The French Revolution eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,095 pages of information about The French Revolution.

The French Revolution eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,095 pages of information about The French Revolution.

On which same day, two notable Female Prisoners are also put in ward there:  Dame Dubarry and Josephine Beauharnais!  Dame whilom Countess Dubarry, Unfortunate-female, had returned from London; they snatched her, not only as Ex-harlot of a whilom Majesty, and therefore suspect; but as having ‘furnished the Emigrants with money.’  Contemporaneously with whom, there comes the wife of Beauharnais, soon to be the widow:  she that is Josephine Tascher Beauharnais; that shall be Josephine Empress Buonaparte, for a black Divineress of the Tropics prophesied long since that she should be a Queen and more.  Likewise, in the same hours, poor Adam Lux, nigh turned in the head, who, according to Foster, ‘has taken no food these three weeks,’ marches to the Guillotine for his Pamphlet on Charlotte Corday:  he ‘sprang to the scaffold;’ said he ‘died for her with great joy.’  Amid such fellow-travellers does Philippe arrive.  For, be the month named Brumaire year 2 of Liberty, or November year 1793 of Slavery, the Guillotine goes always, Guillotine va toujours.

Enough, Philippe’s indictment is soon drawn, his jury soon convinced.  He finds himself made guilty of Royalism, Conspiracy and much else; nay, it is a guilt in him that he voted Louis’s Death, though he answers, “I voted in my soul and conscience.”  The doom he finds is death forthwith; this present sixth dim day of November is the last day that Philippe is to see.  Philippe, says Montgaillard, thereupon called for breakfast:  sufficiency of ’oysters, two cutlets, best part of an excellent bottle of claret;’ and consumed the same with apparent relish.  A Revolutionary Judge, or some official Convention Emissary, then arrived, to signify that he might still do the State some service by revealing the truth about a plot or two.  Philippe answered that, on him, in the pass things had come to, the State had, he thought, small claim; that nevertheless, in the interest of Liberty, he, having still some leisure on his hands, was willing, were a reasonable question asked him, to give reasonable answer.  And so, says Montgaillard, he lent his elbow on the mantel-piece, and conversed in an under-tone, with great seeming composure; till the leisure was done, or the Emissary went his ways.

At the door of the Conciergerie, Philippe’s attitude was erect and easy, almost commanding.  It is five years, all but a few days, since Philippe, within these same stone walls, stood up with an air of graciosity, and asked King Louis, “Whether it was a Royal Session, then, or a Bed of Justice?” O Heaven!—­Three poor blackguards were to ride and die with him:  some say, they objected to such company, and had to be flung in, neck and heels; (Foster, ii. 628; Montgaillard, iv. 141-57.) but it seems not true.  Objecting or not objecting, the gallows-vehicle gets under way.  Philippe’s dress is remarked for its elegance; greenfrock, waistcoat of white pique, yellow buckskins, boots clear as Warren:  his air, as before, entirely composed, impassive, not

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The French Revolution from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.