I.
Leopold, a pacific and philosophic prince, who had he not been an
emperor, would have been a revolutionist, had sought by every means in
his power to adjourn the concussion between the two principles; he only
demanded from France such concessions as would enable him to repress the
ardour of Prussia, Germany, and Russia. The prince de Kaunitz, his
minister, continually wrote to M. de Lessart in this strain; and the
private communications which the king received from his ambassador at
the court of Vienna, the Marquis de Noailles, breathed the same spirit
of conciliation. Leopold only desired that guarantees should be given to
the monarchical powers for the establishment of order in France, and
that the constitution should be vigorously enforced by the executive
power. But the last sittings of the Assembly, the armaments of M. de
Narbonne, the accusations of Brissot, the fiery speeches of Vergniaud,
and the applause he had gained, began to weary his patience; and the
desire for war, so long repressed, now, in spite of himself, took
possession of him. "The French wish for war," said he one day; "they
shall have it--they shall see that the peaceful Leopold can be warlike
when the interest of his people demands it."
The cabinet councils at Vienna became more frequent, in presence of the
emperor. Russia had just concluded peace with the Ottoman empire, and
was thus enabled to turn her eyes to France; Sweden fanned the flame of
all the princes; Prussia yielded to the advice of Leopold; England
observed, but pledged herself to nothing, for the struggle on the
Continent would increase her importance. The armaments were decided
upon, and on the 7th of February, 1792, the definitive treaty of
alliance between Austria and Prussia was signed at Berlin. "Now," wrote
Leopold to Frederic William, "it is France who menaces--who arms--who
provokes: Europe must arm."
The party in favour of war in Germany triumphed. "It is very fortunate
for you," said the elector of Mayence to the Marquis de Bouillé, "that
the French were the aggressors; but for that we should never have had a
war." War was resolved upon in the councils, yet Leopold still hoped. In
an official note, which the prince de Kaunitz transmitted to the Marquis
de Noailles, for the king, Leopold yet showed himself willing to be
reconciled. M. de Lessart replied confidentially to these last
overtures, in a despatch which he had the honesty to communicate to the
diplomatic committee of the Assembly, composed of Girondists. In this
reply the minister palliated the charges made against the Assembly by
the emperor, and seemed rather to excuse France than justify. He
acknowledged that there were some disturbances in the kingdom, some
excesses in the clubs, some licence in the press; but he attributed
these disorders to the excitement produced by the movements of the
_emigrés_, and the inexperience of a people who essay their constitution
and wound themselves with it.
"Indifference and contempt," said he, "are the fittest weapons with
which to combat this pest. Could Europe stoop so low, as to quarrel with
the French nation, because some few demagogues and madmen dwell amongst
them, and would honour them so far as to reply to them by cannon balls?"
In a despatch of the prince de Kaunitz, addressed to all the European
cabinets, was this phrase,--"Latest events give us cause to hope, for it
is evident that the majority of the French nation, struck by the evils
they are preparing for themselves, are returning to more moderate
principles, and are inclined to restore to the throne the dignity and
authority which form the bases of monarchical government." The Assembly
remained silent from suspicion, and this suspicion was awakened whilst
diplomatic notes and counter notes were exchanged between the cabinet of
the Tuileries and the cabinet of Vienna. But no sooner had M. de Lessart
descended from the tribune, and the Assembly closed the sitting, than
the murmurs of mistrust were changed into loud and sullen exclamations
of indignation.
II.
The Jacobins burst out into threats against the perfidious minister and
the court, who united in a treasonable combination, called the Austrian
Committee, concerted counter-revolutionary plans in the Tuileries, made
signals to the enemies of the nation from the very foot of the throne,
and secretly communicated with the court of Vienna, and dictated the
language necessary to intimidate France. The Memoirs of Hardenberg, the
Prussian minister, which have since been published, prove that these
accusations were not entirely the dreams of the demagogues; and that in
order to promote peace the two courts did all in their power to adopt
the same tone with each other. It was resolved that M. de Lessart should
be impeached, and Brissot, the leader of the diplomatic committee, the
advocate of war, undertook to prove his pretended crimes.
