书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
35302100000512

第512章

[83] Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 69. "Everything betokened victory for the court if the king had never left his post . . . If he had shown himself, if he had mounted on horseback the battalions of Paris would have declared for him."[84] "Révolution de Paris," number for Aug. 11, 1792. "The 10th of August, 1792, is still more horrible than the 24th of August, 1572, and Louis XVI. a greater monster than Charles IX. " -- "Thousands of torches were found in cellars, apparently placed there to burn down Paris at a signal from this modern Nero." In the number for Aug.18:

"The place for Louis Nero and for Medicis Antoinette is not in the towers of the Temple; their heads should have fallen from the guillotine on the night of the 10th of August." (Special details of a plan of the king to massacre all patriot deputies, and intimidate Paris with a grand pillaging and by keeping the guillotine constantly at work.) "That crowned ogre and his Austrian panther."[85] Narrative of the Minister Joly (written four days after the event). The king departs about half-past eight. -- Cf. Madame Campan, "Mémoires," and Moniteur, XIII. 378.

[86] Révolution de Paris," number for Aug. 18. On his way a sans-culotte steps out in front of the rows and tries to prevent the king from proceeding. The officer of the guard argues with him, upon which he extends his hand to the king, exclaiming: "Touch that hand, bastard, and you have shaken the hand of an honest man! But I have no intention that your ***** of a wife goes with you to the Assembly; we don't want that whore." -- "Louis XVI," says Prudhomme, "kept on his way without being upset by the with this noble impulse." -- I regard this as a masterpiece of Jacobin interpretation.

[87] Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 311, 325. The king, at the foot of the staircase, had asked R?derer: "what will become of the persons remaining above? "Sire," he replies, "they seem to be in plain dress.

Those who have swords have merely to take them off, follow you and leave by the garden." A certain number of gentlemen, indeed, do so, and thus depart while others escape by the opposite side through the gallery of the Louvre.

[88] Mathon de la Varenne, "Histoire particulière," etc., 108.

(Testimony of the valet-de-chambre Lorimier de Chamilly, with whom Mathon was imprisoned in the prison of La Force.

[89] De Lavalette, "Mémoires," I. 81. "We there found the grand staircase barred by a sort of beam placed across it, and defended by several Swiss officers, who were civilly disputing its passage with about fifty mad fellows, whose odd dress very much resembled that of the brigands in our melodramas. They were intoxicated, while their coarse language and queer imprecations indicated the town of Marseilles, which had belched them forth."[90] Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 314, 317 (questioning of M. de Diesbach).

"Their orders were not to fire until the word was given, and not before the national guard had set the example."[91] Buchez et Roux, XVI, 443. Narration by Pétion. - Peltier, "Histoire du 10 ao?t.

[92] M. de Nicolay wrote the following day, the 11th of August: "The federates fired first, which was followed by a sharp volley from the chateau windows." (Le Comte de Fersen et la cour de France. II. 347.)[93] Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 491. The abandonment of the Tuileries is proved by the small loss of the assailants. (List of the wounded belonging to the Marseilles corps and of the killed and wounded of the Brest corps, drawn up Oct. 16, 1792. -- Statement of the aid granted to wounded Parisians, to widows, to orphans, and to the aged, October, 1792, and then 1794.) -- The total amounts to 74 dead and 54 severely wounded The two corps in the hottest of the fight were the Marseilles band, which lost 22 dead and 14 wounded, and the Bretons, who lost 2dead and 5 wounded. The sections that suffered the most were the Quinze-Vingts (4 dead and 4 wounded), the Faubourg-Montmartre (3dead), the Lombards (4 wounded), and the Gravilliers (3 wounded). --Out of twenty-one sections reported, seven declare that they did not lose a man. -- The Swiss regiment, on the contrary, lost 760 men and 26 officers.

[94] Napoleon's narrative.

[95] Pétion's account.

[96] Prudhomme's "Révolution de Paris," XIII. 236 and 237. -Barbaroux, 73. - Madame Campan, II. 250.

[97] Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 258. -- Moore, I. 59. Some of the robbers are killed. Moore saw one of them thrown down the grand staircase.

[98] Michelet, III. 289.

[99] Mercier, "Le Nouveau Paris," II. 108. -- "The Comte de Fersen et la Cour de France," II. 348. (Letter of Sainte-Foix, Aug. 11). "The cellars were broken open and more than 10,000 bottles of wine of which I saw the fragments in the court, so intoxicated the people that Imade haste to put an end to an investigation imprudently begun amidst 2,000 sots with naked swords, handled by them very carelessly."[100] Napoleon's narrative. -- Memoirs of Barbaroux.

[101] Moniteur, XIII. 387. -- Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 340.

[102] Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 303. Words of the president Vergniaud on receiving Louis XVI. - Ibid. 340, 342, 350.

[103] Mortimer-Ternaux, 356, 357.

[104] Mortimer-Ternaux, 337. Speech of Huguenin, president of the Commune, at the bar of the National Assembly: "The people by whom we are sent to you have instructed us to declare to you that they invest you anew with its confidence; but they at the same time instruct us to declare to you that, as judge of the extraordinary measures to which they have been driven by necessity and resistance to oppression, they k now no other authority than the French people, your sovereign and ours, assembled in its primary meetings."[105] Duvergier, "Collection des lois et décrets," (between Aug. 10and Sept. 20).