BOOK XIII.

I.

Dumouriez combined all the requisites of boldness, devotion to the

cause, and talent that the Girondists required, and yet, until then, a

second-rate man, and almost unknown, had no fortune to hope for but as

theirs culminated. His name would not give umbrage to their genius, and

if he proved incompetent, or rebelled against their projects, they would

remove him without fear, or crush him without pity. Brissot, the

diplomatic oracle of the Gironde, was evidently to be the minister who

was one day to control our foreign relations, and who _en attendant_ was

to govern for the moment under the name of Dumouriez.

The Girondists had discovered Dumouriez in the obscurity of an

existence, until then very insignificant, through Gensonné, whose

colleague Dumouriez had been in the mission which the Constituent

Assembly had given him to visit and examine the position of the western

departments, already agitated by the secret presentiment of civil war

and the early religious troubles. During this inquiry, which lasted

several months, the two commissioners had frequent opportunities for an

interchange of their most private thoughts on the great events which at

this moment agitated men's minds. They became much attached to each

other. Gensonné detected with much tact in his colleague one of those

intellects repressed by circumstances, and weighed down by the

obscurity of their lot, which it is enough to expose to the open

daylight of public action, in order to shine forth with all the

brilliancy with which nature and study had endowed it: he had too found

in this mind the spring of character strong enough to bear the movements

of a revolution, and sufficiently elastic to bend to all the

difficulties of affairs. In a word, Dumouriez had on the first contact

exercised over Gensonné that influence, that ascendency, that empire

which superiority, when it displays and humbles itself, never fails to

acquire over minds to which it condescends to disclose itself.

This attractive power, the confidence of genius, was one of the

characteristics of Dumouriez, and by that he subsequently made a

conquest of the Girondists, the king, the queen, his army, the Jacobins,

Danton,--Robespierre himself. It was what great men call their star,--a

star which precedes them, and prepares their way. Dumouriez's star was

fascination of manner; but this fascination was but the attraction of

his just, rapid, quick ideas, into whose orbit the incredible activity

of his mind carried away the mind of those who heard his thoughts or

witnessed his actions. Gensonné, on his return from his mission, had

desired to enrich his party with this unknown man, whose eminence he

foresaw from afar. He presented Dumouriez to his friends of the

Assembly, to Guadet, Vergniaud, Roland, Brissot, and De Grave:

communicated to them his own astonishment at, and confidence in, the

twofold faculties of Dumouriez as diplomatist and soldier. He spoke of

him as of a concealed saviour, whom fate had reserved for liberty. He

conjured them to attach to themselves a man whose greatness would

enhance their own.

They had scarcely seen Dumouriez before they were convinced. His

intellect was electrical: it struck before they had time to anatomise

it. The Girondists presented him to De Grave, and De Grave to the king,

who offered him the temporary management of foreign affairs, until M. de

Lessart, sent before the _Haute Cour_, had proved his innocence to his

judges, and could resume the place reserved for him in the council.

Dumouriez refused the post of minister _pro tempore_, which would injure

and weaken his position before all parties by rendering him suspected

by all. The king yielded, and Dumouriez was appointed.

II.

History should pause a moment before this man, who, without having

assumed the name of Dictator, concentrated in himself during two years

all expiring France, and exercised over his country the most

incontestible of dictatorships--that of genius. Dumouriez was of the

number of men who are not to be painted by merely naming them, but of

those whose previous life explains their nature; who have in the past

the secret of their future; who have, like Mirabeau, their existence

spread over two epochs; who have their roots in two soils, and are only

known by the perusal of every detail.

Dumouriez, son of a commissioner in the war department, was born at

Cambrai in 1739; and although his family lived in the north, his blood

was southern by extraction. His family, originally from Aix, in

Provence, evinced itself in the light, warmth, and sensibility of his

nature; there was perceptible the same sky that had rendered so prolific

the genius of Mirabeau. His father, a military and well-read man,

educated him equally for war and literature. One of his uncles, employed

in the foreign office, made him early a diplomatist. A mind equally

powerful and supple, he lent himself equally to all--as fitted for

action as for thought, he passed from one to the other with facility,

according to the phases of his destiny. There was in him the flexibility

of the Greek mind in the stirring periods of the democracy in Athens.

His deep study early directed his mind to history, that poem of men of

action. Plutarch nourished him with his manly diet. He moulded on the

antique figures drawn from life by the historian the ideal of his own

life, only all the parts of every great man suited him alike: he assumed

them by turns, realised them in his reveries, as suited to reproduce In

him the voluptuary as the sage, the malcontent as the patriot;

Aristippus as Themistocles; Scipio as Coriolanus. He mingled with his

studies the exercises of a military life, formed his body to fatigue, at

the same time that he fashioned his mind to lofty ideas; equally skilled

in handling a sword and daring in subduing a horse.

Demosthenes, by patience, formed a sonorous voice from a stammering

tongue. Dumouriez, with a weak and ailing constitution in his childhood,

enured his body for war. The stirring ambition of his soul required that

the frame which encased it should be of endurance.

III.

Opposing the desires of his father, who destined him for the war

office, the pen was his abhorrence, and he obtained a sub-lieutenancy in

the cavalry. As aide-de-camp of marshal d'Armentières, he made the

campaign of Hanover. In a retreat he seized the standard from the hands

of a fugitive, rallied two hundred troopers round him, saved a battery

of five pieces of cannon, and covered the passage of the army. Remaining

almost alone in the rear, he made himself a rampart of his dead horse,

and wounded three of the enemy's hussars. Wounded in many places by

gun-shot and sabre wounds--his thigh entangled beneath a fallen

horse--two fingers of his right hand severed--his forehead cut open--his

eyes literally singed by a discharge of powder, he still fought, and

only surrendered prisoner to the Baron de Beker, who saved his life, and

conveyed him to the camp of the English.

His youth and good constitution restored him to health at the end of two

months. Destined to form himself to victory by the example of defeats,

and want of experience in our generals, he rejoined marshal de Soubise

and marshal de Broglie; and was present at the routs which the French

owe to their enmity and rivalry.

At the peace he went to rejoin his regiment in garrison at Saint Lô.

Passing by Pont Audemer, he stopped at the house of his father's sister.

A passionate love for one of his uncle's daughters kept him there. This

love, shared by his cousin, and favoured by his aunt, was opposed by his

father. The young girl, in despair, took refuge in a convent. Dumouriez

swore to take her thence, and went away. On his road, overcome by his

grief, he bought some opium at Dieppe, shut himself up in his apartment,

wrote his adieus to his beloved, a letter of reproaches to his father,

and took the poison. Nature saved him, and repentance ensued--he went,

and, throwing himself at his father's feet, they were reconciled.

At four and twenty years of age, after seven campaigns, he brought from

the wars only twenty-two wounds, a decoration, the rank of captain, a

pension of 600 livres, debts contracted in the service, and a hopeless

love, which preyed upon his mind. His ambition, spurred by his love,

made him seek in politics that success which war had hitherto refused

him.

There was then in Paris one of those enigmatic men who are at the same

time intriguers and statesmen. Unknown and unconsidered, they play under

some name parts hidden, but important in affairs. Men of police, as well

as of politics, the governments that employ and despise them pay their

services, not in appointments, but in subsidies. Manoeuvrers in

politics, they are paid from day to day--they are urged onwards,

compromised, and then disavowed, and sometimes even imprisoned. They

suffer all, even captivity and dishonour, for money. Such men are things

to buy and sell, and their talent and utility stamp their price. Of this

class were Linguet, Brissot, even Mirabeau in his youth. Such at this

period was one Favier.

This man, employed in turns by the duc de Choiseul and M. d'Argenson, to

draw up diplomatic memoranda, had an infinite knowledge of Europe; he

was the vigilant spy of every cabinet, knew their back-games, guessed

their intrigues, and kept them in play by counter-mines, of which the

minister for foreign affairs did not always know the secret. Louis XV.,

a king of small ideas and petty resources, was not ashamed to take into

his confidence Favier, as an instrument in the schemes he contemplated

against his own ministers. Favier was the go-between in the political

correspondence which this monarch kept up with the count de Broglie,

unknown to, and against the policy of, his own ministers. This

confidence, suspected by, rather than known to, his ministers, talent as

a very able writer, deep knowledge of national eras, of history, and

diplomacy, gave Favier a credit with the administration, and an

influence over affairs very much beyond his obscure position and dubious

character; he was, in some sort, the minister of the intrigues of high

life of his time.

IV.

Dumouriez seeing the high roads to fortune closed before him, resolved

to cast himself into them by indirect ways; and with this view attached

himself to Favier. Favier attached himself to him, and in this

connection of his earlier years, Dumouriez acquired that character for

adventure and audacity which gave, during all his life, something

skilful as intrigue and as rash as a _coup de main_ to his heroism and

his policy. Favier initiated him into the secrets of courts, and engaged

Louis XV. and the Duc de Choiseul to employ Dumouriez in diplomacy and

war at the same time.

It was at this moment that the great Corsican patriot, Paoli, was making

gigantic efforts to rescue his country from the tyranny of the republic

of Genoa, and to assure to this people an independence, of which he by

turns offered the patronage to England and to France. On reaching Genoa,

Dumouriez undertook to deceive at the same time the Republic, England,

and Paoli, united himself with Corsican adventurers, conspired against

Paoli, made a descent upon the island, which he summoned to

independence, and was partially successful. He threw himself into a

felucca, to bring to the Duc de Choiseul information as to the new state

of Corsica, and to implore the succour of France. Delayed by a tempest,

tossed for several weeks on the coast of Africa, he reached Marseilles

too late; the treaty between France and Genoa was signed. He hastened to

Favier, his friend in Paris.