The constitutional party abandoned M. de Lessart, without any defence,
to the hatred of the Jacobins; this party had no suspicions, but
vengeance to wreak upon M. de Lessart. The king had suddenly dismissed
M. de Narbonne, the rival of this minister in the council. M. de
Narbonne, feeling himself menaced, caused La Fayette to write a letter,
in which he conjured him to remain at his post so long as the perils of
his country rendered it necessary.
This step, of which M. de Narbonne was cognisant, appeared to the king
an insolent act of oppression against his liberty and that of the
constitution. The popularity of M. de Narbonne diminished
proportionately as that of the Girondists became greater and inspired
them with more audacity. The Assembly began to change its applause into
murmurs when he mounted the tribune, whence a short time before he had
been shamefully forced to withdraw, because he had wounded the plebeian
susceptibility by appealing to the _most distinguished_ members of the
Assembly. The aristocracy of his rank showed itself beneath his uniform,
whilst the people wished for members of its own stamp in the councils;
and thus between the offended king and the suspicious Girondists, M. de
Narbonne fell. The king dismissed him, and he went to serve in the army
he had organised. His friends did not conceal their resentment. Madame
de Stäel lost in him her ambition and her ideal at the same time; but
she did not abandon all hope of regaining for M. de Narbonne the
confidence of the king, and of seeing him play a great political part.
She had sought to render him a Mirabeau, she now dreamed of making him a
Monk. From this day she conceived the idea of rescuing the king from the
power of the Jacobins and Girondists--of carrying him off through the
agency of M. de Narbonne and the constitutionalists--of re-seating him
on the throne--of crushing the extreme parties, and establishing her
ideal government--a liberal aristocracy. A woman of genius, her genius
had the prejudices of her birth; a plebeian, who had found her way to
court, it was necessary for her to have patricians between the throne
and the people. The first blow at M. de Lessart was dealt by a man who
frequented the _salon_ of Madame de Stäel.
III.
But a more terrible and more unexpected blow fell on M. de Lessart: the
very day on which he thus surrendered himself to his enemies, the
unexpected death of the emperor Leopold was known at Paris, and with
this prince expired the last faint hope of peace, for his wisdom died
with him; and who could tell what new policy would arise from his tomb?
The agitation that prevailed filled every one with terror, and this was
soon changed into hatred against the unfortunate minister of Louis XVI.
He had neither known, it was said, how to profit by the pacific
disposition of Leopold whilst this prince yet lived, nor to forestall
the hostile designs of those who succeeded him in the dominion of
Germany. Every thing furnished fresh accusation against him, even
fatality and death.
At the moment of his decease all was ready for hostility. Two hundred
thousand men formed a line from Bâle to the Scheldt. The duke of
Brunswick, on whom rested every hope of the coalition, was at Berlin,
giving his last advice to the king of Prussia, and receiving his final
orders. Beschoffwerder, the general and confidant of the king of
Prussia, arrived at Vienna to concert with the emperor the point and
time of attack. On his arrival the prince de Kaunitz hastily informed
him of the sudden illness of the emperor. The 27th Leopold was in
perfect health, and received the Turkish envoy; on the 28th he was in
the agonies of death. His stomach swelled, and convulsive vomitings put
him to intense torture. The doctors, alarmed at these symptoms, ordered
copious bleeding, which appeared to allay his sufferings; but they
enervated the vital force of the prince, who had weakened himself by
debauchery. He fell asleep for a short time, and the doctors and
ministers withdrew; but he soon awoke in fresh convulsions, and died in
the presence of a valet de chambre, named Brunetti, in the arms of the
empress, who had just arrived.
The intelligence of the death of the emperor, the more terrible as it
was so unexpected, spread abroad instantly, and surprised Germany at
the very moment of a crisis. Terror for the future destiny of Germany
was joined to pity for the empress and her children: the palace was all
confusion and despair; the ministers felt power snatched from their
grasp; the grandees of the court, without waiting for their carriages,
hurried to the court, in the disorder of astonishment, and grief and
sobs were heard in the vestibules and staircases that led to the
apartments of the empress. At this moment, this princess, without having
time to assume black, appeared, bathed in tears, surrounded by her
numerous children, and leading them to the new king of the Romans, the
eldest son of Leopold, she threw herself at his feet, and implored his
protection for these orphans. Francis I., mingling his tears with those
of his mother and brothers, one of whom was only four years old, raised
the empress, and embracing the children, vowed to be a second father to
them.
