I.
At this juncture the germ of a new opinion began to display itself in
the south, and Bordeaux felt its full influence. The department of the
Gironde had given birth to a new political party in the twelve citizens
who formed its deputies. This department, far removed from the _centre_,
was at no distant period to seize on the empire alike of opinion and of
eloquence. The names (obscure and unknown up to this period) of _Ducos,
Guadet, Lafond-Ladebat, Grangeneuve, Gensonné, Vergniaud_, were about to
rise into notice and renown with the storms and the disasters of their
country; they were the men who were destined to give that impulse to the
Revolution that had hitherto remained in doubt and indecision, before
which it still trembled with apprehension, and which was to precipitate
it into a republic. Why was this impulse fated to have birth in the
department of the Gironde and not in Paris? Nought but conjectures can
be offered on this subject; and yet perhaps the republican spirit was
more likely to manifest itself at Bordeaux than at Paris, where the
presence and influence of a court had for ages past enervated the
independence of character, and enfeebled the austerity of principle that
form the basis of patriotism and liberty. The states of Languedoc, and
the habits that necessarily result from the administration of a province
governed by itself, could not fail to predispose the inclination of the
Gironde in favour of an elective and federative government. Bordeaux was
a parliamentary country; the parliaments had every where encouraged the
spirit of resistance, and had often created a factious feeling against
the king. Bordeaux was a commercial city, and commerce, which requires
liberty through interest, at last desires it through a love of freedom.
Bordeaux was the great commercial link between America and France, and
their constant intercourse with America had communicated to the Gironde
their love for free institutions. Moreover Bordeaux was more exposed to
the enlightening influence of the sun of philosophy than the centre of
France. Philosophy had germed there ere it arose in Paris, for Bordeaux
was the birthplace of Montaigne and Montesquieu, those two great
republicans of the French school. The one had deeply investigated the
religious dogmata, the other the political institutions; and the
president Dupaty had long after awakened there enthusiasm for the new
system of philosophy. Bordeaux, in addition, was a country where the
traditions of liberty and the _Roman Forum_ had been perpetuated in the
bar. A certain leaven of antiquity animated each heart, and lent vigour
to every tongue, and the town was still more republican by eloquence
than by opinion, though there was something of Latin emphasis in their
patriotism. It was in the birthplace of Montaigne and Montesquieu that
the republic was to take its origin.
II.
The period of the elections was the signal for a still more obstinate
attack from the public press. The papers were insufficient: men sold
pamphlets in the streets, and the "_Journaux affiches_" were invented,
which were placarded against the walls of Paris, and around which groups
of people were constantly collected. Wandering orators, inspired or
hired by the different parties, took their stand there and commented
aloud on these impassioned productions:--Loustalot, in the _Revolutions
de Paris_, founded by Prudhomme, and continued alternately by Chaumette
and Fabre d'Eglantine; Marat, in the _Publiciste_ and the _Ami du
Peuple_; Brissot, in the _Patriote Française_; Gorsas, in the _Courier
de Versailles_; Condorcet, in the _Chronique de Paris_, Cérutti, in the
_Feuille Villageoise_; Camille Desmoulins, in the _Discours de la
Lanterne_, and the _Revolutions de Brabant_; Fréron, in the _Orateur du
Peuple_; Hébert and Manuel, in the _Père Duchesne_; Carra, in the
_Annales Patriotiques;_ Fleydel, in the _Observateur_; Laclos, in the
_Journal des Jacobins_; Fauchet, in the _Bouche de Fer_; Royon, in the
_Ami du Roi_; Champcenetz-Rivarol, in the _Actes des Apôtres_; Suleau
and André Chénier, in several _royaliste_ or _modérée_ papers,--excited
and disputed dominion over the minds of the people. It was the ancient
tribune transported to the dwelling of each citizen, and adapting its
language to the comprehension of all men, even the most illiterate.
Anger, suspicion, hatred, envy, fanaticism, credulity, invective, thirst
of blood, sudden panics, madness and reflection, treason and fidelity,
eloquence and folly, had each their organ in this concert of every
passion and feeling in which the city revelled each night. All toil was
at an end; the only labour in their eyes was to watch the throne, to
frustrate the real or fancied plots of the aristocracy, and to save
their country. The hoarse bawling of the vendors of the public journals,
the patriotic chaunts of the Jacobins as they quitted their clubs, the
tumultuous assemblies, the convocations to the patriotic ceremonies,
fallacious fears as to the failure of provisions--kept the population of
the city and faubourgs in a perpetual state of excitement, which
suffered no one to remain inactive; indifference would have been
considered treason; and it was necessary to feign enthusiasm in order to
be in accordance with public opinion. Each fresh event quickened this
feverish excitement, which the press constantly instilled into the veins
of the people. Its language already bordered on delirium, and borrowed
from the population even their proverbs, their love of trifles, their
obscenity, their brutality, and even their oaths, with which the
articles were interlarded, as though to impress more forcibly its hatred
on the ear of its foes. Danton, Hébert, and Marat were the first to
adopt this tone, these gestures, and these exclamations of the populace,
as though to flatter them by imitating their vices. Robespierre never
condescended to this, and never sought to obtain ascendency over the
people by pandering to their brutality, but by appealing to their
reason; and the fanatical tone of his speeches possessed at least that
decency that attends great ideas--he ruled by respect, and scorned to
captivate them by familiarity. The more he gained the confidence of the
lower classes, the more did he affect the philosophical tone and austere
demeanour of the statesman. It was plainly perceptible in his most
radical propositions, that however he might wish to renew social order
he would not corrupt its elements, and that his eyes to emancipate the
people was not to degrade them.
III.
It was at this period that the Assembly ordered the removal of
Voltaire's remains to the Pantheon: philosophy thus avenged itself on
the anathemas that had been thundered forth, even against the ashes of
the great innovator. The body of Voltaire, on his death, in Paris,
A.D. 1778, had been furtively removed by his nephew at night,
and interred in the church of the abbey of Sellières in Champagne; and
when the nation sold this abbey, the cities of Troyes and Romilly
mutually contended for the honour of possessing the bones of the
greatest man of the age. The city of Paris, where he had breathed his
last, now claimed its privilege as the capital of France, and addressed
a petition to the National Assembly, praying that Voltaire's body might
be brought back to Paris and interred in the Pantheon, that cathedral of
philosophy. The Assembly eagerly hailed the idea of this homage, that
traced liberty back to its original source. "The people owe their
freedom to him," said Regnault de Saint Jean d'Angély; "for by
enlightening them, he gave them power; nations are enthralled by
ignorance alone, and when the torch of reason displays to them the
ignominy of bearing these chains, they blush to wear them, and snap them
asunder."
