Sales catalogue 506: Maggs Bros

Date:
1928
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/64
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 506: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    363/374 page 279
    853 HIS IMPRISONMENT IN THE TEMPLE. BORIS Vi AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. | MATHIEU (c.). Member of the General Council of the Com- mune of Paris. Had charge of Louis XVI in the Temple. Autograph Memorandum Signed by Mathieu concerning the King, and addressed to M. Malafait, solicitor. 2 Pp., small. ato.” 702.) £42 Of great French historical interest, giving an account of the writer’s guard over Louis XVI and the Royal Family in the Temple from August 29th to September 2nd, 1792. Louis is described as sleeping soundly and eating well, and the whole family as being very cheerful, Particulars concerning the arrest of the King’s valet-de-chambre for singing ‘‘6 Richard, 6 mon Roi,’’ are related and a conversa- tion between Mathieu and the King, in which the latter says, ‘‘I have done what I could for the people,’’ is recorded. (Trans.): — ‘‘On Thursday, 29th September, 1792 [29th August] I was appointed by the General Council of the Commune to go and keep guard over the King and Queen at the Temple, accompanied by Dr. Michonis. I arrived at 11 o’clock in the evening. ‘‘ The King was sleeping soundly, also the family. The next day, the 30th, the King woke at 8 o’clock. Sr. Cléry, his valet-de-chambre, came to dress him, and afterwards he went down to the Queen who was already up as well as the children and Mde. Elizabeth. At ten o’clock they went to breakfast. The King ate with a very good appetite. : ‘Tn spite of their sad position the illustrious prisoners were very cheerful, they used to sing in chorus. On Sunday, 2nd September, I was relieved at mid-day and I went to give a report of my guard to the Commune. A member named Hébert accused Cléry of singing ‘6 Richard, 6 mon Roi.’ I was questioned about this and maintained that Cléry had been wrongfully accused. That did not prevent the Com- mune from ordering his arrest, with which I was charged. ‘That day the tocsin was sounded and the general alarm beat. The entry of the Prussians into France was the cause of this. In the evening I went to the Temple to put the warrant against Cléry into execution. He was informed of the warrant issued against him, which irritated me. When I gave the warrant to the King to read, ha read it with the utmost calm, but when he came to the arrest of his valet-de-chambre, he made a gesture of indignation. “Then I said to him, ‘Monsieur, you have been the dupe of your wife and ministers. They have dug a pit beneath your feet and you have fallen into it. I hope I am mistaken, but I fear death or perpetual imprisonment both for you and your family.’ He replied, ‘ Bah! Bah! I have done all I could for the people.’ My answer was ‘It was by butchering them then. A loyal nation pardoned your flight from Varennes and your perjuries against the Constitution, but it will not pardon you the 18th of August, when more than five thousand men were massacred by your orders. You hear the alarm gun, the tocsin sound, and the general alarm beat, do not think it is to deliver you. It is to join together, against the enemies who are defiling French territory, perhaps by your orders. . .’ and immediately I made the valet-de-chambre get into the carriage to take him to the Abbaye, but reflecting on the way that to me he did not seem guilty of what he was accused of, I changed the route and took him to the Commune, where he was examined that very night and acquitted. I point out that I did not know of the massacre of the prisons, and that this man, except for the change of route, would have been murdered in my sight, unless I had been able to defend him. He owes his life to me.”
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