Saturdayof Messidor! he exclaimed, when ordering the Moniteur to be dated on a certain day. We shall be laughed at! But I will do away with the Messidor! I will efface all the inventions of the Jacobins! [109]
ONE:Trzia, therefore, found herself in one of the horrible prisons of that Revolution whose progress she had done everything in her power to assist. In the darkness and gloom of its dungeon she afterwards declared that the rats had bitten her feet.
THREE:In the Memoirs of Louis XVIII, he remarks, after the dismissal of Necker: A report was spread that the Queen and the Comte dArtois had given orders for a general massacre, to include the Duke of Orlans, M. Necker, and most of the members of the National Assembly. Sillery, Latouche, Laclos, Voidel, Ducrest, [123] Camille Desmoulin, and all those who came from the Duc dOrlans, were the first to spread these lies. [124]Madame Royale united all the virtues of her own sex with the energy of ours. She alone would have been able to reconquer our sceptre if, like her grandmother, Marie Thrse, she had had the command of an army....
It was all so terribly changed, she could hardly believe that this was indeed the Paris of her youth, the ancient capital of a great monarchy, the centre of magnificence, elegance, and refinement. The churches were mostly closed, if not in ruins; the statues of the saints were replaced by those of infidel philosophers; the names of the streets were changed into others, often commemorating some odious individual or theory or deed of the Revolution; as to the convents the very names of Jacobin, Cordeliers, and others were associated with horror and bloodshed. The words palais and h?tel having been forbidden by the Terrorists, maison ci-devant Conti, maison ci-devant Bourbon, &c., were written upon the once splendid dwellings of those who were now murdered, wandering in exile or, like herself, just returning to their ruined homes, with shattered fortunes and sorrowful hearts. Everywhere, on walls and buildings were inscribed [453] the mocking words libert, galit, fraternit, sometimes with the significant addition, ou la mort.And a lad of sixteen at the court of Louis XV. was very different from the average lad of that age in these days and this country, a shy, awkward schoolboy who knows nothing of the world or society, can only talk to other boys, and cares for nothing except sports and games. In the France, or at any rate the Paris, of those days, he was already a man and a courtier, probably a soldier, sometimes a husband and father. [50]The Comte de Provence did not emigrate so soon. He had been more inclined to liberal ideas and was less unpopular than the Comte dArtois. It was not until the time of the unfortunate attempt on the royal family that he also resolved to escape, and his plans, being well-arranged and properly carried out, succeeded perfectly.
