with eager curiosity, and vied with each other in heaping mockery and outrage on the senseless clay. Not satisfied with the disfigurement already inflicted upon it by those who had deprived it of life, they proceeded to hack and mutilate it till the gory mass scarcely retained a trace of humanity. One man cut off the head, and bearing it away with him, presented it to Charles and his mother, by whom, after being embalmed, it was sent to the Pope at Rome, or as other authorities assert, to Philip II. of Spain. Other monsters, imitating this example, tore off the hands, and the feet, and the ears. Afterwards the trunk was kicked and dragged about in the mire of the streets by one band of blood-stained revellers after’ another, for three days. It was at last taken to the gibbet at Montfaucon, and there hung up by the leg3. There this venerable noble- The Murder of Coligny. 68 man’s remains, naked, mutilated, and besmeared with all manner of defilement, swung in their iron chain from the gallows-tree. Charles and his mother, attended by a numerous suite, came to view the hideous spectacle. As the King gazed on it, one of his courtiers, who accompanied him, remarked that the smell was offensive. “ The body of a dead enemy,” replied Charles, repeating the expression of Vitellius at Cremona—“always smells sweet.” VI. % Ire lias sat xt tens ©«. o CV TILE the Admiral Coligny was thus "being ' * the victim of bigoted and infuriated hate, the blood of the devoted Huguenots was flowing with no less profusion at the Louvre, under the eyes of the King himself. Nangay, the Captain of the Guards, having repaired, with a party of his men, to the chambers occupied by the attendants of the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde, fell upon their victims before they had time to think of defence. They took from them what arms they happened to have in their possession, and then leading them down to the court in front of the palace, they slew them deliberately, one by one, while Charles looked on from the window, and urged them to take care that none escaped. It was impossible, however, that such a mas- The Massacre Goes On. 65 sacre could be effected without much noise and disorder, cut off, even as the sufferers were, from all help or means of resistance. The palace seems to have been filled with confusion and terror. Henry’s newly-married Queen, Margaret, has given us, in her memoirs, an account of so much of the frightful tragedy as fell under her own ob¬ servation. While she lay asleep in her own apart¬ ment, which was near that of her husband, she was awakened by some one knocking at the door, and crying out “ Navarre ! Navarre ! ” Her servant, thinking it was her husband, King Henry, quickly ran to the door. On opening it, a gentleman rushed in, bleeding from wounds in different parts of his person, and pursued by soldiers. As they did not hesitate to follow him into the chamber, he, seeking a place of refuge, threw himself on the bed where Margaret lay. Feeling herself caught hold of by the man, she sprang from the bed to the floor, where he fell with her, continuing to cling to her. She knew not whether the soldiers 5 66 True Stories from History, were seeking her life or his, and she was extremely agitated. At length Nangay, the Captain of the Guards, made his appearance and released her. He reproved the men for their violence, ordered them to leave the apartment, and granted to Mar¬ garet’s entreaties the life of the poor man who had sought refuge in her apartments. Margaret was then conducted into the apart¬ ments of her sister, Madame of Lorraine. As she was entering the ante-chamber, a gentleman, pur¬ sued by soldiers, was pierced by a halberd Within a few feet of her. At this sight she fainted. Nangay had already informed her of what was going on, and assured her that her husband was in safety beside the King. In truth Henry and the Prince of Conde had already been conducted to Charles, and received by him in a room where he sat in company with the chief contrivers of the massacre. As soon as they presented themselves he addressed them at some length, and after enumerating the various causes of complaint he conceived himself to have The Massacre Goes Oh. 67 against tlie party to which they had belonged, he concluded by announcing to them that they must either consent immediately to change their religion, or prepare to undergo the fate which they had seen inflicted on so many of their friends. In reply the two young princes ventured to remind their royal kinsman of the promises and assurances by which he had drawn them to his Court, and the other considerations entitling them to have their opin¬ ions respected, and their lives preserved. Their remonstrances were in vain. The utmost they could obtain was a respite of three days, before the termination of which they consented to go to mass, and thus escaped death, though they did not re¬ cover their liberty. While these events were taking place, the alarm- bell sounded from the Palais cle Justice. This was the signal for all the subordinate agents of the conspiracy in the different parts of the town to commence operations. Tavanncs, and several of his associates, immediately appeared on horseback in the streets, and riding about in all directions, 68 True Stories from History. called out to the people to kill the Huguenots, telling them that such was the command of the King, who desired that not a single heretic should he suffered to escape. From this moment the slaughter was universal and indiscriminate. In¬ flamed with the wildest fury of religious hatred, to which, in many cases, fear, revenge, and other malignant passions added double force, the multitude set no bounds to their ferocity and cruelty. Persons of both sexes and of all ages equally fell victims to their unpitying rage. Every house supposed to be tenanted by persons of the obnoxious religion was broken into. The inmates sometimes attempted to fly or to hide themselves, but rarely offered any resistance. It was all headlong fury on one side, and astonish¬ ment and consternation on the other. Hor were all those who perished Protestants. Many took ad¬ vantage of the confusion of this popular tempest to satiate their private and personal enmities, and to wreak on a brother of the same faith the hoarded hatred of years. All the worst passions of the The Massacre Goes On. 69 human heart were let loose; but their one wild cry was blood! blood! On that terrible Sabbath,* blood reeked from the principal streets of Paris, as from a field of battle. The bodies of the slaughtered, of men, of women, of children, of infants, were heaped to¬ gether into carts, and so carried down and thrown into the river, in which they might be seen every¬ where floating and tumbling, while its waters were turned red by the blood that flowed from them. The general description which de Thou gives us of the horrors of the scene, is exceedingly striking. “ The people,” he says, “ incited against their fellow-countrymen by the captains and lieutenants of the city guard, who were flying about in all directions, rioted in the phrenzy of a boundless license, and all things wore an aspect of woe and affright. The streets resounded with the up¬ roar of the crowds rushing on to slaughter and iflunder, while ever and anon the lamenting cries of persons dying or in peril, met the ear, or the * St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24tli, fell on Sunday. 70 True Stories from History. carcasses of those who had been murdered were seen tossed forth from the windows of their dwell¬ ings. The courts, and even the inner apartments of many houses, were filled with the slain; dead bodies were rolled or dragged along the mire of the highways; the bloody puddle overflowed the kennels, and ran down, in different places, to the river; an innumerable multitude perished, not only of men, but of women and children.”* * Thuani ITistoria, vol. iii. VII. infoilnhtal Victims. TN the contemporary history of the times, we have many individual pictures of suffering and outrage of the most atrocious character. From these we select a few, in order to convey a clearer idea of the horrors of this infamous mas- .sacre. The attendants of Coligny and the Protestant gentlemen who resided in his house, fled — as before stated—by a window in the roof. A few -of them succeeded, by this means, to elude their ^pursuers, for a time. Among these was the young Teligny, recently married to the daughter of the Admiral—a gentleman of distinguished qualiflca- tions, and universally regarded by his party with the warmest attachment. He had been observed making Ids way along the roof of a house by 72 True Stories from History. several persons belonging to tlie Court. But, although he was one of those whom they had been particularly charged not to allow to escape, they could not find it in their heart to kill him, so much beloved was he by all to whom he was known. He was afterwards discovered by some sol¬ diers in a garret, and even they, upon learning his name, went .away, and left him unharmed. But some other soldiers, belonging to the guard of the Duke of Anjou, coming shortly after to the place where he was hid, despatched him and several persons of the Admiral’s suite who were with him. This they did, it is said, at the com¬ mand of their captain,—a person who had been, heretofore, the familiar friend of Teligny. But all such connections between those not profess- • ing the same faith, were now broken and for¬ gotten. Among others who perished was Peter Ramus, one of the most intrepid spirits of modern times, and whose whole life nearly had been as stormy as its termination was now miserable. He was, at Individual Victims. 73 this time, Professor of Philosophy and Eloquence in the College of Presles, which stood in the south-eastern quarter of the city. He had held this dignity for more than twenty years, although the civil commotions by which the kingdom had so long been agitated had frequently compelled him to retire for a season from the performance of his duties. He had, however, returned to Paris, and to his academic sanctuary, on the gen¬ eral pacification of 1570. Being a zealous oppo¬ nent not only of the ancient religion, but likewise of the philosophy which had long reigned in the schools, he was regarded with peculiar enmity by the adherents of the prevailing faith. It is said that the murderers were sent to his college, within which he had concealed himself, by one Jacques l Charpentier, his personal enemy. Being found by them, he offered to purchase his life by the payment of a considerable sum of money. Never¬ theless, he was massacred, and thrown from the window of a high chamber to the ground; after which they dragged him along the streets, the 74 True Stories from History. body being all the while scourged by some scholars, spurred on by their masters to this indignity. Although, as has been said, the victims in gen¬ eral made scarcely any attempt even to defend themselv r es, still several instances occurred in which the person attacked did not fall before he had maintained a severe struggle with his assail¬ ants. Among others was the Sieur de Guerchy, who, wrapping his mantle round his arm, fought with his sword, the only weapon he had, till he sunk under the blows that fell upon him from all sides. Tavervy, also, a lieutenant of the Patrole, when the blood-thirsty mob attacked his house, de¬ fended himself, by the assistance of one of his soldiers, with great bravery, as long as his ammu¬ nition lasted. He was at last, however, over¬ powered. Being killed, and his furniture and jewels carried off, the soldiers seized upon his sister who was in bed, sick and at the point of death, and dragged her naked through the streets, Individual Victims. 75 till she breathed her last under their torturing hands. But we cannot afford space for any more of these horrid relations. Of the persons massacred, the greater number were killed with daggers and poniards. These were treated with least cruelty. Many of those who met death otherwise were cruelly tortured—mutilated of their limbs, mocked and outraged by torments still sharper than the points of the swords with which they were pierced. Several old men being seized and brought down to the river, were first knocked on the head against the stones of the quay, and then thrown half dead into the water. In one of the streets a number of boys of nine or ten years of age were seen dragging about an infant yet in swaddling- clothes, by a rope tied round its neck. Another little child, on being laid hold of, began to laugh and to play with the beard of the stranger in whose arms it found itself. But the monster, un¬ touched by its simple innocence, thrust his dagger into its bosom, and then tossed it from him into 76 True Stories from History. the river. “The paper would weep”—says the chronicler—“ if I were to recite the horrible blas¬ phemies which were uttered by these monsters and incarnate devils during the fury of so many slaughters. The uproar, the continual sound of arquebuses and pistols, the lamentable and af¬ frighting cries of those in agony, the vociferations % of the murderers, the dead bodies thrown from the windows, or dragged through the mire with strange bootings and hissings, the stones which were thrown against them, and the pillaging of more than six hundred houses—all this, long con¬ tinued, c^uld only present to the eyes of the reader a perpetual image of extreme misery in all its forms.” * By the fortunate mismanagement of the person charged with the conduct of the massacre in the Faubourg St. Germain, the greater number of Pro¬ testants lodged in that quarter of the city were providentially enabled to effect their escape. Among these were the Sieur de Fontenay, the * Memoires de l’Estat, i. 313. Individual Victims. 77 Vidame of Cliatres, the Count of Montgomery, and many other noblemen and gentlemen of dis¬ tinction. They first received intelligence of what was go¬ ing forward on the other side of the river, about five o’clock in the morning, when a man, who had come across in a boat, brought them the accounts of the extraordinarjf state in which the town was. Disbelieving the assertion of their informer that the atrocities which he reported were perpetrated by the order of the King, and convinced that his Majesty himself must be in danger from the au¬ thors of the massacre of their Protestant brethren, many of them were on the point of proceeding across the river with the intention of lending their aid to protect the royal person and authority. But they soon had reason to repent their rashness. While about to step into the boats they saw ap¬ proaching them from the opposite side, about two hundred soldiers of the King’s Guard, who imme¬ diately discharged upon them a volley of musket¬ ry. Looking up they beheld Charles himself at 78 True Stories from History. the window of the Hotel de Bourbon, not only encouraging the soldiers, but joining them in the attack. He was firing as fast as the guns could be handed to him, and calling out to the men below, with passionate imprecations, to make all haste, as the Huguenots were already taking flight. On observing this they lost not a moment in attempting their escape; and some on foot, some on horseback, though many of those who were mounted were without boots or spurs; they fled in all directions, no one thinking of saving anything else but his life. The soldiers rushing into their houses, pillaged them of whatever they contained, and massacred, at the same time, many of the in¬ habitants who had not time to make their escape. The slaughter continued without intermission till five o’clock in the afternoon, when proclama¬ tion was made by sound of trumpet in the King’s name, commanding all the citizens to retire to their houses. But at an early hour on the follow¬ ing morning, the populace, refreshed by their few hours of rest, recommenced their bloody work. Individual Victims. 79 During the whole of that day and the next, the butchery of the unhappy Huguenots was carried on with undiminished ferocity, the infuriated rab- ble only stopping at last when they could find no more victims to destroy. Meanwhile the couriers which had been de¬ spatched to the provinces with letters from the King to the several governors, had advertised them of what was passing in the capital, and directed them to follow the same course with regard to the persons belonging to the obnoxious faith in the principal towns of their respective districts. The consequence was that the same melancholy scenes which had been acted in Paris were repeated in many parts of France. At Meaux, at Troyes, at Orleans, at Bourges, at Lyons, at Toulouse, at Rouen, at Bordeaux, and in various other places, the mob, encouraged and assisted by the authori¬ ties, committed the wildest excesses of bloodshed and spoliation. After the massacre was over, it became the object of the Court, in order to rid itself of the 80 True Stories from History. odium attaching to so foul a treachery, to make it appear that the blood which had flowed so pro¬ fusely, had been shed only in self-defence, inas¬ much as a conspiracy of the Huguenots had been, in fact, on the eve of breaking out, when its authors were thus suddenly overpowered and destroyed. The papers of Coligny had been ex¬ amined in vain for anything which could be brought forward as affording even a shadow of proof of this pretended plot. Another expedient was, therefore, resorted to. Two eminent individ¬ uals of the Protestant party, Cavagnes, a counsel¬ lor of the Parliament of Toulouse, and Briquemaut, a retired military officer of rank, both persons of venerable age, having been thrown into prison during the massacre, were brought to trial on the charge of having been implicated with the Admiral in the treason for which he suffered death. The judges before whom they were brought in the first instance, finding that no evidence was produced against them except the assertions of their accus¬ ers, had the courage to refuse to declare them Individual Victims, 81 guilt} r . A more compliant tribunal, however, was subsequently found. After an unsuccessful at¬ tempt had been made to seduce them into a confess¬ ion, by a promise that their lives should be saved, sentence of death, confiscation of goods, and at¬ tainder was pronounced against them. They were accordingly dragged on hurdles from the prison of the Conciergerie to the Plaee de Gr&ve, and there hanged. These unfortunate persons had been well known to Charles, who had been wont to make them many professions of his favor and respect. Both he and his mother, however, chose to regale their eyes with the sight of the agonies of the dying men. For this purpose the King left the bedside of his young consort, the beautiful and admirable Elizabeth of Austria, who had that morning presented him with a daughter, the first fruit of their union, and also the last, Having arrived at an early hour in the evening at the Hotel de Ville, the royal guests sat down to a sumptuous repast in the great hall of that building, the windows of which overlooked the place of exe- 6 82 True Stories from: History.. eution. That the party might have time to enjoy the preliminary entertainment provided for them, the performance of the fatal ceremony was delajmd till ten o’clock, although the gray-haired prisoners, sitting hound and bareheaded on their hurdles, were exposed, during a great part of this interval, to sufferings much worse than death from the piti¬ less and immitigable hate of the individuals around the scaffold. At last, at the hour we have men¬ tioned, the windows of the hall were thrown open, and Charles, with his mother and his two brothers, having advanced in the midst of a blaze of torches, the executioner proceeded to his horrid task, while they looked on with fixed, attention. yiii. giui founts af tlrt SUssarr*. LTHOUGH the general carnage at Paris ter- minated after tlie first three days, individuals continued to be occasionally fallen upon and put to death nearly throughout the week. After the cessation of the massacre, the city presented a hideous aspect. In many of the principal streets, the pillaged bodies and separated limbs of the slaughtered still lay putrefying on the ground. These disgusting relics crowded especially the banks of the river, along which a sort of market was established, where the relations of the dead might be seen bargaining for the corpses with those who had dragged them from the river. Many, however, were carried down by the current beyond the bounds of the city. Between the fifth and thirteenth of September, no fewer than eleven 84, True Stories from History. hundred bodies were cast ashore and interred in the neighborhood of -St. Cloud, Auteuil, and Chaillot. More than a month elapsed before all the dead were removed from the streets; and even at the distance of more than a year, bodies were occasionally found on the roofs of houses, in cellars, or other less-frequented places. The blood of Coligny is said to have remained distinguish¬ able on the wall of his hotel for more than a cen¬ tury. “There are old men still alive”-—says a French writer in 1826—“ who affirm that they have known persons who had seen and touched that blood.” The numbers of those who perished in this ter¬ rible convulsion have, as was to be expected in a case so much open to conjecture, been variously estimated. They have been set down at from thirty thousand to one hundred thousand. It is probably near the truth to estimate them at fifty thousand. Those who survived were for a mo¬ ment stupefied by the blow, and the Papists them¬ selves seemed paralyzed with shame and remorse. Incidents of t n e Massacre. 