IV.
This catastrophe was inexplicable to scientific men; politicians
suspected some mystery; the people poison. These reports of poison,
however, have neither been confirmed nor disproved by time. The most
probable opinion is that this prince had made an immoderate use of drugs
which he compounded himself, in order to recruit his constitution,
shattered by debauchery and excess. Lagusius, his chief physician, who
had assisted at the autopsy of the body, declared he discovered traces
of poison. Who had administered it? The Jacobins and _emigrés_ mutually
accused each other, the one party to disembarrass themselves of the
armed chief of the empire, and thus spread anarchy amongst the
federation of Germany, of which the emperor was the bond that united
them; the others had slain in Leopold the philosopher prince, who
temporised with France, and who retarded the war. A female was spoken of
who had attracted the notice of the emperor at the last _bal masqué_ at
the court, and it was said that this stranger, favoured by her disguise,
had given him poisoned sweetmeats, without its being possible to
discover from whose hand they came. Others accused the beautiful
Florentine, Donna Livia, his mistress, who, according to them, was the
fanatical instrument of a few priests. These anecdotes are the mere
chimeras of surprise and sorrow, for the people can never believe that
the events which have had so vast an influence over their destiny are
merely natural. But crimes, universally approved, are rare; opinion may
desire, but never commits them. Crime, like ambition or vengeance, is
personal: there was neither ambition nor vengeance around
Leopold,--nought but a few female jealousies; and his attachments were
too numerous and too fugitive to kindle in the heart of a mistress that
love that arms the hand with poison or poignard. He loved at the same
time Donna Livia, whom he had brought with him from Tuscany, and who was
known in Europe as "La belle Florentine," Prokache, a young Polish girl,
the charming countess of Walkenstein, and others of an inferior rank.
The countess of Walkenstein had for some time past been his avowed
mistress; he had given her a million (francs) in drafts on the bank of
Vienna, and he had even presented her to the empress, who forgave him
his weaknesses, on condition that he gave no one his political
confidence, which up to that time he had confided to her alone. He was a
devoted admirer of the fair sex, and it would be necessary to refer to
the most shameful epochs of Roman history to find any emperor whose life
was as scandalous as his own; his cabinet was found after his death to
be filled with valuable stuffs, rings, fans, trinkets, and even a
quantity of rouge. These traces of debauch made the empress blush when
she visited them with the new emperor. "My son," said she, "you have
before you the sad proof of your father's disorderly life, and of my
long afflictions: remember nothing of them except my forgiveness and his
virtues. Imitate his great qualities, but beware lest you fall into the
same vices, in order that you may not, in your turn, put to the blush
those who scrutinise your life."
The prince in Leopold was superior to the man: he had made trial of a
philosophical government in Tuscany, and this happy country yet blesses
his memory; but his genius was not suited for a more enlarged field. The
struggle, forced on him by the French Revolution, compelled him to seize
on the helm in Germany; but he did so without energy. He opposed the
temporising policy of diplomacy to the contagion of new ideas; he was
the Fabius of kings. To afford the Revolution time was to ensure it the
victory. It could be only vanquished by surprise, and stifled in its own
stronghold; the genius of the people was its negotiator and accomplice,
and its increasing popularity was its army. Its ideas found new
adherents in princes, people, and cabinets. Leopold would have given it
a share, but the share of the Revolution is the conquest of every thing
that opposes its principles. The principles of Leopold could conciliate
the Revolution, but his power as the arbitrator of Germany could not
conciliate the conquering power of France. His part was a double one,
and his position false. He died at a right moment for his renown; he
paralysed Germany, and checked the impetus of France, and, by
disappearing between the two, he left the two principles to clash
together, and destiny to take its course.
V.
Opinion, already agitated by the death of Leopold, received another
shock from the news of the tragical death of the king of Sweden, who was
assassinated on the night of the 16th of March, 1792, at a masked ball.
Death seemed to strike, one after another, all the enemies of France.
The Jacobins saw its hand in all these catastrophes, and even boasted of
them through their most audacious demagogues; but they proclaimed more
crimes than they committed, and their wishes alone shared in these
assassinations.
Gustavus, this hero of the counter-revolution, this chevalier of
aristocracy, fell by the blows of his nobility. When he was ready to set
forth on the expedition he projected against France, he had assembled
his diet to ensure the tranquillity of the kingdom during his absence.
