Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of RoyaltyImbert de Saint-Amand
History
Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty
Imbert de Saint-Amand
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799; Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France, 1755-1793
The Princess de Lamballe, the Princess of Tarento, the Marchioness de
Tourzel, the Duchesses de Luynes, de Duras, de Maillé, the Marchioness
de Laroche-Aymon, Madame de Soucy, the Baroness de Mackau, the Countess
de Ginestous, remained with the Queen. So also did the Minister
Chambonas, the Duke de Choiseul, Counts d'Haussonville and de
Montmorin, Viscount de Saint-Priest, Marquis de Champcenetz, and
General de Wittenghoff, commander of the 17th military division. The
Queen and her children occupied the embrasure of a window, and the
large and heavy table used by the ministerial council was placed in
front of them as a sort of barricade.
Meanwhile, Marie Antoinette's apartments and her bedroom on the
ground-floor were invaded. Some National Guards tried vainly to defend
them. "You are cutting your own throats!" shouted the people.
Overwhelmed by numbers, they saw the door of the first apartment broken
down by hatchets. It {212} contained the beds of the Queen's servants,
ranged behind screens. Afterwards they saw the invaders go into Marie
Antoinette's sleeping-room, tear the clothes off her bed, and loll upon
it, crying as they did so, "We will have the Austrian woman, dead or
alive!"
The Queen, however, remained in the Council Hall, where she could hear
the echo of the cries resounding in that of the OEil-de-Boeuf, where
Louis XVI. was, and from which she was separated only by the State
Bedchamber. Toward seven in the evening she beheld Madame Elisabeth,
who, after heroically sharing the dangers of the King, had now found
means to rejoin her. "The deputies who came to us," she wrote to
Madame de Raigecourt, July 3, "had come out of good will. A veritable
deputation arrived and persuaded the King to go back to his own
apartments. As I was told this, and as I was unwilling to be left in
the crowd, I went away about an hour before he did, and rejoined the
Queen: you can imagine with what pleasure I embraced her." In their
perils, therefore, Madame Elisabeth was near both Louis XVI. and Marie
Antoinette.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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