A.D. 1789.]

MARCH OF THE WOMEN TO VERSAILLES.

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about three o'clock in the afternoon, marched in the track names of the guilty ones. He was informed that the abbé of the amazons who had already reached Versailles.

Unfortunately for the king, the national assembly had just submitted to him their votes on the constitution and the declaration of rights, and that very morning the king had returned an equivocating answer. The assembly expected a simple and entire confirmation of their decrees; but Louis had been advised to seem to acquiesce, and yet not really to do it. He signified his assent to the constitutional articles, and found excellent maxims in the declaration of rights; but he considered that such important matters demanded fuller consideration before being ratified, and that they could not be properly decided till the constitution was complete. He declared that he would never consent that the resolutions of the assembly should be valid without the entire sanction of the executive power in the hands of the monarch. This was certainly bringing the matter to an issue, and there could be no doubt what would be the result. Had the king been prepared for a coupd'état, that would have been prudent language; but, as it was, with the whole of Paris in insurrection, and the bulk of the troops in league with the people, this conduct, at this moment, was the height of folly. It must produce an instant collision, which royalty, there and then, had no ability to sustain. The assembly would have compelled the king's consent of itself; but, as it happened, all Paris was marching to support it.

No sooner was the king's answer read, than there arose a loud murmur and agitation. Robespierre said it was not for the king to criticise the assembly; and Petion reminded the assembly of the dinner to the life-guards. In the midst of the angry debate, Mirabeau received the news of the mob's proceedings, and, hastening up to Mounier, the president, said, "Paris is marching on us. Pretend to be unwell; run over to the palace, and tell the king to accept purely and simply; " but Mounier, who disapproved of nearly every article in the constitution, and who was of all things adverse to centreing the whole power of the nation in one chamber, replied, "Paris is marching on us! Well, so much the better. Let them come and kill us all-all, you understand; and then affairs will go on all the better." Mirabeau, who was disappointed in not being able to frighten Mounier, said, "That is a fine thing to say," and returned to his seat.

The debate continued till three o'clock in the afternoon, when the assembly declared that Mounier should go to the king and demand his instant and full acceptance. Mounier was in the act of rising to proceed on his mission, when Maillard, at the head of his amazon army, demanded admittance. He was desired to enter, and the whole posse of women, wet, draggled, jaded, but armed with clubs, muskets, and broomsticks, rushed after him, demanding bread. Maillard, obtaining some degree of silence, spoke in their behalf. He said that for three days the people of Paris had had no bread; that they were desperate and ready to strike; that, so far from the assembly assisting the people to bread, there were those amongst them who were bribing the millers not to grind corn; that Juigné, archbishop of Paris, had written a letter to a miller to this effect, and that the people were well informed of these things, and knew the

Gregoire had been charged to denounce this letter, and he was desired to treat the assembly with proper dignity. Maillard replied that they were all equals, all citizens, and the women shouted in support of him, "Yes; we are all equals-we are all citizens!" The women and the mob generally outside, who were standing in drenching rain, caught these cries, and repeated them frantically.

Mounier was ordered then to proceed on his mission to the king; but no sooner did he issue from the door, than thousands of women surrounded him, and insisted on accompanying him. He selected six to follow him, but many more joined them. "It was on foot," says Mounier, "in the mud, and under a violent storm of rain. The Paris women intermixed with a certain number of men, ragged and ferocious, and uttering frightful howlings. As we approached the palace, we were taken for a desperate mob. Some of the gardes-du-corps pricked their horses amongst us, and dispersed us. It was with difficulty that I made myself known, and equally difficult it was to make our way into the palace. Instead of six women, I was compelled to admit twelve. The king received them graciously; but, separated from their own raging and rioting class, the women were overcome by the presence of the king, and Louison Chabry, a handsome young girl of seventeen, could say nothing but the word 'Bread!' She would have fallen on the floor, but the king caught her in his arms, embraced and encouraged her; and this settled completely the rest of the women, who knelt and kissed his hand. Louis assured them that he was very sorry for them, and would do all in his power to have Paris well supplied with bread. They then went out blessing him and all his family, and declared to those outside that never was there so good a king. At this the furious mob exclaimed that they had been tampered with by the aristocrats, and were for tearing them to pieces; and, seizing Louison, they were proceeding to hang her on a lamp-post, when some of the gardes-du-corps, commanded by the count de Guiche, interfered and rescued her." One Brunout, an artisan of Paris, and a hero of the Bastille, having advanced so as to be separated from the women, the guards struck him with the flat of their swords. There was an instant cry that the guards were massacreing the people; and, the national guards of Versailles being called on to protect them, one of them discharged a musket, and broke the arm of M. de Savonières, one of the life-guards. The firing on the lifeguards by the national guards then continued, and the lifeguards filed off, firing, in return, as they went. The mob, now triumphant, attempted to fire two pieces of cannon, which they turned upon the palace; but the powder was wet, and would not go off. The king having, meantime, heard the firing, sent the duke of Luxembourg to order that the guards should not fire, but retire to the back of the palace.