His vigorous measures had put down the malcontents; yet it was foretold
to him, like Cæsar, that the ides of March would be a critical period of
his destiny. A thousand traces revealed a plot, and his intended
assassination was rumoured over all Germany before the blow was struck.
These rumours are the forerunners of projected crimes: some indication
escapes the heart of the conspirator, and it is by this means that the
event is predicted before it happens.
The king of Sweden, warned by his numerous friends, who entreated him to
be upon his guard, replied, like Cæsar, that the stroke when once
received was less painful than the perpetual dread of receiving it, and
that if he listened to all these warnings, he could no longer drink a
glass of water without trembling. He braved danger, and showed himself
more than ever to the people. The conspirators had made several
fruitless attempts during the Diet, but chance had preserved the king.
Since his return to Stockholm, the king frequently went to pass the day
alone at his château at Haga, a league from the capital. Three of the
conspirators had approached the château, at five o'clock on a dark
winter's evening, armed with carbines, and ready to fire on the king.
The apartment he occupied was on the ground floor, and the lighted
candles in the library enabled them to see their victim. Gustavus, on
his return from hunting, undressed, and fell asleep in an arm chair,
within a few feet of the assassins. Whether it was that they were
alarmed by the sound of footsteps, or that the solemn contrast of the
peaceful slumber of this prince with the death that threatened him,
softened their hearts, they again abandoned their project, and only
revealed this circumstance on their trial after the assassination, when
the king acknowledged the truth and precision of their details. They
were ready to renounce their intention, discouraged by a sort of divine
intervention, and by the fatigue of having so long meditated this design
in vain, when a fatal occasion tempted them too strongly, and made them
resolve on the murder of the king.
VI.
A masked ball was given at the opera, which the king was to attend, and
the conspirators resolved to take advantage of the mystery of the
disguise and tumult of the fête to strike the blow, without allowing the
hand to appear. A short time before the ball the king supped with a few
of his most intimate courtiers. A letter was brought to him, which he
opened, and reading it jestingly, then threw it on the table. The
anonymous writer informed him that he was neither a friend to his person
nor an approver of his policy, but that as a loyal enemy he desired to
inform him of the death that menaced him. He counselled him not to go
to the ball; or, if he persisted, he advised him to mistrust the crowd
that might press around him, for that was the signal for the blow to be
aimed at him. That the king might not doubt the warning thus given, he
recalled to his memory his dress, gesture, his sleep in his apartment of
Haga in the evening that he had believed himself quite alone. Such
convincing proofs must have struck and intimidated the mind of the
prince, but his intrepid soul made him brave, not only the warning, but
death: he rose and went to the ball.
VII.
Scarcely had he reached the apartment, when he was surrounded, as he had
been warned, by a group of masks, and separated, as if by preconcerted
movement, from the body of officers who were in attendance. At this
moment an invisible hand fired at his back a pistol loaded with slugs.
The blow struck him in the left flank above the hip. Gustavus fell into
the arms of Count d'Armsfeld, his favourite. The report of the fire arm,
the smell of powder, the cries of "_fire_," which resounded through the
apartment, the confusion which followed the king's fall, the real or
feigned anxiety of persons who hurried forward to save him, favoured the
escape of the assassins: the pistol had been dropped on the ground.
Gustavus did not lose his presence of mind for a moment. He ordered the
doors to be immediately closed, and desired all to unmask. Carried by
his guards into an apartment in the opera-house, he was confided to his
surgeons. He admitted some of the foreign ministers into his presence,
and spoke to them with all the calmness of a strong mind. Even his pain
did not inspire him with any feeling of vengeance. Generous even in
death, he demanded anxiously if the assassin had been apprehended. He
was told that he was unknown. "Oh God, grant," he said, "that he may not
be discovered."
Whilst the king was receiving the first attentions, and being conveyed
to the palace, the guards stationed at the doors of the ball-room
compelled all to take off their masks, asked their names, and searched
their persons: nothing suspicious was discovered. Four of the chief
conspirators, men of the highest nobility in Stockholm, had succeeded
in escaping from the apartment in the first confusion produced by the
report of the pistol, and before the doors had been closed. Of nine
confidants or accomplices in the crime, eight had already gone away
without exciting any suspicion: only one was left in the apartment, who
affected a slow step and calm demeanour as guarantees of his innocence.