On the 11th of July, the departmental and municipal authorities went in
state to the barrier of Charenton, to receive the mortal remains of
Voltaire, which were placed on the ancient site of the Bastille, like a
conqueror on his trophies; his coffin was exposed to public gaze, and a
pedestal was formed for it of stones torn from the foundations of this
ancient stronghold of tyranny; and thus Voltaire when dead triumphed
over those stones which had triumphed over and confined him when living.
On one of the blocks was the inscription, "_Receive on this spot, where
despotism once fettered thee, the honours decreed to thee by thy
country_."
IV.
The next day, when the rays of a brilliant sun had dissipated the mists
of the night, an immense concourse of people followed the car that bore
Voltaire to the Pantheon. This car was drawn by twelve white horses,
harnessed four abreast; their manes plaited with flowers and golden
tassels, and the reins held by men dressed in antique costumes, like
those depicted on the medals of ancient triumphs. On the car was a
funeral couch, extended on which was a statue of the philosopher,
crowned with a wreath. The National Assembly, the departmental and
municipal bodies, the constituted authorities, the magistrates, and the
army, surrounded, preceded, and followed the sarcophagus. The
boulevards, the streets, the public places, the windows, the roofs of
houses, even the trees, were crowded with spectators; and the suppressed
murmurs of vanquished intolerance could not restrain this feeling of
enthusiasm. Every eye was riveted on the car; for the new school of
ideas felt that it was the proof of their victory that was passing
before them, and that philosophy remained mistress of the field of
battle.
The details of this ceremony were magnificent; and in spite of its
profane and theatrical trappings, the features of every man that
followed the car wore the expression of joy, arising from an
intellectual triumph. A large body of cavalry, who seemed to have now
offered their arms at the shrine of intelligence, opened the march. Then
followed the muffled drums, to whose notes were added the roar of the
artillery that formed a part of the cortège. The scholars of the
colleges of Paris, the patriotic societies, the battalions of the
national guard, the workmen of the different public journals, the
persons employed to demolish the foundations of the Bastille, some
bearing a portable press, which struck off different inscriptions in
honour of Voltaire, as the procession moved on; others carrying the
chains, the collars and bolts, and bullets found in the dungeons and
arsenals of the state prisons; and lastly, busts of Voltaire, Rousseau,
and Mirabeau, marched between the troops and the populace. On a litter
was displayed the _procès-verbal_ of the electors of '89, that _Hegyra_
of the insurrection. On another stand, the citizens of the Faubourg
Saint Antoine exhibited a plan in relief of the Bastille, the flag of
the donjon, and a young girl, in the costume of an Amazon, who had
fought at the siege of this fortress. Here and there, pikes surmounted
with the Phrygian cap of liberty arose above the crowd, and on one of
them was a scroll bearing the inscription, "_From this steel sprung
Liberty!_"
All the actors and actresses of the theatres of Paris followed the
statue of him who for sixty years had inspired them; the titles of his
principal works were inscribed on the sides of a pyramid that
represented his immortality. His statue, formed of gold and crowned with
laurel, was borne on the shoulders of citizens, wearing the costumes of
the nations and the times whose manners and customs he had depicted; and
the seventy volumes of his works were contained in a casket, also of
gold. The members of the learned bodies, and of the principal academies
of the kingdom surrounded this ark of philosophy. Numerous bands of
music, some marching with the troops, others stationed along the road of
the procession, saluted the car as it passed with loud bursts of
harmony, and filled the air with the enthusiastic strains of liberty.
The procession stopped before the principal theatres, a hymn was sung in
honour of his genius, and the car then resumed its march. On their
arrival at the quai that bears his name, the car stopped before the
house of M. de Villette, where Voltaire had breathed his last, and where
his heart was preserved. Evergreen shrubs, garlands of leaves, and
wreaths of roses decorated the front of the house, which bore the
inscription, "_His fame is every where, and his heart is here_." Young
girls dressed in white, and wreaths of flowers on their heads, covered
the steps of an amphitheatre erected before the house. Madame de
Villette, to whom Voltaire had been a second father, in all the
splendour of her beauty, and the pathos of her tears, advanced and
placed the noblest of all his wreaths, the wreath of filial affection,
on the head of the great philosopher.
At this moment the crowd burst into one of the hymns of the poet
Chénier, who, up to his death, most of all men cherished the memory of
Voltaire. Madame de Villette and the young girls of the amphitheatre
descended into the street, now strewed with flowers, and walked before
the car. The Théâtre Français, then situated in the Faubourg St.
Germain, had erected a triumphal arch on its peristyle. On each pillar a
medallion was fixed, bearing in letters of gilt bronze the title of the
principal dramas of the poet; on the pedestal of the statue erected
before the door of the theatre was written, "_He wrote Irène at
eighty-three years; at seventeen he wrote OEdipus_."
The immense procession did not arrive at the Pantheon until ten o'clock
at night, for the day had not been sufficiently long for this triumph.
The coffin of Voltaire was deposited between those of Descartes and
Mirabeau,--the spot predestined for this intermediary genius between
philosophy and policy, between the design and the execution. This
apotheosis of modern philosophy, amidst the great events that agitated
the public mind, was a convincing proof that the Revolution comprehended
its own aim, and that it sought to be the inauguration of those two
principles represented by these cold ashes--Intelligence and Liberty. It
was intelligence that triumphantly entered the city of Louis XIV. over
the ruins of the prejudices of birth. It was philosophy taking
possession of the city and the temple of Sainte Geneviève. The remains
of two schools, of two ages, and two creeds were about to strive for the
mastery even in the tomb. Philosophy who, up to this hour, had timidly
shrunk from the contest, now revealed her latest inspiration--that of
transferring the veneration of the age from one great man to another.
V.
