The Countess De Charny - Volume II (38 page)

times, to amount to positive apathy. It was very different with the other prisoners. This entire separation was frightfully signiiicant.

As the dauphin’s bed was still in the king’s room, where he had slept for several weeks, the queen put the child in her own bed , and all night she sat by the foot of the bed watching over his slumbers.

Her grief and distress were so intense that Madame Elizabeth and Madame Eoyale resolved to share her vigil; but the officials interfered, and compelled them to retire to their own room.

The next day the queen asked a favour of her guardians, for the first time since her imprisonment. She asked that she might be allowed to visit the king, and that she might see the newspapers, so as to keep herself informed in regard to his trial.

These requests were referred to the Council: the first was partially granted; the second was positively refused.

The queen was not to be permitted to see her husband, or the sister her brother; but the children would be allowed to see their father on condition that they were entirely separated from their mother and aunt.

This ultimatum was made known to the king. He reflected a few moments, then replied, with his accustomed resignation : —

” Happy as it would make me to see my children again, I renounce tliat hap^nness. Besides, the matter which is now occupying me would prevent me from devoting the attention they need to them, so let the children remain with their mother.”

On receiving this answer, the officials removed the dauphin’s bed to his mother’s room, and Marie Antoinette did not leave her children again until she was summoned before the Itevolutionary Tribunal for trial.

In spite of this rigorous separation, they devised a plan for communicating with each other by the aid of an attendant of the princesses named Turgy.

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Turgy and Cléry often met as tliey came and went in the discharge of their duties; but the surveillance of the municipal officers made any conversation an impossibility. The only words they were able to exchange were: “The king is well,” or “The queen and the children are well.”

But one day Turgy gave Cléry a tiny note, and said, hurriedly : —

“Madame Elizabeth slipped this into my hand as she gave me back a napkin.”

Cléry hastened to the king with the note. It was written with pin-pricks, — for the ladies had long since been deprived of writing materials, — and read as follows : —

” We are well, my brother. Write to us in your turn.”

Since the trial began, the king had been allowed the use of pen, ink, and paper, so he wrote a note in reply.

When he gave it to Cléry, he said : ” Read it, my dear Cléry, and you will see that it contains nothing that can possibly compromise you.”

Cléry respectfully declined to read it; but ten minutes afterwards Turgy was in possession of the king’s reply, which was promptly transmitted to the other prisoners.

That same day, as Turgy was passing the half -open door of Cléry’s chamber, he threw a ball of yarn under the bed. This ball contained a second note from Madame Elizabeth, for this was the mode of communication that had been agreed upon.

Cléry wound the same yarn around a second note from the king, and hid it in the cupboard, among the napkins. Turgy found it there, and concealed the reply in the same place.

This means of communication was resorted to several times during the next few days; but every time the faithful valet gave fresh proofs of his cunning, the king would shake his head and say : ” Be careful, my friend, be careful. You are running a great risk ! “

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This method was, indeed, too precarious ; and Clery set about inventing another.

The prisoners were supplied with candles tied in bundles. Clery carefully saved all the strings ; and, as soon as he had a sufficient quantity, he informed the king that he had devised a way of carrying on a more active correspondence.

Madame Elizabeth occupied a room on the floor below Cléry’s, and her window was directly under a window in a small passage opening out of Cléry’s room. During the” night he could lower the twine ; Madame Elizabeth could tie her letters to it, and receive those of her brother in the same way.

By this same string stationery could also be lowered, so the ladies need no longer write with pins.

The prisoners were in this way able to hear from one another every day.

The position of Louis XVI. had been unmistakably weakened by his demeanour before the Convention.

It had been generally supposed that he would do one of two things: either follow the example of Charles I., whose history he knew so well , and refuse to answer the questions put to him, or that if he did condescend to answer them, it would be in the lordly manner befitting a monarch, — not like an ordinary prisoner before a court of justice, but like a knight who accepts a challenge, and proudly picks up the gauntlet which has been thrown down.

But, unfortunately for him, Louis XVI. was not of a nature to fill either of these rôles successfully. His defence, though not devoid of ability, was too much like that of an ordinary prisoner. He answered awkwardly, timidly, and hesitatingly, as we have already remarked. Hampered by the numerous proofs which had fallen in some inconceivable way into his enemies’ hands, he fuially asked for counsel.

After the stormy debate that followed the king’s departure, the Convention finally decided to grant his request;

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and the next day a committee of four visited the monarch to ascertain whom he would select as his counsel.

He named Target, and that gentleman was promptly notified of the honour conferred upon him by the king.

But, strange to say, this able man, an honoured member of the Constitutional Assembly, and a man who had taken a prominent part in the framing of the Constitution, was afraid, and declined, in the most cowardly manner, turning pale with fear before his own generation to afterwards blush with shame before posterity.

But, on the following day, the president of the Convention received the following letter : —

Citizen President : I do not know that the Convention will allow Louis XVI. the services of an advocate to defend him, or if it will allow him to select that advocate ; but, in any case, I would like Louis XVI. to know that, if he sees fit to name me for that oflBce, I am ready and willing to devote myself to it.

I do not ask you to inform the Convention of my offer, for I do not consider myself a person of sufficient importance to inspire the members of that body with any special interest ; but twice, when such appointments were much sought after, I was called to a place in the Council of my master, and I owe him the same service now that it is a post which people consider dangerous.

If I knew of any other way to apprise the king of my willingness to serve him, I should not take the liberty of addressing you ; but, by reason of the position you occupy, it seemed to me that you could transmit the information better than any one else.

I am, with respect, etc.,
etc.

Malesherbes.

