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
[The King did not leave Versailles till one o'clock. The Queen, the
Dauphin, Madame Royale, Monsieur, Madame Elisabeth, and Madame de Tourzel
were in his Majesty's carriage. The hundred deputies in their carriages
came next. A detachment of brigands, bearing the heads of the two Body
Guards in triumph, formed the advance guard, and set out two hours
earlier. These cannibals stopped a moment at Sevres, and carried their
cruelty to the length of forcing an unfortunate hairdresser to dress the
gory heads; the bulk of the Parisian army followed them closely. The
King's carriage was preceded by the 'poissardes', who had arrived the day
before from Paris, and a rabble of prostitutes, the vile refuse of their
sex, still drunk with fury and wine. Several of them rode astride upon
cannons, boasting, in the most horrible songs, of the crimes they had
committed themselves, or seen others commit. Those who were nearest the
King's carriage sang ballads, the allusions in which by means of their
vulgar gestures they applied to the Queen. Wagons, full of corn and
flour,--which had been brought into Versailles, formed a train escorted by
grenadiers, and surrounded by women and bullies, some armed with pikes,
and some carrying long branches of poplar. At some distance this part of
the procession had a most singular effect: it looked like a moving forest,
amidst which shone pike-heads and gun-barrels. In the paroxysms of their
brutal joy the women stopped passengers, and, pointing to the King's
carriage, howled in their ears: "Cheer up, friends; we shall no longer be
in want of bread! We bring you the baker, the baker's wife, and the
baker's little boy!" Behind his Majesty's carriage were several of his
faithful Guards, some on foot, and some on horseback, most of them
uncovered, all unarmed, and worn out with hunger and fatigue; the
dragoons, the Flanders regiment, the hundred Swiss, and the National
Guards preceded, accompanied, or followed the file of carriages. I
witnessed this heartrending spectacle; I saw the ominous procession. In
the midst of all the tumult, clamour, and singing, interrupted by frequent
discharges of musketry, which the hand of a monster or a bungler might so
easily render fatal, I saw the Queen preserving most courageous
tranquillity of soul, and an air of nobleness and inexpressible dignity,
and my eyes were suffused with tears of admiration and grief.--"Memoirs of
Bertrand de Molleville."]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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