A friend of Marie-Antoinette (Lady Atkyns)

On December 8, 1740, in the Rue de Montfort, at Rennes, there were great rejoicings in one of the finest houses of that provincial capital. Monsieur Yves-Gilles Cormier, one of the rich citizens, had become the father of an heir the night before; and this heir was to be named Yves-Jean-François-Marie. The delighted father was getting ready to go to the Church of Saint-Sauveur (about two steps from his abode), there to present his son for the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.

He had invited to this solemnity his relative, Master (Messire) Jean-François Cormier, Prior and Rector of Bazouges-du-Desert,[52] and his neighbour, the Director of the Treasury in the States of Brittany, M. de Saint-Cristan. Madame Françoise Lecomte, wife of the Sieur Imbault, Chief Registrar of the Chamber of La Tournelle, in the Parliament of Brittany, and Dame Marie-Anne Lardoul were also among the guests, who enhanced by their presence the splendour of the ceremony.[53] When the bells rang out the cortège was entering the church porch; shortly afterwards it reissued thence, and went towards the house attached to the Treasury of Brittany, where Mme. Cormier (formerly au Egasse du Boulay) was impatiently awaiting their return.

The Cormiers were a family highly respected at Rennes. By his own labours, Yves Cormier had made a fine fortune, which placed him and his above any kind of need. Four years later a second child, a daughter this time, was born. She was given the names of Françoise-Michelle-Marie.

Yves-François grew up, a worker like his father, a sage follower of parental advice, and both intelligent end gifted. After leaving school he entered the Law Schools at Rennes, and before he was twenty he had got his degree and been entered (on August 18, 1760) as a barrister. Less than a year later the position of Crown Counsel at Rennes falling vacant, the young barrister applied for it, his youth notwithstanding, and obtained it (by Lettres de provision) on August 10, 1761.

This was a rapid advance in his career, and his parents might justly be proud of it; but fortune meant to lavish very special favours on the young magistrate, for on October 27 in the following year, another position falling vacant in the same department—that of Crown Prosecutor—Yves Cormier, exchanging the sitting magistracy for the standing, obtained the place. Crown Prosecutor at twenty-two! This was a good beginning.

For fifteen years he practised at Rennes. That town was going through troublous times. The arrival of the Duc d’Aiguillon as Governor, and his conduct in that position, created an uproar in the ancient city, jealous, as it had always been, of its liberties. The states proclaimed themselves injured in their rights. Led by La Chalotais, they obstinately fought against the claims of the King’s representative, the Duke d’Aiguillon. And there ensued an interminable paper-war—pamphlets, libels, insults—which did not cease even with the imprisonment of La Chalotais and his followers. Ancient quarrels against the Jesuits were mixed up with these complaints of the encroachments of Royal; and the angry Chalotistes ended by accusing them of being the cause of all their misfortunes.

It was naturally impossible for the Crown Prosecutor to escape being mixed up in a business which caused such rivers of ink to flow, and created such an endless succession of lawsuits. A police report accused him “of having ‘done a job’ in the La Chalotais affair.” But he had only played a very passive part in it. His name only figures once[54] in the voluminous dossiers so meticulously rummaged through of late years; and that is in a defamatory pamphlet (which, moreover, was torn and burnt by parliamentary decree), denouncing him as a participator in those Jesuit Assemblies, upon which the full wrath of the Breton parliamentarians descended.[55] The utmost one can say is that Cormier perhaps inclined towards the Duc d’Aiguillon’s party, which, moreover, his position as Crown Prosecutor more or less obliged him to do.

Was it at that time that he began to pay repeated visits to Paris? Very likely. At all events, from 1776 Yves Cormier practised only intermittently. His father was dead. He lived with his mother on the second floor of the Rue de Montfort house. Tired of bachelor life, the young magistrate, who was then entering his thirty-sixth year, resolved to marry. He had met in Paris a young lady from Nantes, who belonged to a family of rich landowners in Saint-Domingo. Her name was Suzanne-Rosalie de Butler; she was a little younger than he, and had rooms in the La Tour du Pin Hotel, Rue Vieille-du-Temple.