85 Charles was as one struck by avenging retribution, lie became restless, sullen, and dejected, and labored under a slow fever to the day of his death. The lives of the young Prince of Conde and Henry of Navarre had been spared on condition of their embracing the Romish faith. To this they merely pretended to accede, as both at¬ tempted to escape from Paris immediately after¬ wards. Conde alone was successful, and placed himself at the head of the Huguenots; and this party, which Charles had hoped to exterminate at one blow, soon mustered an army of eighteen thousand men, who kept possession of Rochelle, Montauban, and many castles, fortresses, and smaller towns. Thus Charles, and Catherine, his mother, gained nothing by their infamous treach¬ ery, but a character for perfidy and cruelty which has been unequalled in the annals of history. Some of the most eminent among the intended victims were fortunate enough, through various providences, to escape the fate which involved so 86 True Stories from History. many of tlieir friends. "We have already detailed tlie circumstances to which the lords and gentle¬ men lodged in the Faubourg St. Germain, were indebted for their preservation. Others were saved by having withdrawn from the capital alto¬ gether, before the fatal day, in consequence of the apprehensions they entertained, or by having de¬ clined to come hither at all. Among others whom a kind Providence pro¬ tected was young Bethune, a son of the Sieur de Kosny, whom his father had placed in the service of the Prince of Navarre. He was only in his twelfth year, and as soon as he was -left in Paris, he proceeded to apply himself to the studies suited to his age, for which purpose his residence had been fixed on the south side of the river, in the neighborhood of the colleges. On the night of the twenty-third, he had retired early, intending to rise in the morning somewhat sooner than usual, to present himself at Court. About three o’clock he was awakened by the cries of the people in. the streets, and the alarm-bells which were ringing Incidents ©f the Massacre. 87 from all the steeples. Ilis tutor and his valet-de- chambre had already both left the house to ascer¬ tain the nature of the commotion, and no one re¬ mained within except the landlord. This man was a Protestant, but in this emergency he ear¬ nestly urged his youug lodger to accompany him to mass, to save his house from pillage, and both of them from being massacred. Instead, however, of following this advice, Bethune resolved to en¬ deavor to find ljis way to the college of Burgundy, the principal of which, he was sure, would not refuse him an asylum. Accordingly, putting on his scholars’-gown, and taking a book under his arm, he set out. In the street he was stopped by a party of soldiers, who were proceeding to use him roughly. But one of them having snatched from him the book which he carried, it fortu¬ nately turned out to be a breviary. The circum¬ stance immediately procured him his liberty, and he was allowed to proceed on his way. lie was again detained, in another street, and a third time at the entry to the cloister of St. Bennet, but 88 True Stories from History. he found his book, on both occasions, his sufficient passport. As he hastened along, however, he be¬ held the mob everywhere breaking into and plun¬ dering the houses of the Huguenots, and, with the wildest cries, butchering indiscriminately men, women, and children—sights which could not fail to fill him with considerable impatience to reach his intended place of refuge. He at last arrived at the gate of the college, but here the porter for some time resolutely refused to give him admis¬ sion. He contrived, however, to subdue the man’s obstinacy by giving him some money he happened to have in his pocket, and he consented to carry up his name and his request to the principal. That person, with a compassion and courage but rarely exemplified during this terrible crisis, immediately came to the gate and admit¬ ted his young friend, although greatly embar¬ rassed how to dispose of him, in consequence of there being two priests at that moment in his chamber, who had just been telling him of the design that had been formed to exterminate the Incidents of the Massacre. 89 Huguenots, even to tlie infants at the breast, after the example, as they expressed it, of the Sicilian Vespers. He contrived, however, to place Bethune in a secret apartment, where he lay concealed for three days, no one even visiting him except a trusty servant of the principal, who brought him his food. At the end of this period, the general massacre being over, two armed men, sent by his father, arrived at the college to inquire after him. In a few days he received directions from his father to remain at Paris, and proceed with his studies, and, in order that he might do so without danger, to go to mass, as his royal master and many others had consented to do. One or two others, as well as Navarre and Conde, were permitted to live by the forbearance of the authors of the massacre. The illustrious l’Hospital, who, although he continued in the pro¬ fession of the ancient faith, was universally sus¬ pected to be very nearly a Protestant at heart, had resigned the Chancellorship about four years be¬ fore, and was at this time residing at his country 80 True Stories from History. scat not far from Paris. His friends, apprehensive for his safety, urged liim either to fly, or at least to put his house in a state of defence. But, conscious of no crime, the old man refused to do anything which might seem to have been dictated by a sense of guilt. Even when a party of horse was seen advancing upon his residence, he would not permit his gates to be closed against them. Fortunately, however, while these assailants were on the point of massacring him, another party arrived, bringing express orders from the King that his life should be spared. On being informed that it had been determined to pardon him, he coolly replied, “ I did not know that I had done anything to deserve either pardon or punishment.” The daughter of the ex-Chancellor was at Paris during the time of the massacre, and she also had the good fortune to save her life, through the pro¬ tection of the Duchess of Guise. Another person whom Charles spared of his own accord, was his surgeon, Ambrose Par <5, who, as already mentioned, was in attendance to dress Incidents of the Massacre. 91 the wounds of the Admiral Coligny, after his attempted assassination. Par£, who was one of the most eminent men of his profession of whom that age could boast, lived, although a Protestant, in the enjoyment of the greatest familiarity with Charles. Ou the evening before the massacre, the King sent for him, and placing him in a room near his own chamber, ordered him to remain there without stirring, remarking that it was not reason¬ able that one so serviceable in saving the lives of others, should lose his own. While the slaughter was going on, his Majesty endeavored to persuade Pare to change his re¬ ligion. He is said to have replied, boldly, “ By the light of God, Sire, I cannot doubt that you well remember having promised, as the conditions on which I engaged never to disobey you, that there were three things you would never ask me to do, namely, to be present at a battle, to quit your service, or to go to mass.’' The frank and gay tone of this answer seems to have put Charles in a good humor, and Pare 92 True Stories from History. was allowed to retain liis religion, as well as Iris life. Tlie King afterwards came to Pare, and con¬ fessed to him that ever since the commencement of the massacre, he had felt as if he had been in a high fever, and that the figures of the murdered people, with their faces besmeared with blood, seemed to start up every moment before his eyes, both while he slept and when he was awake. On this Pare seized the opportunity of recalling the royal mind to sentiments different from those which had recently possessed it, and the conse¬ quence was the appearance of an edict the next day, commanding all to abstain, on pain of death, from any further acts of slaughter or pillage. IX. fHnlin h Stjtrrnas. m HERE were few who had a narrower escape from the St. Bartholomew than the celebrated Philip de Mornay, afterwards so well known both as a soldier, a politician, and a man of letters- Although at this time only in his twenty-third year, De Mornay had already not only travelled over a great part of Europe, but had so much dis¬ tinguished himself by his exertions, both with sword and pen, in the Protestant cause, as to have, in some sort, taken his rank among the leaders of his party. Having returned to France from England about the end of July, he immediately proceeded to Paris to join Coligny and the other Huguenot gentle¬ men who had assembled to witness the royal mar¬ riage. Yet, we are told, he was far from being 94 True Stories from History. without apprehension as to the designs of the Court, and felt so little sympathy with the prevail¬ ing feelings of his party, that on the day when the nuptial ceremony was performed, he scarcely left his lodgings. On the following Friday, the 22d, he was preparing to return to his country-seat, and had taken leave of Coligny with that intention, when, soon after, his German servant came and informed him of the attempt that had been made on the Ad¬ miral’s life. On receiving this intelligence, he im¬ mediately ran out to the street, and was one of those who accompanied the wounded man to his hotel. From this moment his fears of some im¬ pending mischief became stronger than ever. He made his mother, who had been with him, take her departure for the country without further delay. But he resolved, notwithstanding her en¬ treaties, to remain in Paris, and to share the fate of his friends, whatever it might be Following the example of many of the other Huguenot gentlemen, he now took apartments near the Admiral, but fortunately they could not Philip dk Mornay. 95 be got ready for him before Monday, and be was therefore obliged to remain till then at bis former lodgings. On returning thither, at a late hour on Saturday night, from a visit to Coligny, he was informed of certain movements which had been observed among the soldiers and some of the citi¬ zens. Next morning, having despatched his Ger¬ man servant before five o’clock to the house of the Admiral, the man soon after returned, and gave him an account of the dreadful state in which that part of the city was. lie rose instantly, and dressed himself with the intention of leaving the house, but before he could get ready, the mob were in the street, and to attempt to escape was impossible. Fortunately his landlord, although of the opposite faith, was disposed to do everything in his power to save him. lie had just time to burn his papers before the party who had been sent to seek for him found their way to his apart¬ ments, and he was enabled to elude their search by concealing himself till they took their depart¬ ure. That day he was not again molested, but on 96 True Stories from History. the following morning his landlord informed him that the frenzy of the populace had broken out anew, and that it was no longer in his power to shelter him. By this time the murderers were in the neighboring house, the master of which they massacred, and afterwards threw his body out of one of the windows. On hearing this, Be Mornay, putting on a black dress, of a very plain fashion, and his sword, im¬ mediately descended to the street, and had the good fortune to escape notice, while the mob were still engaged in pillaging the adjacent house. Having crossed the river he proceeded onward, not, how¬ ever, without frequent exposure to the greatest dan¬ ger. His intention was to take refuge with an at¬ torney by the name of Girard, who used to manage the affairs of his family, and who would not, he trusted, refuse him an asylum. On arriving at the house he found Girard himself standing at the door. The moment was a critical one, for the Captain of the Watch was just passing. However, Girard had the presence of mind to receive him in such a Philip dr Mornat. 97 manner as to occasion no suspicion. Haying entered the house, he took his place at a desk, and employed himself in writing, like the other clerks. Unfortunately, however, the persons belonging to his household had conjectured that this house would be his hiding-place, and thither they came, one after another, to seek for him or to share his retreat. This was soon remarked, and during the night an order came to Girard to deliver up the person whom he kept concealed in his house. To remain here longer, therefore, was impossible. At an early hour in the morning, he set out alone to endeavor to escape from the city, or to find some other place of retreat. As he was leaving the house, a young man who had been his clerk came up to him, and, greatly to his comfort, offered to get him out by the Porte St. Martin, where he was known to the soldiers on guard, having formerly been one of them. On reaching this gate, how¬ ever, they found to their dismay that orders had been given that it should not be opened that morning. They were therefore obliged to proceed 7 98 True Stories from History, to the adjoining Porte St. Denis, with the guard of which the clerk had no more acquaintance than De Mornay himself, and where it does not appear that the latter was likely to derive any advantage- whatever from the presence of his companion, if, indeed, the circumstance of that person being only in his slippers should not rather expose them to greater risk of detention. However, to the Porte St. Denis they went, and, after being questioned, were actually allowed to pass—De Mornay having represented himself as an attorney’s clerk, who had got leave from his master to go, during the vacation, to Eouen, his native place, to see his relations. But the unlucky slippers were destined, after all, to work them the very mischief that De Mornay had feared. They had not been long gone, when it occurred to one of the guard that this was rather a strange attire for a person about to make so long a journey as to Eouen. The man having mentioned his suspicions to his comrades, it was instantly resolved to despatch four armed men after the fugitives. They were overtaken Philip de Mornay. 99 near the village of La Vilette, and immediately brought back in the hands of a mob of the coun¬ try people, who could hardly be prevented from tearing the prisoners to pieces on the way. The clerk, by his conduct, added not a little to the danger. Entirely losing his presence of mind as they dragged his master along, with the avowed intention of throwing him into the river, he swore vehemently that De Mornay was no Huguenot— thus effectually revealing who the captive was. With more prudence De Mornay himself barely remarked that he was convinced they would be sorry to put an innocent man to death from having mistaken him for another person, and assured them that, if they would take him into some house, he W'ould give them such references to persons in the city as would satisfy them on inquiry that the account he had given of himself was correct. He at last prevailed upon them to comply with his request, and some of them accompanied him into a house in the suburbs. But now that he had 100 True Stories from History. obtained this reprieve, he hardly knew how to avail himself of it. At first he thought of throwing himself out of the window, but on reflection resolved to make an attempt to get out of their hands by sheer assur¬ ance, and, when they asked for his promised refer¬ ences, he boldly named, as persons to whom he was well known, the Messieurs de Rambouillet and the Cardinal, their brother. This he did, partly in the hope of overawing them somewhat by these imposing names, but principally because he knew they could not easily find access to personages of such rank, and would therefore, he imagined, be forced to take his asserted acquaintanceship on trust. But those with whom he had to deal were not to be so put off. Considering, probably, that an attorney’s clerk could hardly be altogether without some friends of lower degree than nobles and cardinals, they insisted upon his giving them other references. At this moment the wagon from Rouen made its appearance. As he had said that he belonged to that city, some one proposed Philip de Morn ay. 101 to stop the vehicle in order to see if any of the persons in it knew anything of him. When they found that none of the passengers had ever heard of his name, their conviction that he was an im¬ postor became more confirmed than ever, and the cry to have him thrown into the river was raised again with renewed violence. Some further contention consumed a little more time, and while they were yet wrangling, two messengers whom, on De Mornay’s reference, they had sent off to Girard, returned with his answer. De Mornay had written on an open note to him these words ,—“ Sir, I am detained by the people of the Porte and Faubourg of St. Denis, who will not believe that I am Philip Mornay, your clerk, to whom you have given leave to go to see his relations at Kouen during the vacation. I beg you will certify to them the truth of this state¬ ment, that they may permit me to proceed on my journey.” Girard wrote on the back of the note the desired attestation, with the assurance that the individual in their hands was neither a rebel nor 102 True Stories from History. a seditious person, and subscribed bis signature. The suspicions they bad entertained were, there¬ fore, removed, and they resolved not only to set him free, but, by making some amends for the in¬ justice, to escort him back to the spot where they had apprehended him. He got out of their hands at last about nine o’clock, and lost no time in pur¬ suing his journey. At Chantilly he obtained a horse from his friend, Montmorency, one of the few who had es¬ caped the massacre by leaving Paris in time, un¬ der the apprehension of the impending treachery. At last, though not without some other perils and providential escapes, he arrived in safety at bis estate in Normandy, on Friday the twent} T -ninth. Here; however, he found his family and establish¬ ment dispersed, his mother having been obliged to take refuge in the house of a neighbor. In the course of a few days he embarked at Dieppe for England, and after encountering a severe storm, which at one time threatened to drive them back to Calais, and the terrors of which were augmented Philip de Mobnay. 