READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER LIV.

HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.—THE FALL OF THEMONARCHY

FROM the period of the King’s flight to Varennes must be dated the first decided appearance of a Republican party in France. The chief advocates of a Republic were Brissot, Condorcet, and the recently-established club of the Cordeliers, so called from its meeting in a former convent of that order. Brissot began to disseminate Republican opinions in his journal, and the arch-democrat, Thomas Paine, who was now at Paris, also endeavored to excite the populace against the King. The Jacobin Club had not yet gone this length; they were for bringing Louis XVI to trial and deposing him, but for maintaining the Monarchy. Robespierre, a leading member of the club, who probably disliked to see the initiative taken by Condorcet and Brissot, in an equivocal speech supported the Constitution. Marat was more outspoken. He proposed the appointment of a military tribune, who should make a short end of all traitors, among whom he and his faction included Lafayette, Bailly, Barnave, the Lameths, and other leaders of the Constitutionalists. But for the present the party prevailed who were both for upholding the Monarchy and retaining Louis XVI. The Jacobins resolved to get up a petition to the Assembly, inviting them to suspend their decision till the eighty-three departments should have been consulted, well knowing that, from their numerous affiliations, a vote for the King’s deposition would be carried. The leaders of the Constitutionalists now separated from the Jacobins, and, with their party, which included all the members of the Assembly belonging to that club, except ten or twelve, established the Club of the Feuillants. This name was derived from their occupying an ancient convent of that order, founded by Henry III, an immense building in the Rue St. Honoré, adjoining on one side the Manége, where the Assembly sat.

The Jacobins gave notice to all the patriotic societies that their petition would be signed on the altar of the Federation in the Champ de Mars on July 17th. On the evening of the 16th, the Assembly, by decreeing that the Constitutional Charter, when finished, should be presented to Louis XVI for acceptance, having implicitly pronounced his re-establishment, Camille Desmoulins and Marat openly incited the populace to acts of violence against the deputies. The Government gave notice that the proposed petition was illegal, and that the signing of it would be prevented by military force. Nevertheless a vast multitude congregated in the Champ de Mars on the 17th: and, as it was a Sunday, the crowd was augmented by many holiday people, women and children. The petition appears to have received many thousand signatures. Meanwhile martial law had been proclaimed; the National Guards arrived, and having been assailed by the mob with volleys of stones, and even with pistol-shots, fired upon the people. Many persons were killed or wounded, and the crowd was dispersed. The leading ultrademocrats displayed the most abject cowardice. Marat hid himself in a cellar; Danton withdrew into the country; Robespierre was afraid to sleep at home; Desmoulins suspended the publication of his journal. By this decisive act the Constitutionalists established for awhile their authority; but Lafayette and Bailly lost their popularity, and the Jacobins were not long in regaining their ascendency.

The constitutional party, in absolving the King, appears to have been a good deal influenced by the attitude assumed at this time by foreign States. Several of the European Powers had begun to manifest a lively sympathy for Louis. Gustavus III of Sweden, then at Aix-la-Chapelle, had made a vigorous declaration against the outrages to which the French King was subjected after his attempted flight, and had directed his Ambassador to break off all intercourse with the Ministers of the Assembly. Eight of the Swiss Cantons had forbidden their troops in the pay of France to take any oath except to Louis XVI. The King of Spain had addressed a memoir to the Assembly, calling upon it to respect Louis’s dignity and liberty. The Emperor Leopold, on learning the capture of the French King, had addressed a circular from Padua to the principal Sovereigns of Europe, calling upon them to demand his liberation, and to declare that they would avenge any further attempt on the freedom, honor, and safety of Louis, his Queen, and the Royal family. Many of the principal Courts declined to receive a French Ambassador so long as the King should be under constraint.

No Sovereign was more zealous in Louis’s cause than Frederick William II of Prussia. After the French King’s arrest, he dispatched Bischofswerder to the Emperor in Italy, and a preliminary treaty between these two Sovereigns was signed, July 25th, to be converted into a defensive alliance so soon as Austria should have concluded a peace with the Turks. The impetuous Gustavus III was for immediate action. He engaged to land 16,000 men at Ostend, requested George III to furnish 12,000 Hanoverians, to be paid by the French Princes, and took De Bouillé into his service, who pointed out how easily France might be invaded. The French Constitutionalists exerted themselves to avert an interference that would upset their whole policy. Barnave, Duport, and the Lameths addressed a letter to the Comte d'Artois, begging him to return when the King should have accepted the Constitution; and it was forwarded to that Prince by Louis’ order. The Constitutionalists also assured the Emperor that their object was to save the throne.

The Declaration of Pilnitz.