Favier informed him confidentially, that he was employed to draw up a

memorial to prove to the king and his ministers the necessity of

supporting the republic of Genoa against the independent Corsicans; that

this memorial had been demanded of him secretly by the Genoese

ambassador, and by a _femme de chambre_ of the Duchesse de Grammont,

favourite sister of the Duc de Choiseul, interested, like the brothers

of the Du Barry[19], in supplying the army: that 500 louis were the

price of this memorial and the blood of the Corsicans; and he offered a

portion of this intrigue and its profits to Dumouriez who pretended to

accept this, and then hastening to the Duc de Choiseul, revealed the

manoeuvre, was well received, believed he had convinced the minister,

and was preparing to return, conveying to the Corsicans the subsidies

and arms they expected. Next day, he found the minister changed, and was

sent from the audience with harsh language. Dumouriez retired, and made

his way unmolested to Spain. Aided by Favier, who was satisfied with

having jockeyed him, and pitied his candour; assisted by the Duc de

Choiseul, he conspired with the Spanish minister and French ambassador

to effect the conquest of Portugal, whose topography he was empowered to

study in a military point of view, as well as its means of defence. The

Marquis de Pombal, first minister of Portugal, conceived suspicions as

to Dumouriez's mission, and forced him to leave Lisbon. The young

diplomatist returned to Madrid, learned that his cousin, over-persuaded

by the priests, had abandoned him, and meant to take the veil. He then

attached himself to another mistress, a young Frenchwoman, daughter of

an architect established at Madrid, and for some years his activity

reposed in the happiness of a participated love. An order of the Duc de

Choiseul recalled him to Paris,--he hesitated: his beloved herself

compelled him, and sacrificed him as if she had from afar anticipated

his fame. He reached Paris, and was named quartermaster-general of the

French army in Corsica, where, as everywhere else, he greatly

distinguished himself. At the head of a detachment of volunteers, he

seized on the Château de Corte, the last asylum and home of Paoli. He

retained for himself the library of this unfortunate patriot. The choice

of these books, and the notes with which they were covered in Paoli's

hand, revealed one of those characters which seek their fellows in the

finest models of antiquity. Dumouriez was worthy of this spoil, since he

appreciated it above gold. The great Frederic called Paoli the first

captain of Europe: Voltaire declared him the conqueror and lawgiver of

his country. The French blushed at conquering him--fortune at forsaking

him. If he did not emancipate his country, he deserved that his struggle

should be immortalised. Too great a citizen for so small a people, he

did not bear a reputation in proportion to his country, but to his

virtues. Corsica remains in the ranks of conquered provinces; but Paoli

must always be in the ranks of great men.

V.

After his return to Paris, Dumouriez passed a year in the society of the

literary men and women of light fame who gave to the society of the

period the spirit and the tone of a constant orgy. Forming an attachment

with an old acquaintance of Madame Du Barry, he knew this _parvenue_

courtezan, whom libertinism had elevated nearly to the throne. Devoted

to the Duc de Choiseul, the enemy of this mistress of the king, and

retaining that remnant of virtue which amongst the French is called

honour, he did not prostitute his uniform to the court, and blushed to

see the old monarch, at the reviews of Fontainebleau, walk on foot with

his hat off before his army, beside a carriage in which this woman

displayed her beauty and her empire. Madame Du Barry took offence at the

forgetfulness of the young officer, and divined the cause of his

absence. Dumouriez was sent to Poland on the same errand that had before

despatched him to Portugal. His mission, half diplomatic, half military,

was, in consequence of a secret idea of the king, approved by his

confidant, the Count de Broglie, and by Favier, the count's adviser.

It was at the moment when Poland, menaced and half-occupied by the

Russians, devoured by Prussia, forsaken by Austria, was attempting some

ill-considered movements, in order to repair its scattered limbs, and to

dispute, at least, in fragments, its nationality with its

oppressors--the last sigh of liberty which moved the corpse of a people.

The king, who feared to come into collision with the Empress of Russia,

Catherine, to give excuses to the hostilities of Frederic and umbrage to

the court of Vienna, was still desirous of extending to expiring Poland

the hand of France; but concealing that hand, and reserving to himself

the power even to cut it off, if it became necessary. Dumouriez was the

intermediary selected for this part; the secret minister of France,

amongst the Polish confederates; a general, if necessary--but a general

adventurer and disowned--to rally and direct their efforts.

The Duc de Choiseul, indignant at the debasement of France, was

secretly preparing war against Prussia and England. This powerful

diversion in Poland was necessary for his plan of campaign, and he gave

his confidential instructions to Dumouriez; but, thrown out of the

administration by the intrigues of Madame Du Barry and M. d'Argenson,

the Duc de Choiseul was suddenly exiled to Versailles before Dumouriez

reached Poland. The policy of France, changing with the minister, at

once destroyed Dumouriez's plans. Still he followed them up with an

ardour and perseverance worthy of better success. He found the Poles

debased by misery, slavery, and the custom of bearing a foreign yoke. He

found the Polish aristocrats corrupted by luxury, enervated by

pleasures, employing in intrigues and language the warmth of their

patriotism in the conferences and confederation of _Epéries_. A female

of remarkable beauty, high rank, and eastern genius, the Countess of

Mnizeck, stirred up, destroyed, or combined different parties, according

to the taste of her ambition or her amours. Certain patriot orators

caused the last accents of independence to resound again in vain.

Certain princes and gentlemen formed meetings without any understanding

with each other, who contended as partisans rather than as citizens, and

who boasted of personal fame, without any reference to the safety of

their country. Dumouriez availed himself of the ascendency of the

countess, and endeavoured to unite these isolated effects, formed an

infantry, an artillery, seized upon two fortresses, threatened in all

directions the Russians, scattered in small bodies over the wide plains

of Poland, prepared for war, disciplined the insubordinate patriotism of

the insurgents, and contended successfully against Souwarow, the Russian

general, subsequently destined to threaten the republic so closely.

But Stanislaus, the king of Poland, the crowned creature of Catherine,

saw the danger of a national insurrection, which, by drawing out the

Russians, would endanger his throne; and he paralysed it by offering to

the federates to adhere, in his own person, to the confederation. One of

them, Bohuez, the last great orator of Polish liberty, returned to the

king, in a sublime oration, his perfidious succour, and then combined

the unanimity of the conspirators into the last resource of the

oppressed--insurrection. It burst forth. Dumouriez is its life and soul,

flies from one camp to the other, giving a spirit of unity to the plan

of attack. Cracovis was ready to fall into his hands; the Russians

regain the frontier in disorder; but anarchy, that fatal genius of

Poland, suddenly dissolves the union of the chiefs, and they surrender

one another to the united efforts of the Russians. All desire to have

the exclusive honour of delivering their country, and prefer to lose it

rather than owe their success to a rival.

Sapieha, the principal leader, was massacred by his nobles. Pulauwski

and Micksenski were delivered up, wounded, to the Russians; Zaremba

betrayed his country; Oginski, the last of these great patriots, roused

Lithuania at the moment when Lesser Poland had laid down its arms.

Abandoned and fugitive, he escaped to Dantzig, and wandered for thirty

years over Europe and America, carrying in his heart the memory of his

country. The lovely Countess of Mnizeck languished and died of grief

with Poland. Dumouriez wept for this heroine, adored in a country

wherein he said the women are more men than the men. He brake his sword,

despairing for ever of this aristocracy without a people, bestowing on

it, as he quitted it, the name of _Asiatic Nation of Europe_.

VI.

He returned to Paris. The king and M. d'Argenson, to save appearances

with Russia and Prussia, threw him and Favier into the Bastille, and he

there passed a year in cursing the ingratitude of courts and the

weakness of kings, and recovered his natural energy in retreat and

study. The king changed his prison into exile to the citadel of Caen;

there Dumouriez found again, in a convent, the cousin he had loved.

Free, and weary of a monastic life, she became softened on again

beholding her former lover, and they were married. He was then appointed

commandant of Cherbourg, and his indefatigable mind contended with the

elements as if it were opposing men. He conceived the plan of fortifying

this harbour, which was to imprison a stormy sea in a granite basin, and

give the French navy a halting place in the channel. Here he passed

fifteen years in domestic life, much troubled by the ill humour and

ascetic devotion of his wife; in military studies constant, but without

application, and in the dissipation of the philosophic and voluptuous

society of his time.

The Revolution, which was drawing nigh, found him indifferent to its

principles, and prepared for its vicissitudes. The justness of his

penetration enabled him at a glance to measure the tendency of events.

He soon comprehended that a revolution in ideas must undermine

institutions, unless institutions modelled themselves on the new ideas.

