Trophime-Gérard, marquis de LALLY-TOLENDAL... - Lot 178 - Rossini

Lot 178
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Trophime-Gérard, marquis de LALLY-TOLENDAL... - Lot 178 - Rossini
Trophime-Gérard, marquis de LALLY-TOLENDAL (1751-1830) deputy of the nobility of Paris to the Estates-General; arrested after August 10, he managed to leave France for England and offered to defend Louis XVI at his trial; he had fought to rehabilitate his father, the former governor of India. 2 letters dictated to his wife, July 16 and 19, 1792, to the Princess of Hénin; 10 pages in-4. These long letters relate the events of July 14, 1792 and the deeds of the King and the royal family during this third celebration of the Fête de la Fédération. In order to prevent his handwriting from being recognized in case of interception, Lally dictated these letters to his wife (Elizabeth Charlotte Wedderburn Halkett). We quote only short excerpts from them. "The procession was very imposing: a detachment of cavalry opened the march, and then another of infantry of troops of the line"... then the carriages: "in the third the King, all his family and Mde de Lamballe, five hundred grenadiers national volunteers escorted the carriage". The King "had the calm air of a good conscience. The Queen had the dignity that she will never lose, but one could see on her face the imprint of misfortune that her courage was trying to overcome. [...] Mrs. Elizabeth always looked like an angel. Madame Roiale presented an interesting sadness, and the Dauphin was as beautiful as Love. The royal family appears at the balcony of the Military School where they are acclaimed, then, when the King advances towards the altar of the Fatherland, the cries are transformed into "Vive Pétion" and cries of hatred: "down with the Austrian, down with Mr. and Mde Veto, Pétion or death"...Enclosed is a very interesting letter from two different hands, headed by "Mr. de Gouvernet" (4 p. in-4), Paris August 3 [1792], recounting the day of August 3, the reactions to the Brunswick Manifesto, the agitation and terror caused by the Marseillais, and Pétion's demand for the deposition of the King... "the five hundred Marseillais are the masters of Paris [...] When the Duke of Brunswick will begin to act - that is what one must know. It is said that the Jacobin chiefs are trained in spite of themselves far beyond what they want. [Lally announces that a petition must be made on the Champ de Mars, "to ask for the suspension and perhaps the deposition of the King" and to be brought to the Assembly in order to have the decree immediately, under penalty of violence. "The Marseillais had gathered the night before at the royal palace at the beginning of the night, and were singing awful songs against the King, the Queen and the royal family in the midst of drunken screams and fury. The King, the Queen & the family stayed up all night, expecting from one moment to the next to be besieged, forced or murdered. [...] The Manifesto did not produce any sensation in Paris. The aristocrats approve it, the moderates are dissatisfied with it, and the Jacobins only laugh at it." This manifesto "would have gathered the 19.20me of the Nation, if it had been limited to asking for the freedom of the King, & his exit of Paris accompanied by the guard" but it was not necessary "to require that one received in Paris an Austrian escort to lead the King to the borders. The Duke of Brunswick can come to kidnap the King, but he cannot hope that one brings the King to him on a manifesto dated from Coblentz"...
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