At this juncture the Emperor and the King of Prussia met at Pilnitz, a residence of the Elector of Saxony on the Elbe, principally for the purpose of considering the affairs of Poland, which then occupied the attention of the Eastern Powers; but the state of France was also debated, and d'Artois, attended by Calonne, obtruded himself on the Conference. This Prince, with a view to gain the Emperor, had offered to cede Lorraine; but the scheme which he drew up for the government of France, by which his elder brother, Monsieur, was to be declared Regent, and the King completely set aside, filled Leopold with disgust. He was chiefly actuated by his wishes for the safety of the King and Queen, his relatives, and was inclined to listen to the representations of his sister, Marie Antoinette, who deprecated civil war and an invasion of the Emigrants. She recommended that the King should accept the Constitution, and that the European Powers should combine in demanding that the King should be invested with the authority necessary for the government of France and the safety of Europe. The Emperor and the King of Prussia, in their answer to d'Artois, dated August 27th, declined his plans for the government of France; they sanctioned the peaceable residence of emigrants in their dominions, but declared against armed intervention unless the cooperation of all the European Powers should be obtained. And as it was well known that England was not inclined to interfere, this declaration was a mere brutum fulmen meant to intimidate the Parisian democrats, but fitted rather to irritate than to alarm the French. England had at this period declared for a strict neutrality. Public opinion was against a war, and Pitt himself advocated the policy of non-intervention in Continental affairs.

The labours of the Constituent Assembly were now drawing to a close. On September 3rd, 1791, the Act of the Constitution was presented to the King, who had been restored to the exercise of his functions. Louis notified his acceptance of it in a letter addressed to the Assembly, September 13th, and on the following day he appeared in the Chamber to confirm it with an oath. A few weeks after, he wrote to his two brothers informing them of what he had done, and calling upon them to acquiesce. Leopold, on hearing of the King’s acceptance of the Constitution, announced to the Powers that the necessity for a Coalition was for the present at an end. The new Constitution was as liberal as the French might reasonably have desired; but as it lasted scarcely a year its chief merit was the destruction of ancient abuses. Feudalism and its exclusive privileges were abolished; the abuses which spring from an arbitrary government, such as lettres de cachet, were reformed; uniformity of taxation was established, and the power of the purse vested in the representatives of the people; the monopolies of trade corporations, maitrises and jurandes, as well as corvées and all the fetters which shackle manufacture and agriculture, were suppressed; the admission to civil offices and military commands was thrown open; the freedom of religious worship recognized; barbarous punishments were done away with; juries introduced in place of the suppressed Parliaments, and, in short, all the English forms of administering justice adopted. But there were some things which the Assembly did, and others they omitted to do, which rendered nugatory all their labours. They had, indeed, recognized an hereditary monarchy, and declared the person of the King inviolable; but they had not given him the means of maintaining himself on the throne; they had stripped him of his prerogatives, deprived him of the support of the clergy and nobles, placed him face to face with a wild democracy, and established no strong executive power which might control its excesses. Of the fall of their new Consti­tution by democratic violence they seem to have entertained no fear.

The annexation of Avignon and the Venaissin to France was among the last acts of the Constituent Assembly (September 14th, 1791). Avignon and its territory had been a possession of the See of Rome ever since the sale of it to the Pope by Joanna, Queen of Naples and Countess of Provence, in 1348. But the existence of a foreign colony in the heart of France was a source of much inconvenience; it became the refuge of the disaffected and the entrêpot of the smuggler. A party in Avignon, favourable to the Revolution, had risen in June, 1790, and solicited its union with France; formidable riots had occurred, much blood had been spilt, and many atrocities committed. Within a month after the annexation the Papal party rose, but were put down by the horrible massacres in the tower called La Glacière—a fore­taste of the horrors which ensued in France.

The Act of the Constitution having been proclaimed with great Pomp, September 18th, the Assembly declared its labours terminated and the Revolution accomplished. The Chamber was closed, September 30th. As the members were departing, the populace crowned Robespierre and Pétion with garlands of oak-leaves, and carried them home in triumph. Robespierre was now very popular, and had latterly enjoyed a large share of influence in the Assembly. It was on his motion that they had passed a sort of self-denying ordinance by which they had declared themselves ineligible to the Assembly that was to succeed them. He had also procured a decree, only a few days after the death of Mirabeau, that no member of the Assembly should become a Minister within four years after the conclusion of the session. Both these measures were carried by acclamation. The royalists and aristocrats hoped that an entirely new Assembly might undo all that had been done; while some were moved by that quixotic generosity which led the public men of France to abandon what seemed for their own private advantage with­ut considering whether it was not also for the public good. By their assent to these acts, Barnave, Duport, the Lameths, and the whole Constitutional party, pronounced their own political annihilation; and such was, doubtless, Robespierre's design. It is true that by the same act he excluded himself ; but he knew full well that the real power of the State lay not so much in the National Assembly, as in the Paris mob and the Jacobins who directed it, among whom he was a ruling power. Louis accepted the Constitution, and sent a notification to that effect to the foreign Powers.

