Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume I

270

Mémoires de Barbaroux, p. 63.

271

"I once conversed with Robespierre at my father's house, in 1789. His features were mean, his complexion pale, his veins of a greenish hue." – Mad. de Staël, vol. ii., p. 140.

"I had twice occasion to converse with Robespierre. He had a sinister expression of countenance, never looked you in the face, and had a continual and unpleasant winking of the eyes." – Dumont, p. 202.

272

Mémoires de Barbaroux, p. 57.

273

Mignet, tom. i., p. 220; Garat, p. 174.

274

Lacretelle, tom. ix., pp. 292, 316.

275

"Un emploi si rigoureux répugnerait trop à mes principes philanthropiques." – Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 274.

276

"The carriage which conveyed the royal family to the Temple, was stopped on the Place Vendôme, in order that the King might see the fragments of the statue of Louis the Great." – Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 262.

277

"Nuit de terreur! prelude affreux de plusieurs jours de sang! nuit où une capitale perdue dans la mollesse, infectée des maximes de l'égoïsme philosophique, expia le sort honteux de s'être laissé asservir par tout ce que sa population offrait de plus abjèct et de plus criminel!" – Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 288.

278

Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 296.

279

Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 298.

280

Mignet, tom. i., p. 204; Thiers, tom. ii., p. 61; Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 293.

281

Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 314.

282

See ante, p. 92.

283

Mon Agonie de Trente-six Heures, p. 30.

284

Thiers, tom. iii., p. 8; Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 325.

285

Thiers, tom. iii., p. 64.

286

Thiers, tom. iii., p. 127; Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 348.

287

The books of the Hôtel de Ville preserve evidence of this fact. Billaud-Varennes appeared publicly among the assassins, and distributed the price of blood. – S. – "I am authorised," he said, "to offer to each of you twenty-four francs, which shall be instantly paid. Respectable citizens, continue your good work, and acquire new titles to the homage of your country! Let every thing on this great day be fitting the sovereignty of the people, who have committed their vengeance to your hands." – Sicard, p. 135; Thiers, tom. iii., p. 74.

288

Louvet's Memoirs, p. 73; Barbaroux, p. 57; Thiers, tom. iii., p. 77.

289

"The abbé would have been instantly murdered, had not a courageous watchmaker, of the name of Monnot, rushed between them, and staid the lance already raised to be plunged in his bosom." – Thiers, tom. iii., p. 71.

290

Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 317

291

Mémoires de Buzot, p. 82.

292

Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 359.

293

Among others of the same party thus elected were David, the painter, Camille Desmoulins, Collot d'Herbois, and the Duke of Orleans, who had abdicated his titles, and was now called Philip Egalité. – See Thiers, tom. iii., p. 133.

294

"The first measure of the Convention was to abolish Monarchy and proclaim a Republic. The calendar was changed; it was no longer the fourth year of Liberty, but the first of the French Republic." – Mignet, tom. i., p. 212.

295

Dumouriez, vol. ii., p. 387.

296

Jomini, tom. ii., p. 133.

297

Dumouriez, vol. iii., p. 63; Jomini, tom. ii., p. 138.

298

"All the villages were filled with dead and the dying; without any considerable fighting, the allies had lost, by dysentery and fevers, more than a fourth of their numbers." – Toulongeon, tom. ii., p. 357.

299

King John, act iii., sc. i.

300

Botta, tom. i., p. 88; Jomini, tom. ii., p. 190.

301

Thiers, tom. iii., p. 182; Jomini, tom. ii., p. 151.

302

Dumouriez, vol. iii., p. 169; Toulongeon, tom. iii., p. 47; Jomini, tom. ii., p. 217.

303

Annual Register, vol xxxiv., pp. 230, 236.

304

Bouillé's Memoirs, p. 250.

