_ET DONA FERENTES_
“Peuple Français, peuple intrépide . . .
Entends les cris, vois l’insolence
Des muscadins, amis des rois ;
Ils menacent de leur vengeance
Tous les défenseurs de tes droits.
. . . . . .
Ils se disent des patriotes,
Ces vils esclaves des tyrans ;
De leur égaux fougueux despotes,
Du trône ils sont les partisans.
Le mensonge vit sur leur bouche,
Ils fondent sur lui leurs succès,
Et leur haine impie et farouche
Brûle de perdre les Français.”
—_Le Vrai Reveil du Peuple_ (1795).
When M. de la Guerinière, in the year 1743, took over the royal riding
school of the Tuileries, and, making additions thereto, turned it
into a private academy of horsemanship, he could have had small idea
of what should, nearly fifty years later, replace his equestrian
arrangements. Where the young Louis XV. had pranced and caracoled the
National Assembly now deliberated the affairs of a France becoming
daily more unlike that of the Bien-Aimé. It is only just to say
that the tenants of the building had not found their new quarters
altogether convenient. A parallelogram of great length, bordered by
six rows of seats rising one above the other, seats from which some of
the occupants could neither catch the eye of the president nor be seen
by him, the Manège oppressed its inmates by its defective ventilation
and its demands on the voice. The presidential tribune, a simple table
covered with a green cloth, stood half way up the hall on a daïs,
immediately facing that of the speakers, an arrangement which cut the
space into two geographical divisions, and perhaps contributed, as one
of its orators remarked, to the moral divisions of the Legislative
Assembly also. These latter divisions were at any rate clear
enough—the Right, the constitutional Royalists; the Left, the Gironde
and their present allies, the Jacobins, further reinforced by the
extreme Left; and the Centre, which generally voted with the Right.
At nine o’clock on the morning of July 3rd the Manège was already
full. The galleries for the people, which adorned all four walls, and
of which some, supported by pillars, projected over the very heads of
the orators, were crowded with spectators. Down in the central space
between the seats, round the two china stoves in the semblance of the
Bastille, deputies in negligent attire, booted and spurred, strolled
about, talking, laughing, spitting, calling to each other. It was in
vain that the President rang his bell several times for silence, and
that the four black-clad ushers with their gilded swords attempted to
enforce his appeals. At last a more effective check supervened, in
the approach of a deputation. It was the customary hour for such
attendances and the persons in the central space hastily clambered to
their seats to get a better view of it.
Conducted by an usher, a man and a woman threaded their way from the
west entrance past the noisy groups towards the green daïs. From their
dusty and travel-stained appearance they had evidently journeyed far
by road, and by the long garment which he wore—it could hardly be
called a cassock—the man was a priest, but a “constitutional.” To his
loose mouth and swarthy skin he added a bearing of decided truculence.
Beside him there walked two children of about four and six years, and
the woman who followed him bore in her arms a wailing infant of a few
months old. In spite of her rags and evident misery, the face of the
girl, for she was little more, would have won her attention anywhere.
It had once been beautiful, but now, across the beauty which still
remained, there was written disillusionment absolute and complete. The
short hair which curled freely on her forehead had once been covered
with the white veil of the novice.
The group came to a stand-still opposite the daïs, and the constitutional
began to address the President in loud, confident tones.
“My name is François Lethon,” he said, “and I am the curé of
Tregourez, in Finistère. This,” pointing to the motionless figure of
the woman, “is my wife.”
Applause from the nearest deputies greeted this remark, some seeing
fit to signify their approval of a married clergy by spitting on the
ground. The curé bowed, cleared his throat as if for a harangue, and
began again.
“I am the servant of the nation, she is the servant of the nation, and
this infant is our gift to the nation.” With a deprecatory wave of the
hand he turned towards the two children, who immediately tried to
escape from his eye and to hide behind the woman’s skirt. “They were
my protests some time since against an unnatural law, which it has now
seemed good to you gentlemen, the fathers of liberty, to remove.
_Their_ mother is dead.”
