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CHAPTER LIII.
PROGRESS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
THE first acts of
the French tiers état, or Commons, after
constituting themselves a National Assembly, were to declare the legislative
power indivisible, and to annul all the existing taxes, on the ground that only
those are lawful which have received the formal consent of the nation; but to
obviate a dissolution of the Assembly, they decreed the continuance of the
present taxes so long as their session should last. These vigorous proceedings
filled the Court with dismay. To avert the danger, recourse was had to one of
those false steps which ultimately caused the ruin of the Monarchy. It was
resolved that the King, in a royal session, should endeavor to restore a good
understanding between the different orders, and reduce their proceedings to
some regularity. It was thought that, as in the ancient days of the Monarchy,
the Assembly might be overawed by the King’s presence, and by a few words
delivered in the accustomed tone of absolute authority. Such a step was in
obvious contradiction to the very nature of the Assembly; for, if the King’s
voice was to prevail, to what purpose had he summoned the representatives of
the people?
Necker must share
the blame of this measure, though not of the manner in which it was executed.
That Minister still hoped to carry his favorite project of two Chambers, voting
in common on general and financial matters, but separately in things that more
particularly concerned the respective orders. His own scheme was not a very
liberal one. Everything was to come from the King’s concession. Necker drew up
a royal address in a tone of mildness and conciliation, in which the vote per
capita was placed first, and the less palatable part of the scheme at the end.
The Council, however, took the matter out of his hands, and altered his draft
of the speech so materially, and, it must be allowed, so injudiciously, that
Necker considered himself justified in absenting himself from the royal
session.
The royal session,
originally fixed for June 22nd, was postponed till the following day; meanwhile
the Assembly was adjourned, the hall where they sat was ordered to be closed,
and the deputies who presented themselves were brutally repulsed. But the
leaders of the tiers état, particularly
Bailly, assembled the larger part of that order in a neighboring tennis-court;
where the Abbé Sieyes, perceiving their excited state, proposed that they
should at once leave Versailles for Paris, and proceed to make decrees in the
name of the nation. It was to avert this step that Mounier proposed the celebrated oath that they should not separate till they had
established a constitution.
On the following
day, the tennis-court having been hired by some of the princes in order to
prevent these meetings, the deputies repaired to the church of St. Louis. Here,
to their great joy, and to the consternation of the Court, they were joined by
the Archbishops of Bordeaux and Vienne, the Bishops of Chartres and Rhodez, and 145 representatives of the clergy, besides all
the nobles of Dauphine; in the states of which province it was customary for
the three orders to sit together.
When the Chambers
again assembled, on June 23rd, the King undoubtedly made some important
concessions, and such as, under other circumstances, might probably have been
satisfactory. He abolished the taille, vested solely in the
States-General the power of levying taxes, submitted the public accounts to
their examination, did away with corvées and
several other vexatious and oppressive grievances. But these concessions were
made to spring from the royal grace and favour, and
not from constitutional right, thus giving no security for the continuance. The
clergy were to have a special veto in all questions of religion. The equality
of imposts would be sanctioned only if the clergy and nobles consented to
renounce their pecuniary privileges. The admission of roturiers to
commands in the army was expressly refused. All that the tiers état had hitherto done was annulled. Above all,
the King willed that the three orders should remain distinct, and deliberate
separately; though, if they wished to unite, he would permit it for this
session alone, and that only for affairs of a general nature; and he concluded
by ordering the members to separate immediately, and to meet next morning, each
in the chamber appropriated to his order. This, as a modern historian remarks,
was again to hand over France to the privileged classes. The speech was
delivered in a tone of absolute authority, neither suitable to the present
posture of affairs, nor to the natural temper of the King.
The nobles and
part of the clergy followed the King when he retired. But the Commons, by the
mouth of Mirabeau, when summoned to leave the hall by M. de Brézé,
the master of the ceremonies, refused to do so, unless expelled by military
force; and they proceeded to confirm their previous resolutions, which the King
had annulled, and to declare the persons of the deputies inviolable; thus
showing their determination to maintain the sovereignty which they had usurped.
In short, the attempted coup d’état had failed; while the
applause with which Necker was everywhere greeted afforded a striking proof of
the popular feeling. On the very same evening the King felt himself compelled
to request that Minister to retain his portfolio; thus virtually condemning his
own speech.
On the day after
the royal session the majority of the clergy, composed of curés, who, from their constant intercourse with the
people, were disposed to take the popular side, joined the Commons; and, on
June 26th, the Bishops of Orange and Autun, and the
Archbishop of Paris, did the same. The Bishop of Autun,
Talleyrand Perigord, here gave the first proof of
that unerring sagacity which, through all the eventful changes of the
Revolution, enabled him to distinguish the winning side. The conduct of the
Archbishop of Paris was the result of popular violence. A mob had stormed his
palace, and, with threats of assassination, extorted his promise to join the
Commons. The secession of the clergy was immediately followed by that of
forty-seven of the nobles, chiefly the friends of Necker, and including the
Duke of Orleans. The Court, alarmed by reports that extensive massacres were
planning, that 100,000 rebels were in full march, and others of the like kind,
now deemed it prudent to yield to the popular wish. The King addressed letters
to the clergy and nobles, who remained out, requesting them to join the Commons
without delay; these were backed by others from d'Artois,
stating that the King’s life was in danger; and under these representations the
union of the whole Assembly was effected, June 27th, amid the enthusiastic
cheers of the tiers état.
One of the worst
symptoms for the royal cause was the disaffection of the soldiery. There had
been great abuses in the administration of the army. While forty-six million
livres were allotted in the budget to the officers, only forty-four million
were distributed among the men. The Comte de St. Germain, appointed Minister of
War in 1775, had contributed to the disaffection of the troops by reforms and
innovations in discipline, and especially by the introduction of corporal
punishment. The army, corrupted by a long peace, had become almost a body of
citizens, and had extensively imbibed the prevailing democratic opinions. This
was more particularly the case with the Gardes Françaises, who, being quartered in Paris, mixed
freely with the people. This regiment, when called out to defend the
archbishop’s palace, had refused to fire upon the mob. Their colonel, M. de
Chatelet, had imprisoned in the Abbaye eleven of his men, who had taken an oath
not to obey any order at variance with the resolutions of the Assembly, but
they were delivered and feted by the people; while the dragoons sent to
disperse the mob had fraternized with them.
The Court,
however, had not yet abandoned the project of carrying matters with a high
hand. Large bodies of troops, consisting chiefly of German and Swiss regiments,
who could be best relied on, were assembled in the neighborhood of Paris, and
Marshal Broglie was summoned to Versailles to take the command of them. All
this was done with too much display, if the intention was to act; and with too
little, if the object was only to overawe and intimidate. The King was to
appear in the Assembly, and compel it to accept the Declaration of June 23rd, of
which 4,000 copies had been printed for circulation in the provinces; and the
Assembly was then to be dissolved. The King suffered these preparations to be
made, though it lay not in his character ever to employ them. When his
advisers, comprising the more resolute or violent party of the Court, including
the Queen, d'Artois, the Polignacs,
the Baron de Breteuil, and others, thought themselves sufficiently strong, they
persuaded him to dismiss Necker and three other Ministers, July 11th; another
false step, which may be said to have put the seal to the Revolution.
