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37 - Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty by Imbert de Saint-Amand · Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirty seven of Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information ought a volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Read for you by Chichito Crasto.
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  Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty by imbat de
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  Speaker 1: Saint amand translated by Elizabeth G. Martin chapter thirty seven,
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  Speaker 1: the Proclamation of the Republic. One of the astonishing things
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  Speaker 1: in the French Revolution, says one of the most eminent
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  Speaker 1: writers of the Democratic school, Edgar Kinney, is the unexpectedness
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  Speaker 1: with which the great changes occur. The most important events,
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  Speaker 1: the destruction of the monarchy and the advent of the Republic,
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  Speaker 1: came about without any previous warning. The most ardent Republicans
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  Speaker 1: were royalists, not merely under the old regime, but after
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  Speaker 1: seventeen hundred and eighty nine, and even up to August tenth,
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  Speaker 1: seventeen hundred and ninety two. Maha wrote in number three
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  Speaker 1: hundred and seventy four of them need you Purple, February seventeenth,
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  Speaker 1: seventeen hundred and ninety one. I have often been represented
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  Speaker 1: as a mortal enemy of royalty. But I claim that
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  Speaker 1: the king has no better friend than myself. And he
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  Speaker 1: added as to Louis the sixteenth, personally, I know very
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  Speaker 1: well that his defects are chargeable solely to his education,
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  Speaker 1: and that by nature he is an excellent sort of man,
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  Speaker 1: whom one would have cited as a worthy citizen if
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  Speaker 1: he had not had the misfortune to be born on
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  Speaker 1: the throne. But such as he is, he is at
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  Speaker 1: all events the king we want. We ought to thank
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  Speaker 1: Heaven for having given him to us. We ought to
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  Speaker 1: pray that he may be spared to us. Maha praying, Maha,
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  Speaker 1: thanking Heaven, and for whom for the king? Does not
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  Speaker 1: that prove what deep root royalty had taken. In France
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  Speaker 1: April twentieth, seventeen hundred and ninety two, the same Maha
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  Speaker 1: bitterly reproached Condorset with shamelessly calumniating the Jacquobank Club and
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  Speaker 1: perfidiously accusing it of wishing to destroy the monarchy. Lamid
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  Speaker 1: Purple number four hundred and thirty four June thirteenth, he
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  Speaker 1: attacked those who violated the oath taken at the time
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  Speaker 1: of the Federation and said, to defend the constitution is
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  Speaker 1: the same thing as to be faithful to the nation,
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  Speaker 1: the law and the King L'Ami du purple number four
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  Speaker 1: hundred and forty eight. During the entire continuance of the
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  Speaker 1: Legislative Assembly, when Robe Spierre, having left the Tribune, was
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  Speaker 1: pretending to educate the people by means of his journal,
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  Speaker 1: what he defended to the utmost was a royal constitution.
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  Speaker 1: Madame Roland relates that after the flight to Varennes, when
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  Speaker 1: the prospect of a republic roomed up, possibly for the
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  Speaker 1: first time, at a secret meeting, Robespierre, grinning as usual
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  Speaker 1: and biting his nails, asked ironically what a republic might be.
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  Speaker 1: In June seventeen hundred and ninety two, the entire Jacobac
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  Speaker 1: Club was royalists. Still, it proposed to drop Beovarenes, because
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  Speaker 1: Beovarhenne had dared to put the monarchical principle in question.
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  Speaker 1: On the seventeenth July, following two months and a half,
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  Speaker 1: that is, before the opening of the convention, at the
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  Speaker 1: time of the famous La Moorette quiss, all the members
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  Speaker 1: of the Assembly swore to execrate the republic forever. Three
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  Speaker 1: weeks after September second, d'Antin alleged the paucity and the
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  Speaker 1: weakness of the Republicans compared with the Royalists as motives
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  Speaker 1: for the massacres. Pethion has said, when the insurrection of
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  Speaker 1: August tenth was undertaken, there were but five men in
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  Speaker 1: France who desired a republic. Beusseau, Madame Rolen's Idol had written,
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  Speaker 1: a wretched mob, unintelligent and unenlightened, vomited forth insults against royalty.