He left the apartment last of all, raising his mask before the officer
of police, and saying, as he looked steadfastly at him, "As for me, sir,
I hope you do not suspect me." This man was the assassin.
They allowed him to pass; the crime had no other evidence than itself, a
pistol, and a knife, sharpened as a poignard, found beneath the masks
and flowers on the floor of the opera. The weapon revealed the hand. A
gunsmith at Stockholm identified the pistol, and declared he had
recently sold it to a Swedish gentleman, formerly an officer in the
guards, named Ankastroem. They found Ankastroem at his house, neither
thinking of exculpation nor of flight. He confessed the weapon and the
crime. An unjust judgment, he averred, in which however the king spared
his life, the wearisomeness of an existence which he had cherished to
employ and make illustrious at its close for his country's advantage,
the hope, if he succeeded, of a national recompence worthy of the deed,
had, he declared, inspired this project; and he claimed to himself alone
the glory or disgrace. He denied all plot and all accomplices. Beneath
the fanatic he masked the conspirator.
He failed in his part, after a few days, beneath the truth and his
remorse. He avowed the conspiracy, named the guilty, and the reward of
his crime. It was a sum of money, that had been weighed, rix-dollar by
rix-dollar, against the blood of Gustavus. The plot, planned six months
before, had been thrice frustrated, by chance or destiny--at the diet of
Jessen, at Stockholm, and at Haga. The king killed, all his
favourites--all the instruments of his government--must be sacrificed to
the vengeance of the senate and the restoration of the aristocracy.
Their heads were to have been carried at the tops of pikes, in the
streets of the capital, in imitation of the popular punishments of
Paris. The duke of Sudermania, the king's brother, was to be
sacrificed. The young monarch, handed over to the conspirators, was to
serve as a passive instrument to re-establish the ancient constitution,
and legitimate their crime. The principal conspirators belonged to the
first families in Sweden; the shame of their lost power had debased
their ambition, even to crime. They were the Count de Bibbing, Count de
Horn, Baron d'Erensward, and Colonel Lilienhorn. Lilienhorn, commandant
of the guards, drawn from misery and obscurity by the king's favour,
promoted to the first rank in the army, and admitted to closest intimacy
in the palace, confessed his ingratitude and his crime; seduced, he
declared, by the ambition of commanding, during the trouble, the
national guard of Stockholm. The part played by La Fayette in Paris
seemed to him the ideal of the citizen and the soldier. He could not
resist the fascination of the perspective; half-way in the conspiracy,
he had endeavoured to render it impossible, even whilst he meditated it.
It was he who had written the anonymous letter to the king, in which the
king was warned of the failure in the attempt at Haga, and that which
threatened him at this fête; with one hand he thrust forward the
assassin--with the other he held back the victim, as though he had thus
prepared for himself an excuse for his remorse after the deed was done.
On the fatal day he had passed the evening in the king's apartments--had
seen him read the letter--had followed him to the ball. Enigma of
crime--a pitying assassin! the mind thus divided between the thirst for,
and horror of, his benefactor's blood.
VIII.
Gustavus died slowly: he saw death approach and recede with the same
indifference, or the same resignation; received his court, conversed
with his friends, even reconciled himself to the opponents of his
government, who did not conceal their opposition, but did not push their
aristocratic resentment to assassination. "I am consoled," he said, to
the Count de Brahé, one of the greatest of the nobility and chief of the
malcontents, "since death enables me to recover an old friend in you."
He watched to the very last over his kingdom; nominated the Duke of
Sudermania regent, instituted a council of regency, made his friend
Armsfeld military governor of Stockholm, surrounded the young king, only
thirteen years of age, with all that could strengthen his position
during his minority. He prepared his passage from one world to another,
awaiting his death, so that it should be an event to himself alone. "My
son," he wrote, a few hours before he died, "will not come of age before
he is eighteen, but I hope he will be king at sixteen;" thus predicting
for his successor that precocity of courage and genius which had enabled
him to reign and govern before the time. He said to his grand almoner,
in confessing himself, "I do not think I shall take with me great merits
before God, but at least I shall have the consciousness of never having
willingly done harm to any person." Then, having requested a moment's
repose to acquire strength, in order to embrace his family for the last
time, he bid adieu, with a smile, to his friend Bergenstiern, and,
falling asleep, never waked again.