At this time the
aspect of Paris was alarming. Thousands of starving people had crowded thither
from the provinces. The bakers’ doors were besieged; bread was upwards of four
sous a pound, then a famine price, and very bad; a sort of camp of 20,000 mendicants
had been formed at Montmartre. Thus all the materials for sedition and violence
were collected, and the Palais Royal, belonging to the Duke of Orleans, was a centre for setting them in motion. No police officer could
enter its privileged precincts, and, by the connivance of the Duke, its garden
and coffee-houses became the resort of all the agitators and demagogues of
Paris. The Cafe Foy, especially, was converted into a sort of revolutionary
club, whose leading members were Camille Desmoulins and Loustalot,
two advocates who had abandoned the profession of the law for the more
profitable one of journalists, and a democratic nobleman of herculean
proportions and stentorian voice, the Marquis de St. Huruge.
At night the garden was filled with a promiscuous crowd; little groups were
formed, in which calumnious denunciations were made, and the most violent
resolutions adopted.
The news of
Necker’s dismissal reached Paris the following day (Sunday, July 12th) about
four o'clock in the afternoon. The people immediately crowded to the Palais
Royal. Camille Desmoulins appeared at a window of the Cafe Foy with a pistol in
his hand, and exhorted the people to resistance. He then descended into the
garden, plucked a leaf, and placed it in his hat by way of a green cockade, the colour of Necker’s livery, an example which was
immediately imitated by the mob. Busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans were
seized at a sculptor’s on the Boulevard du Temple, and paraded through the
streets by the rabble, some thousands of whom were armed with pikes, sabres, and other weapons. The theatres were compelled to
close their doors, and several houses and shops were plundered. The mob, on
entering the Place Louis XV, now Place de la Concorde, were charged and
dispersed by a cavalry regiment, the Royal Allemand,
commanded by the Prince de Lambesc, and some blood
was shed. The person who carried the bust of Necker was shot, and a Savoyard,
who bore that of the Duke of Orleans was wounded. The Guards sided with the
people.
The riots were
continued on the following day. The popu lace crowded
to the Hotel de Ville to demand arms and l ammunition, which were distributed
to them by a member of the Electoral Committee. Parties, headed by some of the
Guards, broke open the prisons, liberated the prisoners confined for debt,
plundered the Convent St. Lazare of grain, and the Garde Meuble of
arms. But the most important event of July 13th was the creation of a civic
militia of 48,000 men, by the self-constituted Permanent Committee of the
Electors of Paris. These Electors, for the most part wealthy burgesses, had
resolved, in spite of the prohibition of the Government, to remain assembled,
in order to complete their instructions to the Deputies. After the coup
d’état of June 23rd, they met at a traiteur’s, and
resolved to support the Assembly. Thuriot, one of the
most active of their number, advised them to go to the Hotel de Ville and
demand the Salle St. Jean for their permanent sittings, which was abandoned to
them. The institution of the Civic Guard proclaimed the assumption of the
sovereignty by the people. It consisted of citizens of some substance, and its
creation had been suggested by the numerous acts of violence which had taken
place.
Next day, July
14th, the insurrection assumed a still more violent character. A vast crowd
repaired to the Hotel des Invalides, which they entered without resistance,
although six battalions of Swiss and 800 horse were encamped in the immediate
neighborhood. Here the people seized 28,000 muskets and several cannon. Arms
and ammunition had also been procured at the Hotel de Ville. Shouts of “To
the Bastille!” were now raised, and the armed multitude directed themselves
upon that fortress. Its garrison consisted of only eighty-two Invalides,
and thirty-two Swiss, and these were destitute of provisions for a siege; but
the place was well supplied with cannon and ammunition. The Governor, de
Launay, had made preparations for defence, and a
determined commander might have held the place against an undisciplined mob till succour should arrive. But De Launay was not a
regular soldier. He was weak enough to admit Thuriot,
the Elector already mentioned, into the fortress, and to parley with him.
Although Thuriot assured the people of the pacific
intentions of the Governor, he could not persuade them to desist from the
siege. Many of the assailants displayed valour,
especially Elie and Hullin, belonging to the Guards, who had joined the mob,
and a man named Maillard. The curé of St. Estéphe was one of the leaders. After a siege of a few
hours, when the garrison had lost only three or four men, and the people nearly
two hundred, De Launay, urged by his French troops, offered to capitulate, in
spite of the remonstrances of the Swiss commander. The capitulation stipulated
that the lives of the garrison should be spared; but when the populace burst
into the fortress they slew many of the Invalides as well as
the Swiss, their fury being especially directed against the officers. De
Launay, and his second in command, Major de Losme,
were conducted towards the Hotel de Ville, but were barbarously massacred in
the Place de Grève, in spite of the efforts of Elie
and Hullin to save them. These murders were immediately followed by that of M.
de Flesselles, Prévôt des Marchands, or Provost of Paris, who was
accused of having misled the people in their search for arms. The bleeding
heads of De Launay and the Provost were stuck upon pikes, and paraded through
the streets in a sort of triumphal procession of the conquerors of the
Bastille, and the bearers of them appear to have been paid by the civic
authorities for their revolting services. When the Bastille was invaded, only
seven prisoners were found, the greater part confined for forgery, and not a
single one for a political offence. The fortress was soon after demolished to
the foundations, by order of the National Assembly.
On the day after
the capture of the Bastille an elector proposed Lafayette as commander of the
Civic Guard, a nomination which was received with universal approbation. As
civic guards had also been instituted in many provincial towns, Lafayette, with
a view to unite all the militias of the kingdom, now changed their name to that
of “National Guard”. And as the metropolitan force had hitherto worn a cockade
composed of blue and red, which were the Orleans colours as well as those of the City of Paris, he added the Bourbon white, by way of
distinction. Such was the origin of the tricolor, which the new
commander-in-chief declared would travel round the world. In like manner
Bailly, the astronomer, now President of the National Assembly, was proposed
as Prévôt des Marchands,
in place of the murdered De Flesselles. “No”,
exclaimed Brissot, “not Provost of the Merchants, but
Mayor of Paris”; and the new magistrate and his new title were adopted by
acclamation.
The Monarchy was
evidently in the throes of a crisis. Two courses only were open to the King:
either to fly to some other part of the Kingdom and place himself at the head
of his troops in defence of his throne, or to accept
the Revolution. The former of these steps was advocated by Marie Antoinette and
a considerable portion of the Court and Council. But its success would have
been very doubtful. The greater part of the army, as well as of the nation,
were favourable to the Revolution; above all, Louis
XVI possessed not energy enough to carry out successfully so bold a step. He
decided for the other alternative. On July 15th, after learning from the Duc de
Liancourt the capture of the Bastille, which it had been endeavored to conceal
from him, he proceeded without state and ceremony, and accompanied only by his
two brothers, Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois, to the
Assembly; where, addressing the Deputies as the representatives of the nation,
and expressing his confidence in their fidelity and affection, he informed them
that he had ordered the troops to quit Paris and Versailles, and authorized
them to acquaint the authorities of the Capital with what he had done.
Not content with
this step, Louis declared his intention of visiting Paris, in order, as he
said, to put the seal to the reconciliation between Crown and people. Having
first taken the sacrament, and having given his elder brother, the Count of
Provence, a paper appointing him Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, in case
anything should happen to himself, the King set off for Paris, July 17th,
accompanied by 100 members of the National Assembly. He was received at the
gates of Paris by Bailly, the new Mayor, and by the National Guard, under arms.
In an address, Bailly observed, in presenting the keys of the City: “These,
Sire, are the same keys that were offered to Henry IV, the conqueror of his
people; today it is the people who have reconquered their King”. Louis then
appeared at a window of the Hotel de Ville, with the national colours on his breast; he confirmed Bailly and Lafayette in
their respective offices; announced his consent to the recall of Necker; and
after listening to a few speeches, and expressing his satisfaction at finding
himself in the midst of his people, he took his departure amid cries of Vive le Roi!
