The Constituent Assembly.
One thing an elected Assembly of Twelve Hundred is fit for:
Destroying. Which indeed is but a more decided exercise of its
natural talent for Doing Nothing. Do nothing, only keep
agitating, debating; and things will destroy themselves.
So and not otherwise proved it with an august National Assembly.
It took the name, Constituent, as if its mission and function had
been to construct or build; which also, with its whole soul, it
endeavoured to do: yet, in the fates, in the nature of things,
there lay for it precisely of all functions the most opposite to
that. Singular, what Gospels men will believe; even Gospels
according to Jean Jacques! It was the fixed Faith of these
National Deputies, as of all thinking Frenchmen, that the
Constitution could be _made;_ that they, there and then, were
called to make it. How, with the toughness of Old Hebrews or
Ishmaelite Moslem, did the otherwise light unbelieving People
persist in this their _Credo quia impossibile;_ and front the
armed world with it; and grow fanatic, and even heroic, and do
exploits by it! The Constituent Assembly’s Constitution, and
several others, will, being printed and not manuscript, survive
to future generations, as an instructive well-nigh incredible
document of the Time: the most significant Picture of the then
existing France; or at lowest, Picture of these men’s Picture of
it.
But in truth and seriousness, what could the National Assembly
have done? The thing to _be_ done was, actually as they said, to
regenerate France; to abolish the old France, and make a new one;
quietly or forcibly, by concession or by violence, this, by the
Law of Nature, has become inevitable. With what degree of
violence, depends on the wisdom of those that preside over it.
With perfect wisdom on the part of the National Assembly, it had
all been otherwise; but whether, in any wise, it could have been
pacific, nay other than bloody and convulsive, may still be a
question.
Grant, meanwhile, that this Constituent Assembly does to the last
continue to be something. With a sigh, it sees itself incessantly
forced away from its infinite divine task, of perfecting “the
Theory of Irregular Verbs,”—to finite terrestrial tasks, which
latter have still a significance for us. It is the cynosure of
revolutionary France, this National Assembly. All work of
Government has fallen into its hands, or under its control; all
men look to it for guidance. In the middle of that huge Revolt of
Twenty-five millions, it hovers always aloft as _Carroccio_ or
Battle-Standard, impelling and impelled, in the most confused
way; if it cannot give much guidance, it will still seem to give
some. It emits pacificatory Proclamations, not a few; with more
or with less result. It authorises the enrolment of National
Guards,—lest Brigands come to devour us, and reap the unripe
crops. It sends missions to quell “effervescences;” to deliver
men from the Lanterne. It can listen to congratulatory Addresses,
which arrive daily by the sackful; mostly in King Cambyses’ vein:
also to Petitions and complaints from all mortals; so that every
mortal’s complaint, if it cannot get redressed, may at least hear
itself complain. For the rest, an august National Assembly can
produce Parliamentary Eloquence; and appoint Committees.
Committees of the Constitution, of Reports, of Researches; and of
much else: which again yield mountains of Printed Paper; the
theme of new Parliamentary Eloquence, in bursts, or in plenteous
smooth-flowing floods. And so, from the waste vortex whereon all
things go whirling and grinding, Organic Laws, or the similitude
of such, slowly emerge.
With endless debating, we get the _Rights of Man_ written down
and promulgated: true paper basis of all paper Constitutions.
Neglecting, cry the opponents, to declare the Duties of Man!
Forgetting, answer we, to ascertain the _Mights_ of Man;—one of
the fatalest omissions!—Nay, sometimes, as on the Fourth of
August, our National Assembly, fired suddenly by an almost
preternatural enthusiasm, will get through whole masses of work
in one night. A memorable night, this Fourth of August:
Dignitaries temporal and spiritual; Peers, Archbishops,
Parlement-Presidents, each outdoing the other in patriotic
devotedness, come successively to throw their (untenable)
possessions on the “altar of the fatherland.” With louder and
louder vivats, for indeed it is “after dinner” too,—they abolish
Tithes, Seignorial Dues, Gabelle, excessive Preservation of Game;
nay Privilege, Immunity, Feudalism root and branch; then appoint
a _Te Deum_ for it; and so, finally, disperse about three in the
morning, striking the stars with their sublime heads. Such night,
unforeseen but for ever memorable, was this of the Fourth of
August 1789. Miraculous, or semi-miraculous, some seem to think
it. A new Night of Pentecost, shall we say, shaped according to
the new Time, and new Church of Jean Jacques Rousseau? It had its
causes; also its effects.
In such manner labour the National Deputies; perfecting their
Theory of Irregular Verbs; governing France, and being governed
by it; with toil and noise;—cutting asunder ancient intolerable
bonds; and, for new ones, assiduously spinning ropes of sand.
Were their labours a nothing or a something, yet the eyes of all
France being reverently fixed on them, History can never very
long leave them altogether out of sight.