He gave himself to the constitution without enthusiasm; he desired the

maintenance of the throne, had no faith in a republic, foresaw a change

in the dynasty; and was even accused of meditating it. The emigration,

by decimating the upper ranks of the army, left space for him, and he

was named general, by length of service. He preserved a firm and

well-devised conduct, equi-distant from the throne and the people, from

the counter-revolutionist and the malcontent, ready to go with the

opinion of the court or of the nation, according as events might

transpire. By turns he was in communication with all parties, as if to

sound the growing power of Mirabeau and de Montmorin, the Duc d'Orleans

and the Jacobins, La Fayette and the Girondists. In his various commands

during these days of crises, he maintained discipline by his popularity,

was on terms with the insurgent people, and placed himself at their

head, in order to restrain them. The people believed him certainly on

their side; the soldiery adored him; he detested anarchy, but flattered

the demagogues. He applied very skilfully to his popularity those able

tactics which Favier had taught him. He viewed the Revolution as an

heroic intrigue. He manoeuvred his patriotism as he would have

manoeuvred his battalions on the field of battle. He considered the

coming war with much delight, knowing already all of a hero's part. He

foresaw that the Revolution, deserted by the nobility, and assailed by

all Europe, would require a general ready formed to direct the

undisciplined efforts of the masses it had excited. He prepared himself

for that post. The long subordination of his genius fatigued him. At

fifty-six years of age he had the fire of youth with all the coolness of

age; his earnest desire was advancement; the yearning of his soul for

fame was the more intense in proportion to the years he had already

unavailingly passed. His frame, fortified by climates and voyages, lent

itself, like a passive instrument, to his activity: all was young in him

except his amount of years; they were expended, but not by energy. He

had the youth of Cæsar, an impatient desire for fortune, and the

certainty of acquiring it. With great men, to live is to rise in renown;

he had not lived, because his reputation was not equivalent to his

ambition.

VII.

Dumouriez was of that middle stature of the French soldier who wears his

uniform gracefully, his havresac lightly, and his musket and sabre as if

he did not feel their weight. Equally agile and compact, his body had

the cast of those statues of warriors who repose on their expanded

muscles, and yet seem ready to advance. His attitude was confident and

proud; all his motions were as rapid as his mind. He vaulted into the

saddle without touching the stirrup, holding the mane by his left hand.

He sprung to the ground with one effort, and handled the bayonet of the

soldier as vigorously as the sword of the general. His head, rather

thrown backwards, rose well from his shoulders, and turned on his neck

with ease and grace, like all elegant men. These haughty motions of his

head made him look taller under the tricoloured cockade. His brow was

lofty, well-turned, flat at the temples, and well displayed; his muscles

set in play by his reflection and resolution. The salient and

well-defined angles announced sensibility of mind beneath delicacy of

understanding and the most exquisite tact. His eyes were black, large,

and full of fire; his long lids, beginning to turn grey, increased their

brilliancy, though sometimes they were very soft; his nose, and the oval

of his countenance, were of that aquiline type which reveals races

ennobled by war and empire; his mouth, flexible and handsome, was almost

always smiling; no tension of the lips betrayed the effort of this

plastic mind--this master mind, which played with difficulties, overcame

obstacles; his chin, turned and decided, bore his face, as it were, on a

firm and square base, whilst the habitual expression of his countenance

was calm and expansive cheerfulness. It was evident that no pressure of

affairs was too heavy for him, and that he constantly preserved so much

liberty of mind as enabled him to jest alike with good or bad fortune.

He treated politics, war, and government with gaiety. The tone of his

voice was sonorous, manly, and vibrating; and was distinctly heard above

the noise of the drum, and the clash of the bayonet. His oratory was

straightforward, clever, striking; his words were effective in council,

in confidence, and intimacy: they soothed and insinuated themselves like

those of a woman. He was persuasive, for his soul, mobile and sensitive,

had always in its accent the truth and impression of the moment. Devoted

to the sex, and easily enamoured, his experience with them had imbued

him with one of their highest qualities--pity. He could not resist

tears, and those of the queen would have made him a Seid of the throne;

there was no position or opinion he would not have sacrificed to a

generous impulse; his greatness of soul was not calculation, it was

excessive feeling. He had no political principles; the Revolution was to

him nothing more than a fine drama, which was to furnish a grand scene

for his abilities, and a part for his genius. A great man for the

service of events, if the Revolution had not beheld him as its general

and preserver, he would equally have been the general and preserver of

the Coalition. Dumouriez was not the hero of a principle, but of the

occasion.

VIII.

The new ministers met at Madame Roland's, the soul of the Girondist

ministry: Duranton, Lacoste, Cahier-Gerville received there, in all

passiveness, their instructions from the men whose shadows only they

were in the council. Dumouriez affected, like them, at first, a full

compliance with the interests and will of the party, which, personified

at Roland's by a young, lovely, and eloquent woman, must have had an

additional attraction for the general. He hoped to rule by ruling the

heart of this female. He employed with her all the plasticity of his

character, all the graces of his nature, all the fascinations of his

genius; but Madame Roland had a preservative against the warrior's

seductions that Dumouriez had not been accustomed to find in the women

he had loved--austere virtue and a strong will. There was but one means

of captivating her admiration, and that was by surpassing her in

patriotic devotion. These two characters could not meet without

contrasting themselves, nor understand without despising each other.

Very soon, therefore, Dumouriez considered Madame Roland as a stubborn

bigot, and she estimated Dumouriez as a frivolous presuming man, finding

in his look, smile, and tone of voice that audacity of success towards

her sex which betrayed, according to her estimation, the free conduct of

the females amongst whom he had lived, and which offended her decorum.

There was more of the courtier than the patriot in Dumouriez. This

French aristocracy of manners displeased the engraver's humble daughter;

perhaps it reminded her of her lowly condition, and the humiliations of

her childhood at Versailles. Her ideal was not the military, but the

citizen; a republican mind alone could acquire her love. Besides, she

saw at a glance that this man was too great to remain long on the level

of her party; she suspected his genius in his politeness, and his

ambition beneath his familiarity. "Have an eye to that man," she said to

her husband after their first interview; "he may conceal a master

beneath the colleague, and drive from the cabinet those who introduced

him there."

IX.

Roland, too happy at being in power, did not foresee his disgrace, and

encouraging his wife, trusted more and more to the admiration which

Dumouriez feigned for him. He thought himself the statesman of the

cabinet, and his gratified vanity lent itself credulously to the

advances of Dumouriez, and even made him better disposed towards the

king. On his entry to the ministry Roland had affected in his costume

the bluntness of his principles, and in his manners the rudeness of his

republicanism. He presented himself at the Tuileries in a black coat,

with a round hat, and nailed shoes covered with dust. He wished to show

in himself the man of the people, entering the palace in the plain garb

of the citizen, and thus meeting the man of the throne. This tacit

insolence he thought would flatter the nation and humiliate the king.

The courtiers were indignant; the king groaned over it; Dumouriez

laughed at it. "Ah, well then, really, gentlemen," he said to the

courtiers, "since there is no more etiquette there is no more monarchy."

This jocose mode of treating the thing had at once removed all the anger

of the court, and all the effect of the Spartan pretensions of Roland.

The king no longer regarded the discourtesy, and treated Roland with

that cordiality which unlocks men's hearts. The new ministers were

astonished to feel themselves confiding and moved in the presence of the

monarch. Having arrived suspicious and republican to their seats in the

cabinet, they quitted it almost royalists.

"The king is not known," said Roland to his wife: "a weak prince, he is

one of the best of men; he does not want good intentions, but good

advice: he does not like the aristocracy, and has strong affection for

the people: perhaps he was born to serve as the medium between republic

and monarchy. By rendering the constitution easy to him we shall make

him like it, and the popularity he will re-acquire by following our

counsels will render government easy to ourselves. His nature is so

great that the throne has been unable to corrupt it, and he is equally

remote from the silly brute which has been held up to the laughter of

the people as from the sensitive and highly accomplished man his

courtiers pretend to adore in him; his mind, without being superior, is

expansive and reflecting; in a humble position his abilities would have

provided for him; he has a general and occasionally sound knowledge,

knows the details of business, and acts towards men with that simple but

persuasive ability which gives kings the precocious necessity of

governing their impressions; his prodigious memory always recalls to him

at the right time things, names, and faces; he likes work, and reads

every thing; he is never idle for a moment; a tender parent, a model of

a husband: chaste in feeling, he has done away with all those scandals

which disgraced the courts of his predecessors; he loves none but the

queen, and his condescension, which is occasionally injurious to his

politics, is at least a weakness 'which leans to virtue's side.' Had he

been born two centuries earlier his peaceable reign would have been

counted amongst the number of happy years of the monarchy. Circumstances

appear to have influenced his mind. The Revolution has convinced him of

its necessity, and we must convince him of its possibility. In our

hands the king may better serve it than any other citizen in the

kingdom; by enlightening this prince we may be faithful alike to his

interests and those of the nation--the king and Revolution must be with

us as one."

X.

Thus said Roland in the first dazzling of power; his wife listened with

a smile of incredulity on her lips. Her keener glance had at the instant

measured a career more vast and a termination more decisive than the

timid and transitory compromise between a degraded royalty and an

imperfect revolution. It would have cost her too much to renounce the

ideal of her ardent soul; all her wishes tended to a republic; all her

exertions, all her words, all her aspirations, were destined,

unconsciously to herself, to urge thither her husband and his

associates.

