The declaration was voted with enthusiasm; but for some time it brought nothing but disaster. The campaign was opened in the Netherlands, where the Austrians, taken by surprise, were so weak in numbers that it seemed certain that they would be driven from the country without difficulty or delay. Marshal Beaulieu, their commander-in-chief, had scarcely twenty thousand men, while the Count de Narbonne had left the French army in so good a condition that Degraves, his successor, was able to send a hundred and thirty thousand men against him; and Dumouriez furnished him with a plan for an invasion of the Netherlands, which, if properly carried out, would have made the French masters of the whole country in a few days. But the largest division of the army, to which the execution of the most important portions of the intended operations was intrusted, had been placed under the command of La Fayette, who proved equally devoid of resolution and of skill. Some of his regiments showed a disorderly and insubordinate temper. One battalion first mutinied and murdered some of its officers, and then disgraced itself by cowardice in the field. Another displayed an almost equal want of courage; and La Fayette, disheartened and perplexed, though the number of his troops still more than doubled those opposed to him, retreated into France, and remained there in a state of complete inactivity.
But, as has been said before, disaster was almost as favorable to the political views of the Girondins as success, while it added to the dangers of the sovereigns by encouraging the Jacobins, who were elated at the failure of a general so hateful to them as La Fayette. They now adopted a party emblem, a red cap; and the Duc d'Orleans and his son, the Duc de Chartres,[6] assumed it, and with studied insult paraded in it up and down the gardens of the palace, under the queen's windows; and if the two factions did not formally coalesce, they both proceeded with greater boldness than ever toward their desired object, not greatly differing as to the means by which it was to be attained.
The palace was now indeed a scene of misery. The king's apathy was degenerating into despair. At one time he was so utterly prostrated that he remained for ten days absolutely silent, never uttering a word except to name his throws when playing at backgammon with Elizabeth. At last the queen roused him from his torpor, throwing herself at his feet, and mingling caresses with her expostulations; entreating him to remember what he owed to his family, and reminding him that, if they must perish, it was better at least to perish with honor, and be king to the last, than to wait passively till assassins should come and murder them in their own rooms. She herself was in a condition in which nothing but her indomitable courage prevented her from utterly breaking down. Sleep had deserted her. By day she rarely ventured out-of-doors. Riding she had given up, and she feared to walk in the garden of the Tuileries, even in the little portion marked off for the dauphin's playground, lest she should expose herself to the coarse insults which, the basest of hirelings were ever on the watch to offer her.[7] She could not even venture to go openly to mass at Easter, but was forced to arrange for one of her chaplains to perform the service for her before daylight. Balked of their wish to offer her personal insults, her enemies redoubled their diligence in inventing and spreading libels. The demagogues of the Palais Royal revived the stories of her subservience to the interests of Austria, and even sent letters forged in her name to different members of the Assembly, inviting them to private conferences with her in the apartments of Madame de Lamballe. But she treated all such attacks with lofty disdain, and was even greatly annoyed when she learned that the chief of the police, with the king's sanction, had bought up a life of Madame La Mothe, in which that infamous woman pretended to give a true account of the affair of her necklace, and had had it burned in the manufactory of Sevres. She thought, with some reason, that to take a step which seemed to show a dread of such attacks was the surest way to encourage more of them, and that apparent indifference to them was the only line of action consistent with her innocence or with her dignity.
The increasing dangers of her position moved the pity of some who had once been her enemies, and sharpened their desire to serve her. Barnave, who probably overrated his present influence[8] in many letters pressed his advice upon her; of which the substance was that she should lay aside her distrust of the Constitutionalist party, and, with the king, throw herself wholly on the Constitution, to which the nation was profoundly attached. He even admitted that it was not without defects; but held out a hope that, with the aid of the Royalists, he and his friends might be able to amend them, and in time to re-invest the throne with all necessary splendor. And the queen was so touched by his evident earnestness that she granted him an audience, and assured him of her esteem and confidence. Barnave was partly correct in his judgment, but he overlooked one all-essential circumstance. There is no doubt that he spoke truly when he declared that the nation in general was attached to the Constitution; but he failed to give sufficient weight to the consideration that the Jacobins and Girondins were agreed in seeking to overthrow it, and that for that object they were acting with a concert and an energy to which he and his party were strangers.
Dumouriez too was equally earnest in his desire to serve the king and her, with far greater power to be useful than Barnave. He too was admitted to an audience, of which he has left us an account which, while it shows both his notions of the state of the country and of the rival parties, and also his own sincerity, is no less characteristic of the queen herself. Admitted to her presence, he found her, as he describes the interview, looking very red, walking up and down the room with impetuous strides, in an agitation which presaged a stormy discussion. The different events which had taken place since the king in the preceding autumn had ratified the Constitution, the furious language held in, and the violent measures carried by, the Assembly, had evidently changed her belief in the possibility of attempting, even for a short time, to carry on the Government under the conditions imposed by that act. She came toward him with an air which was at once majestic and yet showed irritation, and said:
"You, sir, are all-powerful at this moment; but it is only by the favor of the people, which soon breaks its idols to pieces. Your existence depends on your conduct. You are said to have great talents. You must see that neither the king nor I can endure all these novelties nor the Constitution. I tell you this frankly. Now choose your side."
To this fervid apostrophe Dumouriez replied in a tone which he intended to combine a sorrowful tenderness with loyal respect:
"Madame," said he, "I am overwhelmed with the painful confidence which your majesty has reposed in me. I will not betray it; but I am placed between the king and the nation, and I belong to my country. Permit me to represent to you that the safety of the king, of yourself, and of your august children is bound up with the Constitution, as well as is the re-establishment of the king's legitimate authority. You are both surrounded with enemies who are sacrificing you to their own interests." The unfortunate queen, shocked as well as surprised at this opposition to her views, replied, raising her voice, "That will not last; take care of yourself." "Madame," replied he, in his turn, "I am more than fifty years old. My life has been passed in countless dangers, and when I took office I reflected deeply that its responsibility was not the greatest of its perils." "This was alone wanting," cried out the queen, with an accent of indignant grief, and as if astonished herself at her own vehemence.