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Last Days of Marie Antoinette & Louis the 16th
A reconstruction of the last days of the royal pair and the fates of their children.
- GenresFrench Revolution
254 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 10, 2017
It's said Napoleon lost his naivete on August 10, 1792.
He's twenty-three. His first battle of note, Toulon, has yet to take place. He's in Paris on that day, and witnessing the storming of the Tuileries. While he plays no part in the melee, he is afforded a ringside seat to what the Revolutionary mob is capable of when whipped into a frenzy. And it's a lesson he never forgets. Those images go a long way toward coloring his view of the people who were to become his Empire's native constituency and this, in turn, informs the manner of his rule. He never took the French lightly. You might say he kept his head.
The Bastille had fallen. The royal family had already attempted to flee, making it as far as Varennes only to be caught and forced to return in disgrace. The King's powers were forfeit; he existed now merely as a figurehead with a marginally effective veto. You couldn't tell this to the mob, though. The mob wasn't listening. They didn't want to hear the monarchy had been neutralized. They wanted proof of its ruin, to watch it happen and even more; they insisted on taking part.
The royals had been cowering in the palace for days. The summer'd been hot, the violence simmering. Word on the street had it the Revolutionary Commune (Terrorism Central) was sending troops. The city's municipal leaders, not all that fond of the King but aware the mood of the populace was at a flashpoint, dispatched 2400 National Guardsmen and 1000 mounted policemen to bolster the 900 Swiss Guard who were protecting the Tuileries. However, when the mob advanced through the streets with their pikes and their muskets and their cannon, then turned to train their rage on the palace, three-quarters of those Guardsmen deserted to join the insurrectionists.
The Attorney General advised the royals to take refuge within the Assembly (the legislative arm of the revolutionary government), and the family was marched over under guard. Jostling occurred, imprecations, surging; the Queen's watch and purse were stolen. They made it through, though, and were granted asylum among these calmer, but no less antagonistic, men. The Swiss, abandoned to the duty of protecting the palace, were now, of course, completely screwed.
Few in this angry mob of two thousand were aware the royals had been spirited away and imagined this wall of solid Swiss Guard was all that stood between them and their quarry. The soldiers were threatened and taunted; five were hooked by pikes and dragged into the courtyard. They surrendered and relinquished their weapons, only to be summarily butchered. The Swiss batteries fired, mowing down the mob's front line, and managed to clear the courtyard. A tense stand-off ensued.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a contingent of Commune members burst into the Assembly to announce that loyal revolutionary patriots were being fired upon by the forces of the palace. Everyone turned an accusatory eye toward the King - who, it should be mentioned, was not particularly adept at this sort of confrontation. He caved immediately and wrote out an order for the Swiss to lay down their arms. The order was delivered. The Swiss thought: He's got to be kidding. A captain was dispatched to confirm the order. The King, trying his best to be kingly, announced: "I do not wish brave men to perish." The Swiss were to lay down their arms and retire to their barracks. Order confirmed...and re-delivered.
"The drums beat the retreat and the Swiss withdrew in two columns. As they retreated through the gardens, they were fired upon at point blank range by the National Guardsmen. They marched on as if on parade. One column proceeded to the barracks and the other turned toward the Assembly. On reaching its door the men stacked their arms. Count de Salis ran into the building waving his sword, expostulating the order to abandon the defense. At both places, in their own barracks and outside the Assembly, the disarmed Swiss were set upon by the mob. Two hundred Swiss had been killed already; another 400 were massacred and the remainder were imprisoned. The bodies of the dead were torn to pieces by the enraged citizens of Paris. Next day, John Moore saw their naked bodies lying on the ground, some lying singly, some in heaps, objects of curiosity to crowds of spectators."
This was only the beginning for the mob. The Tuileries was stormed, looted and burned. The hundreds of remaining royal retainers (cooks, maids, ushers, clerks, footmen, aged courtiers and retired military men) were brutally massacred - beaten, shot, stabbed, stripped and thrown from upper casement windows. (At least one of the kitchen staff was boiled.) Not having taken part in the rampage, and viewing it from some distance, the image left to Bonaparte - which remained with him to the end of his life - was the fate of the soldiers who'd defended the palace. "Never have any of my battlefields given the idea of so many dead as did those Swiss," he is said to have remarked.
Furneaux treats the storming of the Tuileries, the trials, the imprisonments and the executions of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in dramatic fashion. The book is filled with detail, anecdote and eyewitness testimony culled from many memoirs of the time. Outside of a truly deplorable first chapter (it's amazing to me how very many historians have difficulty setting the stage), the grist of this is intense and highly-readable. A fascinating account.