After the acceptance of the Constitution, the great mass of the middle classes were content with what had been done. They were weary of the long struggles and disturbances, were desirous only of returning to their ordinary pursuits, and had fallen into a sort of political apathy. In Paris not a quarter of the enfranchised citizens came forward to vote for members of the new Assembly. This Chamber, which opened its sittings October 1st, 1791, assumed the title of the National Legislative Assembly. It was far from being composed of such distinguished men as had sat in the Constituent. France had exhausted her best talent, and, by Robespierre’s self-denying ordinance, had also deprived herself of the services of men who had acquired some political experience. The new deputies were mostly young men of the middle class. The aristocrats observed that they could not muster among them 300,000 livres of income from landed and other property. The Right of the Legislative Assembly was composed of the Feuillant party, whose principles were represented by the club already mentioned. The Centre consisted of moderate men attached to the new Constitution. The Left was chiefly formed by the party called Girondists, so named from the twelve deputies of the Gironde, for the most part lawyers and men of talent, natives of Bordeaux and the southern provinces. The three most distinguished and eloquent members of this deputation were Vergniaud, Guadet, and Gensonne. The Girondists, however, were also joined by deputies from other parts, as Brissot, Condorcet, Rabaud St. Etienne, Petion, and others. On the left sat also a still more democratic faction, led by such men as Chabot, Bazire, and Merlin.

The Constitutional party, however, were now fast declining. Besides the loss of their parliamentary influence, they were also deprived of municipal power and the command of the armed force. The functions of Lafayette as commandant of the National Guard had been suppressed by a decree of September 12th; and Bailly, alarmed at his retirement, resigned the mayoralty. Lafayette aspired to succeed him, but found a competitor in Pétion. Lafayette’s reputation with the people was of that equivocal sort which, in a momentous crisis, must always attach to a man who takes no very decided part; while Pétion was at this period the idol of the people, and was also supported by the Court, which hated Lafayette, and had taken a just view of Pétion’s calibre and incapacity. The election of Pétion by a large majority was a triumph for the Gironde, but only a small proportion of the electors voted, thus showing the apathy of most of the Parisians. Soon afterwards, Manuel was appointed Procureur de la Commune, with Danton as substitute. A change of ministry had taken place in October and November. Montmorin resigned the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, and was succeeded by De Lessart; Bertrand de Moleville became Minister of Marine, and Count de Narbonne, the friend, some say something more, of Madame de Stael, succeeded Duportail as Minister of War. This Cabinet is thought to have been a good deal inspired by Madame de Stael.

Among the more important questions that first engaged the attention of the Legislative Assembly, was that of the emigration. The number of emigrants was increasing every day; 1,900 officers had quitted the army, and crossed the frontiers. Monsieur, by his flight, drew many nobles after him, who should have remained in France, and rallied round the throne. He now took the lead of the emigration instead of his brother, the Comte d'Artois; a kind of little Court gathered round him at Coblenz, which place became the head­quarters of the emigration. The Emperor Leopold discountenanced them. He even punished some Brabanters who had insulted the French national cockade, and he forbade all assemblies of the emigrants within his dominions, even without arms. The King of Prussia followed his example. The Elector of Treves alone openly favoured the emigrants. The Assembly voted a Proclamation, October 31st, requiring the King’s eldest brother, Louis Stanislas Xavier, to return to France within two months; or, in default, to forfeit his eventual title to the Regency. On the 9th of November they declared all emigrants whatsoever suspected of conspiracy, and liable to the punishment of death, with confiscation of their properties, if they remained assembled together after January 1st, 1792. The King wrote to his brothers ordering them to return; but they made a flippant answer. Louis sanctioned the decree against his brother, but put his veto on that of November 9th. This was a sort of victory for the Gironde, who took advantage of it to describe the veto as a conspiracy between the King and the emigrants, backed by the foreign Powers.