305

Manuel was born at Montargis in 1751. On the trial of the King he voted for imprisonment and banishment in the event of peace. When the Queen's trial came on, he was summoned as a witness against her; but only expressed admiration of her fortitude, and regret for her misfortunes. In November, 1793, he was condemned to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and executed. Among other works, Manuel published "Coup d'œil Philosophique sur le Règne de St. Louis," "Voyages de l'Opinion dans les Quatres Parties du Monde," and "Lettres sur la Révolution."

306

Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 12; Mignet, tom. iii., p. 150.

307

Born at Bourdeaux in 1765. He voted for the death of the King – and was guillotined, Oct., 1793.

308

Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 16.

309

Esprit des Lois, liv. iii., c. 9.

310

"One night the jewel-office, in the Tuileries, was pillaged, and all the splendid ornaments of the crown disappeared. The seals affixed on the locks were removed, but no marks of violence appeared on them, which showed that the abstraction was by order of the authorities, and not by popular violence." – Thiers, tom. iii., p. 103.

311

Dumouriez, vol. iii., p. 262; Journal des Jacobins, 14th Oct., 1792.

312

Emile, liv. i.

313

"The first vault opened was that of Turenne. The body was found dry like a mummy, the features perfectly resembling the portrait of this distinguished general. Relics were sought after with eagerness, and Camille Desmoullins cut off one of the little fingers. The body, at the intercession of M. Desfontaines, was removed to the Jardin des Plantes. The features of Henry the Fourth were also perfect. A soldier cut off a lock of the beard with his sabre, and putting it upon his upper lip, exclaimed, 'Et moi aussi, je suis soldat Français! désormais je n'aurai pas d'autre moustache!' The body was placed upright upon a stone for the rabble to divert themselves with it; and a woman, reproaching the dead Henry with the crime of having been a king, knocked down the corpse, by giving it a blow in the face. Two large pits had been dug in front of the north entrance of the church, and quick lime laid in them; into those pits the bodies were thrown promiscuously; the leaden coffins were then carried to a furnace, which had been erected in the cemetery, and cast into balls, destined to punish the enemies of the republic." – See Promenade aux Sépultures Royales de Saint Denis, par M. P. St. A. G., and Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 264.

314

"To a very beautiful person, Madame Roland united great powers of intellect; her reputation stood very high, and her friends never spoke of her but with the most profound respect. In character she was a Cornelia; and had she been blessed with sons, would have educated them like the Gracchi. The simplicity of her dress did not detract from her natural grace and elegance, and though her pursuits were more adapted to the other sex, she adorned them with all the charms of her own. Her personal memoirs are admirable. They are an imitation of Rousseau's Confessions, and often not unworthy of the original." – Dumont, p. 326.

315

At the bar of the National Convention, Dec. 7, 1792.

316

"I used to meet Barrère at a table d'hòte. I considered him of a mild and amiable temper. He was very well-bred, and seemed to love the Revolution from a sentiment of benevolence. His association with Robespierre, and the court which he paid to the different parties he successively joined and afterwards deserted, were less the effect of an evil disposition, than of a timid and versatile character, and a conceit, which made it incumbent upon him to appear as a public man. His talents as an orator were by no means of the first order. He was afterwards surnamed the Anacreon of the guillotine; but when I knew him he was only the Anacreon of the Revolution, upon which, in his 'Point du Jour,' he wrote some very amorous strains." – Dumont, p. 199.

317

Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 41.

318

"O! peuple babillard, si tu savais agir!"

319

Thiers, tom. iii., p. 170; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 23.

320

Mignet, tom. i., p. 224; Thiers, tom. iii., p. 213; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 54.

321

"Point de procès au roi! épargnons le pauvre tyran!" – Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 47.

322

Dumouriez, vol. iii., p. 273.

323

Mignet, tom. i., p. 228.

324

M. de Septueil, in particular, quoted as being the agent by whom Louis XVI. was said to have transmitted money to his brothers when in exile, positively denied the fact, and made affidavit accordingly. – S.

325

Mignet, tom. i., p. 229; Montgaillard, tom. iii., p. 265; Thiers, tom. iii., p. 259; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 164; Madame Campan, vol. ii., p. 222.

