FRANCE COMES TO VERSAILLES
At the beginning of May, twelve hundred and fourteen representatives of
France reached Versailles. Of these, six hundred and twenty-one, more
than half, belonged to the Third Estate, and of the six hundred and
twenty-one more than four hundred had some connection with the law,
while less than forty belonged to the farming class. Little
preparation had been made for them; the King had continued to attend to
his hounds and horses, the Queen to her balls and dresses, and Necker
to his columns of figures, his hopes, and his illusions. But the
arrival of this formidable body of men of trained intellect in the
royal city, now that it had occurred, at once caused a certain
uneasiness. As they walked about the city in curious groups, it was as
though France were surveying the phenomenon of Versailles with critical
eye; at the very first occasion the courtiers, feeling this, set to
work to teach the {53} deputies of the Third Estate a lesson, to put
them in their place.
On the 4th and 5th of May the opening ceremonies took place,
processions, mass, a sermon, speeches; and the Court's policy, if such
it could be called, was revealed. The powerful engine known as
etiquette was brought into play, to indicate to the deputies what
position and what influence in the State the King intended they should
have. This was perhaps the greatest revelation of the inherent
weakness of Bourbonism; the system had, in its decline, become little
more than etiquette, and Louis XVI seen hard at work in his
shirt-sleeves would have shattered the illusions of centuries. And so,
by means of the myriad contrivances of masters of ceremonies and Court
heralds the Third Estate was carefully made to feel its social
inferiority, its political insignificance.
The Third Estate noted these manifestations of the Court with due
sobriety, and met the attack squarely. But while on the part of the
Court this way of approaching the great national problem never attained
a higher dignity than a policy of pin pricks, with the Third Estate it
was at once converted into a constitutional question of fundamental
importance. Was the distinction between the three orders {54} to be
maintained? was the noble or priest a person of social and political
privilege? or were the deputies of all to meet in one assembly and have
equal votes? That was the great question, as the Third Estate chose to
state it, and, translated into historical terms, it meant no less than
the passing of the feudal arrangement of society in separate castes
into the new system of what is known at our day as democracy.
Nearly all the cahiers of the Third Estate and many of those of the
noblesse, had demanded this measure, and the Third Estate on assembling
to verify the mandates of its members immediately called on the other
two orders to join it in this proceeding. The struggle over this point
continued from the 5th of May to the 9th of June, before any decisive
step was taken. But as the days went by, apparently in fruitless
debate, there was in reality a constant displacement of influence going
on in favor of the Third Estate. In the opening session the statement
of affairs made by Necker had left a very poor impression. Since then
the ministers had done nothing, save to attempt, by a feeble
intervention, to keep the orders apart. And all the time the Third
Estate was gradually becoming conscious of its own strength and of the
feebleness {55} of the adversary. And so at last, on the 10th of June,
Sieyès moved, Mirabeau supporting, that the noblesse and the clergy
should be formally summoned to join the Tiers, and that on the 12th,
verification of powers for the whole of the States-General should take
place.
Accordingly on the 12th, under the presidency of the astronomer Bailly,
senior representative of the city of Paris, the Tiers began the
verification of the deputies' mandates. On the 13th, three members of
the clergy, three country priests, asked admission. They were received
amid scenes of the greatest enthusiasm, and within a few days their
example proved widely contagious. On the 14th, a new step was taken,
and the deputies, belonging now to a body that was clearly no longer
the Tiers Etat, voted themselves a _National Assembly_. This was, in a
sense, accomplishing the Revolution.
So rapidly did the Tiers now draw the other parts of the Assembly to
itself that on the 19th, the Clergy formally voted for reunion. This
brought the growing uneasiness and alarm of the Court to a head.
Necker's influence was now on the wane. The King's youngest brother,
the Comte d'Artois, at this moment on good terms with the Queen, and
Marie {56} Antoinette herself, were for putting an end to the mischief
before it went further, and they prevailed. It was decided that the
King should intervene, and should break up the States-General into its
component parts once more by an exercise of the royal authority.