These scenes of
violence, the inability of the Government to repress them, the manifest
ascendency of the Revolution, induced many of the princes and nobles to
emigrate. The King’s brother, the Comte d'Artois, the
Prince of Condé, the Prince of Conti, the Due d'Enghien,
the Duke of Bourbon, the Duke of Polignac, and his family, and numerous other
persons of distinction, left Paris for Turin a few days after the capture of
the Bastille. This conduct of the nobles is inexcusable. It was they who had
contributed to the Revolution by their privileges, exclusiveness, and
introduction of the new philosophy, and now they deserted the throne, as well
as their own cause; made by their flight a sort of declaration of war against
the nation, and, at the same time, a confession of the hopelessness of
resistance. It can hardly be said, however, with Madame de Stael, that they
were in no danger. A list of proscriptions had been formed at the Palais Royal,
in which the Queen, the Comte d'Artoi,. the Duchess
of Polignac and others, were marked for death.
The King’s visit
to Paris had no effect in taming the ferocity of the people, which had been
whetted by the taste of blood. A few days after, July 22nd, Foulon,
an old man of seventy-five, one of the new ministers appointed after Necker’s
dismissal, and his son-in-law, Berthier de Sauvigny,
were hanged at a lamp in the Place de Grève, in spite
of all the attempts of Bailly and Lafayette to save them. This crime was
committed by assassins hired at a great cost by the revolutionary leaders. Foulon had made himself unpopular by his harshness, and by
some contemptuous remarks which he was reported to have made about the people,
but which were probably calumnies of the journals. Berthier had been an honest
and intelligent administrator, but disliked for his haughtiness. Lafayette,
disgusted at brutalities which he could not control, tendered his resignation;
but the Sections refused to accept it.
The example of the
metropolis was speedily imitated in the provinces. Municipal guards were
everywhere instituted under the ostensible pretence of averting plunder and violence but the men composing them were all
hostile to the ancient institutions. Tolls and custom-houses were destroyed,
and many unpopular officials and suspected engrossers of corn were hanged. The movement spread to the rural districts of central and
southern France, and especially of Brittany; chateaux and convents were
destroyed, and in Alsace and Franche-Comté several of the nobles were put to
death, in some cases with horrible tortures. It was about this time that the
term aristocrat began to be used as synonymous with an enemy of the people. At
Caen, M. de Belzunce, a major in the army, denounced
in the infamous Journal of Marat, was slain by the people for endeavoring to
maintain discipline in his regiment. In the northern parts of France the
peasants were less violent, and contented themselves with refusing to pay
tithes or to perform any feudal services. Throughout great part of France a
vague terror prevailed of an army of brigands said to be paid by the
aristocrats to destroy the crops, in order to produce a famine.
The order for
Necker’s recall overtook him at Basle. He returned to Versailles towards the
end of July, presented himself to the National Assembly, then hastened to
Paris, where he procured from the Committee of Electors a general amnesty for
the enemies of the Revolution; a decree, however, which the Sections
immediately compelled the Electors to reverse, and which had only the effect of
rendering Necker himself suspected. He had not even yet discovered the true
character of the Revolution. He was still infatuated enough to think that he
could direct a movement to which his own acts had so essentially contributed;
and in his overweening confidence he neglected to form a party in the Assembly,
and to conciliate its more dangerous leaders.
The National
Assembly, or, as it was called from its labours in
drawing up a constitution, the Constituent Assembly, contained some of the
ablest men in France, and many of its members were undoubtedly animated with a
sincere desire to establish, on a lasting basis, the liberty and welfare of the
French people. It was divided into three principal parties. On the right of the
President sat the Conservatives, or supporters of the ancient régime,
composed mostly of the prelates and higher nobles. The chief speaker on this
side was the Abbé Maury, though Cazales defended with
considerable ability the cause of the nobles. The centre was occupied by the Constitutionalists, who were desirous of establishing a
limited monarchy, somewhat after the English model. The most distinguished
members of this party were the Count of Clermont Tonnerre,
Count Lally Tollendal, Mounier, Malouet, the Duc de la Rochefoucault, the Duc de Liancourt, the Viscount Montmorenci, the Marquis de Montesquieu, and others. From
the character of its principles this section was called the Marais. The
popular, or ultra-democratic party occupied the benches on the left. The
principles of this party were neither very defined nor very consistent. They,
of course, carried their views further than the Constitutionalists; but none of
them were yet Republicans, though some may have desired a change of dynasty.
The chief political principle which they held in common was the union of the
Monarchy with a single Chamber, or what has been called a Royal Democracy.
Among them might be seen the Duke of Orleans, the Marquis Lafayette, Bailly,
Mirabeau, Duport, Barnave,
the two Lameths, the Abbé Sieyes, Talleyrand,
Robespierre, and others. As the Revolution proceeded, many of these men became
Republicans, whilst others, on the contrary, joined the Constitutional party.
Louis Philippe
Joseph, Duke of Orleans, great-grandson of the Regent, possessed all his
ancestor’s profligacy and want of principle, without his ability. The chief
motives of his political conduct were hatred of the reigning family, and
especially of the Queen, and some vague hopes that their overthrow might enable
him to usurp the Crown. But nature had not qualified him for such a part. He
was destitute of the qualities which inspire confidence and devotion, and at no
time does he appear to have had adherents enough to constitute a party.
Robespierre, an
advocate of Arras, whose name became at last the epitome of the Revolution,
played but a subordinate part in the Constituent Assembly. He was considered a
dull man, and his appearance in the tribune was the signal for merriment. When
with pain and difficulty he expressed his opinions in dry, inflexible formulas,
transports of insulting mirth broke out on all sides. Such was then the man who
was afterwards to inspire his audience with very different emotions. But
Robespierre was not to be so put down, He continued his efforts with the
perseverance which forms so marked a trait in his character; and after the
death of Mirabeau he began to be heard with more attention, and even acquired a
considerable influence in the Assembly.
Of all the early
leaders of the Revolution Mirabeau was by far the most remarkable. Honoré
Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, was the son of
the Marquis Mirabeau, to whom we have already alluded as the author of L'Ami du Peuple,
and was born at Bignon, in March, 1749. The family
was originally of Neapolitan extraction, but had been long settled in Provence.
The early youth of Count Mirabeau was marked by profligacy, united, however, with
brilliant talents, and considerable literary acquirements. After being
imprisoned more than once at the instance of his father, after marrying a rich
heiress, squandering her fortune, and then deserting her for the wife of the
Marquis de Mounier, he was compelled to fly to
Holland with her, where their sole support was derived from his pen. Many of
his early productions are licentious in the extreme, but were mingled with
works on political subjects. Sometimes he was base enough to receive the wages of
a hired libellist; sometimes he sold to a new
purchaser manuscripts which had been already paid for. His father called him,
“My son, the word-merchant”. From Holland he was transferred by a lettre de cachet to the dungeons of
Vincennes; and after his liberation from that prison he passed some time in
England and in Prussia. By temper and inclination an aristocrat, the French
Revolution found Mirabeau ready to plunge into all the excesses of democracy in
order to retrieve his ruined fortunes. His personal qualities fitted him for
the part of a tribune of the people. In person stout and muscular, though
somewhat undersized; having a countenance seamed with the small-pox, and of
almost repulsive ugliness, but animated with the fire of genius, and capable of
striking an adversary with awe, he possessed an eloquence of that fiery and
impetuous kind which is irresistible in popular assemblies. His disorderly life
had made him reckless; while the debts with which he was overwhelmed rendered
him willing to sell, or rather as he himself expressed it, to hire himself, to
the Government, or to anyone who would pay an adequate price for his talents
and services.
