XIII. THE DISBANDING OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL GUARD.

Louis XVI. had still some defenders, some heroes resolved to shed the last drop of their blood for their King. Hence it was necessary to remove them from his person. What means of doing so could be found? Calumny. Fable on fable was spread among an always credulous public, imaginary conspiracies invented, and the wretched monarch constrained to deprive himself of his last resource, in order to deliver him, weak and disarmed, into the hands of his enemies.

The Constitution provided a guard for Louis XVI. One third of it was composed of soldiers of the line, and the remainder of National Guards, chosen by the Departments themselves from among their best-formed, richest, and best-bred citizens. It was commanded by one of the greatest lords of the old régime, the Duke de Cossé-Brissac. Born in 1734, the son of a marshal of France, the Duke had been governor of Paris, grand steward of France, and colonel of the Hundred-Switzers. He had never been willing to leave the King since the beginning of the Revolution. When his regiment was disbanded he might have fled, and Louis XVI. begged him to do so; but the heart of a subject so faithful had been deaf to the entreaties of the unfortunate sovereign. "Sire," he had answered, "if I fly, they will say that I am guilty, and you will be considered my accomplice: my flight would be your accusation; I would rather die." And, in fact, he did die. He had a real devotion to the former mistress of Louis XV., the Countess du Barry, and this latest conquest is not the least important of the favorite's adventures. Probably Count d'Allonville exaggerates when, in his Memoirs, he extols in Madame du Barry "that decency of tone, that nobility of manners, that bearing equally removed from pride and humility, from license and from prudery, that countenance which was enough to refute all the pamphlets." Nevertheless, it is certain that the society of the Duke de Brissac inspired the former favorite with generous sentiments. After the October Days, she took the wounded body-guards into her own house, and when the Queen sent to thank her for it, she replied: "These wounded young men regret nothing except not having died for a princess so worthy of all homage as Your Majesty.... Luciennes[1] is yours, Madame; did not your benevolence give it back to me? ... The late King, by a sort of presentiment, forced me to accept a thousand precious objects before sending me away from his person. I already had the honor of offering you this treasure in the time of the Notables; I offer it again, Madame, with eagerness. You have so many expenses to provide for, and so many favors to confer. Permit me, I entreat you, to render to Cæsar that which belongs to Cæsar."

An enthusiastic royalist, a gentleman of the old nobility, chivalrous and full of courtesy, bred in notions of romantic susceptibility like those of Clélie and Astrée, the Duke de Brissac, like a knight-errant of former times, represented at the court of Louis XVI. a whole past which was crumbling to decay. If the unhappy monarch had been a man of action, he would have turned to good advantage a guard commanded by such a champion. He could have made it the nucleus of resistance by grouping the Swiss regiments and the well-inclined battalions of the National Guard around it. Unfortunately, there was nothing warlike in Louis XVI. "Among the deplorable causes which ruined him," says the Count de Vaublanc in his Memoirs, "must be counted the wretched education which kept him apart from every sort of military action. I remember that in the early days of the Consulate, after a review held on the Place of the Tuileries by Bonaparte, when talking about this to M. Suard, of the French Academy, I said that Bonaparte walked as if he were always ready to defend himself sword in hand. 'Ah, well!' responded M. Suard, naïvely, 'we used to think differently; we wanted the King to have nothing military about him, and never to wear a uniform.'"

To this anecdote, M. de Vaublanc adds another. "We had in 1792," he says, "a forcible proof of the despondency under which a royal soul, spoiled by a detestable education, can labor. M. de Narbonne, the Minister of War, with great difficulty induced the King to review three excellent battalions of the Paris National Guard. He was on foot, in silk breeches and white silk stockings, and wearing his hair in a black bag. After the review a notary, named Chandon, I think, left the ranks and said to the King: 'Sire, the National Guard would be greatly honored to see Your Majesty in its uniform.' 'Sire,' said M. de Narbonne, at once, 'have the goodness to promise to do so. At the head of these three battalions of heroes you could destroy the Jacobins' den.' After a minute's reflection, the King replied: 'I will inquire of my Council whether the Constitution permits me to wear the uniform of the National Guard.'" Louis XVI. allowed the last resources accorded by fortune to slip away, and elements which in other hands would have produced notable results, remained sterile in his.

