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Updated: June 1, 2025
The gun-shops were plundered, and the rabble armed themselves with whatever weapons they could lay their hands upon. The National Assembly decreed the formation of a national guard to quell disturbances, and placed Lafayette at the head of it. Besenval, who commanded the royal troops, was forced to withdraw from the capital.
However, at the time I speak of, the society around the Comtesse Jules was fully engaged in gratifying the young Queen. Of this the Marquis de Vaudreuil was a conspicuous member; he was a brilliant man, the friend and protector of men of letters and celebrated artists. The Baron de Besenval added to the bluntness of the Swiss all the adroitness of a French courtier.
"He is a shameless man!" muttered the queen, with pale cheeks and flashing eyes, as she followed him with her looks. "He is ambitious," whispered Besenval; "he implores your majesty in this way, and risks his life and his office, in the hope of being received into the court society." "No, no," answered Marie Antoinette, eagerly; "there is nothing in me that attracts him.
And yet there were 30,000 men, commanded by a marshal of France, ready for action; and several regiments of Swiss, famed for fidelity and valour, and destined, in the same cause, to become still more famous, were massed in Paris itself under Besenval, the trusted soldier of the Court.
And while the queen pointed, with a proud and dignified gesture, to the place which was their goal, she said, with commanding tone: "Go before, my lord; I will follow you alone." The Baron de Besenval, the experienced courtier, the practised man of the world, was undergoing what was new to him; he felt himself perplexed, ashamed, and no longer master of his words.
During the whole time of the proceedings the populace never ceased threatening the judges and shouting, "A la lanterne!" It was even necessary to keep numerous troops and artillery constantly ready to act in the courtyard of the Chatelet. The judges, who had just acquitted M. de Besenval in an affair nearly similar, doubtless dreaded the effects of this fury.
Other men had had the audacity to woo her among them Duc de Lauzun, whose complicity in the famous affair of the diamond necklace afterward cast her, though innocent, into ruin; the Duc de Biron; and the Baron de Besenval, who had obtained much influence over her, which he used for the most evil purposes.
Besenval tainted her mind by persuading her to read indecent books, in the hope that at last she would become his prey. But none of these men ever meant to Marie Antoinette what Fersen meant. Though less than twenty years of age, he maintained the reserve of a great gentleman, and never forced himself upon her notice.
During the whole time of the proceedings the populace never ceased threatening the judges and shouting, "A la lanterne!" It was even necessary to keep numerous troops and artillery constantly ready to act in the courtyard of the Chatelet. The judges, who had just acquitted M. de Besenval in an affair nearly similar, doubtless dreaded the effects of this fury.
While M. de Maurepas lived she kept out of that danger, as may be seen by the censure which the Baron de Besenval passes on her in his memoirs for not availing herself of the conciliation he had promoted between the Queen and that minister, who counteracted the ascendency which the Queen and her intimate friends might otherwise have gained over the King's mind.
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