The mob then retired into Versailles in search of bread, which Lecointre, a draper of the town, and commander of its national guards, promised to procure them from the municipality. But the municipality had no bread to give, or took no pains to furnish it, and the crowds, drenched with rain, sought shelter wherever they could for the night. The women rushed again into the hall of the assembly, and took

possession of it without any ceremony. The women who could not find room there, joined the men, who made fires in the streets, and relieved their hunger and wretchedness as well as they could by cursing and singing revolutionary songs. Some of them made a seat of the corpse of one of the life-guards who had been shot, and they cut up his fallen horse into steaks, and devoured them half raw; whilst others danced like maniacs round the fire! The king had been holding a council; and Mounier had waited till ten o'clock for his answer, in great impatience. During this period, several carriages had attempted to leave the palace, the object being to see whether the mob would allow them to pass, in which case it was intended to send away the queen and the children; but the carriages were all stopped and sent back, showing the utter hopelessness of such an enterprise. Often, before this, and still earlier in the evening, the whole royal family might have got away, but Louis had not the spirit for any such movement. At ten, Mounier received the king's acceptance, pure and simple, of the constitution, and returned to the hall of assembly. There he found the deputies had retired for the night, and the women were amusing themselves with holding a mock assembly; a dame de la Halle, or market woman, of a great size, occupying Mounier's own presidential seat, having her hand-bell before her, and from time to time ringing to command silence, as she had seen Mounier do it. Between eleven and twelve o'clock, some of the members were collected and took their places as well as they could amongst the women. Mounier then commenced to tell them the king's answer. This was received with satisfaction; and, as a new army was advancing from Paris, with La Fayette at its head, it was resolved to remain sitting, and they resumed the discussion on the constitution. But the women cried out: "What good will that do us? The thing we want is bread! Leave off the fine talk, and give us that!" "There was," says Dumont "in one of the galleries, a fishwoman, who exercised a superior authority, directing the tongues and motions of about one hundred other women, who waited for her orders when they were to scream, and when to be silent. She called out familiarly to the deputies below: Who is that talking down there? Make that babbler hold his tongue! That is not the question! The question is, bread! Let our gossip, Mirabeau, speak; we like to hear him!'" &c.

Soon after midnight, the roll of drums announced the arrival of La Fayette and his army. An aide-de-camp soon after formally communicated his arrival to the assembly; that they had been delayed by the state of the roads; and that La Fayette had also stopped them to administer to them an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king; that all was orderly, and that they had nothing to fear. La Fayette soon after confirmed this by leading a column of the national guards to the doors of the assembly, and sending in this message. The assembly, being satisfied, adjourned till eleven o'clock the next day. La Fayette then proceeded to the palace, where he assured the king and the royal family of the loyalty of his guards, and that every precaution should be taken for tranquillity during the night. On this the king appeared to be at ease, and

retired to rest.

