Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume I. Вальтер СкоттЧитать онлайн книгу.

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105

One of the most accredited calumnies against the unfortunate Marie Antoinette pretends, that she was on this occasion surprised in the arms of a paramour. Buonaparte is said to have mentioned this as a fact, upon the authority of Madame Campan. [O'Meara's Napoleon in Exile, vol. ii., p. 172.] We have now Madame Campan's own account, [Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 78.] describing the conduct of the Queen on this dreadful occasion as that of a heroine, and totally excluding the possibility of the pretended anecdote. But let it be farther considered, under what circumstances the Queen was placed – at two in the morning, retired to a privacy liable to be interrupted (as it was) not only by the irruption of the furious banditti who surrounded the palace, demanding her life, but by the entrance of the King, or of others, in whom circumstances might have rendered the intrusion duty; and let it then be judged, whether the dangers of the moment, and the risk of discovery, would not have prevented Messalina herself from choosing such a time for an assignation. – S.

106

The miscreant's real name was Jourdan, afterwards called Coupe-Tête, distinguished in the massacres of Avignon. He gained his bread by sitting as an academy-model to painters, and for that reason cultivated his long beard. In the depositions before the Chatelet, he is called L'Homme à la barbe– an epithet which might distinguish the ogre or goblin of some ancient legend. – S.

107

Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 238.

108

Thiers, tom. i., p. 182; Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 241.

109

Rivarol, p. 312; Campan, vol. ii., p. 81.

110

Mémoires de Weber, vol. ii., p. 457. – S.

111

"The Queen, on returning from the balcony, approached my mother, and said to her, with stifled sobs, 'They are going to force the King and me to Paris, with the heads of our body-guards carried before us, on the point of their pikes.' Her prediction was accomplished." – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 344.

112

It has been said that they were borne immediately before the royal carriage; but this is an exaggeration where exaggeration is unnecessary. These bloody trophies preceded the royal family a great way on the march to Paris. – S.

113

"Nous ne manquerons plus de pain; nous amenons le boulanger, la boulangère, et le petit mitron!" – Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 244.

114

Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 243.

115

"The King said to the mayor, 'I come with pleasure to my good city of Paris;' the Queen added, 'and with confidence.' The expression was happy, but the event, alas! did not justify it." – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 344.

116

The Mayor of Paris, although such language must have sounded like the most bitter irony, had no choice of words on the 6th October, 1789. But if he seriously termed that "a glorious day," what could Bailli complain of the studied insults and cruelties which he himself sustained, when, in Oct. 1792, the same banditti of Paris, who forced the King from Versailles, dragged himself to death, with every circumstance of refined cruelty and protracted insult? – S. – It was not on the 6th October, but the 17th July, three days after the capture of the Bastile, that Bailli, on presenting Louis with the keys of Paris, made use of this expression. – See Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 203.

117

"As the arrival of the royal family was unexpected, very few apartments were in a habitable state, and the Queen had been obliged to get tent-beds put up for her children in the very room where she received us; she apologized for it, and added, 'You know that I did not expect to come here.' Her physiognomy was beautiful, but irritated; it was not to be forgotten after having been seen." – M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 345.

118

Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 265.

119

"On being informed of the King's determination to quit Versailles for Paris, the Assembly hastily passed a resolution, that it was inseparable from the King, and would accompany him to the capital." – Thiers, tom. i., p. 182.