“Never!” cried one brave citizen-soldier. “We will die rather than let you enter!” and several of his companions loudly applauded his defiance.
For a few moments the issue hung in the balance, while the mob and the guards hurled insults at each other. Santerre, with shouts of “We must get in! We must get in! It was for that we came here,” kept urging the motley crowd to attack, but they still hung back, every man loath to be the first to risk a bullet.
Then above the tumult arose shouts of “Make way! Make way!” followed by the rumble of iron wheels on stone. It was some of Santerre’s men dragging two small cannon up from the quay. With a shout of triumph he ordered the pieces to be aimed at the gates, then threatened the guards that if they would not give way he meant to mow them down.
For some inexplicable reason the militia had not a single officer with them. Each man looked at his neighbour, doubting what to do and hoping that one of his comrades would give him a lead. Quite unexpectedly they were relieved of the necessity of taking any final decision. Traitors inside the courtyard, who must have been privy to the conspiracy, had been watching the scene through the grille of the gate. Feeling that there was now sufficient excuse to cover their treachery they raised the big bar that held it closed.
As the gate swung open the mob surged forward, swept the militia aside and poured through into the courtyard. Inside there were more National Guards lined up, but either by an oversight or through further treachery the big doors of the Palace stood wide open. Four officers ran to close them, but standing on the steps were two of Pétion’s municipal representatives wearing broad tricolore scarves. One shouted to the troops, forbidding them to resist the “sacred people”, the other swiftly ordered some of those near him to arrest the four officers. As they were seized and pulled aside Santerre and his men tumbled pell-mell into the hall of the Palace.
Roger, concerned now only with reaching the Queen’s side at the earliest possible moment, had remained close behind Santerre, but in the hall the big brewer met with an unexpected check. A group of Palace officials had gathered there. One, bolder than the rest, strode up to him and cried:
“You scoundrel! How dare you incite these good people to force a way into the King’s Palace!”
“Yes! Yes!” cried others. “You alone are responsible for this outrage!” “They had no evil intent!” “We saw you urging them on, from the windows!” “They are not to blame!” “It is you alone who are guilty!” “Withdraw at once, or we will testify against you to the Assembly!” “There is still a law in France, and you shall be made to pay for this!”
Santerre’s ruddy face paled. It was true that the mob had shown little inclination to attack the Palace until he had hounded them into doing so. Now his companions were looking sheepish and rather scared. Centuries of tradition had made the Royal Palaces almost sacred ground, and as they looked about them at the statues and tapestries in the vast marble-pillared hall they were overawed by such magnificence, the like of which few of them had ever seen. It seemed now as if his earlier fears were to be realised, and that through having placed himself at the head of the mob he would be made the scapegoat of the conspirators.
Nervously, the big bully began to protest that he had been forced against his will into leading the mob, and that he had no intention of invading the King’s apartments.
Again, for a moment, everything hung in the balance; but, knowing nothing of this hold-up, more and more people from outside were forcing their way through the doors. Guards, Palace servants, and even some of the mob’s own leaders, were now trying to hold it back with pikes held horizontally and with the pressure of their own bodies.
Suddenly the thin human barrier broke. Like a great tidal wave the close-packed mass burst into the hall and surged up the broad marble staircase. So great was the pressure and the impetus behind it that one of the small cannon was borne on their shoulders right up to the landing of the first floor.
Roger had the advantage of the mob in that he knew the geography of the Palace. The moment he realised that the sans-culottes could no longer be held back, instead of attempting to force his way past the officials and up the staircase he turned and dashed off down a side corridor.
His wooden-soled shoes ringing on the marble paving, he ran on until he reached a service staircase that he knew of old. Taking its stairs three at a time, he raced up it to the second floor. There, he turned back in the direction of the grand staircase, but while still some distance from it dived down another corridor, then pulled up before a tall door on which he knocked urgently. It was opened almost at once by a grey-haired woman servant, of whom he asked breathlessly:
“Is Madame de Lamballe here?”
