On the 21st she hears that the Charter will be presented at the end of the week, and she repeats her fears that the conduct of the emigrants may involve them in fresh troubles. 'It is essential that the French, and most especially the brothers of the king, should keep in the background, and allow the foreign princes to act by themselves. But no entreaty, no argument from us will induce them to do so. The emperor must insist upon it. It is the only way in which he can serve us. You know yourself the mischievous wrong-headedness and evil designs of the emigrants. The cowards! after having abandoned us, they seek to make us expose ourselves alone to danger, and serve nothing but their interests. I do not accuse the king's brothers; I believe their hearts and their intentions to be pure, but they are surrounded and guided by ambitious men who will ruin them after having first ruined us.' ... On the 26th she hears that it will still be a week before the Constitution is brought to the king. 'It is impossible, considering our position, that the king should refuse to accept it. You may depend upon this being true, since I say it. You know my character sufficiently to be sure that it would incline me rather to a noble and bold course. We have no resource but in the foreign powers. They must come to our assistance; but it is the emperor who must put himself at the head of every thing, and manage every thing.... I declare to you that matters are now come to such a state that it would be better to be king of a single province than of a kingdom so abandoned and disordered as this. I shall endeavor, if I can, to send the emperor information on all these matters. But, in the mean time, do you tell him all that you consider necessary to prove to him that we have no longer any resource except in him, and that our happiness, our existence, and that of my child depend on him alone, and on his prudence and promptitude in action.[11]'
And, however she from time to time caught at momentary hopes arising from other sources, the only one on which she placed any permanent reliance were the affection and power of her brother; and that hope, in the course of the winter, was cut from under her by his death.[12] Yet so correct was her judgment and appreciation of sound political principles, or, perhaps we might say, so keen was her sense of what was due to the independence and dignity of France, in spite of its present disloyalty, that a report that the emperor and Prussia had, by implication, claimed a right to dictate to France in matters of her internal government drew from her a warm remonstrance. As sovereign and brother she conceived that Leopold had a right to interfere to insure the safety of his own sister and of a brother sovereign; but she never desired him to interpose for any other object. From her childhood, as we have seen more than once, she had learned to regard the Prussian character and Prussian designs with abhorrence. And in a letter to Mercy of the 12th of September, after expressing an earnest hope that the emperor will not allow himself to be guided by 'the cunning of Calonne, and the detestable policy of Prussia,' she adds, 'It is said here that in the agreement signed at Pilnitz,[13] the two powers engage never to permit the new French Constitution to be established. There certainly are things which foreign powers have a right to oppose, but, as to what concerns the internal laws of a country, every nation has a right to adopt those which suit it. They would be wrong, therefore, to intervene in such a matter; and all the world would see in such an act a proof of the intrigues of the emigrants. [14]'
She proceeds to tell him that all is settled. The king had adopted the line which she had marked out for him in her former letter. The Constitution had been presented to him on the 3d of September. He had taken a few days to consider it, not with the idea of proposing the slightest alteration, but in order to avoid the appearance of acting under compulsion; and, on the same day on which she wrote to Mercy, he was drawing up a letter to the Assembly, to announce his intention of visiting the Assembly to give it his royal assent in due form. But, though she would not have had him act otherwise, she can not announce this apparent termination of the contest without some natural expressions of grief and indignation.