103 by the cries of numbers of women and children, flying like himself, from the blood-drenched land of their birth, he reached the port of Eye, on the ninth day after the massacre. X. SJabatiu be Jintpms, HE foregoing narrative of the escape of De L Mornay is derived from the accountgiven ns "by Madame de Feuqueres, who afterwards be¬ came his wife. This lady, the widow of M. de Feuqueres, was also in Paris during the St. Bar¬ tholomew, and the dangers to which she was her¬ self exposed, were still more formidable. Her hus¬ band had died of a wound received in battle about three years before, leaving with his young widow a daughter six months old. Soon after this she lost her father and her sister, and the father of her late husband. To add to her distresses, she had been stripped of all her property by the civil confusions of the time, and was almost without the means of * MfSmoirea et Correspondanee de Duplessis-Mornay. Paris, i824. Madame de Feuqueres. 105 existence. This load of suffering broke down her health, which she never afterwards entirely recov¬ ered. At length, on the conclusion of the peace of 1570, she came to Paris with her daughter, on the invitation of her mother, who continued in the profession of the ancient religion, although the rest of the family had embraced the principles of the Reformation. From this time she had remained in the French capital. On the morning of the Sunday on Avliich the massacre commenced, she was Still in bed, when one of the maid-servants, who was a Protestant, came running into her room in a state of great terror, to inform her that in the heart of the town, where she had just been, the mob were killing everybody. Without feeling any great alarm, Madame de Feuqueres—who had intended to go that day to the Louvre, to take leave of the Prin¬ cess of Condo, and some others of her friends, preparatory to her proposed departure to the provinces—rose and put on her dress, when look¬ ing from her window, she perceived the whole 106 True Stories from History. street in commotion. Parties of military were mixed with tlie crowd, and all wore white crosses in their hats. Convinced now of the reality of her danger, she sent off to her mother, with whom her brother also lived, to inquire the meaning of the disturb¬ ance. Meanwhile, a message was brought her from her maternal uncle, the Bishop of Senlis, who desired her to put out of the way whatever articles she had of greatest value, and promised that he would immediately send some one to find her. This, however, the Bishop forgot to do, or else found it impossible. After waiting, therefore, for about half an hour, and seeing the rioters fast approaching, she deemed it best to send off her daughter by a female servant to an officer in the king’s household, who was a relation and one of her best friends. This gentleman received the child, and also sent to its mother to say that, if she chose, he would give her too an asylum. She gladly accepted this offer, and leaving her lodg¬ ings for that purpose, about eight o’clock, she had Madame de Feuqueres. 107 scarcely gone when a part of the mob entered her house, in search of her. When they could not find their expected victim, they proceeded to pil¬ lage the house. In the meantime, other Protestant friends came one after another, to claim the pro¬ tection of the same roof which sheltered her, till at length about forty persons were concealed in the house. Lest suspicion should be excited by the purchase of the unusual quantity of provisions re¬ quired for so many guests, they sent for what articles they wanted to another part of the town. All these precautions, however, proved eventually insufficient to ward off the apprehended danger. On Tuesday it was ordered that the house should be searched. By this time, fortunately, the greater number of those who had crowded to it on the first breaking out of the massacre, had left, and taken refuge elsewhere, so that there only re¬ mained Madame de F. and another lady, with their attendants. In the extremity which had now arrived, she was forced to conceal herself in a loft above a granary, where her ears were pierced by 108 True Stories from History. the wild cries of men, women, and children, whom they were butchering in the streets, and she was thrown, she tells us, into such perplexity and de¬ spair that she was at times tempted to rush down' from her hiding-place, and deliver herself up at once into the hands of the infuriated populace. What principally distracted her was the thought of her daughter, whom she had been obliged to leave below, in the charge of a servant. This per¬ son, however, succeeded in conveying the child, through the midst of numerous dangers, to the house of a relation of its mother, with whom it remained in safety. But it was now judged advis¬ able that Madame de F. also should, as soon as possible, leave her present asylum. It was impos¬ sible for her to venture to her mother’s residence, as a guard had been placed round the house. She therefore resolved, as her only resource, to throw herself upon the compassion of a person who had, some time before, married one of her maid-ser¬ vants, and who was now captain of the watch in his quarter, and in that character one of the com- i Madame de Feuqueres. 109 missioned agents of the massacre. This man gave her admission, and permitted her to remain in his house all the night, though not without making her listen to many violent invectives against the Huguenots, and insisting with her in warm terms to go to mass. On the following day, at noon, she left this retreat, and set out to find her way to the house of the President Tambonneau, in the cloister of Notre Dame, who had been apprized of her situa¬ tion by her mother, and solicited to afford her protection. She effected her entry into the house without being observed, and being placed in the study, she remained there unmolested during the rest of that day and the greater part of the next. On the evening of Thursday, however, information reached the family that the mob were about to visit them. There was not a moment to be lost, and the hunted fugitive was again transferred to the house of a corn-merchant, an acquaintance of her protector, and a person on whose fidelity they could rely. Here she remained till the following 110 True Stories from History. Wednesday. She was concealed in an upper chamber, and her food was brought to her by one of the females of the family, who concealed it in her apron for fear of being discovered by other inmates of the house. During this time her moth¬ er had sent to implore her to go to mass, but she steadily refused to yield to the proposal. At last she determined to make an attempt by herself - to escape from Paris. On Wednesday, about eleven o’clock in the morning, she descended from her lurking-place, walked down to the river, and stepped on board of a boat which was going to Sens. She soon, however, found herself ex¬ posed to more imminent danger than ever. When they reached the Pont de la Tournelle, the boat was stopped by the guard, and their passports demanded from them on board. The others showed theirs, but Madame de P. had none. On this the soldiers, eagerly exclaiming that she was a Huguenot, and must be drowned, forced her to leave the boat. Seeing herself thus on the point of being put to death, sh© besought them to con- Madame de Feuqueres. Ill duct her to the house of M. de Voisenon, Auditor of Accounts, who was one of her friends, assuring them that he would answer for her. They at last agreed to comply with her request, and two of their number were sent with her. When they arrived at the house, the soldiers remained at the door, and allowed her to walk up stairs alone. She had thus an opportunity of hastily intimating to her friend the situation in which she was, and entreat¬ ing his interference to save her life. He imme¬ diately went down to the soldiers, and assured them that he had often seen the person they had brought to him in the house of Madame d’Eprunes, the mother of the Bishop of Senlis, whose family were well known to be good Catholics. The men, however, told him it was not about Madame d’Eprunes and her family they came to inquire, but about the female now present. All the reply of the Auditor to this was, that he had known her to be a good Catholic formerly, but what she might be now he could not say. Fortunately, at this point of the conversation, a 112 True Stories from History. woman who was known to the soldiers came np, and asked them what they were going to do with the person they had got in their hands. “ Par- dien,” they answered, ‘'she is a Huguenot, and she must he drowned, for we see she is frightened.” “Why,” replied the woman, “you know me; I am no Huguenot; I go to mass every day; and yet I have been so frightened, that for these eight days past I have been in a fever.” “ In truth,” exclaimed one of the soldiers; “ I have been in the same state myself.” The two men at last con¬ sented to conduct their prisoner back to the boat, merely remarking, as they put her again on board, that if she had been a man she should not have escaped so easily. We must sum up very briefly the remaining hazards which Madame de Feuqueres ran in effect¬ ing her escape. The house of the corn-merchant in -which she had lain so long concealed, was pil¬ laged immediately after she left it. At the place where they landed for the night there was only one sleeping chamber at the inn, which she was Madame De Feuqueres. 113 obliged to occupy with two other women. She greatly feared that their suspicions would be ex¬ cited by her clothes, a part of which were fine and rich, while the rest of her attire was that of a ser¬ vant. Her apprehensions here, however, proved vain. Ou Thursday she left the boat, and proceeded on foot to the residence of the Chancellor l’Hospi- tal, a distance of about five leagues. They found the Chancellor’s house occupied by the guard which the King had sent for his protection. She therefore determined to take up her residence in the cottage of his vine-dresser—a poor man who treated her with the kindest hospitality. Here she remained for fifteen days, during which time the soldiers came to the village, searching every sus¬ pected house. But they were prevented from en¬ tering that in which she was concealed, in conse¬ quence of its being considered under the Chancel¬ lor’s guard. At last, when matters seemed to be some¬ what tranquillized, she set set out, accompanied 114 Trite Stories from History. by tlie vine-dresser, to Eprunes, a property be¬ longing to her grandmother, which she reached in safety. She was received here as one returned from the dead. From this she went to Buhy, now in possession of her eldest brother. Here she was exposed to new persecutions. Her brother—who had saved his life by consenting to go to mass— was still so alarmed that he refused to allow her to remain in his house, on her persisting in declining to accompany him to chapel.. With a very scanty supply of money she was obliged once more to set out on her travels. She went to Sedan, where she arrived on the first of November, and received the warmest welcome, and the supply of all her wants, from numerous friends, most of whom had, like herself, taken refuge here, after escaping from the Parisian massacre. She continued to reside in Sedan till her marriage with Philip de Morn ay, in January, 1576. XI. flu (gssrm flf ®itrsIral iu la firm. * ERHAPS the most extraordinary deliverance from the St. Bartholomew, of which an ac¬ count has come down to ns, was that of the Mar¬ shal de la Force. The Sieur de la Force, the father of the Marshal, was one of the Protestant gentlemen who were lodged, when the massacre broke out, in the Fau¬ bourg St. Germain. The first notice he received, on the morning of the fatal Sunday, of what was passing in the city, was from a person who had swam across the river to apprize him of his dan¬ ger. There were living with La Force his two sons, the youngest of whom, afterwards the Mar¬ shal, was now in his thirteenth year. Had the father thought but of his own safety, he probably might have been able, like many of his friends, to 116 True Stories from History. have effected liis escape. But some time was lost in getting his two boj^s in readiness to fly with him, and before they had left the house, it was broken into by the murderers. A man of the name of Martin was at the head of the party, who hay¬ ing made his men instantly disarm the prisoners, addressed himself to La Force, and told him with * ’ the most violent oaths, that his last moment was come. On La Force, however, offering him two thousand crowns to save the lives of himself and children, the ruffian and his band agreed to accept of this bribe. After having pillaged the house, they desired the father and his two sons to tie their handkerchief in the form of crosses around their hats, and to turn up the right sleeves of their coats, and then they all set out together. The river, as they crossed it, was already covered with dead bodies, and the same frightful tokens of the tragedy acting around them, strewed the courts of the Louvre and the other places through which they passed. At last they arrived at Martin’s house, and here La Force having been first bound Marshal de la Force. 117 by an oath not to attempt to withdraw either him¬ self or his sons until he should have paid the two thousand crowns, they were left in charge of two Swiss soldiers. Madame de Brissembourg, the sister-in-law of La Force, who resided in the Arsenal, of which her relation, the Marshal de Biron, was grand¬ master, upon being applied to for the money to pay the promised ransom, engaged to send the requisite sum by the evening of the following day. La Force and his sons were therefore obliged to remain till then where they were. At last, when the appointed time arrived, a messenger was despatched for the money. While he was yet absent, the Count de Coconas suddenly presented himself at the head of a party of soldiers, bringing orders, as he said, to conduct the prisoners imme¬ diately to the Duke of Anjou. He had no sooner intimated the purpose of his visit, than his men, laying hold of the father and his sons, pulled off their bonnets and mantles, and by the roRgh man¬ ner in which they used them, afforded them a 118 True Stories from History. sufficient presage of the fate prepared for them. They led them, however, some distance down the street without offering them violence. They then halted, and making a sudden assault upon them, they despatched first the eldest son, and the next instant the father, by multiplied blows with their daggers. By a singular chance, the youngest son, in the confusion of the encounter, escaped untouched. The wildly-directed blows of the murderers had all missed him, having fallen upon his father and his brother. He had the presence of mind to throw himself down on the ground beside them, and as he lay bathed in their blood, to call out that he was mortally wounded, and then to coun¬ terfeit the appearance of death. The murderers, supposing their deed done, after hastily stripping the three bodies, left the spot. It was not long before a number of the neighbors approached, and among the rest a poor man be¬ longing to the tennis-court in the Rue du Yerdelet. This person, on beholding the body of the j^oung- Marshal d e la Force. 119 est son, happened to remark, loud enough for the words to reach the ear of the hoy, “Alas! this one is but a mere child.” Hearing these express¬ ions of compassion, young La Force ventured gently to raise his head and to whisper that he was still alive. The man desired him to remain still a little longer till he could come to remove him without being observed. As soon as every¬ body was out of sight he returned, and throwing an old ragged cloak over the boy, he took him on his back, and set out with him for his own house. Some person whom he met on the wajr having asked him who it was he was carrying, “It is my nephew,” said he, “ v r h© has got drunk; I shall give him a good whipping this evening.” He soon reached his garret with his burden, and here La Force spent the night. The next morn¬ ing, Tuesday, his preserver, at his request, agreed to conduct him to the Arsenal, the boy gladly en¬ gaging to pay him thirty crowns for this service. They set out together at break of day, and in a short time reached the gate of the Arsenal without 120 True Stories from History, having met with any interruption. The difficulty now was for La Force, in the beggarly attire he bad on, to get in, but leaving his guide, he at last found an opportunity, when the gate was open for the admission of another person, to pass through without being observed by the porter. He met no one till he reached the part of the building in which his aunt resided. When Madame de Bris- sembourg beheld him, her astonishment and emo¬ tion was great, for she had already been informed that all the three had perished. The thirty crowns were immediately sent out to his preserver, and La Force was placed in bed that he might recover from the effects of the terror and agitation he had undergone. He had remained concealed in the Arsenal for the two following days, but at the end of this time information was brought to Marshal Biron that the building was about to be searched by order of the King, in consequence of reports that were in circu¬ lation, of some Huguenots having taken refuge there. It was deemed advisable, therefore, that he Marshal de la Force. 