But this was too bold a step for Louis to decide on. He anticipated that the Assembly or the mob might endeavor to prevent such a movement by force, which could only be repelled by force; and force he was resolved never to employ. The only alternative was to flee secretly; and in the course of January, Mercy learns that that plan has been adopted, and that Compiegne is not considered sufficiently distant from Paris, but that some fortified place will be selected; Valenciennes being the most likely, as he himself imagined, since, if farther flight should become necessary, it would be easy from thence to cross the frontier into the Belgian dominions of the queen's brother. But if Valenciennes had ever been thought of, it was rejected on that very account; for Louis had learned from English history that the withdrawal of James II. from his kingdom had been alleged as one reason for declaring the throne vacant; and he was resolved not to give his enemies any plea for passing a similar resolution with respect to himself. Valenciennes was so celebrated as a frontier town, that the mere fact of his fixing himself there might easily be represented as an evidence of his intention to quit the kingdom. But there was a small town of considerable strength named Montmedy, in the district under the command of the Marquis de Bouille, which afforded all the advantages of Valenciennes, and did not appear equally liable to the same objections. Montmedy, therefore, was fixed upon; and, in the very first week of February, Marie Antoinette announced the decision to Mercy; and began her own preparations by sending him a jewel-case full of those diamonds which were her private property. She explained to him at considerable length the reasons which had dictated the choice. The very smallness of Montmedy was in itself a recommendation, since it would prevent any one from thinking it likely to be selected as a refuge. It was also so near Luxembourg that, in the present temper of the nation, which regarded the Austrian power with 'a panic fear,' any addition which M. de Bouille might make to either the garrison or to his supplies would seem only a wise precaution against the much-dreaded foreigner. Moreover, the troops in that district were among the most loyal and well-disposed in the whole army; and if the king should find it unsafe to remain long at Montmedy, he would have a trustworthy escort to retreat to Alsace.
She also explained the reasons which had led them to decide on quitting Paris secretly by night. If they started in the daytime, it would be necessary to have detachments of troops planted at different spots on their road to protect them. But M. de Bouille could not rely on all his own regiments for such a service, and still less on the National Guards in the different towns; while to bring up fresh forces from distant quarters would attract attention, and awaken suspicions beforehand which might be fatal to the enterprise. Montmedy, therefore, had been decided on, and the plans were already so far settled that she could tell Mercy that they should take Madame de Tourzel with them, and travel in one single carriage, which they had never been seen to use before.
Their preparations had even gone beyond these details, minute as they were. The king was already collecting materials for a manifesto which he designed to publish the moment that he found himself safely out of Paris. It would explain the reasons for his flight; it would declare an amnesty to the people in general, to whom it would impute no worse fault than that of being misled (none being excepted but the chief leaders of the disloyal factions; the city of Paris, unless it should at once return to its ancient tranquillity; and any persons or bodies who might persist in remaining in arms). To the nation in general the manifesto would breathe nothing but affection. The Parliaments would be re-established, but only as judicial tribunals, which should have no pretense to meddle with the affairs of administration or finance. In short, the king and she had determined to take his declaration of the 23d of June[12] as the basis of the Constitution, with such modifications as subsequent circumstances might have suggested. Religion would be one of the matters placed in the foreground.
So sanguine were they, or rather was she, of success, that she had even taken into consideration the principles on which future ministries should be constituted; and here for the first time she speaks of herself as chiefly concerned in planning the future arrangements. 'In private we occupy ourselves with discussing the very difficult choice which we shall have to make of the persons whom we shall desire to call around us when we are at liberty. I think that it will be best to place a single man at the head of affairs, as M. Maurepas was formerly; and if it be settled in this way, the king would thus escape having to transact business with each individual minister separately, and affairs would proceed more uniformly and more steadily. Tell me what you think of this idea. The fit man is not easy to find, and the more I look for him, the greater inconveniences do I see in all that occur to me.'