Louis XVI wrote to the Elector of Treves and other German Princes, December 20th, declaring that he should regard them as enemies if they encouraged the assembling of emigrants; while the Emperor, on his side, announced that he had instructed General Bender to assist the Elector, if his territories should be invaded; on condition, however, that he had fulfilled his engagement to disperse the emigrants. The Girondists, and especially Brissot, Gensonne, and Isnard, were at this time using every endeavour to bring about a war by their inflammatory speeches. They regarded it as a means of establishing the Revolution at home, and spreading revolutionary principles abroad. Narbonne and Lafayette were also for war; but Robespierre and the Jacobins opposed it. Not that they did not approve the contemplated ends, but they were jealous of Narbonne and Lafayette, and they feared that a powerful general might make himself a Dictator. But it was resolved to raise three armies consisting of 150,000 men in all, to be commanded respectively by General Rochambeau, Luckner, and Lafayette. On January 1st, 1792, the Assembly decreed the accusation of Monsieur, the Comte d'Artois, the Prince of Condé, Calonne, and a few others, and, though Robespierre declaimed against war, by a resolution of January 25th, they invited the King to demand of the Emperor his intentions, and to call upon him to renounce all treaties and conventions directed against the sovereignty, independence, and security of the French nation. His refraining to answer before March 1st, was to be considered equivalent to a declaration of war. The news of this proceeding excited the Emperor’s anger. He now converted the preliminary treaty with Prussia of July 25th, 1791, into a definitive alliance by the Treaty of Berlin, February 7th, 1792; he gave orders for the formation of a corps d'armée in Bohemia, and marched 6,000 men into the Breisgau. The orders given to Bender were justified; complaints were made of the captivity in which the French King, the Emperor’s brother-in-law, was held, and of the anarchy in France; and all these misfortunes were imputed to the pernicious sect of the Jacobins. This reply was received by the Assembly with derision. The somewhat sudden death of Leopold II (February 29th), arrested for a while the proceedings of the Coalition; which was also weakened by the assassination of Gustavus III of Sweden, a fortnight afterwards, The brother of Gustavus, Regent during the minority of his nephew, Gustavus IV, determined to observe the strictest neutrality; and Spain seemed to incline the same way, after the Count d'Aranda became Prime Minister. The correspondence with the Emperor led to a change of Ministry in France. De Lessart, the Foreign Minister, was impeached for having concealed the real state of affairs; Narbonne had already been dismissed; and the Girondists achieved a triumph by forcing on the Court a Ministry selected from their own party. The Gironde now imposed Dumouriez on the King as Foreign Minister; Roland was made Minister of the Interior; De Graves, of War; Lacoste was appointed to the Marine in place of Bertrand de Moleville; Clavière to the Finances, Duranton to the Department of Justice.

The most remarkable of the new Ministers were Dumouriez and Roland, the latter, however, chiefly through his extraordinary wife. Roland himself is a good specimen of the talking, philosophical, and factious Girondists. He had dissipated in his youth the greater part of his patrimony, and at the mature age of fifty-eight he married Marion, or Marie Jeanne Phlipon, the daughter of an engraver on the Quai des Lunettes. Handsome, clever, inquisitive, self-educated, Marion had studied by turns Jansenius and Pascal, Descartes and Malebranche, Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists; and had been alternately a Jansenist, a Cartesian, and a Deist. The reading of Plutarch, whose works she took to church instead of the Semaine Sainte, had made her at an early period an ardent Republican, and her chief regret was not to have been born a citizen of Athens, Sparta, or Rome. She had so far outstripped the leaders of the Revolution, that in a letter, written soon after the taking of the Bastille, she urged, either the trial and execution of the King and Queen, or their assassination. But she had great talent and a ready pen; she shared the official labours of her husband, wrote many of his papers, and became the very soul of the Gironde.

Francis, who at the age of twenty-two succeeded to the Austrian hereditary dominions on the death of Leopold II, adopted his father’s policy with regard to France; though, not having been yet elected Emperor, he was under no obligation to support the cause of the German Princes. One of the first acts of his reign was to assure the King of Prussia of his adherence to the principles of the recent alliance and treaty. Frederick William was inclined to cooperate in the deliverance of Louis XVI and his restoration to his former power; but this feeling was not shared by his Cabinet, nor by the Duke of Brunswick, one of his principal advisers. The events in Poland were in reality occupying the attention of Prussian Statesmen more than the affairs of France, and Frederick William was determined to share in the Second Partition which was imminent. Catharine II had exhibited a violent animosity against the French Revolution, which was, perhaps, partly sincere, but which was also suspected of originating in a desire to facilitate her views upon Poland, by despatching to a distance the armies of Austria and Prussia. In some negotiations with de Noailles, the French Ambassador at Vienna, Prince Kaunitz laid down as points from which Austria could not depart: 1st, the satisfaction of the German Princes for their possessions in Alsace and Lorraine; 2nd, the satisfaction of the Pope for the County of Avignon; 3rd, France to take such domestic measures as she might think proper, but which should be such that the Government should be sufficiently strong to repress everything calculated to disturb other States. These demands were ill-received. The Girondists, especially Brissot and Dumouriez, were for an immediate appeal to arms, and compelled the King to proceed to the Assembly, April 20th, and to declare war against his nephew, Francis I, King of Hungary and Bohemia, which he did with a trembling voice and evident reluctance. But the announcement was hailed with enthusiasm by the French nation.

At this time the French army of the North, numbering about 50,000 men, under Marshal Rochambeau, was cantoned between Dunkirk and Philippeville. The army of the Centre, under Lafayette, which was rather stronger, stretched from Philippeville to Weissenburg; while that of the Rhine, about 40,000 men, under Luckner, was posted between Weissenburg and Basle. The frontier of the Alps and the Pyrenees was confided to the care of General Montesquiou. Dumouriez, who had sent secret agents into Belgium to excite the Brabanters to revolt, determined on taking the offensive; and he ordered columns of attack from the armies of Rochambeau and Layfayette to be rapidly directed on different parts of Belgium, in the hope that the inhabitants would rise and aid the invasion. But in this he was disappointed. The leading columns, which were too weak, advanced as far as Lille and Valenciennes; but although there was only a small Austrian force at present in the Low Countries, the French fled in panic at the first sight of the enemy, April 28th; and Lafayette, who had advanced to Bouvines, was compelled by their flight also to retire. The retreating troops fired on their officers, and massacred General Dillon and other of their commanders. Rochambeau was now superseded by Luckner, and the French army stood on the defensive.

