Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 6: 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 6: 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
[Barnave was arrested at Grenoble. He remained in prison in that town
fifteen months, and his friends began to hope that he would be forgotten,
when an order arrived that he should be removed to Paris. At first he was
imprisoned in the Abbaye, but transferred to the Conciergerie, and almost
immediately taken before the revolutionary tribunal. He appeared there
with wonderful firmness, summed up the services he had rendered to the
cause of liberty with his usual eloquence, and made such an impression
upon the numerous auditors that, although accustomed to behold only
conspirators worthy of death in all those who appeared before the
tribunal, they themselves considered his acquittal certain. The decree of
death was read amidst the deepest silence; but Barnave'a firmness was
immovable. When he left the court, he cast upon the judges, the jurors,
and the public looks expressive of contempt and indignation. He was led
to his fate with the respected Duport du Tertre, one of the last ministers
of Louis XVI. when he had ascended the scaffold, Barnave stamped, raised
his eyes to heaven, and said: "This, then, is the reward of all that I
have done for liberty!" He fell on the 29th of October, 1793, in the
thirty-second year of his age; his bust was placed in the Grenoble Museum.
The Consular Government placed his statue next to that of Vergniaud, on
the great staircase of the palace of the Senate.--"Biographie de
Bruxelles."]
The National Guard, which succeeded the King's Guard, having occupied the
gates of the Tuileries, all who came to see the Queen were insulted with
impunity. Menacing cries were uttered aloud even in the Tuileries; they
called for the destruction of the throne, and the murder of the sovereign;
the grossest insults were offered by the very lowest of the mob.
About this time the King fell into a despondent state, which amounted
almost to physical helplessness. He passed ten successive days without
uttering a single word, even in the bosom of his family; except, indeed,
when playing at backgammon after dinner with Madame Elisabeth. The Queen
roused him from this state, so fatal at a critical period, by throwing
herself at his feet, urging every alarming idea, and employing every
affectionate expression. She represented also what he owed to his family;
and told him that if they were doomed to fall they ought to fall
honourably, and not wait to be smothered upon the floor of their
apartment.
About the 15th of June, 1792, the King refused his sanction to the two
decrees ordaining the deportation of priests and the formation of a camp
of twenty thousand men under the walls of Paris. He himself wished to
sanction them, and said that the general insurrection only waited for a
pretence to burst forth. The Queen insisted upon the veto, and reproached
herself bitterly when this last act of the constitutional authority had
occasioned the day of the 20th of June.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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