121 should be immediately transferred to some other hiding-place, and accordingly on Thursday morn¬ ing, attired as a page, he was confided to the care of a gentleman with whom he remained seven or eight days. But even at that distance of time after the massacre, the report of his singular escape hav¬ ing got abroad, fears were still entertained that an attempt would be made to gain possession of him. By some management it was contrived to convey him beyond the walls of the capital, and after sev¬ eral other hazardous adventures, he reached the house of his uncle, the Sieur de Caumont, in the South of France, by whom he was received with great joy. The boy thus miraculously rescued from destruction, and who eventually rose to the rank of Marshal, lived for more than eighty years after this escape, having died in 1653, at the age of ninety-four. XII. fit* St. to fttbs. HESE narratives of individual adventure and ^ suffering may serve to convey more correctly than any merely general description could do, a representation of the terrors and inhumanities of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. They set before us vividly and truly the unrestrained riot of the slaughterers, the furious excitement and fever of public opinion, and the bewilderment and dismay of the unhappy beings who were scattered before the whirlwind of Papal persecution and popular wrath. The judgment passed upon this massacre by all reflecting persons, even those least favorable to Protestantism, must be that no example of any such enormous atrocity can be found in the na¬ tional annals of all the world. Nor shall we think this judgment harsh or undeserved, when we view The St. Bartholomew Ends. 123 in their full dimensions certain of the more remark¬ able characteristics of the transaction—its elabo¬ rate treachery—the royal and female hands that washed themselves in the bloodshed—the hour of reconcilement and festive rejoicing in which the victims were attacked—the number of the noble, the beautiful, and the virtuous who perished—the indiscriminate and unsparing comprehensiveness, the wild fury, the savage cruelty, the abominable brutality and extravagance of outrage, carried, in many cases, not only beyond the extinction of the last throb of life, but to the utmost limits of humil¬ iation and disfigurement with which the slaughter- ing knife could do its office! The whole story is a terrific illustration of what human nature is capable of becoming and of perpe¬ trating, under the power of bigotry and religious hatred, aided by the hardening and depraving influence of barbarous institutions and manners. May God save our land, and our homes, from such enormities, whether done in the holy name of religion, or from the impulse of other motives! . PART II. I] e % t Ir ol k 1 1 ait of 17 8 9. ’ V. Engraved. hy J C Buccce. I. Causes anir first Steps of tire Jlcbolution. 171 HE character and events of the long reign of Louis XV., and the social and moral habits of the people which were fostered during that time, combined to bring about a state of things where the inevitable result must be revolution. When Louis XVI. ascended the throne in 1774, who was himself of an unambitious and unwarlike disposi¬ tion, he found that the pride of their old military greatness was well nigh extinguished in the heart of the nation by a scries of recent reverses, and that all the ordinary resources of the treasury were so exhausted, that nothing but the most rigid retrench¬ ment in every department of public expenditure, seemed to offer a chance of saving the State from bankruptcy. It was the financial disorder of the times which brought on the crisis of the Revolution. 128 True Stories from History. But other causes had been long at -work which had been preparing the mind of the country for the new order of tilings which succeeded. The age of Louis XIY. had been one of great literary as well as military glory to France. It was part of the system of pomp and display which that monarch maintained, to advance the glory of his throne by the flatteries of genius, and this he could only do by creating a public opinion which would not long be satisfied with panegyric alone. In this manner, notwithstanding the despotism of the government, something of the air and sentiment • of liberty prevailed among the people. They were so long permitted to breathe this air, by sufferance, that, at last, it became impossible to deprive them of it. During the latter part of the reign of Louis XV., the press had become nearly, in all respects, free, and more than equal to a contest with the laws. This is clearly evident in the history of the publi¬ cation of the famous Didionnaire Encydopedique. Though the printing of that work was frequently Causes of the Revolution. 129 suspended, it was always found necessary, after a short- time, to permit it to be resumed. Although it advocated principles both in religion and politics that were calculated to unsettle men’s minds, and to overturn the whole social fabric, yet it was not in the power of the government either to suppress it, or to control it. Moreover, these principles infected French literature generally at this period. Their dillusion was, in reality, almost the neces¬ sary consequence of the shameless conduct by which the Court had long distinguished itself. Ever since the accession of Louis XV. the most unbounded profligacy of manners had pervaded the household, first of the Regent, and then of the King himself, and had from thence rapidly spread among the higher ranks in every part of the king¬ dom, till among this class of society the most sacred obligations of religion and morality had become little better than a theme of fashionable ridicule, and the voice of reproof as little heeded as the indistinct murmurs of them that dream. But it could not be possible but that morality 9 280 True Stories from Historic should have her speedy and terrible revenge. The outraged laws of religion must vindicate them¬ selves. God’s authority could not thus be openly and systematically contemned and spurned without bringing down terrible retribution. (Thc^ who despised morality soon grew to be themselves despised. \ The old reverential prejudices with respect to rank and station were fast giving way when rank and station were sinking into shameless corruption. The irreligion of the times, also, was the natural produce of the dissoluteness and utter abandon¬ ment of decencj^ which marked the conduct of the more influential orders, both in the State and Church. Some of the most reckless devotees of pleasure in this age were equally remarkable for their regular and scrupulous attention to all the outward ceremonies and corporeal taskwork of religion, whose genuine spirit could hardly fail to be brought into contempt by so profane a mock¬ ery. The manner in which many of the higher dignities in the ecclesiastical establishment were Causes of the Revolution. 131 bestowed, tended perhaps still more to alienate men’s minds from what seemed little better than a State contrivance for the worst of State purposes. To mention no other instance, what reverence or respect could be felt for a church in which the infarfious Dubois, one of the most unblushing debauchees that ever lived, and notorious, indeed, as a systematic preceptor of vice, had risen to be first an Archbishop, and afterwards a Cardinal, and. V had finally been elected their first President by the assembled body of the Clergy ? The state of public feeling and opinion, how¬ ever, produced by these causes, may be rather said to have influenced the course of the Revo¬ lution, than to have actually set it iu motion. That, as has been remarked, was done mainly by the pecuniary necessities and embarrassments of the government. These affairs had long been growing worse and worse, and had, at last, in the beginning of the year 1787, come to such a point that an appeal to the nation, iu some form or other, was felt to be unavoidable. On the thir- 132 True Stories from History. teentli of January in that year, a proclamation ac¬ cordingly appeared, convoking—for the twenty- ninth. of the same month, what was called an Assembly of Notables; that is, of principal persons from the different towns and districts of the king¬ dom, selected by the King. This was the first as¬ sembly of the kind which had been called together since 1626. They did not commence their sitting till the twenty-second of February. The principal object which they accomplished was ascertaining and publishing a statement of the condition of the public finances. It was found that there was an annual deficit of more than twenty-five million dollars, besides a debt, incurred in the space of about ten years, amounting to about three hundred million dollars. After making these alarming discoveries, and passing a few unimportant resolu¬ tions, with the view of introducing a better order into the accounts of the State, the Assembly of Notables closed their session on the twenty-fifth of May. Their announcement, however, of the de¬ plorable condition of the revenue produced an Causes of the Revolution. 133 extraordinary sensation in tire public mind, and from that moment everybody began to talk of tlie convocation of the States-General, as the only measure suited to the exigencies of the kingdom. The Parliament in particular—which had been re¬ established by Louis XVI. on his coming to the throne—soon after expressly demanded from the King the adoption of this measure. This remon¬ strance being disregarded, they came to the resolu¬ tion, on the thirteenth of August, that for the fu¬ ture no impost could be legally levied, unless the enactment bore in the preamble, a statement of the fact that the opinion of the States-General had been taken upon it. This bold declaration was the commencement of a protracted struggle between the Court on the one side and the Parliaments—as well of the Prov¬ inces, as of Paris — backed by the people, on the other. After a year of collision between these parties, unused to difference, the contest in which force and artifice were equally unavailing on the part of the government, at last terminated in the 134 True Stories from History. victory of the popular will. On the 8th of Au¬ gust, 1788, an edict was issued for the Convoca¬ tion of the States, in May following. A few da}*s after the national favorite, Meeker, was re¬ placed as Minister of Finance, on the dismissal of De Brienne, the Archbishop of Toulouse, who had held that place during the preceding fifteen months. A second Assembly of Notables had been in session from the sixth of November till the eighth of the following month, to determine the number of deputies which should be sent by each of the different estates of the realm. The matter was, however, at last settled by an ordinance of the King, who decided that the representatives of the Commons, or Tiers-JEtat, as they were called— should equal in number those of the nobility and clergy together. On the 5th of May, 1789, the great national Convocation which France had not seen assembled for a hundred and seventy-five years, once more met at Versailles, in the magnifi¬ cent hall of the palace named La Salle des Menus. This may be considered as the first day of the Causes of the Revolution. 135 Revolution. From this time it advanced to its consummation, like an inundation, which, over¬ flowing the land, sweeps all before its resistless tide, and leaves nothing but desolation when its tide has subsided. The Tiers-Etat assumed, at once, the attitude of superior power. It had been arranged that the three orders should deliberate each in its own hall, and that each should have its single vote on whatever measure might be discussed. This method of proceeding would have deprived the Commons of every advantage from their supe¬ riority of numbers, and would, indeed, have left them without a chance of success, in any question at issue between themselves and the two privi¬ leged orders. The second day, therefore, having again assembled in the hall,—the same in which the opening sitting had been held, and which had been assigned them as forming the most numerous of the-three bodies,—they awaited without enter¬ ing upon business, the arrival of the deputies of the other two estates. They persisted in this 136 True Stories from History. course for many succeeding days. Afterwards they sent a formal invitation to the other deputies to join them, but their firmness produced no appa¬ rent effect till the thirteenth of June, when three members of the order of the Clergy at last pre¬ sented themselves in their hall. This example was followed, the next day, by several other deputies of the same order. Emboldened by this success, or rather wisely reckoning upon what had taken place as an evidence of their strength, and a sure presage of victory, on the seventeenth the Com¬ mons declared themselves a National Assembly. Three days afterwards another event happened, which operated with powerful effect in strengthen¬ ing and confirming the enthusiasm which had thus blazed out. On repairing to their hall, on the morning of the twentieth, the deputies of the Tiers- Etat found the gates shut, and the building sur¬ rounded by soldiers, while a notice on the wall informed them that his Majesty, meaning to hold a royal sitting on the twenty-second, had com¬ manded their meetings to be suspended while the Causes of the Revolution. 137 ball was undergoing the necessary preparations for that ceremonial. Astonished and enraged at the insolence of this proceeding, the deputies, after a few minutes of agitation, resolved to assemble in a tennis-court in the neighborhood. On arriving here, while they crowded around their president, Bailly, who had elevated himself on a table, they swore that no intimidation should make them cease from meeting together till they had given a constitution to their country. This patriotic vow rung throughout France, and was responded to by acclamations of applause and sympathy from her remotest borders. The royal sitting took place on the twenty-third, and ended only in adding another triumph to those already achieved by the Commons. After pronouncing a declaration, proposing various im¬ portant reforms, which were only objectionable in coming too late, his Majesty commanded the dep¬ uties of the different orders to disperse. But those of the Tiers-Etat remained in their seats. On the Grand-Master of ceremonies repeating to 138 True Stories from History. tliem the King’s command ,—“ Go tell jour master,” — exclaimed Mirabeau—“that we are here by order of the people, and that we shall not be driven hence by his bayonets.” After thus throw¬ ing down the gauntlet of defiance to the royal au¬ thority, they went on with their deliberations, as usual. On the twenty-seventh, the grand object for which they had been struggling from the first day they had met, was fully attained, by the return to their hall of all the deputies of the other two orders, in conformity with the recommendation of the King himself. Thus was the first act of the Revolution com¬ pleted by the virtual subjection to the new power of the representatives of the Commons, of both the King and the privileged orders, almost the only parties who had hitherto been recognized in France as having anjr political rights at all. Soon after this a new scene of the drama opened, and other actors appeared upon the stage. Some days before the States-General had assembled, a mob had arisen in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and Causes of the Revolution. 139 burned the manufactory of a paper-maker, of the name of Rdveillon, who was said to have threat¬ ened to reduce the wages of his workmen. And on the 30th of June the populace had broken into the prison of the Abbey St. Germain, and liber¬ ated a number of soldiers of the Guards, who had been confined there for some acts of insubordina¬ tion. But these insulated outrages could hardly be regarded as indicating any general system of insurrection on the part of the lower orders. The true commencement of the attempt of the mob to constitute themselves the sovereign jiower of the state, was the riot which took place in Paris on the 12th of July, when the news arrived that the King had dismissed Keeker, the popular Minister of Finance. This tumult continued for three days, on the last of which, the famous Fourteenth, the in¬ surgents having found themselves arms by pillag¬ ing the stores in the Hotel des Invalides, attacked and demolished the Bastille, and by a variety of other excesses, gave terrible demonstration both of their temper and their power. II. gU .1)0 hit ion g*pn. IIE Revolution had now fairly begun. From this time there were two energies at w r ork in the destruction of the ancient government, and both, though often opposing each other, co-oper¬ ating in carrying forward the terrible work. The effect of this popular commotion was to ter¬ rify the King into the recall of Keeker. The Kational Assembly then proceeded with their reforms. Their next most celebrated sitting was that during the night of the 4th of August, in which one member after another of the nobility and clergy hastened to surrender his obnoxious privileges, and the Assembly decreed, by acclama¬ tion, the abolition of provincial immunities, of seig- norial courts, rights of chase, and all other similar institutions of Feudalism. On the 11th of the The Revolution Begun. 141 same month, the same power decreed the abolition of tjthes. During the months of August and September the popular agitation had continued, notwithstand¬ ing all the efforts of the legislature to preserve order, aided by the recently organized National Guards. The spirit of insubordination and out¬ rage had spread from Paris throughout the greater part of France. The state of the capital was ren¬ dered still more alarming by symptoms of a scar¬ city which had for some time appeared, and were every day becoming stronger. In this exasperated temper of the popular mind, news arrived in Paris on the evening of the 3d of October, of certain extraordinary scenes which had been acted on that and the preceding two days, at 'Versailles, where a fete, it appeared, had been given by the soldiers of the King’s Guard to their officers, at which the royal family having presented themselves, the most violent demonstrations had been offered by the whole company, of their detestation of the new order of tilings, and their determination to devote 142 True Stories from History. themselves to bring about a counter-revolution. Among many similar extravagances, the white cockade, it was said, had been mounted by these daring revellers, and that of the nation trampled under foot. Inflamed to the highest pitch of fury by this intelligence, the people of Paris could scarcely be restrained from rushing, en masse , on the instant, to the scene of these insulting festivities. During that night, however, and the whole of the next day, the patrols of the National Guards succeeded in preserving tranquillity. But on the morning of the 5th, the outcry— Bread! Bread! to Ver¬ sailles ! to Versailles ! broke forth again among the rabble of the Faubourg St. Antoine, with tenfold violence, and the desperate multitude could no longer be kept from the execution of their purpose. A tumultuous throng, which is said to have swelled at last to thirty thousand persons, a great part of whom were women of the lowest descrip¬ tion, set out for Versailles, followed by a detach¬ ment of the National Guards, under the command The Revolution Begun. 