ABOUT EIGHT MILES FROM Paris is the town of Versailles, which was but a poor little village when a great king took a fancy to it and built there a palace. His son was passionately fond of state and grandeur, and he resolved to add to the palace, room after room and gallery after gallery, until he had made it the most superb house in all the world. It is said the cost was so frightful that he never let anyone know what the sum total amounted to, but threw the accounts into the fire. This was Louis XIV., called by Frenchmen “Le grand Monarque.” He reigned seventy-two years, having been a mere child when called to the throne.
To this splendid palace and to an income of thirty millions a year, did his great-grandson, Louis XV., succeed. He, too, was a child of tender years when he entered on his vast inheritance. For a time the Duke of Orleans acted as regent; but when the little king was fourteen years of age he assumed the sceptre, and in two years more he married a Polish princess.
At one time Louis was very much beloved, and got the title of “Bien Aime;” but he afterward lost his people’s affection, and by the time he died he was utterly despised, if not detested. Everything seemed to be going to rack and ruin. The French armies were defeated, their colonies fell into the hands of England, their navy suffered great losses, their commerce was all but ruined. Therefore the French people felt disgraced; and many of them believed all these evils were greatly owing to the idleness and bad management of their pleasure-loving and careless king.
At length, one year,—it was in the pleasant May-time,—Louis fell sick of smallpox. He was at once put to bed, and the doctors came to see him; but from the first they looked with grave anxiety on the ailing man. His three daughters—whom he had nicknamed Rag, Snip, and Pig—waited on him dutifully, though the terrible disease turned everybody sick who came near the bed. The stench was carried far into the palace; but there the princesses remained until the end came. They had a fourth sister, nicknamed Dud; but she was in a nunnery, and so could not wait upon her dying father.
So Louis, once the “Well Beloved,” lay dying at last. Twice before he had been near death. Once at Metz he was very, very ill, and prayers ascended in every church for his recovery; and at another time he almost perished under the knife of an assassin, named Damiens, who leaped on the carriage-step and stabbed the king in the side. But now Death had come to him in earnest, and Louis was nevermore to smell the roses in the glorious gardens of Versailles; nor was he evermore to watch the wonderful fountains play, nor to hunt in the pleasant forest. Death had called for him at last, and he must go. When he felt himself sinking into the grave, he sent for the sacrament, and it was given him by Cardinal Roche Aymon. Many ministers of religion were praying incessantly in the chapel below for the king’s recovery. While the dauphin (afterward Louis XVI.), his queen, and many of the courtiers were present at one of these services, the May skies were darkened by a sudden thunderstorm, and the rattling peals drowned the sound of the chants and prayers. The tempest rolled away, and soon after the old king breathed his last.
While he was in his death agonies, the dauphin and his wife and others were standing ready to leave Versailles at a moment’s notice. The horses were yoked to the carriages, and the postilions in their churn-boots were standing by; all were ready for an instant start. At length the dauphin and Marie Antoinette heard a noise like the sound of distant thunder; it came nearer and nearer, and very soon the door of the apartment flew open, and all the courtiers crowded in, each wishing to outstrip the other in saluting the new majesties of France.
The young couple, it is said, fell on their knees and asked God to help them to rule, for they were so young and knew not how. It was a pious deed; and we cannot but grieve as we see them, full of youth and hope and prosperity, beginning that course which so soon afterward ended in disaster and death.
It seems strange to us that Louis did not remain at Versailles and follow his grandfather to the grave. Wicked as he was, the old king might at least have had a decent funeral. As for the young king, he and his brilliant court did not remain an hour, but stepped into their carriages and were driven away at a rapid rate to Choisy. Meanwhile the dishonored body of the late monarch, now a mass of putrefying sores, was tumbled hastily into a coffin of lead, which was well supplied with spirits of wine. The coffin was then carried rapidly away by torchlight to St. Denis, where the kings of France had a burial-place. As the funeral procession passed through Paris, many were the bitter things said of him who was gone. The curious people stood in two rows to witness the dismal sight pass them at a quick trot.