On July 10, 1776, in presence of notaries of the Du Châtelet district, M. Cormier and Mademoiselle de Butler signed their marriage contract.[56] By a rather unusual clause, the future husband and wife, “departing in this respect from the custom of Paris,” declared that they didn’t intend to sign the usual communauté de biens, but that each would retain as his and her own property whatever they brought to the marriage.

The husband’s property consisted of his appointment as Crown Prosecutor at Rennes, and, further, of different lands and estates which his father had bequeathed to him, at and near Rennes, and, finally, in “his furniture, linen, wearing-apparel, etc., which were stored in his place of abode.” The magistrate’s wardrobe was remarkably well stocked, to judge by the enumeration we give below.[57] It must have been a difficult matter to choose between the “winter, spring, autumn, and summer garments;” the breeches of “velvet patterned with large flowers,” or with “little bouquets”; the coats of purple cloth, grey cloth, embroidered gourgouran, black-and-olive taffetas, or green musulmane! And then there were jewels, and there were carriages for one person called désobligeantes, to say nothing of hats, frills, and lace cuffs.

Nor did Mlle. de Butler fall in any way below this standard. Her father, Count Jean-Baptiste Butler, deceased, had bequeathed her, in joint tenancy with her brother, Patrice, a rich state in Saint-Domingo, one of the most flourishing colonies at that time. This state was the farm and dwelling-house of Bois-de-Lance in the parish of Sainte-Anne de Limonade, “with the negroes, negresses, negro-boys and negro-girls; pieces of furniture; utensils, riggings, horses, beasts, and all other effects of any kind whatever, being on the said estate.” This document recalls the state of slavery in which the Colony then was. By a second marriage Comte de Butler had had a son, Jean-Pantaléon, who was thus the half-brother of the future Mme. Cormier, and who had also some liens on the property in question.[58] Suzanne de Butler further brought her husband some estates in France, arising from her father’s succession; and a very complete array of household furniture, which was enriched by articles in “mahogany, tulip-wood, and the wood peculiar to the island,” etc.

The marriage was celebrated some days later. Once settled at Paris, it became difficult for the Crown Prosecutor to keep his appointment at Rennes. Nevertheless, he did not resign it until January 23, 1779. Two years earlier their first child had been born, a boy, who was baptized at the Madeleine in Paris, and named Achille-Marie. The parents were probably at that time living in the enormous house which Mme. Cormier bought in the following year, No. 15 in the Rue Basse-du-Rempart. It was a handsome house with a courtyard and several entrances.

On March 10, 1779, arrived another son, who was called Patrice, after his maternal uncle. His godmother was a sister of Mme. Cormier, married to a former naval officer.

The management of his own estates, and, more particularly, those of his wife, occupied the greater part of Cormier’s time in the years preceding the Revolution. Of middle height, inclining to stoutness, with greyish hair and an energetic type of face, the sometime Breton magistrate was quite a personality, for he spoke remarkably well, and, besides being most intelligent, had a real gift of persuasion. The times that were now at hand seemed likely to provide him with a prominent position on the revolutionary scene.

We know that, in view of the elections to the States-General, a Royal Ordinance of April 13, 1789, had decreed the provisional division of Paris into sixty districts.[59] A year later this mode of division, being no longer useful, was replaced by a division into forty-eight sections—those sections which, from August 10 onwards, were to exercise so potent a political influence. Cormier was active from the very first. The section of the Place Vendôme had scarcely been formed before he occupied a prominent position therein. We see him first as Commissary of the Section, then as President of its Civil Committee. The General Assembly held its meetings in the old Church of the Capuchins in the Place Vendôme; and Cormier, whose home was close by, took part in the deliberations. He would have played a more active part if other business had not taken up most of his time.