Voltaire, the sceptical genius of France in modern ages, combined, in
himself, the double passion of this people at such a period--the passion
of destruction, and the desire of innovation, hatred of prejudices, and
love of knowledge: he was destined to be the standard-bearer of
destruction; his genius, although not the most elevated, yet the most
comprehensive in France, has hitherto been only judged by fanatics or
his enemies. Impiety deified his very vices; superstition anathematised
his very virtues; in a word, despotism, when it again seized on the
reins of government in France, felt that to reinstate tyranny it would
be necessary first to unseat Voltaire from his high position in the
national opinion. Napoleon, during fifteen years, paid writers who
degrade, vilify, and deny the genius of Voltaire; he hated his name, as
_might_ must ever hate _intellect_; and so long as men yet cherished the
memory of Voltaire, so long he felt his position was not secure, for
tyranny stands as much in need of prejudice to sustain it as falsehood
of uncertainty and darkness; the restored church could no longer suffer
his glory to shine with so great a lustre; she had the right to hate
Voltaire, not to deny his genius.
If we judge of men by what they have _done_, then Voltaire is
incontestably the greatest writer of modern Europe. No one has caused,
through the powerful influence of his genius alone, and the perseverance
of his will, so great a commotion in the minds of men; his pen aroused a
world, and has shaken a far mightier empire than that of Charlemagne,
the European empire of a theocracy. His genius was not _force_ but
_light_. Heaven had destined him not to destroy but to illuminate, and
wherever he trod light followed him, for reason (which is _light_) had
destined him to be first her poet, then her apostle, and lastly her
idol.
VI.
Voltaire was born a plebeian in an obscure street of old Paris.[5]
Whilst Louis XIV. and Bossuet reigned in all the pomp of absolute power
and Catholicism at Versailles, the child of the people, the Moses of
incredulity, grew up amidst them: the secrets of destiny seem thus to
sport with men, and are alone suspected when they have exploded. The
throne and the altar had attained their culminating point in France. The
Duc d'Orleans, as regent, governed during an interregnum,--one vice in
the room of another, weakness instead of pride. This life was easy and
agreeable, and corruption avenged itself for the monacal austerity of
the last years of Madame de Mainténon and Letellier. Voltaire, alike
precocious by audacity as by talent, began already to sport with those
weapons of the mind of which he was destined, after years, to make so
terrible a use. The regent, all unsuspicious of danger, suffered him to
continue, and repressed, for form's sake alone, some of the most
audacious of his outbreaks, at which he laughed even whilst he punished
them. The incredulity of the age took its rise in debauchery and not in
examination, and the independence of thought was rather a _libertinage_
of manners, than a conclusion arising from reflection. There was vice in
irreligion, and of this Voltaire always savoured. His mission began by a
contempt and derision of holy things, which, even though doomed to
destruction, should be touched with respect. From thence arose that
mockery, that irony, that cynicism too often on the lips, and in the
heart, of the apostle of reason; his visit to England gave assurance and
gravity to his incredulity, for in France he had only known libertines,
in London he knew philosophers; he became passionately attached to
eternal reason, as we are all eager after what is new, and he felt the
enthusiasm of the discovery. In so active a nature as the French, this
enthusiasm and this hatred could not remain in mere speculation as in
the mind of a native of the north. Scarcely was he himself persuaded,
than he wished in his turn to persuade others; his whole life became a
multiplied action, tending to one end, the abolition of theocracy, and
the establishment of religious toleration and liberty. He toiled at this
with all the powers with which God had gifted him; he even employed
falsehood (_ruse_), aspersion, cynicism, and immorality: he used even
those arms that respect for God and man denies to the wise; he employed
his virtue, his honour, his renown, to aid in this overthrow; and his
apostleship of reason had too often the appearance of a profanation of
piety; he ravaged the temple instead of protecting it.
From the day when he resolved upon this war against Christianity he
sought for allies also opposed to it. His intimacy with the king of
Prussia, Frederic II., had this sole inducement. He desired the support
of thrones against the priesthood. Frederic, who partook of his
philosophy, and pushed it still further, even to atheism and the
contempt of mankind, was the Dionysius of this modern Plato. Louis XV.,
whose interest it was to keep up a good understanding with Prussia,
dared not to show his anger against a man whom the king considered as
his friend. Voltaire, thus protected by a sceptre, redoubled his
audacity. He put thrones on one side, whilst he affected to make their
interests mutual with his own, by pretending to emancipate them from the
domination of Rome. He handed over to kings the civil liberty of the
people, provided that they would aid him in acquiring the liberty of
consciences. He even affected--perhaps he felt--respect for the absolute
power of kings. He pushed that respect so far as even to worship their
weaknesses. He palliated the infamous vices of the great Frederic, and
brought philosophy on its knees before the mistresses of Louis XV. Like
the courtezan of Thebes, who built one of the pyramids of Egypt from the
fruits of her debaucheries, Voltaire did not blush at any prostitution
of genius, provided that the wages of his servility enabled him to
purchase enemies against Christ. He enrolled them by millions throughout
Europe, and especially in France. Kings were reminded of the middle
ages, and of the thrones outraged by the popes. They did not see,
without umbrage and secret hate, the clergy as powerful as themselves
with the people, and who under the name of cardinals, almoners, bishops
or confessors, spied, or dictated its creeds even to courts themselves.
The parliaments, that civil clergy, a body redoubtable to sovereigns
themselves, detested the mass of the clergy, although they protected its
faith and its decrees. The nobility, warlike, corrupted, and ignorant,
leaned entirely to the unbelief which freed it from all morality.
Finally, the _bourgeoisie_, well-informed or learned, prefaced the
emancipation of the third estate by the insurrection of the new
condition of ideas.
Such were the elements of the revolution in religious matters. Voltaire
laid hold of them, at the precise moment, with that _coup d'oeil_ of
strong instinct which sees clearer than genius itself. To an age young,
fickle, and unreflecting, he did not present reason under the form of an
austere philosophy, but beneath the guise of a facile freedom of ideas
and a scoffing irony. He would not have succeeded in making his age
think, he did succeed in making it smile. He never attacked it in front,
nor with his face uncovered, in order that he might not set the laws in
array against him; and to avoid the fate of Servetius, he, the modern
Æsop, attacked under imaginary names the tyranny which he wished to
destroy. He concealed his hate in history, the drama, light poetry,
romance, and even in jests. His genius was a perpetual allusion,
comprehending all his age, but impossible to be seized on by his
enemies. He struck, but his hand was concealed. Yet the struggle of a
man against a priesthood, an individual against an institution, a life
against eighteen centuries, was by no means destitute of courage.