The debates of the
Assembly were conducted with that mixture of formality and vivaciousness which
is peculiar to the French character. They consisted for the most part of long
and laboured harangues, or rather regular treatises,
beginning from first principles, prepared and generally-written beforehand.
Even the impetuous Mirabeau adopted this method, and his orations were not
always composed by himself. The Chamber frequently became the scene of
indescribable disorder and tumult. In vain the President endeavored to restore
order by ringing his bell; while the orators, with animated looks, their lips
in motion, but quite inaudible, beat the air with their arms, and resembled
wrestlers preparing for a contest.
While such was the
character of the Assembly and such the state of France, the chateaux and
convents blazing in the provinces, the capital in a state of open revolt, and
while no authority appeared either able or willing to put a stop to these
excesses, the famous sacrifice of their privileges by the nobles and clergy, on
the night of August 4th, has at least as much the appearance of a concession
extorted from fear as of a generous and patriotic devotion. The privileged
orders were in fact giving up only what they had no longer any hopeof retaining. The self-sacrifice was initiated by the
Vicomte de Noailles, who proposed the abolition of all feudal rights and of the
remains of personal servitude. Moved by a sort of contagious enthusiasm, the
nobles and landed proprietors now vied with one another in offering up their
privileges. In this memorable night were decreed the abolition of serfdom, the
power of redeeming seignorial rights, the suppression of seignorial
jurisdiction, the abolition of exclusive rights of chase and warren, the
abolition of tithe, the equalization of imposts, the admission of all ranks to
civil and military offices, the abolition of the sale of charges, the
reformation of jurandes and maîtrises, and the suppression of sinecure pensions.
The Assembly, as if overcome with a sense of its own liberality, and desirous
of connecting the King with such important reforms, decreed that a medal should
be struck in commemoration of them, on which Louis should be designated as the
restorer of French liberty. These renunciations were followed on the part of
many of the bishops and higher clergy by the resignation of their richest
benefices and preferments. Hereditary nobility had already been abolished by a
Decree of June 19th. It was, however, observed with dismay that concessions so
ample failed to tranquillize the public mind. Acts of atrocious violence were
still committed in the provinces; chateaux continued to be burnt; and the
people, not content with the enjoyment of their newly-acquired rights,
perpetrated frightful devastations on the estates of their former oppressors.
The Assembly
having thus cleared the ground, entered on their task of building up a new
Constitution. By way of preamble they drew up a Declaration of the Rights of
Man, at the end of which they recapitulated all the privileges, distinctions,
and monopolies which they had abolished. On the motion of Lafayette, at whose
suggestion the Declaration had been made, the right of resistance to oppression
was included in it. The constitutional labours of the
Assembly will claim our attention again, and it will here suffice to state that
the three principal questions first discussed were those of the King’s veto,
of the permanence of the Assembly, and whether it should consist of one or more
Chambers. The veto gave rise to much angry discussion, both within and without
the Assembly. It was warmly debated whether there should be any at all, and, if
any, whether it should be absolute or merely suspensive. At this time, however,
there was a sort of reaction at the Hotel de Ville, and the Palais Royal was
kept in order. Mirabeau, to the surprise of many, was a warm partisan of
the veto. He had declared that, without it, he would rather live at
Constantinople than in France; that he knew nothing more terrible than the
aristocratic sovereignty of 600 persons. Louis himself is said to have
preferred a suspensive to an absolute veto; and it was at last decreed
that the King should have the power of suspending a measure during two
legislatures, or, as we should say, two parliaments, each lasting two years.
Montesquieu’s school, or that which proposed the English Constitution as a
model, and consequently advocated two Chambers, mustered very strong in the
Committee of Constitution. But the idea of an Upper House was contrary to the
current of popular feeling, which disliked the idea of reproducing the English
system. It was decided that the Legislature should be permanent. It was also
decreed, by acclamation, September 15th, that the King’s person was inviolable,
the Throne indivisible, the Crown hereditary in the reigning family from male
to male in the order of primogeniture.
While the Assembly
were still engaged on this subject an event occurred which gave a new turn to
the Revolution, and may be accounted the chief cause which ultimately rendered
all their labours nugatory. A plot had been formed to
bring the King to Paris, and rumours of it had
reached the Court. Mirabeau was said, though without any adequate proof being
produced, to have been in the secret. It seems, however, more probable that the
Duke of Orleans was at the bottom of the plot. The Duke and his partisans hoped
at least to alarm the King into flight; perhaps to effect his deposition, or
even his murder. Several Royalist deputies had received confidential letters
that a decisive blow was meditated, and had attempted, but without effect, to
persuade Louis XVI to transfer the Assembly to Tours. But Lafayette, who
virtually held the control of the Revolution,—a vain man, desirous of playing a
part, but without settled principles, or even definite aims,—had also conceived
the idea of bringing the King to Paris. He had been encouraged in it, if not
incited to it by the grenadiers of the National Guard, consisting of three
companies of the gardes Frangaises enrolled in that force, and receiving
pay, who demanded to be led to Versailles. An event which occurred at this time
hastened the catastrophe.
The military
service of the Palace was performed by the National Guard of Versailles, and
the only regular force there was a small body of gardes du corps. Under these circumstances it was thought necessary to provide for
the security of the King and Royal family. The commanders of the National Guard
of Versailles, declining to undertake that they would be capable of resisting
some 2,000 well-armed and disciplined men, the municipality of the town were
persuaded to demand the aid of a regiment; the King’s orders were issued to
that effect, and on September 23rd the regiment of Flanders arrived. Efforts
were soon made to seduce this regiment from its allegiance; while the Court, by
marks of favour, sought to retain its affections. The
officers of the gardes du corps and
those of the National Guard of Versailles invited the newly-arrived officers to
a dinner. There was nothing unusual in this; but the Court, by lending the
Palace Theatre for the banquet, seemed to make it a kind of political
demonstration. The boxes were filled with the ladies and retainers of the
Court; the healths of the different members of the
Royal family were drunk with enthusiasm, and, it is said, with drawn swords;
the toast of “The Nation” was either refused, or, at all events, omitted. As
the evening proceeded, the enthusiasm increased, and was wound up to the
highest pitch of excitement when the Queen appeared, leading the Dauphin in her
hand. The loyal song, 0 Richard, o mon Roi! L’univers t’abandonne, was
sung; the boxes were escaladed, and white cockades and black, the latter the
Austrian colour, were distributed by the fair hands
of the ladies.
The news of these
proceedings, accompanied, of course, with the usual exaggerations, as that the
national cockade had been trampled under foot, etc.,
caused a great sensation at Paris. The excitement was purposely increased by
agitators, whose designs were promoted by the scarcity of bread which prevailed
at that time. There was never any considerable stock of flour on hand; and
Bailly, as appears from his Mémoires, was
in a constant state of anxiety as to how the Parisians were to be fed. The
municipality advanced large sums to keep down the price; but the consequence of
this was that the banlieue for ten leagues round came to Paris to supply
themselves with bread. The emigration of the rich added to the distress. Thus
all the materials of sedition were collected, and needed only the application
of a torch to set them in a flame. At daybreak, October 5th, the Place de Grève was suddenly filled with troops of women; one of
them, seizing a drum at a neighboring guard-house, and beating it violently,
went through the streets, followed by her companions, shouting bread!
bread! They were gradually joined by bands of men, some of them in
female attire, armed with pikes and clubs. A cry was raised, To Versailles! and
the grotesque but ferocious army, led by Maillard, one of the heroes of the
Bastille, took the road to that place.
