A History of France by John Julius Norwich

Author:John Julius Norwich [Norwich, John Julius]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802146700
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2018-10-02T16:00:00+00:00

At the Tuileries, the royal family found itself unpleasantly close to the National Assembly, which was meeting in the neighbouring riding school. It was now almost constantly in session, with a dangerous young lawyer from Arras named Maximilien Robespierre attracting considerable attention from the extreme left. The right was still dominated by Mirabeau who, a few days after the king’s arrival in Paris, drew up an advisory memorandum for him: he must immediately leave Paris for the provinces, which were far less extremist than the capital and would be sure to respond favourably to an appeal. He should not, on the other hand, cross the frontier: ‘a king, who is the only safeguard of his people, does not flee before them’. Finally, His Majesty must accept that the Revolution was here to stay; he must on no account be thought to be making a stand against it. ‘The inseparability of monarch and people is lodged in the heart of all Frenchmen.’ ‘Never, I think, shall we be in such a sorry state as to have to have recourse to Monsieur Mirabeau,’ was the queen’s first reaction; but she soon changed her tune. Mirabeau himself had only six months to live, but before he died he remarked: ‘The King has only one man, and that is his wife.’

Meanwhile, astonishingly, upper-class life in Paris was continuing as heedless and frivolous as ever. The political and literary salons went on as they always had, the cafés were as crowded as ever they had been. The Revolution, to be sure, had changed things a little: the theatres no longer played Molière (too aristocratic) or Beaumarchais (whose Marriage of Figaro was considered to be ‘dangerously reminiscent of anti-social distinctions’). Fashion, too, reflected the troubled times; women wore liberty hats and constitution jewellery, while the primary colours of the tricolour were everywhere in evidence. On 20 June, at the urging of some members of the nobility, the Assembly abolished all titles, armorial bearings and orders of knighthood as symbols of the ancien régime. But spirits remained high; even the king seemed to be growing once again in confidence, and was occasionally cheered in the streets.

The first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1790, saw a nationwide celebration, when thousands of National Guardsmen and soldiers from across the country converged on Paris for what was called the Fête de la Fédération. When the great day came the rain poured down, but at least it was warm and nobody seemed to mind much. The ceremony began with a Mass, celebrated by the Bishop of Autun, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, of whom we shall be hearing a good deal more before our story is told; next the Te Deum was sung, accompanied by 1,200 musicians; then a seemingly interminable number of high officials lined up to swear an oath to be true to the nation, the law and the king. Finally Louis himself rose to his feet. ‘I, Louis, King of the French’, he declared, ‘solemnly

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