beloved of his predecessors.
His return to the barrier resembled a triumphal procession. Yet, happy as it seemed that outrage had thus been averted and unanimity restored, the result of the day can not, perhaps, be deemed entirely fortunate, since it probably contributed to fix more deeply in the king's mind the belief that concession to clamor was the course most likely to be successful. Nor did the queen, though for the moment her despondency was changed to thankful exultation, at all conceal from herself that the perils which had been escaped were certain to recur; and that vigilance and firmness would surely again be called for to repel them-qualities which she could find in herself, but which she might well doubt her ability to impart to others.[8]
Her own attention was for a moment occupied by the necessary work of selecting a new governess for her children in the place of Madame de Polignac; and after some deliberation her choice fell on the Marchioness de Tourzel, a lady of the most spotless character, who seems to have been in every respect well fitted for so important an office. As Marie Antoinette had scarcely any previous acquaintance with her, it was by her character alone that she had been recommended to her; as was gracefully expressed in the brief speech with which Marie Antoinette delivered her little charges into her hands. 'Madame,' said she, 'I formerly intrusted my children to friendship; to- day I intrust them to virtue;[9]' and, a day or two afterward, to make easier the task which the marchioness had not undertaken without some unwillingness, she addressed her a letter in which she describes the character of her son, and her own principles and method of education, with an impartiality and soundness of judgment which could not have been surpassed by one who had devoted her whole attention to the subject:
'July 25th, 1789.
'My son is four years and four months old, all but two days. I say nothing of his size nor of his general appearance; it is only necessary to see him. His health has always been good, but even in his cradle we perceived that his nerves were very delicate.... This delicacy of his nerves is such that any noise to which he is not accustomed frightens him. For instance, he is afraid of dogs because he once heard one bark close to him; and I have never obliged him to see one, because I believe that, as his reason grows stronger, his fears will pass away. Like all children who are strong and healthy, he is very giddy, very volatile, and violent in his passions; but he is a good child, tender, and even caressing, when his giddiness does not run away with him. He has a great sense of what is due to himself, which, if he be well managed, one may some day turn to his good. Till he is entirely at his ease with any one, he can restrain himself, and even stifle his impatience and his inclination to anger, in order to appear gentle and amiable. He is admirably faithful when once he has promised any thing, but he is very indiscreet; he is thoughtless in repeating any thing that he has heard; and often, without in the least intending to tell stories, he adds circumstances which his own imagination has put into his head. This is his greatest fault, and it is one for which he must be corrected. However, taken altogether, I say again, he is a good child; and by treating him with allowance, and at the same time with firmness, which must be kept clear of severity, we shall always be able to do all that we can wish with him. But severity would revolt him, for he has a great deal of resolution for his age. To give you an instance: from his very earliest childhood the word
'I have always accustomed my children to have great confidence in me, and, when they have done wrong, to tell me themselves; and then, when I scold them, this enables me to appear pained and afflicted at what they have done rather than angry. I have accustomed them all to regard 'yes' or 'no,' once uttered by me, as irrevocable; but I always give them reasons for my decision, suitable to their ages, to prevent their thinking that my decision comes from ill-humor. My son can not read, and he is very slow at learning; but he is too giddy to apply. He has no pride in his heart, and I am very anxious that he should continue to feel so. Our children always learn soon enough what they are. He is very fond of his sister, and has a good heart. Whenever any thing gives him pleasure, whether it be the going anywhere, or that any one gives him any thing, his first movement always is to ask that his sister may have the same. He is light-hearted by nature. It is necessary for his health that he should be a great deal in the open air; and I think it is better to let him play and work in the garden on the terrace, than to take him longer walks. The exercise which children take in running about and playing in the open air is much more healthy than forcing them to walk, which often makes their backs ache.[10]'
Some of these last recommendations may seem to show that the governess was, to some extent, regarded as a nurse as well as a teacher; and when we find Marie Antoinette complaining of want of discretion in a child of four years old, it may perhaps be thought that she is expecting rather more of such tender years than is often found in them; that she is inclined to be overexacting rather than overindulgent; an error the more venial, since it is probable that the educators of princes are more likely to go astray in the opposite direction. But it is impossible to avoid being struck with the candor with which she judges her boy's character, and with the judiciousness of her system of education; and equally impossible to resist the conviction that a boy of good disposition, trained by such a mother, had every chance of becoming a blessing to his subjects, if fate had only allowed him to succeed to the throne which she had still a right to look forward to for him as his assured inheritance.