Fresh applause followed these words, several of the deputies pressing
round to shake hands with the constitutional, and to gaze curiously at
the girl, who throughout kept her eyes fixed upon the child in her
arms, and, but for the rising color in her pale cheeks, seemed
unconscious of the babble of voices round her, and of the sentiments,
not always too delicately expressed, which must have reached her ears.
After some moments of clamour, which was increased rather than
lessened by fresh ringing of the bell, and by the cries of the ushers,
the President succeeded in intimating that the curé should proceed
with his story.
“Two years ago,” resumed the priest, “at the time when the civil oath
was required from the clergy, and the religious houses were ordered
to be dissolved, I was chaplain of a convent at Coutances, in Normandy.
For some while I had cast my eyes upon one of the novices who
had pleased me much, but the rules of the Order were strict, and
opportunities for intercourse were rare. But on the dissolution of
that particular house I immediately addressed myself to Sister Louise,
offering her the honourable form of a civil marriage, and pointing out
that a worse fate might easily befall her. It only took a year to
convince her. I married her, and, on the whole,” he said, with a
patronising nod, “we have found her fairly submissive, and likely in
time to become a good _citoyenne_. I come now to the point of my
discourse. Last month I was appointed to the living of Tregourez.
When the news of our arrival reached the village, a crowd of men and
women, instigated by their former curé, who had taken refuge in the
_ci-devant_ château of the _ci-devant_ seigneur, came out to meet us,
howling round the diligence and brandishing weapons. They did not,
however, attempt any violence upon our persons, but that night the
windows were broken, and all our personal property taken from us
except a few clothes. The next day we made our escape, and have walked
to Paris. Citizens, you see our plight; you see how we have suffered
on behalf of liberty and freedom. Now that you have heard my story, I
appeal to a beneficent legislature to grant me compensation, and I
demand that the nation shall avenge my wrongs!”
A burst of applause drowned the curé’s last words. When it had
subsided the President was heard to say that the nation was not
insensible to the sufferings of such a champion of its liberties, but
that, as it was already late, he must pass on the petitioner to the
Committee of Liquidation. The curé made as if he would embark upon a
voluble expression of gratitude, but at a motion from the President he
was captured by an usher, and forced to cut short his harangue, and
the party moved across the oval to the door at the farther end. Some
of the deputies stopped them to offer their congratulations to the
happy father, while others cast admiring glances at the unfortunate
girl-mother, who came last in the sad little procession.
Up in one of the galleries, wedged in between a shopkeeper and a
fishwife, the Marquis de Château-Foix had surveyed this scene with the
profoundest disgust. It was a relief when, turning to the serious
business of the day, the President announced as the subject for
discussion “the situation of France,” and the groups of deputies again
broke up, scrambling hurriedly to their seats. In comparative silence
a member of the Gironde, Jean Debry, mounted the steps of the tribune.
It seemed to Gilbert that most of the deputies of the Left looked
worn and anxious, and that they accorded the orator but a divided
attention, trying at the same time to keep a watch upon the tribunes
of the people in order to see the effect of his words. Once, when the
King was mentioned with disparagement, there arose a cry from a
gallery, “Vive Monsieur Véto!” It was promptly suppressed, but it came
again, and was echoed several times; but, on the whole, the tradesmen,
artisans, and loafers who jostled each other in the galleries did not
seem particularly interested. Indeed, by their frequent interruptions,
they encouraged the speaker to make a speedy end, and Jean Debry was
not long in granting their desire. His words were purely introductory,
and he seemed glad to descend from the tribune.
When his place became vacant a buzz of interest immediately broke out.
It had gone round the galleries that the next speaker was to be
Vergniaud, the greatest orator of the Legislative. Just above the
tribune especially much excitement prevailed, the rabble of the street
jostling with the respectable bourgeois to catch a glimpse of the man
who was seen to be making his way to it. It was Vergniaud; the massive
head and shoulders of the Girondin were unmistakable. A silence more
expressive of approval than any applause fell upon the galleries.