This reverse, which was imputed to treachery, excited great distrust and suspicion at Paris, and increased the dissensions between the Feuillants and the Girondists. The Assembly declared itself en permanence, and seized the whole management of affairs. The Girondist faction had begun a course of policy which was highly distasteful, not only to the King, but also to Dumouriez. They denounced, through the journalist Carra, what they called an Austrian Committee, or a conspiracy of the Court with the Coalition, an accusation aimed chiefly at the Queen. They carried a decree forbidding ecclesiastics to appear in public in their costume. They obtained the dismissal of the King’s guard of 12,000 men, and sent their commander, the Duke de Brissac, a prisoner to Orleans. They procured a decree for the transportation of priests who refused to take the civic oath. Servan, the new Minister of War, without saying a word to his colleagues in the Council, suddenly proposed to the Assembly to form a federal army of 20,000 men, selected from all the departments of France, to be encamped on the north side of Paris; and the Assembly decreed the measure, June 8th.

The King could not help showing his aversion to these measures, and he refused to sanction the decrees for the banishment of the priests and the establishment of a federal army. Roland now addressed to him his famous letter, written by his wife, exhorting Louis to put himself at the head of the Revolution. But it only confirmed the King in his intention to break with the Gironde; and on June 13th, Servan, Roland, and Clavière were dismissed. A few days afterwards, Dumouriez also resigned, being offended at the coldness and disdain with which the King treated him. Of the Girondist Ministry only Lacoste and Duranthon were retained; and the places of the others were supplied by persons of no note, selected from the Feuillant party.

Lafayette, at this crisis, by an ill-judged attempt to support the Constitutional Monarchy, addressed a dictatorial letter to the Legislative Assembly from his camp at Maubeuge (June 16th), in which he denounced the Jacobin faction, demanded the suppression of the clubs, and exhorted the Assembly to rally round a Constitutional throne. This imprudent step gave the finishing blow to Lafayette’s reputation as a patriot, and helped to prepare the insurrection of June 20th and August 10th. None had hitherto been admitted into the National Guard except those who could provide their own uniform and equipments, a regulation which had kept the force in some degree select; but now it was ordered that pikes should take rank with bayonets, and that all who presented themselves should be admitted to serve. The sixty battalions were also reduced to forty-eight, the number of the new sections; which served to create a fresh mixture of the men, and still further to destroy Lafayette’s influence over them.

Most historians have considered the insurrection of June 20th, 1792, the anniversary of the oath at the Tennis-Court, as the immediate response of the people to the King’s refusal to sanction the two decrees, and the dismissal of the Girondist Ministers; but it had, in fact, been prepared some time before. The “recall of the good Ministers” was, however, made its watchword. On the whole, however, it was a more peaceable and good-humoured mob than might have been expected. The petitioners, as they called themselves, consisted of some 8,000 men armed with pikes and other weapons, and were accompanied by a large crowd of unarmed persons. Led by Santerre and St. Huruge, they were permitted to defile through the Chamber of the Assembly, singing Ça ira, dancing and shouting Vive la nation! Vivent les sans-culottes! A bas le veto!

From the Assembly the mob proceeded to the Tuileries. The King displayed great firmness during this terrible visit. He ordered the doors to be thrown open, advanced to meet the crowd, asked them what they wanted, observed that he had not violated the Constitution. He then retired into the embrasure of a window, surrounded by a few faithful attendants. When the people urged him to sanction the two decrees, he replied, “This is not the time nor the place”. To their demands that he should recall his Ministers, he merely answered, “I shall do what the Constitution directs”. He put on a bonnet-rouge thrust towards him on a pike; but with the exception of an insulting speech from the butcher Legendre, afterwards a notorious member of the Convention, and the attack of a ruffian, who menaced him with a pike, but was hindered from doing any mischief, no further violence occurred. After this scene had lasted two hours, Pétion, the mayor, arrived, and, with the assistance of the deputies, Vergniaud and Isnard, persuaded the mob to depart.

Thus the insurrection of June 20th proved a failure, and had even the effect of giving the King a little brief popularity. But Lafayette, by another ill-judged, though well-meant, step, contrived to make matters worse. On June 28th, leaving his army at Maubeuge, he suddenly appeared in the Assembly, and demanded the punishment of the rioters and the suppression of the Jacobin Club. Failing in this quarter, he sought to effect his objects by means of the National Guard, and attempted a review of them in the Champ de Mars, which was forbidden by Pétion. A deputation from some of their battalions had called upon him to lead them against the Jacobins; but Lafayette hesitated, and the opportunity was irrevocably lost. He now proposed to aid the King’s flight to Compiegne, and place him at the head of the army; should that fail, that Luckner and himself should march on Paris with their forces. But Marie Antoinette opposed these projects, observing that, if Lafayette was to be their only resource, they had better perish. He was attacked in the journals, denounced in the Assembly, burnt in effigy by the Jacobins, and compelled to quit Paris. The Feuillant Club was now closed; the grenadier companies and chasseurs of the National Guard, who had displayed some loyalty, were cashiered; the soldiers of the line were removed from the capital.