Much and severe censure has been passed on La Fayette

for his conduct during the whole of these transactions, which have been adopted by some of our own historians; but, on carefully considering all the evidence, we cannot but regard it as wholly groundless. La Fayette did all in his power to prevent the French guards and the national guards of Paris from going to Versailles; but when these revolutionary troops would go, no commander could stop them; and it was certainly much better for La Fayette to accompany them, and do all he could to protect the royal family. It is clear, that without his presence there would have been a savage conflict betwixt the life-guards and the Flanders regiment, and the national guards of Paris and the mob. La Fayette had long thought, as he tells us, that it would be better for the king and the assembly to be in Paris. On his arrival, we see that he tranquillised both the assembly and the court. He then endeavoured to take upon himself the guard of the palace; but this was not permitted. The life-guards and the Swiss guards surrounded the palace by the orders of the court, and La Fayette took possession of the outer posts, none of which were forced, or even attacked. He procured lodgings for his drenched and fatigued troops, and ordered patroles to be placed about the town. He continued up all night attending to these duties; and, having seen a battalion of soldiers placed before the hotel of the life-guards to protect them from any insults of the people, he went to the hotel de Noailles, just by the palace, and, getting a little refreshment, went to bed at five o'clock. As all appeared perfectly quiet, and as he had been up twenty-four hours, nothing could be more reasonable than this, all guards being duly at their posts. Scarcely had he lain down, however, and before he was asleep, he heard a terrific noise, and, instantly rising and throwing on his clothes, he found that the mob was attacking the palace. The greater part of the populace, tired of singing and eating horse-flesh, had rushed towards the palace. They found the gate open, and, streaming into the court-yard, also found a door not secured, and entering, ascended a staircase. Had La Fayette been permitted to guard these outlets to the palace, this would not have occurred; but, from some unknown cause, the life-guards had been dismissed in the night, and then recalled, and many of them had never resumed their stations. La Fayette hastened to the palace, and found several of the life-guards surrounded by the mob, and on the point of being murdered. Whilst engaged in rescuing them, one of the canaille attempted to fire at him. He coolly ordered the man to be seized and brought to him, and the mob at once seized him, and dashed out his brains on the pavement. He then hastened into the palace, and found his grenadiers already there, defending the entrance, and vowing that they would die in defence of the king.

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But, meantime, the populace had penetrated nearly to the queen's bed-chamber, the life-guards fighting them step by step, but, being few in number in that passage, they were forced backward. One of them, named Miomandre, shouted, "Save the queen!" Two ladies of the bed-chamber, one of them the sister of madame Campan, had been too much alarmed to go to bed, but had sat at the queen's door. At the soldier's cry, the ladies rushed into the queen's ante-chamber and bolted the door. They roused Marie Antoinette, crying,

"Fly to the king!" They hastily wrapped something round guards?" The populace were furious against them; but her, and she fled towards Louis's chamber. Scarcely had | La Fayette took one of them, led him upon the balcony, she found the king and the children, when the mob was clasped him in his arms, and put upon him his own heard endeavouring to burst open her door, and demanding shoulder-belt. The populace again cheered, and ratified the heads of the life-guards. Two of the guards had already this second reconciliation. been dragged down into the marble court, and savagely beheaded by a brutal fellow called Jourdan Coupe-Tête. Fourteen other gardes-du-corps were wounded, and some of them were prisoners in the hands of the populace.

A.D. 1789.]

THE KING BROUGHT IN TRIUMPH TO PARIS.

In the transport of their brutal joy, the women stopped passengers on the road, and yelled in their ears, while pointing to the royal carriage, "Courage, my friends! we shall have plenty of bread row, for we have got the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's boy!" Behind his majesty's carriage were some of his faithful guards, some on foot, some on horseback, most of them without hats, all disarmed, and exhausted with hunger and fatigue. The dragoons, the Flanders regiment, the Cent Suisses, and the national guards, preceded, accompanied, and followed the file of carriages. "I was an eye-witness," says Bertrand de Molleville," of this distressing spectacle this melancholy procession. Amid this tumult, these songs, this clamour, interrupted by frequent discharges of musketry, which the hand of a monster or an awkward person might have rendered so fatal, I saw the queen retain the most courageous tranquillity of mind, and an air of inexpressible nobleness and dignity. My eyes filled with tears of admiration and grief."