'At last the die is cast. All that we have now to do is to regulate the future progress and conduct of affairs as circumstances may permit. I only wish that others would regulate their conduct by mine. But even in our own inner circle we have great difficulties and great conflicts. Pity me: I assure you that it requires more courage to support the condition in which I am placed than to encounter a pitched battle. And the more so that I do not deceive myself, and that I see nothing but misery in the want of energy shown by some, and the evil designs of others. My God! is it possible that, endowed as I am with force of character, and feeling as I do so thoroughly the blood which runs in my veins, I should yet be destined to pass my days in such an age and with such men! But, for all this, never believe that my courage is deserting me. Not for my own sake, but for the sake of my child, I will support myself, and I will fulfill to the end my long and painful career, I can no longer see what I am writing. Farewell.[15]'
Tears, we may suppose, were blinding her eyes, in spite of all her fortitude. There was no exaggeration in her declaration to the Empress Catherine of Russia, with whom at this time she was in frequent communication, that the 'distrust which was shown by all around them was a moral and continual death, a thousand times worse than that physical death which was a release from all miseries.[16]' And in the same letter she explains that to remove this distrust was one principal object which the king and she had in view in all their measures. Yet, in spite of all his concessions, the week was not to pass without fresh insults being offered to the king, which shocked even his phlegmatic apathy. The letter which he sent to the Assembly to announce his compliance with its wishes was indeed received with acclamations which, if not sincere, were at least loud, and apparently unanimous; and, as if in reply to it, La Fayette proposed and carried a motion that the Assembly should pass an act of amnesty for all political offenses; and a magnificent festival was appointed to be held in the Champ de Mars on the following Sunday, in celebration of the joyful event. But, after the first brief excitement had passed away, the Jacobin faction recovered its ascendency, and contrived to make that very festival, which was designed to express the gratitude of the nation, an occasion of further humiliation to the unhappy Louis. Every arrangement for the day was discussed in a spirit of the bitterest disloyalty. When the question was raised, which in any other Assembly that ever met in the world would have been thought needless, what attitude the members were to preserve while the king was taking the prescribed oath to observe the Constitution, a hundred voices shouted out that they should all keep their seats, and that the king should swear, standing and bare-headed; and when one deputy of high reputation, M. Malouet, remonstrated against such a vote, arguing that so to treat the chief of the State would be a greater insult to the nation than even to himself, a deputy from Brittany cried out that M. Malouet and those who thought with him might receive Louis on their knees, if they liked, but that the rest of the Assembly should be seated.
And, in accordance with the feeling thus shown, every mark of respect was studiously withheld from the unhappy monarch, and every care was taken to show him that every deputy considered himself his equal. Two chairs exactly similar were provided for him and for the president; and when, after taking the oath and affixing his signature to the act, the king resumed his seat, the president, who, having to reply to him in a short address, had at first risen for that purpose, on seeing that Louis retained his seat, sat down beside him, and finished his speech in that position. Louis felt the affront. He contained himself while in the hall, and while the members were conducting him back to the palace, which they presently did amidst the music of military bands and the salutes of artillery. But when his escort had left him, and he reached his own apartments, his pride gave way. The queen with the dauphin had been present in a box hastily fitted up for her, and had followed him back. He felt for her more than for himself. Bursting into tears, he said, 'It is all over. You have seen my humiliation. Why did I ever bring you into France for such degradation?' And the queen, while endeavoring to console him, turned to Madame de Campan, who has recorded the scene, and dismissed her from her attendance.[17] 'Leave us,' she said, 'leave us to ourselves.' She could not bear that even that faithful servant should remain to be a witness to the despair and prostration of her sovereign.
The very rejoicings were turned by the agents of the Jacobins into occasions for further outrages. The whole city was illuminated, and the sovereigns yielded to the entreaties of the popular leaders, to drive through the streets and the Champs Elysees to see the illumination. The populace, who believed the Revolution at an end and their freedom secured, cheered them heartily as they passed; but at every cry of 'Vive le roi,' a stentorian voice, close to the royal carriage, shouted out, 'Not so: Vive la nation!' and the queen, though it was plain that the ruffian had been hired thus to outrage them, almost fainted with terror at his ferocity. A few days afterward, the insults were renewed even more pointedly. The royal family went in state to the opera, where, before their arrival, the Jacobins had packed the pit with a gang of their own hirelings, whose unpowdered hair made them conspicuous objects.[18] The opera was one of Gretry's, 'Les Evenements Imprevus,' in which one of the duets contains the line 'Ah, comme j'aime ma maitresse.' Madame Dugazon, a popular singer of the day, as she uttered the words, bowed toward the royal box, and instantly the whole pit was in a fury. 'No mistress for us! no master! Liberty!' The whole house was in an uproar. The king's partisans and adherents replied with loyal cheers, 'Vive le roi! Vive la reine!' The pit roared out, 'No master! no queen!' and the Jacobins even proceeded to acts of violence toward all who refused to join in their cry. Blows were struck, and it became necessary to send for a company of the Guard to restore order.
