At a preceding page of the same volume | honestly with the Revolution. At each suc(p. 163), we find the following document, cessive stage in that protracted tragedy, also dated the 7th July 1791, and headed there was a secret policy always at work in 'General Powers, which the King, after his the opposite sense, and that policy, relying arrest at Varennes, sent to the Princes, his mainly on external support, was their debrothers, by M. de Fersen!' This auto-struction. A single instance must suffice to graph paper was given to M. Feuillet de Conches by his friend the Vicomte de Fontenay. It runs as follows:

have been the shortcomings of her Austrian education and the frivolity of her early habits, misfortune and danger awakened in her a force of will, a clearness of intelligence, a power of language, and a strength of soul. which speak with imperishable eloquence in every line of the letters written after the commencement of the Revolution. But although these qualities of the Queen do her the highest honour, and in this respect the publication of her most private correspondence can only exalt her reputation, yet these papers render still more apparent the fact that she had but little political judgment, and that neither she nor the King ever conceived the possibility of dealing

explain our meaning. We select it from a letter in cipher, addressed by the Queen to Count Mercy, on the 28th Sept., 1791, about a fortnight after the King had accepted the Constitution, and a momentary turn in his favour had been given to affairs, if it had been honestly and ably employed. The language of Marie Antoinette demonstrates the entire insincerity of their acqui

escence:

'It is most important for us to know the exact extent of the engagements of the Emperor and the other Powers with the King's brothers, the measure of their good will, and the time at which they may effect it. As for this last point, it appears to me from all your letters, and by the dictates of reason, that the time is at least It is this, therefore, which decided us remote. to take, at this moment, the course we have adopted [acceptance of the Constitution].

Anyhow, it was necessary to have the air of uniting in good faith with the people. If public opinion does not change, no human power can govern in despite of it. If then it be necessary to adopt the present system, at least for a time, (and it will destroy itself if it be adopted,) it is essential that we should be united to that great majority which is the people, and to inspire it with sufficient strength to resist the machinations of the republicans who are seeking every means of influence and found all their hopes on the next legislature.

Anything they could do alone or without a para- | outraged and insulted by false and indecent mount force, would destroy them, ourselves, and the whole kingdom.' (Feuillet de Conches, vol. ii. p. 392.)

Bertrand de Molleville relates in his Memoirs that the King and Queen accepted the Constitution in a very different spirit. The King said to him, "I should have liked to introduce some modifications into the Constitution, but it is now too late; I have accepted it as it is, I have sworn to maintain it. I must keep my engagement; and the more so as I think the exact execution of the Constitution is the surest method of convincing the nation that some changes are required in it. I have no other plan than this, and I shall certainly not deviate from it.' The Queen added to the same Minister, The King has acquainted you with his intentions relative to the Constitution; do you not think that the only plan to pursue is to be faithful to his oath ? Certainly, your Majesty,' replied Bertrand. 'Well,' said the Queen, be sure they will not make us depart from it.' This version of the policy of the Court in September 1791 has been adopted by Thiers and other historians. The letter just quoted demonstrates the insincerity of these assurances, and that the hopes of the Queen were entirely fixed on the intervention of foreign Powers, with a paramount force, to put down the Revolution. Yet that was the most fatal error the Court could then commit; for, as Brissot declared in his Journal two years afterwards, Without the war there would have been no 10th August; without the 10th August there would have been no Republic.'

เ

But even the simulated confidence of the King in the Constitution was of short duration. He was grossly insulted on his first appearance in the Assembly by an attempt to refuse him the titles of Sire and Your Majesty; and when he 'vetoed' the law against the Emigrés, in November 1791, that act occasioned a definitive rupture.

When Marie Antoinette was brought to her trial, the first question put to the jury was this: Is it proved that manoeuvres and intelligences with foreign Powers and other external enemies of the Republic have existed, tending to aid and abet their designs? and is Marie Antoinette of Austria convicted of having participated in these manœuvres and intelligences?' This was the crime punishable by death under the article of the Penal Code which Fouqu'er applied to her. The trial of the Queen was no doubt a mockery of justice.

She was

charges, irrelevant to the main issue. No real evidence on the main charge of high treason was adduced against her. But if the letters and papers contained in these volumes had been in the hands of her judges, as they are in the hands of posterity, it is impossible even for those who are most deeply affected by her melancholy fate, to deny that the Queen had actively engaged in the foreign intelligences ascribed to her; that she had used her influence and her resources abroad to arm Europe against France; and that when apparent concessions were made to the new Constitution of the French Monarchy, the Queen never relinquished her uncompromising hostility to the Revolution. She was,' to bornaux,*afflicted by the most cruel perrow the language of M. Mortimer Terplexities, but these perplexities were not those of the King. Louis XVI. knew whether he ought or ought not to be a con not stitutional king. Marie Antoinette knew that she chose he should never be one Hesitating as to the means she should employ, but never as to her object, she had no fixed system of conduct; she was firm only in repugnance and resentment. She dreaded whatever aid came from the interior, because an account must one day be rendered to those who afforded it. She turned her eyes to the armies of the Coalition, without having formed a clear conception of what she needed or what she desired.'

