measures for the restoration of order. But Louis could not be roused, even by the murder of his own faithful servant, to employ force to save those who might be similarly menaced. The only expedient which occurred to his mind was to concede all that the rioters required; and at midday on the 15th he repaired to the Assembly, and announced that he had ordered the removal of the troops from Paris and from Versailles; declaring that he trusted himself to the Assembly, and wished to identify himself with the nation. The Assembly could hardly have avoided feeling that it was a strange time to select for withdrawing the troops, when an armed mob was in possession of the capital; but, as they had formerly requested that measure, they thought themselves bound now to applaud it, and, being for the moment touched by the compliment paid to themselves, when he quit the Hall they unanimously rose and followed him, escorting him back to the palace with vehement cheers. A vast crowd filled the outer courts, who caught the contagion, and shouted out a demand for a sight of the whole royal family; and presently, when the queen brought out on the balcony her only remaining boy, whom the death of his brother had raised to the rank of dauphin, and saluted them, with a graceful bow, the whole mass burst out in one vociferous acclamation.
Yet even in that moment of congratulation there were base and malignant spirits in the crowd, full of bitterness against the royal family, and especially against the queen, whom they had evidently been taught to regard as the chief obstacle to the reforms which they desired. Her faithful waiting-woman, Madame de Campan, had gone down into the court-yard and mingled with the crowd, to be the better able to judge of their real feelings. She could see that many were disguised; and one woman, whose veil of black lace, with which she concealed her features, showed that she did not belong to the lowest class, seized her violently by the arm, calling her by her name, and bid her 'go and tell her queen not to interfere any more in the Government, but to leave her husband and the good States-general to work out the happiness of the people.' Others she heard uttering threats of vengeance against Madame de Polignac. And one, while pouring forth 'a thousand invectives' against both king and queen, declared that it should soon be impossible to find even a fragment of the throne on which they were now seated.
Marie Antoinette was greatly alarmed, not for herself, but for her husband; and, now that he had determined on withdrawing the soldiers from the capital, she earnestly entreated him to accompany them, taking the not unreasonable view that the violence of the Parisian mob would be to some extent quelled, and the well-intentioned portion of the Assembly would have greater boldness to support their opinions, if the king were thus placed out of the reach of danger from any fresh outbreak; and it was generally understood that an attack on Versailles itself was anticipated.[3] She felt so certain of the wisdom of such a course, and so sanguine of prevailing, that she packed up her diamonds, burned many of her papers, and drew up a set of orders for the arrangement of the details of the journey. But on the morning of the 16th she was compelled to inform Madame Campan that the plan was given up. Large portions of the Parisian mob, and among them one deputation of the fish-women, who in this, as well as on more festive occasions, claimed equally to take the lead, had come out to demand that the king should visit Paris; and the Ministerial Council thought it safer for him to comply with that petition than to throw himself into the arms of the soldiers, a step which might not improbably lead to a civil war.
To the queen this seemed the most dangerous course of all. She knew that both at Versailles and at Paris the agents of the Duke of Orleans had been scattering money with a lavish hand; and she scarcely doubted that either on his road, or in the city, her husband would be assassinated, or at the least detained by the mob as a prisoner and a hostage.
Had she not feared to increase his danger, she would have accompanied him; but at such a crisis it required more courage and fortitude to separate herself from him; and the most courageous part was ever that which was most natural to her. But, though she took no precautions for herself, she was as thoughtful as ever for her friends; and, knowing how obnoxious the Duchess de Polignac was to the multitude, she insisted on her departing with her family. The duchess fled, not unwillingly; and at the same time others also quit Versailles who had not the same plea of delicacy of sex to excuse their terrors, and who were bound by every principle of duty to remain by the king's side the more steadily the greater might be the danger. The Prince de Conde, who certainly at one time had been a brave man, and had won an honorable name, worthy of his intrepid ancestor, in the Seven Years' War; his brother, the Prince de Conti; the Count d'Artois, who, having always been the advocate of the most violent measures, was doubly bound to stand forward in defense of his king and brother, all fled, setting the first example of that base emigration which eventually left the king defenseless in the midst of his enemies. The Baron de Breteuil and some of the ministers made similar provision for their own safety; though it may be said, as some extenuation of their ignoble flight, that they had no longer any official duties to detain them, since the king had already dismissed them, and on the evening of the 16th had written to Necker to beg him to return without delay and resume his office, claiming his instant obedience as a proof of the attachment and fidelity which he had promised when departing five days before.
