The confusion of the day, with the multitude thronging the courts and
park of Versailles, uttering the most frightful threats and insults, had
been beyond all description; but there had been a pause at night, and at
two o'clock, poor Queen Marie Antoinette, spent with horror and fatigue,
at last went to bed, advising her ladies to do the same; but their
anxiety was too great, and they sat up at her door. At half-past four
they heard musket shots, and loud shouts, and while one awakened the
Queen, the other, Madame Auguier, flew towards the place whence
the noise came. As she opened the door, she found one of the royal
bodyguards, with his face covered with blood, holding his musket so as
to bar the door while the furious mob were striking at him. He turned
to the lady, and cried, 'Save the Queen, madame, they are come to murder
her!' Quick as lightning, Madame Auguier shut and bolted the door,
rushed to the Queen's bedside, and dragged her to the opposite door,
with a petticoat just thrown over her. Behold, the door was fastened on
the other side! The ladies knocked violently, the King's valet opened
it, and in a few minutes the whole family were in safety in the King's
apartments. M. de Miomandre, the brave guardsman, who used his musket to
guard the Queen's door instead of to defend himself, fell wounded; but
his comrade, M. de Repaire, at once took his place, and, according to
one account, was slain, and the next day his head, set upon a pike, was
borne before the carriage in which the royal family were escorted back
to Paris.
M. de Miomandre, however, recovered from his wounds, and a few weeks
after, the Queen, hearing that his loyalty had made him a mark for the
hatred of the mob, sent for him to desire him to quit Paris. She said
that gold could not repay such a service as his had been, but she hoped
one day to be able to recompense him more as he deserved; meanwhile, she
hoped he would consider that as a sister might advance a timely sum to a
brother, so she might offer him enough to defray his expenses at Paris,
and to provide for his journey. In a private audience then he kissed her
hand, and those of the King and his saintly sister, Elizabeth, while the
Queen gratefully expressed her thanks, and the King stood by, with tears
in his eyes, but withheld by his awkward bashfulness from expressing the
feelings that overpowered him.
Madame Auguier, and her sister, Madame Campan, continued with their
royal lady until the next stage in that miserable downfall of all that
was high and noble in unhappy France. She lived through the horrors of
the Revolution, and her daughter became the wife of Marshal Ney.
Well it is that the darkening firmament does but show the stars, and
that when treason and murder surge round the fated chambers of royalty,
their foulness and violence do but enhance the loyal self-sacrifice
of such doorkeepers as Catherine Douglas, Madame Auguier, or M. de
Miomandre.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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