It was not till
late in the day that Lafayette began his march with a considerable body of the
National Guard. He was accompanied by two representatives of the Section of the Carmes, who were to present to the King, on the part of
the Commune or municipality, the four following demands: That he should intrust the safety of his person to the National Guards of
Paris and Versailles; that he should inform the Commune respecting the supply
of corn; that he should give an unconditional assent to the Declaration of the
Rights of Man; and that he should show proof of his love for the people by
taking up his residence at Paris; that is, put himself in the power of the
National Guard and their commander.
While the
insurgents were approaching, St. Priest had in vain advised that their march
should be arrested at the bridges over the Seine. When they arrived he urged
the King to fly, telling him, what the event proved to be true, that if he was
conducted to Paris his Crown was lost. Necker opposed both these counsels. The
King’s best safeguard, he said, was the affections of the people; and as the
other Ministers were divided in opinion, nothing was done. Meanwhile the women
arrived; and a large body of them, headed by Maillard, penetrated into the
Assembly. Outside a disturbance arose between the crowd and the King’s Guards,
which, however, was appeased by the arrival, about eleven o'clock at night, of
Lafayette and his troops. Tranquillity seemed at last
to be restored; five of the women had been admitted to an audience of the King,
and had retired overwhelmed with a sense of his kindness. Lafayette had retired
to rest about an hour after his arrival, and without having taken due
precautions for the safety of the Royal family. About five o'clock he was
aroused by the report of fresh tumults. Some fighting had taken place between
the mob and the troops, and several of the gardes du corps had been killed or wounded. The people had penetrated into
the Palace through a gate negligently left open; the Queen was barely able to
escape, half-dressed, from her chamber to the King’s apartments; the guards at
her door had sacrificed their lives with heroic devotion, and the mob did not
succeed in forcing an entrance. Lafayette persuaded the King to show himself on
the balcony of the Palace; he himself led forward the Queen, accompanied by her
children, and knelt down and kissed her hand amid the applause of the people.
Tumultuous cries now arose of “The King to Paris!”. Louis had expressed some
hesitation on this point to the deputies of the Commune, though he had acceded
to their other demands; but after a short interval he reappeared on the balcony
and announced his intention of proceeding to the capital.
The march of the
crowd and captive King to Paris was at once horrible and grotesque. The Royal
carriage was preceded by a disorderly cavalcade, composed of gardes du corps and gardes Françaises,
who had exchanged parts of their uniform in token of peace and fraternity. Then
followed several pieces of cannon, on which rode some of the women, bearing
loaves and pieces of meat stuck on pikes and bayonets. The King was accompanied
by two bishops of his council, who, as the carriage entered the capital, were
saluted with cries of “All the bishops to the lamp!”. Thus were the Royal
family conducted to the Tuileries, which had not been inhabited for a century,
and contained no proper accommodation for its new inmates.
The events of
October 6th may be said to have decided the fate of the French Monarchy.
The King was now virtually a prisoner and a hostage in the hands of the
Parisian rabble and its leaders. The Assembly, which soon followed the king to
Paris, lost its independence at the same time. It met at first in the
apartments of the archevêché, on an
island of the Seine, between the faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marceau, the
most disturbed districts of Paris; but early in November it was transferred to
the manége of the Tuileries, a large
building running parallel with the terrace of the Feuillants, the site of which
now forms part of the Rue de Rivoli. No distinction of seats was now observed;
nobles, priests, and commons all sat pele-mele
together. It was plain that there could be no longer any hope of a stable
Constitutional Monarchy; and several moderate men withdrew from the Assembly,
as Mounier, then its president, Lally Tollendal, and others. The Duke of Orleans, suspected
of being the author of the insurrection, was dismissed to London on pretence of a political mission. He arrived in that capital
towards the end of October, and was received, both by Court and people, with
marked contempt. He was frightened into accepting this mission by the threats
of Lafayette. Mirabeau was furious at his departure, and exclaimed, that he was
a poor wretch, and deserved not the trouble that had been taken for him. The
Duke returned to France in the summer of 1790, but from this time forward he
had lost his popularity.
At this period the
reign of the Palais Royal was supplanted by that of the Jacobins. The Jacobin
Club was one of the most portentous features of the Revolution, or rather it
may be said to have ultimately become the Revolution itself. It originated at
Versailles soon after the meeting of the States- General, and was at first
called the Club des Bretons, from its having been founded by the
forty deputies of Bretagne, who met together to concert their attacks upon the
Ministry. It was soon joined by the deputies of Dauphine and Franche-Comté, and
gradually by others; as the Abbé Sieyes, the two Lameths,
Adrien Duport, the Due d'Aiguillon,
M. de Noailles, and others. When the Assembly was transferred to Paris, the
Breton Club hired a large apartment in the Rue St. Honoré, belonging to the
preaching Dominican Friars, who were commonly called Jacobins because their principal
house was in the Rue St. Jacques; and hence the same name was vulgarly given to
the club, though they called themselves “the Friends of the Constitution”.
After a little time, persons who were not deputies were admitted; the debates
were thrown open to the public; and as no other qualifications were required
for membership than a blind submission to the leaders, and a subscription of
twenty-four livres a year, it soon numbered 1,200 members, including several
foreigners. There was a bureau for the president, a tribune, and stalls round
the sides of the chamber. The club held its sittings thrice a week, at seven
o'clock in the evening; the order of the day in the Assembly was often debated
over night by the Jacobins, and opinions in a certain measure dictated to the
deputies. The club disseminated and enforced its principles by means of its
Journal and Almanacs, its hired mob, orators, singers, applauders and hissers
in the tribunes of the Assembly. For this last purpose soldiers who had been
drummed out of their regiments were principally selected; and in 1790 they
consisted of between 700 and 800 men, under the command of a certain Chevalier
de St. Louis, to whom they swore implicit obedience. The Jacobins planted
affiliated societies in the provinces, which gradually increased to the
enormous number of 2,400. At first the club consisted of well-educated persons;
400 of them belonged to the Assembly, and may be said to have been the masters
of it. The young Due de Chartres, son of the Duke of Orleans, and afterwards
King Louis Philippe, was an active member of the club. By degrees it grew more
and more democratic, and became at last a sort of revolutionary Inquisition,
and a legion of public accusers. It was known abroad by the name of the
Propaganda, and was a terror to all Europe. In the spring of 1790 several
members of the club who did not approve its growing violence, as Sieyes,
Talleyrand, Lafayette, Raederer, Bailly, Dupont. de
Nemours, and others, established what they called the Club of 1789, with the
view of upholding the original principles of the Revolution. They hired for
24,000 livres a splendid apartment in the Palais Royal, in the house afterwards
known as the Trois Frères Provencaux, where they
dined at a louis d'or a head, after groaning in the Assembly
over the miseries of the people. Mirabeau and a few other members continued
also to belong to the Jacobins. A certain number of literary men were admitted,
among whom may be mentioned Condorcet, Chamfort, and Marmontel. This club also had its journal, of which
Condorcet was the editor.
Journalism was
also one of the most potent engines of the Revolution. A flood of journals
began to be published contemporaneously with, or soon after, the opening of the
States-General, as Mirabeau’s Courrier de Provence, Gorsas’ Courrier de Versailles, Brissot’s Patriote Française, Barère’s Point de jour, &c.