The refusal of Lafayette’s aid sprang, no doubt, in a great degree from hatred of him, as one of the earliest promoters of the Revolution. But a proposal of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt, Commandant of Rouen, whose troops were devoted to him, that the King should fly to that city, was also refused; and hence we are led to the conclusion that the Court, at this juncture, relied on the invasion of the allied Powers for their deliverance in preference to venturing on a civil war. The failure of the French troops, in their first encounters with the enemy, was calculated to nourish this hope. This view is confirmed by the fact that the King had now entered into secret negotiations with the Coalition, and by the advice of Malouet had sent Mallet du Pan to treat with the allied Sovereigns. A Memoir was drawn up for this purpose from the King’s instructions by Mallet du Pan, and corrected with Louis’s own hand. The main object of the Memoir is to inform the allied Sovereigns of the manner in which the King wished the counter-revolution to be effected. It is strongly impressed upon them that the war should have as much as possible the appearance of a foreign war, and that the emigrants should not take any active and offensive part in it. Mallet du Pan had an interview at Frankfurt, in July, with the Ministers of the Courts of Vienna and Berlin, who were in the suite of the King of Hungary and Bohemia. That Sovereign, as we have already said, was elected Emperor, July 5th, with the title of Francis II; and on the 11th he had entered Frankfurt in state, accompanied by the Empress, the Archduke Joseph, and a brilliant Court, for the ceremony of his coronation.

After the insurrection, and the attempt of Lafayette, the leaders of the Gironde began to declaim violently against the King. All Paris seemed moved with a patriotic frenzy. On the 4th of July Vergniaud made a famous attack on the monarchy. On the motion of Herault de Sechelles a decree was passed, July 11th, that “ the country is in danger”.

As the King had put his veto on the decree summoning the federal volunteers to Paris, another had been passed appointing Soissons as the place of the federal camp; and to this he gave his sanction. The troops were first to visit the capital, to participate in the anniversary fête of the Federation which was now approaching. The Jacobins of Brest and Marseilles were most active in forwarding these men. Marseilles especially, besides isolated bands, sent three regular battalions, in February, July, and October, 1792, the first of which was led by Barbaroux. A great many of these men remained in Paris, at the instance of Danton. Though called Marseillese, they were, for the most part, the scum of the prisons of Italy and the Mediterranean coasts. They sang the well-known hymn, composed at Strassburg by Rouget de l'Isle, an officer of engineers, but first published at Marseilles, and thence called the Marseillaise.

On July 14th, the fête of the Federation, the Champ de Mars was covered with eighty-three tents, one for each department. In the centre rose a symbolical tomb for those who should die on the frontier, with the inscription : “Tremblez, tyrans, nous les vengerons”. The King took an oath to the Constitution, and Pétion, who had been suspended from his office of Mayor, for his conduct on June 20th, by the superior authority of the Directory of the Department of Paris, was now reinstated in his functions.

Amid these somewhat melodramatic displays the French showed no lack of patriotism and constancy in the imminent danger with which they were threatened. Hatred of the foreigner and dread of an invasion united men of all shades of opinion. The armies of the Coalition were now collecting on the frontiers of France, under the command-in-chief of the Duke of Brunswick, a Prince of mature years, the companion in arms of Frederick the Great, and enjoying a high reputation both for military and other talent. The Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, William IX, through whose dominions the march of the Prussians lay, and whose geographical position was incompatible with neutrality in a war between Prussia and France, had joined the Coalition in the hope of gaining the Electoral Hat. The Electors of Treves and Mainz had done the same. The Circles of Swabia had also consented to furnish their contingents as States of the Empire. The Electors of Hanover and Saxony had declared themselves neutral. The Elector of Bavaria also contrived to maintain his neutrality till the spring of 1793; when, at the urgent remonstrance of the Imperial Court, he found himself compelled to add his contingent of 8,000 men to the combined army. The Austrian and Prussian Cabinets had invoked the aid of the Danish Court, in a joint note, dated May 12th, 1792, in which the principal motives alleged for interfering in the affairs of France were her revolutionary propagandism and the violence exercised towards the King. But the Danish Minister, Count Bernstorff, declined to interfere, on the ground that Denmark, like other States, had recognized the new French Constitution, and that no direct and public step had as yet been taken to overthrow it. The King of Denmark, it was added, had already preserved his subjects from the dangers of infection, by a measure adapted to the genius of the nation; a reply which must have sounded very like a reproof to the allied Governments.