For the present, if we glance into that Assembly Hall of theirs,
it will be found, as is natural, “most irregular.” As many as “a
hundred members are on their feet at once;” no rule in making
motions, or only commencements of a rule; Spectators’ Gallery
allowed to applaud, and even to hiss;[200] President, appointed
once a fortnight, raising many times no serene head above the
waves. Nevertheless, as in all human Assemblages, like does begin
arranging itself to like; the perennial rule, _Ubi homines sunt
modi sunt_, proves valid. Rudiments of Methods disclose
themselves; rudiments of Parties. There is a Right Side (_Côté
Droit_), a Left Side (_Côté Gauche_); sitting on M. le
President’s right hand, or on his left: the _Côté Droit_
conservative; the _Côté Gauche_ destructive. Intermediate is
Anglomaniac Constitutionalism, or Two-Chamber Royalism; with its
Mouniers, its Lallys,—fast verging towards nonentity. Preeminent,
on the Right Side, pleads and perorates Cazalès, the
Dragoon-captain, eloquent, mildly fervent; earning for himself
the shadow of a name. There also blusters Barrel-Mirabeau, the
Younger Mirabeau, not without wit: dusky d’Espréménil does
nothing but sniff and ejaculate; _might_, it is fondly thought,
lay prostrate the Elder Mirabeau himself, would he but
try,[201]—which he does not. Last and greatest, see, for one
moment, the Abbé Maury; with his jesuitic eyes, his impassive
brass face, “image of all the cardinal sins.” Indomitable,
unquenchable, he fights jesuitico-rhetorically; with toughest
lungs and heart; for Throne, especially for Altar and Tithes. So
that a shrill voice exclaims once, from the Gallery: ‘Messieurs
of the Clergy, you _have_ to be shaved; if you wriggle too much,
you will get cut.’[202]
The Left side is also called the d’Orléans side; and sometimes
derisively, the Palais Royal. And yet, so confused,
real-imaginary seems everything, “it is doubtful,” as Mirabeau
said, “whether d’Orléans himself belong to that same d’Orléans
Party.” What can be known and seen is, that his moon-visage does
beam forth from that point of space. There likewise sits seagreen
Robespierre; throwing in his light weight, with decision, not yet
with effect. A thin lean Puritan and Precisian; he would make
away with formulas; yet lives, moves, and has his being, wholly
in formulas, of another sort. “_Peuple_,” such according to
Robespierre ought to be the Royal method of promulgating laws,
“_Peuple_, this is the Law I have framed for thee; dost thou
accept it?”—answered from Right Side, from Centre and Left, by
inextinguishable laughter.[203] Yet men of insight discern that
the Seagreen may by chance go far: ‘this man,’ observes Mirabeau,
‘will do somewhat; he believes every word he says.’
Abbé Sieyes is busy with mere Constitutional work: wherein,
unluckily, fellow-workmen are less pliable than, with one who has
completed the Science of Polity, they ought to be. Courage,
Sieyes nevertheless! Some twenty months of heroic travail, of
contradiction from the stupid, and the Constitution shall be
built; the top-stone of it brought out with shouting,—say rather,
the top-paper, for it is all Paper; and _thou_ hast done in it
what the Earth or the Heaven could require, thy utmost. Note
likewise this Trio; memorable for several things; memorable were
it only that their history is written in an epigram: “whatsoever
these Three have in hand,” it is said, “Duport thinks it, Barnave
speaks it, Lameth does it.”[204]
But royal Mirabeau? Conspicuous among all parties, raised above
and beyond them all, this man rises more and more. As we often
say, he has an _eye_, he is a reality; while others are formulas
and _eye_-glasses. In the Transient he will detect the Perennial,
find some firm footing even among Paper-vortexes. His fame is
gone forth to all lands; it gladdened the heart of the crabbed
old Friend of Men himself before he died. The very Postilions of
inns have heard of Mirabeau: when an impatient Traveller
complains that the team is insufficient, his Postilion answers,
‘Yes, Monsieur, the wheelers are weak; but my _mirabeau_ (main
horse), you see, is a right one, _mais mon mirabeau est
excellent_.’[205]
And now, Reader, thou shalt quit this noisy Discrepancy of a
National Assembly; not (if thou be of humane mind) without pity.
Twelve Hundred brother men are there, in the centre of
Twenty-five Millions; fighting so fiercely with Fate and with one
another; struggling their lives out, as most sons of Adam do, for
that which profiteth not. Nay, on the whole, it is admitted
further to be very _dull_. ‘Dull as this day’s Assembly,’ said
some one. ‘Why date, _Pourquoi dater?_’ answered Mirabeau.
Consider that they are Twelve Hundred; that they not only speak,
but _read_ their speeches; and even borrow and steal speeches to
read! With Twelve Hundred fluent speakers, and their Noah’s
Deluge of vociferous commonplace, unattainable silence may well
seem the one blessing of Life. But figure Twelve Hundred
pamphleteers; droning forth perpetual pamphlets: and no man to
gag them! Neither, as in the American Congress, do the
arrangements seem perfect. A Senator has not his own Desk and
Newspaper here; of Tobacco (much less of Pipes) there is not the
slightest provision. Conversation itself must be transacted in a
low tone, with continual interruption: only “pencil Notes”
circulate freely; “in incredible numbers to the foot of the very
tribune.”[206]—Such work is it, regenerating a Nation; perfecting
one’s Theory of Irregular Verbs!