Amongst the numerous monarchical clubs which then sprang up in Paris, one had just been founded whose members, for the most part rich planters from Saint-Domingo, used to meet in the Place des Victoires, at the Hôtel Massiac. Their object was to counterbalance what they held to be the pernicious influence exercised by a new society originating in England. This was the Friends of the Blacks, and had for its principal object the amelioration of the coloured race.[60] The movement, begun by Wilberforce across the Channel, met with many adherents in France, for it accorded well with the new ideas of enfranchisement and liberty proclaimed by the National Assembly. This very soon became clear to the landowners of the Leeward Islands, who lived on the labour of their slaves, and whose whole well-being depended on their continued existence as such. Saint-Domingo was then in a state of astonishing prosperity. The sugar plantations and the cultivation of indigo and cotton had made it one of the chief colonies. If Wilberforce’s theories were to prevail there, it was all over with the planters and the white people, who formed the minority of the population.

Founded on August 20, 1789, the Hôtel Massiac Club intended to oppose with all its strength the current of sympathy for the blacks, which threatened to overflow the Assembly. Its members meant to prevent at any cost the concession of rights to the mulattos inhabiting the island, which would be the preliminary to granting similar rights to the slaves. And for three years the planters devoted all their energies to this task.

Cormier, as a landowner in Saint-Domingo, was, of course, in accord with his compatriots. On August 24, 1789, he was made a member of the club, and a fortnight later he was occupying the position of vice-president. After a period of absence—his name disappeared from the proceedings for several months—he reappeared at the sittings at the commencement of 1791. From that time forth he played a foremost part in the club; had charge of all its correspondence and papers; and these, now lying in the National Archives, have yielded us a quantity of letters and speeches, and many memoranda covered with his microscopic handwriting. In the spring he was made president of the club; and the position was no sinecure. Tragic news arrived from Saint-Domingo during the summer. At the end of August there was a rising of the mulattos and negroes, and the angry populace burned and pillaged the plantations, and massacred the white folk, male and female.

The Colonists, very inferior in numbers as they were, were powerless to resist them, and clamoured for help from their compatriots and for support from the Assembly. Letters came to the club, more terrifying every day; the planters were in despair. Many of them had their families out there, and they shuddered to think of their dear ones at the mercy of the blacks.

The club held many extra meetings and discussions, but every effort that was made by its members met with furious opposition in the Assembly. At last, in desperation, they resolved to write and despatch an address to the King, pointing out to him the deplorable state of the Colony, and appealing for his intervention. The address, which was probably the work of Cormier, after having depicted the calamities which were overwhelming Saint-Domingo, hinted at the cause of these woes; they were (it pointed out) a direct sequence from the recent Decrees of the Assembly.

The planters, for all their impassioned denunciation, had proved powerless to avert the detested action of the Friends of the Blacks; therefore they now brought the King to take their part.

There were a hundred signatures of Colonists and members of the club to this bold and convincing manifesto of Cormier’s, when it was read at the session of November. First, it “was decided to print 3000 copies to be sent broadcast throughout France.”

On the next day, Wednesday, towards eleven o’clock a.m., a group of black-garbed men assembled at the Tuileries Palace, in the Hall of the Nobles. As each arrived, he was presented by one of their party—a broad-shouldered, energetic-looking personage—to a gentleman before whom each bowed respectfully: this was M. Bertrand de Molleville, Minister of the King, and head of the Naval Department. The men thus severally presented to him were none other than the members of the Massiac Club, headed by their President, M. Cormier. When every one had arrived, they set off towards the Royal apartments. The King was in his study. The Colonists were permitted to enter, and were then presented one after the other to His Majesty, after which Cormier began to speak:—

The King, when he had been informed of the calamitous events in the Colony, tried, in a voice full of emotion, to calm the anxiety which he saw in every face. “I still hope, gentlemen,” he said to them, “that the evils are not so great as rumour would have them. I shall see that all measures are taken to give powerful help to the Colonists in the shortest possible time.” And in speaking privately to one or two of the delegates he reaffirmed these promises of succour.

