Loménie’s Death-throes.
On the morrow, which is the 3rd of May, 1788, an astonished
Parlement sits convoked; listens speechless to the speech of
D’Espréménil, unfolding the infinite misdeed. Deed of treachery;
of unhallowed darkness, such as Despotism loves! Denounce it, O
Parlement of Paris; awaken France and the Universe; roll what
thunder-barrels of forensic eloquence thou hast: with thee too it
is verily Now or never!
The Parlement is not wanting, at such juncture. In the hour of
his extreme jeopardy, the lion first incites himself by roaring,
by lashing his sides. So here the Parlement of Paris. On the
motion of D’Espréménil, a most patriotic Oath, of the One-and-all
sort, is sworn, with united throat;—an excellent new-idea, which,
in these coming years, shall not remain unimitated. Next comes
indomitable Declaration, almost of the rights of man, at least of
the rights of Parlement; Invocation to the friends of French
Freedom, in this and in subsequent time. All which, or the
essence of all which, is brought to paper; in a tone wherein
something of plaintiveness blends with, and tempers, heroic
valour. And thus, having sounded the storm-bell,—which Paris
hears, which all France will hear; and hurled such defiance in
the teeth of Loménie and Despotism, the Parlement retires as from
a tolerable first day’s work.
But how Loménie felt to see his cockatrice-egg (so essential to
the salvation of France) broken in this premature manner, let
readers fancy! Indignant he clutches at his thunderbolts (_de
Cachet_, of the Seal); and launches two of them: a bolt for
D’Espréménil; a bolt for that busy Goeslard, whose service in the
Second Twentieth and “strict valuation” is not forgotten. Such
bolts clutched promptly overnight, and launched with the early
new morning, shall strike agitated Paris if not into
requiescence, yet into wholesome astonishment.
Ministerial thunderbolts may be launched; but if they do not
_hit?_ D’Espréménil and Goeslard, warned, both of them, as is
thought, by the singing of some friendly bird, elude the Loménie
Tipstaves; escape disguised through skywindows, over roofs, to
their own Palais de Justice: the thunderbolts have _missed_.
Paris (for the buzz flies abroad) is struck into astonishment
_not_ wholesome. The two martyrs of Liberty doff their disguises;
don their long gowns; behold, in the space of an hour, by aid of
ushers and swift runners, the Parlement, with its Counsellors,
Presidents, even Peers, sits anew assembled. The assembled
Parlement declares that these its two martyrs cannot be given up,
to any sublunary authority; moreover that the “session is
permanent,” admitting of no adjournment, till pursuit of them has
been relinquished.
And so, with forensic eloquence, denunciation and protest, with
couriers going and returning, the Parlement, in this state of
continual explosion that shall cease neither night nor day, waits
the issue. Awakened Paris once more inundates those outer courts;
boils, in floods wilder than ever, through all avenues. Dissonant
hubbub there is; jargon as of Babel, in the hour when they were
first smitten (as here) with mutual unintelligibilty, and the
people had not yet dispersed!
Paris City goes through its diurnal epochs, of working and
slumbering; and now, for the second time, most European and
African mortals are asleep. But here, in this Whirlpool of Words,
sleep falls not; the Night spreads her coverlid of Darkness over
it in vain. Within is the sound of mere martyr invincibility;
tempered with the due tone of plaintiveness. Without is the
infinite expectant hum,—growing drowsier a little. So has it
lasted for six-and-thirty hours.
But hark, through the dead of midnight, what tramp is this? Tramp
as of armed men, foot and horse; Gardes Françaises, Gardes
Suisses: marching hither; in silent regularity; in the flare of
torchlight! There are Sappers, too, with axes and crowbars:
apparently, if the doors open not, they will be forced!—It is
Captain D’Agoust, missioned from Versailles. D’Agoust, a man of
known firmness;—who once forced Prince Condé himself, by mere
incessant looking at him, to give satisfaction and fight;[84] he
now, with axes and torches is advancing on the very sanctuary of
Justice. Sacrilegious; yet what help? The man is a soldier; looks
merely at his orders; impassive, moves forward like an inanimate
engine.
The doors open on summons, there need no axes; door after door.
