Part 29 (2/2)
said the n.o.ble Queen. ”Let us all retire to St. Cloud. There may be dictated terms of honorable capitulation. There--”
At that instant in rushed a man breathless, bearing a sheet of paper in his hand, and exclaiming:
”Sire--Sire--your troops are delivering their arms to the people! In a moment they will stand where you now stand! Sign this paper, or your life and the lives of all your family will be sacrificed!”
That man was emile de Girardin, the editor of ”La Presse,” and the murderer of Armand Carrel, and that paper was an act of abdication.
”Ah! this is a bitter cup,” said the old King as he placed his signature to the sheet, ”and doubly bitter presented by such a hand! Like Charles X.!”
At one o'clock, at the Bourse and at the corners of all the princ.i.p.al streets, was posted this proclamation:
”CITIZENS OF PARIS: The King has abdicated in favor of the Count of Paris, with the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans as Regent.
A General Amnesty.
Dissolution of the Chamber.
Appeal to the Country.”
But the people were now in the midst of the a.s.sault on the Palais Royal, and to check them was impossible.
The Palais Royal consisted of two portions--the Chateau d'Eau, or palace, and the other part, which though the property of the Orleans family was yet rented by private persons, and was occupied for cafes, shops, dwellings and places of entertainment--adorned by colonnades and arcades, and by trees, statues and fountains in the magnificent quadrangle. The property of the citizens was respected--that of the King only was a.s.sailed. For two hours did the 14th Regiment pour forth its fire from the numerous windows of that edifice and from the court below. At length, a band of bold Republicans, headed by the chivalric etienne Arago, musket in hand, charged from the side of the Cafe de la Regence, followed by a detachment of the National Guard, and, driving the troops into the building, surrounded it with straw which they set on fire. The vast edifice was instantly filled with smoke and flame. The defence ceased. The soldiers rushed out and were instantly slain. The commander of the detachment was pierced by a bayonet. The mult.i.tude rushed in, and the building was sacked. The richest and most costly furniture and decorations were at once torn down, dashed to pieces and thrown from the windows by the infuriated populace.
Within the Palace of the Tuileries is a subterranean pa.s.sage, constructed for the infant King of Rome and his nurses, which, plunging beneath the pavements, and pa.s.sing along the whole length of the gardens, under the terrace beside the river bank, suddenly emerges at the gate of the Place du Carrousel, in front of the obelisk. Into this pa.s.sage, in wild panic, descended the King and Queen of France, with all their children and grandchildren, immediately upon the signing of the abdication, and just as the doors were about to be forced. Emerging from the pa.s.sage, the King, leaning on the arm of his faithful wife, Marie Amelie, and followed by the Royal party, crossed the Place de la Concorde as far as the asphalt pavement. The Royal party now consisted of the King and Queen, the d.u.c.h.ess of Nemours and her children, the Princess Clementine and her husband, the Duke Augustus of Saxe-Coburg, and the Duke of Montpensier with his young and lovely Spanish bride, now enceinte and far advanced. Ignorant of the language, only sixteen years of age, a stranger to the customs and people of the country, and in her delicate situation, the position of this young creature was peculiarly trying. At one moment she clung with terror to her young husband's arm, which she refused for an instant to resign, and the next laughed at her own terror, saying that one who in her infancy had twice, in Madrid, been saved by being carried off in a sack ought not now to fear when she had feet to carry herself away and was suffered to use them! It is said that the fair Senora was forgotten in the hurry of the flight and almost left behind!
As soon as the Royal party were perceived, they were surrounded by a troop of National Guards as an escort, and a large number of officers of the Line in various uniforms. The King leaned on the Queen, as if for support, while she boldly advanced with a firm step and stern look. Both were in deepest mourning for the recent death of the beloved sister of the King, the Princess Adelaide.
Upon this melancholy procession the people gazed with mingled curiosity, amus.e.m.e.nt, gratification and regret.
”They are going to the Chamber of Deputies to complete the abdication!”
cries one.
”Vive la Reforme!” shouts another.
”Vive la France!” shouts a second.
”Vive le Roi!” in suppressed tones falters a third.
”See the poor young d.u.c.h.ess!” cried a woman, who was availing herself of her peculiar rotundity as a battering-ram to force her way through the crowd.
”She had better have remained at home!” sneered a Dynastic bitterly.
”The poor little children!” exclaimed a young woman more remarkable for prettiness than neatness, and more remarkable still for the scantiness of her attire, nearly all of which had been torn from her rounded shoulders in the throng.
The spirit which pervaded the ma.s.s was, evidently, by no means unfriendly to the Royal family, and it was as evidently misunderstood by them, for, suddenly, as if by fatality, on the very spot where Louis XVI. was beheaded, just beyond the Pont Tournant, on the pavement of the Obelisk of Luxor, the whole party, with no apparent necessity, came to a dead and complete halt. Instantly the mult.i.tude was crowded upon them, and this augmented their terror. The King dropped the Queen's arm and hastily raising his hat cried, ”Vive la Reforme!” All was in a moment uproar and confusion. The Queen in terror at finding her husband's arm was gone turned hurriedly on every side.
”Fear not, Madame,” said a mild voice beside her. ”The people will do you no harm.”
This was M. Maurice, editor of ”Le Courrier des Spectacles.”
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