148 of their general, the patriotic La Fayette, who, after having exhausted all his eloquence in vain to dissuade them from their design, deemed it best to accompany their movement. lie had, however, succeeded in detaining them so long, that, although they had begun to congre¬ gate at six o’clock in the morning, it was nearly seven in the evening when they commenced their march. It is not our purpose to narrate the suc¬ cessive scenes of riot, outrage, and bloodshed which now took place around the hall of the As¬ sembly and the royal residence. It was not long before active hostilities commenced between the mob and the military who guarded the palace. At last, at an early hour in the morning, the exer¬ tions of La Fayette succeeded in restoring tranquil¬ ity, and the royal family retired to sleep. But by six o’clock the confusion was again worse than ever, and the lives of the King and Queen were sought by infuriated crowds, armed with pikes, who penetrated even to the door of the Queen’s bedchamber, and were only prevented from enter- 144 True Stories from History. ing by learning that their intended victim had, a few moments before, fled to another part of the palace in her night-'clomes. It has generally been asserted that the assassins actually rushed up to the bed from which her Majesty had just risen, and in the rage of their disappointment, thrust their weapons with repeated strokes through the bed-clothes. Madame Campan’s account, however, of these transactions, corresponds with the state¬ ment above. In either case the mob was moved by such excited and malignant passions, that they would stop at no outrage, however horrible. By the exertions of La Fayette again, something like a calm was once more produced, and the populace consented to return to Paris, on condi¬ tion of being accompanied by their Majesties. The King, the Queen, the king’s sister, Madame Elizabeth, the Dauphin, the deputies, Barnave and Petion, were then all put into the same carriage, which immediately took the road to the capital, surrounded on all sides by the immense multitude, who now, however, made the air resound with The Revolution' Begun. 145 * shouts of “ Vive le Roi /” It was one o’clock in the afternoon when the royal family left Versailles, but with this incumbering attendance, they did not reach the barriers of Paris till six in the evening. They were conducted first to the Hotel de Ville, where the King was addressed by Bailly, now Mayor of Paris, who informed him that the citizens hoped he would, in future, make the town his usual residence. After the ceremonial of this reception, he was allowed to proceed, with his family, to the Tuileries. On the nineteenth of October, the National Assembly followed his Ma¬ jesty to Paris. This second great victory of the populace, how¬ ever, like their former on the fourteenth of July, was prevented from being followed by the full accomplishment of its natural consequences,—the subjection of all the constituted authorities of the State. The partial acquiescence and participation of the legislative body itself in the changes thus forcibly brought about in the views of those by whom, they had been effected, neutralized, for a MG True Stories from Histokt. % ■time, the effects of such a violent shock to the- course of all order and government.. A vast majority of the National Assembly had certainly rejoiced, for instance, in the destruction of the Bastille. Many deputies also looked with com¬ placency on that prostration of the royal authority which the energy of the mob had now achieved. The two parties, therefore, were as yet, to a con¬ siderable extent, fellow-workers together in the same cause, or at least, though divided as to the means, they were united as to the object. This common end, accordingly, they pursued for a con¬ siderable time longer, each in its own way, with¬ out much interfering with the other. On the sec¬ ond of November, the Assembly declared the pos¬ sessions of the Church to be the property of the nation, and on the nineteenth of the following month they decreed their confiscation. On the 18th of February,. 1790, they proclaimed the abolition of religious orders and monastic vow r s. On the twenty-second of May, they determined that the right of declaring peace or war should The Revolution Begun. 147 belong, henceforth, to the legislative body,—the King retaining only that of initiating, or introduc¬ ing the question. On the nineteenth of June they decreed the suppression of hereditary nobility, coats-of-arms, and all distinctions of rank. Most of these innovations had been discussed and re¬ solved upon in the popular clubs, which, having their central meetings in Paris, had by this time spread their ramifications over all Prance. Of these associations the most influential, both at this period and for a long time afterwards, was that of the Jacobins—so called from its place of meeting, the Convent of the Jacobins, in the Rue St. Honore. This Club had been originally es¬ tablished at Versailles, while the National Assem¬ bly sat there, by a few of the members of that body. But after it was transferred, together with the Legislature, to Paris, it very soon began to open its doors to persons of much more violent politics than those of which it had at first con¬ sisted. It became, in fact, the nightly rendezvous of many of the most turbulent spirits of the capi- 148 True Stories from IIistory. tal, who gradually obtained sucli a sway over its deliberations, that it was abandoned by most of its original members. The people, however, as we have said, continued to act upon the legislature through this, and similar societies, with an im¬ mense and daily-increasing influence. But they did not long confine themselves merely to this manner of demonstrating their strength. On the 18th of April, 1791, the King and the rest of the royal family had made preparations to leave the Tuileries for the palace of St. Cloud. But before they had entered the carriage, the tocsin had been sounded from the neighboring Church of St. Koch, and a mob had collected in the Place du Carrousel, who continued to vociferate with a determined accent, that the King should not leave the capital. His Majesty’s object in going to St. Cloud, they said, was only that he might have a better oppor¬ tunity to make his escape from France. It was in vain that La Fayette and Bailly used every effort to induce them to give way, and even the National Guards refused to obey the orders of The Revolution Begun. 149 their commander to disperse the people. The consequence was, that the royal family were ’ forced to give up their design, and return to their apartments. It was upon this occasion that La Fayette, indignant at the treatment he had re¬ ceived, threw up his command, which he was only prevailed upon to take back some days after¬ wards on the earnest solicitations of the munici¬ pality, and the solemn promise of the troops them¬ selves that they would in future yield him implicit obedience. As for the King, whatever his inten¬ tions might have been, up to this time, he now certainly cherished the wish—natural to the pris¬ oner—to escape. No favorable opportunity for carrying his purpose into effect presented itself for some weeks. But on the night of the twentieth of June, he and the Queen, accompanied by the Dauphin and the Princess Elizabeth, secretly left the Tuileries. They succeeded in getting out of the city, and took the road towards Montmedy, with the intention of afterwards throwing them¬ selves into the strongly-fortified town of Luxem- 150 True Stories from History. bourg, on the frontiers of the Low Countries, which was then in jiossession of the Emperor of Austria. But they were retaken on the third day of their flight, at the town of Varennes, in the province of Lorraine, when more than two-thirds of their journey had been accomplished, and were brought back to Paris. They arrived at the Tuile- ries on the evening of the twenty-fifth, and next morning the Assembly declared the authority of the King suspended, and his person under ar¬ rest. Before this time, however, serious divisions had taken place in the ranks even of the original friends of the Revolution. Mounier and Lally- Tolendal, the heads of what was considered the party of Keeker in the legislative body, had quitted the Assembly immediately after the events of the fifth and sixth of October. The differences, too, between the Constitutionalists, as they were called, of whom La Fayette and Bailly were the leaders, and the more violent parties who domi¬ neered in the clubs, and who were understood to 'The Revolution Begun. 151 •nave been already the instigators of several of the popular tumults that had already taken place- had long been widening, and now amounted to almost avowed hostility. On the seventeenth of July the mob assembled in formidable numbers in the Champ de Mars to sign a petition to the Assembly for the dethrone¬ ment of the King. As the day advanced, their •conduct became so outrageous that it was deemed necessary to proclaim martial law, and to disperse them by the fire of the Kational Guards. The instigators of this commotion were Danton, Brissot, and Camille Desmoulins, then considered among the chiefs of the party called the Girondists. This faction consisted originally of deputies from La Gironde, whose object was to establish a re¬ public, and who continued for some time after this, to fight their battles through the instru¬ mentality of the mob, of whom, however, they eventually became the victims, when they had been supplanted by still more violent leaders. There were many men of great talents and pure 152 True Stories from History. patriotism among the Girondists. But the whole history of their career sufficiently proves how ill fitted they were to direct the storm which they showed themselves so little scrupulous in raising. At this period they formed only a minority in the National Assembly; but that body closed its sit¬ tings on the thirtieth of September. On the first of October the Legislative Assembly opened, from which, by a law that had been passed some time before, all who had been members of the former legislature were excluded. To this new convo¬ cation the people had returned their recent patrons, the zealots of republicanism, in great num¬ bers. The National Assembly, immediately before their separation, had drawn up a constitution in regular form, embodying the different innovations which they had introduced, and upon the King having signified his acceptance of this fundamental act, he had been restored to the exercise of his au¬ thority. From the temper of the new Legislature, however, he was very soon compelled to commit The Revolution Begun. 153 the direction of affairs to a Jacobin, or Girondist, ministry. At this time, in the spring of 1792, numerous troops of emigrants under command of the Count d’Artois, and other distinguished heads of the royalist party, who had left France immediately after the popular insurrection of July, 1789, were in arms in different parts of the frontiers. The troops of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia were ready to act in concert with them, in conformity with the menace of the famous declara¬ tion of Pilnitz, of the preceding summer, and Sweden and other foreign powers had joined the coalition. To add to the formidable nature of this threatened attack, France was suffering at home under the accumulated evils of scarcity, ex¬ hausted finances, and rapidly-augmented civil dis¬ tractions. Yet, thus beset, the government assumed an at¬ titude worthy of a great people determined to be free, and on the twentieth of April declared war against Austria. After this bold step, the Giron- 154 True Stories from History. dists returned with, renewed ardor, to pursue tlieir purpose of bringing about a second revolution, and of changing the monarchy into a republic. The Ministry which had been formed from their body, having been dismissed by the King on the thirteenth of June, after he had refused his assent to several bills which they had carried through the Assembly, they immediately resorted to their old instrument, the mob of the faubourgs, whom they excited to make a violent attack upon the Tuileries on the twentieth, in the course of which the lives of the royal family -were exposed to the most imminent danger. Another riotous assault, of a still more violent description, was made on the royal residence on the tenth of August, from which the King, with his family, was obliged to take refuge in the Legislative Assembly. The Assembly immediately passed a decree suspend¬ ing him from his functions, and three days after¬ wards he was conducted, with the Queen, his son, and the Princess Elizabeth, to the prison of the Temple, from which he was destined to The Revolution Begun. 155 be led forth only to trial, condemnation, and the scaffold. From this period the career of the Revolution was, for a long time, one of headlong violence. Each faction that obtained possession of the su¬ preme authority was, in its turn, supplanted by another still more furious and blood-thirsty than itself. On the 2d of September the mob again rose, and commenced a massacre of the inmates of all the prisons of Paris, which lasted for three days. On this occasion their instigators were the members of the Commune, a self-elected body, that had recently assumed the government of the city. Danton, and some others, who formerly adhered to the party of the Girondists, had become mem¬ bers of the Commune, and were the chief projectors of the massacre. The Girondists, or at least the more moderate of them, were now at the head of affairs, and no longer required the aid of their ancient auxiliaries. On the 21st of this month, the Legislative Assembly gave place to the Convention in which 156 True Stories from History. Danton, Eobespierre, Marat, and others of the worst of the popular agitators, bad seats. But the Girondists still continued for some time to bear up against their more violent antagonists. As the party of the Constitutionalists, however, had been by this time completely overthrown, there was no difficulty in obtaining an unanimous vote for the abolition of royalty; and a decree to that effect was carried at the first sitting, by acclamation. On the 19th of November the Convention proclaimed fraternity and aid to all other nations who might wish to rise against their governments. On the 17th of January, 1793, they condemned the King to death, and on the 21st he was executed. This vote was obtained in opposition to the strenuous efforts of the Girondists, who, although they had eagerly sought to dethrone Louis, did not wish to take his life. It proved that their opponents, now commonly called the Mountain, from the high place of the hall in which they sat, had by this time attained the superiority in point of numbers and influence in the legislature. It was some time The Revolution Begun. 157 after this first defeat, however, before the power of the Girondists was entirely overthrown. On the 1st of February the Convention declared war against England. About the end of March commenced the formidable insurrection in favor of the old government, in La Vendee, a district on the western coast, immediately to the south of the Loire. About this time, also, were established the two famous Committees of General Security, and of Public Safety, the seats in which were very soon monopolized by the most violent members of the Convention. These tribunals long exercised a sanguinary dictatorship over France, before which even the Convention itself trembled. Meanwhile the contest between the Girondists and the party of the Mountain in that Assembly still proceeded with increased violence and varying success. But the failure of the former in their attempt to carry the condemnation of the atrocious Marat, finally threw the victory into the hands of their oppo¬ nents, the Montagnards, and on the 2d of June, after a week of popular outrage, of the most terri- 158 True Stories from History. ble description, during which the Convention was kept in a state of siege by the mobs of the Com¬ munes and the Committees,—so that even Danton and his friends at last trembled with terror before the storm they had themselves assisted in raising, a sweeping decree of proscription was passed against more than thirty of the principal Girondist deputies, and that party in the legislature rvas extinguished. This event made Robespierre the master of France. Marat, who might otherwise perhaps, have contended with him for the tyranny, was shortly afterwards assassinated by the heroic Charlotte Corday. The year that followed is usually called the Reign of Terror. On the 24th of June the Conven¬ tion proclaimed a new Constitution, which, how¬ ever, they formally declared suspended about two months afterwards. But the party which had now obtained the ascendency was in reality that of the lowest multitude. Even Kobespierre, all-powerful dictator as he was, was merely the instrument whom they had set up to destroy all but them- Tiie Revolution Begun. 159 • selves. At the outcry, therefore, of these the true rulers of France, and to promote their momentary interests, the Convention on the 29th of September passed a law, imposing a maximum price upon all commodities. This was the last and most ruinous excess of mob legislation, which produced uni¬ versal stagnation of business and consequent scarcitjL On the 6th of October they decreed the intro¬ duction of a new era, to commence from the 22d of September, 1792, the first day of the Republic, and also of a new calendar, according to which the year was to be reckoned as beginning on that day, which happened to be the autumnal equinox, and the twelve months into which it was divided received names descriptive of the natural character of each. The names were, for Autumn, (October,) Vendemiaire, which is the grape harvest; (Novem¬ ber,) Brumaire , cloudy, misty sky; (December,) Fnmaire, the month, of hail and snow. For Win¬ ter, (January,) Nivose , the snowy month ; (Febru¬ ary,) Plumose , the rainy month ; (March,) Ventose , 160 True Stories prom History. month of wind and tempest. For Spring, (April,) Germinal , the season in which the seeds begin to grow; (May,) Floreal , the month in which vegeta¬ tion flourishes; (June,) Prairial , when the mea¬ dows are mowed. Lastly, for summer, (July,) Mes- sidor , the month of harvest; (August,) Thermidor , which warms the furrows, and (September,) Fructi- dor , in which the fruits are ripened. The old arrangement, also, of the division of days into weeks was abandoned, and a decade of days sub¬ stituted for the Sabbatical division. The names of the days were derived from the Latin. They were primidi , duodi, tridi , quartidi, quintidi , sextidi , septidi, octidi , nonidi , and decadi. The French Eepublic, proud of the new era which it inaugurated for the world, desired to become one of the dates of history among man¬ kind. But the innovation was not adopted any- wdiere but in France. There it was persisted in till the beginning of the year 1806, when they again recurred to the old method of reckoning time in use throughout the rest of Christendom. III. XECUTIONS and all kinds and degrees of atrocity and outrage were now perpetrated, in the name of the republic. The town of Lyons, where, as in many other parts of France, an insur- reclion had broken out, was given up for punish¬ ment to a troop of commissioned destroyers, by whom the finest part of it was levelled to the ground, and the inhabitants butchered by hun¬ dreds. In this last respect it was the same in Paris. People were dragged to be guillotined by several scores at a time, and the scaffold remained constantly wet with blood. On the sixteenth of October the Queen of Louis XVI., the unfortunate Marie-Antoinette, was beheaded. On the twenty- first, Brissot and twenty more of the Girondist deputies underwent the same fate. The execution 11 162 True Stories from History, of tlie Duke of Orleans, tlie celebrated Egalile' took place on the sixth of November. On the tenth of the same month, the Convention declared the abolition of Christianity, in place of which they established what they called the worship of Reason. Meanwhile, in the midst of these frenzied pro¬ ceedings, the excited energies of the country con¬ tinued both to struggle successfully with the inter¬ nal opponents of the government, and to beat back the foreign armies that threatened its in¬ dependence. Toulon, which some time before had been taken by the English—was recovered, and the troops of the emigrants and them allies were defeated at various places. Thus triumphant over his enemies at home and abroad, Robespierre —it might be thought—had founded and consoli¬ dated his despotism in a manner which would have secured its stability. But the earthquake was already gathering its strength which was to overthrow him. By the beginning of the year 1794, a party—professing still more ferocious and The Eepublic. 