Александр Дюма
The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LAST OF THE CHARNYS
When Roederer entered the queen's apartments behind Weber, that lady was seated by the fire-place, with her back to the door; but she turned round on hearing it open.
"Well, sir?" she asked, without being very pointed in her inquiry.
"The honor has been done me of a call," replied Roederer.
"Yes, sir; you are one of the principal magistrates of the town, and your presence here is a shield for royalty. I wish to ask you, therefore, whether we have most to hope or to fear?"
"Little to hope, madame, and everything to fear."
"The mob is really marching upon the palace?"
"The front of the column is in the Carrousel, parleying with the Swiss Guards."
"Parleying? but I gave the Swiss the express order to meet brute force with force. Are they disobeying?"
"Nay, madame; the Swiss will die at their posts."
"And we at ours. The same as the Swiss are soldiers at the service of kings, kings are the soldiers at the beck of royalty."
Roederer held his peace.
"Have I the misfortune to entertain an opinion not agreeing with yours, sir?" asked the queen.
"Madame, I have no opinion unless I am asked for it."
"I do ask for it, sir."
"Then I shall state with the frankness of a believer. My opinion is that the king is ruined if he stays in the Tuileries."
"But if we do not stay here, where shall we go?" cried the queen, rising in high alarm.
"At present, there is no longer but one place of shelter for the royal family," responded the attorney-syndic.
"Name it, sir."
"The National Assembly."
"What do you say, sir?" demanded the queen, snapping her eyes and questioning like one who had not understood.
He repeated what he had said.
"Do you believe, sir, that I would ask a favor of those fellows?"
He was silent again.
"If we must meet enemies, I like those better who attack us in the broad day and in front, than those who wish to destroy us in the dark and from behind."
"Well, madame, it is for you to decide; either go and meet the people, or beat a retreat into the Assembly Hall."
"Beat a retreat? Are we so deprived of defenders that we must retreat before we have tried the exchange of shots?"
"Perhaps you will take the report, before you come to a conclusion, of some competent authority who knows the forces you have to dispose of?"
"Weber, bring me one of the principal officers – Maillardet, or Chesnaye, or – " she stopped on the point of saying "the Count of Charny."
Weber went out.
"If your majesty were to step up to the window, you would be able to judge for yourself."
With visible repugnance the lady took the few steps to the window, and, parting the curtains, saw the Carrousel Square, and the royal yard as well, crowded with ragged men bearing pikes.
"Good God! what are those fellows doing in here?" she exclaimed.
"I told your majesty – they are parleying."
"But they have entered the inner yards?"
"I thought I had better gain the time somehow for your majesty to come to a resolution."
The door opened.
"Come, come," cried the queen, without knowing that it would be Charny who appeared.
"I am here, madame," he said.
"Oh, is it you? Then I have nothing to say, as you told me a while ago what you thought should be done."
"Then the gentleman thought that the only course was – " said Roederer.
"To die," returned the queen.
"You see that what I propose is preferable, madame."
"Oh! on my soul, I do not know whether it is or not," groaned the queen.
"What does the gentleman suggest?"
"To take the king under the wing of the House."
"That is not death, but shame," said Charny.
"You hear that, sir?" cried the lady.
"Come, come," said the lawyer; "may there not be some middle course?"
Weber stepped forward.
"I am of very little account," he said, "and I know that it is very bold of me to speak in such company; but my devotion may inspire me. Suppose that your majesty only requested a deputation to watch over the safety of the king?"
"Well, I will consent to that. Lord Charny, if you approve of this suggestion, will you pray submit it to the king?"
Charny bowed and went out.
"Follow the count, Weber, and bring me the king's answer."
Weber went out after the nobleman.
Charny's presence, cold, stern and devoted, was so cruel a reproach to her as a woman, if not as a sovereign, that she shuddered in it. Perhaps she had some terrible forewarning of what was to happen.
Weber came back to say that the king accepted the idea.
"Two gentlemen are going to take his majesty's request to the Assembly."
