Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 001.djvu/175

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1817.]
Review.—Duchess of Angouleme's Journal.
173

Lamballe. Her attachment to the queen was enthusiastic. The preparations for the journey to Montmedy separated them for a time; and Madame de Lamballe sought refuge in England; but when she heard of the queen's recapture, no earnestness of entreaty, or fear of danger, could prevent her from rejoining her royal friend, whom she accompanied and cheered during her dreadful trials, with unequalled magnanimity and affection. The unfortunate queen was not long permitted to enjoy the soothing conversation of this generous companion. The tyrannical mandate of the Commune de Paris forced Madame de Lamballe from the Temple, to expiate the crime of her devoted attachment to the royal sufferer, by a death attended with circumstances of atrocity, "unparalleled even in the annals of France." This barbarous event was communicated to the unhappy family in the Temple, in a manner which strongly marked the brutality of the Revolutionists. " At three o'clock, (3d of September) just after dinner, as the king was sitting down to tric-trac with the queen, (which he played for the purpose of having an opportunity of saying a few words to her unheard by the keepers,) the most horrid shouts were heard. Several officers of the guard and of the municipality now arrived,—the former insisted that the king should shew 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 wish to show you." At these words the queen was overcome with horror;—it was the only occasion in which her firmness abandoned her. The noise lasted till five o'clock. The prisoners learned that the people had wished to force the door, and that the municipal officers had been enabled to prevent it only by putting across it a tricoloured scarf, and by allowing six of the murderers to march round the tower with the head of the princess, leaving at the door her body, which they would have dragged in also. When this deputation entered, Rocher (the goaler) shouted for joy, and brutally insulted a young woman, who turned sick with horror at this spectacle."—This Rocher was (to adopt again the emphatic words of the journal) "the horrible man who had broken open the door of the king on the 20th of June I792, and who had been near assassinating him. This man never left the tower, and was indefatigable in endeavouring to torment him. One time he would sing before the whole family the Carmagnole, and a thousand other horrors; again, knowing that the queen disliked the smoke of tobacco, he would puff it in her face, as well as in that of the king, as they happened to pass him." Such were the indignities to which they were daily exposed: but the horror of the picture is relieved by the devoted affection of this amiable family for each other, which seemed to beguile them of the sense of their individual misery,—to console them for all they had lost,—to support them under all they had to suffer, and to fortify them against all they had to fear. The health and education of the dauphin was their principal care. For the sake of his health, they went every day to walk in the garden, though Louis never failed to be insulted by the guards, The king taught him geography; the queen, history, and to get verses by heart; and Madame Elizabeth gave him little lessons in arithmetic. But of the hope which mingled with these soothing employments they were soon to he deprived. On the 22d of September the republic was proclaimed; and one evening in the beginning of October, the king, after he had supped, was told to stop; that he was not to return to his former apartments; and that he was to be separated from his family. At this dreadful sentence the queen lost her usual courage; and the officers were so much alarmed by her silent and concentrated sorrow, that they allowed her and the other princesses to see the king, but at meal times only, and on condition that they should speak loud, and in good French. At length, on the llth of December, the king was summoned to the bar of the Convention. The anxiety of his family during his absence may be easily conceived. The queen, to discover what was going on, condescended for the first time to question the officers who guarded her—but they would tell her nothing. On his return in the evening, she requested to see him instantly, but received no answer. Next day she repeated her request to see the king, and to read the newspapers, that