And now the innermost door opens; discloses the long-gowned
Senators of France: a hundred and sixty-seven by tale, seventeen
of them Peers; sitting there, majestic, “in permanent session.”
Were not the men military, and of cast-iron, this sight, this
silence reechoing the clank of his own boots, might stagger him!
For the hundred and sixty-seven receive him in perfect silence;
which some liken to that of the Roman Senate overfallen by
Brennus; some to that of a nest of coiners surprised by officers
of the Police.[85] _Messieurs_, said D’Agoust, _De par le Roi!_
Express order has charged D’Agoust with the sad duty of arresting
two individuals: M. Duval d’Espréménil and M. Goeslard de
Monsabert. Which respectable individuals, as he has not the
honour of knowing them, are hereby invited, in the King’s name,
to surrender themselves.—Profound silence! Buzz, which grows a
murmur: ‘We are all D’Espréménils!’ ventures a voice; which other
voices repeat. The President inquires, Whether he will employ
violence? Captain D’Agoust, honoured with his Majesty’s
commission, has to execute his Majesty’s order; would so gladly
do it without violence, will in any case do it; grants an august
Senate space to deliberate which method _they_ prefer. And
thereupon D’Agoust, with grave military courtesy, has withdrawn
for the moment.
What boots it, august Senators? All avenues are closed with fixed
bayonets. Your Courier gallops to Versailles, through the dewy
Night; but also gallops back again, with tidings that the order
is authentic, that it is irrevocable. The outer courts simmer
with idle population; but D’Agoust’s grenadier-ranks stand there
as immovable floodgates: there will be no revolting to deliver
you. ‘Messieurs!’ thus spoke D’Espréménil, ‘when the victorious
Gauls entered Rome, which they had carried by assault, the Roman
Senators, clothed in their purple, sat there, in their curule
chairs, with a proud and tranquil countenance, awaiting slavery
or death. Such too is the lofty spectacle, which you, in this
hour, offer to the universe (_à l’univers_), after having
generously’—with much more of the like, as can still be read.[86]
In vain, O D’Espréménil! Here is this cast-iron Captain D’Agoust,
with his cast-iron military air, come back. Despotism,
constraint, destruction sit waving in his plumes. D’Espréménil
must fall silent; heroically give himself up, lest worst befall.
Him Goeslard heroically imitates. With spoken and speechless
emotion, they fling themselves into the arms of their
Parlementary brethren, for a last embrace: and so amid plaudits
and plaints, from a hundred and sixty-five throats; amid wavings,
sobbings, a whole forest-sigh of Parlementary pathos,—they are
led through winding passages, to the rear-gate; where, in the
gray of the morning, two Coaches with _Exempts_ stand waiting.
There must the victims mount; bayonets menacing behind.
D’Espréménil’s stern question to the populace, “Whether they have
courage?” is answered by silence. They mount, and roll; and
neither the rising of the May sun (it is the 6th morning), nor
its setting shall lighten their heart: but they fare forward
continually; D’Espréménil towards the utmost Isles of Sainte
Marguerite, or Hieres (supposed by some, if that is any comfort,
to be Calypso’s Island); Goeslard towards the land-fortress of
Pierre-en-Cize, extant then, near the City of Lyons.
Captain D’Agoust may now therefore look forward to Majorship, to
Commandantship of the Tuilleries;[87]—and withal vanish from
History; where nevertheless he has been fated to do a notable
thing. For not only are D’Espréménil and Goeslard safe whirling
southward, but the Parlement itself has straightway to march out:
to that also his inexorable order reaches. Gathering up their
long skirts, they file out, the whole Hundred and Sixty-five of
them, through two rows of unsympathetic grenadiers: a spectacle
to gods and men. The people revolt not; they only wonder and
grumble: also, we remark, these unsympathetic grenadiers are
_Gardes Françaises_,—who, one day, will sympathise! In a word,
the Palais de Justice is swept clear, the doors of it are locked;
and D’Agoust returns to Versailles with the key in his
pocket,—having, as was said, merited preferment.