"But look what they are doing!" exclaimed the queen.
The besiegers were busy fishing for Switzers.
Roederer looked out; but he had not the time to see what was in progress before a pistol-shot was followed by the formidable discharge. The building shook as though smitten to its foundations.
The queen screamed and fell back a step, but returned to the window, drawn by curiosity.
"Oh, see, see!" she cried, with flaring eyes, "they fly! they are routed! Why did you say, that we had no resource but in the Assembly?"
"Will your majesty be good enough to come with me," said the official.
"See, see," continued the queen, "there go the Swiss, making a sortie, and pursuing them! Oh, the Carrousel is swept free! Victory, victory!"
"In pity for yourself, madame, follow me," persisted Roederer.
Returning to her senses, she went with the attorney-syndic to the Louvre gallery, where he learned the king was, and which suited his purpose.
The queen had not an idea of it.
The gallery was barricaded half down, and it was cut through at a third of the way, where a temporary bridge was thrown across the gap; the foot of a fugitive might send it down, and so prevent the pursuers following into the Tuileries.
The king was in a window recess with his captains and some courtiers, and he held a spy-glass in his hand.
The queen had no need for it as she ran to the balcony.
The army of the insurrection was approaching, long and dense, covering the whole of the wide street along the riverside, and extending as far as the eye could reach.
Over the New Bridge, the southern districts effected a junction with the others.
All the church-bells of the town were frenziedly swinging out the tocsin, while the big bell of Notre Dame Cathedral overawed all the metallic vibrations with its bronze boom.
A burning sun sparkled in myriad points from the steel of gun-barrels and lance-points.
Like the rumblings of a storm, cannon was heard rolling on the pavement.
"What now, madame?" said Roederer.
Some fifty persons had gathered round the king.
The queen cast a long look on the group to see how much devotion lingered. Then, mute, not knowing to whom to turn, the poor creature took up her son and showed him to the officers of the court and army and National Guard, no longer the sovereign asking the throne for her heir, but the mother suing for protection for her boy.
During this time, the king was speaking in a low voice with the Commune attorney, or rather, the latter was repeating what he had said to the queen.
Two very distinct groups formed around the two sovereigns. The king's was cold and grave, and was composed of counselors who appeared of Roederer's opinion. The queen's was ardent, numerous, and enthusiastic young military men, who waved their hats, flourished their swords, raised their hands to the dauphin, kissed the hem of the queen's robe, and swore to die for both of them.
Marie Antoinette found some hope in this enthusiasm.
The king's party melted into the queen's, and with his usual impassibility, the monarch found himself the center of the two commingled. His unconcern might be courage.
The queen snatched a pair of pistols from Colonel Maillardet.
"Come, sire," she cried; "this is the time for you to show yourself and die in the midst of your friends!"
This action had carried enthusiasm to its height, and everybody waited for the king's reply, with parted lips and breath held in suspense.
A young, brave, and handsome king, who had sprung forward with blazing eye and quivering lip, to rush with the pistols in hand into the thick of the fight, might have recalled fortune to his crown.
They waited and they hoped.
Taking the pistols from the queen's hands, the king returned them to the owner.
"Monsieur Roederer," he said, "you were observing that I had better go over to the House?"
"Such is my advice," answered the legal agent of the Commune, bowing.
"Come away, gentlemen; there is nothing more to be done here," said the king.
Uttering a sigh, the queen took up her son in her arms, and said to her ladies:
"Come, ladies, since it is the king's desire," which was as much as to say to the others, "Expect nothing more from me."
In the corridor where she would have to pass through, Mme. Campan was waiting. She whispered to her: "How I wish I dwelt in a tower by the sea!"
The abandoned attendants looked at each other and seemed to say, "Is this the monarch for whom we came here to die?"
Colonel Chesnaye understood this mute inquiry, for he answered:
"No, gentlemen, it was for royalty. The wearer of the crown is mortal, but the principle imperishable."
The queen's ladies were terrified. They looked like so many marble statues standing in the corners and along the lobbies.