Ten years of peace followed the accession of Louis XVI.; but he and his government had been meanwhile getting deeper and deeper into debt and discredit, and they were at length obliged, by sheer- want of money, to call together a parliament, called the States-General, which had not met for upward of a hundred and fifty years.
THE POOR PEOPLE IN France were in a most miserable condition. Bread was very dear and grievance of many kinds abounded. Once, not long after the young king ascended the throne, the poor rose up, and went with a petition to Versailles. The king appeared on a balcony, and spoke to them not unkindly; but by the advice of his ministers, two of the leaders were hanged on a new gallows.
The king by and by had to reduce the expenses of his household, and Versailles became an altered place. The wolf-hounds were given up; then the bear-hounds; then the falcons; and one nobleman after another, who had a good salary, was dismissed.
A minister named Calonne, a clever man, did some service for a while in raising money, and so making the king’s path easier; but it was all moonshine, as we say. Things were really getting worse. Calonne then proposed to do a very wise thing, we think; namely, to call together the notables,—a thing which had not been done as long as the king could rule without them. These notables were peers, dignified churchmen, soldiers, lawyers, and men of mark, to the number of one hundred and thirty-seven, who sat in seven companies, each under a prince. Calonne was for taxing all,—even the upper classes, who stupidly thought they ought to be free. This was so little liked that Calonne had to resign and leave the country in haste.
After nine weeks’ chatter the notables departed each to his home, without having done much, except to pave the way for a National Assembly.
A clever Swiss banker, named Necker, had also labored, like Calonne, in the thorny path of managing the king’s money-bags; but as he, like Calonne, advised that the Clergy and Nobles should be taxed, he was dismissed, but called back again amid the plaudits of the people. Necker’s portrait was carried aloft in a procession through the streets of Paris; while a wicker figure of an archbishop who was very unpopular was burned on the Pont Neuf by a wild mob. A charge of cavalry was made, and many people killed and wounded.
No States-General had met for one hundred and seventy-four years, and it was a hard matter to know how to get them to work together. But it was at last decided they should meet, to get France out of her troubles; and so the king sent a signal through the land in the frosty January of 1789. Men were everywhere ordered to elect their members, and to draw up a list of their grievances. And of grievances there was no end. In the month of April the members elected were arriving at Versailles, hunting up lodgings, and making preparations for the opening day. But before that day arrived, a terrible event had taken place in Paris, showing the violence of the people. A certain paper manufacturer, named Reveillon, had his works in the most unruly part of Paris, named St. Antoine. Reveillon had been heard to say that a journeyman paper-maker might live well on fifteen sous a day. This seems to have roused the wrath of the rough inhabitants of St. Antoine, and they gathered with menacing looks about the manufactory. Reveillon sent for some soldiers, who cleared the street, and posted themselves therein for the night.
But on the morrow matters grew worse, and so another detachment of troops was ordered to the spot. These men could hardly with gun and bayonet reach it, so choked with lumber and crowds was the street. The soldiers fired at the mob, who were already in the building engaged on the work of destruction, and the mob replied with yells and showers of stones and tiles. As the riot went on, some of the king’s Swiss Guards, with two pieces of cannon, were sent; and when the rioters saw the steady, determined faces of the redcoats and their lighted matches, they slank away into their dens, leaving no less than four or five hundred dead men in that one street. The unfortunate paper-maker, who had lost all but his life, took refuge in the Bastille, and the dead were buried with the title of “Defenders of their Country.”
Twelve hundred and fourteen gentlemen were now assembled at Versailles, and each one kissed the king’s hand in the palace. It was noticed, however, that while the Nobles and Clergy had both folding doors thrown open for them, the members of the third estate, or Commons, had only one opened for them. A spacious hall had been prepared, the king taking great interest in its fitting up. There was room in it for six hundred Commoners in front, for three hundred Clergy on one side, and three hundred Nobles on the other.