"Mistrust every man's perfidy, and more especially your own virtue," was

her reply to the weak and vain Roland. "You see in this world but

courts, where all is unreal, and where the most polished surfaces

conceal the most sinister combinations. You are only an honest

countryman wandering amongst a crowd of courtiers,--virtue in danger

amidst a myriad of vices: they speak our language, and we do not know

theirs. Would it be possible that they should not deceive us? Louis

XVI., of a degenerate race, without elevation of mind, or energy of

will, allowed himself to be enthralled early in life by religious

prejudices, which have even lessened his intellect; fascinated by a

giddy queen, who unites to Austrian insolence the enchantment of beauty

and the highest rank, and who makes of her secret and corrupt court the

sanctuary of her pleasures and the focus of her vices, this prince,

blinded on the one hand by the priests, and on the other by love, holds

at random the loose reins of an empire which is escaping from his grasp.

France, exhausted of men, does not give to him, either in Maurepas,

Necker, or Calonne, a minister capable of supporting him. The

aristocracy is barren, and produces nothing but to its shame; the

government must be renewed in the holier and deeper fount of the nation;

the time for a democracy is here,--why delay it! You are its men, its

virtues, its characters, its intelligence. The Revolution is behind you,

it hails you, urges you onward, and would you surrender it to the first

smile from the king because he has the condescension of a man of the

people? No: Louis XVI., half dethroned by the nation, cannot love the

nation that fetters him; he may feign to caress his chains, but all his

thoughts are devoted to the idea of how he can spurn them. His only

resource at this moment is to protest his attachment to the Revolution,

and to lull the ministers whom the Revolution empowers to watch over his

intrigues. But this pretence is the last and most dangerous of the

conspiracies of the throne. The constitution is the forfeiture of Louis

XVI., and the patriot ministers are his superintendents. Fallen

greatness cannot love the cause of its decadence; no man likes his

humiliation. Trust in human nature, Roland--that alone never deceives,

and mistrust courts. Your virtue is too elevated to see the snares which

courtiers spread beneath your feet."

XI.

Such language amazed Roland. Brissot, Condorcet, Vergniaud, Gensonné,

Guadet, and especially Buzot, the friend and most intimate confidant of

Madame Roland, strengthened at their evening meetings the mistrust of

the minister. He armed himself with fresh distrust from their

conversations, and entered the council with a more frowning brow and

more resolute determination: the king's frankness disarmed

him--Dumouriez discouraged him by his gaiety--power softened him by its

influence. He wavered between the two great difficulties of the moment,

the double sanction required from the king for the decrees which were

most repugnant to his heart and conscience, the decree against the

emigrants, and the decree against the nonjuring priests; and he wavered

as to war.

During this tergiversation of Roland and his colleagues, Dumouriez

acquired the favour of the king and the people, the secret of his

conduct being comprised in what he had said a short time before to M. de

Montmorin, in a secret conversation he had with that minister. "If I

were king of France, I would disconcert all parties by placing myself

at the head of the Revolution."

This sentence contained the sole line of policy capable of saving Louis

XVI. In a time of revolution every king who is not revolutionary must be

inevitably crushed between the two parties: a neutral king no longer

reigns--a pardoned king degrades the throne--a king conquered by his own

people has for refuge only exile or the scaffold. Dumouriez felt that

his first step was to convince the king of his personal attachment, and

take him into his confidence, or indeed make him his accomplice in the

patriotic part he proposed to play; constitute himself the secret

mediator between the will of the monarch and the exactions of the

cabinet, to control the king by his influence over the Girondists, and

the Girondists by his influence over the king; the part of the favourite

of misfortune and protector of a persecuted queen pleased alike his

ambition and his heart. A soldier, diplomatist, gentleman, there was in

his soul a wholly different feeling for degraded royalty than the

sentiment of satisfied jealousy which filled the minds of the

Girondists. The _prestige_ of the throne existed for Dumouriez; the

_prestige_ of liberty only existed for the Girondists. This feeling,

revealed in his attitude, language, gestures, could not long escape the

observation of Louis XVI. Kings have twofold tact, misfortune makes them

more nice; the unfortunate perceive pity in a look; it is the only

homage they are allowed to receive, and they are the more jealous of it.

In a secret conversation the king and Dumouriez came to an

understanding.

XII.

Dumouriez's restless conduct in his commands in Normandy, the friendship

of Gensonné, the favour of the Jacobins for him, had prejudiced Louis

XVI. against his new minister. The minister, on his side, expected to

find in the king a spirit opposed to the constitution, a mind trammelled

by routine, a violent temper, an abrupt manner, and using language

imperious and offensive to all who approached him. Such was the

caricature of this unfortunate prince. It was necessary to disfigure him

in order to make the nation hate him.

Dumouriez found in him at this moment, and during the three months of

his ministry, an upright mind, a heart open to every benevolent

sentiment, unvarying politeness, endurance and patience which defied the

calamities of his situation. Extreme timidity, the result of the long

seclusion in which his youth had been passed, repressed the feelings of

his heart, and gave to his language and his intercourse with men a

stiffness and embarrassment which destroyed his better qualities of

decided and calm courage; he frequently spoke to Dumouriez of his death

as an event probable and doomed, the prospect of which did not affect

his serenity nor preclude him from doing his duty to the last as a

father and a king.

"Sire," said Dumouriez to him, with the chivalric sympathy which

compassion adds to respect, and with that aspect in which the heart says

more than language; "you have overcome your prejudices against myself;

you have commanded me by M. de Laporte to accept the post he had

refused." "Yes," replied the king. "Well, I come now to devote myself

wholly to your service, to your protection. But the part of a minister

is no longer what it was in former days: without ceasing to be the

servant of the king, I am the man of the nation. I will speak to you

always in the language of liberty and the constitution. Allow me then,

in order to serve you better, that in public and in the council I appear

in my character as a constitutionalist, and that I avoid every thing

that may at all reveal my personal attachment towards you. In this

respect I must break through all etiquette, and avoid attending the

court. In the council, I shall oppose your views, and shall propose as

our representatives in foreign courts men devoted to the nation. When

your repugnance to my choice shall be invincible and on good grounds, I

shall comply; if this repugnance shall tend to compromise the safety of

the country and yourself, I shall beg you to allow me to resign, and

nominate my successor. Think of the terrible dangers which beset your

throne--it must be consolidated by the confidence of the nation in your

sincere attachment to the Revolution. It is a conquest which it depends

on you to make. I have prepared four despatches to ambassadors in this

sense. In these I have used language to which they are unused from

courts, the language of an offended and resolute nation. I shall read

them this morning before the council: if you approve my labour, I shall

continue to speak thus, and act in accordance with my language; if not,

my carriage is ready, and, unable to serve you in the council, I shall

depart whither my tastes and studies for thirty years call me, to serve

my country in the field."

The king, astonished and much moved, said to him, "I like your

frankness; I know you are attached to me, and I anticipate all from your

services. They had created many prejudices against you, but this moment

effaces them all. Go and do as your heart directs you, and according to

the best interests of the nation, which are also mine." Dumouriez

retired; but he knew that the queen, adored by her husband, clung to the

policy of her husband with all the passion and excitement of her soul.

He desired and feared at the same time an interview with this princess:

one word from her would accomplish or destroy the bold enterprise he had

dared to meditate, of reconciling the king with the people.

XIII.

The queen sent for the general into her most private apartments.

Dumouriez found her alone, her cheeks flushed by the emotion of an

internal struggle, and walking rapidly up and down the room, like a

person whose agitated thoughts require corresponding activity of body.

Dumouriez placed himself in silence near the fireplace, in the attitude

of respect and sorrow, inspired by the presence of so august, so

beautiful, and so miserable a princess. She advanced towards him with a

mingled air of majesty and anger.

"Monsieur," said she, with that accent that reveals at once resentment

against fortune, and contempt for fate; "you are all-powerful at this

moment; but it is through popular favour, and that soon destroys its

idols." She did not await his reply, but continued, "Your existence

depends upon your conduct; it is said that you possess great talents,

and you must imagine that neither the king nor myself can suffer all

these innovations of the constitution. I tell you thus much frankly, so

make your decision." "Madame," returned Dumouriez, "I am confounded by

the dangerous disclosure your Majesty has thought fit to make me; I

will not betray your confidence, but I am placed between the king and

the nation, and I belong to my country. Permit me," continued Dumouriez,

with respectful earnestness, "to represent to you that the safety of the

king--your own--and that of your children, and the very re-establishment

of the royal authority--is bound up with the constitution. You are

surrounded by enemies, who sacrifice you to their own interests. The

constitution alone can, by strengthening itself, protect you and assure

the happiness and glory of the king." "It cannot last long, beware of

yourself," returned the queen, with a look of anger and menace.

Dumouriez imagined that he saw in this look and speech an allusion to

personal danger and an insinuation of alarm. "I am more than fifty years

old, madame," replied he, in a low tone, in which the firmness of the

soldier was mingled with the pity of the man; "I have braved many perils

in my life; and when I accepted the ministry, I well knew that my

responsibility was not the greatest of my dangers." "Ah," cried the

queen, with a gesture of horror, "this calumny and disgrace was alone

wanting! You appear to believe me capable of causing you to be

assassinated." Tears of indignation checked her utterance. Dumouriez,

equally moved with herself, disclaimed the injurious interpretation

given to his reply. "Far be it from me, madame, to offer you so cruel an

insult; your soul is great and noble, and the heroism you have displayed

in so many circumstances, has for ever attached me to you." She was

appeased in a moment, and laid her hand on Dumouriez's arm, in token of

reconciliation.