Her reply was a piercing scream and a swift attempt to slam the door in his face. Momentarily he had forgotten that with his cropped hair, black eye, blood-streaked cheek and filthy clothes he must present a terrifying spectacle. Fortunately he was just in time to wedge his foot in the door. With a heave of his shoulder he thrust it open, pushed back the screaming woman and closed it behind him.
He had recognised her immediately as the elderly maid who had admitted him to that suite of apartments on his previous visits to it two years before, but there was no time for explanations. Locking the door, he pocketed the key to prevent any chance of her getting out and calling menservants or National Guards to interfere with him. Her presence seemed to make it certain that the Princess de Lamballe still occupied the apartment, so he called out:
“Madame la Princesse! Please to answer if you are within. Have no fear: I am a friend.”
There was no reply, so he swiftly crossed the antechamber and pulled open the door of the salon. It was empty, so he crossed that too, and calling out again knocked on the door of the bedroom at its far end. Still there was no reply, but the door opened at his touch. As he had feared would prove the case—since at such a time of crisis the Princess’s place was with the Queen—she was not there.
Yet, however helpful her presence might have been, her absence did not invalidate the plan that Roger had in mind, as it was her apartment, not herself, which formed the basis of it. When he had left Madame de Flahaut’s he had not had the faintest idea what he meant to do, but during the long interval that he had spent wedged helplessly in the crowd he had had ample time to think out how best he might attempt to rescue Marie Antoinette from the fate that threatened her.
Two years before she had twice granted him secret interviews in Madame de Lamballe’s apartments, which lay immediately above her own, and he knew that she must have come up to see him there by a private stairway hidden in the wall of the bedroom. The plan he had formed was to gain entry into the Palace before the mob if possible or, if not, with its leaders, hurry to the Princess’s apartment and either send her down the secret staircase, or go himself, to fetch up the Queen. It was, he felt, the one way in which she could leave the royal apartments without the spies who were always lurking about her ante-rooms knowing that she had done so. Once she had been persuaded that her life hung on her immediate use of the secret staircase he did not foresee any great difficulty in transferring her to one of the innumerable attics under the great roof, where she could remain safely hidden until the mob grew tired of searching for her.
Without wasting a moment, he began to hunt for the entrance to the secret stairs. In frantic haste he pulled the principal pieces of furniture from the walls and, rapping on the surfaces they had concealed, listened for a hollow note. Meeting with no success, he rolled back the carpet to see if it hid a trap-door. Again drawing blank, he hurriedly examined a tall, narrow wall-mirror. Half-way up one side of the gilded scrollwork of its frame his glance fell on a boss from which the gilding had been rubbed. Putting his thumb on the place, he pressed it; the mirror swung silently outwards revealing a dark cavity.
His search had cost him a good five minutes, but he felt confident that the faithful Swiss Guards would endeavour to prevent the rioters from entering the rooms below, an
d make a stand long enough to give him a good chance of smuggling the Queen away before they were overwhelmed. Nevertheless he plunged down the dark, narrow stairs as though his own life depended on his speed.
At the bottom he slid his hands swiftly down the sides of the panel that confronted him. Straight away his right hand found a knob. As he fumbled with it the panel gave and swung outward. Stepping through the opening he found, as he had expected, that he was in the Queen’s bedroom.
There was no one there, and its doors were closed. Running to the nearest one, he wrenched it open. It gave on to an ante-room, beyond which was another bedroom. The little boy’s clothes, miniature sword and toys scattered about it showed at a glance that it was the Dauphin’s room. It contained two other doors and one of them stood half open. From beyond it came the sound of many running feet and a shout of “This way! This way! We’ll catch the Austrian woman and make her eat her own dung.”
Again, just as in the dawn of the 6th of October at Versailles three years before, some hireling of the Duc d’Orléans who knew the Palace was leading a portion of the mob through a series of little-used side rooms straight to the Queen’s apartments.
