In their lust for vengeance the excited crowd seized de Launay and dragged him towards the Hôtel de Ville, kicking him down until, unable to endure another moment, he screamed, ‘Let me die!’ As he lashed out, the crowd finished off their victim with hunting knives, swords and bayonets. Finally a cook named Désnot cut off his head with a pocket knife. The still dripping head was twisted onto a pike and paraded around the streets to the cheering crowd, described on a placard as ‘Governor of the Bastille, disloyal and treacherous enemy of the people’. For patriots, the fall of the Bastille created a wave of euphoria, and it would not be long before the prison was demolished entirely.
Faced with this new crisis, the king went to the National Assembly and effectively surrendered, promising to withdraw his troops from Paris. As the sense of desperation grew, many senior members of the Versailles court now fled. On the night of 16 July the king’s young brother, Artois, and the queen’s close friend, Gabrielle de Polignac, left the palace with their families. ‘Nothing could be more affecting than the parting of the queen and her friend,’ wrote Madame Campan. The queen ‘wished to go and embrace her once more’ after they had parted, but knowing that her movements were watched, was too frightened that she might give her friend away. The duchess ‘was disguised as a femme de chambre’, and instead of travelling in the waiting berline, stepped up in front with the coachman, like a servant.
After long discussions with his ministers, the king decided that the royal family would stay at Versailles. Madame Campan saw the queen tear up the papers ordering preparations for departure ‘with tears in her eyes’. She was in no doubt about the danger they faced. In the event of an attack on the palace, they might not even be able to count on the loyalty of the guard at Versailles to protect them. In a bold attempt to defuse the situation, Louis agreed to a request by the National Assembly to visit Paris. Marie-Antoinette begged him not to go. Locked in her rooms with her family, she sent for members of the court, only to find they had already fled. ‘Terror had driven them away,’ said Madame Campan; no one expected the king to return alive. ‘A deadly silence reigned throughout the palace.’
It was dark before the king returned. He had faced the crowd and was now wearing the red, white and blue cockade – soon to be the badge of the revolutionary – as he made his way back to his palace escorted by a citizens’ army. ‘Happily no blood has been shed,’ he told his family, ‘and I swear that never shall a drop of French blood be shed by my order.’
Only five days later Joseph Foulon, one of the ministers brought in to replace Necker, was recognised by the crowd and dragged to the Hôtel de Ville. ‘After tormenting him in a manner the particulars of which make humanity shudder,’ reported Campan, the people hanged him. ‘His body was dragged about the streets and his heart was carried – by women – in the midst of a bunch of white carnations!’ It had been rumoured that Foulon had said, ‘If the rogues haven’t any bread, they can have hay’. Now hay was stuffed in his mouth as his head was thrust on a pike and borne through the streets of Paris.
The terror in Paris ricocheted around the country in a wave of panic known as La Grande Peur. Angry mobs invaded the bastilles at Bordeaux and Caen; fighting broke out in the streets of Lyon, Rennes, Rouen and Saint Malo. With the harvest not yet in, the price of bread soared. Many feared that there was a plot to starve the people into submission. As the poor left their homes to scavenge for food it was widely believed that these vagrants were paid by the nobility to cause disruption and steal bread. Rumours were rife that the food shortages were exacerbated by the stockpiling of grain by the wealthy, including the royal family. As panic spread, peasants invaded the chateaux to exact bloody revenge on their masters.
At Versailles, the queen was increasingly concerned about the safety of her children. Following the departure of Gabrielle de Polignac, she chose as their governess the Marquise de Tourzel, a woman who combined ‘an illustrious ancestry with the most exemplary virtue’, according to the king. However, the marquise hesitated; she had children of her own and was under no illusion as to the ‘perils and responsibilities’ of the post. It was only the ‘spectacle of desertion’ by so many of their friends that persuaded her to accept.
On 24 July the queen wrote to the marquise with practical details of her new charges:
‘My son is two days short of being four years and four months old … His health has always been good, though even in his cradle we noticed that he was very nervous and upset by the slightest sudden noise … Because of delicate nerves he is always frightened by any noise to which he isn’t accustomed and for example, is afraid of dogs after hearing one bark near him.’
Despite these sensitivities, she portrays Louis-Charles as a good-natured child, ‘with no sense of conceit’ although he could, on occasion, be a little thoughtless. His greatest defect, wrote the queen, was his indiscretion: ‘he easily repeats what he has heard; and often without intending to lie, adds things according to his imagination. This is his greatest fault and must be corrected.’
‘My son has no idea of rank in his head and I would like that to continue: our children always find out soon enough who they are. He is very fond of his sister and has a good heart. Every time something makes him happy, a trip somewhere or a gift, his first impulse is to request the same for his sister. He was born cheerful; for his health he needs to be outside a great deal, and I think it is best for him to play and work on the terraces rather than have him go any further. The exercise taken by little children playing and running about in the open air is far healthier than making them go for long walks which often tire their backs.’
The queen instructed her new governess never to let him out of her sight. Finding the virtuous marquise stricter than her predecessor, it wasn’t long before the Dauphin dubbed her ‘Madame Sévère’.
During August 1789 the National Assembly moved quickly to destroy many of the pillars of the ancien régime, the previous or old order of France. On the night of the fourth, in a highly charged and emotional sitting, the nobles and clergy capitulated and agreed to relinquish all feudal privileges. All exemptions from taxation and a multitude of dues that peasants owed their landlords were abolished. It was the overthrow of feudalism. Over the next two weeks the National Assembly went further to try to establish equality throughout France in a ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’. In this declaration, ‘all men [were] born free and equal’ and every citizen had the right to decide what taxes should be imposed. It also set out a definition for fundamental human rights: freedom of speech, freedom from unlawful imprisonment, freedom of the press and religious liberty. The declaration was then given to the king at Versailles for his formal assent. He played for time and delayed approving the documents.
Feeling increasingly vulnerable at Versailles, in mid-September Louis summoned a thousand troops that he knew to be loyal from the northern frontier: the Flanders regiment. According to tradition, the king’s bodyguards held a celebratory dinner to welcome officers of the new regiment to Versailles. On 1 October a lavish banquet was prepared by the royal chef, and set up beneath the gold and blue canopies of the Opera House. ‘There were numerous orchestras in the room,’ says Madame Campan. ‘The rousing air, “O Richard! O mon roi” was played and shouts of “Vive le roi!” shook the roof for several minutes.’
The king and queen, who had not planned to attend, made an unexpected entrance with the Dauphin. Immediately the orchestra struck up. ‘People were intoxicated with joy,’ wrote Madame Campan. ‘On all sides were heard praises of Their Majesties, exclamations of affection, expressions of regret for what they had suffered, clapping of hands and shouts of “Vive le roi!” “Vive la reine!” “Vive le dauphin!”’