He's twenty-three. His first battle of note, Toulon, has yet to take place. He's in Paris on that day, and witnessing the storming of the Tuileries. While he plays no part in the melee, he is afforded a ringside seat to what the Revolutionary mob is capable of when whipped into a frenzy. And it's a lesson he never forgets. Those images go a long way toward coloring his view of the people who were to become his Empire's native constituency and this, in turn, informs the manner of his rule. He never took the French lightly. You might say he kept his head.
The Bastille had fallen. The royal family had already attempted to flee, making it as far as Varennes only to be caught and forced to return in disgrace. The King's powers were forfeit; he existed now merely as a figurehead with a marginally effective veto. You couldn't tell this to the mob, though. The mob wasn't listening. They didn't want to hear the monarchy had been neutralized. They wanted proof of its ruin, to watch it happen and even more; they insisted on taking part.
The royals had been cowering in the palace for days. The summer'd been hot, the violence simmering. Word on the street had it the Revolutionary Commune (Terrorism Central) was sending troops. The city's municipal leaders, not all that fond of the King but aware the mood of the populace was at a flashpoint, dispatched 2400 National Guardsmen and 1000 mounted policemen to bolster the 900 Swiss Guard who were protecting the Tuileries. However, when the mob advanced through the streets with their pikes and their muskets and their cannon, then turned to train their rage on the palace, three-quarters of those Guardsmen deserted to join the insurrectionists.
The Attorney General advised the royals to take refuge within the Assembly (the legislative arm of the revolutionary government), and the family was marched over under guard. Jostling occurred, imprecations, surging; the Queen's watch and purse were stolen. They made it through, though, and were granted asylum among these calmer, but no less antagonistic, men. The Swiss, abandoned to the duty of protecting the palace, were now, of course, completely screwed.
Few in this angry mob of two thousand were aware the royals had been spirited away and imagined this wall of solid Swiss Guard was all that stood between them and their quarry. The soldiers were threatened and taunted; five were hooked by pikes and dragged into the courtyard. They surrendered and relinquished their weapons, only to be summarily butchered. The Swiss batteries fired, mowing down the mob's front line, and managed to clear the courtyard. A tense stand-off ensued.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a contingent of Commune members burst into the Assembly to announce that loyal revolutionary patriots were being fired upon by the forces of the palace. Everyone turned an accusatory eye toward the King - who, it should be mentioned, was not particularly adept at this sort of confrontation. He caved immediately and wrote out an order for the Swiss to lay down their arms. The order was delivered. The Swiss thought: He's got to be kidding. A captain was dispatched to confirm the order. The King, trying his best to be kingly, announced: "I do not wish brave men to perish." The Swiss were to lay down their arms and retire to their barracks. Order confirmed...and re-delivered.
"The drums beat the retreat and the Swiss withdrew in two columns. As they retreated through the gardens, they were fired upon at point blank range by the National Guardsmen. They marched on as if on parade. One column proceeded to the barracks and the other turned toward the Assembly. On reaching its door the men stacked their arms. Count de Salis ran into the building waving his sword, expostulating the order to abandon the defense. At both places, in their own barracks and outside the Assembly, the disarmed Swiss were set upon by the mob. Two hundred Swiss had been killed already; another 400 were massacred and the remainder were imprisoned. The bodies of the dead were torn to pieces by the enraged citizens of Paris. Next day, John Moore saw their naked bodies lying on the ground, some lying singly, some in heaps, objects of curiosity to crowds of spectators."
This was only the beginning for the mob. The Tuileries was stormed, looted and burned. The hundreds of remaining royal retainers (cooks, maids, ushers, clerks, footmen, aged courtiers and retired military men) were brutally massacred - beaten, shot, stabbed, stripped and thrown from upper casement windows. (At least one of the kitchen staff was boiled.) Not having taken part in the rampage, and viewing it from some distance, the image left to Bonaparte - which remained with him to the end of his life - was the fate of the soldiers who'd defended the palace. "Never have any of my battlefields given the idea of so many dead as did those Swiss," he is said to have remarked.
Furneaux treats the storming of the Tuileries, the trials, the imprisonments and the executions of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in dramatic fashion. The book is filled with detail, anecdote and eyewitness testimony culled from many memoirs of the time. Outside of a truly deplorable first chapter (it's amazing to me how very many historians have difficulty setting the stage), the grist of this is intense and highly-readable. A fascinating account.
September 24, 2016
No spoilers here.. we all know the ending. Lots of detail....well documented.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews