Marie Antoinette had good reason to speak as she did the next week to Mercy; though we can hardly fail to remark, as a singular proof of the strength of her political prejudices, and of the degree in which she allowed them to blind her to the objects and the worth of the few honest or able men whom the Assembly contained, that she still regards the Constitutionalists as only one degree less unfavorable to the king's legitimate authority than the Jacobins. And we shall hereafter see that to this mistaken estimate she adhered almost to the end. "Mischief," she says, "is making progress so rapid that there is reason to fear a speedy explosion, which can not fail to be dangerous to us, if we ourselves do not guide it There is no middle way; either we must remain under the sword of the factions, and consequently be reduced to nothing, if they get the upper hand, or we must submit to be fettered under the despotism of men who profess to be well-intentioned, but who always have done, and always will do us harm. This is what is before us, and perhaps the moment is nearer than we think, if we can not ourselves take a decided line, or lead men's opinions by our own vigor and energetic action. What I here say is not dictated by any exaggerated notions, nor by any disgust at our position, nor by any restless desire to be doing something. I perfectly feel all the dangers and risks to which we are exposed at this moment. But I see that all around us affairs are so full of terror that it is better to perish in trying to save ourselves than to allow ourselves to be utterly crushed in a state of absolute inaction.[1]"
And she held the same language to her brother, the emperor, assuring him that "the king and herself were both convinced of the necessity of acting with prudence, but there were cases in which dilatoriness might ruin every thing; and that the factious and disloyal were prosecuting their objects with such celerity, aiming at nothing less than the utter subversion of the kingly power, that it would be extremely dangerous not to offer a resistance to their plans.[2]" And referring to her project of foreign aid, she reported to him that she had promises of assistance from both Spain and Switzerland, if they could depend on the co-operation of the empire.
And still the emigrant princes were adding to her perplexity by their perverseness. She wrote herself to the Count d'Artois to expostulate with him, and to entreat him "not to abandon himself to projects of which the success, to say the least, was doubtful, and which would expose himself to danger without the possibility of serving the king.[3]" No description of the relative influence of the king and queen at this time can be so forcible as the fact that it was she who conducted all the correspondence of the court, even with the king's brothers. But her remonstrances had no influence. We may not impute to the king's brothers any intention to injure him; but unhappily they had both not only a mean idea of his capacity, but a very high one, much worse founded, of their own; and full of self-confidence and self-conceit, they took their own line, perfectly regardless of the suspicions to which their perverse and untractable conduct exposed the king, carrying their obstinacy so far that it was not without difficulty, that the emperor himself, though they were in his dominions, was able to restrain their machinations.
Meanwhile, the queen was steadily carrying on the necessary arrangements for flight. Money had to be provided, for which trustworthy agents were negotiating in Switzerland and Holland, while some the emperor might be expected to furnish. Mirabeau marked out for himself what he regarded as a most important share in the enterprise, undertaking to defend and justify their departure to the Assembly, and nothing doubting that he should be able to bring over the majority of the members to his view of that subject, as he had before prevailed upon them to sanction the journey of the princesses. But in the first days of April all the hopes of success which had been founded on his cooperation and support were suddenly extinguished by his death. Though he had hardly entered upon middle age, a constant course of excess had made him an old man before his time. In the latter part of March he was attacked by an illness which his physicians soon pronounced mortal, and on the 2d of April he died. He had borne the approach of death with firmness, professing to regret it more for the sake of his country than for his own. He was leaving behind him no one, as he affirmed, who would he able to arrest the Revolution as he could have done; and there can be no doubt that the great bulk of the nation did place confidence in his power to offer effectual resistance to the designs of the Jacobins. The various parties in the State showed this feeling equally by the different manner in which they received the intelligence. The court and the Royalists openly lamented him. The Jacobins, the followers of Lameth, and the partisans of the Duke of Orleans, exhibited the most indecent exultation.[4] But the citizens of Paris mourned for him, apparently, without reference to party views. They took no heed of the opposition with which he had of late often defeated the plots of the leaders whom they had followed to riot and treason. They cast aside all recollection of the denunciations of him as a friend to the court with which the streets had lately rung. In their eyes he was the personification of the Revolution as a whole; to him, as they viewed his career for the last two years, they owed the independence of the Assembly, the destruction of the Bastile, and of all other abuses; and through him they doubted not still to obtain every thing that was necessary for the completion of their freedom.
His remains were treated with honors never before paid to a subject. He lay in state; he had a public funeral. His body was laid in the great Church of St. Genevieve, which, the very day before, had been renamed the Pantheon, and appropriated as a cemetery for such of her illustrious sons as France might hereafter think worthy of the national gratitude. Yet, though his great confidant and panegyrist, M. Dumont,[5] has devoted an elaborate argument to prove that he had not overestimated his power to influence the future; and though the Russian embassador, M. Simolin, a diplomatist of extreme acuteness, seems to imply the same opinion by his pithy saying that "he ought to have lived two years longer, or died two years earlier," we can hardly agree with them. La Marck, as has been seen, even when first opening the negotiation for his connection with the court, doubted whether he would be able to undo the mischief which he had acquiesced in, measures not of reform nor of reconstruction, but of total abolition and destruction, are in their very nature irrevocable and irremediable. The nobility was gone; he had not resisted its suppression. The Church was gone; he had himself been among the foremost of its assailants. How, even if he had wished it, could he have undone these acts? and if he could not, how, without those indispensable pillars and supports, could any monarchy endure? That he was now fully alive to the magnitude of the dangers which encompassed both throne and people, and that he would have labored vigorously to avert them, we may do him the justice to believe. But it seems not so probable that he would have succeeded, as that he would have added one more to the list of these politicians who, having allowed their own selfish aims to carry them beyond the limits of prudence and justice, have afterward found it impossible to retrace their steps, but have learned to their shame and sorrow that their rashness has but led to the disappointment of their hopes, the permanent downfall of their own reputations, and the ruin of what they would gladly have defended and preserved. And, on the whole, it is well that from time to time such lessons should be impressed upon the world. It is well that men of lofty genius and pure patriotism should learn, equally with the most shallow empiric or the most self-seeking demagogue, that false steps in politics can rarely be retraced; that concessions once made can seldom, if ever, be recalled, but are usually the stepping-stones to others still more extensive; that what it would have been easy to preserve, it is commonly impossible to repair or to restore.