The Countess De Charny - Volume II Read Online Free PDF

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    VOL. IV. — 3
     
    34 LA COMTESSE DE CHARNY.
    entire assemblage, Feuillants, Royalists, Constitutionalists, Republicans , members in their seats and spectators in the gallery, were enveloped, caught up, and swept away by this powerful flood of impassioned eloquence. People fairly shrieked with enthusiasm.
    That same evening Barbaroux wrote to his friend Rebecqui in Marseilles: —
    Send me Jive hundred men who know how to die !
     
    JULY 14, 1792. 35
     
    CHAPTER IV.
    THE THIBD ANNIVERSARY OF THE TAKING OP THE
    BASTILLE.
    On the 11th of July the Assembly declared the country in danger. According to the Constitution the king’s sanction was necessary for the promulgation of this announcement, however, and the king did not give it until the evening of the 21st.
    And, in fact, to admit that the country was in danger was equivalent to a confession of powerlessness on the part of the chief executive. It was an appeal to the country to save itself, inasmuch as the king either would not or could not save it.
    From July 11th to July 21st the liveliest apprehensions were felt by the occupants of the palace.
    The Court was confident of the development of some conspiracy against the king’s life on the 14th. A bulletin issued by the Jacobins strengthened these suspicions. It was evidently prepared by Robespierre, and it was addressed to the confederates, who were coming to Paris to attend the fête of the 14th of July, so cruelly stained with blood the year before : —
    ” To the French people of the eighty -three departments, greeting!” said the Incorruptible. “To Marseilles, greeting! To the powerful and invincible nation who gathers her children about her in all seasons of joy and of peril, greeting ! We open our doors wide to our brothers !
    “Citizens, do you come hither for a mere idle ceremony, and for superfluous protestations? No, no! You hasten hither in response to the appeal of the nation, menaced from without, betrayed from within.
     
    36 LA COMTESSE DE CHAENY.
    “Treacherous leaders conduct our armies into pitfalls. Our geuerals respect the territory of the tyrannical Austrian, and burn the towns of our Belgian brothers. A monster, Lafayette, has just insulted the Assembly to its very face.
    ” Reviled, threatened, outraged, does the Assembly still exist ? So many dastardly attacks have at last aroused the nation; and you hasten here in answer to its appeal. Wheedlers will endeavour to cajole you. Shun their caresses; shun their banquets, where they will drink to moderation and to forgetfulness of duty! Do not allow your suspicions to be lulled to rest for a moment. The fatal hour is at hand!
    “There stands the patriot altar! Will you allow false idols to come between you and Liberty , to usurp the adoration which is due to her alone? Let us swear allegiance only to our country!
    ” Everything on the Champ de Mars will remind you of the treachery of our enemies. There is not a single foot of ground unstained with innocent blood. Purify that soil! Avenge that blood, and do not leave this sacred spot until the salvation of the country is assured.”
    It would be difficult indeed to speak more explicitly. Never was assassination recommended in plainer terms; never was a sanguinary revenge urged more clearly and forcibly.
    And it was Robespierre, take notice, the crafty orator, the cautious deputy, who said, in his blandest tone’s, ” My friends, you must kill the king! “
    Everybody at the Tuileries was greatly alarmed, the king particularly , for they were all positive that the sole object of the outbreak on the 20th of June had been the assassination of the king, and that the failure of the plot had been due entirely to the courageous demeanour of the king, which had awed his would-be murderers.
    And there was not a little truth in all this. Now, all
     
    JULY 14, 1792. 37
    the friends of the king and queen believed that the crime which had failed on the 20th of June had merely been