VII.
There is an incalculable power of conviction and devotion of idea, in
the daring of one against all. To brave at once, with no other power
than individual reason, with no other support than conscience, human
consideration, that cowardice of the mind, masked under respect for
error; to dare the hatred of earth and the anathema of heaven, is the
heroism of the writer. Voltaire was not a martyr in his body, but he
consented to be one in his name, and devoted it during his life and
after his death. He condemned his own ashes to be thrown to the winds,
and not to have either an asylum or a tomb. He resigned himself even to
lengthened exile in exchange for the liberty of a free combat. He
isolated himself voluntarily from men, in order that their too close
contact might not interfere with his thoughts.
At eighty years of age, feeble, and feeling his death nearly
approaching, he several times made his preparations hastily, in order to
go and struggle still, and die at a distance from the roof of his old
age. The unwearied activity of his mind was never checked for a moment.
He carried his gaiety even to genius, and under that pleasantry of his
whole life we may perceive a grave power of perseverance and
conviction. Such was the character of this great man. The enlightened
serenity of his mind concealed the depth of its workings: under the joke
and laugh his constancy of purpose was hardly sufficiently recognised.
He suffered all with a laugh, and was willing to endure all, even in
absence from his native land, in his lost friendships, in his refused
fame, in his blighted name, in his memory accursed. He took all--bore
all--for the sake of the triumph of the independence of human reason.
Devotion does not change its worth in changing its cause, and this was
his virtue in the eyes of posterity. He was not the truth, but he was
its precursor, and walked in advance of it.
One thing was wanting to him--the love of a God. He saw him in mind, and
he detested those phantoms which ages of darkness had taken for him, and
adored in his stead. He rent away with rage those clouds which prevent
the divine idea from beaming purely on mankind; but his weakness was
rather hatred against error, than faith in the Divinity. The sentiment
of religion, that sublime _résumé_ of human thought; that reason, which,
enlightened by enthusiasm, mounts to God as a flame, and unites itself
with him in the unity of the creation with the Creator, of the ray with
the focus--this, Voltaire never felt in his soul. Thence sprung the
results of his philosophy; it created neither morals, nor worship, nor
charity; it only decomposed--destroyed. Negative, cold, corrosive,
sneering, it operated like poison--it froze--it killed--it never gave
life. Thus, it never produced--even against the errors it assailed,
which were but the human alloy of a divine idea--the whole effect it
should have elicited. It made sceptics, instead of believers. The
theocratic reaction was prompt and universal, as it ought to have been.
Impiety clears the soul of its consecrated errors, but does not fill the
heart of man. Impiety alone will never ruin a human worship: a faith
destroyed must be replaced by a faith. It is not given to irreligion to
destroy a religion on earth. There is but a religion more enlightened
which can really triumph over a religion fallen into contempt, by
replacing it. The earth cannot remain without an altar, and God alone is
strong enough against God.
VIII.
It was on the 5th of August, 1791, the first anniversary of the famous
night of the 4th of August, 1790, when feudality crumbled to atoms, that
the National Assembly commenced the revision of the constitution. It was
a solemn and imposing act, was this comprehensive _coup d'oeil_ cast
by legislators at the end of their career, over the ruins they had
scattered, and the foundations they had laid in their course. But how
different at this moment was the disposition of their mind from what
they felt in commencing this mighty work! They had begun it with an
enthusiasm of the ideal, they now contemplated it with the misgivings
and the sadness of reality. The National Assembly was opened amidst the
acclamations of a people unanimous in their hopes, and was about to
close amidst the clamorous recriminations of all parties.
The king was captive, the princes emigrants, the clergy at feud, the
nobility in flight, the people seditious; Necker's popularity had
vanished, Mirabeau was dead, Maury silenced, Cazalès, Lally, Mounier had
deserted from their work. Two years had carried off more men and things
than a generation removes in ordinary times. The great voices of '89,
inspired with philosophy and vast hopes, no longer resounded beneath
those vaults. The foremost ranks had fallen. The men of second order
were now to contend in their stead. Intimidated, discouraged, repentant,
they had neither the spirit to yield to the impulse of the people nor
the power to resist it. Barnave had recovered his virtue in his
sensibility; but virtue which comes late is like the experience which
follows the act, and only enables us to measure the extent of our
errors. In revolutions there is no repentance--there is only expiation.
Barnave, who might have saved the monarchy, had he only united with
Mirabeau, was just commencing his expiatory sentence. Robespierre was to
Barnave what Barnave had been to Mirabeau; but Robespierre, more
powerful than Barnave, instead of acting on the impulse of a passion as
fluctuating as jealousy, acted under the influence of a fixed idea, and
an unalterable theory. Robespierre had the whole people at his back.
IX.
From the opening of the sittings Barnave attempted to consolidate around
the constitution the opinions so fiercely shaken by Robespierre and his
friends. He did it with a caution which bespoke but too well the
weakness of his position, notwithstanding the boldness of his language.
"The labours of your committee of the constitution are assailed," he
said. "There exist against our work but two kinds of opposition. Those
who, up to the present time, have constantly shown themselves inimical
to the Revolution--the enemies of equality, who hate our constitution
because it is the condemnation of their aristocracy. Yet there is
another class hostile also, and I will divide it into two distinct
species. One of these is the men who, in the opinion of their own
conscience, give the preference to another government which they
disguise more or less in their language, and seek to deprive our
monarchical government of all the strength which can retard the advent
of a republic. I declare that these persons I shall not attack.
Whosoever has a pure political opinion has a right to communicate it;
but we have another class of foes. They are the foes of all government.