As for this Parlement of Paris, now turned out to the street, we
will without reluctance leave it there. The Beds of Justice it
had to undergo, in the coming fortnight, at Versailles, in
registering, or rather refusing to register, those new-hatched
Edicts; and how it assembled in taverns and tap-rooms there, for
the purpose of Protesting,[88] or hovered disconsolate, with
outspread skirts, not knowing where to assemble; and was reduced
to lodge Protest “with a Notary;” and in the end, to sit still
(in a state of forced “vacation”), and do nothing; all this,
natural now, as the burying of the dead after battle, shall not
concern us. The Parlement of Paris has as good as performed its
part; doing and misdoing, so far, but hardly further, could it
stir the world.
Loménie has removed the evil then? Not at all: not so much as the
symptom of the evil; scarcely the _twelfth_ part of the symptom,
and exasperated the other eleven! The Intendants of Provinces,
the Military Commandants are at their posts, on the appointed 8th
of May: but in no Parlement, if not in the single one of Douai,
can these new Edicts get registered. Not peaceable signing with
ink; but browbeating, bloodshedding, appeal to primary club-law!
Against these Bailliages, against this Plenary Court, exasperated
Themis everywhere shows face of battle; the Provincial Noblesse
are of her party, and whoever hates Loménie and the evil time;
with her attorneys and Tipstaves, she enlists and operates down
even to the populace. At Rennes in Brittany, where the historical
Bertrand de Moleville is Intendant, it has passed from fatal
continual duelling, between the military and gentry, to
street-fighting; to stone-volleys and musket-shot: and still the
Edicts remained unregistered. The afflicted Bretons send
remonstrance to Loménie, by a Deputation of Twelve; whom,
however, Loménie, having heard them, shuts up in the Bastille. A
second larger deputation he meets, by his scouts, on the road,
and persuades or frightens back. But now a third largest
Deputation is indignantly sent by _many_ roads: refused audience
on arriving, it meets to take council; invites Lafayette and all
Patriot Bretons in Paris to assist; agitates itself; becomes the
_Breton Club_, first germ of—the _Jacobins’ Society._[89]
So many as eight Parlements get exiled:[90] others might need
that remedy, but it is one not always easy of appliance. At
Grenoble, for instance, where a Mounier, a Barnave have not been
idle, the Parlement had due order (by _Lettres-de-Cachet_) to
depart, and exile itself: but on the morrow, instead of coaches
getting yoked, the alarm-bell bursts forth, ominous; and peals
and booms all day: crowds of mountaineers rush down, with axes,
even with firelocks,—whom (most ominous of all!) the soldiery
shows no eagerness to deal with. “Axe over head,” the poor
General has to sign capitulation; to engage that the
_Lettres-de-Cachet_ shall remain unexecuted, and a beloved
Parlement stay where it is. Besancon, Dijon, Rouen, Bourdeaux,
are not what they should be! At Pau in Bearn, where the old
Commandant had failed, the new one (a Grammont, native to them)
is met by a Procession of townsmen with the Cradle of Henri
Quatre, the Palladium of their Town; is conjured as he venerates
this old Tortoise-shell, in which the great Henri was rocked, not
to trample on Bearnese liberty; is informed, withal, that his
Majesty’s cannon are all safe—in the keeping of his Majesty’s
faithful Burghers of Pau, and do now lie pointed on the walls
there; ready for action![91]
At this rate, your Grand Bailliages are like to have a stormy
infancy. As for the Plenary Court, it has literally expired in
the birth. The very Courtiers looked shy at it; old Marshal
Broglie declined the honour of sitting therein. Assaulted by a
universal storm of mingled ridicule and execration,[92] this poor
Plenary Court met once, and never any second time. Distracted
country! Contention hisses up, with forked hydra-tongues,
wheresoever poor Loménie sets his foot. “Let a Commandant, a
Commissioner of the King,” says Weber, “enter one of these
Parlements to have an Edict registered, the whole Tribunal will
disappear, and leave the Commandant alone with the Clerk and
First President. The Edict registered and the Commandant gone,
the whole Tribunal hastens back, to declare such registration
null. The highways are covered with _Grand Deputations_ of
Parlements, proceeding to Versailles, to have their registers
expunged by the King’s hand; or returning home, to cover a new
page with a new resolution still more audacious.”[93]
Such is the France of this year 1788. Not now a Golden or Paper
Age of Hope; with its horse-racings, balloon-flyings, and finer
sensibilities of the heart: ah, gone is that; its golden
effulgence paled, bedarkened in _this_ singular manner,—brewing
towards preternatural weather! For, as in that wreck-storm of
_Paul et Virginie_ and Saint-Pierre,—“One huge motionless cloud”
(say, of Sorrow and Indignation) “girdles our whole horizon;
streams up, hairy, copper-edged, over a sky of the colour of
lead.” Motionless itself; but “small clouds” (as exiled
Parlements and suchlike), “parting from it, fly over the zenith,
with the velocity of birds:”—till at last, with one loud howl,
the whole Four Winds be dashed together, and all the world
exclaim, There is the tornado! _Tout le monde s’écria, Voilà
l’ouragan!_
For the rest, in such circumstances, the Successive Loan, very
naturally, remains unfilled; neither, indeed, can that impost of
the Second Twentieth, at least not on “strict valuation,” be
levied to good purpose: “Lenders,” says Weber, in his hysterical
vehement manner, “are afraid of ruin; tax-gatherers of hanging.”