Château-Foix looked curiously at the celebrated orator, and decided,
like everybody else, that he was not handsome. His slanting forehead
was too high, his nose and chin too pronounced, his lips too full, his
brows too prominent. In repose it was a face to attract attention
almost by its ugliness. As the Girondin opened his lips to speak his
words were drowned in a sudden burst of applause from the galleries,
and the Left looked at one another, relief written on their faces.
Vergniaud’s speech was, as usual, prepared and closely reasoned. He
began by asking the meaning of what seemed to be a counter-revolution.
The movements of the Army had been changed at the critical moment, the
Ministry had been dismissed, the National Assembly itself had been
torn by division. Then he spoke of internal troubles, and assigned two
causes—the nobility and the priesthood. The first, he said, could be
kept in order by a close police surveillance, but the second were
under the King’s protection. It was not possible to believe, without
accusing the King of being the enemy of his people, that he wished to
encourage the intrigues of sacerdotalism, therefore they must conclude
that he thought himself sufficiently strong to impose peace. At the
same time, if failure were the result, it would be the fault of no one
but the King.
The speaker held the whole Assembly by his words. At his first
insinuations against the King there had been a slight murmur of
disapproval from the extreme Right, and from one of the galleries, but
it had been promptly suppressed, and as Vergniaud continued he became
bolder in his questioning of the King’s motive. At last it seemed as
if he would dare to pass from insinuation to direct attack.
“It is in the name of the King,” he said, “that the French princes
have tried to raise all the courts of Europe against France; it is to
vindicate the dignity of the King that the treaty of Pillnitz was
signed and the monstrous alliance made between the courts of Vienna
and Berlin; it is to defend the King that the former companies of the
body-guard have hurried to Germany to serve beneath the standards of
rebellion; it is to come to the help of the King that the _émigrés_
ask for and obtain employment in the Austrian armies, and prepare to
tear the bosom of their native land; it is to join these gallant
defenders of the royal prerogative that other gallants of the most
scrupulous honour are abandoning their posts in presence of the enemy
and are labouring to corrupt their soldiers; it is in the name of the
King that liberty is being attacked. In short, it is the name of the
King alone which is the pretext and the cause of all the evils which
are being heaped upon our heads, and of all which we have to dread.”
The speaker paused, amid a thunder of applause. As it died unwillingly
away he resumed.
“Yes, my friends, all these crimes are being committed in the name of
the King. But remark”—he struck his hand lightly on the rail before
him—“remark that you may ask me whether the King be in every case
directly responsible for them. Your hearts, attuned to the love of
justice, may demand of me whether the King indeed dismisses with his
blessing these young nobles who fight for Austria. If he sought his
own advantage, you say, would he not rather retain them by his side as
janissaries? Possibly. But what if I told you that he _has_ retained
sufficient for this purpose; that this man, whom the generosity of the
French people cannot move, has his band of assassins, few in number,
perhaps, but desperate and ready; that all you have heard of the
Austrian Committee, all you saw in February of last year of the
_chevaliers du poignard_, is no bugbear, but truth itself!”
Confused cries arose as the Girondin paused again, leaning over the
balustrade of the tribune, but they were of short duration, for the
whole Assembly was panting for his next words. Vergniaud drew himself
up, thrusting a hand into his breast, and his voice rang out clear and
solemn.
“People of France, I make no random accusations. All that is being
done against you on the frontiers is as nothing to the mine which is
being laid here in Paris, not many yards from where I stand. We know
whose hand shall apply the match, when the time is come, and shatter
into a thousand fragments not only us, but our dreams, our hopes, our
plans of better things for France. We know it—alas, that I should have
to say it!—and yet the knowledge does not help us. We need something
more ere we can stamp out this viperous brood. We want proofs—their
plans or their names. . . . Fellow-citizens, here are both!”
He drew out his left hand and held aloft a little roll of papers.
Amid the cries and the applause, the stamping of feet, the struggling
and pushing to gain a glimpse of the orator, Gilbert was able to slip
unnoticed from his seat and make a way into the narrow staircase that
led into the Passage des Feuillants.
M. des Graves was right—terribly right! The blow had fallen, and the
words he had just heard spelt death with no uncertain letters. What
had Louis been able to do to save himself?