Love and liberty : $b A thrilling narrative of the French Revolution of 1792Dumas, Alexandre
History
Love and liberty : $b A thrilling narrative of the French Revolution of 1792
Dumas, Alexandre
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction
“Educate him to liberty, madame,” said the orator. “It is the one
condition of his life.”
He kissed the child. Nine months afterwards he was one of those who
sent the King and Queen to the scaffold.
The royal family were now prohibited from shutting a door, and so
much did they dread poison, that they only pretended to eat of the
dishes prepared and set before them, and really subsisted upon cakes,
and other food brought to them in the pockets of their attendants,
who purchased the eatables at obscure shops.
The Queen made the King wear as a breastplate fifteen-fold silk; but
while the poor man complied, he said, “They will not assassinate me,
but put me to death like a King, in open daylight.”
He never appears to have thought of the possible execution of the
Queen herself.
“He is no coward,” she said of the King; “but he is calm in the
presence of danger. His courage is in his heart, only it does not
show itself—he is so timid.”
The family now only showed themselves when going to church on Sunday,
and then they were assailed with cries of “No King!” Louis said it
was as though God himself had turned against him.
One night, a chamber-valet, who slept at the Queen’s door, was
awakened, to find an assassin, dagger in hand, stealing into the
Queen’s room.
Murders now became quite common. One D’Epremesnil, who had been a
great favorite with the people, showed signs of moderation. Suddenly
turned upon by the mob, he was cut down, dragged through the gutters,
and was about to be thrown into a common sewer, when he was rescued
by a squad of the National Guard. As he lay dying, Pétion, the Mayor
of Paris, looked upon him, and fainted. Recovering his senses, the
victim said to the Mayor, “And _I_—I, too, was once the idol of the
people! May you meet with a better fate!”
The sound of the soul-stirring “Marseillaise” had maddened Paris.
The hourly news of the march of the Prussians upon France fatally
intensified that hatred of all who were favorable to royalty—a hatred
which was now about utterly to burst all bounds.
An almost complete insurrection was adjourned to August 10.
It was said by the people that Marie Antoinette daily cursed the
people; that she had offered a pistol to the King, and prayed him
to destroy himself: that she had vowed, sooner than leave the royal
palace, she would be nailed to its walls.
In truth, she was battling with her natural royalty—defending the
unemotional King, and endeavoring to take his place without intruding
on his prerogative.
Meanwhile, the principal movers in the drama were being thinned by
murder. Mandat, the commandant general, suspected of treachery rather
than of duty, was shot down before his son’s eyes, and his body was
cast into the Seine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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