The prince royal, proclaimed king, mounted the throne the same day. The
people, whom Gustavus had emancipated from the yoke of the senate, swore
spontaneously to defend his institutions in his son. He had so well
employed the day, which God had allowed him between assassination and
death, that nothing perished but himself, and his shade seemed to
continue to reign over Sweden.
This prince had nothing great but his soul, nor handsome but his eyes.
Small in size, with broad shoulders, his haunches badly set on, his
forehead singularly shaped, long nose, large mouth, the grace and
animation of his countenance overcame every imperfection of figure, and
rendered Gustavus one of the most attractive men in his dominions;
intelligence, goodness, courage, beamed from his eyes, and pervaded his
features. You felt the man, admired the king, appreciated the hero.
There was heart in his genius, as there is in all really great men. Well
informed, deeply read, eloquent, he applied all his endowments to the
empire; those whom he had conquered by his courage, he vanquished by his
generosity, and charmed by his language. His faults were display and
pleasure; he liked the glory of those enjoyments and amours which are
found and pardoned in heroes; his vices were those of Alexander, Cæsar,
and Henri IV. The revenge of a disgraceful amour had something to do
with the conspiracy which destroyed him; to resemble these great men, he
only wanted their destiny.
When almost a child, he had rescued himself from the tutelage of the
aristocracy; in emancipating the throne, he had emancipated the people.
At the head of an army, recruited without money, and which he
disciplined by its enthusiasm, he conquered Finland, and went on from
victory to victory to St. Petersburgh. Checked in his greatness by a
revolt of his officers, surrounded in his tent by his guards, he had
escaped by flight, and had gone to the succour of another portion of his
kingdom, invaded by the Danes. Again a victor against these deadly
enemies of Sweden, the gratitude of the nation had restored to him his
repentant army; and his sole vengeance was in again leading them to
conquest.
He had subdued all without, tranquillised all within, and had only one
ambition left--disinterested from every consideration but fame--to
avenge the forsaken cause of Louis XVI., and to secure from her
persecutors a queen whom he adored at a distance. This was the vision of
a hero; it had but one mistake--his genius was vaster than his empire.
Heroism with disproportioned means makes the great man resemble an
adventurer, and transforms gigantic designs into follies. But history
does not judge like fortune, and it is the heart rather than success
that makes the hero. The romantic and adventurous character of Gustavus
is still the greatness of a restless and struggling soul in the
pettiness of its destiny. His death excited a shriek of joy amongst the
Jacobins, who deified Ankastroem; but their burst of delight on learning
the end of Gustavus, proved how insincere was their affected contempt
for this enemy of the constitution.
IX.
These two obstacles removed, nothing now kept France and Europe on terms
but the feeble cabinet of Louis XVI. The impatience of the nation, the
ambition of the Girondists, and the resentment of the constitutionalists
wounded through M. de Narbonne, united them to overthrow this cabinet.
Brissot, Vergniaud, Guadet, Condorcet, Gensonné, Pétion, their friends
in the Assembly, the council-chamber of Madame Roland, their Seids
amongst the Jacobins balanced between two ambitions--equally open to
their abilities--to destroy power or seize on it. Brissot counselled
this latter measure. More conversant with politics than the young
orators of the Gironde, he did not comprehend the Revolution without
government; anarchy, in his opinion, did not destroy the monarchy more
than it did liberty. The greater were events, the more necessary was the
direction of them. Placed disarmed in the foremost rank of the Assembly
and of opinion, power presented itself, and it was necessary to lay
hands upon it. Once in their grasp, they would make of it, according to
the dictates of fortune and the will of the people, a monarchy or a
republic. Ready for any thing that would allow them to reign in the name
of the king or of the people, this counsel was pleasing to men who had
scarcely emerged from obscurity, and who, seduced by the facility of
their good fortune, seized on it at its first smile. Men who ascend
quickly, easily become giddy.
Still a very profound line of policy was disclosed in the secret council
of the Girondists, in the choice of the men whom they put forward, and
whom they presented for ministers to the king.
