linen or night-dresses. The next morning the queen sent for madame Campan, who went to her instantly. "In the first of the four small cells," says this faithful woman, “we found the gentleman who attended the king; in the second, the king himself. He was having his hair dressed, and took two locks of it, and gave one to my sister and one to me. In the third was the queen in bed, and in an indescribable state of affliction. We found her attended only by a bulky woman, who seemed tolerably civil; she waited upon the queen, who, as yet, had none of her own people about her. I asked her majesty what the ambassadors of foreign powers

agreeing to a certain allowance to the royal family during the suspension, and appointing the Luxembourg for their residence. A crowd of people brought in several boxes of papers which they had seized at the Tuileries, and the assembly, having no proper place for their safe keeping, ordered them to be deposited at the Hôtel de Ville. They also ordered Petion to be set at liberty, for he had, much to his own satisfaction, been kept out of the way during the attack on the palace, so that he could not be held responsible for the riot. Another party of blood-stained patriots appeared, and announced that they had set the Tuileries on fire, and would not allow it to be extinguished, had done under existing circumstances. She told me tlat till the dethronement was decreed. Vergniaud assured them that the assembly had already decreed the suspension of the king, and would take all proper measures; and this in some degree pacifying the insurgents, the assembly deputed one of their body to go and take measures in putting out the fire: they then appointed a commission of the most determined jacobins to proceed to the army to inform it of what had been done, and invested them with authority to remove generals and officers, both military and civil; to place them under arrest, if they thought proper;; and to appoint new ones. If the Girondists had not had their eyes opened before this to the real position of the jacobins, this must have done it. Yet the Girondists had sufficient influence to get three of their number-Roland, Clavières, and Servan-appointed ministers in the place of the king's ministers, who were displaced along with their master.

The unhappy Louis and his family had all this time, fourteen mortal hours, been witnesses of all this, of the king's actual deposition, of the dismissal of his ministers, and of deputations of sans culottes coming from time to time to declare that they had set fire to his house, and to tell the assembly the palpable falsehood that the Swiss had been the cause of it all; that they had fired out of the windows on the peaceable people, as Charles IX. had fired out of those same windows on the night of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. While doomed to listen to these terrible details, the unfortunate family were, all these hours, cooped up in the reporters' box, only six feet square and eight feet high, the white walls of which reflected the rays of the sun, and rendered the place like an oven. The king, all the time, kept his eyes fixed on the assembly, whose proceedings were enough to rivet his attention, and took no refreshment except a peach and a glass of water. The queen would fain have persuaded herself that coming to the assembly was not a false step. When they heard the thunder of the cannon at the Tuileries, she said to M. d'Hervilly, "Well, were we not right to come hither?" The count replied, “I wish with all my heart that your majesty may think so six months' hence." The dauphin, happily, dropped asleep in his mother's arms; the princess royal and madame Elizabeth sate on each side of the queen, with eyes streaming with

tears.

they could do nothing, but that the lady of the English ambassador had just given her a proof of the private interest she took in her welfare by sending her linen for her son." In fact, Lady Sutherland, the wife of the English ambassador at Paris, showed the most devoted attentions to the royal family.

As soon as the queen saw madame Campan she opened her arms to embrace her; but loud bursts of despair followed the first affectionate movement. She exclaimed, “We are lost! all lost! This is where they have been leading us these three years. We shall fall in this horrible revolution; many others will perish after us! All parties have contributed to our ruin; the innovators like madmen, others out of ambition, for the most frantic of the jacobins only wanted gold and place, and the mob are now looking for pillage. There is not a true patriot in all that infamous horde! As for the emigrants, they have their intrigues and selfish projects, and foreign nations are only wishing to profit by the dissensions of France. All, all have contributed to our calamities!"