This sentence may seem severe, but it is that of a writer thoroughly versed in the history of the Revolution, full of respect for the Queen's character and of compassion for her unmerited sufferings. And, in our judgment, it is confirmed to demonstration by the voluminous letters extracted by M. Feuillet de Conches from the Austrian Archives and by many of the documents in his own possession. From similar sources he has exposed to the light of day the restless intrigues of the émigrés, more especially of the Comte d'Artois and Calonne; the crafty and insincere expedients by which the Emperor Leopold kept alive the expectations of the Court of France without taking any serious engagement; the impetuous but abortive zeal with which Gustavus III. of Sweden was ready to advance, like a knight of old, to the rescue of the Queen; and the artifices by which Catherine of Russia sought to turn the confusion of Europe and the downfall of the French Monarchy to her own advantage. These

Histoire de la Terreur, vol. i. p. 20.

the Court of France in its relations with the popular party. On these questions M. Feuillet de Conches has rendered services to the secret history of the revolutionary period which are only equalled by the publication of the correspondence of the Comte de la Marck, given to the world in 1851 by

materials are of the highest interest, and which has just been shown to me, and which they exhibit the honesty and sagacity of appears to me very little calculated to explain what was termed the Coalition in a light or excuse anything. This man is a volcano not more creditable to the sovereigns of who would set fire to an empire: are we to reEurope than the honesty and sagacity of on him then to extinguish the conflagration that consumes us? He will have much to do to regain our confidence. At bottom, the King himself felt how important it is to resist the encroachments of the Assembly, which aims at nothing less than the subversion of the royal authority: but how can we ir duce him to take advice from those who are bursting into is always good, and I am urging the Archfresh excesses? However, a good counsel bishop (Brienne) to speak. Lam. defends Mir., and maintains that though he has occasional outbreaks, he is sincere in his wish to serve the Monarchy, and will repair this flight of his imagination, which did not come from his heart. But the King will not believe it. I saw yesterday he was very angry. Lam. says he doubts not that Mir. thought he was doing right in speaking thus, in order to deceive the Assembly, and gain credit with it in more momentous circumstances. Oh! God, if we have them. (Vol. i. p. 376.) committed faults, we have keenly expiated

M. de Bacourt.

We shall take leave of this part of the subject by citing two interesting letters from the Queen to her brother. The first relates to the negotiations which had been carried on through M. de la Marck between Mirabeau and the Court. It is well known that in order to conceal the game he was playing, that unscrupulous tribune made use of language of increased violence in the Assembly, at the very time he was advising Louis XVI. to countermine the oP position of that body to the existing Ministry; but this inconsistency had the effect of destroying the confidence of the King and Queen in the advice he was giving to them. The following letter relates to this subject:

ters.

'This 22nd October, 1790: St. Cloud. 'We are fallen back into chaos and all our distrust. M. [Mirabeau] had sent in some papers, warmly expressed but well argued, on the necessity of preventing the usurpations of the Assembly, and of resisting its pretensions to interfere in the nomination of MinisHe has proposed several names, and the King was disposed to examine the question, when, apropos of some disturbances which have occurred in the fleet, he delivered a violent demagogical speech, such as to terrify all Here then all our hopes in this quarter are again overthrown: the King is indignant and I in despair. He has written to one of his friends [M. de la Marck] in whom I have great confidence, and who is a most trustworthy gentleman, a letter of explanation

honest men.*

*The entire history of this transactions may be found in the correspondence of Count de la Marck with Mirabeau, vol. ii. p. 251. On the 16th October Mirabeau advised the King to anticipate the vote of want of confidence threatened by the Assembly by dismissing his own Ministers and having a Cabinet taken from the advanced leaders of the Revolutionary party. The King hesitated. On the 18th Mirabeau suspected that the Court was acting under the counsels of a foolish person named Bergasse, whose advice was directly opposed to his own. Irritated by this sign of distrust, he attacked the Court in the Assembly with great bitterness on the 21st, and proposed the substitution of the

tricolour flag in the navy for the old drapeau blanc. It is to this circumstance the Queen refers in her

letter.