The minister profited by this return to serenity and confidence to give

Marie Antoinette advice, of which the emotion of his features and voice

sufficiently attested the sincerity. "Trust me, madame, I have no motive

for deceiving you; I abhor anarchy and its crimes equally with yourself.

But I have experience; I live in the centre of the different parties,

and I take part in opinion. I am connected with the people, and I am

better placed than your majesty for judging the extent and the direction

of events. This is not, as you deem it, a popular movement; but the

almost unanimous insurrection of a great nation against an old and

decaying order of things. Mighty factions feed the flame, and in every

one of them are scoundrels or madmen. I alone see in the Revolution the

king and the nation, and that which tends to separate them, ruins them

both. I seek to unite them, and it is for you to aid me. If I am an

obstacle to your designs, and if you persist in them, tell me instantly,

and I will retire, and mourn in obscurity the fate of my country and

your own." The queen was touched and convinced; the frankness of

Dumouriez at once pleased and won her. The heart of the soldier was a

guarantee to her of the conduct of the statesman. Firm, brave, and

heroic, she preferred to have the weight of his sword in the councils of

his king, rather than those politicians, and specious orators, who,

nevertheless, bent before every blast of opinion or sedition; and an

intimate understanding soon existed between the queen and the general.

The queen was for some time faithful to her promises, but the repeated

outrages of the people again moved her, in spite of herself, to anger

and conspiracy. "See," said she to the king before Dumouriez, one day,

pointing to the tops of the trees in the Tuileries; "a prisoner in this

palace, I do not venture to show myself at the windows that look on to

the garden. The crowd collected there, and who watch even my tears, hoot

me. Yesterday, to breathe the air, I showed myself at a window that

looks at the court; an artillery-man on guard addressed the most

revolting language to me. 'How I should like,' added he, 'to see your

head on the point of my bayonet!' In this frightful garden I see on one

side a man mounted on a chair, and vociferating the most odious insults

against us, whilst he threatens, by his gestures, the inhabitants of the

palace; on the other, the populace is dragging to the basin some priest

or soldier, whom they overwhelm with blows and outrages, whilst, at the

same time, and close to these terrible scenes, persons are playing at

ball or walking about in the _allées_. What a residence--what a

life--what a people!" Dumouriez could but lament with the royal family,

and exhort them to be patient. But the endurance of the victims is

exhausted sooner than the cruelty of the executioner. How could it be

expected that a courageous and proud princess, who had been constantly

surrounded by the adulation of the court, could love the Revolution that

was the instrument of her humiliation and her torture? or see in this

indifferent and cruel nation a people worthy of empire and of liberty?

XIV.

When all his measures with the court were concerted, Dumouriez no longer

hesitated to leap over the space that divided the king and the extreme

party, and to give the government the form of pure patriotism. He made

overtures to the Jacobins, and boldly presented himself at their sitting

the next day. The chamber was thronged, and the apparition of Dumouriez

struck the tribunes with mute astonishment. His martial figure and the

impetuosity of his conduct won for him at once the favour of the

Assembly; for no one suspected that so much audacity concealed so much

stratagem, and they saw in him only the minister who threw himself into

the arms of the people, and every one hastened to receive him.

It was the moment when the _bonnet rouge_, the symbol of extreme

opinion, a species of livery worn by the demagogues and flatterers of

the people, had been almost unanimously adopted by the Jacobins. This

emblem, like many similar ones received by the revolutions from the hand

of chance, was a mystery even to those who wore it. It had been adopted

for the first time on the day of the triumph of the soldiers of

Châteauvieux. Some said it was the _coiffure_ of the galley-slaves, once

infamous, but glorious since it had covered the brows of these martyrs

of the insurrection; and they added that the people wished to purify

this head-dress from every stain by wearing it themselves. Others only

saw in it the Phrygian bonnet, a symbol of freedom for slaves.

The _bonnet rouge_ had from its first appearance been the subject of

dispute and dissension amongst the Jacobins; the _exaltés_ wore it,

whilst the _modérés_ yet abstained from adopting it. Dumouriez did not

hesitate, but mounted the tribune, placed this sign of patriotism on his

head, and at once assumed the emblem of the most prominent party, whilst

this mute yet significant eloquence awakened a burst of enthusiasm on

every side of the _Salle_. "Brothers and friends," said Dumouriez,

"every instant of my life shall be devoted to carrying out the wishes of

the people, and to justifying the king's choice. I will employ in all

negotiations the force of a free people, and before long these

negotiations will produce a lasting peace or a decisive war. (Applause.)

If we have this war I will abandon my political post, and I will assume

my rank in the army to triumph, or perish a free man with my brethren. A

heavy weight presses on me, aid me to bear it; I require your counsels,

transmit them to me through your journals. Tell me truth, even the most

unpalatable; but repel calumny, and do not repulse a citizen whom you

know to be sincere and intrepid, and who devotes himself to the cause of

the Revolution and the nation."

The president replied to the minister that the society gloried in

counting him amongst its brethren. These words occasioned some murmurs,

which were stifled by the acclamations that followed Dumouriez to his

place. It was proposed that the two speeches should be printed. Legendre

opposed the motion from economical motives, but was hissed by the

tribunes. "Why these unusual honours, and this reply of the president to

the minister?" said Collot d'Herbois. "If he comes here as a minister,

there is no reply to make him. If he comes here as an associate and a

brother, he does no more than his duty; he only raises himself to the

level of our opinions. There is but one answer to be made,--let him act

as he has spoken." Dumouriez raised his hand, and gesticulated to Collot

d'Herbois.

Robespierre rose, smiled sternly on Dumouriez, and said, "I am not one

of those who believe it is utterly impossible for a minister to be a

patriot, and I accept with pleasure the promises that M. Dumouriez has

just given us. When he shall have verified these promises, when he has

dissipated the foes armed against us by his predecessors, and by the

conspirators who even now hold the reins of government, spite of the

expulsion of several ministers, then, and then only, I shall be inclined

to bestow on him the praises he will have merited, and I shall even in

that case deem that every good citizen in this assembly is his equal.

The people only is great, is worthy in my eyes; the toys of ministerial

power fade into insignificance before it. It is out of respect for

people, for the minister himself, that I demand that his presence here

be not marked by any of those homages that mark the decay of public

feeling. He asks us to counsel the ministers; I promise him, on my

part, to give him advice which will be useful to them and to the country

at large. So long as M. Dumouriez shall prove by acts of pure

patriotism, and by real services to his country, that he is the brother

of all good citizens, and the defender of the people, he shall find none

but supporters here. I do not dread the presence of any minister in this

society, but I declare that the instant a minister possesses more

ascendency here than a citizen, I will demand his ostracism. But this

will never happen."

Robespierre left the tribune, and Dumouriez cast himself into his arms;

the Assembly rose, and sealed by its applause their fraternal embrace,

in which all saw the augury of the union of power and the people. The

president Doppet read (the _bonnet rouge_ on his head) a letter from

Pétion to the society, on the subject of this new head-dress adopted by

the patriots, and on which Pétion spoke against this superfluous mark of

_civisme_.

"This sign," said he, "instead of increasing your popularity, alarms the

public mind, and affords a pretext for calumnies against you. The moment

is serious, the demonstrations of patriotism should be serious as the

times. It is the enemies of the Revolution who urge it to these

frivolities in order that they may have the right to accuse it of

frivolity and thoughtlessness. They thus give patriotism the appearance

of faction, and these emblems divide those they should rally. However

great the vogue that counsels them to-day, they will never be

universally adopted, for every man really devoted to the public welfare

will be quite indifferent to a _bonnet rouge_. Liberty will neither be

more majestic nor more glorious in this garb, but the very signs with

which you adorn her will serve as a pretext for dissension amongst her

children. A civil war, commencing in sarcasm and ending in bloodshed,

may be caused by a ridiculous manifestation. I leave you to meditate on

these ideas."

XV.

Whilst this letter was being read, the president, a timorous man, who

perceived the agency of Robespierre in the advice of Pétion, had quietly

removed from his head the repudiated _bonnet rouge_, and the members of

the society, one after another, followed his example. Robespierre alone,

who had never adopted this bauble of the fashion, and with whom Pétion

had concerted his letter, mounted the tribune, and said, "I, in common

with the major of Paris, respect every thing that bears the image of

liberty; but we have a sign which recalls to us constantly our oath to

live and die free, and here is this sign. (He showed his cockade.) The

citizens, who have adopted the _bonnet rouge_ through a laudable

patriotism, will lose nothing by laying it aside. The friends of the

Revolution will continue to recognise each other by the sign of virtue

and of reason. These emblems are ours alone; all those may be imitated

by traitors and aristocrats. In the name of France, I rally you again to

the only standard that strikes terror into her foes. Let us alone retain

the cockade and the banner, beneath which the constitution was born."

The _bonnet rouge_ instantly disappeared in the Assembly; but even the

voice of Robespierre, and the resolutions of the Jacobins, could not

arrest the outbreak of enthusiasm that had placed the sign of _avenging

equality_ ("_l'égalité vengeresse_") on every head; and the evening

of the day on which it was repudiated at the Jacobins saw it inaugurated

at all the theatres. The bust of Voltaire, the destroyer of prejudice,

was adorned with the Phrygian cap of liberty, amidst the shouts of the

spectators, whilst the cap and pike became the uniform and weapon of the

citizen soldier. The Girondists, who had attacked this sign as long as

it appeared to them the livery of Robespierre, began to excuse it as

soon as Robespierre repulsed it. Brissot himself, in his report of what

passed at this sitting, regrets this symbol, because, "adopted by the

most indignant portion of the people, it humiliated the rich, and became

the terror of the aristocracy." The breach between these two men became

wider every day, and there was not sufficient space in the Jacobins, the

Assembly, and the supreme power for these rival ambitions, which strove

for the dictatorship of opinion.

