The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI

A young, brave, and handsome king, who had sprung forward with blazing eye and quivering lip, to rush with the pistols in hand into the thick of the fight, might have recalled fortune to his crown.

They waited and they hoped.

Taking the pistols from the queen's hands, the king returned them to the owner.

"Monsieur Roederer," he said, "you were observing that I had better go over to the House?"

"Such is my advice," answered the legal agent of the Commune, bowing.

"Come away, gentlemen; there is nothing more to be done here," said the king.

Uttering a sigh, the queen took up her son in her arms, and said to her ladies:

"Come, ladies, since it is the king's desire," which was as much as to say to the others, "Expect nothing more from me."

In the corridor where she would have to pass through, Mme. Campan was waiting. She whispered to her: "How I wish I dwelt in a tower by the sea!"

The abandoned attendants looked at each other and seemed to say, "Is this the monarch for whom we came here to die?"

Colonel Chesnaye understood this mute inquiry, for he answered:

"No, gentlemen, it was for royalty. The wearer of the crown is mortal, but the principle imperishable."

The queen's ladies were terrified. They looked like so many marble statues standing in the corners and along the lobbies.

At last the king condescended to remember those he was casting off. At the foot of the stairs, he halted.

"But what will befall all those I leave behind?" he inquired.

"Sire," replied Roederer, "it will be easy enough for them to follow you out. As they are in plain dress, they can slip out through the gardens."

"Alas," said the queen, seeing Count Charny waiting for her by the garden gate, with his drawn sword, "I would I had heeded you when you advised me to flee."

The queen's Life Guardsman did not respond, but he went up to the king, and said:

"Sire, will you please exchange hats, lest yours single out your majesty?"

"Oh, you are right, on account of the white feather," said Louis. "Thank you, my lord." And he took the count's hat instead of his own.

"Does the king run any risk in this crossing?" inquired the queen.

"You see, madame, that if so, I have done all I could to turn the danger aside from the threatened one."

"Is your majesty ready?" asked the Swiss captain charged to escort the king across the gardens.

The king advanced between two rows of Swiss, keeping step with him, till suddenly they heard loud shouting on the left.

The door near the Flora restaurant had been burst through by the mob, and they rushed in, knowing that the king was going to the Assembly.

The leader of the band carried a head on a pole as the ensign.

The Swiss captain ordered a halt and called his men to get their guns ready.

"My Lord Charny," said the queen, "if you see me on the point of falling into those ruffians' hands, you will kill me, will you not?"

"I can not promise you that, for I shall be dead before they touch you."

"Bless us," said the king; "this is the head of our poor Colonel Mandat. I know it again."

The band of assassins did not dare to come too near, but they overwhelmed the royal pair with insults. Five or six shots were fired, and two Swiss fell – one dead.

"Do not fire," said Charny; "or not one of us will reach the House alive."

"That is so," observed the captain; "carry arms."

The soldiers shouldered their guns and all continued crossing diagonally. The first heats of the year had yellowed the chestnut-trees, and dry leaves were strewing the earth. The little prince found some sport in heaping them up with his foot and kicking them on his sister's.

"The leaves are falling early this year," observed the king.

"Did not one of those men write that royalty will not outlast the fall of the leaf?" questioned the queen.

"Yes, my lady," replied Charny.

"What was the name of this cunning prophet?"

"Manuel."

A new obstacle rose in the path of the royal family: a numerous crowd of men and women, who were waiting with menacing gestures and brandished weapons on the steps and the terrace which had to be gone over to reach the riding-school.

The danger was the worse from the Swiss being unable to keep in rank. The captain tried in vain to get through, and he showed so much rage that Roederer cried:

"Be careful, sir – you will lead to the king being killed."

They had to halt, but a messenger was sent to the Assembly to plead that the king wanted asylum.

The House sent a deputation, at the sight of whom the mob's fury was redoubled.

Nothing was to be heard but these shouts yelled with wrath:

"Down with Veto!" – "Over with the Austrian!" – "Dethronement or death!"

Understanding that it was in particular their mother who was threatened, the two children huddled up to her. The little dauphin asked:

"Lord Charny, why do these naughty people want to hurt my mamma?"

A gigantic man, armed with a pike, and roaring louder than the rest, "Down with Veto – death to the Austrian!" kept trying to stab the king and the queen.

The Swiss escort had gradually been forced away, so that the royal family had by them only the six noblemen who had left the palace with them, Charny, and the Assembly deputation.