If it were not for the children . I should not care. But the children, my dear Campan, what will become of them? “
Dear Campan was too full of sense to deny what I said. She was so practical that she immediately set about making me a corselet similar to the King’s waistcoat.
I thanked her but I would not wear it.
“If they kill me, Madame Campan, it will be fortunate for me. It will at least deliver me from this painful existence. Only the children worry me. But there are you and kind Tourzel and I do not believe that even those people would be cruel to little children. I remember how moved that woman was. It was because of the children. No, even they would not harm them. So … when they kill me, do not mourn for me.
Remember I shall go to a happier life than I suffer here. “
Madame Campan was alarmed. All during that sultry July she refused to go to bed. She would sit in my apartment dozing, ready to leap up at the first sound. I believe she saved my life on one occasion.
It was one o’clock in the morning when I started out of a doze to find Madame Campan bending over me.
“Madame !’ she whispered.
“Listen. There is someone creeping along the corridor.”
I sat up in bed startled. The corridor passed along the whole line of my apartments and was locked at each end.
Madame Campan dashed into the anteroom where the valet de chamber was sleeping. He too had heard the foot steps and was ready to rush out. In a few seconds Madame Campan and I heard the sounds of scuffling.
“Oh, Campan, Campan I’ I said, and I put my arms about the dear faithful creature.
“What should I do without friends such as you?
Insults by day and assassins by night. Where will it end? “
Tou have good servants, Madame,” she said quietly.
And it was true, for the valet de chambre at that moment came into the bedroom dragging a man with him.
“I know the wretch, Madame,” he said.
“He is a servant of the King’s toilette. He admits taking the key from His Majesty’s pocket when the King was in bed.”
He was a small man and the valet de chambre was both tall and strong, and for this I bad to be grateful otherwise it would have been the end of me that night. The miserable wretch no doubt thought to earn the praise of the mob for doing something which they were constantly screaming should be done.
I will lock him up, Madame,” said the valet de chambre.
“No,” I said.
“Let him go. Open the door for him and send him away from the palace. He came to murder me, and if he succeeded the people would be carrying him about in triumph tomorrow.”
The valet obeyed me, and when he returned I thanked him and told him that I was grieved that he should be exposed to danger on my account.
To this he replied that be feared nothing and that he had a pair of very excellent pistols which he carried always with him for no other purpose but to defend me.
Such incidents always moved me deeply, and I said to Madame Campan as we returned to my bedroom that the goodness of people such as herself and the valet would never have been appreciated by me but for the fact that these terrible times brought it home to me.
She was touched, but she was already making plans to have all the locks changed the next day, and she saw that the King’s were too.
Now the great Terror was upon us. It was as though a new race of men had filtered into the capital—small, very dark, lithe, fierce and bloodthirsty—the men of the south, the men of Marseilles.
With them they brought the song which had been composed by Rouget de Lisle, one of their officers. We were soon to hear it sung all over Paris, and it was called the “Marseillaise. Bloodthirsty words set to a rousing tune—it could not fail to win popularity. It replaced die unrilnow-favourite ” Ca ira’ and every time I heard it it made me shiver. It haunted me. I would fancy I heard it when during the night I woke from an uneasy doze, for I was scarcely sleeping during these nights.
“Allans, enfants de la Patrie, Le your de gloire est arrive.
Contre nous, de la tyrannic, Le couteau sanglant est leve, Le couteau sanglant est leve.
Entendes-vous, clans les camp agnes Mugir ces feroces soldats.
Us viennent jusque clans vos bras Egorger vos fils, vos comp agnes
Aux comes, dtoyens!
Formes vos bataillons, , Marchons, marcfwnst Qu’un sang impur Abreuve nos siltons* The gardens outside the apartments were always crowded. People looked in at the windows. At any moment one little spark would set alight the conflagration. How did we know from one hour to another what atrocities would be committed? Hawkers called their wares under my window.
“La Vie Scandaleuse de Mane Antoinette’ they shrieked. They sold figures representing me in various indecent positions with men and women.
“Why should I want to live?” I asked Madame Campan.
“Why should these precautions be taken to save a life which is not worth having?”
I wrote to Axel of the terror of our lives. I said that unless our friends issued a manifesto to the effect that Paris would be attacked if we were banned, we should very soon be murdered.
Axel, I knew, was doing everything possible. No one ever worked more indefatigably in any cause.
If only the King had had half Axel’s energy. I tried to rouse him to action. Outside our windows the guards were drawn up. If he showed them he was a leader they would respect him-I had seen how even the most crude of the revolutionaries could be overawed by a little royal dignity. I begged him to go to the guards to make some show of reviewing them.
He nodded. I was right, he was sure. He went out and it was heartbreaking to see him ambling between the lines of soldiers. He had grown so fat and unwieldy now that he , was never allowed to hunt.
I trust you,” he told them. I have every confidence in my guard.”
I heard the snigger. I saw one man break from the ranks and walk behind him imitating his ponderous walk. Dignity was what was needed.
I was a fool to nave expected Louis to show that.
I was relieved when he came in. I looked away, for I did not wish to see the humiliation on his face.
“La Fayette will save us from the fanatics,” he said heavily.
“You should not despair.”
I wonder,” I retorted bitterly, who will save us from Monsieur de La Fayette.”
The climax arrived when the Duke of Brunswick issued the Manifesto at Coblenz. Military force would be used on Paris if the least violence or outrage was committed against the King and the Queen.
It was the signal for which they had been waiting. The agitators were working harder than ever. All over Paris men were marching in groups—the sons-culottes and the ragged men of the south; they sang as they went:
“Allow enfants de la Patrie …”
They were saying that we were preparing a counterrevolution at the Tuileries.
On the tenth of August the faubourgs were on the march Hi and their objective was the Tuileries.
id A We were aware of the rising storm. All through the night of the ninth and the early morning of the tenth I had not cc taken off my clothes. I had wandered through the corridors M accompanied by Madame Campan and the Princesse de Lamballe. The King was sleeping, though fully dressed. M The tocsins had started to ring all over the city and Elisa-n beth came to join us.
w Together we watched the dawn come. That was about four o’clock, and the sky was blood-red. I said to her: “Paris must have seen something like this at the Massacre of the Saint Bartholomew.” t She took my hand and clung to it.