It was impossible, after the late proceedings, to consider the palace
safe at any hour. The queen feared assassination for herself as a
foreigner, and a trial for the king, preparatory to his death upon the
scaffold; and she desired to guard against any seizure of papers, which
might now take place at any time. She deposited her ready money in the
hands of a faithful person; and the king employed his old companion,
Gamin, the locksmith, to make, in great secrecy, a safe for papers in a
place where no one would suspect its existence. This fellow betrayed
the secret; first, luckily, to some friends; and the queen, hearing of
this, persuaded the king to empty out the safe. Gamin afterwards
publicly informed the enemies of the king of this cupboard, and moreover
swore that the king attempted to poison him when it was done, that the
secret might be safe. This absurd calumny was believed, like everything
else that was said against the royal family; and the wretch had a
pension given him. Such was the king's reward for submitting, like a
timid apprentice, to this man's insolence, while learning lock-making
from him, for ten years past.
General Lafayette came to Paris, to remonstrate, at the head of
twenty-thousand petitioners, against the late treatment of the king. Of
course, those who had done it looked coldly upon him; and so did the
king. The king forbade his officers to support anything proposed by
General Lafayette; and the queen refused to allow him to remove her and
her family to the loyal city of Rouen. Lafayette, thus unsupported, had
to hasten back to the army; and in this way the royal family insulted
and dismissed the last person who could have rescued them from their
impending fate.
Whenever even the children appeared out of doors, they experienced such
insults that they left off going anywhere beyond the palace gardens,
from which the public were excluded, in order to allow the family to
take the air unmolested. Such cries, however, were heard from the
terrace outside, that, after being twice driven in by them, the family
gave up going out at all Louis had to give up his gardening, and the
sight of the flowers he had sown, and to keep within doors all these
long bright summer days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account