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  Speaker 1: The rest neither desired nor willed anything but the Constitution
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  Speaker 1: of seventeen hundred and ninety one, and spoke of the
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  Speaker 1: Republicans just as one speaks of extremely honest fools. This
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  Speaker 1: people is republican only through force of the guillotine. And
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  Speaker 1: yet September twenty first, seventeen hundred and ninety two, the Convention,
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  Speaker 1: holding its first sitting in the Hall of the Manages,
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  Speaker 1: began by proclaiming the republic. Beuzau, in his memoirs, has
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  Speaker 1: thus described the deputations that were sent to the bar
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  Speaker 1: and the people that occupied the galleries. It seemed as
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  Speaker 1: if the outlet of every sewer in Paris and other
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  Speaker 1: great cities had been searched for whatever was most filthy,
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  Speaker 1: hideous and infected. Villainously dirty faces, surmounted by shocks of
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  Speaker 1: greasy hair, and with eyes half sunk into their heads,
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  Speaker 1: they spat out with their nauseating breath the grossest insults,
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  Speaker 1: mingled with the sharp snarls of carnivorous beasts. The galleries
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  Speaker 1: were worthy of such legislators, men whose frightful aspect betokened
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  Speaker 1: crime and poverty, and women whose shameless faces expressed the
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  Speaker 1: filthiest debauchery. With all these, with hands and feet and voice,
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  Speaker 1: made their horrible racket, one seemed to be an assembly
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  Speaker 1: of devils. When the session opened, Claude de Bois was
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  Speaker 1: a first speaker. He said, there is a matter which
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  Speaker 1: you cannot put off until tomorrow, which you cannot put
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  Speaker 1: off until this evening, which you cannot differ for a
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  Speaker 1: single instant without being unfaithful to the wishes of the nation.
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  Speaker 1: It is the abolition of royalty CNAE. Having objected that
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  Speaker 1: it would be better to present this question when the
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  Speaker 1: Constitution was to be discussed, Gregor Arre, constitutional Bishop of Blois, claimed, certainly,
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  Speaker 1: no one will ever propose to us to preserve the
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  Speaker 1: deadly race of kings. In France, all the dynasties have
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  Speaker 1: been breeds of ravenous beasts, living on nothing but human flesh. Still,
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  Speaker 1: it is necessary to reassure plainly the friends of liberty,
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  Speaker 1: this magic talisman, which has power to stupefy so many men,
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  Speaker 1: must be destroyed. Bazire remarked that it would be a
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  Speaker 1: frightful example to the people to see an assembly which
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  Speaker 1: they had entrusted with their dearest interests, resolve upon anything
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  Speaker 1: in a moment of enthusiasm and without thorough discussion. Gregorarre
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  Speaker 1: replied with vehemence, a what need is there of discussion
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  Speaker 1: when everybody is of the same mind. Kings in the
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  Speaker 1: moral order are what monsters are in the physical order.
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  Speaker 1: Colts are the workshop of crime and the lair of tyrants.
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  Speaker 1: The history of kings is the martyrology of nations. We
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  Speaker 1: are all equally penetrated by them. What is the use
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  Speaker 1: of discussing it? Then? The question put to vote in
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  Speaker 1: these terms, the National Convention declares that royalty is abolished
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  Speaker 1: in France was adopted amidst applause. At four in the
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  Speaker 1: afternoon of the same day. A municipal officer named Lubert,
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  Speaker 1: surrounded by mounted chondarmes, and a large crowd of people
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  Speaker 1: came to read a proclamation before the temple tower. The
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  Speaker 1: trumpets were sounded, a great silence ensued, and Lubert, who
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  Speaker 1: had a stentorian voice, read aloud to be heard by
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  Speaker 1: the royal family confined in the dungeon. This proclamation, the
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  Speaker 1: death knell of monarchy. Royalty is abolished. In France. All
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  Speaker 1: public acts will be dated from the first year of
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  Speaker 1: the republic. The seal of the state will be inscribed
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  Speaker 1: by this motto Republic fcaise. The national seal will represent
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  Speaker 1: a woman seated on a sheaf of arms, holding in
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  Speaker 1: one hand a pike surmounted by a liberty cap. Abert,
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  Speaker 1: the famous pere Duchess Duchaine, was at this moment on
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  Speaker 1: guard near the royal family, sitting on the threshold of
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  Speaker 1: their chamber. He sought to discover a movement of vexation
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  Speaker 1: or anger, or any other emotion on their faces. He
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  Speaker 1: was unsuccessful. While listening to the revolutionary degree which snatched
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  Speaker 1: away his throne, the descendant of Saint Louis, Henry the
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  Speaker 1: Folk and Louis the fourteenth experienced not the slightest trouble.