At last the king condescended to remember those he was casting off. At the foot of the stairs, he halted.
"But what will befall all those I leave behind?" he inquired.
"Sire," replied Roederer, "it will be easy enough for them to follow you out. As they are in plain dress, they can slip out through the gardens."
"Alas," said the queen, seeing Count Charny waiting for her by the garden gate, with his drawn sword, "I would I had heeded you when you advised me to flee."
The queen's Life Guardsman did not respond, but he went up to the king, and said:
"Sire, will you please exchange hats, lest yours single out your majesty?"
"Oh, you are right, on account of the white feather," said Louis. "Thank you, my lord." And he took the count's hat instead of his own.
"Does the king run any risk in this crossing?" inquired the queen.
"You see, madame, that if so, I have done all I could to turn the danger aside from the threatened one."
"Is your majesty ready?" asked the Swiss captain charged to escort the king across the gardens.
The king advanced between two rows of Swiss, keeping step with him, till suddenly they heard loud shouting on the left.
The door near the Flora restaurant had been burst through by the mob, and they rushed in, knowing that the king was going to the Assembly.
The leader of the band carried a head on a pole as the ensign.
The Swiss captain ordered a halt and called his men to get their guns ready.
"My Lord Charny," said the queen, "if you see me on the point of falling into those ruffians' hands, you will kill me, will you not?"
"I can not promise you that, for I shall be dead before they touch you."
"Bless us," said the king; "this is the head of our poor Colonel Mandat. I know it again."
The band of assassins did not dare to come too near, but they overwhelmed the royal pair with insults. Five or six shots were fired, and two Swiss fell – one dead.
"Do not fire," said Charny; "or not one of us will reach the House alive."
"That is so," observed the captain; "carry arms."
The soldiers shouldered their guns and all continued crossing diagonally. The first heats of the year had yellowed the chestnut-trees, and dry leaves were strewing the earth. The little prince found some sport in heaping them up with his foot and kicking them on his sister's.
"The leaves are falling early this year," observed the king.
"Did not one of those men write that royalty will not outlast the fall of the leaf?" questioned the queen.
"Yes, my lady," replied Charny.
"What was the name of this cunning prophet?"
"Manuel."
A new obstacle rose in the path of the royal family: a numerous crowd of men and women, who were waiting with menacing gestures and brandished weapons on the steps and the terrace which had to be gone over to reach the riding-school.
The danger was the worse from the Swiss being unable to keep in rank. The captain tried in vain to get through, and he showed so much rage that Roederer cried:
"Be careful, sir – you will lead to the king being killed."
They had to halt, but a messenger was sent to the Assembly to plead that the king wanted asylum.
The House sent a deputation, at the sight of whom the mob's fury was redoubled.
Nothing was to be heard but these shouts yelled with wrath:
"Down with Veto!" – "Over with the Austrian!" – "Dethronement or death!"
Understanding that it was in particular their mother who was threatened, the two children huddled up to her. The little dauphin asked:
"Lord Charny, why do these naughty people want to hurt my mamma?"
A gigantic man, armed with a pike, and roaring louder than the rest, "Down with Veto – death to the Austrian!" kept trying to stab the king and the queen.
The Swiss escort had gradually been forced away, so that the royal family had by them only the six noblemen who had left the palace with them, Charny, and the Assembly deputation.
There were still some thirty paces to go in the thick crowd.
It was evident that the lives of the pair were aimed at, and chiefly the queen's.
The struggle began at the staircase foot.
"If you do not sheathe your sword," said Roederer, "I will answer for nothing."
Without uttering a word, Charny put up his sword.
The party was lifted by the press as a skiff is tossed in a gale by the waves, and drawn toward the Assembly. The king was obliged to push away a ruffian who stuck his fist in his face. The little dauphin, almost smothered, screamed and held out his hands for help.
A man dashed forward and snatched him out of his mother's arms.
"My Lord Charny, my son!" she shrieked; "in Heaven's name, save my boy!"