Springing forward, Roger slammed the door and shot its bolts. Turning, he ran back to the door through which he had come, locked that and pocketed the key. Crossing the Dauphin’s room again, he pulled open its third door and looked through. It was the room of Madame de Tourzel, the governess of the royal children. A maid was there, peering from the window at the howling mob below. At the sound of Roger’s entry she turned, gave him one look and fled screaming through a further door.
For the second time it was rudely brought home to him that, while his disguise had enabled him to penetrate the Palace with the mob, it was now a serious disadvantage. But he had known that he could not dress to suit both parts he wished to play, so must rely on his accent to reassure the Queen and her friends that he was not the ruffian that he appeared to be. Heedless of the fright he had given the girl, he dashed after her.
The doorway gave on to a long corridor with several other doors along its further side. Hastily he tried one after another, but all of them proved to be locked, until he came to the fourth down the line. As he turned the handle it flew open. An instant later he saw that he was standing in one of the smaller entrances to the great chamber known as the Œil de Bœuf.
At its far end, some eighty feet distant, stood a group of people, all of whom had their backs towards him. It consisted of four Swiss Guards, the King, a woman who was clinging to his arm, and several gentlemen. The whole group was staring at a pair of large gilded double doors, on the far side of which pandemonium was raging. From beyond them came the sounds of shouts, yells and curses, and they were quivering violently under a rain of blows as the mob strove to break them in.
Roger felt sure that the woman holding the King’s arm was too short to be the Queen, so must be his sister, Madame Elizabeth. For a moment he paused where he was, debating his next move. In his present fearsome disguise, if he ran forward and asked the whereabouts of the Queen it was quite certain that no one in the group would tell him, but he felt sure that she could not be far off. She had more than once sworn to die at the King’s feet if the mob ever attempted to kill him, so it seemed highly probable that she might come hurrying in to take her place by his side at any minute.
Suddenly the lower panel of one of the doors splintered. A second blow on the same spot caused the boards to give with a tearing screech. At a third a large piece of wood flew inward, leaving a gaping hole. A dozen pikes, bayonets and sabres jabbed furiously at it, and in a moment the whole panel had been stove in. Another moment and the muzzle of the little cannon was thrust through the aperture.
Instantly the King’s companions threw themselves in front of him, but there was no physically braver man than Louis XVI in his whole kingdom. Thrusting them aside, he lifted up his voice so that it could be heard above the howls of the mob, and cried:
“All defence is useless! The only thing to do is to open the door and meet them calmly!” Then, signing to one of the Swiss Guards, he added, “Unlock the door, Edouard! Open! I have nothing to fear from Frenchmen!”
The soldier obeyed. The great door swung towards him and the mob came tumbling in. Brandishing their weapons and shrieking imprecations, they rushed forward. The Swiss and the few gentlemen with the King drew their swords and prepared to defend him to the death. Madame Elizabeth seized his coat, pulled him round behind her, and shouted, “You shall massacre me before him! Respect your King! Respect your King!”
Although it was the safety of the Queen that dominated Roger’s thoughts, it was not in him to stand by and calmly witness such a scene. Having no weapon, he ran to a nearby fireplace, snatched up the poker and came pounding down the long room to aid the brave Princess.
Before he could reach her the ignorant sans-culottes, mistaking her for Marie Antoinette, had leapt towards her shouting, “Here is the Austrian! Death to the Austrian!”
Without a second’s hesitation she bared her breast to their weapons and cried, “Yes, I am the Queen!”
One ruffian raised his pike to stab her through the throat, another was just about to plunge his bayonet into her heart. But a gentleman beside her shouted, “Stop! Stop! She is not the Queen! She is His Majesty’s sister!”
As Roger came racing up he heard her exclaim, “Oh, why undeceive them? Is it not better that they should shed my blood rather than hers?”
Overcome with amazement at the sight of such heroism, her assailants checked their thrusts, but not before the blades of their weapons were only a matter of inches from her body. Putting up her hand, she gently turned the point of the pike aside, and said calmly, “I pray you be careful, Monsieur. You might hurt me, and I am sure you would then be sorry.”