On the morning of the 20th of June, in a driving rain, the deputies
arriving at their hall found the doors closed and workmen in
possession. This was the contemptuous manner in which the Court chose
to intimate to them that preparations were being made for a royal
session which was to take place two days later. Alarmed and indignant,
the deputies proceeded to the palace tennis court close by,--the _Jeu
de Paume_,--and there heated discussion followed. Sieyès, for once in
his career imprudent, proposed that the Assembly should remove to
Paris. Mounier, conservative at heart, realizing that this meant civil
war, temporized, and carried the Assembly with him by proposing a
solemn oath whereby those present would pledge themselves not to
separate until they had endowed France with a constitution.
On the 23rd, the royal session was held. A great display of troops and
of ceremony was made. The deputies assembled in the hall, and {57} the
King's speech was read. It was a carefully prepared document,
announcing noteworthy concessions as well as noteworthy reservations,
but vitiated by two things: the concessions came just too late; the
reservations were not promptly and effectively enforced. The King
declared that for two months past the States-General had accomplished
nothing save wrangling, that the time had therefore arrived for
recalling them to their duties. His royal will was that the
distinction between the three orders should be maintained, and after
announcing a number of financial and other reforms, he ordered the
deputies to separate at once. The King then left the hall supported by
his attendants, and by the greater part of the nobles and high clergy.
There followed a memorable scene, to understand which it is necessary
to go back a little.
On the arrival of the deputies at Versailles, they had at once tended
to form themselves into groups, messes, or clubs, for eating, social
and political purposes. An association of this kind, the Club Breton,
so called from the province of its founders, soon assumed considerable
importance. Here the forward men of the assembly met and discussed;
and here, filtering through innumerable channels, came {58} the news of
the palace, the tittle tattle of Trianon and the Oeuil de Boeuf, the
decisions of the King's council. At every crisis during the struggle
at Versailles, the leaders of the assembly knew beforehand what the
King and his ministers thought, and what measures they had decided on.
All that was necessary therefore was to concert secretly the step most
likely to thwart the royal policy, and by eloquence, by persuasion, by
entreaty, to cajole the great floating mass of members to follow the
lead of the more active minds. The King's speech on the 23rd of June
was no surprise to the assembly, and the leaders were prepared with an
effective rejoinder.
So when Louis XVI left the hall after commanding the deputies to
disperse, the greater part of them kept their seats, and when Dreux
Brézé, Master of Ceremonies, noting this, called on the president to
withdraw, Bailly replied that the assembly was in session and could not
adjourn without a motion. The discussion between Dreux Brézé and
Bailly continuing, Mirabeau turned on the King's representative and in
his thundering voice declaimed the famous speech, which he had
doubtless prepared the night before. "We are here," he concluded, "by
the will of the people, and we {59} will only quit at the point of the
bayonet." At this de Brézé withdrew and reported to the King for
orders. But Louis had done enough for one day, and the only conclusion
he could come to was that if the deputies refused to leave the hall,
the best course would be for them to remain there. And there in fact
they stayed.
Immediately after this scene Necker sent in his resignation. On the
morning of the 24th, this was known in Paris, and produced
consternation and a run on the banks. To reassure the public, Necker
was immediately reinstated, on the basis that Louis should accept, as
now seemed inevitable, the fusion of the orders. On the 25th, a large
group of nobles headed by the Duc d'Orléans and the Comte de Clermont
Tonnerre joined the assembly, and a week later the Assemblée Nationale
was fully constituted, the three orders merged into one.
During the two months through which this great constitutional struggle
had lasted, the assembly had had a great moral force behind it, a moral
force that was fast tending to become something more. The winter of
1788-89 had been one of the most severe of the century. There had been
not only the almost chronic shortage of bread, but weather of {60}
extraordinary rigour. In the city of Paris the Seine is reported to
have been frozen solid, while the suffering among its inhabitants was
unparalleled. As an inevitable consequence of this riots broke out.
In January there had been food riots in many parts of France that taxed
severely the military resources of the Government. They continued
during the electoral period, and were occasionally accompanied by great
violence. And when the deputies assembled at Versailles there was
behind them a great popular force, already half unloosed, that looked
to the States-General for appeasement or for guidance.
The procedure which the Third Estate and National Assembly stumbled
into, gave this popular force an opportunity for expressing itself.
