We continue to find out how the fomented revolution causes misery and upheaval in the life of the people who don’t really understand why these things are happening to them. We need to recognize the many parallels between what was done to Hortense and her world in the 1700s and what is being done to us today.
It was during this period that orders were given for a patriotic banquet to be held simultaneously all over Paris. On this solemn occasion tables were to be spread in the street, and masters and servants, men, women and children, were to eat side by side regardless of rank. To evade the law was to risk being arrested. In order to make it impossible to disobey this decree everyone had been obliged to inscribe his name on a placard affixed to the main entrance of the house where he lived.
It happened that the mansion in which we were staying was nearly deserted. My mother was in prison, and the same fate had befallen an American (West Indian) family who were friends of hers and who also lived there. Our man servant, our chambermaid, the porter and his wife, my brother and I played the landlords on this occasion.
My governess, who claimed to belong to the old family of De Lannoy of Flanders, was furious at the idea of being obliged to sit beside the servants and the porter. She, who had been brought up at the Convent of Saint Cloud, who on two occasions had caught a glimpse of the Queen, could not admit such a state of social chaos. Once more, she assured us, "A thing like that would not have been allowed under the old regime."
Like any other children of our age, we were delighted to see our governess humiliated. Moreover, in spite of our youth, both my brother and myself were aware that her ridiculous pretensions might do harm to the cause of our parents. The table was laid outside the entrance of the house, and we were about to sit down to our meal when we were startled by the cries of some passersby who addressed us by the terrifying epithet of aristocrats.
It seems we were at fault in not placing the table in the middle of the roadway. We hastened to correct this error. The weather was fine. The lights set on the tables, the crowds in the streets, some eating, some strolling about out of curiosity, formed a curious scene. In order to have made it still more brilliant the windows of the houses should have been illuminated, because in the purely residential districts where there were no shops the streets were too dark.
After supper we asked Mademoiselle de Lannoy to take us through some of the other parts of the city that were more crowded and consequently livelier than the neighborhood where we lived (close to the junction of the Boulevard Saint Germain and the rue Saint-Dominique). In the business section the tables were lined up one after the other. Some of them were decorated with a roof of green boughs. The whole effect was attractive.
Nevertheless, general gaiety was lacking. Every face wore an expression of uneasiness. Vagabonds in rags wandered about the city drinking and shouting revolutionary songs. They carried terror to the hearts of the peaceable middle class, who were still further alarmed by their bellicose manner. Only in the poorer quarters was any trace of natural high spirits or spontaneous merrymaking to be found.
As we passed, a shoemaker clad in his working clothes rose from his table, came up beside our governess and embraced her. You may be sure she lost no time in taking us back to the house, announcing as she did so, "A thing like that would never have been allowed under the old regime."
My brother as he witnessed the discomfiture of Mademoiselle de Lannoy glanced at me maliciously, because the good woman was extremely plain. Eugene claimed the shoemaker's action was prompted simply by a desire to correct mademoiselle's haughtiness of bearing. I said, "I'm very glad to be only a little girl for that horrid man might have tried to kiss me too."
“I would not have allowed him to," answered Eugene, drawing himself up with the full dignity of his twelve years. I can still remember some of the other festivities of this period.
They were planned on a grand scale and were frequently imposing, but in later years I have found the working classes enjoying their pleasures more genuinely than they did during the period of which I am now writing. Although the power wielded by the crowd was very great, it was accompanied by a sense of responsibility and a feeling of uneasiness.
Poverty was widespread. The intoxication of the days of the Federation had been replaced by a feeling of alarm and of terror, which ran through all the strata of society. Even those who used fear as a weapon were its victims and frequently were cruel only because they themselves were afraid.
One day, I was returning to the rue Saint Dominique after paying a visit to the Princess de Hohenzollern. Her youngest chambermaid was with me, my brother having stayed home to study.
As we turned a corner, we caught sight of a crowd of men advancing toward us to the sounds of loud music. People in the street sought refuge wherever they could. As the crowd approached, doors and windows closed precipitately. Not even the porters put their heads out of the gate to see what was happening.
The maid and I were frightened to find ourselves thus absolutely alone in the street. We dared neither advance nor retreat, but huddled under the overhanging porch of a monumental gateway. I never found out where the mob was going. I can only remember seeing a throng of men with bare arms, singing the revolutionary Ça ira and the Marseillaise, go past me carrying a Statue of Liberty.
I was still very young but their wild behavior, even. though I did not know its significance, frightened me extremely. I grew more terrified when I saw the mob stop in front of a house directly across the street from where we were. To the accompaniment of savage curses the crowd attempted to break in the doorway and scale the walls. As they did so they accused the owners of the house of being aristocrats and threatened to hang them from the lamp post.
The cause of this outburst was that in passing they had caught sight of a carving of the Virgin on the front of the house. Ladders were quickly obtained from somewhere or other, and the crowd with swords hacked and mutilated the carving. Such behavior profoundly disturbed my religious beliefs.
My terror was replaced by a feeling of commiseration for the unfortunate beings who by committing such an act had incurred the dire penalties that Providence would certainly inflict. My pious imagination pictured these chastisements in detail, and I pitied those upon whom they were about to fall. Finally, the mob continued on its way, but instead of going to meet my brother I returned to the house of the Princess de Hohenzollern and told her what I had just seen. The Princess scolded me for having gone out with the youngest chambermaid for it was always the eldest one who was supposed to take me home.
There was a Revolutionary guard stationed at the Princess's house. She had under her care her nephew the Prince of Salm and a young English girl whom she was bringing up. The four of us were too young to understand the events that were going on about us, and we used to laugh and play on the terrace of Salm palace [at present the Chancellerie of the Legion d'Honneur, Quai d'Orsay - Translator] with all the unconcern of youth.
Yet, daily at a certain hour, when we caught sight in the distance of crowds gathering on the Place Louis XV around a structure, we knew to be a scaffold we would hang our heads, look away and reenter the house heavy at heart.
Nor could we restrain the flood of tears when we thought of the unfortunates whose last hour had come. Little did we imagine, however, that our parents might someday suffer the same fate. Convinced of their innocence we waited impatiently the moment of their release.
It was during this period that the Princess de Hohenzollern suffered a loss which further increased her fears for the safety of those who were especially dear to us. She had offered the hospitality of the Salm mansion to a young Polish woman, the Princess Lubomirska, twenty-five years of age and very beautiful. Acting with the thoughtlessness that characterizes youth, the latter had, presumably, made remarks criticizing the government then in power. She was arrested and immediately executed.