Her supreme courage and that of the King produced a remarkable effect on the invaders. They had been told that Louis XVI was a tyrant and was planning to have them massacred by foreign troops, so they had expected to find an ogre who would defend himself with the utmost ferocity. Instead they had come face to face with a placid, benevolent-looking gentleman whose mild blue eyes showed only friendliness.
Santerre had not entered the Œil de Bœuf but had again slunk into the background, and the stupefaction of his now leaderless followers at the King’s calm demeanour was so great that they were temporarily robbed of all initiative. As they stood staring at him, now uncertain what to do, he stepped back into the embrasure of a window, ordered his protectors to sheath their swords and beckoned them to range themselves on either side of him.
At that moment Madame Elizabeth again showed great presence of mind. Turning to a gentleman beside her, she said in a swift whisper, “Monsieur Aubier, go quickly to the Queen. Prevent her at all costs from attempting to join His Majesty. If she comes here they will murder her.”
Roger, who was just behind her, heard what she said. As M. Aubier turned and ran to deliver her warning, he turned too, waited for a moment to give her messenger a start, then followed him.
The Princess had acted only just in time. The still violent mob out on the landing were clamouring to enter the Œil de Bœuf; those already inside it, who had been subdued by the calmness of the King, were now being forced forward. More and more wild, threatening figures were thrusting their way into the room. And the Queen was already on her way to it.
M. Aubier met her in the corridor and shouted, “Go back, Madame! Go back, or they will kill you!”
“No, no!” she cried distractedly as he barred her passage. “Let me pass! My place is with the King!”
“Please, Madame! Please!” he pleaded. “Madame Elizabeth sent me to prevent you exposing yourself!”
“Only my most cruel enemies could give me such advice!” she retorted hotly. “You attempt to dishonour me by preventing me from dying at my post!”
Then, in a wild endeavour to reach her husband, she threw herself on M. Aubier and tried to push him aside. But Rog
er had come up behind him. Knowing the one thought that might check her, he cried, “No, Madame! Your post is with your children!”
As she stared past M. Aubier’s shoulder at Roger’s fearsome visage he saw that her once beautiful blue eyes were now dim and reddened from weeping. There was no trace of recognition in them, or of fear, but it was evident that he intended her no harm. Behind her were a number of her closest friends—the Duc de Choiseul, the Princesses de Lamballe and de Tarente, and the Marquise de la Roche Aymon. They all joined their entreaties to those of M. Aubier and took up Roger’s cry. At the thought of her children she had ceased to struggle and now, bursting into fresh tears, she yielded. Taking her by the arms, her ladies led her, half fainting, back along the corridor, away from the Œil de Bœuf.
Hoping that the sight of her children would comfort her, they hurried her towards the Dauphin’s bedroom. But Roger, seeing their intention, shouted from the rear, “Not that way! Take Her Majesty to her own room!”
His shout was ignored, but at that very moment a gentleman came running to head the party off. “Turn back!” he cried. “Turn back! A mob has broken into M. le Dauphin’s apartment!”
The Queen gave a piercing scream. “My children! Oh, save my children!”
“They are safe, Madame,” panted the man. “Madame de Tourzel has taken them to the Council Chamber, and there are some National Guards of the loyal Filles Saint Thomas Section with them.”
“Oh, God be thanked!” breathed the Queen, but this assurance served to turn her frantic thoughts back to the King. Freeing her arms from the grasp of her ladies, she turned about and cried, “Then my place is with His Majesty!”
“For pity’s sake, Madame, do not go to the Œil de Bœuf!” exclaimed the Duc de Choiseul.
“But his sister is serving him as a rampart and it should be myself!”
M. Lajard, one of the King’s Ministers, had joined the group. As she started forward he barred her path and pointed to the Council Chamber. “Listen, Madame! Listen! Your children are calling for you.”
The Man who Killed the King Page 9