Brissot in this gave evidence of the patience of consummate ambition. He
inspired Vergniaud, Pétion, Guadet, Gensonné, as well as all the leading
men of his party, with similar patience. He remained with them in the
twilight close to power, but not included in the projected ministry,
being desirous of feeling the pulse of popular opinion through secondary
men, who could be disavowed or sacrificed at need, and keeping in
reserve himself and the leaders of the Girondists, either to support or
overthrow this weak and transitory ministry, if the nation should
resolve upon more decisive measures. Brissot, and those who acted with
him, were thus ready at all points, as well to direct as to replace
power--they were masters without any responsibility. The doctrines of
Machiavel were very perceptible in this tactic of statesmen. Besides, by
abstaining from entering into the first cabinet, they would remain
popular, and maintain, in the Assembly and Jacobins, those voices of
power which would have been stifled in an administration. Popularity was
requisite for their contest with Robespierre, who was treading so
closely on their heels, and who would soon be at the head of opinion if
they abandoned it to him. On entering upon their course they affected
for this rival more contempt than they really felt. Robespierre,
single-handed, balanced their influence with the Jacobins. The
vociferations of Billaud, Varennes, Danton, Collot d'Herbois, did not in
the least alarm them. Robespierre's silence gave them considerable
uneasiness. They had been successful in the question of war; but the
stoical opposition of Robespierre, and the desire of the people for war,
had not affected his reputation. This man had redoubled his power in his
isolation. The inspiration of a mind alone and incorruptible was more
powerful than the enthusiasm of a whole party. Those who did not
approve, still admired him. He had stood aside to allow war to pass by
him, but opinion always had its eyes on him, and it might have been said
that a secret instinct revealed to the people that in this man was the
destiny of the future. When he advanced, they followed him; when he did
not move, they waited for him. The Girondists, therefore, were
compelled, from prudential motives, to distrust this man, and to remain
in the Assembly between their own course and him. These precautions
taken, they looked about them for the men who were nullities by
themselves, and yet, engrafted on their party, of whom they could make
ministers. They required instruments, and not masters,--Seids attached
to their fortune, whom they could direct at will either against the king
or against the Jacobins--could elevate without fear, or reject without
compunction. They sought them in obscurity, and believed they had found
them in Clavière, Roland, Dumouriez, Lacoste, and Duranton,--they made
only one mistake: Dumouriez, under the guise of an adventurer, had
talents equal to any emergency.[18]
X.
The party thus distributed, and Madame Roland informed of the proposed
elevation of her husband, the Girondists attacked the ministry in the
person of M. de Lessart, at the sitting of the 10th of March. Brissot
read against this minister a bill of accusation, skilfully and
perfidiously fabricated, in which the appearance presented by facts and
the conjecture derived from proofs, cast on the negotiation of M. de
Lessart all the odium and criminality of treason. He proposed that a
decree of accusation should proceed against the minister for foreign
affairs. The Assembly was silent or applauded. Some members, with a view
of defending the minister, demanded time in order that the Assembly
might reflect on the charge, and thus, at least, affect the impartiality
of justice. "Hasten!" exclaimed Isnard; "whilst you are deliberating
perhaps the traitor will flee." "I have been a long time judge," replied
Boulanger, "and never did I decree capital punishment so lightly."
Vergniaud, who saw the indecision of the Assembly, rushed twice into the
tribune to combat the excuses and the delays of the right side. Becquet,
whose coolness was equal to his courage, desirous of averting the peril,
proposed that it should be sent to the diplomatic committee. Vergniaud
began to fear that the moment would escape his party, and said, "No, no
we do not require actual proofs for a criminal accusation--presumptive
proofs are sufficient. There is not one of us in whose minds the
cowardice and perfidy which characterises the acts of the minister have
not produced the most lively indignation. Is it not he who has for two
months kept in his portfolio the decree of the reunion of Avignon with
France? and the blood spilled in that city, the mutilated carcases of so
many victims, do they not cry to us for vengeance against him? I see
from this tribune the palace in which evil counsellors deceive the king
whom the constitution gives to us, forge the fetters which enchain us,
and plot the stratagems which are to deliver us to the house of Austria.
(Loud acclamations.) The day has arrived to put an end to such audacity
and insolence, and to crush such conspirators. Dread and terror have
frequently, in the ancient times, come forth from this palace in the
name of despotism: let them return thither to-day in the name of the law
(loud applauses); let them penetrate all hearts; let all those who
inhabit it know that the constitution promises inviolability to the king
alone; let them learn that the law will reach all the guilty, and that
not one head convicted of criminality can escape its sword."