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  Speaker 1: He had a book in his hand, and he quietly
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  Speaker 1: went on reading it, as impassive as her spouse. The
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  Speaker 1: Queen neither made a movement nor uttered a word. When
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  Speaker 1: the proclamation was finished, the trumpets sounded again. Clerie then
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  Speaker 1: went to the window, and the eyes of the crowd
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  Speaker 1: turned instantly towards him, as they mistook him for Louis
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  Speaker 1: the sixteenth. They overwhelmed him with insults. The gendarmes made
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  Speaker 1: threatening gestures, and he was obliged to withdraw so as
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  Speaker 1: to quiet the tumult. When the populace was unchained around
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  Speaker 1: the temple prison, one man alone was calm. One man
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  Speaker 1: alone seemed a stranger to all anxiety. It was a prisoner.
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  Speaker 1: A new era begins. The death struggle of royalty is over.
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  Speaker 1: Royalty is dead, and the king is soon to die. Gregor,
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  Speaker 1: who had stolen the wood therever but three hundred and
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  Speaker 1: seventy one convention is present. Three hundred and seventy four
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  Speaker 1: were absent. That is to say, more than half is
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  Speaker 1: both surprised and enthusiastic about what he has done. He
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  Speaker 1: confesses that for several days his excessive joy deprived him
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  Speaker 1: of appetite and sleep. Such joy will not last very long.
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur Taire compares revolutionary France to a badly nourished workman,
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  Speaker 1: poor and overdriven with toil, and yet who drinks strong liquors.
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  Speaker 1: At first, in his intoxication he thinks he is a millionaire,
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  Speaker 1: loved and admired, he thinks himself a king. But soon
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  Speaker 1: the radiant visions give place to the black and monstrous fantoms.
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  Speaker 1: At present, France has passed through the period of joyous delirium,
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  Speaker 1: and is about to enter on another that is somber.
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  Speaker 1: Behold it capable of daring, suffering, and doing all things
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  Speaker 1: whenever its guides, as widely astray as itself, shall point
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  Speaker 1: out an enemy or an obstacle to its fury. How
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  Speaker 1: quickly the disenchantmants come Already. Lafayette, the man of general illusions,
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  Speaker 1: has had to imitate the conduct of those emigres on
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  Speaker 1: whom he has been so severe. He has fled to
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  Speaker 1: a foreign land, and found there not a refuge but
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  Speaker 1: a prison. He will remain more than five years in
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  Speaker 1: the gloomy fortress of Almoutz. The victor of Walmi du
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  Speaker 1: Mouriers will hardly be more fortunate. He will go over
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  Speaker 1: to the enemy, and live in exile on a pension
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  Speaker 1: from foreign powers. How close together deceptions and recantations come. Mahrat,
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  Speaker 1: who has already said to the inhabitants of the capital,
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  Speaker 1: eternal cocknies with what epithets? Would I not assail you
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  Speaker 1: in the transports of my despair if I knew any
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  Speaker 1: more humiliating than that of Parisians. Mahach, who has said
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  Speaker 1: to all Frenchmen, No, no, liberty is not made for
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  Speaker 1: an ignorant, light and frivolous nation, for sits brought up
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  Speaker 1: in fear, dissimulation, knavery, and lying, nourished in cunning, intrigued sycophancy,
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  Speaker 1: avarice and swindling, subsisting only by theft and rapine as,
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  Speaker 1: firing after nothing but pleasures, titles and decorations, and already
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  Speaker 1: ready to sell themselves for gold. Mahavell Wright, May seventh,
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  Speaker 1: seventeen hundred and ninety three. That is to say, to
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  Speaker 1: establish and consolidate liberty have been thoughtless, vain, and illusory.
