Lives of the most eminent literary and scientific men of France, Vol. 2 (of 2)Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Science
Lives of the most eminent literary and scientific men of France, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Authors, French -- Biography
Madame de Staël witnessed nearly all the more deplorable events of the
revolution. On the 5th October, when she heard of the march of the
people to Versailles to bring the king and queen to Paris, she hastened
to join her parents, who were in attendance at court. When she arrived,
Necker hastened to the castle to join the council, and madame Necker and
her daughter repaired to the hall preceding the one where the king
remained, that they might share Necker's fate. The tumult, the
inquietude, the various projects, and the trembling expectation of the
hour agitated all, and augmented as night approached. A noble arrived
from Paris with the latest news. He appeared in the royal presence in a
common dress. It was the first time that any man had entered the king's
apartment, except in court dress. His recital of the furious armed
multitude, which was gathering and approaching, increased the general
terror. On the morrow the storm burst. Murder assailed the gates of the
palace, and the royal personages, for the first time, were attacked by
those outrages, at once sanguinary and insulting, which, thus beginning,
never stayed till their destruction was accomplished.
Madame de Staël was present during the whole scene. She stood near when
the crowd forced the queen to appear before them, and when at their
demand the royal family were carried to Paris. Such scenes could never
be forgotten. When the king and queen set off to the capital, the family
of Necker repaired by another route. "We crossed," madame de Staël
writes, "the Bois de Boulogne; the weather was beautiful, the breeze
scarcely stirred the trees, and the sun was bright enough to dispel alt
gloom from the scenery. No exterior object replied to our sadness." When
they arrived at the Tuileries, the Parisian palace of the kings of
France, which had not been inhabited for many years, they found that the
beds of the royal children were put up in the room where the queen
received them; Marie Antoinette apologised. "You know," she said, "that
I did not expect to come here." Her beautiful face expressed anger as
she spoke; and madame de Staël must have felt that her father, as
popular minister, and herself, as a lover of liberty, were included in
the sentiments of resentment which filled the queen's heart.
[Sidenote: 1790.
Sept.
8.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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