The Constitutional Guard, which according to regulation should have numbered eighteen hundred men, really amounted, says Dumouriez, to six thousand fit for duty. The royalist element predominated in it. But a certain number of "false brethren" had found their way into the ranks, who managed by the aid of bribery to spy upon their officers, and made reports to the committee of public safety. Undoubtedly the King's guards did not approve of all that was going on. But how could devoted royalists and men accustomed to discipline be expected to approve the fête of the Swiss of Chateauvieux, for example? How could they help being indignant when, while on duty at the Tuileries, they heard the populace insult the royal family under the very windows of the palace?

When they returned to their barracks at the Military School, they expressed this indignation too forcibly, and their words, hawked about in all quarters by ill-will, were represented as the preliminary symptoms of a reactionary plot. A guard commanded by a Duke de Brissac was intolerable to the Jacobins. Their sole idea was to drive it from the Tuileries, where its presence appeared to insure order,—a thing they held in utmost horror. A 20th of June would not have been possible with a constitutional guard, and ever since May, the 20th of June had been in course of preparation. Its organizers had their plan completely laid already. An adroit rumor was started of a so-called plot, some Saint-Bartholomew or other, which they pretended was on foot against the patriots, and of which the École Militaire was the centre. The white flag, which was to be the signal for the assassins to assemble, was said to be hidden there. Pétion, the mayor of Paris, under pretext of preventing troubles, sent municipal officers to make a search. They could not lay their hands on the white flag which was the pretended object of their visit, but they did find monarchical hymns and ballads, and counter-revolutionary writings.

An unlucky incident still further increased suspicion. The famous Countess de La Motte had just published in London some new particulars concerning the affair of the necklace. In order to avert scandal, the Queen had caused Laporte, intendant of the civil list, to buy up the whole edition, and he had burned every copy of it at the manufactory of Sèvres. That very evening the committee of surveillance were in possession of the fact that Laporte had gone to Sèvres with three unknown persons, and that thirty bales of paper had been put into the fire in his presence. There was at this time a great deal of talk concerning a pretended Austrian committee, in which a complete plan of restoration by foreign aid was being elaborated. It was claimed that the papers burned at the manufactory were the archives of this committee, with which popular imagination was extremely busy. Denunciations fell in showers. Laporte and several others were summoned before the committee of surveillance. Pétion declared that the people were surrounded by conspiracies. Bazire demanded the disbanding of the King's guard, which, according to him, was made up of servants of the émigrés, and refractory priests. It was claimed that the soldiers, to whom the Duke de Brissac had given sabres with hilts representing a cock surmounted by a royal crown, used insulting language concerning the Assembly and the nation in their barracks. They were said to rejoice in the reverses which the French troops had just sustained on the northern frontier, and it was added that they meant to march twenty leagues under a white flag to meet the Austrians. The masses, always so easily deceived, were convinced that the conspiracy was on the brink of discovery.

The National Assembly took up the question, and a stormy debate on it occupied the evening session of May 29. "What will become of the individual liberty of citizens," cried M. Daverhouté, "if the dominant party, merely by alleging suspicions, can decree the impeachment of all who displease it, and if the different parties, coming successively into power, overthrow, by means of this unchecked right of impeachment, both ministers and all functionaries by the torrent of their intrigues? In that case you would see proscriptions like those of Marius and Sylla." In fact, this was what the near future was about to show. Vergniaud responded by evoking a souvenir of the prætorian guards of Caligula and Nero. At the close of his speech the Assembly passed the following decree:—

"ARTICLE 1. The existing hired guard of the King is disbanded, and will be replaced immediately in conformity with the laws.

"ART. 2. Until the formation of the new guard, the National Guard of Paris will be on duty near the King's person, in the same manner as before the establishment of the King's guard."