The little dauphin, then, was brought in by madame de Tourzel, and Marie Antoinette, at the sight of him, as if instinctively seeing beforehand all his calamities, broke out into fresh emotions of grief and despair. She lamented the impression which the king's appetite, which no troubles seemed to affect, must have on all beholders; for he continued to eat and drink as heartily as if nothing had occurrel. She said others did not know, as she did, the real piety and greatness there was in his resignation, but there was no doing anything with his robust appetite.

In the morning, when the assembly met, the king and his family were again conducted to the close, hot box of the 'reporters. This was a refinement of cruelty which none but Frenchmen would have dreamed of: thus to drag their unhappy royal victims, women and children as well as the king, to listen to all the violent abuse of monarchy, and of Louis and his queen, that the most ferocious jacobins could utter. This was continued for three days, when the Luxembourg palace being reported full of cellars and subterranean vaults, and difficult of defence, the Temple, a miserable, dilapidated old abbey, was substituted, and the royal family were conveyed thither.

At length, at half-past three in the morning, the assembly The triumph of the mob had consummated the triumph of adjourned till daylight; and the wretched royal family were jacobinism. The republic was in reality established, but not con-lucted to four small rooms prepared for them in the to the benefit of the Girondists. The ruin of royalty, for Feuillans. They were all at once become one of the poorest which they had so zealously laboured, was, in reality, their families in France; all their clothes and effects had been carried, own ruin. The jacobins, and at their head the sanguinary af or destroyed by the mob; they had not even a change of Robespierre, were left without a rival, except in that mob by

A.D. 1791.]

ASCENDANCY OF THE CLUBS OVER THE ASSEMBLY.

which they worked, and which was destined to destroy them too. Robespierre, as in all cases of danger, had been nowhere visible during the eventful 10th of August, but no sooner was the mischief accomplished than he was again abroad, and actively directing the popular movements. Monarchy was destroyed; the king and his family were caged, and dragged about, as wild beasts in a travelling menagerie, as a public spectacle. The assembly, which had sworn to protect, degraded and humiliated the last of the long line of French kings to the utmost. As for the royal residence, that stood a wild wreck. It had been polluted by the most obscene deeds and language; its furniture dashed to pieces, and the building set on fire. The rabble had penetrated into the most private apartments of the queen, and indulged in the most vulgar ribaldry, as they dragged forth her linen and dresses. They broke open every lock, and ransacked the most private drawers, seizing every valuable article of ornament or taste, and then finished by setting the rooms on fire. The flames extended to the buildings around. The streets were scattered, far and wide, with wrecks of splendid furniture and dead bodies.

17

interior; Servan, war minister; and Clavières as minister of finance. But to these were added Danton as minister of justice, Mongé as minister of the marine, and Le Brun as minister of foreign affairs. They were to receive instructions, not from Louis, but from the assembly. Marat-that. execrable wretch and coward-had come forth from his hiding-place, like Robespierre, now that the danger was over and the clubs in the ascendant, and was parading Paris with a drawn sword, at the head of the Marseillais; whilst Robespierre was alternately haranguing at the jacobins and at the Hôtel de Ville-being now one of the self-appointed council there-urging the supersedence of the assembly, and the immediate impeachment of La Fayette-an object which never for a moment slept in his vengeful soul.

And now came into full light the mortal antagonism of the assembly and the clubs, and the real ascendancy of the latter. The assembly voted for the education of the dauphin; the clubs called for the utter removal of royalty. The assembly recommended an active campaign against foreign powers, but mercy to the vanquished; the clubs called for instant and universal vengeance on all supporters of royalty, which, they said, had intended to massacre the people and bring in the Prussians. They declared that there was no need of electoral bodies to form a new assembly, but that every man, and some said every woman, was entitled to vote; and they insisted that the people ought to come in arms to manifest their wishes to the legislative body. This was plainly-avowed mob rule. Marat argued loudly for this, and for purging France, as he called it, by cutting off every man, woman, and child that were not for mob rule; and Robespierre called loudly for the removal of the assembly as effete, and for the summoning of a convention.

