The last days of the French monarchy

UPON the crest of the steep and thickly wooded hills that rise from the left bank of the Seine below Paris, you may find a village, the old stones of which, and something spacious in its whole arrangement, are consonant with its name. It is called “Marly of the King.”There the great trees, the balustrade, and gates still standing recall the palace to which the French monarchy retired when leisure or fatigue or mourning withdrew it from Versailles; for it was a place more domestic and far less burdened with state.To the gates of that great country house there came near ten o’clock, just after the hour when full darkness falls on a midsummer evening, a great coach, driving from Versailles. It was the coach of the Archbishop of Paris, coming urgently to see{16} the king, and the day was Friday, the nineteenth of June, 1789. They were in the full crisis that opened the Revolution.