The Duke of Brunswick arrived at Coblenz, July 3rd, in the environs of which place the troops under his command were assembling. The emigrant Princes now retired to Bingen. The Emperor and the King of Prussia had a conference at Mainz, July 19th and two following days. The allied Sovereigns exhibited a bitter jealousy of each other, and a selfish anxiety as to what territories they should get by way of compensation. The Emperor’s army in the Netherlands was commanded by the Duke of Saxe Teschen. From this 15,000 men were to be detached to cover the right of the Prussian advance and join them near Longwv; while another Austrian army of 20,000 men under Prince Hohenlohe, was to be directed between the Rhine and Moselle to cover the Prussian left, menace Landau, and lay siege to Thionville. A third Austrian corps d'armée, under Prince Esterhazy, assembled in the Breisgau, and with 5,000 emigrants under the Prince of Condé, menaced the French frontiers from Switzerland to Phillipsbourg. The French armies were inferior in number to those of the allies; that of Lafayette could hardly be relied on, and, to add to the danger, symptoms of insurrection had manifested themselves in La Vendée and other provinces. Yet when the decree that the country was in danger was proclaimed, July 22nd, in the principal places of Paris, amid the roll of drums and the booming of cannon, thousands rushed to enroll themselves as volunteers in the tents and booths erected for that purpose.

Amidst these hostile preparations the fate of both the King and Monarchy was drawing to a crisis. The federal troops, instead of proceeding to Soissons after the fête, had remained at Paris; and on July 17th they sent a deputation to read to the Assembly an address drawn up by Robespierre, in which the suspension of the King’s executive power, the impeachment of Lafayette, the discharge of military commanders nominated by the King, the dismissal and punishment of the departmental directors, etc., were imperiously demanded. Meanwhile the Girondists, threatened on one side by the Court and Lafayette, and on the other by the more violent Jacobins, were endeavoring to work on the King’s fears, and reduce him to the dilemma either of throwing himself into their hands, or being crushed by Robespierre and the Republican party.

Measures had now been taken to organize an insurrection. A central bureau of correspondence among the forty-eight sections had been established at the Hotel de Ville, July 17th, at which commissioners from the various sections appeared every day; and thus a rapid communication was established among them all. These commissioners ultimately formed, on the day of the insurrection, the revolutionary Commune, which ejected the legitimate General Council of the Municipality.

The 20th of June had been the day of the Gironde; the 10th of August, for which, after some postponements, the second insurrection was ultimately fixed, was to achieve the triumph of the Montagne, or ultra-democrats. Pétion and Raederer, though with fear and doubt, ultimately lent their aid to the insurrection. But the men who had incited it, and were to reap its fruits, kept themselves in the background. Neither Robespierre nor Danton, though each after his manner was urging on the movement, took part in the secret insurrectional committee at the Jacobins, which consisted for the most part of obscure persons. Danton made no secret of his hopes of profit and advantage from the event. The views of Robespierre were more designing and ambitious. He sounded Barbaroux on the subject of procuring for him a dictatorship by means of the Marseillese; but Barbaroux flatly refused.

While Paris was thus on the eve of an insurrection, the bitter feeling which prevailed against the Court was increased tenfold by a highly injudicious manifesto, published by the Duke of Brunwick, July 25th, on breaking up from Coblenz to invade the French frontier. In this paper it was declared: That the object of the Coalition was to put an end to anarchy in France, and to restore Louis XVI to his legitimate authority; that if the King was not immediately restored to perfect liberty, or if the respect and inviolability due to him and the Royal family were infringed, the Assembly, the Department, the Municipality, and other public bodies would be made responsible with their heads; that if the Palace was insulted or forced, and any violence offered to the King or his family, Paris would be abandoned to military execution and total destruction. But if the Parisians promptly obeyed these orders, then the allied Princes engaged to obtain from Louis XVI a pardon for their faults and errors. By a second declaration, dated July 27th, the Duke threatened that if the King or any member of the Royal family should be carried off from Paris, the road through which they had been conducted should be marked by a continued series of exemplary punishments.

The tone of this manifesto was not at all in accordance with the suggestion of Mallet du Pan. It had been drawn up by the Marquis de Limon, according to the views of Calonne, and had obtained the approbation of the allied Sovereigns, though the Duke of Brunswick himself disapproved of it. The passage respecting the destruction of Paris is even said to have been inserted after it had received the Duke’s signature. At all events, the manifesto should not have been published till the allied armies were nearer to Paris, and, after issuing it, the march of the troops on that capital should have been precipitated. The overthrow of the French Monarchy was already determined on; but by wounding the national pride of the French, the manifesto strengthened the impending insurrection, and also roused the Jacobins to a more vigorous defence against the invasion. A little after Monsieur, the King’s brother, and other emigrant Princes, published at Treves (August 8th), a declaration of their motives and intentions. Their army, of about 12,000 men, was to keep in the rear of the Prussians, and follow their line of operations. The accession of the Court of Turin to the Coalition, July 25th, which offered to furnish 40,000 men, must also have tended to irritate the French.

