Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 6.djvu/16

3 "delenda est Carthago" cry against La Fayette. He called on the federates to avenge the country on that base wretch; in fact, he stimulated them to murder him on the first opportunity.

The 14th of July had arrived. As had been recommended by Chabot, in the assembly, the federates, about five thousand in number, mustered in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and, mingling with the pikemen and pikewomen, marched to the square of the Bastille. There they were joined by the national guards, now greatly thinned of their respectable portion, the bankers, stock-brokers, merchants, lawyers, and men of property, who had refused to serve under brutal jacobin and sans-culotte officers who had been appointed. The troops of the line and the gendarmerie were also there; and a deputation of the national assembly arrived about noon, and the president, amid the din of martial music, and the far wilder din of some hundreds of thousands of rude revolutionists, laid the foundation-stone of that column of liberty which now stands there. No sooner was the stone laid, than a rabid orator of the Faubourg made a fierce harangue, declaring that all the kings of the earth were conspiring to crush France, and calling on the people to swear to crush all kings. The enormous crowd then marched through the city to the Champ de Mars, with the usual accompaniments of flags flying, statues of liberty, and tables of the Rights of Man carried, and pikes, with red caps of liberty on them, and the whole dingy mass bawling, "Long live Petion! Petion or Death!" Petion had been reinstated by a decree of the assembly the evening before, and was, in truth, the hero of the day.

Even Thiers, the advocate of so much that shocks other nations in the French revolution, could not help exclaiming, on the occasion of the entrance of this throng into the Champ de Mars, "How times had changed since the l4th of July, 1790! There was neither that magnificent altar, with three hundred officiating priests; nor that extensive area covered by sixty thousand national guards, richly dressed and richly organised; nor those lateral tiers of seats, crowded by an immense multitude, intoxicated with joy and delight; nor lastly, that balcony where the ministers, the royal family, and the assembly were accommodated at the first federation. Everything was changed. People hated each other, as after a hollow reconciliation, and all the emblems indicated war. Eighty-three tents represented the eighty-three departments. Beside each of these stood a poplar, from the top of which waved flags of the three colours. A large tent was destined for the assembly and the king, and another for the administrative bodies of Paris. Thus all France seemed to be encamped in the presence of the enemy. The altar of the country was but a truncated column, placed at the foot of those tiers of seats which had been left in the Champ de Mars ever since the first ceremony. On one side was seen a monument, covered with yew and cypress, for those who had died, or were destined soon to die, on the frontiers; on the other, an immense tree, called 'The Tree of Feudalism.' It rose from the centre of a vast pile, and bore on its branch crowns, blue ribbons, tiaras, cardinals' hats, St. Peter's keys, ermine mantles, doctors' caps, bags of law proceedings, titles of nobility, escutcheons, coats of arms, &c. The king was to be invited to set fire to it.

"The oath was to be taken at noon. The king had repaired to the apartments of the military school, where he waited for the national procession, which had gone to lay the first stone of the column of the Bastille. The king displayed a calm dignity." "We may interrupt the narrative of Thiers to present the scene as described by Sir Walter Scott:—"The figure made by the king during this pageant formed a striking and melancholy parallel with his actual condition in the state. With hair powdered and dressed, with clothes embroidered in the ancient court fashion, surrounded and crowded unceremoniously by men of the lowest rank, and in the most wretched garb, he seemed belonging to a former age, but which in the present has lost its fashion and value. He was conducted to the Champ de Mars under a strong guard, and by a circuitous route, to avoid the insults of the multitude. When he ascended the altar, to go through the ceremonial of the day, all were struck with his resemblance to a victim led to sacrifice: the queen so much so, that she nearly fainted. A few children alone called out, 'Vive le roi!' This was the last time that Louis was seen in public till he mounted the scaffold."

The queen had been watching the scene with a glass. There were supposed to be half a million of people crowded together on the ground; and the confusion about the altar and the press was such, that the king could not reach the steps of it, except through the utmost exertions of those about him. All around were yelling throngs, shouting, "Long life to Petion! Petion or death!" and having the same words chalked on their hats. There was a model of the Bastille held up conspicuously, and there were printing presses at work, pulling off and distributing patriotic songs. As soon as the king began to mount the steps, the queen gave a loud shriek. "The expression of her countenance on this day," says madame de Stael, "will never be effaced from my memory. Her eyes were swollen with tears; and the splendour of her dress and the dignity of her deportment formed a striking contrast to the train that surrounded her."

As soon as the oath was taken by the king, the people hastened to the tree of feudalism. They were for hurrying the king along with them, that he might set fire to it; but he refused, saying very pertinently, that there was no longer any such thing as feudalism. The king hastened to join the queen, and they returned to the military school, and thence to the palace, not a few wondering at Louis's escape, for they believed he would have been assassinated by the sans culottes; and probably this would have been the case had the federates been stronger in numbers; but there were five hundred Swiss guards, three hundred gendarmes, and three thousand national guards, who were believed to be faithful to the king, or he would probably never have returned alive from the ground. The queen had the direst forebodings, and declared all was lost. Maton de Varenne, in his history of the events of this year, says that the faithful part of the guards conjured Louis not to let the least chance for his life escape him, offering to force the way out of Paris for him and his family, and to conduct him some distance on the road towards the northern frontiers; but the doomed monarch declined the generous offer, and thus yielded himself and his family to the certain fate of the guillotine.