On Monday, May 4, the town of Versailles was a human sea. Men clustered thick about roofs and chimneys, and every window was thronged with sight-seers, all intent on the march of the twelve hundred deputies from the Church of St. Louis, where they assembled, to the Church of Our Lady, where they were to hear a sermon. The Commons walked in black; the Nobles in embroidered velvet and plumes; the Clergy in their proper robes. After them came the king and queen and royal household. Several men afterward famous were among the Commons; as Danton, Camille, Desmoulins, and Mirabeau. There, too, went the bilious Robespierre, spectacles on nose; and there was Dr. Guillotin, who gave his name to the instrument of death. “With my machine,” said he, “I whisk off your head in a moment, and you feel no pain.” One clergyman, the Abbe Sieyes, sat among the Commons.
Next day the States-General assembled in their noble hall, and the king made a speech to them. When he finished, he put on his hat. The Nobles followed suit, and put on their hats; and then the third estate, or Commons, did the same. Then arose a cry, “Hats off! Hats off!” And some cried, “Hats on!” The king, to put an end to a ridiculous dispute, took his own hat off again. This was but a slight thing, but it showed the temper of the Commons.
For six whole weeks the Commons did nothing but wait. They saw the Nobles and Clergy wanted to sit and act separately, and they were resolved to do nothing at all, until they could all act together as one body in one chamber. This the king and court did all they could to prevent, fearing lest the weight of the Commons should incline the whole States-General to take the direction of liberty, equality, and fraternity,—things which the privileged classes always have hated and always will.
THE COMMONS, YOU REMEMBER, would not do anything at all, because the Clergy and Nobles refused to sit and debate with them. The king and his council did not wish the Clergy and Nobles to sit and talk with the Commons, for they were afraid the Commons would make them too liberal; and they were the more afraid because one hundred and forty-nine out of the six hundred Clergy joined the Commons. These were mostly clergy of the lower orders, and what we call parish priests. This made the court resolve to do something. Some were for planting cannon opposite the hall of debate, so as to terrify the Commons into obedience. Others were for shutting up the hall and turning them into the street. The king was always a mild man and against doing anything violently, and he did not approve of the cannon business at all. He was therefore persuaded to order the Marquis de Breze to shut the doors of the hall.
On Saturday, June 20, therefore, when the hour of meeting came, the President of the Commons, whose name was Bailly, went, in company with the members, to the hall. Bailly had received a letter from the marquis, which told him that the Commons would not be allowed to use the hall; but this letter Bailly put in his pocket and did not notice. When he and the Commons reached the door, they found it guarded by soldiers, and within carpenters were at work, making the hall ready for some grand court ceremonial. The captain of the guard politely informed Bailly that he could not let the members in, and he showed the king’s order. They might send some of their number in, to remove any papers that might belong to them, but nothing more. So Bailly and his secretaries went in, and carried off the papers, with minds full of anger. The members stood some minutes under the shade of a fine avenue of trees, considering what was best to be done. They felt sure that the courtiers were chuckling over their disappointment. The morning was cloudy, and a drizzling rain began to fall. Great was the hubbub of voices under the friendly shelter of the trees; loud were the complaints and cries of shame; many the plans of what to do next. Some were for meeting in a large courtyard called the Place of Arms; others were for going over to Marly, whither it was heard the king had driven; some were for forcing an entrance into Versailles Palace itself. But it was soon rumored that President Bailly had found a convenient place. It was a tennis-court in the street of St. Francis, and thither the disgusted Commons took their way. It was a bare place, enclosed by four naked walls. A table and chair were borrowed of a neighbor, and, the President and his friends having opened their papers, the proceedings began with a solemn oath! A certain Monsieur Mailly proposed that the six hundred members should lift up their right hands to Heaven, and swear they would meet anywhere and under any and every circumstance, until they had made suitable laws for the right government of France. When the oath was sworn, each member took a pen and signed his name. There was only one man who refused,—a member from Languedoc; and him they declared to be “wrong in his head.”