The nomination of the ministers, which was entirely under the influence

of Girondists, the councils held at Madame Roland's, the presence of

Brissot, of Guadet, of Vergniaud at the deliberations of the ministers,

the appointment of all their friends to the government offices, served

as themes for the clamours of the _exaltés_ of the Jacobins. These

Jacobins were termed Montagnards, from the high benches occupied in the

Assembly by the friends of Robespierre and Danton. "Remember," they

said, "the almost prophetic sagacity of Robespierre, when, in answer to

Brissot, who attacked the former minister De Lessart, he made this

allusion to the Girondist leader, which has been so speedily

justified,--'For me, who do not aim at the ministry either for myself or

my friends.'" On their side the Girondist journals heaped opprobrium on

this handful of calumniators and petty tyrants, who resembled Catiline

in crimes if not in courage; thus war commenced by sarcasm.

The king, however, when the ministry was completed, wrote the Assembly a

letter, more resembling an abdication into the hands of opinion than the

constitutional act of a free power. Was this humiliating resignation an

affectation of slavery, or a sign of restraint and degradation made from

the throne to the armed powers, in order that they might comprehend that

he was no longer free, and only see in him the crowned automaton of the

Jacobins? The letter was in these terms:

"Profoundly touched by the disorders that afflict the French nation, and

by the duty imposed on me by the constitution of watching over the

maintenance of order and public tranquillity, I have not ceased to

employ every means that it places at my disposal to execute the laws. I

had selected as my prime agents men recommended by the purity of their

principles and their opinions. They have quitted the ministry; and I

have felt it my duty to replace them by men who hold a high position in

public favour. You have so often repeated that this measure was the only

means of ensuring the re-establishment of order and the enforcement of

the laws, that I have deemed it fitting to adopt it, that no pretext may

be afforded for doubting my sincere desire to add to the prosperity and

happiness of my country. I have appointed M. Clavière minister of the

contributions, and M. Roland minister of the interior. The person whom I

had chosen as the minister of justice has prayed me to make another

choice: when I shall have again made it the Assembly shall be duly

informed. (Signed) Louis."

The Assembly received this message with loud applause: for with the king

once in its power, it could employ him in the works of regeneration. The

most perfect harmony appeared to reign in the council. The king

astonished his new ministers by his assiduity and his aptitude for

business. He conversed with everyone on the subject that most interested

him. He questioned Roland on his works, Dumouriez on his adventures, and

Clavière on the finances, whilst he avoided the irritating topics of

general policy. Madame Roland reproached her husband with these

conversations, and besought him to make use of his time, to take

abstracts of these conversations, and to keep an authentic register,

which would one day cover his responsibility. The ministers appeared to

dine four times a week together, in order to concert their acts and

language in the king's presence. It was at these private meetings that

Buzot, Guadet, Vergniaud, Genevéive and Brissot infused into the

ministers the feelings of their party and reigned unseen over the

Assembly and the king. Dumouriez soon became an object of suspicion to

them for his mind escaped their dominion by its greatness, and his

character escaped fanaticism by its pliability. Madame Roland, seduced

by his eloquence, yet experienced remorse for her admiration; she felt

that the genius of this man was necessary to her party, but that genius

without virtue would be fatal to the republic; and she infused distrust

of Dumouriez into the mind of her allies. The king invariably adjourned

the sanction which the Girondists demanded from him to the crimes

against the priests and _emigrés_. Foreseeing that they would be called

upon, sooner or later, to give an account of their responsibility to the

nation, Madame Roland wished to take precautionary measures. She

persuaded her husband to write a confidential letter to the king, full

of the most strict lessons of patriotism; to read it himself in council

to loyal princes; and to keep a copy, which he would publish at the

proper time as an accusation against Louis XVI. and a justification of

himself. This treacherous precaution against the perfidy of the court

was odious as a snare and cowardly a denunciation. Passion only, which

disturbs the sight of the soul, could blind a generous-minded woman as

to the meaning of such an act; but party feeling supplies the place of

generosity, justice, and even of virtue. This letter was a concealed

weapon, with which Roland reserved to himself the power of mortally

wounding the reputation of the king whilst he saved his own. This was

his only crime, or rather the only error of his hate; and this was the

only cause for remorse he felt at the foot of the scaffold.

XVI.

"Sire," said Roland in this celebrated letter, "things cannot remain in

their present state; it is a state of crises, and we must be extricated

from it by some extreme measure (_une explosion quelconque_). France has

given itself a constitution; the minority are undermining, the majority

are defending, it. There arises a fierce internal struggle in which no

person remains neuter. You enjoyed supreme power, and could not have

laid it down without regret. The enemies of the Revolution took into

calculation the sentiments they presume you entertain. Your secret

favour is their strength. Ought you now to ally yourself to the enemies

or the friends of the constitution? Pronounce once for all. Royalty,

clergy, nobility, aristocracy, must abhor these changes, which destroy

them: on the other hand, the people see the triumph of their rights in

the Revolution and will not allow themselves to be despoiled. The

declaration of rights has become their new Gospel: liberty is henceforth

the religion of the people. In this shock of opposing interests, all

sentiments have become extreme--opinions have assumed the accent of

enthusiasm. The country is no longer an abstraction, but a real being,

to which we are attached by the happiness it promises to us, and the

sacrifices we have made for it. To what point will this patriotism be

exalted at the moment now imminent, when the enemies' forces without are

about to combine with the intrigues within to assail it? The rage of the

nation will be terrible if it have not confidence in you. But this

confidence is not to be acquired by words, but by acts. Give

unquestionable proofs of your sincerity. For instance, two important

decrees have been passed, both deeply important for the security of the

state, and the delay of your sanction excites distrust. Be on your

guard: distrust is not very wide from hatred, and hatred does not

hesitate at crime. If you do not give satisfaction to the Revolution,

it will be cemented by blood. Desperate measures, which you may be

advised to adopt to intimidate Paris, to control the Assembly, would

only cause the development of that sullen energy, the mother of great

devotions and great attempts (this was meant indirectly for Dumouriez,

who had advised firm measures). You are deceived, Sire, when the nation

is represented to you as hostile to the throne, and to yourself. Love,

serve the Revolution, and the people will love it in you. Deposed

priests are agitating the provinces: ratify the measures requisite to

put down their fanaticism. Paris is uneasy as to its security: sanction

the measures which summon a camp of citizens beneath its walls. Still

more delays, and you will be considered as a conspirator and an

accomplice. Just heaven! hast thou stricken kings with blindness? I know

that the language of truth is rarely welcomed at the foot of thrones: I

know, too, that it is the withholding the truth from the councils of

kings which renders revolutions so often necessary. As a citizen, and as

a minister, I owe the truth to the king, and nothing shall prevent my

making it reach his ear. I demand that we should have here a secretary

of council to register our deliberations. Responsible ministers should

have a witness of their opinions. If this witness existed, I should not

now address your majesty in writing."

The threat was no less evident than the treachery of this letter; and

the last sentence indicated, in equivocal terms, the odious use which

Roland meant one day to make of it. The magnanimity of Vergniaud was

excited against this step of the powerful Girondist minister:

Dumouriez's military loyalty was roused by it: the king listened to the

reading of it with the calmness of a man accustomed to put up with

insult. The Girondists were informed of it in the secret councils at

Madame Roland's, and Roland kept a copy to cover himself at the hour of

his fall.

XVII.

At this moment secret understandings, unknown to Roland himself, were

formed by the three Girondist chiefs, Vergniaud, Guadet, and Gensonné

and the château, through Boze, the king's painter. A letter, intended

for the monarch's perusal, was written by them. The iron chest guarded

it for the day of accusation.

"You ask of us," runs this epistle, "what is our opinion as to the state

of France, and the choice of measures fit to save the public weal.

Questioned by you concerning such important interests, we do not

hesitate to reply. The conduct of the executive power is the cause of

all the evil. The king is deceived by persuading him that it is the

clubs and factions which foment public agitation. This is placing the

cause of the evil in its symptoms. If the people was reassured of the

loyalty of the king, it would grow tranquil, and factions die a natural

death. But so long as conspiracies, internal and external, appear

favoured by the king, troubles will perpetually spring up, and

continually increase the mistrust of the citizens. The present tendency

of things is evidently towards a crisis, all the chances of which are

opposed to royalty. They are making of the chief of a free nation, the

chief of a party. The opposite party ought to consider him, not as a

king, but as an enemy. What is to be hoped from the success of

manoeuvres carried on with foreigners, in order to restore the

authority of the throne? They will give to the king the appearance of a

violent usurpation of the rights of the nation. The same force which

would have served this violent restoration would be necessary to

maintain it. It would produce a permanent civil war. Attached as we are

to the interests of the nation, from which we shall never separate those

of the king, we think that the sole means by which he can alleviate the

evils that threaten the empire and the throne, is to identify himself

with the nation. Renewed protestations are useless; we must have deeds.