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  Speaker 1: Even supposing them to have been taken in good faith,
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  Speaker 1: the greater part seems to have had for their object
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  Speaker 1: to perpetuate oppression, bring on anarchy, death, poverty, and famine,
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  Speaker 1: to make the people weary of their independence, to make
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  Speaker 1: liberty a burden, to cause them to detest the revolution
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  Speaker 1: through its excessive disorders, to exhaust them by watching, fatigue,
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  Speaker 1: want and inanition, to reduce them to despair by hunger,
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  Speaker 1: and to bring them back to despotism by civil war.
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  Speaker 1: There were six ministers appointed in August tenth. Two of them,
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  Speaker 1: Clavier and Roland, will kill themselves. Two others le Bruton,
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  Speaker 1: Dieu and D'Anton will be guillotined. The remaining two, Chavalt
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  Speaker 1: and Mouges, are destined to become one a general of
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  Speaker 1: division under Napoleon, and the other a senator of the
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  Speaker 1: empire and counter Pelieu's. And when, at the beginning of
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  Speaker 1: his reign the Emperor complains to the latter because there
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  Speaker 1: are still partisans of the republic to be found, Sire,
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  Speaker 1: the former minister of August tenth, will answer, we had
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  Speaker 1: so much trouble to make them republicans. May it please
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  Speaker 1: your majesty kindly to allow them at least a few
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  Speaker 1: days to become imperialists. Of the two men who had
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  Speaker 1: so enthusiastically brought about the proclamation of the republic One
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  Speaker 1: Collot de Bois, will be transported to Guyana by the
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  Speaker 1: Republicans and die there in a paroxysm of burning fever.
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  Speaker 1: The other, greg War will be a senator of the Empire,
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  Speaker 1: which will not, however, preventing him from promoting the despotism
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  Speaker 1: of Napoleon as he had promoted that of Louis the sixteenth.
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  Speaker 1: There are men who will exchange the jacket of the
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  Speaker 1: sanscu Lot for the gilded livery of an imperial functionary.
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  Speaker 1: The conventionists and regicides are transformed into dukes and counts
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  Speaker 1: and barons. David, the official painter of the Empire, Napoleon's favorite,
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  Speaker 1: will pay with joy the picture of a pope, and
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  Speaker 1: be very proud of his great picture of the new
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  Speaker 1: Charlemagne's coronation. But listen to Edgarkinay, when I see the
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  Speaker 1: orators of deputations taking things with such a high hand
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  Speaker 1: at the bar and lauding it so proudly over mute
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  Speaker 1: and complaisant assemblies, I should like to know what became
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  Speaker 1: of them a few years later. And thereupon he sets
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  Speaker 1: out to discover their traces. But after considerable investigation he stops.
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  Speaker 1: If I searched any further, he exclaims, I should be
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  Speaker 1: afraid of encountering them among the petty employees of the Empire.
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  Speaker 1: It was quite enough to see Huguenat, the indomitable president
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  Speaker 1: of the insurrectionary commune, so quickly tamed, soliciting and obtaining
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  Speaker 1: a post as clerk of town gates. As soon as
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  Speaker 1: absolute power made its reappearance after the eighteen Proumaire, the
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  Speaker 1: terrible Sainterire becomes the gentlest of men as soon as
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  Speaker 1: he is pensioned by the first consul. Hardly had Boudon
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  Speaker 1: de Loires and Albitte, these men of iron felt the rod.
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  Speaker 1: Then you see them the suppless functionaries of the empire.