The Duke of Brunswick’s manifesto was officially communicated to the Assembly, August 3rd; when the King thought proper to assure the Chamber in a letter, that he would never compound the glory and interests of the nation, never receive the law at the hands of foreigners or a party; that he would maintain the national independence with his last breath. On the same day, Pétion, at the head of a deputation from the Commune, appeared at the bar of the Assembly, denounced the crimes of Louis XVI, his projects against Paris, and demanded his abdication. The petition which he presented to this purport had been approved by all the Sections of Paris except one. The insurrection would have taken place immediately, but Santerre, the leader of the Faubourg St. Antoine, and the devoted servant of Robespierre, was not yet prepared.

The King was informed almost hourly of the state of the preparations for the attack on the Tuileries. Royalty had not yet lost all its supporters. There was in the Assembly a large, but timid party, the friends of order; and the accusation of Lafayette, proposed by Brissot, had been rejected by a majority of almost two to one. But the members who had voted the rejection were hissed and maltreated on leaving the House. The Palace of the Tuileries was at that time much more defensible than it is at present. The Place du Carrousel was covered with small streets; the court of the Palace was enclosed with a wall instead of a railing, and not open, as at present, but divided by ranges of small buildings. Mandat, whose turn it was to command the National Guard, and had been an officer in the regular army, was a zealous Constitutionalist, and several battalions of that force were also ardently attached to the Throne. Twelve guns were planted round the Palace, others on the Pont Neuf, to prevent the junction of the men of the Faubourg St. Marceau with those of the Faubourg St. Antoine; a force was stationed to observe the Hotel de Ville, with instructions to let the mob pass from the Faubourg St. Antoine, and then to attack them in the rear. The most effective force, however, was the Swiss Guard, about 950 men.

None of the leading Jacobins took any active part in the execution of the attack. Even Barbaroux and his friends Rebecqui and Pierre Bailie excused themselves from leading their compatriots, the Marseillese, on the ground that they were the official representatives of the town of Marseilles. On this eventful day the destinies of France were left in the hands of the Commissioners of the Sections, all of them obscure persons, though a few, as Billaud Varennes, Hébert, Bourdon de l'Oise, and two or three more, afterwards became noted in the annals of the Revolution. These men proceeded to the Hotel de Ville on the night of August 9th, formed themselves into a new Commune, and expelled the existing Council; retaining of the previous magistrates only Pétion, Manuel, and Danton, and the sixteen Administrators. One of the first acts of the insurrectionary Commune was to send for Mandat, who was at once murdered, Santerre being appointed to be provisional commandant-general of the National Guard.

The tocsin had been sounding since midnight from all the steeples of Paris. The inmates of the Palace had passed a sleepless night. At six o'clock the King held a sort of review. Some of the National Guards received him with cries of Vive le Roi! but the cannoniers and the battalion Croix Rouge shouted Vive la Nation! On crossing the garden to visit the posts at the Pont Tournant, he was saluted by the battalions of pikemen with yells of à bas le Veto! à bas le traitre! These men took up a position near the Pont Royal, and turned their guns on the Tuileries; others did the like on the Place du Carrousel. Marie Antoinette could not help deploring the want of energy shown by the King, and remarked that the review had done more harm than good. Even contemporary Revolutionists were unanimously of opinion that if the King had displayed any resolution he would have carried with him half the National Guard. Santerre had hesitated to advance till he was threatened with death by a man named Westermann. Danton and Desmoulins were among the insurgents, but Robespierre and Marat were nowhere to be seen. Pétion, who was at the Tuileries on pretence of official dulties, seemed ill at ease among the crowd of royalist gentlemen; but he was summoned away by the new Commune and consigned to his hotel.

The insurgent columns were now advancing in dense masses. The death of Mandat, the withdrawal of the cannon from the Pont Neuf, had spoilt the whole plan of defence. To Raederer, procureur-syndic of the Department, and a Girondist, who was at the Palace in his official capacity, must be mainly attributed the result of the day. It was he who, with treacherous counsels, and in order to throw the King into the hands of his faction, persuaded him to abandon the Palace and take refuge in the Assembly. At seven in the morning Louis left his Palace, never to return. It was with great difficulty the Royal family made their way into the hall of the Assembly. The King was received tolerably well by the mob; but the Queen experienced gross insults and horrible threats, and was robbed of her purse and watch.

The departure of the King spread consternation through the Palace and was fatal to its defence. The Swiss alone showed admirable fidelity, courage, and discipline, though two, even of these, were induced to fraternize with the insurgents. Led by their colonel, Pfyffer, the Swiss made a sortie, cleared the Carrousel with much slaughter, seized three cannons and dragged them to the Palace. At this crisis the defence was abandoned by order of the King, who sent to the Swiss, by M. d'Hervilly, an order to that effect, hastily written in pencil. The greater part of this heroic band were killed in attempting a retreat, some towards the Assembly, some through the gardens of the Tuileries.

CHAPTER LV

FRANCE AGAINST EUROPE