The Revolutions de Paris, published in the name of the printer, Prudhomme, but
edited by Loustalot, the most popular of all the
journals, circulated sometimes 200,000 copies. At a rather later period
appeared Marat’s atrocious and bloodthirsty Ami du peuple,
Camille Desmoulins’ Courrier de
Brabant, the wittiest, and Freron’s Orateur du peuple,
the most violent of all the journals, and ultimately Hebert’s Père
Duchesne, perhaps the most infamous of all. For the most part, the whole
stock of knowledge of these journalists had been picked up from Voltaire,
Rousseau, and the authors of the Encyclopedic; but their ignorance was combined
with the most ridiculous vanity. Camille Desmoulins openly proclaimed that he
had struck out a new branch of commerce—a manufacture of revolutions. Marat
seems to have derived his influence chiefly from his cynicism and
bloodthirstiness. He was born at Boudri, near
Neufchatel, in Switzerland, in 1743. As a child he displayed a sort of
precocious talent combined with a morose perversity; and in manhood the same
disposition was shown by his attacks upon everybody who had gained a
reputation. Thus he attempted to upset the philosophy of Newton and disputed
his theory of optics, which he appears not to have comprehended, as well as
Franklin’s theory of electricity; and in a book which he published in reply to
Helvetius, he spoke with the greatest contempt of Locke, Condillac,
Malebranche, and Voltaire. He spent some time in England, during part of which
he seems to have been employed as an usher at Warrington. In 1775 he published,
at Edinburgh, a work in English, entitled the Chains of Slavery,
which indicated his future course. On his return from England he obtained the
place of veterinary surgeon in the stables of the Comte d'Artois,
which he abandoned on the breaking out of the Revolution to become an editor.
The bitterness of his literary failures seems to have excited the natural envy
and malignity of his temper to an excess bordering upon madness. Cowardly as
well as cruel, while he hid himself in garrets and cellars, he filled his
journal with personal attacks and denunciations, and recommended not only
murder but torture.
After the removal
of the King to Paris the political atmosphere became somewhat calmer, though
disturbances sometimes broke out on the old subject of the supply of bread. The
populace seemed astonished that the presence of the King had not rendered that
article more abundant; and about a fortnight after his arrival, they put to
death a baker named Francis, on the charge of being a forestaller, and paraded
his head through the city.
The Assembly was
divided into various committees of war, marine, jurisprudence, etc., of which
the committee charged, with drawing up the Constitution was alone permanent.
Its members were Mirabeau, Target, Duport, Chapelier, Desmeuniers,
Talleyrand, Barnave, Lameth,
and Sièyes. The Abbé Sieyès was one of the most
active members of the committee. It was he who presented the project for
dividing France into eighty-three departments. The question of the revenue, the
real cause for summoning the States-General, seemed almost neglected. Necker
had attempted to negotiate two loans, but they failed; partly because the
Assembly reduced the proposed interest too low, and partly from a want of
confidence on the part of capitalists. Necker now proposed an extraordinary
contribution of a fourth of all incomes, or an income-tax of twenty-five per cent.,
for one year. He accompanied the project with an earnest appeal to all good
citizens to contribute to the necessities of the State. This appeal was
cheerfully responded to by people of all ranks. The members of the Assembly
deposited at the door their silver shoe-buckles; the King and Queen sent their
plate to the Mint; Necker himself placed bank notes for 100,000 francs on the
President’s bureau; labouring men offered half their
earnings, the women their rings and trinkets; even the very children parted
with their playthings. Such expedients, however, could afford only a temporary
and precarious relief. In this extremity the property of the Church offered a
vast and tempting resource. Such property, it was argued, could be seized, or
rather resumed, without injustice; it had been erected only for a national
purpose, and the State might appropriate it if that purpose could be fulfilled
in another way.
The decree for the
abolition of tithes had already passed among the offerings made on August 4th,
in spite of the arguments of the Abbé Sieyès, who pointed out that tithes, as a
charge upon land, had been allowed for in its purchase, and that to abolish
them unconditionally was to make a present to the landed proprietors of an
annual rent of 120,000,000 francs, or near 5,000,0002. sterling. At the same
time, Bazot, afterwards a member of the Gironde, had
proposed to seize the Church lands and other property. This proposition, which
was supported by Mirabeau, was not then attended to, but was renewed a few months
later by the Bishop of Autun; and, after violent
debates, was finally decreed by a large majority, November 2nd, 1789.
By this
confiscation, to which were added the domains of the Crown, except those
reserved for the recreation of the King, a large national fund was created. But
there was a difficulty in realizing it. A sum of 400,000,000 francs was
required for 1790 and the following year; yet it was almost impossible to
effect sales to so large an amount, even at great sacrifices. The clergy made a
last attempt to save their property by offering a loan of the sum required; but
it was refused on the ground that it implied their recognition as proprietors.
To meet this difficulty, the Finance Committee resolved, in the spring of 1790,
to sell certain portions of the newly-acquired national property to the
municipalities of Paris and other towns. These purchases were to be paid for in
paper guaranteed by those bodies; such paper to have a legal circulation, and
all anterior contracts to be liquidated in it. Such was the origin of the
currency called assignats.
The issue of these
notes was at first regulated by the amount of property actually sold; but the
subsequent neglect of this precaution naturally produced a rapid fall in the
value of the new currency. One of the results of this financial measure was to
create a large number of small landed proprietors. Ecclesiastics were now paid
by the Government; the incomes of the higher dignitaries of the Church were
reduced; while those of the cures, or parish priests, were augmented. In
February, 1790, monasteries were abolished and monastic vows suppressed.
These attacks upon
the Church were accompanied with others upon the Parliament. Alexander de Lameth had proposed and carried a decree, November 3rd,
1789, that the Parliaments should remain in vacation till further orders, and
that meanwhile their functions should be discharged by the Chambres des vacations. Some of them
endeavored to resist, but were silenced by the Assembly; and from this time
they virtually ceased to exist, though not yet legally abolished.
We must here also
record the reforms in the municipality of Paris, a body which played a leading
part in the Revolution. By an ordinance of Louis XVI, April 13th, 1789, Paris,
which had hitherto consisted of twenty-one quarters, was, with a view to the
elections for the States-General, divided into sixty arrondissemens,
or districts; and this division was adopted as the basis of the municipal
organization, established spontaneously after the taking of the Bastille. But
as several of these districts had promoted disturbances, the Constituent
Assembly, in order to break the concert between them, made a new division into
forty-eight Sections, by a law of June 27th, 1790. This arrangement, however,
ultimately proved no better than the former one. It had been ordained that the
Sections should not remain assembled after the elections of deputies were
concluded; but this wise provision was rendered nugatory by another,
authorizing their assembly on the requisition of any eight of them. To exercise
this right, a permanent committee of sixteen persons was established in each
Section; and thus were provided forty-eight focuses of perpetual agitation; a
circumstance which produced the most fatal effects upon the Revolution.
Early in 1790
occurred the obscure plot of the Marquis de Favras,
the object of which seems to have been to assassinate Lafayette and Necker, and
to carry off the King to Peronne. The plot was to be
carried out by means of 1,200 horse, supported by an army of 20,000 Swiss and
12,000 Germans, and by raising several provinces; but it was detected. Favras was tried and condemned by the Chatelet, and hanged,
February 19th, 1790, affording the first instance of equality in the mode of
punishment. Favras forbore to make any confessions,
and the whole matter is involved in mystery.