Their business finished, the planters were about to withdraw, when somebody suggested a further appeal, this time to the Queen. The proposal was eagerly acclaimed, and Count de Duras brought almost directly an affirmative reply. Without going back to the courtyard, but by way of the Royal apartments, the visitors were conducted to the ground-floor, and found themselves in presence of the Queen. Cormier spoke—

Marie-Antoinette, more moved than even the King had been, replied in a broken voice, striving to repress her tears—

She was unable to finish; the anguish of those before her, the thought that they also were watching in agonizing uncertainty the ruin of their dearest hopes—such a communion of kindred suffering was too much for the Queen. Moreover, what now could be done by the fugitives of Varennes? Every day it was growing clearer that they were prisoners in this Tuileries Palace.

The Queen left them, to hear Mass. During her absence Mme. de Tourzel, the Dauphin’s governess, happened to enter the apartment where the planters still lingered, thrilled and touched by the scene that had just taken place. She presented the little Dauphin to them. He opened his eyes wide at the sight of all the black coats. “Monseigneur was very, very sorry,” said Mme. de Tourzel, “when he was told of all the sad things that are happening in the Colony; he feels very deeply for all the sorrows of the gentlemen.”

“Yes, indeed I do,” said the Dauphin, in his little voice.

One can imagine the impression which would have been left by this picture upon these serious men, come to invoke their Sovereign’s aid, and most of whom were ardent defenders of the Royalist cause. Their president, in particular, was never to forget this reception; and the vision of the little Duke of Normandy, with his fair curling hair, his clear eyes, and his ineffably sweet expression, was to remain for ever in the man’s heart. Perhaps he heard, later on, the charming story that Mme. de Tourzel tells in her memoirs, of how, when the delegates were gone, and the Dauphin alone with his mother, he was told in a few words of the Colonists’ misfortunes, and forthwith begged her to give him their address.

“What are you going to do with it?” the Queen asked him.

“I want to put it in my left pocket, because that’s the nearest to my heart.”

Before finally withdrawing, the delegates went also to Mme. Elizabeth, who received them with equal sympathy. They were leaving the palace, when, on passing in front of the chapel, they met with the Queen, who was returning to her apartments, after having heard Mass. “Gentlemen,” she said to them, “I was not able to answer you just now, but the cause of my silence will have spoken to you eloquently enough.”

On the evening of the same day, in their night-session, the planters broke into applause at the reading of the account of their visit to the Tuileries. What a memory it was! And yet, how much they had still to fear! They had been able to read between the lines of the kindly Royal speeches; they knew that the goodwill of their Sovereigns would have to encounter the hostile intentions of the National Assembly, and that the promised help would be long in coming. And, in fact, the Decree of December 7, while ordering the despatch of troops, put a very stringent limitation to their powers, and confirmed the rights accorded to the coloured races.

Nevertheless, the club did not lose heart. Its activity during the winter and spring of 1792 is proved by a copious correspondence, and many reports of sessions, presided over with praiseworthy care and regularity by the sometime magistrate of Rennes. These strenuous functions, however, did not prevent him from fulfilling his civil duties. We find him mounting guard, like others, at the guard-house of the headquarters of his section,[62] and attending the meetings of that section where he is a member of the Civil Committee.

Another winter, that of 1792, goes by, and alarming symptoms in the spring of ’93 seem to indicate that the year is not to end tranquilly. In Paris political life is the only life; the effervescence grows and grows. The difficulty of provisioning the capital, the dearness of food, and the consequent great distress, bring about a state of instability and demoralization which is bound to express itself in action, and which will break out on the slightest pretext. Moreover, the people, already indignant, are exasperated by the flight of so many nobles from the kingdom—a flight which serves to reinforce the émigré contingent.

Cormier perceives the gravity of the situation. Two alternatives present themselves to him—either to leave Paris and the country and join those who are working at the frontiers for the restoration of the Monarchy, or to win over the Western Department, in which, however, revolt is already brewing. If this breaks out it will be a most formidable insurrection. The second plan will have the advantage of taking him to the neighbourhood of Rennes, where he still has interests; and, after a period of waiting, he can, according to the course of events, either place his abilities at the service of the Royalist cause, or retire definitely from active life.