On the morning of the 17th, Louis set out for Paris in a single carriage, escorted by a very slender guard and accompanied by a party of the deputies. He was fully alive to the danger he was incurring. He knew that threats had been openly uttered that he should not reach Paris alive;[4] and he had prepared for his journey as for death, burning his papers, taking the sacrament, and making arrangements for a regency. Marie Antoinette was almost hopeless of his safety. She sat with her children in her private room, shedding no tears, lest the knowledge of her grief should increase the alarm of her attendants; but her carriages were kept harnessed, and she had prepared and learned by heart a short speech, with which, if the worst news which she apprehended should arrive, she intended to repair to the Assembly, and claim its protection for the wife and children of their sovereign.[5] But often, as she rehearsed it, her voice, in spite of all her efforts, was broken by sobs, and her reiterated exclamation, 'They will never let him return!' but too truly expressed the deep forebodings of her heart.
They were not yet fated to be realized; the Insurrection Committee had already organized a force which they had entitled the National Guard, and of which they had conferred the command on the Marquis de La Fayette, And at the gates of the city the king was met by him and the mayor, a man named Bailly, who had achieved a considerable reputation as a mathematician and an astronomer, but who was thoroughly imbued with the leveling and irreligious doctrines of the school of the Encyclopedists. No men in Paris were less likely to treat their sovereign with due respect.
Since his return from America, La Fayette had been living in retirement on his estate, till at the recent election he had been returned to the States-general as one of the representatives of the nobles for his native province of Auvergne. He had taken no part in the debates, being entirely destitute of political abilities;[6] and he had apparently no very distinct political views, but wavered between a desire for a republic, such, as that of which he had witnessed the establishment in America, and a feeling in favor of a limited monarchy such as he understood to exist in Great Britain, though he had no accurate comprehension of its most essential principles. But his ruling passion was a desire for popularity; and as he had always been vain of his unbending ill-manners as a proof of his liberal sentiments,[7] and as his vanity made him regard kings and queens with a general dislike, as being of a rank superior to his own, he looked on the present occurrence as a favorable opportunity for gaining the good-will of the mob, by showing marked disrespect to Louis. He would not even pay him the ordinary compliment of appearing in uniform, but headed his new troops in plain clothes; and even those were not such as belonged to his rank, but were the ordinary dress of a plain citizen; while Bailly's address, as Louis entered the gates, was marked with the most studied and gratuitous insolence. 'Sire,' said he, 'I present to your majesty the keys of your good city of Paris. They are the same which were presented to Henri IV. He had conquered his people: to-day the people have conquered their king.'
Louis proceeded onward to the Hotel de Ville, in a strange procession, headed by a numerous band of fish- women, always prominent, and recruited at every step by a crowd of rough peasant-looking men, armed with bludgeons, scythes, and every variety of rustic weapons, evidently on the watch for some opportunity to create a tumult, and seeking to provoke one by raising from time to time vociferous shouts of 'Vive la nation!' and uttering ferocious threats against any one who might chance to exclaim, 'Vive le roi!' But they were disconcerted by the perfect calmness of the king, on whom danger to himself seemed the only thing incapable of making an impression. On Bailly's insolent speech he had made no comment, remarking, in a whisper to his principal attendant, that he had better appear not to have heard it. And now at the Hotel de Ville his demeanor was as unruffled as if every thing that had happened had been in perfect accordance with his wishes. He made a short speech, in which he confirmed all the concessions and promises which he had previously made. He even placed in his hat a tricolor cockade, which the mayor had the effrontery to present to him, though it was the emblem of the revolt of his subjects and of the defeat of his troops. And at last such an effect had his fearless dignity on even the fiercest of his enemies, that when he afterward came out on the balcony to show himself to the crowd beneath, the whole mass raised the shout of 'Vive le roi!' with as much enthusiasm as had ever greeted the most feared or the most