This scene lasted for eight hours before the royal family arrived at the Place de Grève. The mayor, Bailly, received them at the barrier of Paris, and conducted them to the Hôtel de Ville. So soon as they had passed the barrier, the numerous procession were joined by the whole leviathan mob of Paris, calculated at two hundred thousand men! It was night, and the crushing and shouting throngs prevented the royal carriage from more than merely moving all the way from the barrier to the Place de Grève. At the Hôtel de Ville, Moreau de St. Mery addressed the king in a long speech, congratulating him on his happy arrival amongst his people-his loving children of the capital. The poor tired and dispirited king replied that he always came with confidence amongst his people. Bailly repeated the words in a loud tone to the people, but omitted the words "with confidence," whereupon the queen said, with much spirit, "Sir, add with confidence;" so Bailly replied, "Gentlemen, in hearing it from the lips of the queen, you are happier than if I had not made that mistake." The king was then exhibited on the balcony to the mob, with a huge tricolour cockade in his hat, at which sight, in French fashion, the monkey-tiger mass hugged and kissed each other and danced for joy. It was eleven o'clock at night before the poor miserable royal captives were conducted by La Fayette to their appointed prison-for such it was, in fact-the great palace of their ancestors, the Tuileries, which had been uninhabited for a century, and had not been prepared for their reception. There they were left, after this most harassing and alarming time, in those huge, desolate rooms, with their more desolate hearts. The Parisian national guards were posted around the palace, and La Fayette, as their commander, was made responsible for the royal persons. The nobles were anxious to have the king conveyed to some fortress, that they might exercise despotism in his name. The popular party, on the other hand, wished to hold him safe amongst them, as the certain pledge of the accomplished constitution. Hence the aristocrats, in their chagrin, styled La Fayette a gaoler; but he was a gaoler for the preservation of the constitution and the crown. The fickle people had not yet conceived the idea of their own sublime sovereignty.

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king they began to disperse into the provinces and abroad. The day of the king's entrance into Paris was the first day of this emigration of the noblesse; and the first day of emigration was the commencement of the utter ruin of the aristocracy. They had been the most ready to propose rash measures to the king; now that they were separated from him, they fell away like so many branches lopped from a tree. They had no principle of cohesion in themselves, and continued not to stand together and do battle for their own cause, or the cause of the monarchy, but to disperse more and more. As in England, the moment that Charles I. was put down they lost all power, and sank into utter insignificance, so here. Their strength consisted in wielding the kingly power in the royal name; that gone, they had no power. The world saw it, and despised them. The chief emigration of the nobles was to Turin, where the count D'Artois had taken refuge with his father-in-law. They were continually endeavouring to rouse insurrection in the southern provinces of France. The queen trusted more to Austria, and the king hoped for salvation, but he did not know whence. Such was the condition of the court, which was closely watched by the revolutionists.

The revolutionary party was from this moment triumphant. The leaders of it, however, were much divided amongst themselves. The duke of Orleans had a party which would gladly have seen him substituted as a sort of protector for the king; but a protector very much in their own hands. This was the party of the Palais Royal. But the rest of the revolutionists had no faith in the duke's abilities or principles. It was said that he and Mirabeau understood each other and that was more true than those persons intended. Mirabeau knew and despised Orleans, though he continued to talk familiarly with him. Mirabeau, though detesting the aristocracy, because they had rejected him, and resolved to destroy them as a class, was a firm monarchist, and used the people to maintain his power to save the throne. He had an immense ambition, and trusted one day to become prime minister-a second Richelieu. At the very time that the public thought Mirabeau and Orleans in league, Mirabeau was struggling with a frightful poverty and state of debt which Orleans could at once have removed, and would, had there been such alliance. On the other hand, La Fayette and Mirabeau were agreed as to the maintenance of the monarchy, and both of them cultivated the favour of the people to enable them to save the throne; but they agreed in no other point. La Fayette for his vanity and his sentimental notions, and called him Cromwell Grandison, an admirable title; but, at the same time, Mirabeau was envious of the immense popularity of La Fayette, and La Fayette had no faith in the principles of the debauchee Mirabeau. La Fayette and Bailly were the heads of the monarchical, and yet constitutional party. This party was always a little in advance of the revolution, and rested chiefly on the middle class, whilst addressing and flattering the masses in order to guide them. Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Bailly applied themselves to this class, and were, the one its orator, the other its general, and the third its magistrate; though Mirabeau was, in reality, apart from La Fayette and Bailly, who were the real heads From the moment that the nobles separated from the of the middle class. The 14th of July-the day of the fall

Mirabeau despised