After the failure
of the Orleans conspiracy, and the withdrawal of the Duke to England, Mirabeau,
ever needy, finding all resources from that quarter cut off, had determined on
selling himself to the Court. Mirabeau’s connection with it was effected
through his friend, the Count de la Marck, who
represented to Count Mercy, the Austrian Ambassador, the friend of Marie
Antoinette, and confidential correspondent of her mother, Maria Theresa, the
real state of Mirabeau’s feelings. The French Queen entertained for Mirabeau
the bitterest aversion, as the author of the attack of the 5th of October; but
she had long wished to come to an understanding with some of the leaders of the
Assembly, and Mercy succeeded in appeasing her resentment. There was to be no
question of the restoration of the ancient Régime; the safety of
the Royal family seems to have been all that was contemplated. Mirabeau offered
to manage the Assembly in the interests of the Court, and drew up the scheme of
a Ministry, in which he himself was to be included; but his conduct had already
begun to be suspected, and a motion was made and carried in the Assembly that
no deputy should be capable of holding office. Mirabeau, nevertheless,
continued his connection with the Court, abandoned his former humble lodging,
and set up a splendid establishment. His debts, amounting to 208,000 livres,
were to be paid; he was to receive a monthly pension of 6,000 livres; and at
the end of the session, if he had served the King well, a sum of one million
livres. But, to insure his engagement for the payment of his debts, a kind of
tutor was to be set over him; and a priest, M. de Fontanges, Archbishop of Tolouse, undertook this strange office!
It was resolved to
celebrate the anniversary of the capture of the Bastille by a grand federative
fête in the Champ de Mars, at which deputations from all the departments were
to assist; and as the labour of 12,000 workmen
sufficed not to prepare in time this vast amphitheatre,
they were assisted by citizens of all ranks, ages, and sexes. A few score
vagabond foreigners, headed by a half-crazy Prussian baron, styling himself Anacharsis Clootz, appeared at
the bar of the National Assembly as “an embassy from all the nations of the
universe”, to demand places for a large number of foreigners desirous of
assisting at the sublime spectacle of the Federation. This demand is said to
have inspired the Assembly with profound enthusiasm, though many of the members
could not refrain from laughter on perceiving among these ambassadors their
discarded domestics, who, in dresses borrowed from the theatres, personated,
for twelve francs, Turks, Poles, Arabians, Chinese, and other characters. In
the excitement of the moment, the Assembly decreed the abolition of all titles
of honor, of armorial bearings, and liveries. A motion that the title of
Seigneur should be retained by Princes of the Blood Royal was opposed by
Lafayette, and lost.
On July 14th the
deputies from the departments ranged themselves under their respective banners,
as well as the representatives of the army and of the National Guard. The
Bishop of Autun officiated in Pontifical robes at an
altar in the middle of the arena; at each of its corners stood a hundred
priests in their white aubes, with three coloured girdles. The King and the President of the
Assembly occupied, in front of the altar, thrones which had little to
distinguish them from each other. Behind were their respective attendants, the
members of the Assembly, and, in a sort of balcony, the Queen and Royal family.
Lafayette, as Commandant of the National Guard, first took the oath, next, the
President of the Assembly, and then the King. His oath ran: “I, citizen, King
of the French, swear to the nation to employ all the power delegated to me by
the constitutional law of the State to uphold the Constitution, and enforce the
execution of the laws”. The Queen, lifting up the Dauphin in her arms, pledged
his future obedience to the oath. The ceremony, so calculated, by its dramatic
effect, to please the French, was concluded with a hymn of thanksgiving and the
discharge of artillery.
But the nation
thus newly constituted seemed already hastening to dissolution. All the springs
of government appeared relaxed and distorted. Necker, disgusted at seeing his
functions assumed by the Assembly, retired into Switzerland (September, 1790).
The communication in which he notified his retirement was received with
coldness and silence; the deputies, with marked contempt, passed to the order
of the day. It was evident that his public career was closed. The words liberty
and equality, ill understood, had turned every head; had penetrated even into
the army, and filled it with insubordination. In some regiments the officers
had been forced to fly, in others they had been massacred. In August a revolt
of the troops stationed at Nanci had assumed a most serious
character. General de Bouillé was compelled to march
against them from Metz, and the mutiny was not quelled without a sharp
engagement and considerable bloodshed.
The Church was
also in a state of disturbance. Not content with depriving the clergy of their
property, the Assembly proceeded to attack their consciences, by decreeing the
civil constitution of the clergy, July 12th, 1790, which abolished all the
ancient forms and institutions of the Church. The title of archbishop, as well
as all canonicates, prebends, chapters, priories, abbeys, convents, &c.,
were suppressed; bishops and curés were
no longer to be nominated by the King, but to be chosen by the people. To these
and other momentous changes in the constitution of the Church, the Pope refused
his sanction; but by a decree of November 27th, 1790, the Assembly required the
clergy to take an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law, and the King, and to
maintain the Constitution. This oath they were to take within a week, on pain
of deprivation. The King, before assenting to this measure, wished to procure
the consent of the Pope, but was persuaded not to wait for it, and gave his
sanction, December 3rd. Mirabeau, by a violent speech against the clergy,
completely destroyed his good understanding with the King. Louis, whose
religious feelings were very strong, was more hurt by these attacks upon the
Church than even by those directed against his own prerogative. They induced
him to turn his thoughts towards aid from abroad, and shortly afterwards he
began to correspond with General De Bouillé,
respecting an escape to the frontier.
Of 300 prelates
and priests who had seats in the Assembly, those who sat on the right
unanimously refused to take the oath, while those who sat on the left
anticipated the day appointed for that purpose. Out of 138 archbishops and
bishops, only four consented to swear: Talleyrand, Lomenie de Brienne (now Archbishop of Sens), the Bishop of Orleans, and the Bishop of Viviers. The oath was also refused by the great majority of
the curés and vicars, amounting, it is said, to
50,000. Hence arose the distinction of prêtres sermentés and insermentés,
or sworn and non-juring priests. The brief of Pius
VI, forbidding the oath, was burnt at the Palais Royal. Many of the deprived
ecclesiastics refused to vacate their functions, declared their successors
intruders, and the sacraments they administered null, and excommunicated all
who recognized and obeyed them.
The death of
Mirabeau, April 2nd, 1791, deprived the Court of a partisan in the Assembly,
though it may well be doubted whether his exertions could have saved the
Monarchy. His death was honored with all the marks of public mourning. The
theatres were closed and all the usual entertainments forbidden. His remains
were carried to the Pantheon, but were afterwards cast out to make room for
those of Marat. After Mirabeau’s death, Duport, Barnave, and Lameth reigned
supreme in the Assembly, and Robespierre became more prominent.