Let the king abandon every idea of increased power offered to him by the

succour of foreigners. Let him obtain from cabinets hostile to the

Revolution the withdrawal of the troops who press upon our frontiers. If

that be impossible, let him arm the nation himself, and direct it

against the enemies of the constitution. Let him choose his ministers

amongst the leading men of the Revolution. Let him offer the muskets and

horses of his own guard. Let him publish the documents connected with

the civil list, and thus prove that the secret treasury is not the

source of counter-revolutionary plots. Let him apply himself for a law

respecting the education of the prince royal, and let him be brought up

in the spirit of the constitution. Finally, let him withdraw from M. de

La Fayette the command of the army. If the king shall adopt these

determinations, and persist in them with firmness, the constitution is

saved!"

This letter, conveyed to the king by Thierri, had not been sought by

him. He was annoyed at the many plans of succour sent to him. "What do

these men mean?" he inquired of Boze; "Have I not done all that they

advise? Have I not chosen patriots for ministers? Have I not rejected

succour from without? Have I not repudiated my brothers, and hindered,

as far as in me lies, the coalition, and armed the frontiers? Have I not

been, since my acceptance of the constitution, more faithful than the

malcontents themselves to my oath?"

The Girondist leaders, still undecided between the republic and the

monarchy, thus felt the pulse of power--sometimes of the Assembly,

sometimes of the king; ready to seize it wherever they should find it;

but discovering it on the side of the king, they judged that there was

more certainty in sapping than in consolidating the throne, and they

inclined more than ever to a factious policy.

XVIII.

Still, half-masters of the council through Roland, Clavière, and Servan,

who had succeeded De Grave, they bore to a certain extent the

responsibility of these three ministers. The Jacobins began to require

from them an account of the acts of a ministry which was in their hands,

and bore their name. Dumouriez, placed between the king and the

Girondists, saw daily the increasing want of confidence between his

colleagues and himself; they suspected his probity equally with his

patriotism. He had profited by his popularity and ascendency over the

Jacobins to demand of the Assembly a sum of 6,000,000 (240,000_l._) of

secret service money on his accession to the ministry. The apparent

destination of this money was to bribe foreign cabinets, and to detach

venal powers from the coalition, and to foment revolutionary symptoms in

Belgium. Dumouriez alone knew the channels by which this money was to

flow. His exhausted personal fortune, his costly tastes, his attachment

to a seductive woman, Madame de Beauvert, sister to Rivarol; his

intimacy with men of unprincipled character and irregular

habits,--reports of extortion charged on his ministry, and falling, if

not on him on those he trusted, tarnished his character in the eyes of

Madame Roland and her husband. Probity is the virtue of democrats, for

the people look first at the hands of those who govern them. The

Girondists, pure as men of the ancient time, feared the shadow of a

suspicion of this nature on their characters, and Dumouriez's

carelessness on this point annoyed them. They complained. Gensonné and

Brissot insinuated their feelings to him on this point at Roland's.

Roland himself, authorised by his age and austerity of manners, took

upon himself to remind Dumouriez that a public man owes respect to

decorum and revolutionary manners. The warrior turned the remonstrance

into pleasantry, replied to Roland that he owed his blood to the nation,

but neither owed it the sacrifice of his tastes nor his amours; that he

understood patriotism as a hero, and not as a puritan. The bitterness of

his language left venom behind, and they separated with mutual

ill-feeling.

From this day forth he no longer visited at Roland's evening meetings.

Madame Roland, who understood the human heart by the superior instinct

of her genius and her sex, was not deceived by the general's tactics.

"The hour is come to destroy Dumouriez," she said boldly to her friends.

"I know very well," she added, addressing Roland, "that you are

incapable of descending either to intrigue or revenge; but remember that

Dumouriez must conspire in his heart against those who have wounded him.

When such daring remonstrances have been made to such a man, and

uselessly made, it is necessary to strike the blow if we would not be

struck ourselves." She felt truly, and spoke sagaciously. Dumouriez,

whose rapid glance had seen behind the Girondists a party stronger and

bolder than their own, began from this time to connect himself with the

leaders of the Jacobins. He thought, and with reason, that party hatred

would be more potent than patriotism, and that by flattering the rivalry

of Robespierre and Danton against Brissot, Pétion, and Roland, he should

find in the Jacobins themselves a support for the government. He liked

the king, pitied the queen, and all his prejudices were in favour of

the monarchy. He would have been as proud to restore the throne as to

save the republic. Skilful in handling men, every instrument was good

that was available; to get rid of the Girondists, who, by oppressing the

king menaced himself, and to go and seek further off and lower than

these rhetoricians, that popularity which was necessary to him when

opposed to them, was a master-stroke of genius: he tried it, and

succeeded. From this epoch may be dated his connection with Camille

Desmoulins and Danton.

Danton and Dumouriez came to an understanding the sooner, because in

their vices, like their good qualities, they closely resembled each

other. Danton, like Dumouriez, only wanted the impulse of the

Revolution. Principles were trifles with him; what suited his energy and

his ambition was that tumultuous turmoil which cast down and elevated

men, from the throne to nothing, from nothing to fortune and power. The

intoxication of movement was to Danton, as to Dumouriez, the continual

need of their disposition: the Revolution was to them a battle field,

whose whirl charmed and promoted them.

Yet any other revolution would have suited them as well; despotism or

liberty, king or people. There are men whose atmosphere is the whirlwind

of events--who only breathe easily in a storm of agitation. Moreover, if

Dumouriez had the vices or levities of courts, Danton had the vices and

licentiousness of the mob. These vices, how different soever in form,

are the same at bottom; they understand each other, they are a point of

contact between the weaknesses of the great and the corruption of the

small. Dumouriez understood Danton at the first glance, and Danton

allowed himself to be approached and tamed by Dumouriez. Their

connection, often suspected of bribery on the one hand, and venality on

the other, subsisted secretly or publicly until the exile of Dumouriez

and the death of Danton. Camille Desmoulins, freed of Danton and

Robespierre, attached himself also to Dumouriez, and brought his name

constantly forward in his pamphlets. The Orleans party, who held on with

the Jacobins by Sillery, Laclos, and Madame de Genlis, also sought the

friendship of the new minister. As to Robespierre, whose policy was

perpetual reserve with all parties, he affected neither liking nor

dislike towards Dumouriez, but was secretly delighted at seeing him

become a rival to his enemies. At least he never accused him. It is

difficult long to hate the enemy of those whom we hate.

XIX.

The growing hatred of Robespierre and Brissot became daily more deadly.

The sittings of the Jacobins and the newspapers were the continual

theatre of the struggles and reconciliations of these two men. Equal in

strength in the nation--equal in talent in the tribune--it was evident

that they were afraid of each other in their attacks. They affected

mutual respect, even when most offensive; but this repressed animosity

only corroded their hearts more deeply, and it burst forth occasionally

beneath the politeness of their language, like death beneath the glance

of steel.

All these fermentations of division, rivalry, and resentment, boiled

over in the April sittings. They were like a general review of two great

parties who were about to destroy the empire in disputing their own

ascendency. The Feuillants or moderate constitutionalists were the

victims, that each of the two popular parties mutually immolated to the

suspicions and rage of parties. Ræderer, a moderate Jacobin, was accused

of having dined with the Feuillants, friends of La Fayette. "I do not

only inculpate Ræderer," exclaimed Tallien, "I denounce Condorcet and

Brissot. Let us drive from our society the ambitious and the

Cromwellites."

"The moment for unmasking traitors will soon arrive," said Robespierre

in his turn. "I do not desire to unmask them to-day. The blow when

struck must be decisive. I wish that all France heard me now. I wish

that the culpable chief of these factions, La Fayette, was here with all

his army; I would say to his soldiers, whilst I presented my

breast,--Strike! That moment would be the last of La Fayette and the

_intrigants_" (this name had been invented by Robespierre for the

Girondists). Fauchet excused himself for having said that Guadet,

Vergniaud, Gensonné, and Brissot might be, advantageously for the

country, placed at the head of the government. The Girondists were

accused of dreaming of a _protector_, the Jacobins a _tribune_ of the

people.

At last, Brissot rose to reply. "I am here to defend myself," he said.

"What are my crimes? I am said to have made seven ministers--I keep up a

connection with La Fayette--I desire to make a protector of him.

Certainly great power is thus assigned to me by those who think that

from my fourth story I have dictated laws to the Château of the

Tuileries. But if it even were true that I had made ministers, how long

has it been a crime to have confided the interests of the people to the

hands of the people? This minister is about, it is said, to distribute

all his favours to the Jacobins! Ah! would to heaven that all the places

were filled by Jacobins!"