Charny took a couple of steps in chase of the fellow with the prince, but as soon as he unmasked the queen, two or three hands dragged her toward them, and one clutched the neckerchief on her bosom. She sent up a scream.
Charny forgot Roederer's advice, and his sword disappeared its full length in the body of the wretch who had dared to lay hands on the queen.
The gang howled with rage on seeing one of their number slain, and rushed all the more fiercely on the group.
Highest of all the women yelled: "Why don't you kill the Austrian?" – "Give her to us to have her throat slit!" – "Death to her – death!"
Twenty naked arms were stretched out to seize her. Maddened by grief, thinking nothing of her own danger, she never ceased to cry:
"My son – save my son!"
They touched the portals of the Assembly, but the mob doubled their efforts for fear their prey would escape.
Charny was so closely pressed that he could only ply the handle of his sword. Among the clinched and menacing fists, he saw one holding a pistol and trying to get a shot at the queen. He dropped his sword, grasped the pistol by both hands, wrenched it from the holder, and discharged it into the body of the nearest assailant. The man fell as though blasted by lightning.
Charny stooped in the gap to regain his rapier.
At this moment, the queen entered the Assembly vestibule in the retinue of the king.
Charny's sword was already in a hand that had struck at her.
He flew at the murderer, but at this the doors were slammed, and on the step he dropped, at the same time felled by an iron bar on his head and a spear right through his heart.
"As fell my brothers," he muttered. "My poor Andrea!"
The fate of the Charnys was accomplished with the last one, as in the case of Valence and Isidore. That of the queen, for whom their lives were laid down, was yet to be fulfilled.
At this time, a dreadful discharge of great guns announced that the besiegers and the garrison were hard at work.
CHAPTER XV.
THE BLOOD-STAINS
For a space, the Swiss might believe that they had dealt with an army and wiped it off the earth. They had slain nearly four hundred men in the royal yard, and almost two hundred in the Carrousel; seven guns were the spoils.
As far as they could see, no foes were in sight.
One small isolated battery, planted on the terrace of a house facing the Swiss guard-house, continued its fire without their being able to silence it. As they believed they had suppressed the insurrection, they were taking measures to finish with this battery at any cost, when they heard on the water-side the rolling of drums and the much more awful rolling of artillery over the stones.
This was the army which the king was watching through his spy-glass from the Louvre gallery.
At the same time the rumor spread that the king had quitted the palace and had taken refuge in the House of Representatives.
It is hard to tell the effect produced by this news, even on the most firm adherents.
The monarch, who had promised to die at his royal post, deserting it and passing over to the enemy, or at least surrendering without striking a blow!
Thereupon the National Guards regarded themselves as released from their oath, and almost all withdrew.
Several noblemen followed them, thinking it foolish to die for a cause which acknowledged itself lost.
Alone the Swiss remained, somber and silent, the slaves of discipline.
From the top of the Flora terrace and the Louvre gallery windows, could be seen coming those heroic working-men whom no army had ever resisted, and who had in one day brought low the Bastile, though it had been taking root during four centuries.
These assailants had their plan; believing the king in his castle, they sought to encompass him so as to take him in it.
The column on the left bank had orders to get in by the river gates; that coming down St. Honore Street to break in the Feuillants' gates, while the column on the right bank were to attack in front, led by Westerman, with Santerre and Billet under his orders.
The last suddenly poured in by all the small entrances on the Carrousel, singing the "It shall go on."
The Marseilles men were in the lead, dragging in their midst two four-pounders loaded with grape-shot.
About two hundred Swiss were ranged in order of battle on Carrousel Square.
Straight to them marched the insurgents, and as the Swiss leveled their muskets, they opened their ranks and fired the pieces.
The soldiers discharged their guns, but they immediately fell back to the palace, leaving some thirty dead and wounded on the pavement.
Thereupon, the rebels, headed by the Breton and Marseilles Federals, rushed on the Tuileries, capturing the two yards – the royal, in the center, where there were so many dead, and the princes', near the river and the Flora restaurant.