The King had now
begun to fix his hopes on foreign interinvention. The
injuries inflicted by the decrees of the Assembly on August 4th, 1789, on
several Princes of the Empire, through their possessions in Alsace,
Franche-Comté, and Lorraine, might afford a pretext for a rupture between the
German Confederation and France. The Palatine House of Deux Ponts,
the Houses of Wurttemberg, Darmstadt, Baden, Salm Salm,
and others had possessions and lordships in those provinces; and were secured
in the enjoyment of their rights and privileges by the treaties which placed the
provinces under the sovereignty of France. The German prelates, injured by the
civil constitution of the clergy, were among the first to complain. By this act
the Elector of Mainz was deprived of his metropolitan rights over the
bishoprics of Strassburg and Spires; the Elector of
Treves of those over Metz, Toul, Verdun, Nanci, and
St. Diez. The Bishops of Strassburg and Basle lost
their diocesan rights in Alsace. Some of these princes and nobles had called
upon the Emperor and the German body in January, 1790, for protection against
the arbitrary acts of the National Assembly. This appeal had been favourably entertained, both by the Emperor Joseph II and
by the King of Prussia; and though the Assembly offered suitable indemnities,
they were refused. On the other hand, the Assembly, having annulled seignorial
rights and privileges throughout the French dominions, could not consistently
make exceptions. The Emperor, besides the alarm which he felt in common with
other absolute Sovereigns at the French revolutionary propaganda, could not
forget that the Queen of France was his sister; and he was also swayed by his
Minister, Prince Kaunitz, whose grand stroke of
policy—an intimate alliance between Austria and the House of Bourbon—was
altogether incompatible with the French Revolution. The Spanish and Italian
Bourbons were naturally inclined to support their relative, Louis XVI. In
October, 1790, Louis had written to request the King of Spain not to attend to
any act done in his name, unless confirmed by letters from himself. The King of
Sardinia, connected by intermarriages with the French Bourbons, had also family
interests to maintain. Catharine II of Russia had witnessed, with alarm, the
fruits of the philosophy which she had patronized, and was opposed to the new
order of things in France. The King of Prussia, governed by the counsels of
Hertzberg, the enemy of Austria, though disposed to assist the French King, had
at first insisted on the condition that Louis should break with Austria, and
conclude an intimate alliance with the House of Brandenburg, a proposition
which was, of course, rejected. But, in April, 1791, Hertzberg retired from the
Ministry, leaving the field open to Bischofswerder,
the friend of Austria, and the policy which had inspired the Convention of
Reichenbach once more prevailed. Thus all the materials existed for an
extensive coalition against French democracy.
In this posture of
affairs the Comte d'Artois, accompanied by Calonne,
who served him as a sort of Minister, and by the Comte de Durfort,
who had been dispatched from the French Court, had a conference with the
Emperor, now Leopold II, at Mantua, in May, 1791, in which it was agreed that,
by the following July, Austria should march 35,000 men towards the frontiers of
Flanders, the German Circles 15,000 towards Alsace; the Swiss 15,000 towards
the Lyonnais; the King of Sardinia, 15,000 towards Dauphiné;
while Spain was to hold 20,000 in readiness in Catalonia. But the large force
to be thus assembled was intended only as a threatening demonstration, and
hostilities were not to be actually commenced without the sanction of a
congress. The flight attempted a few weeks after by Louis XVI was not at all
connected with this conference. Such a project was, indeed, mentioned at
Mantua, but it was discouraged by the Emperor, as well as by d'Artois and Calonne. The King’s situation was become
intolerably irksome. He was, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner at Paris.
A trip, which he wished to make to St. Cloud during the Easter of 1791, was denounced
at the Jacobin Club as a pretext for flight; and when he attempted to leave the
Tuileries, April 18th, the tocsin was rung, his carriage was surrounded by the
mob, and he was compelled to return to the Palace. On the following day Louis
appeared in the Assembly, pointed out how important it was, on constitutional
grounds, that his actions should be free; reiterated his assurances of
attachment to public liberty and the new Constitution, and insisted on his
journey to St. Cloud. But the President was silent on this head, though the
Assembly received the King with respect.
A few days after
thus protesting against the restraint to which he was subjected, the leaders of
the Revolution, who appear to have suspected his negotiations abroad, exacted
that he should address a circular to his ambassadors at foreign Courts, in
which he entirely approved the Revolution, assumed the title of “Restorer of
French liberty”, and utterly repudiated the notion that he was not free and
master of his actions. The Powers to whom the note was addressed, knew,
however, perfectly well that he did not love the Constitution; and, indeed, he
immediately dispatched secret agents to Cologne and Brussels with letters for
the King of Prussia and for Maria Christina, governess of the Austrian
Netherlands, in which he notified that any sanction he might give to the
decrees of the Assembly was to be reputed null; that his pretended approval of
the Constitution was to be interpreted in an opposite sense, and that the more
strongly he should seem to adhere to it, the more he should desire to be
liberated from the captivity in which he was held.
Louis soon after
resolved on his unfortunate flight to the army of the Marquis de Bouillé at Montmedy. He appears
to have been urged to it by the Baron de Breteuil, in concert with the Comte de
Mercy, at Brussels, who falsely alleged that it was the Emperor’s wish. Marie
Antoinette, as well as De Boillé, strongly opposed
the project, but at last reluctantly yielded to the King’s representations.
It is unnecessary
to describe the details of the flight to Varennes. Suffice it to say, that
having, after some hairbreadth escapes, succeeded in quitting Paris in a
travelling berlin, June 20th, they reached St. Menehould in safety. But here the King was recognized by Drouet,
the son of the postmaster, who, mounting his horse, pursued the Royal fugitives
to Varennes, raised an alarm, and caused them to be captured when they already
thought themselves out of danger. In consequence of their being rather later than
was expected, the military preparations which had been made for their
protection entirely failed. The news of the King’s flight filled Paris with
consternation. When the news of his arrest arrived, the Assembly despatched Barnave, Latour-Maubourg, and Pétion to conduct
him and his family back to Paris. In discharging this office, Pétion displayed a brutality, combined with insufferable
conceit; while Barnave, touched by the affliction and
bearing of the Royal fugitives, won their confidence and regard by his
considerate attention. Notices had been posted up in Paris that those who
applauded the King should be horsewhipped, and threatening punishment on all
those who insulted him; hence he was received on entering the capital with a
dead silence. The King’s brother, the Count of Provence, who had fled at the
same time by a different route, escaped safely to Brussels.
This time the
King’s intention to fly could not be denied; he had, indeed, himself proclaimed
it by sending to the Assembly a manifesto, in which he explained his reasons
for it, declared that he did not intend to quit the Kingdom, expressed his
desire to restore liberty and establish a Constitution, but annulled all that
he had done during the last two years. In judging the conduct of the Assembly
at this crisis, we must consider the feelings with which the idea of the King’s
flight inspired the whole French nation. His intrigues with D'Artois and the Emigrants were more than suspected, and it was thought that he would
introduce a vast foreign army and restore the ancient régime by
force and bloodshed. The leaders of the clubs trembled for their necks; the
artisans foresaw the loss of the State wages; the peasantry dreaded the
restoration of feudalism; the burghers pictured to themselves the return of
the noblesse; the army beheld, in prospectu,
a return to low pay, severe discipline, and commissions monopolized by the
nobles; the purchasers of ecclesiastical property saw their new acquisitions
slipping from their grasp; while even disinterested patriots revolted at the
idea of seeing France trampled on by foreign Powers, and The King stripped,
perhaps, of some of her provinces. The King, after his return, was
provisionally suspended from his functions by a decree of the Assembly, June
25th. Guards were placed over him and the Queen; the gardens of the Tuileries
assumed the appearance of a camp; sentinels were stationed on the roof of the
Palace, and even at the Queen’s bedchamber. Three commissioners, Tronchet, d'Andre, and Duport, were appointed to examine the King and Queen. The
Duke of Orleans was talked of for Regent, but he repudiated the idea in a
letter addressed to some of the revolutionary journals. Barnave,
who had adopted the policy of Mirabeau, namely, to arrest the Revolution, to
save the Monarchy, and govern in conjunction with the Queen, suggested to Louis
and Marie Antoinette what answers they should give to the questions put to
them. While things were in this state, the Marquis de Bouillé addressed a highly injudicious letter to the Assembly, threatening that if the
least harm was done to the King or Queen, he would conduct the army to Paris,
and that not one stone of that city should be left upon another.
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