If this class betrays its opposition, it is not because it prefers the
republic to the monarchy, democracy to aristocracy, it is because all
that concentrates the political machine, all that is order, all that
places in his right position the honest man and the rogue, the candid
man and the calumniator, is contrary and hateful to its system." (Long
and loud applause from the majority on the left.) "Yes, gentlemen,"
continued Barnave, "such is the party which has the most strongly
opposed our labours. They have sought fresh sources of revolution
because the revolution as defined by us escaped them. These are the men
who, changing the name of things, by uttering sentiments apparently
patriotic, in the stead of sentiments of honour, probity, purity--by
sitting even in the most august places with a mask of virtue, have
believed that they would impose upon public opinion, and have coalesced
with certain writers. (The plaudits here redoubled, and all eyes were
turned towards Robespierre and Brissot.) If we desire to see our
constitution carried out, if you desire that the nation, after having
owed to you its hopes of liberty,--for as yet it is but hope (Murmurs of
dissent),--shall owe to you reality, prosperity, happiness, peace, let
us endeavour to simplify it, by giving to the government--by which I
mean all the powers established by this constitution--the amount of
simultaneous strength requisite to move the social machine, and to
preserve to the nation the liberty you have conferred upon it. If the
welfare of your country is dear to you, take care what you are about to
do. Above all, let us discard injurious mistrust, which can serve none
but our enemies, when they would believe that this national assembly,
this constant majority, at once bold and sagacious, which has so much
cast upon it since the king's departure, is ready to disappear before
the divisions so skilfully fomented by perfidious imputations. (Loud
cheering.) You will see renewed, do not doubt this, the disorders, the
convulsions of which you are weary, and to which the completion of the
Revolution ought also to be a completion. You will see renewed without
hopes, projects, temptations which we openly brave because we feel our
strength and are united--because we know that so long as we are united
they will not be attempted; and if extravagant ideas should dare to try
them it would always result in their shame. But the attempts would
succeed, and on the success of them they might, with some semblance
rely, if we were once divided amongst ourselves, not knowing in whom we
might believe. We suspect each other of different plans when we have but
the same idea--of contrary feelings, when every one of us has in his
heart the testimony of his colleagues' purity, during two years of
labour performed together--during consecutive proofs of courage--during
sacrifices which nothing can compensate but the approving voice of
conscience."
Here Barnave's voice was lost in the applauses of the majority, and the
Assembly electrified, seemed for the moment unanimous in its monarchical
feeling.
X.
At the sitting of the 25th of August, the Assembly discussed the article
of the constitution which declared that the members of the royal family
could not exercise the rights of citizens. The Duc d'Orleans ascended
the tribune to protest against this article, and declared, in the midst
of applauses and murmurs, that if it were adopted, there remained to him
the right of choosing between the title of a French citizen and his
eventual right to the throne; and that, in that case, he should renounce
the throne. Sillery, the friend and confidant of this prince, spoke
after him, and combated with much eloquence the conclusions of the
committee. This discourse, full of allusions to the position of the duc
d'Orleans, impossible to be misunderstood, was the only act of direct
ambition attempted by the Orleans party. Sillery began by boldly
replying to Barnave:--"Let me be allowed," he exclaimed, "to lament over
the deplorable abuse which some orators make of their talents. What
strange language! It is attempted to make you believe that you have here
men of faction and anarchy--enemies of order, as if order could only
exist by satisfying the ambition of certain individuals! It is proposed
to you to grant to all individuals of the royal family the title of
prince, and to deprive them of the rights of a citizen? What
incoherence, and what ingratitude! You declare the title of French
citizen to be the most admirable of titles, and you propose to exchange
it for the title of prince, which you have suppressed, as contrary to
equality! Have not the relatives of the king, who still remain in Paris,
constantly displayed the purest patriotism? What services have they not
rendered to the public cause by their example and their sacrifices! Have
they not themselves abjured all their titles for one only--that of
citizen? and yet you propose to despoil them of it! When you suppressed
the title of prince, what happened? The fugitive princes formed a league
against the country; the others ranged themselves with you. If to-day
the title of prince is re-established, we concede to the enemies of our
country all they covet; we deprive the patriotic relatives of the king
of all they esteem! I see the triumph and the recompence on the side of
the conspiring princes; I see the punishment of all sacrifices on the
side of the popular princes. It is said to be dangerous to admit the
members of the royal family into the legislative body. This hypothesis
would then be established, that every individual of the royal family
must be for the future a corrupt courtier or factious partisan! However,
is it not possible to suppose that there are patriots amongst them? Is
it those you would thus brand? You condemn the relatives of a king to
hate the constitution and conspire against a form of government which
does not leave them the choice between the character of courtiers or
that of conspirators. See, on the other hand, what may accrue if the
love of country inspire them! Cast your eyes on one of the branches of
that race, whom it is proposed to you to exile. Scarcely out of his
childhood, he had the happiness of saving the life of three citizens, at
the peril of his own. The city of Vendôme decreed to him a civic crown.
Unhappy child! is that indeed the last which thy race shall obtain?"
The applause which constantly interrupted, and for a long time followed
this discourse, after the orator had concluded, proved that the idea of
a revolutionary dynasty already tempted some imaginations, and that if
there existed no faction of Orleans, at least it was not without a
leader. Robespierre, who no less detested a dynastic faction than the
monarchy itself, saw with terror this symptom of a new power which
appeared in the distant horizon. "I remark," he replied, "that there is
too much reference to individuals, and not enough to the national
interest. It is not true that we seek to degrade the relations of the
king: there is no design to place them beneath other citizens--we wish
to separate them from the people by an honourable distinction. What is
the use of seeking titles for them? The relatives of the king will be
simply the relatives of the king. The splendour of the throne is not
derived from such vain denominations of rank. We cannot declare with
impunity that there exists in France any particular family above
another: it would be a nobility by itself. This family would remain in
the midst of us, like the indestructible root of that nobility which we
have destroyed--it would be the germ of a new aristocracy." Violent
murmurs hailed these remarks of Robespierre. He was obliged to break off
and apologise. "I see," he said in conclusion, "that we are no longer
allowed to utter here, without reproach, opinions which our adversaries
amongst the first have maintained in this assembly."
XI.