At these words Camille Desmoulins, Brissot's enemy, concealed in the

chamber, bowing towards his neighbour, said aloud with a sneering laugh,

"What a cunning rogue! Cicero and Demosthenes never uttered more

eloquent insinuations." Cries of angry feeling burst from the ranks of

Brissot's friends, who clamoured for Camille Desmoulins' expulsion. A

censor of the chamber declared that the remarks of the pamphleteer were

disgraceful, and order was restored. Brissot proceeded. "Denunciation is

the weapon of the people: I do not complain of this. Do you know who are

its bitterest enemies? Those who prostitute denunciation. Yes; but where

are the proofs? Treat with the deepest contempt him who denounces, but

does not prove. How long have a protector or a protectorate been talked

of? Do you know why? Is it to accustom the ear to the name of

tribuneship and tribune. They do not see that a tribuneship can never

exist. Who would dare to dethrone the constitutional king? Who would

dare to place the crown on his head? Who can imagine that the race of

Brutus is extinct? And if there were no Brutus, where is the man who has

ten times the ability of Cromwell? Do you believe that Cromwell himself

would have succeeded in a revolution like ours? There were for him two

easy roads to usurpation, which are to-day closed--ignorance and

fanaticism. You think you see a Cromwell in a La Fayette. You neither

know La Fayette nor your times. Cromwell had character--La Fayette has

none. A man does not become protector without boldness and decision;

and when he has both, this society comprises a crowd of friends of

liberty, who would rather perish than support him. I first make the

oath, that either equality shall reign, or I will die contending against

protectors and tribunes. Tribunes! they are the worst enemies of the

people. They flatter to enchain it. They spread suspicions of virtue,

which will not debase itself. Remember who were Aristides and

Phocion,--they did not always sit in the tribune."

Brissot, as he darted this sarcasm, looked towards Robespierre, for whom

he meant it. Robespierre turned pale, and raised his head suddenly.

"They did not always sit in the tribune," continued Brissot; "they were

at their posts in the camp, or at the tribunals," (a sneering laugh came

from the Girondist benches, accusing Robespierre of abandoning his post

at the moment of danger). "They did not disdain any charge, however

humble it might be, when it was assigned them by the people: they spoke

seldom; they did not flatter demagogues; they never denounced without

proofs! The calumniators did not spare Phocion. He was the victim of an

adulator of the people! Ah! this reminds me of the horrible calumny

uttered against Condorcet! Who are you who dare to slander this great

man? What have you done? What are your labours, your writings? Can you

quote, as he can, so many assaults during three years by himself with

Voltaire and D'Alembert against the throne, superstition, prejudices,

and the aristocracy? Where would you be, where this tribune, were it not

for these gentlemen? They are your masters; and you insult those who

gain you the voices of the people. You assail Condorcet, as though his

life had not been a series of sacrifices! A philosopher, he became a

politician; academician, he became a newspaper writer; a courtier, he

became one of the people; noble, he became a Jacobin! Beware! you are

following the concealed impulses of the court. Ah, I will not imitate my

adversaries, I would not repeat those rumours which assert they are paid

by the civil list." (There was a report that Robespierre had been gained

over to oppose the war.) "I shall not say a word of a secret committee

which they frequent, and in which are concerted the means of influencing

this society; but I will say that they follow in the track of the

promoters of civil war. I will say, that without meaning it, they do

more harm to the patriots than the court. And at what moment do they

throw division amongst us? At the moment when we have a foreign war, and

when an intestine war threatens us. Let us put an end to these disputes,

and let us go to the order of the day, leaving our contempt for odious

and injurious denunciations."

XX.

At this, Robespierre and Guadet, equally provoked, wished to enter the

tribune. "It is forty-eight hours," said Guadet, "that the desire of

justifying myself has weighed upon my heart; it is only a few minutes

that this want has affected Robespierre. I request to be heard." Leave

was accorded, and he briefly exculpated himself. "Be especially on your

guard," he said, as he concluded, and pointed to Robespierre, "against

empirical orators, who have incessantly in their mouths the words of

liberty, tyranny, conspiracy--always mixing up their own praises with

the deceit they impose upon the people. Do justice to such men!"

"Order!" cried Fréron, Robespierre's friend; "this is insult and

sarcasm." The tribune resounded with applause and hooting. The chamber

itself was divided into two camps, separated by a wide space. Harsh

names were exchanged, threatening gesticulations used, and hats were

raised and shaken about on the tops of canes. "I am called a wretch,"

(_scelerat_) continued Guadet, "and yet I am not allowed to denounce a

man who invariably thrusts his personal pride in advance of the public

welfare. A man who, incessantly talking of patriotism, abandons the post

to which he was called! Yes, I denounce to you a man who, either from

ambition or misfortune, has become the idol of the people!" Here the

tumult reached its height, and drowned the voice of Guadet.

Robespierre himself requested silence for his enemy. "Well," added

Guadet, alarmed or softened by Robespierre's feigned generosity, "I

denounce to you a man who, from love of the liberty of his country,

ought perhaps to impose upon himself the law of ostracism; for to remove

him from his own idolatry is to serve the people!" These words were

smothered under peals of affected laughter. Robespierre ascended the

steps of the tribune with studied calmness. His impassive brow

involuntarily brightened at the smiles and applauses of the Jacobins.

"This speech meets all my wishes," said he, looking towards Brissot and

his friends; "it includes in itself all the inculpations which the

enemies by whom I am surrounded have brought against me. In replying to

M. Guadet, I shall reply to all. I am invited to have recourse to

ostracism; there would, no doubt, be some excess of vanity in my

condemning myself--that is the punishment of great men, and it is only

for M. Brissot to class them. I am reproached for being so constantly in

the tribune. Ah! let liberty be assured, let equality be confirmed; let

the _Intrigants_ disappear, and you will see me as anxious to fly from

this tribune, and even this place, as you now see me desirous to be in

them. Thus, in effect, my dearest wishes will be accomplished. Happy in

the public liberty, I shall pass my peaceful days in the delights of a

sweet and obscure privacy."

Robespierre confined himself to these few words, frequently interrupted

by the murmurs of fanatical enthusiasm, and then adjourned his answer to

the following sittings, when Danton was seated in the arm-chair, and

presided over this struggle between his enemies and his rival.

Robespierre began by elevating his own cause to the height of a national

one. He defended himself for having first provoked his adversaries. He

quoted the accusations made, and the injurious things uttered against

him, by the Brissot party. "Chief of a party, agitator of the people,

secret agent of the Austrian committee," he said, "these are the names

thrown in my teeth, and to which they urge me to reply! I shall not make

the answer of Scipio or La Fayette, who, when accused in the tribune of

the crime of _lêze-nation_, only replied by their silence. I shall reply

by my life.

"A pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau, his doctrines have inspired my soul

for the people. The spectacles of the great assemblies in the first days

of our Revolution have filled me with hope. I soon understood the

difference that exists between those limited assemblies, composed of men

of ambitious views, or egotists, and the nation itself. My voice was

stifled there; but I preferred rather to excite the murmurs of the

enemies of truth, than to obtain applauses that were disgraceful. I

threw my glance beyond this limited circle, and my aim was to make

myself heard by the nation and the whole human race. It is for this that

I have so much frequented the tribune. I have done more than this--it

was I who gave Brissot and Condorcet to France. These great philosophers

have unquestionably ridiculed and opposed the priests; but they have not

the less courted kings and grandees, out of whom they have made a pretty

good thing. (Laughter). You do not forget with what eagerness they

persecuted the genius of liberty in the person of Jean Jacques Rousseau,

the only philosopher who, in my opinion, has deserved the public honours

lavished for a long time on so many political charlatans and so many

contemptible heroes. Brissot, at least, should feel well inclined

towards me. Where was he when I was defending this society from the

Jacobins against the Constituent Assembly itself? But for what I did at

this epoch, you would not have insulted me in this tribune; for it would

not have existed. I the corrupter, the agitator, the tribune of the

people! I am none of these, I am the people myself. You reproach me for

having quitted my place as public accuser. I did so when I saw that that

place gave me no other right than that of accusing citizens for civil

offences, and would deprive me of the right of accusing political

enemies. And it is for this that the people love me; and yet you desire

that I sentence myself to ostracism, in order to withdraw myself from

its confidence. Exile! how can you dare to propose it to me? Whither

would you have me retire? Amongst what people should I be received? Who

is the tyrant who would give me asylum?--Ah! we may abandon a happy,

free, and triumphant country; but a country threatened, rent by

convulsions, oppressed; we do not flee from that, we save, or perish

with it! Heaven, which gave me a soul impassioned for liberty, and gave

me birth in a land trampled on by tyrants--Heaven, which placed my life

in the midst of the reign of factions and crimes, perhaps calls me to

trace with my blood the road to happiness, and the liberty of my fellow

men! Do you require from me any other sacrifice? If you would have my

good name, I surrender it to you; I only wish for reputation in order to

do good to my fellow-creatures. If to preserve it, it be necessary to

betray by a cowardly silence the cause of the truth and of the people,

take it, sully it,--I will no longer defend it. Now that I have defended

myself, I may attack you. I will not do it; I offer you peace. I forget

your injuries; I put up with your insults; but on one condition, that

is, you join me in opposing the factions which distract our country,

and, the most dangerous of all, that of La Fayette: this pseudo-hero of

the two worlds, who, after having been present at the revolution of the

New World, has only exerted himself here in arresting the progress of

liberty in the old hemisphere. You, Brissot, did not you agree with me

that this chief was the executioner and assassin of the people, that the

massacre of the Champ-de-Mars had caused the Revolution to retrograde

for twenty years? Is this man less redoubtable because he is at this

time at the head of the army? No. Hasten then! Let the sword of the laws

strike horizontally at the heads of great conspirators. The news which

has arrived to us from the army is of threatening import. Already it

sows division amongst the national guards and the troops of the line;

already the blood of citizens has flowed at Metz; already the best

patriots are incarcerated at Strasbourg. I tell you, you are accused of

all these evils: wipe out these suspicions by uniting with us, and let

us be reconciled; but let it be for the sake of saving our common

country."