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  Speaker 1: The great king taker Drouet thrones in it the sub
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  Speaker 1: prefecture of Saint minna Ou. Repoleon had related that on
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  Speaker 1: August tenth he was in a shop in the carousel,
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  Speaker 1: whence he witnessed the taking of the palace. If he
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  Speaker 1: had a presentiment, then he must have smiled at the
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  Speaker 1: chaos which he was to reduce so easily to its
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  Speaker 1: former limits. How many furies and all to terminate so
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  Speaker 1: soon in the accustomed obedience is not history with its
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  Speaker 1: perpetual alternatives of license and despotism like a virtual circle,
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  Speaker 1: and do not the nations pass their time in producing
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  Speaker 1: webs of penelope, whose blood threads they weave and unweave
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  Speaker 1: again with tears. All governments, royalties, empires, republics ought to
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  Speaker 1: be more modest, But all profoundly forgetful of the lessons
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  Speaker 1: of the past, believe themselves immortal. All declare haughtily that
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  Speaker 1: they have closed for ever the era of revolutions. With
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  Speaker 1: the advent of the Republic, a new calendar has been
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  Speaker 1: put in force. The equality of days and nights at
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the autumnal equinox opened the era of civil equality in
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  Speaker 1: September twenty second. Who would have believed that this human geometry,
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  Speaker 1: so profoundly calculated, was written in the sand, and that
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  Speaker 1: in a few years no traces of it would remain.
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  Speaker 1: The heavens have continued to gravitate and have brought back
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  Speaker 1: the equality of days and nights, but they have allowed
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  Speaker 1: the promised liberty and equality to perish, like meteors that
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  Speaker 1: vanish in empty space. The Sauculotte have not been able
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  Speaker 1: to make themselves popular among the starry peoples. An ancient
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  Speaker 1: belief which the men of the Revolution had neglected, through
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  Speaker 1: fear or through contempt, was again met with a specter
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  Speaker 1: had appeared, a chilly breath like that of Samuel, had
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  Speaker 1: made itself felt and low. The edifice, so sagely constructed
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  Speaker 1: and leaning on the worlds, had vanished away. There lies
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  Speaker 1: at the foundation of history a supreme sadness and melancholy,
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  Speaker 1: this never ending series of illusions and deceptions, errors and afflictions,
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  Speaker 1: faults and crimes, this rage and passion and folly, so
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  Speaker 1: many efforts and fatigues, to many dangers, tortures and tears,
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  Speaker 1: so much blood, such revolutions, catastrophes, cataclysms of every sort
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  Speaker 1: and all for what wretched humanity, rolling its tone of
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  Speaker 1: sisyphus from age to age, inspires far more compassion than contempt.
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  Speaker 1: The painful reflections caused by the annals of all peoples
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  Speaker 1: are perhaps more somber for the French Revolution than for
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  Speaker 1: any other period. A. Garkinae justly laments over the inequality
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  Speaker 1: between the sacrifices of the victims and the results obtained
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  Speaker 1: by posterity. He affirms that in other histories, one thing
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  Speaker 1: reconciles us to the fury of men, and that is
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  Speaker 1: the speedy fecundity of the blood they shed. For example,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: when one sees that of the martyr's flow, one also
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  Speaker 1: sees Christianity spread over the earth from the depth of
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  Speaker 1: the catacombs. While amongst us, the blood which streamed most
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  Speaker 1: abundantly and from such lofty sources, did not find soil
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  Speaker 1: equally well prepared. And the illustrious historian exclaimed, sadly, the
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  Speaker 1: supreme consolation has been refused to our greatest dead. Their
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  Speaker 1: blood has not been a seed of virtue and independence
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  Speaker 1: for their posterity. If they should reappear once more, they
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  Speaker 1: would feel themselves tortured again, and on a worse scaffold
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  Speaker 1: by the denial of their descendants. They would hurl at
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  Speaker 1: us again the same adieu, O liberty, how they have
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  Speaker 1: betrayed thee End of chapter thirty seven read for you
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  Speaker 1: by Chikito Crausto, Birmingham, Alabama. End of Marie Antoinette and
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  Speaker 1: The Downfall of Royalty by imbat amand translated by Elizabeth G.
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  Speaker 1: Martin