The whole difficulty of the situation was in the question whether or
not, that constitution once completed, the nation would recognise in the
constitution the right to revise and alter itself. It was on this
occasion that Malouet, although abandoned by his party and hopeless,
endeavoured, single-handed, the restoration of the royal authority. His
discourse, worthy of the genius of Mirabeau, was a bill of terrible
accusation against the excesses of the people, and the inconsistencies
of the Assembly. Its moderation heightened its effect--the man of
integrity was seen beneath the orator, and the statesman in the
legislator. Something of the serene and stoical soul of Cato breathed in
his words; but political eloquence is rather in the people who listen,
than in the man who speaks. The voice is nothing without the
reverberation that multiplies its echo. Malouet, deserted by his party,
left by Barnave who listened with dismay, only spoke from his
conscience; he fought no longer for victory, he only struggled for
principle. Thus did he speak.--
"It is proposed to you to determine the epoch, and the conditions of the
use of a new constituent power; it is proposed to you to undergo
twenty-five years of disorder and anarchy before you have the right to
amend. Remark, in the first place, under what circumstances it is
proposed to you to impose silence on the appeals of the nation as to the
new laws; it is when you have not as yet heard the opinion of those
whose instincts and passions these new laws favour, when all contending
passions are subdued by terror or by force; it is when France is no
longer expounded but through the organ of her clubs. When it has been a
question of suspending the exercise of the royal authority itself, what
has been the language addressed to you from this tribune? You have been
told '_we should have begun the Revolution from thence; but we were not
aware of our strength_.' Thus it only remains for your successors to
measure their strength in order to attempt fresh enterprises. Such, in
effect, is the danger of making a violent revolution and a free
constitution march side by side. The one is only produced in tumultuous
periods, and by passions and weapons, the other is only established by
amicable arrangements between old interests and new. (Laughter, murmurs,
and 'that is the point.') We do not count voices, we do not discuss
opinions, to make a revolution. A revolution is a storm during which we
must furl our sails, or we sink. But after the tempest, those who have
been beaten by it, as well as those who have not suffered, enjoy in
common the serenity of the sky. All becomes calm, and the horizon is
cleared. Thus after a revolution, the constitution, if it be good,
rallies all its citizens. There should not be one man in the kingdom who
incurs danger of his life in expressing his free views of the
constitution. Without this security there is no free will, no expression
of opinion, no liberty; there will be only a predominant power, a
tyranny popular or otherwise, until you have separated the constitution
from the workings of the revolution. Behold all these principles of
justice, morality, and liberty which you have laid down, hailed with
joy, and oaths renewed, but violated immediately with unprecedented
audacity and rage. It is at a moment when the holiest or the freest of
constitutions has been proclaimed that the most infamous attempts
against liberty, against property,--nay, what do I say?--against
humanity and conscience, are multiplied and perpetuated! Does not this
contrast alarm you? I will tell you wherefore. Yourselves deceived as to
the mechanism of political society, you have sought its regeneration
without reflecting on its dissolution; you have considered as an
obstacle to your plans the discontent of some, and as a means the
enthusiasm of others. Only desirous to overcome obstacles you have
overturned principles, and taught the people to brave every thing. You
have taken the passions of the people for auxiliaries. It is to raise an
edifice by sapping the foundations. I repeat to you then, there is no
free and durable constitution out of despotism but that which terminates
a revolution, and which is proposed, accepted, and executed, by forms,
calm, free, and totally different from the forms of the Revolution. All
we do, all we seek for with excitement before we reach this point of
repose, whether we obey the people or are obeyed by them; whether we
would flatter, deceive, or serve them, is but the work of
folly,--madness. I demand, therefore, that the constitution be peaceably
and freely accepted by the majority of the nation and by the king.
(Violent murmurs.) I know we call the national will, all that we know of
proposed addresses, of assent, of oaths, agitations, menaces, and
violence. (Loud expressions of angry dissent.) Yes, we must close the
Revolution by beginning to destroy every tendency to violate it. Your
committees of inquiry, laws respecting emigrants, persecutions of
priests, despotic imprisonments, criminal proceedings against persons
accused without proofs, the fanaticism and domination of clubs; but this
is not all, licence has gone to such unbounded extent,--the dregs of the
nation ferment so tumultuously:--(Loud burst of indignation.) Do we then
pretend to be the first nation which has no dregs? The fearful
insubordination of troops, religious disturbances, the discontents of
the colonies, which already sound so ominously in our ports,--if the
Revolution does not stop here and give place to the constitution;--if
order be not re-established at once, and on all points, the shattered
state will be long agitated by the convulsions of anarchy. Do you
remember the history of the Greeks, where a first revolution not
terminated produced so many others during a period of only half a
century? Do you remember that Europe has her eyes fixed on your weakness
and agitations, and whilst she will respect you if you are free within
the limits of order, she will surely profit by your disorders if you
only know how to weaken yourself and alarm her by your anarchy?"
Malouet demanded, therefore, that the constitution should be submitted
to the judgment of the people, and to the free acceptance of the king.
XII.
This magnificent harangue only sounded as the voice of remorse in the
bosom of the Assembly. It was listened to with impatience, and then
forgotten with all speed. M. de La Fayette opposed, in a short speech,
the proposition of M. Dandré, who desired to adjourn for thirty years
the revision of the constitution. The Assembly neither adopted the
advice of Dandré nor of La Fayette, but contented itself with inviting
the nation not to make use for twenty-five years of its right to modify
the constitution. "Behold us, then," said Robespierre, "arrived at the
end of our long and painful career: it only remains for us to give it
stability and duration. Why are we asked to submit to the acceptance of
the king? The fate of the constitution is independent of the will of
Louis XVI. I do not doubt he will accept it with delight. An empire for
patrimony, all the attributes of the executive power, forty millions for
his personal pleasures,--such is our offer! Do not let us wait, before
we offer it, until he be away from the capital and environed by ill
advisers. Let us offer it to him in Paris. Let us say to him, Behold the
most powerful throne in the universe--will you accept it? Suspected
gatherings, the system of weakening your frontiers, threats of your
enemies without, manoeuvres of your enemies within,--all warns you to
hasten the establishment of an order of things which assures and
fortifies the citizens. If we deliberate, when we should swear, if our
constitution may be again attacked, after having been already twice
assailed, what remains for us to do? Either to resume our arms or our
fetters. We have been empowered," he added, looking towards the seats of
Barnave and the Lameths, "to constitute the nation, and not to raise the
fortunes of certain individuals, in order to favour the coalition of
court intriguers, and to assure to them the price of their complaisance
or their treason."
XIII.