The last letter of the Queen for which we can find room is also addressed to her bro

ther. M. Feuillet de Conches prints it from the draft in the Queen's handwriting in his own collection. It is extremely touching and characteristic:

'This 27th December, 1790. ful. I feel it, I see it, and your letter has divin'Yes, my dear brother, our situation is dreaded every thing. Human nature is very wicked and perverse, and yet this nation-I have singular proofs of it—is not bad at heart. Their fault is that they are too impulsive. They have generous movements, which do not stay: they are inflamed like children, and once excited they are led to commit every crime, though they may repent of them afterwards in tears of blood. What is the use when the evil is done? You remind me that I had looked forward to the Etats Généraux as a source of trouble and the hope of the factious-but since then, what ground we have lost! I am daily outraged by insults and threats. On the death of my poor Dauphin [the Queen's eldest boy died in June 1790,] the nation seemed totally unconscious of the event. From that day, the people are mad, and I am in constant terror. After having undergone the horrors of the 5th and 6th October, anything may be expected. Assassination is at our doors. I cannot show myself at a window, even with my children, without being insulted by a drunken mob, to whom I have done no harm, and amongst whom there are doubtless unfortunates whom I have myself relieved. I am prepared for any event, and I can now, unmoved, hear them crying for my head. My anxieties are increased, my dear

brother, by the state of your health: I cannot the admiration inspired by her virtues, these tell you how much I was affected by the long letters exhibit her character from an entireletter you wrote me from your bed of sickness. ly new and unexpected point of view. I acknowledge your tenderness and I thank Far from being the resigned and half-celesyon with all my heart; but forgive me, I en- tial creature who sacrificed herself to the treat you, if I still refuse your advice to leave: tenderness of her affections and the ardour remember that I am not my own mistress; my duty is to remain where Providence has placed of her faith, Madame Elisabeth was of all me, and to oppose my own body, if need be, to the Royal Family of France the most rethe daggers of the assassins who would attack markable for the extreme vivacity of her the King. I should be unworthy of our mother, disposition, for her brilliant humour, for her who is as dear to you as to myself, if danger high spirits and enjoyment of life, and for a could induce me to fly far away from the King proud sense of what was once her own and from my children.' (Vol. ii. p. 402.) great position. Born a Princess and a child of France, she exulted in the pleasures she possessed and the pleasures she could confer on others. To her tastes, her habits, and her ardent convictions, the Revolution, with its brutality and its irreligion, was abominable. From the first day when the storm broke on the marble galleries of Versailles, she retained no illusions, she advocated no concessions. Her courageous heart would have found it easier to break in a bold resistance, than to temporise and exhaust the slow torments of lingering destruction.

Before we take leave of these interesting collections, one class of letters remains to be noticed, which are, from their singular freshness, vivacity, and originality, the most captivating of all. We mean the copious correspondence of Madame Elisabeth, the King's sister, with her two ladies-in-waiting and confidential friends, Madame de Bombelles and Madame de Raigecourt. The authenticity of these letters cannot be questioned, for they proceed directly from the custody of the representatives of the ladies to whom they were addressed. The three sons of Madame de Bombelles entered the Austrian service, and the youngest of them (who had possession of his mother's letters) became the third and last husband of the Empress Marie Louise. Through Countess de Flahault, when Ambassadress of France at Vienna, these letters were communicated to the present editor, and they have since been collated with another copy of them belonging to the Marquis de Castéja, who married Madame de Bombelles' daughter in 1819. Some of the letters of the Princess to her other friend, Madame de Raigecourt, had already been inaccurately given to the world by M. Ferraud; but they have now been revised and published in their integrity by M. Feuillet de Conches from the original documents in the possession of the present Marquis de Raigecourt. We are thus particular in explaining the history of these papers because they are wholly exempt from the suspicions which have been thrown on some other parts of the collection; and it would be desirable to obtain an equally elear and explicit account of every paper to which a great name has been affixed.

No character in modern history lives in a purer light than that of Madame Elisabeth. She shared the sufferings of her brother; she refused to forsake him when she might have left France; she was of all the victims of the Revolution the purest and the most innocent. But without at all diminishing

Yet that was the fate to which she was doomed by the fault of others, rather than by her own; and with a complete knowledge of the extent of that hopeless sacrifice, undeceiving and undeceived, she made it, not only without a murmur, but with a gaiety and gallantry of heart, tempered only by her profound faith in the justice of God and the truth of His religion. She met those perils - she describes those scenes of horror- with a light and unshrinking touch. Even when you trace in the animated irregularity of her style the flutter of the keenest emotion, half-concealed from the friends she was addressing, she shows not a sign of fear; and she allows nothing to check the natural flow of her spirits, except the consciousness of her own imperfections, measured by the standard of divine endurance and divine purity. Yet, with these elevated thoughts and motives ever present to her mind, she is not a whit the less a woman of the world, eagerly sharing in every pursuit and enjoyment and passion of the hour, and owning that it costs her more to relinquish her horses, her gardens, her dairy, and her freedom, than she cares to admit. This strong infusion of youthful gaiety and active tastes, mingled with the fervour of her religious sentiments, gives a new aspect to the character of Elisabeth; but it only renders her more attractive and more original.

We can hardly hope to preserve in a foreign language the peculiar playfulness of her style in these letters, but the following