And there is nothing to keep him in Paris. The members of the Massiac Club are the objects of daily-increasing suspicion on the part of the “patriots.” These “aristocrats” have got themselves detested for their obstinate self-defence, for their tenacious hold upon their properties, and for their continued struggle for the maintenance of slavery. If things go on as they are doing now, in a few months the club will be so universally attacked that its only course will be to close its doors. In these circumstances Cormier does not hesitate. He will leave his wife at Paris; she is a sensible woman, full of resource—she will know how to take care of the house in the Rue Basse-du-Rempart, and, supported by her younger son, she may in the future be of the greatest assistance to the party.

Desirous of completing their elder son’s education, the Cormiers had sent him, a year before this, to Hamburg; he there spent six months with a worthy citizen of the Place Schaarmarkt;[63] and then left, to go to the little town of Itzehoë, in Holstein, where he continued his studies.

So everything seemed to confirm Cormier in his intention. On June 25, 1792, he begged his colleague, M. de Grandchamp, to represent him as President—“for a fortnight;” and, by way of excuse, he pointed out that it was the first time he had been away for four years. We then lose sight of him for some days, and when we next encounter him, he is settled, from the end of July onwards, in Brittany, at Gaël, near Montfort. It would be difficult to account for this sojourn in a remote locality if we did not recollect that the sometime Crown Prosecutor had inherited several estates from his father in that neighbourhood; and where could he have found a safer or more tranquil retreat than in one of these, during that troublous period which followed June 20, when the proclamation of the “Country in Danger” disturbed the whole of France, and drums were beating in all the towns and countrysides—when, in a word, the Tenth of August was at hand? Just before that bloody dawn, there arrived at Madame Cormier’s house an official-looking personage, escorted by a quartermaster of the National Gendarmerie. She had been anticipating something of the kind for so long that she knew at once what her visitors wanted. In reply to her questions, the stranger, who was no other than a Commissary of the Place Vendôme section, displayed a warrant for arrest from the Surveillance Committee of the National Assembly, issued in due form against the President of the Colonial Club. “He had not expected any such visit, and was away from home, at Calais,” answered “the lady his wife;” and that being so, the Commissary, to make up for it, had to request that he might be taken to M. Cormier’s room, and, once there, proceeded to make a thorough search in every corner of it. When he had made a clean sweep of all the papers he found, tied them up in bundles, and deposited them in two band-boxes, he took it into his head to move away the fire-screen. In the grate a heap of blackened paper was still smoking. He had been too late for that, also.

Cormier had clearly been happily inspired to get off in time. Although he could not exactly have been accused of conspiring against the public safety, still the mere fact of his position makes it doubtful that, once arrested, he would have escaped the “Septemberers,” who in a few weeks’ time were to commence the chapter of their exploits.

He judged it prudent not to leave his retreat at Gaël before the spring of 1793. At Paris, the tempest still raged, most assuredly not calmed by the King’s death; in the provinces—added to other causes, such as the general rising and the application of the Civil Constitution to the clergy—the execution of “Louis Capet” led to an outbreak of “Chouannerie:” it was at that very moment, indeed, that the Insurrection in La Vendée exploded, captained by those brilliant chiefs, Stofflet, Cathelineau, Bonchamp, and Larochejaquelein. At the news of their rapid successes, Cormier, called on by them, quitted Gaël; and if we are to believe the certificates “of presence” given by the Vendean generals, it was he who directed the correspondence of the Royalist Army during the early operations.[64] The former President of the Massiac Club was very much in his element among such active and varied functions, requiring a systematic brain. His pen never rests; his letters, addresses, orders, teem in the insurgent districts, and yet his name remains unknown; one scarcely comes across it even in the abundant publications devoted to the history of Chouannerie. The defeat of Mans in December, 1793, when a part of the Catholic and Royal Army was routed, did not cool Cormier’s zeal. The theatre of war was altered, that was all. He went nearer to Rennes, and “worked” in the districts of Fougères and of Rennes. If we believe the aforementioned certificates, he did not desist from his labours during the months and years that followed. Both before and after the pacification of La Mabilais, Cormier, according to them, had continued to live in the revolted departments, fighting in the ranks of the Chouans. But we must not confide too much in these testimonials, which were for the most part written and produced for a certain very definite purpose—that of clearing the subject of them from a charge of emigration. By proving his share in the operations of the Vendean Army, he proved also his presence in France. Now, the famous “lists of the émigrés” contained the name of “Cormier, father and son.” So the necessity is evident for our magistrate to insist in any and every fashion upon the part which he had taken in the rising at La Vendée, even if this insistence were in absolute opposition to the truth.