When the members had agreed to meet on the Monday following in the Recollets Church, they separated. Bailly had shown himself a worthy leader, and was at that hour the most popular man in France; but the court party were dreadfully vexed. When Monday came, myriads of people flocked into Versailles to see what might turn up. The king, perhaps alarmed, put off his ceremonial; and the Commons, in a solid body, marched to the church, where they found the one hundred and forty-nine Clergy awaiting them. There was a scene of much emotion, men embracing each other and shedding tears. The next day (a very rainy day) the king invited the States-General to enter the hall, where he made a speech. He declared his resolve that the three orders should vote separately. A number of articles were then read aloud, and the king said if they could, not agree upon them he would effect them himself. “Let each order,” said he, “now depart, to meet to-morrow in its own place, to dispatch business.” Then all filed out, except the Commons and those Clergy who had joined them.
It was now that Mirabeau showed himself as a leader of men. He rose to speak. While on his legs the Marquis de Breze interfered with, “Messieurs, you have heard the king’s orders!”
“Yes,” replied Mirabeau, “we have all heard what the king has been advised to say, but you are not the man to remind us of it. Go, sir, and tell those who sent you that we are here by the will of the people, and nothing but the force of bayonets shall drive us hence!”
It was not thought prudent to send soldiers to expel the audacious Commons; for they seemed inclined to show a mutinous spirit. A ruse was therefore tried. A posse of carpenters was sent into the hall to remove, with much hammering and noise, the platform. It was hoped their clatter would drown the orators, and stop the proceedings. But, lo! the carpenters, when they had worked a few minutes, stood open-mouthed on the platform, listening with wonder to the finest speaker they had ever heard. Mirabeau was now moving that the Commons were a National Assembly, and that any person who dared lay a finger on any member should be guilty of a capital crime. This was put to the meeting, and made a decree. Before the week was out the rest of the Clergy and the Nobles had joined the Commons, the king begging them to oblige him by yielding to what was clearly the popular will. It was the last day of June when the States-General were united in one house; and great was the joy and many the lighted torches carried about everywhere.
But though the king had yielded to the Commons, he had done it very unwillingly; and he still hoped to punish his rebellious subjects by means of the sword, if he could do it in no other way. Suspicion of his purpose was aroused by the marching of regiments and the rumbling of great guns. Cannon were pointed at the Assembly Hall, and the members were alarmed by the tramp of armed men and the never-ceasing tap of the drumstick on the drum. The general, named Broglie, had his headquarters in Versailles, and all the day long aides-de-camp were coming and going. Something was up, without a doubt, and some terrible damage would certainly have been done to the rebellious part of the States-General if it had not been for one fortunate thing, which was this,—the soldiers positively refused to draw trigger when their muskets were to be pointed at their brother Frenchmen! They made a solemn promise to each other in the ranks that they would never act against the National Assembly. In fact, the privates in the French army, having nothing to lose and all to gain, were as eager for change as the citizens, and quite ready to disobey their lordly officers if the orders given did not please them.
A PICTURE OF THE Bastille, or State-prison, shows us a great mass of masonry, with round towers. It stood at the east end of Paris, in the street of St. Antoine. It was begun in 1369, and finished in 1383. Its strong walls were surrounded by a wide ditch, which itself was defended on its outer side by a wall thirty-six feet high. The towers had several eight-sided rooms one over another, each with a narrow window. There was no fireplace, and no article of furniture, except an iron grating raised six inches from the floor, and on this the prisoner’s bed was laid. The rooms in the walls were more comfortable. The interior consisted of two courts, called the “Great Court” and the “Court of the Well.” The prison had a well-paid governor, several officers poorly paid, and a certain number of Invalides and Swiss, who had a small daily allowance, with firewood and candles. One unhappy prisoner was confined in these dreary walls for fifty-four years. Two prisoners, and only two, ever managed to escape. They contrived to make two ladders, which they hid under the floor; and one dark night they climbed up the chimney, cut through the iron gratings, and got on the roof. Thence they descended about one hundred feet to the bottom of the fosse or ditch. Then they made a hole in the wall next the Rue St. Antoine, and so escaped. This was Feb. 26, 1756.