The constitutional act was presented to the king on the 3d of September,
1791. Thouret reported to the National Assembly in these words the
result of the solemn interview between the conquered will of the monarch
and the victorious will of his people:--"At nine o'clock in the evening
our deputation quitted this chamber, proceeding to the chateau escorted
by a guard of honour, consisting of various detachments of the national
guard and _gendarmerie_. It was invariably accompanied by the applauses
of the people. It was received in the council-chamber, where the king
was attended by his ministers and a great number of his servants. I said
to the king, 'Sire, the representatives of the nation come to present to
your majesty the constitutional act, which consecrates the indefeasible
rights of the French people--which gives to the throne its true
dignity, and regenerates the government of the empire.' The king
received the constitutional act, and thus replied: 'I receive the
constitution presented to me by the National Assembly. I will convey to
it my resolution after the shortest possible delay which the examination
of so important an act must require. I have resolved on remaining in
Paris. I will give orders to the commandant of the national Parisian
guard for the duties of my guard.' The king, during the whole time,
presented an aspect of satisfaction; and from all we saw and heard we
anticipate that the completion of the Constitution will be also the
termination of the Revolution." The Assembly and the tribunes applauded
several times. It was one of those days of public hope, when faction
retreats into the shade, to allow the serenity of good citizens to shine
forth.
La Fayette removed the degrading _consignes_, which made the Tuileries a
jail to the royal family. The king ceased to be the hostage of the
nation, in order to become its ostensible head. He gave some days to the
apparent examination which he was supposed to bestow upon the
Constitution. On the 13th he addressed to the Assembly, by the minister
of justice, a message concerted with Barnave, thus conceived:--"I have
examined the constitutional act. I accept it, and will have it carried
into execution. I ought to make known the motives of my resolution. From
the commencement of my reign I have desired the reform of abuses, and in
all my acts I have taken for rule public opinion. I have conceived the
project of assuring the happiness of the people on permanent bases, and
of subjecting my own authority to settled rules. From these intentions I
have never varied. I have favoured the establishment of trials of your
work before it was even finished. I have done so in all sincerity; and,
if the disorders which have attended almost every epoch of the
Revolution have frequently affected my heart, I hoped that the law would
resume its force, and that on reaching the term of your labours, every
day would restore to it that respect, without which the people can have
no liberty, and a king no happiness. I have long entertained that hope;
and my resolution has only changed at the moment when I could hope no
longer. Remember the moment when I quitted Paris: disorder was at its
height--the licence of the press and the insolence of parties knew no
bounds. Then, I avow, if you had offered to me the constitution, I
should not have thought it my duty to accept it.
"All has changed. You have manifested the desire to re-establish order;
you have revised many of the articles; the will of the people is no
longer doubtful to me, and therefore I accept the constitution under
better auspices. I freely renounce the co-operation I had claimed in
this work, and I declare that when I have renounced it no other but
myself has any right to claim it. Unquestionably I still see certain
points in the constitution in which more perfection might be attained;
but I agree to allow experience to be the judge. When I shall have
fairly and loyally put in action the powers of government confided to me
no reproach can be addressed to me, and the nation will make itself
known by the means which the constitution has reserved to it.
(Applause.) Let those who are restrained by the fear of persecutions and
troubles out of their country return to it in safety. In order to
extinguish hatreds let us consent to a mutual forgetfulness of the past.
(The tribunes and the left renewed their acclamations.) Let the
accusations and the prosecutions which have sprung solely from the
events of the constitution be obliterated in a general reconciliation. I
do not refer to those which have been caused by an attachment to me. Can
you see any guilt in them? As to those who from excess, in which I can
see personal insult, have drawn on themselves the visitation of the
laws, I prove with respect to them that I am the king of all the French.
I will swear to the constitution in the very place where it was drawn
up, and I will present myself to-morrow at noon to the National
Assembly."
The Assembly adopted unanimously, on the proposition of La Fayette, the
general amnesty demanded by the king. A numerous deputation went to
carry to him this resolution. The queen was present. "My wife and
children, who are here," said the king to the deputation, "share my
sentiments." The queen, who desired to reconcile herself to public
opinion, advanced, and said, "Here are my children; we all agree to
participate in the sentiments of the king." These words reported to the
Assembly, prepared all hearts for the pardon which royalty was about to
implore. Next day the king went to the Assembly; he wore no decoration
but the cross of Saint Louis, from deference to a recent decree
suppressing the other orders of chivalry. He took his place beside the
president, the Assembly all standing.
"I come," said the king, "to consecrate solemnly here the acceptance I
have given to the constitutional act. I swear to be faithful to the
nation and the law, and to employ all the power delegated to me for
maintaining the constitution, and carrying its decrees into effect. May
this great and memorable epoch be that of the re-establishment of peace,
and become the gage of the happiness of the people, and the prosperity
of the empire." The unanimous applauses of the chamber, and the tribunes
ardent for liberty, but kindly disposed towards the king, demonstrated
that the nation entered with enthusiasm into this conquest of the
constitution.
"Old abuses," replied the president, "which had for a long time
triumphed over the good intentions of the best of kings, oppressed
France. The National Assembly has re-established the basis of public
prosperity. What it has desired the nation has willed. Your majesty no
longer desires in vain the happiness of Frenchmen. The National Assembly
has nothing more to wish, now that on this day in its presence you
consummate the constitution by accepting it. The attachment of Frenchmen
decrees to you the crown, and what assures it to you is the need that so
great a nation must always have of an hereditary power. How sublime,
sire, will be in the annals of history this regeneration, which gives
citizens to France, to Frenchmen a country, to the king a fresh title of
greatness and glory, and a new source of happiness!"
The king then withdrew, being accompanied to the Tuileries by the entire
Assembly; the procession with difficulty making its way through the
immense throng of people which rent the air with acclamations of joy.
Military music and repeated salvos of artillery taught France that the
nation and the king, the throne and liberty, were reconciled in the
constitution, and that after three years of struggles, agitations, and
shocks, the day of concord had dawned. These acclamations of the people
in Paris spread throughout the empire. France had some days of delirium.
The hopes which softened men's hearts, brought back their old feelings
for its king. The prince and his family were incessantly called to the
windows of their palace to receive the applause of the crowds. They
sought to make them feel how sweet is the love of a people.