168 ■ultra-democratic opinions tlian liis own — the Hebertists, as they were called, from one of their most active leaders—had obtained the ascendency in the Commune, and in the club of the Corde¬ liers, and were already openly assailing the popu¬ larity*, and through that the power, of the exist¬ ing dictator. For a considerable time Eobespierre bore up with intrepidity and effect against his antagonists, and even succeeded in obtaining the condemna¬ tion of eighteen of their chiefs, including Hebert himself, who were all executed in one day. On the fifth of April, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and about twenty more of their adherents, were brought to the scaffold. In this manner Eobespierre en¬ deavored to rid himself both of the moderate and the more violent factions by which he was threat¬ ened ;—of those who sought to pull him down from his supremacy for having made too large a use of proscription and the guillotine, as well as those who complained that he had not shed enough of blood. As the latter party, however, 164 True Stories from History. from the course which the Revolution had hitherto run, seemed the most dangerous, as being the most likely to gather strength, he probably considered that it would be well to arm himself with some additional protection against its assaults from an opposite quarter. He therefore induced the Con¬ vention on the seventh of May, to proclaim the restoration, as part of the national creed, of the two doctrines of the existence of a Supreme Being, and the Immortality of the Soul, which had been declared to be antiquated falsehoods ^ short time before the worship of Reason was established. He probably thought by this measure to array on his side all those who shrunk from the absolute Atheism of those who constituted the extreme of the revolutionary party. At the same time, to convince his friends among the rabble that no re¬ laxation was intended in any other part of his system, he took care that blood should continue to flow on the scaffold more plentifully than ever. Among other victims who perished about this time, was the sister of Louis XVI., the Princess The Republic. 165 Elizabeth, who was executed on "the twelfth of May. But all his management and determination combined became insufficient at last to preserve this enormous tyrant from destruction. Perceiv¬ ing his power to be evidently tottering, the more moderate party of the Convention, whom he had kept in awe so long as the undivided rabble were at his devotion, determined now that an opposition had raised itself against him in that quarter, to lend their best exertions to aid his downfall, in the hope of being able to seize the opportunity thereby afforded of establishing something like a regular government on the ruins, or the alternate anarchy and depotism that had so long desolated the country. The attempt was a somewhat hazard¬ ous one. Its result might have been the substitu¬ tion, at least for a time, of even a more wild and devastating tyranny than that of Robespierre. But partly by a concurrence of favorable circum- tances, and partly by the able dispositions of Bar- ras, who on that eventful day commanded the military attached to the Convention, on the 27th 166 True Stories from History. of July—flie famous 9tli Tliermidor—tlie hopes of .Robespierre and his rivals of the Com¬ mune were extinguished together, and the Na¬ tional Legislature was once more reinstated in liberty and supremacy. This memorable catas¬ trophe terminated in the consignment to the scaf¬ fold of Robespierre and ninety-one of his principal partisans. Here ended the outward advance of the revolu¬ tionary wave. In the events that follow we distinctly perceive its recoil. This reaction must have taken place at some point, and whatever had been the event of the 9 th Tliermidor, could not, probably, have been much longer prevented. It was impossible that there should have followed many factions after that of Robespierre, each ex¬ ceeding its predecessor in violence. Once begun, too, the continuance of the reflux for some time was inevitable. All the tendencies of society in that direction were now awakened and called into action, while those of an opposite character, having been so long on the stretch, were exhausted, and, The Republic. 167 overdone as they were, left capable only of offer¬ ing, every day, a feebler resistance to the progress of the new events. The first thing which the liberated Convention proceeded to do was to restrain within certain de¬ nned bounds, the power of those terrible tribunals, the Committees of Public Safety and of General Security. This accomplished, the Legislature, skilfully availing itself of the vantage ground on which it stood, of the aid of the troops who had committed themselves to its cause by their conduct on the 27th of July, and of the general longing of the country for a government of law and order, next dissolved the band of miscreants who called themselves the Communes of Paris, and took into its own hands the functions of the municipality of the city. Subsequent decrees began the work of reducing the clubs to subordination. On the 9lh of December seventy-three deputies, who had fled from the Convention on the proscription of the Girondist chiefs, eighteen months before, returned io their seats. On this accession of strength, the 168 True Stories from History. friends of moderation and legitimate government, who may be described as now consisting of a pow¬ erful combination of Girondists, Constitutionalists, and men of all degrees of opinion which had held the ascendency previous to the rise of Robes¬ pierre, proceeded to the adoption of still bolder measures, and not satisfied with redressing the evils under which the State groaned, resolved also to set about the punishment of their authors. Many deputies of the democratic party, according¬ ly, were arrested, tried, and condemned to death. On the 24th of December, also, the absurd law of maximum was suppressed, after it had been in force for more than a year, and produced the most disastrous consequences to every branch of the national industry. These different acts of reparation, however, could not of course be effected without encounter¬ ing opposition from those who conceived them¬ selves to be interested in the continuance of the Reign of Terror. The rabble, accordingly, with the remaining chiefs of the defeated party for their The Republic. 169 leaders, at last roused themselves once more into activity, and rose against the Convention in suc¬ cessive revolts. On the 1st of April and the 20th of May in particular, the days, as they were called, of the 12th Germinal, and the 1st Prairial, numer¬ ous mobs from the Faubourgs attacked the hall of the legislative body, and almost succeeded in mak¬ ing themselves masters of the State. They were, however, on both occasions, at length driven back by the combined efforts of the armed forces of the Sections, which, since the day of the 9th Ther- midor, had supported the Convention, and of what were called Freron’s Jeunesse Doree , a militia of young volunteers, chiefly from the higher and mid¬ dle classes, whom that deputy had organized, and whose uniting principle was that of hostility to the further progress of the Revolution. These repeated collisions, meanwhile, were fol¬ lowed by their natural consequence, the separation, to a still wider distance from each other, of the two contending parties. In fact, for some time the re¬ action began to assume an absolutely anti-revolu- 170 1 rue Stories from History. tionary tendency, so much, so that, inspired with new hopes, by the new aspect of affairs, the priests and other emigrants returned to France in great numbers. Some of the journals even ventured to advocate royalist opinions, and to oppose the Con¬ vention as still animated by too democratic a spirit. In these circumstances the course of the Legis¬ lature was one of peculiar difficulty, obliged as it was, if it meant to save the State from anarchy on the one hand, and slavery on the other, to main¬ tain, at the same time, a firm resistance to two con¬ trary influences, both of great, though, for the mo¬ ment, of unequal force. They proceeded, with all expedition, to give the country a new Constitution. This, known by the name of the Constitution of the year III., was promulgated about the end of June. According to this arrangement, the legisla¬ tive power of the State was committed to two rep¬ resentative bodies, the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of Ancients, consisting of half that ' number of members, while a committee, or Direct- The Republic. 171 ory of Five was appointed to wield the executive authority. On being submitted to the people for their acceptance, this Constitution encountered a formid¬ able opposition from the royalists, who especially exerted themselves to prevent the popular ratifica¬ tion of two appended decrees, by which the Con¬ vention had reserved to itself the right of nomi¬ nating two-thirds of the members of the new Legislature from its own body. But by having recourse again to the military talents of Barras, the Convention on the 5tli of October, the 13th Yendemaire, obtained a complete triumph over its opponents, and the new Constitution was estab¬ lished. It was on this occasion that Bonaparte first appeared in the drama of the Revolution, having been appointed second in command to Barras, at that officer’s own request, who had been struck with the distinguished military talent he displayed at the recent siege of Toulon. Raving achieved this victory, the Convention closed its sittings on the 26th of October, 172 True Stories from History. after having existed more than three years. Among its last decrees were two especially honor¬ able to itself, and indicative of the improved con¬ dition of the timesthe first for the establish- •ment of a National Institute, in place of the former scientific and literary academies, and the second for the general pardon and oblivion of all past political delinquencies. Two days after the close of the Convention, the new legislative councils held their first sitting. The contest between the different parties which divided the State continued for a considerable time after this period, and the government of the Directory, just as that of the Convention had been, was assailed by the hostility both of the royalists and of the violent republicans. The finances of the country, also, were in the most deplorable state of exhaustion. Although the brilliant military successes of the preceding year had conquered for France advantageous treaties of peace with some of her enemies, a new alliance Ifad just been formed between England, Austria, The Rep.ublic. 173 and Russia, by which powers the war had already been renewed, after the most formidable prepara¬ tions. Such was the complication of difficulties with which the new government had to struggle at entering on its career — domestic discord — foreign war—and a bankruptcy of resources. In a short time, however, by the strenuous exertions of the persons charged with the task of calling again into activity the different energies of the State, everything began to assume a new aspect. But we cannot here attempt any detail either of the financial operations of the Directory, or of the succession of victories abroad, which, during the campaigns of 1796 and the following years, con¬ tinued to crown the republican arms. The star of Napoleon’s fortunes had now fully risen, and was destined to shine, for many years, with undimin¬ ished lustre. All we have now to do to complete our sketch of the Revolution, is to note the epochs of those few remaining changes which took place, after this time, in the domestic government of France, and then to recall more particular atten- 174 True Stories from History. tion to a few of the most startling tragic events of the great drama. The people were now so exhausted that it was no longer easy to collect even a mob from the faubourgs.of the capital. After this, accordingly, the parties who aspired to the supreme power, were obliged to employ secret conspiracies instead of insurrections and popular tumults. Of these conspiracies several were formed in the early days of the Directory both by the Democrats and the Royalists. But they were all detected before they produced any decided effects. In May, 1797, ac¬ cording to a provision in the new constitution, a third past of the members of the Legislature re¬ tired, and such was the temper of the country at this time, that their places were filled in general with persons of anti-revolutionary politics. This led to a series of contests between the legislative councils and the majority of the Directory, which were protracted till the 4th of September, (the 18th Fructidor,) when the latter, by an act of military violence, contrived to overwhelm their The Republic. 175 opponents, and once more to secure to Lteir own party undisputed supremacy in tlie State. On this occasion sixty-five of the obnoxious deputies, to¬ gether with Carnot and Barthelemy, who formed the minority in the Directory, were expelled from France. The renovation of another third of the deputies in the following May, owing to the exertions which had been made by that party since the late discomfiture of their antagonists, would have in¬ troduced into the Legislature a large accession of Jacobinical members. But this would not have suited the views of the Directory, and they annul¬ led the elections. Next year, however, (May, 1799,) the returns were of the same complexion, and the executive found it now expedient to yield. The consequence was, that Jacobinism again as¬ sumed the ascendant, and threatened to renew the horrors of its former domination. But the people were now tired of convulsions. Their interest in politics, even, was almost extinguished. It was impossible, therefore, to make them again the in- 176 True Stories from History. struments of any class of politicians, as they were in the early days of the Revolution. In the course of a few weeks, however, the Jacobins effected the introduction of two of their own number into the Directory, which gave them the majority of voices there. Soon after this, the Jacobin Club, which had been shut up by the government after the fall of Robespierre, was re¬ established. While this, however, and many other signs seemed to portend a new impulse of the Revolution towards confusion and anarchy, the sudden arrival of Bonaparte from Egypt quickly led to the well-known event of the 18th Brumaire, (the 9th of November,) when that vic¬ torious soldier, placing himself at the head of their own guard, dictated his commands to the assem¬ bled Legislature, and having ordered them to trans¬ fer their sittings to St. Cloud, next day entered their place of meeting in the palace there, and made his grenadiers disperse them at the point of the bayonet. The hero of the Revolution now was Napoleon The Republic. 177 Bonaparte. That great movement from having been originally popular, had now become military, —having been national, was now subservient to the will of an individual. This, indeed, was a result towards which events had been for some time tending, and now that it was realized, the Revolution may be said to have been completed. Monarchy—the unlimited sway of one man—was in fact restored. A single hand now controlled that mighty tide of change which had been set in motion, and so long impelled, by the strength of a whole people. The first constitution established by Bonaparte, in room of that which he had destroyed, was one at the head of which he placed himself, and his fellow-conspirators, Sieyes and Roger Ducos, the minority of the late Directory; while two small Chambers, composed each of only twenty- five members, presented to the nation the ghost of a legislature. In the course of a few weeks, Sieves and Ducos resigned their places in the tri¬ umvirate, to make room for Cambacer^s and 178 True Stories from History. Lebrun, and Bonaparte now assumed tbe distinc¬ tive title of First Consul. Tbe members of tbe legislative chamber were increased to three hun¬ dred, the election of all of whom was vested in a Senate, the members of which had been previously named by the Consuls. IV. Vlie Jittnnptcii (tstapc of tire ^opl jfnmthr. N tlie 18th of April,- in the year 1791, the '■ first direct demonstration was given to the King that he was a prisoner in the Tuileries. The royal family, intending to go to St. Cloud, had already entered the carriage for that purpose, when the people prevented their departure, and compelled them to return to the palace. The mob on this occasion assembled in the Place du Carrous¬ el, where the royal carriage was also drawn up. This commotion has been attributed, by some writ¬ ers, to the intrigues of the Court itself. The King, it is alleged, wished to make it seem that he was deprived of his liberty, in order that he might dis¬ gust moderate men with the Revolution, and jus¬ tify in their eyes the step he had already resolved to take, of flying from the kingdom. It is prob- 180 True Stories from History. able enough, indeed, that Louis and his family were not very sorry, after the affair turned out as it did, to have this convincing proof to appeal to of the durance in which they were held. But it seems quite unnecessary to suppose that they actu¬ ally for this purpose got up a scene so perfectly in keeping with the other events of the time, and therefore so likely to occur without any interfer¬ ence of their own. However, on the night of the 20th of June fol¬ lowing, the King and his family set out on their ill-managed and unfortunate attempt to escape from the kingdom. Preparations for this flight had been for some time making. The person with whom the necessary arrangements were concerted for facilitating the departure of the fugitives, and protecting them from interruption on their route, was the Marquis de Bouille, then military com¬ mandant of the several departments comprising the whole territory from the immediate neigh¬ borhood of Paris to the frontiers of the Low Countries. The Attempted Escape. 181 It was absolutely necessary, of course, for M. dc Bouille’s guidance, that the particular day on wbicb the royal family were to set out on their journey, should be fixed and made known to him. But notwithstanding his earnest representations upon this point, he could not for a long time get the King to come to any decision upon this sub¬ ject. First the 12tli of June was proposed, then the 17th, and subsequently the 19th of the same month. The King wrote to him that on this last- mentioned day he hoped to be ready to take his departure. But in the letter conveying this inti¬ mation, the writer forgot to prefix to his ciphers, the mark indicating where their key was to be found, and it cost M. de Bouille several hours labor before he discovered the secret of their interpretation. He immediately sent off the Duke de Choiseul to the King, to say that everything would be ready by the 19th, and that in case of any absolutely in¬ surmountable impediment arising, the attempt might still succeed although deferred till the 20th, but that after that day no chance would remain. 