The public was admitted to the opening session, and it continued to
come to those that followed. From the public galleries came the
loudest sounds of applause that greeted the patriotic orator. The
Parisian public quickly fell into the way of making the journey to
Versailles to join in these demonstrations, and soon transferred them
from the hall of the assembly to the street outside. Mirabeau, Sieyès,
Mounier, and other popular members were constantly receiving
ovations--and soon learnt to {61} convert them into political weapons;
while members who were suspected of reactionary tendencies, especially
the higher clergy, met with hostile receptions. And all this, well
known both to Court and assembly, was but a faint echo of the great
force rumbling steadily twelve miles away in the city of Paris.
The leaders of the assembly did not scruple to use this pressure of
public opinion, of popular violence, for all it was worth. And placed
as they were it was not surprising that they should have done so. The
deputies were only a small group of men in the great royal city
garrisoned with all the traditions of the French royalty and 5,000
sabres and bayonets besides. It was natural that they should seek
support then, even if that support meant violence, lawlessness or
insurrection.
Thus Paris encouraged the assembly, and the assembly Paris. The
ferment in the capital was reaching fever-heat just at the moment that
the assembly had won its victory over the orders. The working classes
were raging for food, the bankers, capitalists and merchants saw in the
States-General the only hope of avoiding bankruptcy, the intellectual
and professional class was more agitated than any other. The cafés and
pamphlet shops of the {62} Palais Royal were daily more crowded, more
excited. And on the 30th of June the army itself began to show
symptoms of following the general movement.
The regiment of French guards was a body of soldiers kept permanently
quartered in the capital. The men were, therefore, in closer touch
with the population than would be the case in ordinary regiments.
Their commanding officer at this moment was not only an aristocrat but
a martinet, and he completely failed to keep his regiment in hand.
Trouble had long been brewing in the ranks and culminated in mutiny and
riot at the close of June. Making the most of the state of Paris many
of the mutinous guardsmen took their liberty and refused to return to
barracks. Clearly what between the accomplished revolt of the Third
Estate, the incipient revolt of Paris, and the open mutiny of the
troops, something had to be done.
Necker's return to the Ministry had been imposed on the Court, and
although his policy of accepting the fusion of the orders was followed,
his influence really amounted to little. The Queen and the Comte
d'Artois soon plucked up courage after their first defeat, and took up
once more the policy of repression; but {63} as it was now apparently
useless to attempt to stem the tide by means of speeches or decrees,
they persuaded the King that force was the only means. By using the
army he could get rid of Necker, get rid of the National Assembly, and
reduce Paris to order.
Accordingly the Marshal de Broglie, a veteran of the Seven Years' War,
was put in charge of military matters, and an old Swiss officer, the
Baron de Besenval, was placed in immediate command of the troops.
Regiments were brought in from various quarters, and by the end of the
first week of July the Court's measures were developing so fast, and
appeared so dangerous, that the assembly passed a vote asking the King
to withdraw the troops and to authorize the formation of a civic guard
in Paris. The King's answer, delivered on the 10th, was negative and
peremptory; his troops were to be employed to put down disorder.
At this crisis the action of the assembly and of Paris became more
definitely concerted. The government of the city had been in the hands
of a somewhat antiquated board presided over by a provost of the
merchants. It was too much out of touch with the existing movement to
have any influence, and felt its impotence so keenly that it would
willingly {64} have resigned its power. At the time of the elections
to the States-General the Government had broken up Paris into sixty
electoral districts for the sake of avoiding the possibility of large
meetings. These sections, as they were called, had formed committees,
and these committees, towards the middle of June, had been coming
together again informally and tending towards permanence. On the 23rd
of that month, with disorder growing in the city, they had held a joint
meeting at the Hotel de Ville, the town house, and the municipality had
given them a permanent room there, hoping that their influence would
help keep disorder under.
When, on the 11th, the news reached Paris that Louis had refused the
assembly's demand for the withdrawal of the troops, the central
committee of the sections took matters into its hands and voted the
formation of a civic guard for the city of Paris. On the same day the
King, now ready to precipitate the crisis, dismissed and exiled Necker,
and called the reactionary Breteuil to power. On the 12th, Paris broke
out into open insurrection.