These allusions to the queen, who was accused of directing the Austrian
committee, this threatening language, addressed to the king, went
echoing into the king's cabinet, and forced his hand to sign the
nomination of a Girondist ministry. This was a party manoeuvre,
executed beneath the appearance of sudden indignation in the tribune--it
was more, it was the first signal made by the Girondists to the men of
the 20th of June and the 10th of August. The act of accusation was
carried, and De Lessart sent to the court of Orleans, which only yielded
him up to the cut-throats of Versailles. He might have fled, but his
flight would have been interpreted against the king. He placed himself
generously between death and his master, innocent of every crime except
his love for him.
The king felt that there was but one step between himself and
abdication: that was, by taking his ministry from amongst his enemies,
and giving them an interest in power, by placing it in their hands. He
yielded to the times, embraced his minister, and requested the
Girondists to supply him with another. The Girondists were already
silently occupied in so doing. They had previously made, in the name of
the party, overtures to Roland at the end of February. "The court," they
said to him, "is not very far off from taking Jacobin ministers: not
from inclination, but through treachery. The confidence it will feign to
bestow will be a snare. It requires violent men in order to impute to
them the excesses of the people and the disorders of the kingdom: we
must deceive its perfidious hopes, and give to it firm and sagacious
patriots. We think of you."
XI.
Roland, whose ambition had soured in obscurity, had smiled at the power
which came to avenge his old age. Brissot, himself, had gone to Madame
Roland on the 21st of the same month, and repeating the same words, had
requested from her the formal consent of her husband. Madame Roland was
ambitious, not of power but of fame. Fame lightens up the higher places
only, and she ardently desired to see her husband elevated to this
eminence. She spoke like a woman who had predicted the event, and whom
fortune does not surprise. "The burden is heavy," she said to Brissot,
"but Roland has a great consciousness of his own powers, and would
derive fresh strength from the feeling of being useful to liberty and
his country."
This choice being made, the Girondists cast their eyes on Lacoste, an
active commissioner of the navy, a working man, his mind limited by his
duties, but honest and upright; his very candour of nature preserving
him from faction. Put into council to watch over his master, he
naturally became his friend. Duranton, an advocate of Bordeaux, was
called to the bureau of justice. The Girondists, who knew him, boasted
of his honesty, and relied on his plasticity and weakness. Brissot
intended for the finance department Clavière, a Genevese economist,
driven from his native land, a relation and friend of his own; used to
intrigue; rival of Necker; brought up in the cabinet of Mirabeau, in
order to bring forward a rival against this finance minister, so hateful
to Mirabeau: a man without republican prejudices or monarchical
principles, only seeking in the Revolution a part, and with whom the
great aim and end was--to get on. His mind, indifferent to all scruples,
was on a level with every situation, and at the height of all parties.
The Girondists, new to state affairs, required men well conversant in
the details of war and finance departments, and who yet were the mere
tools of their government: Clavière was one of these. In the war office
they had De Grave, by whom the king had replaced Narbonne. De Grave, who
from the subaltern ranks of the army had been raised to the post of
minister of war, had declared relations with the Girondists. The friends
of Gensonné, Vergniaud, Guadet, Brissot, and even Danton, hoped, through
their instrumentality, to save at the same time the constitution and the
king. Devoted to both, he was the link by which he hoped to unite the
Girondists to royalty. Young, he had the illusions of his age:
constitutional, he had the sincerity of his conviction; but weak, in ill
health, more ready to undertake than firm to execute, he was one of
those men of the moment who help events to their accomplishment, and do
not disturb them when they are accomplished.
The principal minister, however, he to whose hands was to be confided
the fate of his country, and who was to comprise in himself all the
policy of the Girondists, was the minister for foreign affairs, destined
to replace the unfortunate De Lessart. The rupture with Europe was the
most pressing matter with the party, and they required a man who would
control the king, detect the secret intrigues of the court, cognisant of
the mysteries of European cabinets, and who knew how, by his skill and
resolution, at the same time to force our enemies into a war,--our
dubious friends into neutrality,--our secret partisans to an alliance.
They sought such a man: he was close at hand.