182 True Stories from History. Although the King received this inessage, he eventually determined not to leave the Tuileries till the 20th, and it required the earnest exertions of the Duke de Choiseul to get everything in read¬ iness for the commencement of the journey even then. At last it was arranged that the attempt should he made at twelve o’clock on the night of the 20th, literally the very last minute allowed by Bouille. On that evening, accordingly, the different mem¬ bers of the family retired to bed at the usual hour. After some time the King rose and proceeded to the Queen’s apartment, where he was soon joined by his children, and his sister, Madame Elizabeth. One of the persons privy to the plan was M. de Simolin, the Russian ambassador, who had previ¬ ously procured the necessary passport from the Minister of War, under pretence that it was for a Russian Baroness de Korff, with her two children, attended by a female servant, a valet de chambre, and three footmen. The party, therefore, now attired themselves in dresses suitable to the char- The Attempted Escape. 188 &eter they were to sustain. The King, who was to pass as the valet, put on a brown frock coat and a wig. The Queen, and Madame Elizabeth, both, wearing large hats to conceal their features as much as possible, personated the Baroness and her maid, and the children were represented by the Dauphin and his sister, the former being dressed as a girl. It had also been resolved that Madame de Tourzel, the governess of the children, should accompany them, so that the party, not including attendants, was to consist of six persons. It had been necessary, therefore, to order a carriage to be built considerably larger than the usual size, to contain so many persons. This carriage, which had been kept concealed for some time, was now waiting outside the city walls, immediately beyond the Barrieie St. Martin. To escape from the Tuileries without observa¬ tion, even at that late hour of the night, required the greatest precaution. But there was a small chamber near the royal apartments, which used to be occupied by one of the female servants, and 184 True Stories from History. from which there was a communication to another room on the ground floor, having a private door opening upon one of the courts. The Queen had taken possession of this chamber, having removed the servant to another part of the palace. She had also obtained the key of the apartment below. Here, therefore, was a way of exit which saved the risk of making the attempt by any of the principal doors. Availing themselves, accordingly, of this outlet, Madame de Tourzel and the two children first made their escape. They were followed by Madame Elizabeth, who was accompanied by a friend as a conductor, and then the King, having also a guide with him, left the palace. All these parties made their way without difficulty to where a vehicle was waiting for them to convey them to the place where their travelling coach was stationed. The distance they had to walk was at most but a few hundred yards, yet the Queen, who was the last to leave the Tuileries, was so unfortunate a3 to lose her way entirely in attempting to reach the rendezvous, although she was accompanied by The Attempted Escape. 185 a person who attempted to act as her guide. The first object she saw on entering the Place du Car¬ rousel, was the carriage of La Fayette, who had command of the National guard, stationed round the palace. The night was very dark, but the at¬ tendants of the General carried torches, the light of which the Queen—disguised as she was—natu¬ rally wished to avoid, and she therefore walked aside till the carriage had passed. This rencontre, however, or the movement she had made to es¬ cape from it, seems to have confused both herself and her conductor. Instead of turning to the left, they took the opposite direction, and actually crossing the river by the Pont Eoyal, they wan¬ dered for a long time, bewildered among the quays and streets. At last they ventured to ask a sentinel to tell them the way. Having, by his direction, re-crossed the river, they soon found themselves once more in the court of the Tuileries, and from thence they found their way, without further accident, to the place where the carriage was waiting. The fugitives, however, had in this 186 True Stories from History, May already lost a full liour of time, when every moment was precious. But this was not the only misfortune of the same kind which attended the commencement of their journey. When they were all assembled, and seated in the coach, the Count de Fersen mounted the box to drive. He was unacquainted with the route leading to the Barriere St. Martin, and took the opposite course, and by a circuitous way, at length, with considerable loss of time, reached the place where them travelling-carriage stood ready for them. On entering this vehicle they overturned the other in a ditch, and left it there. It is not necessary to pursue, except very curso¬ rily, the remainder of the story of this unfortunate journey of the royal fugitives. At the village of Bondy, about three leagues from Paris, they were joined by a coach containing two other ladies who had belonged to the Court, and the two car¬ riages thenceforward proceeded in company. This augmented attendance, while it added to the ordinary chances of delay, was well calculated, in The Attempted Escape. 187 conjunction -with the unusual appearance of the vehicle in which the King rode, to attract general attention to the disguised travellers, and thereby greatly to increase the risk of their persons being discovered. Both at Claye and afterwards at Chalons, some time was lost in repairing the car¬ riages. At Chalons, the only large town through which they had to pass, a few idlers gathered round the carriage while the horses were changed, and the King somewhat imprudently put his head out of the window. He was recognized by the post-master, who felt that his Sovereign’s life was in his hands, and without manifesting the least surprise, he helped to put to the horses, and or¬ dered the postilions to drive on. When the car¬ riage passed the gates of that town, the royal party exclaimed with one voice, “ We are saved.” About half-past six o’clock in the evening the party arrived at Pont Sommerville, where they expected to meet the first detachment of military sent forward for their protection by the Marquis de Bouille. But the Duke of Choiseul, to whom 188 True Stories from History. tlie command of the detachment had been given, after waiting beyond the latest hour he conceived it possible the arrival was to be looked for, had been obliged to retire from his post. This he seems to have done about an hour before, so that if it had not been for the mistakes and delays in the beginning of the journey, the royal party would have been in time for this escort. As matters had turned out, there was too much reason to fear that all the arrangements that had been made for the remainder of the journey would be disconcerted and rendered unavailable. It was possible that the same necessity which ap¬ peared to have prevented this first detachment from remaining at its station, would also withdraw the others from the several points at which they were to have been jdaced, before the arrival of the King. And so, in some sort, it happened. When the travellers reached the town of St. Menehould at half-past eight, the second guard which had been stationed at this place, although they had not left the town, had dismounted and dispersed them- The Attempted Escape. 189 selves. They had done this to avoid the observa¬ tion of the inhabitants, whose suspicions had begun to be excited by the length of time during which the troops-had remained waiting, as they asserted, for the arrival of a quantity of treasure belonging to the government, which still had not made its appearance. But the consequence was that, on the royal carriages reaching the town, none of the expected preparations appeared to have been made. The King, therefore, was in the greatest perplexity, and in his agitation, and in the absence of any other person to take the direc¬ tion of affairs, he was obliged to expose himself so much that he excited both the notice and the sus¬ picions of the b} r standers. It may be supposed that he did not sustain his new character of valet very naturally in all respects. Drouet, the post¬ master, in particular, felt almost convinced that he was in reality the King, especially after comparing his face with the engraving on an assignat which he happened to have in his possession. He, how¬ ever, did not attempt to detain the carriage, which, 190 True Stories from History. after a short delay, proceeded on the road towards Clermont. But as soon as it had departed, he sent his son forward toVarenn.es, to communicate what he suspected to the magistrates of that town. By this time the report that the King was in the car¬ riage had spread itself generally among the inhab¬ itants of St. Menehould, and the tocsin having sounded, and the drum beat to arms, the National Guard had assembled, and would not permit the departure of M. de Bouille’s dragoons, who other¬ wise would have followed the royal party. Y. Capture itn at 11 )t Return. IIE fugitives liad left Clermont before Drouet arrived. Here also the commander of the detachment sent for their protection had been obliged, after remaining at his post as long as possible, to dismiss his men to their barracks before the King made his appearance. From Clermont they proceeded to Varennes, ■which they reached at half-past eleven at night. A stream passes through this little town, separat¬ ing it into two parts, the upper and lower town. A relay of horses had been stationed in the lower town, but the royal party had not been informed of it, and they stopped at the entrance of the upper town. The King had been surprised and greatly alarmed at not finding that arrangements had been made for continuing the journey. The peril of 192 True Stories from History. pursuit was becoming, of course, greater with every moment of delay. He and tlie Queen de¬ scended from tbe carriage, and wandered about the deserted streets for some time, inquiring at every house where lights were seen, but seeking in vain for horses to carry them on. Meanwhile the pos tilions, wearied with the rapid journey, and impa¬ tient for rest, threatened to leave them in the street. By means of large rewards and promises, they however persuaded them to continue the journey. They were again on their way, and the royal party consoled themselves with thinking that this was onty a misunderstanding, and that they would soon reach the camp of M. de Bouille, where they would find safety. The}'- traversed the upper town without difficulty, all was tranquil and quiet. Those who were watching them were silent and concealed. Between the upper and lower town a bridge spans the stream, which is reached through a mas¬ sive and gloomy arch, surmounted by a feudal tower which had braved the storms of many years. The Capture a n d Return. 193 As the carriages were passing through this arched way towards the bridge, they were stopped by a barricade which had been constructed for the pur¬ pose, and the horses’ heads were seized by armed men, who demanded the passports of the travellers. The} r were, therefore, obliged to return to the house of the mayor of the town, where they alight¬ ed. At the same time the bells were rung, the inhabitants aroused, and the National Guards of the town and the neighboring villages gathered together around the house of the Mayor. Any¬ thing like forcible resistance, of course, was utterly unavailing, with such disparity of numbers. It was alike in vain that the King denied his rank, and protested against the detention. His features and those of the Queen betrayed them, and he was at last obliged to acknowledge himself. He then appealed to them by every consideration which he could plead, for his release. He told them that they held in their hands the destiny of himself, the Queen, their innocent children, and of Madame Elizabeth. Their lives even—the fate of the king- 13 194 True Stories from History. dom—the safety of the Constitution—all that ivas dear to him, as husband, father, brother, and King —all that was dear to them as Frenchmen, de¬ pended upon their decision. He declared that it was not his purpose to leave France, but that he was only going to place himself in the hands of his friendly subjects, where, surrounded by a part of the army, he could make terms with the revolu¬ tionary faction, and secure the Constitution and the peace of the country, “ If you do not suffer me to go on,” continued he, “ the Constitution, I myself, France, all are lost. I conjure you, as a father, as a husband, as a man, as a citizen, leave the road free to us; in an hour we shall be saved, and with us France is saved. And if you guard in your hearts that fidelity your words profess for him who was your master, I order you as your King,” The crowd of men and women who surrounded him, and heard these earnest entreaties, could not fail to be moved, even to tears. Between their pity for such terrible reverse of fortune, and their The Capture and Return. 195 conscience as patriots, they scarcely knew kow to resolve and act. The sigkt of tlic Iking, who pressed their hands in his, and of the Queen, so beautiful and majestic in her grief, striving to move them by her entreaties, almost fixed their wavering purposes. Their instincts of Humanity would have bid him go in safety, but their con¬ science of duty, and their fear of consequences, compelled them to detain him. The Queen seeing then the wife of M. Sausse, the Mayor, approached her with her entreaties, hoping to find pity and compassion in her woman’s heart. She showed her the Dauphin and his sis¬ ter. “You are a mother,” said the Queen, “you are a wife; the fate of a wife and mother is in your hands. Think what I must suffer for these children, and for my husband. At one word from you I shall owe them to you. The Queen of France will owe you more than her kingdom— more than her life.” But there was no touch of pity in that hard woman’s heart. Selfishness was there, but no generosity. She, too, thought of her 196 True Stories from History. husband. She thought of the reward he would gain by sending back the fugitives. She thought of this, and her bosom was guarded with triple mail against all agonies and despair, against all depths of entreaty, all intensity of suffering. Through all the remainder of that long night, the King went back and forth between the Queen and Madame Elizabeth, who had retired to an upper room, and the people who crowded around the doorway of the mayor. He sought to soothe and console his wife and sister; he still endeavored to gain over the crowd. He hoped, also, that he would be rescued by the forces of M. de Bouille before the couriers could return from Paris. He believed that his friends were mustering around him, and that as soon as they gathered sufficient numbers, they would release him. And so the night wore on. Hour after hour chimed, and yet there came no rescue. So imperfect and incom¬ plete had been the preparations—partly for the reason that the King had himself thwarted them, by the delay and uncertainty of his flight from The Capture and Return. 197 Paris—that it was not until after tire King had been sent away towards Paris that M. de Bouille arrived at Yarennes, after a forced march. His forces were too small, and his horses too much fatigued, to continue the pursuit. The King and the Queen, and the other mem¬ bers of the royal party, would gladly have found a respite from their sufferings in sleep. But their terror and despair were too great. The threaten¬ ing murmurs of the people, the clamorous voices, the noise of footsteps, the rattling of arms,—a tide of sound which with increasing force came surging up to their ears, through all the night, and into that gray morning,—kept them from rest. So ter¬ rible was the suffering of that beautiful Queen between the rage, the fear, the agony and despair which waged conflict in her mind, that in that one night her hair was changed from its natural au¬ burn, and became as white as snow. At seven o’clock the next morning, the servants of the palace on entering the apartments of the King and Queen at Paris, first discovered their 198 True Stories from History, flight and gave the alarm. During the night be¬ fore La Fayette had been twice at the Tuileries to assure himself that his orders had been obeyed, and that the guard were at their posts. The fugitives had thus several hours the start of any attempt that could be made to pursue them, even supposing it could be ascertained in what direction they had fled. All Paris was stirred up in the greatest commo¬ tion. The alarm was circulated everywhere. “The King has escaped”—was repeated every¬ where. Suspicions of treachery were, at once, aroused. Even La Fayette was suspected of hav¬ ing connived at the flight. It was not easily believed that so large a party could have eluded the vigilance of the guard, and made their way out of Paris, unless they had been assisted b}^ the guard themselves. The doors of the Tuileries were forced open by the populace, who rushed into the royal apartments, and committed all man¬ ner of excesses, as if in this way they could avenge themselves for their disappointment. The general sentiment of indignation against the mon- The Capture and Return. 190 arcli displayed itself in the defacement of the royal arms, and other similar emblems, wherever they presented themselves. The Assembly having met at nine o’clock, the mayor immediately repaired to their hail, to an¬ nounce in form the departure—or as it was called the carrying off—of the King. The Assembly then passed the necessary decrees for the despatch of couriers after the fugitives, the detention of all persons attempting to leave the kingdom, the maintenance of the executive government during the absence of its head, and whatever other meas¬ ures were demanded in order to uphold the tran¬ quillity of the city and of the kingdom, and to re¬ assure the public mind. The first of the messengers sent from Paris reached Varennes on the morning of the 22d, and immediately proceeded to the house at which their Majesties were detained, and delivered to the King the decree of the National Assembly for his arrest. All chance of escape was now over. At eight o’clock, therefore, the royal family quietly 200 True Stories from History.. submitted again to take their seats, in order to be driven back to Paris in the same carriage that had conveyed them thus far on their flight from the capital. Eeturning by Clermont and St. Menehould they arrived, about eleven o’clock at night, at Chalons, where they remained till next morning. Continuing their route on the 23d, they proceeded that day as far as Epernay. Here they were joined by Barnave, Petion, and De Latour-Mau- bourg, the commissioners from the National As¬ sembly. The two former of these took their places in the first carriage with their majesties, in order to protect them from the violence of the multitude who thronged the highway, and the lat¬ ter seated himself with the attendants in the other. “ An immense multitude and an army ”—said the commissioners, in a letter to the Assembly—“ ac¬ companied our progress.” They passed the night of the 24th at Dormans, and at seven o’clock on the evening of the following day, the royal car¬ riage, escorted by about ten thousand National Guards, and a mob, whose numbers had been The Capture and Keturn. 