The executive authorities were an equal ruin, and only two authorities were left in Paris—that of the commune and the assembly; and the commune soon convinced the assembly that it was itself a mere shadow.. We have seen that, on the 10th of August, the deputies of the sections had assembled at the Hôtel de Ville, and expelled the regular magistrates, and taken their places. They exhibited an energy which would have been admirable had it been legitimate, and properly employed; they suspended the staff of the national guards, withdrew Mandat by a ruse, killed him, and left the pilace defenceless; they placed their creature, Santerre, at the head of all the national guards of Paris; they suspended the directory of the department which, from its eminent position, All the necessary measures were introduced at the had hitherto controlled the popular will; they suppressed jacobins, carried to the commune, and thence forced on the general council of the municipality, took its place, even | the assembly. The commune took the whole of the police deposed Petion for a time, and restored him only in name; into its hands, and the assembly, now utterly prostrate, they retained only Manuel, the procureur syndic, as wholly conceded this also. The justices of peace were removed as devoted to them, and sixteen of the most jacobinised muni- doubtful or lukewarm persons, and the officers of the police cipal administrators. All this had taken place whilst the took their places. They appointed what they called "A people were storming the palace. Danton had been at their Committee of General Safety," which was, in fact, a comhead, and, when the grape-shot of the Swiss had repulsed mittee of espionage and denunciation. The whole council the people, he had gone forth, saying, "Our brethren call of the commune received these denunciations, and a comfor aid; let us go and give it them!" He it was who had mittee of surveillance examined them; and the national led the way to victory. They removed the busts of Louis guards, also at the absolute command of the commune, XVI., of Bailly, and La Fayette from their council-chamber. supported the proceedings of the police. Finally, the royal These were all the signs of a new revolution; and its family were consigned to the care of the commune; and dominance was soon made manifest to the assembly. thus possessed of absolute power, it began to address the most bold and insolent language to the assembly. The assembly, seeing this all-engrossing power in the hands of the commune, ordered the re-election of a new departmental council, the old one having been dissolved on the day of the

Danton appeared before the assembly on the morning of the 10th, at the head of a deputation of the commune, to state what had been done, and said plainly, "The people who send us to you have charged us to declare that they think you worthy of their confidence, but that they recog-insurrection; but Manuel was dispatched to the assembly nise no other judge of the extraordinary measures to which necessity has forced them to recur than the French nationour sovereign and yours-convoked in primary assemblies." This was announcing without disguise that the clubs were the supreme authorities. The assembly felt its weakness, and professed to approve of everything. It was now that the new ministers were chosen; Roland, as minister of the

from the Hôtel de Ville to say that the delegates of the
citizens of Paris had need of unlimited powers.
A new
authority between them and the assembly would serve to
sow the seeds of dissension; that the people, in order to
relieve themselves from all powers destructive to their
sovereignty, must once more arm themselves with their
vengeance.

being given to the mayor, Petion, and the commune, with terror the whole authority of the state rapidly conit was ordered that no one should have access to them verging into his hands. They made an effort to check itwithout a pass signed by the mayor, or by Santerre, the it was too late. Gensonné, Guadet, and Grangeneuve commandant-general. These proceedings were continually demanded that this new and provisory municipality should interrupted by crowds of patriots and patriotesses, who be dissolved, and that the old municipality, with Petion at came to revile the king and queen, to demand their instant its head, should be restored. The decree was passed, but is deposition and trial, and a court-martial, to execute ven- was a dead letter. Within the assembly the Gironde could geance on the men who had dared to fire on the people. still command a majority, but the authority of the assembly itself had expired. The commune, and, through the commune, the clubs, ruled out of doors. These parties paid no attention to the decree of the assembly further than to set it at defiance, and to issue orders for the demolition of all traces of royalty in Paris; for the demolition of statues, triumphal arches, gateways, inscriptions-in short, whatever commemorated the long glories of the monarchy. They issued, also, orders for the arrest of all persons suspected of everything short of the rankest jacobinism, and proceeded to break into their dwellings, to seize their persons and their private papers, to be evidence against them before the new tribunal. Not only art, but personal security was in the daily process of destruction.

