These cries wounded her feelings much, poor woman!—she who detested the duke to such a degree that she said he was a coward.
As if there had ever been a coward in the Orleans family,—from Monsieur, who gained the battle of Cassel, down to the Duke of Chartres, who contributed to the gaining of those at Jemmapes and Valmy!
It went so far that the poor woman was near fainting, but was supported, her head drooping on her shoulder. Madame Campan relates this incident in her memoirs.
But this reclining head raised itself up haughty and disdainful. Those who saw the expression of those features were at once cured, and forever, of using the expression:—
The queen is so good!
There exist three portraits of the queen: one painted in 1776, another in 1784, and a third in 1788.
I have seen all three of them. See them in your turn! If ever these three portraits are placed in the same gallery, the history of Marie Antoinette can be read in those three portraits.2
The meeting of the three orders, which was to have produced a general pacification, proved a declaration of war.
“Three orders,” said Sieyès; “no, three nations.”
On the 3d of May, the eve of the Mass of the Holy Ghost, the king received the deputies at Versailles.
Some persons counselled him to substitute cordiality for etiquette.
The king would not listen to anything.
He in the first place received the clergy.
After them the nobility.
At last the Tiers État.
The Third had been waiting a long time.
The Third murmured.
In the assemblies of former times the Tiers État pronounced their discourses on their knees.
There was no possibility of inducing the president of the Tiers État to go down on his knees.
It was decided that the Tiers État should not pronounce an oration.
In the sittings of the 5th the king put on his hat.
The nobility put on their hats.
The Tiers État were about to put on their hats also, but the king then took off his. He preferred holding it in his hand to seeing the Tiers État covered in his presence.
On Wednesday, the 10th of June, Sieyès entered the assembly. He found it almost entirely composed of the Tiers État.
The clergy and the nobility were assembled elsewhere.
“Let us cut the cable,” said Sieyès. “It is now time.”
And Sieyès proposed that the clergy and the nobility should be summoned to attend within an hour from that time at the latest.
In case of non-appearance, default should be pronounced against the absent.
A German and Swiss army surrounded Versailles. A battery of artillery was pointed against the assembly.
Sieyès saw nothing of all this; he saw the people, who were starving; but the Third, Sieyès was told, could not, of itself, form the States-General.
“So much the better,” replied Sieyès, “it will form the National Assembly.”
The absent did not present themselves; the proposal of Sieyès was adopted; the Tiers État calls itself the National Assembly by a majority of four hundred votes.
On the 19th of June the king orders the building in which the National Assembly held their meetings to be closed.
But the king, in order to accomplish such a coup d’état, needed some pretext.
The hall was closed for the purpose of making preparations for a royal sitting, which was to take place on the following Monday.
On the 20th of June, at seven in the morning, the President of the National Assembly is informed that there will be no meeting on that day.
At eight o’clock he presents himself at the door of the hall, with a great number of the deputies.
The doors are closed, and sentinels are guarding the doors.
The rain is falling.
They wish to break open the doors.
The sentinels had received their orders, and they present their bayonets.
One of the deputies proposes that they should meet at the Place d’Armes.
Another that it should be at Marly.
Guillotin proposes the Jeu de Paume.3
Guillotin!
What a strange thing that it should be Guillotin, whose name, by adding an e to it, should become so celebrated four years afterwards,—how strange that it should be Guillotin who proposed the Jeu de Paume,—the Jeu de Paume, unfurnished, dilapidated, open to the four winds of heaven!