The very Clergy turn away their face: convoked in Extraordinary
Assembly, they afford no gratuitous gift (_don gratuit_),—if it
be not that of advice; here too instead of cash is clamour for
States-General.[94]
O Loménie-Brienne, with thy poor flimsy mind all bewildered, and
now “three actual cauteries” on thy worn-out body; who art like
to die of inflamation, provocation, milk-diet, _dartres vives_
and _maladie_—(best untranslated);[95] and presidest over a
France with innumerable _actual cauteries_, which also is dying
of inflammation and the rest! Was it wise to quit the bosky
verdures of Brienne, and thy new ashlar Château there, and what
it held, for _this?_ Soft were those shades and lawns; sweet the
hymns of Poetasters, the blandishments of high-rouged Graces:[96]
and always this and the other Philosophe Morellet (nothing
deeming himself or thee a questionable Sham-Priest) could be so
happy in making happy:—and also (hadst thou known it), in the
Military School hard by there sat, studying mathematics, a
dusky-complexioned taciturn Boy, under the name of: NAPOLEON
BONAPARTE!—With fifty years of effort, and one final dead-lift
struggle, thou hast made an exchange! Thou hast got thy robe of
office,—as Hercules had his Nessus’-shirt.
On the 13th of July of this 1788, there fell, on the very edge of
harvest, the most frightful hailstorm; scattering into wild waste
the Fruits of the Year; which had otherwise suffered grievously
by drought. For sixty leagues round Paris especially, the ruin
was almost total.[97] To so many other evils, then, there is to
be added, that of dearth, perhaps of famine.
Some days before this hailstorm, on the 5th of July; and still
more decisively some days after it, on the 8th of August,—Loménie
announces that the States-General are actually to meet in the
following month of May. Till after which period, this of the
Plenary Court, and the rest, shall remain _postponed_. Further,
as in Loménie there is no plan of forming or holding these most
desirable States-General, “thinkers are invited” to furnish him
with one,—through the medium of discussion by the public press!
What could a poor Minister do? There are still ten months of
respite reserved: a sinking pilot will fling out all things, his
very biscuit-bags, lead, log, compass and quadrant, before
flinging out _himself_. It is on this principle, of sinking, and
the incipient delirium of despair, that we explain likewise the
almost miraculous “invitation to thinkers.” Invitation to Chaos
to be so kind as build, out of its tumultuous drift-wood, an Ark
of Escape for him! In these cases, not invitation but command has
usually proved serviceable.—The Queen stood, that evening,
pensive, in a window, with her face turned towards the Garden.