It was Camille Desmoulins who set the torch to the powder. This young
lawyer and pamphleteer, a brilliant writer, a generous {65} idealist,
almost the only reasoned republican in Paris at that day, was one of
the most popular figures in the Palais Royal crowds. On the 12th of
July, standing on a café table, he announced the news of the dismissal
of Necker, the movement of the troops on Paris, and with passion and
eloquence declaimed against the Government and called on all good
citizens to take up arms. He headed a great procession from the Palais
Royal to the Hotel de Ville.
The move on the Hotel de Ville had for its object to procure arms. The
committee of the sections had voted a civic guard, but a civic guard to
act required muskets. The troops of Besenval were now pressing in on
the city, and had nearly encircled it. In a few hours Paris, always
hungry, might be reduced to famine, and the troops might be pouring
volleys down the streets. The soldiers of the French guards, siding
with the people, were already skirmishing with the Germans of the
King's regiments, for the army operating against Paris was more foreign
than French, and the Swiss and German regiments were placed at the head
of the columns for fear the French soldiers would not fire on the
citizens. Royal-Etranger, Reinach, Nassau, Esterhazy, Royal-Allemand,
Royal-Cravate, Diesbach, such were some of {66} the names of the
regiments sent by Louis XVI to persuade his good people of Paris into
submission. No wonder that the crowd shouted when Desmoulins told them
that the Germans would sack Paris that night if they did not defend
themselves.
On the night of the 12th to the 13th, Paris was in an uproar. Royalist
writers tell us that gunshops were plundered by the mob, republican
writers that the owners of guns voluntarily distributed them.
Besenval, lacking instructions from Broglie, and hesitating at what
faced him, had done little or nothing; but Paris intended to be ready
for him if he should act on the following day.
On the 13th, the disorder and excitement continued. The committee at
the Hotel de Ville took in hand the formation of battalions for each
section of the city; while Besenval still remained almost inactive at
the gates. On the 14th the insurrection culminated, and won what
proved to be a decisive victory.
At the east end of Paris stood the Bastille. It was a mediaeval
dungeon of formidable aspect, armed with many cannon and dominating the
outlet from the populous faubourg St. Antoine to the country
beyond--one of the mouths of famishing Paris. It contained a great
store {67} of gunpowder and a garrison of about 100 Swiss and veterans.
The fortress had an evil reputation as a state prison. Although in
July, 1789 its cells were nearly all unoccupied, popular legend would
have it that numerous victims of royal despotism, arbitrarily
imprisoned, lay within its walls. So it was a symbol of the royal
authority within Paris, a threat, or reckoned so, to the faubourg St.
Antoine and the free movement of food supplies from the east side of
the city, a store of guns and ammunition. For all these reasons the
mob, undisturbed by Besenval, turned to attack it.
The first effort was in vain. Although the garrison of the Bastille,
except its commander, the Marquis de Launay, was disinclined to fire on
the mob, and was so short of provisions that resistance was useless,
the attackers succeeded in little more than getting possession of some
of the outbuildings of the fortress. The musketry which the Governor
directed from the keep proved more than the mob cared to face. But the
first wave of attack was soon reinforced by another. From the French
regiments of Besenval's army a steady stream of deserters was now
setting into Paris through every gate. A number of these soldiers and
of the men of the regiment of the French guards {68} were drawn to the
Bastille by the sound of the firing and now took up the attack with
system and vigour. Élie, a non-commissioned officer of the Queen's
regiment, gave orders, supported by Hullin, Marceau, and others; two
small pieces of cannon were brought up, the soldiers and some few
citizens formed elbow to elbow, the guns were wheeled opposite the
great drawbridge in the face of the musketry, and at that the Bastille
gave up. De Launay made an attempt to explode his magazine, but was
stopped by his men. The white flag was displayed, the drawbridge was
let down, and the besiegers poured in.
Great disorder followed. De Launay and one of his officers were
massacred despite the efforts of Élie and the soldiers. The uproar of
Paris was intensified by the victory. At the opposite side of the city
there had been another success; the Invalides had been taken and with
it 30,000 muskets. With these the civic guard was rapidly being armed,
under the direction of the committee of the sections. The Hotel de
Ville was the centre of excitement, and the provost of the merchants,
having lost all authority, was anxious to surrender his power to the
new insurrectional government. Late in the evening he too was
sacrificed to {69} the violence of the mob, and, drawn from the Hotel
de Ville, was quickly massacred by the worst and most excitable
elements of the populace.
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