Two other similar requests were received at the same time : one from a Troyes advocate, Monsieur Sourdal. He spoke even more boldly.

”I am moved to defend Louis XVI.,” he wrote, “by my firm conviction of his innocence.”

The other was from Olympe de Gouges, an eccentric and whimsical improvisatrice who dictated her comedies, it is said, because she did not know how to write.

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Olympe de Gouges had constituted herself a champion of the Eights of Women, and insisted that they ought to have the same privileges as men, — the right to vote, to frame laws, and to declare peace and warj and she based her claim on this sublime sentence : —

” Why should uot women mount the rostrum ? They can mount the scaffold.”

Poor creature ! she did, indeed, mount the scaffold ; but when the time arrived she became a woman again : that is to say, weak, and desirous of availing herself of all the benefits of the law. She declared herself enciente. The tribunal ordered a consultation of physicians and nurses; and they decided that if she was in such a condition it was too recent to constitute any claim for mercy. On the scaffold, she displayed more courage, and died as became such a woman.

As for Monsieur de Malesherbes, he was the Lamoignon de Malesherbes who was in the Royal Council with Tur-got, and who fell with him. He was a small man, about seventy years of age, rather awkward in manner, and very absent-minded, as well as very insignificant in appearance; in short, a man from whom one would scarcely expect the heroism of classic times, as Michelet expresses it.

Before the Convention he invariably addressed the king as “sire.”

” What makes you so daring? ” inquired one of the members.

“My indifference to death,” responded Malesherbes, promptly.

And he was indeed indifferent to the death to which he afterwards rode so calmly, chatting cheerfully with his companions in the cart, and receiving tlie fatal blow as if it did indeed only cause a slight sensation of coldness about the neck as Guillotin claimed.

The superintendent of the Monceaux Cemetery, for it was

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to this resting-place that the bodies of those publicly executed were taken, related a singular proof of Malesherbes’ contempt of death. In Malesherbes’ pocket, he found his watch, which was still going, and which marked the hour of two. According to his usual custom, Malesherbes had wound his watch at noon, exactly one hour before he mounted the scaffold, and it had continued to run.

As he could not secure Target, the king accepted Malesherbes and Tronchet, and, being pressed for time, they associated another lawyer named Desèze with them.

On the 14th of December, Louis was informed that he could confer with his counsel; and. that same day he received a visit from Monsieur de Malesherbes.

That gentleman’s devotion had touched the king deeply, though his was by no means a susceptible nature; and he received the venerable man with open arms and tearful eyes.

As he pressed his visitor affectionately to his heart, he said, in a voice faltering with emotion: “I realise my situation perfectly. I expect death, and I am prepared to meet it. I am calm now, as you see; well, I shall mount the scaffold just as calmly.”

On December 16th, a delegation, consisting of Valazé, Cochon, Grandpré, and Duprat, came to the Temple, bringing the indictment and numerous documents connected with the case; and the entire day was devoted to the examination and verification of these papers.

Each document was read by the secretary, after which Valazé would ask: “Do you admit this as evidence?” and the king would answer, yes or no, as the case might be.

Several days afterwards, the same committee returned with about fifty additional documents of a like nature. There were about one hundred and fifty such papers, and the king had copies of them all.

At eleven o’clock on the night of December 25th, the king began his will. This document is so well known in history that it is useless to record it here.

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Two last wills and testaments have occasioned us much serious thought, — that of Louis XVI., who lived in the time of a Republic but could see only royalism, and that of the Duke of Orleans, who lived in the time of a monarchy and could see only republicanism.

We will quote one paragraph of the king’s will, however, because it shows us the standpoint from which he viewed the events of the day.

” I close by declaring before God, being ready to appear before Him, that I cannot reproach myself with any of the crimes laid to my charge.”

These words have won for Louis, in the eyes of posterity, the reputation of being an honest man; but how could a man who had broken all his oaths, and who, on attempting to flee to a foreign land, had left behind him a protest against the very oaths he had solemnly taken, — a man who while he had discussed, appreciated, and recorded the plans of Lafayette and Mirabeau for his salvation, had yet secretly importuned a foreign foe to enter the heart of France, — how could such a man, knowing he was about to appear before his Judge, and believing that God would deal with him according to his deeds, good and evil, — how could such a man feel able to say, “I cannot reproach myself with any of the crimes laid to my charge ” ?

Possibly the construction of the phrase explains the matter. The king does not say : ” The crimes imputed to my charge are false ; ” he says, ” I cannot reproach myself with any of the crimes laid to my charge,” which is not the same thing at all.

Though ready to mount the scaffold, Louis was still a follower of Monsieur de la Vauguyon.

To say: “The charges against me are false,” would be to deny those charges, and Louis could not deny them; but to say: “I cannot reproach myself with the crimes laid to my charge,” might mean, ” These crimes were committed, but I cannot reproach myself for them.”

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Aud why? Because the standpoint from which he viewed these offences was a monarch’s standpoint; because, thanks to the influences under which he had been reared, to his honest belief in the sacredness of hereditary rights, and the infallibility of these divine rights, kings do not view crimes, particularly political crimes, in the same light as other people.

In the eyes of Louis XI., his revolt against his father was no crime; it was a war for the welfare of the nation.

In the eyes of Charles IX., the massacre of Saint Bar-tholomew was no crime. It was only a means of insuring public tranquillity.

This same Malesherbes who was now defending the king had endeavoured, when a member of the Council, to induce his master to reinstate the Protestants in their political rights; but he found Louis XVI. obdurate on this subject.

“No,” answered the king, “no! The proscription of Protestants is a law of the state, a law made by Louis XIV., and such time-honoured edicts should never be tampered with.”