The _Chef de Gobelet_ had followed her with an obsequious cup of
coffee; and then retired till it were sipped. Her Majesty
beckoned Dame Campan to approach: ‘_Grand Dieu!_’ murmured she,
with the cup in her hand, ‘what a piece of news will be made
public today! The King grants States-General.’ Then raising her
eyes to Heaven (if Campan were not mistaken), she added: ‘’Tis a
first beat of the drum, of ill-omen for France. This Noblesse
will ruin us.’[98]
During all that hatching of the Plenary Court, while Lamoignon
looked so mysterious, Besenval had kept asking him one question:
Whether they had cash? To which as Lamoignon always answered (on
the faith of Loménie) that the cash was safe, judicious Besenval
rejoined that then all was safe. Nevertheless, the melancholy
fact is, that the royal coffers are almost getting literally void
of coin. Indeed, apart from all other things this “invitation to
thinkers,” and the great change now at hand are enough to “arrest
the circulation of capital,” and forward only that of pamphlets.
A few thousand gold louis are now all of money or money’s worth
that remains in the King’s Treasury. With another movement as of
desperation, Loménie invites Necker to come and be Controller of
Finances! Necker has other work in view than controlling Finances
for Loménie: with a dry refusal he stands taciturn; awaiting his
time.
What shall a desperate Prime Minister do? He has grasped at the
strongbox of the King’s Theatre: some Lottery had been set on
foot for those sufferers by the hailstorm; in his extreme
necessity, Loménie lays hands even on this.[99] To make provision
for the passing day, on any terms, will soon be impossible.—On
the 16th of August, poor Weber heard, at Paris and Versailles,
hawkers, “with a hoarse stifled tone of voice (_voix étouffée,
sourde_)” drawling and snuffling, through the streets, an _Edict
concerning Payments_ (such was the soft title Rivarol had
contrived for it): all payments at the Royal Treasury shall be
made henceforth, three-fifths in Cash, and the remaining
two-fifths—in Paper bearing interest! Poor Weber almost swooned
at the sound of these cracked voices, with their bodeful
raven-note; and will never forget the effect it had on him.[100]
But the effect on Paris, on the world generally? From the dens of
Stock-brokerage, from the heights of Political Economy, of
Neckerism and Philosophism; from all articulate and inarticulate
throats, rise hootings and howlings, such as ear had not yet
heard. Sedition itself may be imminent! Monseigneur d’Artois,
moved by Duchess Polignac, feels called to wait upon her Majesty;
and explain frankly what crisis matters stand in. “The Queen
wept;” Brienne himself wept;—for it is now visible and palpable
that he must go.
Remains only that the Court, to whom his manners and garrulities
were always agreeable, shall make his fall soft. The grasping old
man has already got his Archbishopship of Toulouse exchanged for
the richer one of Sens: and now, in this hour of pity, he shall
have the Coadjutorship for his nephew (hardly yet of due age); a
Dameship of the Palace for his niece; a Regiment for her husband;
for himself a red Cardinal’s-hat, a _Coupe de Bois_ (cutting from
the royal forests), and on the whole “from five to six hundred
thousand livres of revenue:”[101] finally, his Brother, the Comte
de Brienne, shall still continue War-minister. Buckled-round with
such bolsters and huge featherbeds of Promotion, let him now fall
as soft as he can!
And so Loménie departs: rich if Court-titles and Money-bonds can
enrich him; but if these cannot, perhaps the poorest of all
extant men. “Hissed at by the people of Versailles,” he drives
forth to Jardi; southward to Brienne,—for recovery of health.
Then to Nice, to Italy; but shall return; shall glide to and fro,
tremulous, faint-twinkling, fallen on awful times: till the
Guillotine—snuff out his weak existence? Alas, worse: for it is
_blown_ out, or choked out, foully, pitiably, on the way to the
Guillotine! In his Palace of Sens, rude Jacobin Bailiffs made him
drink with them from his own wine-cellars, feast with them from
his own larder; and on the morrow morning, the miserable old man
lies dead. This is the end of Prime Minister, Cardinal Archbishop
Loménie de Brienne. Flimsier mortal was seldom fated to do as
weighty a mischief; to have a life as despicable-envied, an exit
as frightful. _Fired_, as the phrase is, with ambition: blown,
like a kindled rag, the sport of winds, not this way, not that
way, but of all ways, straight towards _such_ a
powder-mine,—which he kindled! Let us pity the hapless Loménie;
and forgive him; and, as soon as possible, forget him.