By a lucky chance there is other testimony to be had (and that of undoubted authenticity), which enables us to get at the truth of the matter. It consists of Cormier’s own letters, written at that time. While he, some years later, maintained that he had never quitted French soil, we know for certain that, at the beginning of 1794, perhaps soon after the Queen’s death, he landed in England, and, instantly joining the restless throng around the Princes, was soon playing a prominent part in its midst.

We meet him with de Puisaye, with the Bishop of Arras, with Dutheil, hovering around the English Ministers and associating himself with the leaders of the émigrés in trying to induce England to agree to an effective, that is to say, an armed, intervention.

The history of these attempts is inextricably complex. Ministers’ halls and corridors were crammed with unemployed soldiers, needy nobles, agents, spies—each with a scheme more dazzling than the others. There were many adventurers who were never taken at any other valuation, and whose incessant activity deceived nobody. But there were also personages of considerable importance, and of illustrious name, who came there with undeniable reputations, and who could not easily be repulsed. In the variety of their schemes and the abundance of their offers, it is necessary to disentangle and take into consideration all kinds of secret motives, petty views, personal grudges, or even jealousies, against their compatriots. Every one wanted to act, and every one wanted the best part; and as their various rivalries displayed themselves, the general confusion increased.

One of the favourite meeting-places of this set of people was the office of Peltier, the journalist. All the news came there; they could get the latest information from France, and discuss the chances of the parties, the military operations on the frontiers, and, above all, the intentions of the British Government.

A quartette was soon formed in the office of the sometime editor of the Acts of the Apostles. It was made up of Peltier and his second in command, the Baron d’Auerweck (whom we have already met); of Cormier, and of a fourth arrival, who is no stranger to us—the Chevalier Louis de Frotté.

After his exploits at Dunkirk, the ex-officer of the Colonel-Generals had spent many months in the Army of the Emigration. Accompanied by his friend and inseparable, La Tremoïlle, he had taken part in the first campaign of 1792, under the Duke of Brunswick. The inexplicable retreat of this last with his 80,000 men, the lack of sympathy that the two officers felt with the Austrians, and the incessant squabbles that went on, disgusted them with the whole affair. They left for Italy, and reached Milan and Turin—not without adventures on the way; then, in the spring following, they re-entered Condé’s army, which was now in the Emperor’s pay.[65] Fresh vexations awaited them there—for the general Royalist rising that had been arranged to come off simultaneously at Lyons, in the South, and in the Jura, fell through in a pitiable fashion. And from La Vendée there came, on the other hand, the news of many successes by the Chouans.

Frotté made up his mind. He would go and rejoin his compatriots; he would come to France itself and fight the Revolution there. To do this, a short stay in England was indispensable. He could obtain resources there, and he had none at the moment. Who could say that he might not even be entrusted with an official command? At any rate, that was how, in the early months of 1794, the Chevalier de Couterne came to disembark at London like the rest. We shall not be surprised, knowing as we do his relations with Lady Atkyns, and her relations with Peltier and d’Auerweck, to find Frotté very quickly made free of that little circle of intimates.

His admiration for his fair friend of Lille was far from having decreased; and he now listened to the details, by her own lips, of her repeated offers for, and her unalterable devotion to, the Royal family. He even came, under her influence, to share the hopes which she, brave lady! still cherished.