She proceeds to discuss foreign affairs, the probable views and future conduct of almost every power in Europe-of Holland, Prussia, Spain, Sweden, England; still showing the lingering jealousy which she entertained of the British Government, which she suspected of wishing to detach the chivalrous Gustavus from the alliance of France by the offer of a subsidy. But she is sanguine that, 'though some may he glad to see the influence of France diminished, no wise statesman in any country can desire her ruin or dismemberment. What is going on in France would be an example too dangerous to other countries, if it were left unpunished. Their cause is the cause of all kings, and not a simple political difficulty.[13]'
The whole letter is a most remarkable one, and fully bears out the eulogies which all who had an opportunity of judging pronounced on her ability. But the most striking reflection which it suggests is with what admirable sagacity the whole of the arrangements for the flight of the royal family had been concerted, and with what judgment the agents had been chosen, since, though the enterprise was not attempted till more than four months after this letter was written, the secret was kept through the whole of that time without the slightest hint of it having been given, or the slightest suspicion of it having been conceived, by the most watchful or the most malignant of the king's enemies.
Yet during the winter and early spring the conduct of the Jacobin party in the Assembly, and of the Parisian mob whom they were keeping in a constant state of excitement, increased in violence; while one occurrence which took place was, in Mirabeau's opinion, especially calculated to prompt a suspicion of the king's intentions. Louis had at, last, and with extreme reluctance, sanctioned, the bill which required the clergy to take an oath to comply with the new ecclesiastical arrangements, in the vain hope that the framers of it would be content with their triumph, and would forbear to enforce it by fixing any precise date for administering the oath. But, at the end of January, Barnave obtained from the Assembly a decree that it should be taken within twenty-four hours, under the penalty of deprivation of all their preferments to all who should refuse it; the clerical members of the Assembly were even threatened by the mob in the galleries with instant death if they declined or even delayed to swear. And as very few of any rank complied, the main body of the clergy was instantly stripped of all their appointments and reduced to beggary, and a large proportion of them fled at once from the kingdom. Those who took the oath, and who in consequence were appointed to the offices thus vacated, were immediately condemned and denounced by the pope; and the consequence was that a great number of their flocks fled with their old priests, not being able to reconcile to their consciences to stay and receive the sacrament and rites of the Church from ministers under the ban of its head.
Among those who thus fled were the king's two aunts, the Princesses Adelaide and Victoire. Bigotry was their only virtue; and they determined to seek shelter in Rome. Louis highly disapproved of the step, which, as Mirabeau, [14] in a very elaborate and forcible memorial which he drew up and submitted to him, pointed out, might be very dangerous for the king and queen as well as for themselves, since it could be easily represented by the evil-minded as a certain proof that they also were designing to flee. And he even recommended that Louis should formally notify to the Assembly that he disapproved of his aunts' journey, and should make it a pretext for demanding a law which should give him the power of regulating the movements of the members of his family.
The flight of the princesses, however, did not, as it turned out, cause any inconvenience to the king or queen, though it did endanger themselves; for, though they were furnished with passports, the municipal authorities tried to stop them at Moret; and at Arnay-le-Duc the mob unharnessed their horses and detained them by force They appealed to the Assembly by letter; Alexander Lameth, on this occasion uniting with the most violent Jacobins, was not ashamed to move that orders should be dispatched to send them bank to Paris: but the body of the Assembly had not yet descended to the baseness of warring with women; and Mirabeau, who treated the proposal as ridiculous, and overwhelmed the mover with his wit, had no difficulty in procuring an order that the fugitives, 'two princesses of advanced age and timorous consciences,' as he called them, should be allowed to proceed on their journey.
CHAPTER XXX. The Mob attacks the Castle at Vincennes.-La Fayette saves it.-He insults the Nobles who come to protect the King.-Perverseness of the Count d'Artois and the Emigrants.-Mirabeau dies.- General Sorrow for his death.-He would probably not have been able to arrest the Revolution.- The Mob prevent the King from visiting St. Cloud.-The Assembly passes a Vote to forbid him to go more than twenty Leagues from Paris.