Billet had wished to fight where Pitou fell, with a hope that he might be only wounded, so that he might do him the good turn he owed for picking him up on the parade-ground.
So he was one of the first to enter the center court. Such was the reek of blood that one might believe one was in the shambles; it rose from the heap of corpses, visible as a smoke in some places.
This sight and stench exasperated the attackers, who hurled themselves on the palace.
Besides, they could not have hung back had they wished, for they were shoved ahead by the masses incessantly spouted forth by the narrow doors of the Carrousel.
But we hasten to say that, though the front of the pile resembled a frame of fire-works in a display, none had the idea of flight.
Nevertheless, once inside the central yard, the insurgents, like those in whose gore they slipped, were caught between two fires: that from the clock entrance and from the double row of barracks.
The first thing to do was stop the latter.
The Marseillais threw themselves at the buildings like mad dogs on a brasier, but they could not demolish a wall with hands; they called for picks and crows.
Billet asked for torpedoes. Westerman knew that his lieutenant had the right idea, and he had petards made. At the risk of having these cannon-cartridges fired in their hands, the Marseilles men carried them with the matches lighted and flung them into the apertures. The woodwork was soon set aflame by these grenades, and the defenders were obliged to take refuge under the stairs.
Here the fighting went on with steel to steel and shot for shot.
Suddenly Billet felt hands from behind seize him, and he wheeled round, thinking he had an enemy to grapple: but he uttered a cry of delight. It was Pitou; but he was pretty hard to identify, for he was smothered in blood from head to foot; but he was safe and sound and without a single wound.
When he saw the Swiss muskets leveled, he had called out for all to drop flat, and he had set the example.
But his followers had not time to act like him. Like a monstrous scythe, the fusillade had swept along at breast-high, and laid two thirds of the human field, another volley bending and breaking the remainder.
Pitou was literally buried beneath the swathe, and bathed by the warm and nauseating stream. Despite the profoundly disagreeable feeling, Pitou resolved not to make any move, while bathed in the blood of the bodies stifling him, and to wait for a favorable time to show tokens of life.
He had to wait for over an hour, and every minute seemed an hour. But he judged he had the right cue when he heard his side's shouts of victory, and Billet's voice, among the many, calling him.
Thereupon, like the Titan under the mountain, he shook off the mound of carcasses covering him, and ran to press Billet to his heart, on recognizing him, without thinking that he might soil his clothes, whichever way he took him.
A Swiss volley, which sent a dozen men to the ground, recalled them to the gravity of the situation.
Two thousand yards of buildings were burning on the sides of the central court. It was sultry weather, without the least breath; like a dome of lead the smoke of the fire and powder pressed on the combatants; the smoke filled up the palace entrances. Each window flamed, but the front was sheeted in smoke; no one could tell who delivered death or who received it.
Pitou and Billet, with the Marseillais at the fore, pushed through the vapor into the vestibule. Here they met a wall of bayonets – the Swiss.
The Swiss commenced their retreat, a heroic one, leaving a rank of dead on each step, and the battalion most slowly retiring.
Forty-eight dead were counted that evening on those stairs.
Suddenly the cry rang through the rooms and corridors:
"Order of the king – the Swiss will cease firing."
It was two in the afternoon.
The following had happened in the House to lead to the order proclaimed in the Tuileries; one with the double advantage of lessening the assailants' exasperation and covering the vanquished with honor.
As the doors were closing behind the queen, but still while she could catch a glimpse of the bars, bayonets, and pikes menacing Charny, she had screamed and held her hands out toward the opening; but dragged away by her companions, at the same time by her maternal instinct, she had to enter the Assembly Hall.
There she had the great relief afforded her of seeing her son seated on the speaker's desk; the man who had carried him there waved his red cap triumphantly over the boy's head and shouted gladly:
"I have saved the son of my master – long live the dauphin!"
But a sudden revulsion of feeling made Marie Antoinette recur to Charny.
"Gentlemen," she said, "one of my bravest officers, most devoted of followers, has been left outside the door, in danger of death. I beg succor for him."