201 rapidly increasing all the way from Varennes, en¬ tered tlie garden of tire Tuileries. The news of the King’s arrest had been brought to Paris two days before, by a messenger specially despatched for that purpose, by the civic author¬ ities of Varennes. The Assembly had, therefore, nearly three days for the arrangement of the meas¬ ures to be taken on his arrival. They provided, accordingly, in the first place, as far as they could, for the preservation of order on the entry of the royal family into the capital, and on the morning which followed this event, they passed a decree for virtually suspending the authority of the King, and. detaining him, with the Queen and Dauphin, in custody, by appointing a guard to each. This res¬ olution was dictated by quite as much moderation as could have been expected in the circumstances. The royal family remained in the same state of confinement till the 3d of September following, when the new Constitution was presented to the King by the Assembly, and accepted by him, on which he was immediately restored to liberty, and 202 True Stories from History. the exercise of his civil functions. But the im¬ pression made upon the public mind by his at¬ tempted flight, and the issue, was never obliterated, and nothing, perhaps, in the early course of the Revolution, contributed so greatly to extinguish the ancient prejudices of the people in favor of- the royal person and dignity, and to precipitate the crisis in which both perished. On the 3d of September, the Constitution agreed upon was presented to the King. It was carried to the palace by a deputation of sixty of the mem¬ bers, who were received by the King, while the Queen, the Dauphin and his' sister, presented them¬ selves at the door of the apartment. After express¬ ing, in general terms, his attachment to the national liberties, and his confidence in the loyalty of his people, he said to the Deputies, “There are my wife and my children, whose sentiments are the same as my own.” The Queen felt it necessary to confirm this assurance, however far she was from partaking in the feelings of hope and confidence which it seemed to imply. The Capture, and Return. 203 Ten days afterwards the King wrote to the As¬ sembly that he was willing to accept the Constitu¬ tion, and the next day, accordingly, he proceeded to their Hall to give his public assent to it, with the solemnities becoming so important an act. At the hour of noon a discharge of cannon announced the approach of his Majesty, who, having entered the Hall, seated himself beside the President of the Assembly. The members, meanwhile, in con¬ formity with a resolution which had been passed in the earlier part of the day, remained in their places without rising. The King himself rose, when about to read his address, but on perceiving that no one else followed his example, he resumed his seat, and proceeded to speak as follows:— “ I have come, gentlemen, to ratify solemnly, in this place, the acceptance of the Constitution which I have already declared. Wherefore, I swear to be faithful to the nation and to the law, and to employ all the power which is delegated to me, in maintaining the Constitution, and causing the laws to be executed. May this great and memorable 204 True Stories from History. epoch, he that of the re-establishment of peace and ■union—the pledge of the happiness of the people, and the prosperity of the empire.” The tone and look, both of dignity and of confi¬ dence, with which these words were spoken, drew forth the plaudits of the Assembly. After a few words of reply from the President, his Majesty signed the Constitution, and then retiring from the Hall, Avas followed by the whole of the members, who escorted him to the sound of military music, as far as the door of the palace. As soon, however, as he had escaped from the public gaze, the monarch, it would appear, gave free vent to the expression of very different senti¬ ments from those he had so recently manifested. Proceeding immediately to the apartment of the Queen, who had also been present in the Assem¬ bly, he threw himself on a chair, and while the tears gushed from his eyes, addressing himself to her Majesty, bewailed in the bitterest terms what he called the humiliation she had seen him under¬ go. The Queen could not console him, but throw- The Capture and Return. 205 ing herself on her knees at his feet, clung to him, and joined in his grief and lamentations. It seemed to both that the manner in which the King had be«i treated by the Assembly, in being placed on a level with the President, and received without any of the usual marks of respect, was both cruelly insulting in itself, and ominous of the entire over¬ throw, at no distant hour, of the royal author¬ ity. Since such had been the demeanor of the exist¬ ing Assembly, what was not to be expected from the one immediately about to meet, the great ma¬ jority of the members of which were well known to be of much more violently anti-monarchical principles even than their predecessors ! The prospect seemed to their Majesties one of deepest gloom. Such were the feelings that reigned within the palace. Without all was popular triumph and rejoicing. Four days after the King’s visit to the Assembly, a public fete, which had been decreed by that body, was celebrated in Paris in honor of -he great act,—the completion, as it were, of the 20G True Stories from History. edifice of freedom,—wliicli had just-been consum¬ mated. The Constitution was solemnly proclaimed by the civic authorities, in a public manner, in several places in the capital. In the evening the city was brilliantly illuminated, and nowhere was there seen a more splendid display of festoons of light, transparencies, and other such ornaments, than along the front of the Tuileries, and in the garden of that palace. The royal family drove in their carriage through the streets, and to the differ¬ ent public places, to witness the rejoicings, and were in general received by the people with respect and demonstrations of attachment. It is related, however, by Madame de Campan, that whenever the cry of Vive le Roi was uttered by the crowd around the royal carriage, a man who had stationed himself by its side, and steadily kept his place there, immediately called out, “ Ne les croyez pas; Vive la Nation /” Trust them not; the Nation for¬ ever ! It has been remarked that the general sen¬ timent was most correctly expressed by a trans¬ parency which a shoemaker of the Rue St. Honors The Capture and Return. 207 had placed oyer the door of his shop, exhibiting the following words:— “ Vive le Roi S’il est de bonne foi.” The members of the first National Assembly held their last sitting on the 30th of September, the King having on that occasion again presented himself among them, and read an address full of apparently the most cordial assurances of his satis¬ faction with the new order of things. The next day their successors met in the same Hall. VI. frmut ani impnMng $mls. T OUIS XYI. trembled in bis palace. He could not conceal from bimself that be was less the king than tbe captive of France, and that bis own life and that of tbe Queen and tbeir children would be sacrificed whenever reverse or peril should come. The public journals and tbe clubs de¬ nounced, more earnestly than ever, tbe Austrian influence which they alleged was at work, and of which they accused the Queen of being the pro¬ moter. Discord reigned in the councils of the ministers, and everything was in a state of confu¬ sion. Thus they passed the long and dreary months of the remainder of that year, nor did they find relief, except in the momentary gleams of hope which visited them, as the winter passed, and the spring wore on. They were guarded in Evils a^d Perils. 209 the palace more closely than ever before. Every¬ where, at the outer gates, and in the inner cham¬ bers and passages, sentinels were posted. Even the private apartments of the Queen were invaded, and no respect was paid to the modest decencies of domestic life. The vigilant eyes of unfeeling sentinels were set to watch the royal family even in the retirement of their sleeping apartments and around the sacred retreats of domestic privacy. Besides all these sufferings and fears, the state of the city was such as to awaken the most gloomy and terrible apprehensions. The law was powerless, and the will of an insane mob governed everywhere. Assassination and murder were committed with impunity, and tbe most horrible barbarities were exercised upon such as fell under the popular suspicion or hate. The royal family were grossly insulted whenever they made their appearance, even if it were only at the windows of the palace. The King had refused his sanction to a decree of the Assembly for the persecution of the priest- 14 210 True Stories from History. hood, and this aroused the mob of Paris to a vio¬ lent outrage. They made an assault upon the Tuileries, after he had retiredlyilli the royal family into one of the interior apartments which overlooked the garden of the palace. He heard at first the distant murmur and thunder of the gathering multitude, and soon afterwards the cries of his frightened servants, who were flying in all directions. The King confided his wife, his sis¬ ter and his children to the care of the officers of the household, who surrounded them, and went alone in the direction of the Hall of Council, near which the attack was made. When the King entered this apartment, he found that the doors of the next room, the Hall of the nobles, as it was called, were broken in by the blows of the assail¬ ants. Instead of retreating, the King rushed for¬ ward towards the door, through the broken panels of which the frantic mob thrust at him with iron- pointed sticks and lances, while he was assailed with furious cries, imprecations and menaces. Louis ordered his attendants to open the doors, Evils and Perils. 211 exclaiming in a firm voice, that lie could have nothing to fear in the midst of his people. The impetuosity of the ringleaders was over¬ awed by his firmness and self-composure, and by that feeling of respect for the sacred person of the King which they had so long been accustomed to f'el. Several officers of the National Guard, alarmed by the report of his Majesty’s danger, had hastened to join the brave grenadiers who were in attendance upon him, and thus kept the crowd at bay. He was only anxious to prevent the people from entering the apartment of the royal family, regardless of his own danger. While thus exposed to the weapons which threatened him, he beheld his sister, Madame Elizabeth, en¬ deavoring to approach him, as if by her presence she might shield him, or failing in that, might die with him. The mob, mistaking her for the Queen, rushed towards her, and were about to kill her, but being undeceived, and hearing her venerated name, tlie} r dropped their arms. “ Ah, why do you undeceive them ? ” cried the Princess sorrow- 212 True Stories from History. fully—“ let them suppose I am the Queen Could I die in her place, she perhaps might he saved,” The assailants pressing round the King, loudly demanded that he would sanction the decree against the priests. At each new invasion of the mob, the strength of the King and the small num¬ ber of his defenders was exhausted in the re¬ newed struggles of the unwearied crowd. They climbed up by the balconies, and entered by the roof and windows, while. the maddened rabble below shouted impatiently to those above to finish the work. At one time there was a report that Louis w r as assassinated, and the people outside looked up to the windows, demanding that his head should be thrown down to them. One of the crowd thrust towards the King the bonnet rouge , on the end of a pike, and demanded that he should put it on, as. a sign of patriotism. With a smile the King placed it on his head, and then there arose shouts of Vive le Roi! Having thus crowned Louis with the symbol of liberty, the people felt that they were conquerors, and Evils and Perils. 213 their rage was thus, for the time, appeased. Still they demanded the sanction of the decrees. But Louis firmly refused to acquiesce. lie declared that he would not surrender to violence, that there was no time for deliberation, and that so sur¬ rounded, he could not possibly deliberate with freedom. “Do not fear, Sire,” said a grenadier of the National Guard to him. “ My friend,” was the King’s repl} r , taking his hand, and placing it on his breast, “place your hand there, and see if my heart beats quicker than usual.” This action, and his unshaken firmness and calm self-reliance, was seen and observed by the crowd, and had its effect in turning the tide in his favor. While Louis was thus beset by the multitude, and was resisting their rage almost single-handed, the Queen, who was more hated than the King, was undergoing similar outrages and torments in another apartment of the palace. The doors of her room were assailed with the same uproar and violence which beset the Hall where the King met the crowd. But this party was composed chiefly 214 True Stories from History. of women, assisted by some men whom they sum¬ moned to break down the doors. Tbe Queen was standing with her two children pressed to her bosom, and listening with mortal fear to the cries of the assailants. She had near her no one but M. de Lajard, the Minister of War, who was powerless but devoted, a few ladies of her suite, and the Princess de Lamballe, that friend who was endeared to her by many memories both of happy and unhappy hours. As the multitude poured into the apartment of the Queen, they found her with her daughter, then fourteen years of age, pressed closely against her mother’s bosom, as though she would shield her by her innocence, and the Dauphin, a beautiful child of seven years old, seated on the table in front of her. The feroc¬ ity of her foes was softened before this moving spectacle of weakness, beauty, and childhood. They could not, with all their passions of hate and revenge, fail to feel sensibility and pity in the presence of humiliated greatness. A young girl of pleasing appearance, and respectably attired, Evils and Perils. 215 approached the Queen, and in the coarsest terms bitterly reviled her as base and treacherous. Marie Antoinette, moved by the gentleness of her face, in contrast with the rage and bitterness which she manifested, addressed her in a kind and sooth¬ ing manner. “Why do you hate me? Have I ever, unknow¬ ingly, done you any injury, or in any way offend¬ ed you?” “ No, not to me,” replied the young girl. “ But you are the one who causes all the misery and suf¬ fering of the people.” “Poor child,” replied the Queen. “You have been deceived by the accusations of others. What would it advance me to make the people miser¬ able ? I am the wife of your King, and the mother •of the Dauphin. By all the affections of my heart, as a wife and mother, I am a Frenchwoman. I shall never more see my own country. I can only be happy or unhappy in France. I was happy when I had your love.” These gentle reproaches melted the heart of the 216 True Stories from History girl, and she burst into tears. Begging the pardon of the Queen, she said to her, “ I did not know you before, but I see that you arc good.” When the Assembly heard of the assault upon the King in his palace, they sent a deputation of twenty-four members to put a stop to the outrage, and protect the royal family. But the eloquence which is so powerful to excite the masses, is pow¬ erless to check them, and their words and remon¬ strances were lost in the confused noise of the assailants, and thus for five long hours the King and his household were exposed to the insults and rage of the unfeeling mob. Forty thousand per¬ sons were collected, among whom were many women from the faubourgs, and in the wildest ex¬ cesses of rage, and obscenity, and drunkenness, they surrounded the Hall of the Assembly, and thronged in the gardens and apartments of the Tuileries. At length, through the exertions of the National Guards, and of the president and mem¬ bers of the Assembly, the palace was cleared, and the royal family left to such quiet and repose as Evils and Perils. 217 might follow a scene of such lawless outrage and terrible clanger. The events of this awful time had taught Louis that there was no safety for them, and no protection against the fury of the excited populace. The most gloomy apprehensions and fears filled their bosoms, as they looked forward to the future. They could not forecast coming events, nor penetrate the dark and still darkening cloud which hung in deepest gloom over the prospect. These scenes occurred on the 20th of June, 1792. The departments were preparing to send to the capital twenty thousand troops, in obedience to the order of the Assembly. Among these troops was a body of twelve or fifteen hundred men, known as the Marseillais, who-were summoned up from the south, at the instigation of the Girondists, to rekindle the revolutionary fires which seemed to be burning low in Paris. These men, rendered frantic by the eloquence of the provincial clubs, and by the applauses of the people, were every¬ where received with applause, feted and overcome 218 True Stories from History. bj enthusiasm and wine at the patriotic banquets which greeted them in constant succession on their way. The secret motive which brought them to Paris was to intimidate the National Guard, to revive the energy of the faubourgs, and by their enthusiasm and reckless courage, to control the military forces then gathered in the capital. The famous Marsellaise Hymn, -written and com¬ posed by a young officer of artillery in the garri¬ son at Strasbourg, named Eouget de Lisle, was chanted by this band, along their march, and as they approached the capital. Never, during all the revolution, was enthusiasm at greater height, or the idea of revolution more palpably embodied than when the populace of Paris, men, women, and children, in a *rast multitude, received this horde with loud and impassioned greetings. THE MARSEILLAISE. I. Allons, enfants de la patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrive! Contre nous, de la tyrannie L’etendart sanglant eat leve. The Marseillaise. 219 Entendez-vous dans ces campagnes Mugir ces feroces soldats ! IIs viennent jusque dans vos bras Egorger vos fils et vos compagnes! Aux arrnes, citoyens ! formez vos bataillcns ! Marchons! qu’un sang impur abreuve nos sillonsl II. Que vent cette horde d’esclaves, De traitres, de rois conjures? Pour qui ces ignobles entraves Ces fers des longtemps prepares ? Frangais, pour vous ah ! quel outrage, Quels transports il doit exciter ? C’est vous qu’on ose mediter De rendre a l’antique esclavage: Aux armea, &c. III. Quoi! ces cohortes etrangeres Feraient la loi dans nos foyers ? Quoi! ces phalanges mereenaires Terrasseraient nos peres guerriers? Grand Dieu ! par des mains enchairiles, Nos fronts sous le joug se ploieraient; De vils despotes deviendraient Les maitres de nos destinees. Aux armes,