Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 5: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the QueenCampan, Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette)
History
Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 5: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
Campan, Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette)
France -- Court and courtiers; Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France, 1755-1793
It is known that young Barnave, during an aberration of mind, since
expiated by sincere repentance, and even by death, uttered these atrocious
words: "Is then the blood now, flowing so pure?" when M. Berthier's son
came to the Assembly to implore the eloquence of M. de Lally to entreat
that body to save his father's life. I have since been informed that a
son of M. Foulon, having returned to France after these first ebullitions
of the Revolution, saw Barnave, and gave him one of those memorials in
which M. Foulon advised Louis XVI. to prevent the revolutionary explosion
by voluntarily granting all that the Assembly required before the 14th of
July. "Read this memorial," said he; "I have brought it to increase your
remorse: it is the only revenge I wish to inflict on you." Barnave burst
into tears, and said to him all that the profoundest grief could dictate.
CHAPTER II.
After the 14th of July, by a manoeuvre for which the most skilful factions
of any age might have envied the Assembly, the whole population of France
was armed and organised into a National Guard. A report was spread
throughout France on the same day, and almost at the same hour, that four
thousand brigands were marching towards such towns or villages as it was
wished to induce to take arms. Never was any plan better laid; terror
spread at the same moment all over the kingdom. In 1791 a peasant showed
me a steep rock in the mountains of the Mont d'Or on which his wife
concealed herself on the day when the four thousand brigands were to
attack their village, and told me they had been obliged to make use of
ropes to let her down from the height which fear alone had enabled her to
climb.
Versailles was certainly the place where the national military uniform
appeared most offensive. All the King's valets, even of the lowest class,
were metamorphosed into lieutenants or captains; almost all the musicians
of the chapel ventured one day to make their appearance at the King's mass
in a military costume; and an Italian soprano adopted the uniform of a
grenadier captain. The King was very much offended at this conduct, and
forbade his servants to appear in his presence in so unsuitable a dress.
The departure of the Duchesse de Polignac naturally left the Abbe de
Vermond exposed to all the dangers of favouritism. He was already talked
of as an adviser dangerous to the nation. The Queen was alarmed at it,
and recommended him to remove to Valenciennes, where Count Esterhazy was
in command. He was obliged to leave that place in a few days and set off
for Vienna, where he remained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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