A discussion ensued on the subject of Brissac's impeachment. The struggle between the two opposing parties was of unheard-of vivacity. One of the most courageous members of the right, M. Calvet, gave free vent to his indignation. "The informer," said he, "is a scoundrel who makes a thrust with a poniard and hides himself; he was unknown at Rome until the times of Sejanus and Tiberius; times, gentlemen, of which you remind me often." "To the Abbey! to the Abbey!" retorted the left, with fury. Said Guadet: "I demand that M. Calvet should be sent to the Abbey for three days, for having dared to say that the representatives of the French people remind him of the Roman Tiberius and Sejanus." The motion was adopted, and the Assembly decided that M. Calvet should pass three days in prison. M. de Jaucourt threatened to cudgel Chabot, and the ex-friar, ascending the tribune, said: "I think it was very cowardly on the part of a colonel to offer to cane a Capuchin." The Assembly, having passed an order of the day concerning this incident, decreed that "there was reason for an accusation against M. Cossé, styled Brissac, and that his papers should be sealed up at once."

The King and Queen, awakened in the middle of the night by these tidings, besought Brissac to make his escape, and provided him with the means. The Duke refused, and instead of trying to assure his safety, sat down to write a long letter to Madame du Barry. At first Louis XVI. wished to veto this decree, as was his duty, but his ministers dissuaded him. They reminded him of the October Days, and the weak monarch, alarmed on account of his family, if not on his own, sacrificed his Constitutional Guard and also the brave servitor who commanded it. Speaking to M. d'Aubier, one of the ordinary gentlemen of the King's bedchamber, the Queen said: "I tremble lest the King's guard should think the honor of the corps compromised by their disarmament."—"Doubtless, Madame, that corps would have preferred to die at the feet of Your Majesties."—"Yes," replied the Queen, "but the few partisans who still adhere to the King in the Assembly counsel him to sanction the decree disbanding them, and to disregard their advice is to run the risk of losing them." While the Queen was yet speaking, a man approached under pretence of asking alms. "You see," said she to M. d'Aubier, "there is no place and no time when I am free from spies."

The Constitutional Guard were sent as prisoners to the École Militaire between a double file of National Guards, and forced to surrender their weapons. By a sort of fatality Louis XVI. was led to disarm himself, to spike his cannons, tear down his flags, and dismantle his fortresses. By dint of approaching too near the fatal declivity of concessions, he ended by losing even his dignity as man and King. He was paralyzed, annihilated by the Assembly, which treated him like a hostage, a conquered man, and which struck down, one after another, the last defenders of the monarchy and of public order. The fate of the Constitutional Guard might well discourage honest men who only sought to devote themselves. How was it possible to remain faithful to a chief who was false to himself, who was more like a victim than a king? Finding themselves unsupported by the Tuileries, the royalists began to look across the frontier, and many men who would have flocked around an energetic monarch, fled from a feeble king and sorrowfully went to swell the ranks of the emigration.

In spite of the advice of Dumouriez, Louis XVI. would not make use of his right to form another guard. He preferred to put himself in the hands of the National Guard, who were his jailors rather than his servants. As to the Duke de Brissac, even the formality of an interrogatory was dispensed with, and he was sent before the Superior Court of Orleans. When he bade adieu to Louis XVI., the King said to him: "You are going to prison; I should be much more afflicted if you were not leaving me there myself." What was to be the fate of the loyal and devoted servant, thus sacrificed to his master's inexcusable weakness? He left the dungeons of Orleans only to be transferred to Versailles by the Marseillais, and there, on September 9, 1792, was assaulted by a furious throng surrounding the carriages containing the prisoners. The brave old man struggled long against the assassins, but, after losing two fingers and receiving several other wounds, he was killed by a sabre-thrust which broke his jaw, and his head was set on one of the spikes of the palace gate.

[1] The magnificent mansion built for Madame du Barry by Louis XV., and restored to her after her banishment to Meaux by Marie Antoinette.