On Monday, the miserable royal family being again dragged to their box in the assembly, Robespierre presented himself at the head of a deputation of jacobins, to demand that a pyramid should be erected on the spot in the Place Vendôme, whence the statue of Louis XIV. had been removed, to the honour of the brave men who died fighting for liberty on the 10th. This proposition was received with clamorous applause by both the galleries and the house, and was oddly enough referred to the committee of public instruction. In the evening the royal family were conducted to their dismal lodgings in the Temple. Petion rode in the carriage with them, on the pretence that they would otherwise be torn to pieces by the people. They were accompanied by a body of national guards, and by crowds of pikemen, and were compelled to halt for a considerable time at the Place Vendôme, that they might see the ruins of the statue of their ancestor, the "grand monarque." The miserable captives were thrust into three or four small rooms in a little tower, where people of all sorts had to pass through the sleeping apartments of the king, and of madame Elizabeth and the princess royal, at the same time that they were constantly exposed to the vile language and execrations of the low mobs which assembled under their windows to insult them. Madame Campan applied to Petion to be allowed to attend her royal mistress; but he not only refused, but threatened to send her to the prison of La Force, to which the princess Lamballe was already sent, for having voluntarily gone to attend on the queen. Madame de Tourzel and the few other attendants were sent away, and no one left but Cléry, the faithful valet-de-chambre, to wait on the whole group.

Deputation after deputation appeared at the assembly, demanding that a new revolutionary tribunal should be instantly formed by one deputy from each section, to try and condemn all the traitors against the people, and that the king and queen should see all their satellites brought up and receive justice from this tribunal. Robespierre was loudest of all in demanding this, and it was declared that, unless it was granted, the tocsin should be sounded, and all Paris should demand it with arms in their hands. The assembly, though loth to comply, were at length compelled; and this new and terrible tribunal, called "The Tribunal of the 17th of August," was the forerunner of the still more awful one, "The Tribunal Revolutionaire." The very next day this tribunal was pronounced complete, so that it must have been already organised. Robespierre was appointed its president, but this he declined: he knew that his time was not yet come. He was busy in throwing all the power of the state into the hands of the commune, which he, and Danton under him, was to wield; and he was certain to be returned to the convention, so that shortly he would stand forth the real dictator of the country. The Girondists saw

In vain did the Girondist members of the assembly protest and thunder against this absolutism, this new and intolerable tyranny of the commune; in vain did Vergniaud launch his once-admired eloquence against these deeds, and declare that the most solemn decrees of the assembly were treated with contempt. "I ask," he said, "the deputies of the eightythree departments, whether they still consider themselves the representatives of the empire? whether they have energy enough to demand from the people of Paris respect and submission to the laws? I ask them who flatter themselves that they have thrown down all tyrannies, whether they will suffer a new despotism to arise amongst us? We have called to the bar the president of this new commune, that he might explain the motives of his conduct, but he has not deigned to appear, and I now demand that he be brought forcibly to this bar."

But the assembly had not the necessity of resorting to force; indeed, in such a course they would have been beaten, for the commune was the second power in the state, and had the first power-the mob at its back; the assembly was a shadow. Petion presented himself, and was followed by a deputation of the commune, and M. Tallien, the secretary-general of the new commune, addressed the assembly in language which must have made every Girondist ear tingle. He told them that whatever the people and the commune had done, the assembly had approved; and that the people also approved all that the commune had done, and would maintain it with the sword; that they would repose confidence in the commune, and the commune alone. He said they might attack the commune if they pleased, but that they would find in attacking it they attacked the people, who would defend themselves; that they had put down all but thoroughly revolutionary journals, and had shut up the reactionary priests in a certain house, and, in a few days, would purge the country of them ; a dark, but too fatal threat.

This startling address was followed by another from Manuel; by a fresh crowd of citizens, announcing that the people all round were waiting outside, demanding per