326

"Unhappy Stuart! harshly though that nameGrates on my ear, I should have died with shame,To see my King before his subjects stand,And at their bar hold up his royal hand;At their command to hear the monarch plead,By their decrees to see that monarch bleed.What though thy faults were many, and were great —What though they shook the fabric of the state?In royalty secure thy person stood,And sacred was the fountain of thy blood.Vile ministers, who dared abuse their trust,Who dared seduce a king to be unjust,Vengeance, with justice leagued, with power made strong,Had nobly crush'd – The King can do no wrong." Gotham.– S.

327

This club used to meet on the 30th January, at a tavern near Charing Cross, to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Charles I. Their toasts were, "The glorious year, 1648." "D – n to the race of the Stuarts." "The pious memory of Oliver Cromwell," &c. – See Gent.'s Mag., vol. v., p. 105; and "History of the Calves-Head Club."

328

"No one act of tyranny can be laid to Louis's charge: and, far from restraining the liberty of the press, it was the Archbishop of Sens, the King's prime minister, who, in the name of his Majesty, invited all writers to make known their opinions upon the form and manner of assembling the States-General." – De Staël, vol. ii., p. 94.

329

Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 145.

330

Thiers, tom. iii., p. 257.

331

The reader may compare the account which Marmontel gives of his residence in the Bastile, with the faithful Cléry's narrative of Louis's captivity in the Temple. – S.

332

Cléry, p. 55; Thiers, tom. iii., p. 223; Mignet, tom. i., p. 234; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 141.

333

"The 3d of September, at three o'clock, just after dinner, the most horrid shouts were heard. The officer on guard in the room behaved well: he shut the door and the window, and even drew the curtains, to prevent their seeing any thing. Several officers of the guard and of the municipality now arrived: the former insisted that the King should show himself at the windows; fortunately, the latter opposed it; but, on his Majesty's asking what was the matter, a young officer of the guard replied, 'Well! since you will know, it is the head of Madame de Lamballe that they want to show you.' At these words the Queen was overcome with horror: it was the only occasion in which her firmness abandoned her." – Duchesse d'Angoulême, Private Memoirs, p. 18.

334

Cléry, pp. 60, 142.

335

See Mémoires de Buzot, par Guadet, p. 87

336

Cléry, p. 153.

337

"Before the King entered, Barrère recommended tranquillity to the Assembly, 'in order that the guilty man might be awed by the silence of the tomb.'" – Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 174.

338

"When the president said to his King, 'Louis, asseyez vous!' we feel more indignation even than when he is accused of crimes which he had never committed. One must have sprung from the very dust not to respect past obligations, particularly when misfortune has rendered them sacred; and vulgarity joined to crime inspires us with as much contempt as horror." – De Staël, vol. ii., p. 84.

339

Duhem was born at Lille in 1760. He afterwards practised physic at Quesnoi. After the amnesty of Oct., 1795, he returned to his profession, and died in 1807, at Mentz.

340

Mignet, tom. i., p. 235; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 179.

341

One of Napoleon's first acts on becoming first consul, was to place Tronchet at the head of the Court of Cassation. "Tronchet," he said, "was the soul of the civil code, as I was its demonstrator. He was gifted with a singularly profound and correct understanding, but he could not descend to developements." – Las Cases, vol. ii., p. 234. Tronchet died in 1806, and was buried in the Pantheon.

342

"Cambacérès declared, that Target's example endangered public morality. Target attempted in vain to repair the disgrace, by publishing a short defence of the King." – Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 182.

343

"Tronson du Coudrai, who perished in the deserts of Sinamari; Guillaume, the courageous author of the petition of the twenty thousand; Huet de Guerville; Sourdat de Troyes; and Madame Olympe de Gouges. – Lalli de Tolendal, Malouet, and Necker published admirable pleadings for Louis, but the Convention would not allow them to be read." – Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 185.

344

See ante, p. 42.