The proclamation of the constitution on the 18th had the character of a
religious fête. The Champ-de-Mars was covered with battalions of the
national guard. Bailly, mayor of Paris, the municipal authorities, the
department, public functionaries, and all the people betook themselves
thither. One hundred and one cannon shots hailed the reading of the
constitutional act, made to the nation from the top of the altar of the
country. One cry of _Vive la Nation!_ uttered by 300,000 voices, was the
acceptation by the people. The citizens embraced, as members of one
family. Balloons, bearing patriotic inscriptions, rose in the evening in
the Champs Elysées, as if to bear to the skies the testimony of the joy
of a regenerated people. Those who went up in them threw out copies of
the book of the constitution. The night was splendid with illuminations.
Garlands of flames, running from tree to tree, formed, from the Arc de
l'Etoile to the Tuileries, a sparkling avenue, crowded with the
population of Paris. At intervals, orchestras filled with musicians
sounded forth the pealing notes of glory and public joy. M. de La
Fayette rode on horseback at the head of his staff. His presence seemed
to place the oaths of the people and the king under the guard of the
armed citizens. The king, the queen, and their children appeared in
their carriage at eleven o'clock in the evening. The immense crowd that
surrounded them as if in one popular embrace,--the cries of _Vive le
Roi! Vive la Reine! Vive le Dauphin!_--hats flung in the air, the
gestures of enthusiasm and respect, made for them a triumph on the very
spot over which they had passed two months previously in the midst of
the outrages of the multitude, and deep murmuring of the excited
populace. The nation seemed desirous of redeeming these threatening
days, and to prove to the king how easy it was to appease the people,
and how sweet to it was the reign of liberty! The national acceptance of
the laws of the Constituent Assembly was the counterproof of its work.
It had not the legality, but it had really the value, of an individual
acceptance by primary assemblies. It proved that the will of the public
mind was satisfied. The nation voted by acclamation, what the wisdom of
its Assembly had voted on reflection. Nothing but security was wanting
to the public feeling. It seemed as if it desired to intoxicate itself
by the delirium of its happiness; and that it compensated, by the very
excess of its manifestations of joy, for what it lacked in solidity and
duration.
The king sincerely participated in this general joyous feeling. Placed
between the recollections of all he had suffered for three years, and
the lowering storms he foresaw in the future, he endeavoured to delude
himself, and to feel persuaded of his good fortune. He said to himself,
that perhaps he had mistaken the popular opinion; and that having at
least surrendered himself unconditionally to the mercy of his
people--that people would respect in him his own power and his own will:
he swore in his honest and good heart fidelity to the constitution and
love to the nation he really loved.
The queen herself returned to the palace with more national thoughts:
she said to the king, "They are no longer the same people;" and, taking
her son in her arms, she presented him to the crowd who thronged the
terrace of the chateau, and seemed thus to invest herself in the eyes of
the people with the innocence of age and the interest of maternity.
The king gave, some days afterwards, a fête to the people of Paris, and
distributed abundant alms to the indigent. He desired that even the
miserable should have his day of content, at the commencement of that
era of joy, which his reconciliation with his people promised to his
reign. The _Te Deum_ was sung in the cathedral of Paris, as on a day of
victory, to bless the cradle of the French constitution. On the 30th of
September, the king closed the Constituent Assembly. Before he entered
the chamber, Bailly, in the name of the municipality; Pastoret, in the
name of the departments, congratulated the Assembly on the conclusion of
its work:--"Legislators," said Bailly, "you have been armed with the
greatest power that men can require. To-morrow you will be nothing. It
is not, therefore interest or flattery which praises you--it is your
works. We announce to you the benedictions of posterity, which commence
for you from to-day!" "Liberty," said Pastoret, "had fled beyond the
seas, or taken refuge in the mountains,--you have raised her fallen
throne. Despotism had effaced every page of the book of nature; you have
re-established the decalogue of freemen!"
XIV.
The king, surrounded by his ministers, entered the Assembly at three
o'clock: lengthened cries of _Vive le roi_ for a moment checked his
speaking. "Gentlemen," said Louis XVI., "after the completion of the
constitution, you have resolved on to-day terminating your labours. It
would have been desirable, perhaps, that your session should have been
prolonged in order that you, yourselves, should prove your work. But you
have wished, no doubt, to mark by this the difference which should exist
between the functions of a constituent body and ordinary legislators. I
will exercise all the power you have confided to me in assuring to the
constitution the respect and obedience due to it. For you, gentlemen,
who, during a long and painful career, have evinced an indefatigable
zeal in your labours, there remains a last duty to fulfil when you are
scattered over the face of the empire; it is to enlighten your fellow
citizens as to the spirit of the laws you have made; to purify and unite
opinions by the example you will give to the love of order and
submission to the laws. Be, on your return to your homes, the
interpreters of my sentiments to your fellow-citizens; tell them that
the king will always be their first and most faithful friend--that he
desires to be loved by them, and can only be happy with them and by
them."
The president replied to the king:--"The National Assembly having
arrived at the termination of its career, enjoys, at this moment, the
first fruit of its labours. Convinced that the government best suited to
France is that which reconciles the respected prerogatives of the throne
with the inalienable rights of the people, it has given to the state a
constitution which equally guarantees royalty and liberty. Our
successors, charged with the onerous burden of the safety of the empire,
will not misunderstand their rights, nor the limits of the constitution:
and you, sire, you have almost completed every thing--by accepting the
Constitution, you have consummated the Revolution."
The king departed amidst loud acclamations. It appeared that the
National Assembly was in haste to lay down the responsibility of events
which it no longer felt itself capable of controlling. "The National
Assembly declares," says Target, its president, "that its mission is
finished, and that, at this moment, it terminates its sittings."
The people, who crowded round the Manège, and saw with pain the
Revolution abdicated into the hands of the king, insulted, as it
recognised them, the members of the Right--even Barnave. They
experienced even on the first day the ingratitude they had so often
fomented. They separated in sorrow and in discouragement.
When Robespierre and Pétion went out, the people crowned them with oaken
chaplets, and took the horses off their carriage in order to drag them
home in triumph. The power of these two men already proved the weakness
of the constitution, and presaged its fall. An amnestied king returned
powerless to his palace. Timid legislators abdicated in trouble. Two
triumphant tribunes were elevated by the people. In this was all the
future. The Constituent Assembly, begun in an insurrection of
principles, ended as a sedition. Was it the error of those
principles--was it the fault of the Constituent Assembly? We will
examine the question at the end of the last book of this volume, in
casting a retrospect over the acts of the Constituent Assembly; till
then we will delay this judgment, in order not to interfere with the
progress of the recital.