They had sentenced him to the most painful death they could conceive; he was to be drawn and quartered on the Place de Grève.
Ten thousand people crowded into the streets of Paris to see the end of Damiens. They were standing on the roofs; they were at every window.
There in the Place de Grève was Damiens, brought from his prison that he might suffer the utmost torment and watch the preparations for his barbarous execution.
So he watched for half an hour while the fire was lighted, the horses prepared and the bench made ready.
The crowd watched in horrified fascination. This was a sentence which had been commonplace in the days of Henri Quatre, when Ravaillac had suffered similarly for having killed that King; nowadays people had become more sensitive, more civilised; the philosophers had changed their ideas; and there were many who were unable to look on at this grisly spectacle.
Damiens groaned as his flesh was torn with red-hot pincers; this form of torture lasted for an hour as the lead was allowed slowly to drip into the wounds so as to cause the utmost pain and prolong the agony.
More dead than alive he was bound by iron rings to the quartering bench, and ropes were attached to his limbs and fastened to wild horses who were then driven in different directions.
But these did not do their work completely, and the executioner, in a sudden access of pity, severed the last quivering limb from the sufferer’s body, which was then burned.
It was a sickening sight and the crowd was a silent one. Some said it was incredible that a spectacle of such barbarity could take place in the year 1757.
The King wished to hear no account of it. It was one of those unpleasant subjects which he always sought to avoid.
When he heard that a certain woman, hoping to please him, had sat close to the scene and watched every detail, he covered his face with his hands and cried out: ‘The disgusting creature!’
Thus ended the affaire Damiens.
And as the crowds were dispersing a carriage rattled through the streets of Paris. In it sat a white-faced, bewildered girl with a woman beside her.
Louison, on her way to a madhouse, would never again see the Parc aux Cerfs, nor the lover whom she had discovered to be the King of France.
Chapter XII
THE COMING OF CHOISEUL
The war was going badly for France. Although French soldiers were famed as being the best in the world, their leaders might be said to be the worst. This was largely due to the fact that they had been put in their high places, not because of their ability to fill them, but because, to please some charming person at home, the command had been granted to them.
France needed a strong man at the head of affairs; and the country was being ruled by a woman. She was an intelligent woman, a charming woman; cultured and artistic, no one doubted that she was clever within her limits. But she could not see beyond Versailles; her aim was not to secure France’s position among the European nations but to hold her own in the esteem of the King. Moreover she was quite incapable of understanding the strategy needed in dangerous diplomatic relations with other countries.
Her friends desired honours. She loved her friends and wished to assure them of her friendship; therefore they received honours, and France lost battles.
The Prince de Soubise had shown his loyalty to her when she had found her position so precarious after the affair of Damiens, and as she wanted to show her gratitude, to the Prince de Soubise went the command of the Army.
Soubise was frivolous and effeminate, by no means the man for such responsibility, and he set out to war in anything but a military mood. Following the Army there must be numerous barbers; the fashion of Versailles made their constant service necessary, and Soubise and his kind had no intention of changing their habits merely because they were at war. The soldiers must be entertained; therefore travelling players followed the Army. There must be women, of course, and the soldiers were seen, in the towns through which they passed, their mistresses on their arms. The women needed the amenities of Paris; therefore there were milliners, parfumeurs, even dressmakers, and of course the inevitable hairdressers.
No officer would have thought of appearing on duty until his hair was frizzed and powdered. It had become a fashion at Court for the men to do embroidery; and many of the officers would be seen with their embroidery frames while their mistresses sat with them playing some musical instrument, singing to them, dancing for them, or perhaps merely sitting beside them also embroidering.
This, while being very colourful and almost as pleasant as being in Paris or Versailles, was not helpful to the winning of the war.
The hardy British and the Hanoverians were far less elegant, and far more military.
The incompetence of Soubise was revealed at Rossbach when Frederick’s twenty thousand men wrung victory from the sixty thousand under the command of the Prince.
Frederick said afterwards: ‘The Army of the French seemed about to attack me, but it did not do me this honour and fled at the first discharge of our guns, without my being able to come up with it.’
The conquered camp presented an extraordinary sight to Frederick’s army. The barbers had fled, leaving wigs and powder behind them; the parfumeurs had abandoned their scent bottles, the officers their needlework, the women their fashionable garments.
There was no booty to appeal to the rough Prussian soldiers, who had no conception of the elegance of Paris and Versailles; perfume, curling tongs, and flimsy feminine garments meant little to them; the embroidery could only bewilder them; Prussians had not been brought up to handle the needle.
Frederick was kind to the prisoners he took, apologising for his inability to maintain them in the state to which they had been accustomed. ‘Gentlemen,’ he told them, ‘you must forgive my unpreparedness, for I did not expect you so soon – nor in such numbers.’
Soubise in despair wrote to Louis: ‘I write to Your Majesty in my great despair. The rout of your Army is complete.’
The news of the defeat at Rossbach was received in Paris with dismay; then the ironical Parisians began to laugh. They laughed at the King for allowing the Marquise to appoint his generals; and they laughed at Soubise for his incompetence.
As usual they expressed themselves in songs and epigrams; stories about Soubise and the Battle of Rossbach were circulated in the cafés.
Cartoons became popular. There was one portraying Soubise carrying a lantern looking for his Army, with the caption beneath: ‘Where is my Army? I believe someone has stolen it. I have mislaid it. Oh, praise the saints, there it is. Damnation! It is the enemy!’
There was another of Frederick looking cynically at Soubise in chains. Frederick was saying: ‘What prisoner is this? The Prince de Soubise! Release him at once. He is far more use to us when he commands the French.’
But underlying the cynical comments was a great disquiet. ‘What are we doing on the side of Austria?’ the people asked. ‘Have not the Austrians always been the enemies of France?’
The Dauphine went so far as to call on the Marquise.
‘I pray you,’ she cried, ‘make no more generals, Madame.’
But the Marquise had never felt so sure of her power as now. When she looked back and saw how she had come safely through the vicissitudes of Versailles, she had no doubt that she could bring France to victory. She even studied the maps and worked out plans of action; and when Bernis, Minister for Foreign Affairs, overcome by the defeat of Rossbach, suggested suing for peace, and the King admitted that he was weary of war, the Marquise was still determined it should continue. She had placed herself at the head of the war party.