345

"Je lui dois le même service, lorsque c'est une fonction que bien des gens trouvent dangereuse." – See his letter to the President of the Convention in Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 182.

346

"The first time M. Malesherbes entered the Temple, the King clasped him in his arms, and exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, 'Ah! is it you, my friend! you see to what the excess of my love for the people has brought me, and the self-denial which induced me to consent to the removal of the troops intended to protect my throne and person, against the designs of a factious assembly: you fear not to endanger your own life to save mine; but all will be useless: they will bring me to the scaffold: no matter; I shall gain my cause, if I leave an unspotted memory behind me." – Hue, Dernières Années de la Vie de Louis XVI., p. 42.

347

Deséze was born at Bourdeaux in 1750. He accepted no office under Napoleon; but on the restoration of the Bourbons he was appointed First President of the Court of Cassation, and afterwards created a peer of France. He died at Paris in 1828.

348

Cléry we have seen and known, and the form and manners of that model of pristine faith and loyalty can never be forgotten. Gentlemanlike and complaisant in his manners, his deep gravity and melancholy features announced that the sad scenes in which he had acted a part so honourable, were never for a moment out of his memory. – S. – Cléry died at Hitzing, near Vienna, in 1809. In 1817, Louis XVIII. gave letters of nobility to his daughter.

349

Cléry, p. 187.

350

"When the pathetic peroration of M. Deséze was read to the King, the evening before it was to be delivered to the Assembly, 'I have to request of you,' he said, 'to make a painful sacrifice; strike out of your pleading the peroration. It is enough for me to appear before such judges, and show my entire innocence; I will not move their feelings.'" – Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 197.

351

"The King was conveyed in the mayor's carriage. He evinced, on the way, as much coolness as on former occasions; spoke of Seneca, Livy, and the public hospitals; and addressed himself, in a delicate vein of pleasantry, to one of the municipality, who sat in his carriage with his hat on." – Thiers, tom. iii., p. 277.

352

Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 199.

353

"You have heard my defence; I will not recapitulate it; when addressing you, probably for the last time, I declare that my conscience has nothing to reproach itself with, and that my defenders have said nothing but the truth. I have no fears for the public examination of my conduct; but my heart bleeds at the accusation brought against me, of having been the cause of the misfortunes of my people; and, most of all, of having shed their blood on the 10th of August. The multiplied proofs I have given, in every period of my reign, of my love for my people, and the manner in which I have conducted myself towards them, might, I had hoped, have saved me from so cruel an imputation." – Thiers. tom. iii., p. 281.

"The King withdrew with his defenders. He embraced M. Deséze, and exclaimed, 'This is indeed true eloquence! I am tranquil. – I shall at least have an honoured memory. – The French will regret my death.'" – Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 210.

354

"St. Just, after having searched in vain for authentic facts against the King, finished by declaring, that 'no one could reign innocently: and nothing could better prove the necessity of the inviolability of kings than this maxim; for there is no king who might not be accused in some way or another, if there were no constitutional barrier placed around him.'" – De Staël, vol. ii., p. 86.

355

"Il est des principes indestructibles, supérieurs aux rubriques consacrées par l'habitude et les préjugés."

356

"Vergniaud was an indolent man, and required to be stimulated; but when excited, his eloquence was true, forcible, penetrating, and sincere." – Dumont, p. 321.

357

Thiers, tom. iii., p. 290; Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 213; Toulongeon, tom. iii., p. 187.

358

His own death, by the guillotine, in the same year, was hardly sufficient retribution for his fiendlike conduct on this afflicting occasion. – S.

359

"When, on the 17th January, M. de Malesherbes went to the Temple to announce the result of the vote, he found Louis with his forehead resting on his hands, and absorbed in a deep reverie. Without inquiring concerning his fate, he said, 'For two hours I have been considering whether, during my whole reign, I have voluntarily given any cause of complaint to my subjects; with perfect sincerity I declare, that I deserve no reproach at their hands, and that I have never formed a wish but for their happiness.'" – Lacretelle, tom. x., p. 244.