CHAPTER XXV. Necker resumes Office.-Outrages in the Provinces.-Pusillanimity of the Body of the Nation.-Parties in the Assembly.-Views of the Constitutionalists or 'Plain.'-Barnave makes Overtures to the Court.-The Queen rejects them.-The Assembly abolishes all Privileges, August 4th.- Debates on the Veto.-An Attack on Versailles is threatened.-Great Scarcity in Paris.-The King sends his Plate to be melted down.-The Regiment of Flanders is brought up to Versailles.-A Military Banquet is held in the Opera-house.-October 5th, a Mob from Paris marches on Versailles.-Blunders of La Fayette-Ferocity of the Mob on the 5th.- Attack on the Palace on the 6th.- Danger and Heroism of the Queen.-The Royal Family remove to Paris.-Their Reception at the Barrier and at the Hotel de Ville.-Shabbiness of the Tuileries.-The King fixes his Residence there.
Necker had obeyed the king's summons the moment that he received it, and before the end of the month he returned to Versailles and resumed his office. But, even before the king's dispatch reached him, Paris had witnessed terrible proofs that the tranquillity which the king's visit to the capital was supposed to have re-established was but temporary. The populace had broken out into fresh tumults, murdering some of Breteuil's colleagues with circumstances of frightful barbarity; while intelligence of similar disturbances in the provinces was constantly arriving. In Normandy, in Alsace, and in Provence, in the towns, and in the rural districts, the towns-people and the peasants rose against their wealthier neighbors or their landlords, burning their houses, and commonly murdering the owners with the most revolting barbarity. Some were torn into pieces; some were roasted alive; some had actually portions of their flesh cut off and eaten by their murderers in their own sight, before the blow was given which terminated their agonies. Their sex did not save ladies from being victims of the same cruelties, nor did it prevent women from being actors in them.
Yet the horror of these scenes was scarcely stranger than the pusillanimity of those who endured them unresistingly; for there were not wanting instances of magistrates honest enough to detest, and courageous enough to chastise, such outrages; and wherever the effort was made it succeeded so completely as to fix no slight criminality on those who submitted to them. In Dauphiny, the States of the province raised a small guard, which quelled the first attempts to cause riots there, and hanged the ringleaders. In Macon, a similar force, though not three hundred strong, encountered a band of brigands, six thousand in number, and brought back two hundred prisoners, the chiefs of whom were instantly executed, and by their prompt punishment tranquillity was restored. Similar firmness would have saved other districts, which now allowed themselves to be the victims of ravage and murder; as afterward it would have preserved the whole country, even when the madness and wickedness of subsequent years were at their height; for in no part of the kingdom did those who perpetrated or sympathized with the crimes which have made the Revolution a by-word, approach the number of those who loathed them, but who had not the courage or foresight to withstand them. It seemed as if a long course of misgovernment, and the example of the profligacy and impiety set by the higher classes for many generations, had demoralized the entire people, some in their excesses discarding the ordinary instincts of human beings; while the bulk of the nation had lost even that courage which had once been among its most shining qualities, and had no longer the manliness to resist outrages which they abhorred, even when their own safety was staked upon their repression.
And similar weakness was exhibited in the Assembly itself; for, unquestionably, the party which at last prevailed was not that which was originally the strongest. Like most assemblies of the kind, it was divided into three parties-the extreme Royalists, or 'the Right;' the extreme Reformers (who were subdivided into several sections), or 'the Left;' and between them the moderate Constitutionalists, or 'the Plain,' as they were called,