Five or six members sprung away at the appeal.
The king, the queen, and the rest of the royal family, with their attendants, proceeded to the seats intended for the cabinet officers, and took places there.
The Assembly received them standing, not from etiquette, but the respect misfortune compelled.
Before sitting down, the king held up his hand to intimate that he wished to speak.
"I came here to prevent a great crime," he said, in the silence; "I thought I could not be in safety anywhere else."
"Sire," returned Vergniaud, who presided, "you may rely on the firmness of the National Assembly; its members are sworn to die in defending the people's rights and the constitutional authorities."
As the king was taking his seat, a frightful musketry discharge resounded at the doors. It was the National Guards firing, intermingled with the insurgents, from the Feuillants' terrace, on the Swiss officers and soldiers forming the royal escort.
An officer of the National Guard, probably out of his senses, ran in in alarm, and only stopped by the bar, cried: "The Swiss – the Swiss are coming – they have forced past us!"
For an instant the House believed that the Swiss had overcome the outbreak and were coming to recover their master; for at the time Louis XVI. was much more the king to the Swiss than to any others.
With one spontaneous movement the House rose, all of a mind, and the representatives, spectators, officials, and guards, raising their hands, shouted, "Come what may, we vow to live and die free men!"
In such an oath the royals could take no part, so they remained seated, as the shout passed like a whirlwind over their heads from three thousand mouths. The error did not last long, but it was sublime.
In another quarter of an hour the cry was: "The palace is overrun – the insurgents are coming here to take the king!"
Thereupon the same men who had sworn to die free in their hatred of royalty, rose with the same spontaneity to swear they would defend the king to the death. The Swiss captain, Durler, was summoned outside to lay down his arms.
"I serve the king and not the House," he said. "Where is the royal order?"
They brought him into the Assembly by force; he was black with powder and red with blood.
"Sire," he said, "they want me to lay down arms. Is it the king's order?"
"Yes," said Louis; "hand your weapons to the National Guard. I do not want such brave men to perish."
Durler lowered his head with a sigh, but he insisted on a written order. The king scribbled on a paper: "The king orders the Swiss to lay down their arms and return into barracks."
This was what voices were crying throughout the Tuileries, on the stairs, and in the rooms and halls. As this order restored some quiet to the House, the speaker rang his bell and called for the debating to be resumed.
A member rose and pointed out that an article of the Constitution forbade debates in the king's presence.
"Quite so," said the king; "but where are you going to put us?"
"Sire," said the speaker, "we can give you the room and box of the 'Logographe,' which is vacant owing to the sheet having ceased to appear."
The ushers hastened to show the party where to go, and they had to retrace some of the path they had used to enter.
"What is this on the floor?" asked the queen. "It looks like blood!"
The servants said nothing; for while the spots might be blood, they were ignorant where they came from.
Strange to say, the stains grew larger and nearer together as they approached the box. To spare her the sight, the king quickened the pace, and opening the box door himself, he bid her enter.
The queen sprung forward; but even as she set foot on the sill, she uttered a scream of horror and drew back, with her hands covering her eyes. The presence of the blood-spots was explained, for a dead body had been placed in the room.
It was her almost stepping upon this which had caused her to leap back.
"Bless us," said the king, "it is poor Count Charny's body!" in the same tone as he had said to the gory relic on the pike, "This is poor Mandat's head."
Indeed, the deputies had snatched the body from the cutthroats, and ordered it to be taken into the empty room, without the least idea that the royal family would be consigned to this room in the next ten minutes. It was now carried out and the guests installed. They talked of cleaning up, but the queen shook her head in opposition, and was the first to take a place over the blood-stains. No one noticed that she burst her shoe-laces and dabbled her foot in the red, still warm blood.
"Oh, Charny, Charny!" she murmured; "why does not my life-blood ooze out here to the last drop to mingle with yours unto all eternity?"
Three P. M. struck.
The last of her Life Guards was no more, for in and about her palace nearly a thousand nobles and Swiss had fallen.