"On the 18th, the King desired me to look in the library for the volume of Hume's History which contained the death of Charles I., which he read the following days. I found, on this occasion, that, since his coming to the Temple, his Majesty had perused two hundred and fifty volumes." – Cléry, p. 216. – "On the 20th, Santerre appeared with the Executive Council. The sentence of death was read by Carat. No alteration took place in the King's countenance; I observed only, at the word 'conspiracy,' a smile of indignation appear upon his lips; but at the words, 'shall suffer the punishment of death,' the heavenly expression of his face, when he looked on those around him, showed them that death had no terrors for innocence." – Cléry, p. 222.

360

"At the representation of the comedy called 'L'Ami des Lois' at the Français, every allusion to the King's trial was caught and received with unbounded applause. At the Vaudeville, on one of the characters in 'La Chaste Susanne' saying to the two Elders, 'You cannot be accusers and judges at the same time,' the audience obliged the actor to repeat the passage several times." – Cléry, p. 204.

361

Dumouriez, vol. iii., p. 278; Jomini, tom. ii., p. 265.

362

"The peculation, or the profuse expenditure, at least, that took place in the war department during Pache's administration, was horrible. In the twenty-four hours that preceded his dismission, he filled up sixty different places with all the persons he knew of who were base enough to pay their court to him, down to his very hair-dresser, a blackguard boy of nineteen, whom he made a muster-master." – Mad. Roland, part i., p. 140.

363

Born at Bourdeaux in 1758 – he was involved in the fall of the Girondists, and guillotined 31st Oct., 1793.

364

"At seven, the King said to me, 'You will give this seal to my son, this ring to the Queen, and assure her that it is with pain I part with it; – this little packet contains the hair of all my family, you will give her that too. Tell the Queen, my dear children, and my sister, that although I promised to see them again this morning, I have resolved to spare them the pangs of so cruel a separation; tell them how much it costs me to go without receiving their embraces once more!' He wiped away some tears; then added, in the most mournful accents, 'I charge you to bear them my last farewell.'" – Cléry, p. 249.

"On the morning of this terrible day, the princesses rose at six. The night before, the Queen had scarcely strength enough to put her son to bed. She threw herself, dressed as she was, upon her own bed, where she was heard shivering with cold and grief all night long. At a quarter-past six, the door opened; the princesses believed that they were sent for to see the King, but it was only the officers looking for a prayer-book for the King's mass; they did not, however, abandon the hope of seeing him, till the shouts of joy of the unprincipled populace came to tell them that all was over." – Duchesse d'Angoulême, p. 52.

365

"The procession from the Temple to the place of execution lasted nearly two hours. As soon as the carriage stopped, the King whispered to me, 'We are at the end of our journey, if I mistake not.' My silence answered that we were. One of the guards came to open the door, and the gens-d'armes would have jumped out, but the King stopped them, and leaning his arm on my knee, 'Gentlemen,' said he, with the tone of majesty, 'I recommend to you this good man; take care that after my death no insult be offered to him – I charge you to prevent it.' As soon as the King had left the carriage, three guards surrounded him, and would have taken off his clothes, but he repulsed them with dignity; he undressed himself, untied his neckcloth, opened his shirt, and arranged it himself. The path leading to the scaffold was extremely rough, and from the slowness with which the King proceeded, I feared for a moment that his courage might be failing; but what was my astonishment, when, arrived at the last step, I felt him suddenly let go my arm, and saw him cross with a firm foot the breadth of the whole scaffold; he silenced, by his look alone, fifteen or twenty drums; and I heard him, in a loud voice, pronounce distinctly these memorable words, 'I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France.' He was proceeding, when a man on horseback, in the national uniform, (Santerre,) waved his sword, and ordered the drums to beat. Upon which, the executioners, seizing the King with violence, dragged him under the axe of the guillotine, which, with one stroke, severed his head from his body." – Abbé Edgeworth, Last Hours of Louis XVI., p. 84.