IV

The scene in the world-wide drama of democracy shifts across the

Atlantic Ocean, from America to France. The French Revolution of 1789

and the Reign of Terror--a century's pent-up rage against despotism, let

loose in a single hour!

When Madame Roland was summoned before the revolutionary tribunal she

came with a smile upon her lips, her face sparkling with life and

animation. Condemned in advance, she was falsely declared guilty of

being the author of a "mutinous conspiracy against the unity and defense

of the republic." She heard her sentence calmly. "You deem me worthy the

fate of the great men you have murdered. I shall try to display the

same courage on the scaffold." She was at once taken in a cart to the

Place de la Revolution, a man guilty of treason being placed in the same

cart. He was overwhelmed with terror and she occupied her time in

soothing him. On reaching the guillotine, she bade him mount the steps

first, that his sufferings might not be prolonged. As she took her

place, her eyes fell on a colossal statue of Liberty, recently erected

near by. "O Liberty," she cried, "what crimes are committed in thy

name!"

"There is no God." Thus in 1793, by solemn enactment of the Terrorists,

was the Deity legislated out of existence. There is no God! What sayest

thou now, Robespierre? Dost thou say so, _now_? How likedst thou thy

brief space of usurpation? A few brief months of power--night and day

with loaded pistols at thy side--no food till some one else had tasted

from thy dish, lest it be poisoned. And then another scene in that same

legislative hall, the hall of thy own great terrifying power. A vote

ordering thy arrest! Vain are thy shrieks--a detachment of thy own

soldiers forces its way into the room--a pistol shot rings out, and thou

with shattered jaw, a ghastly spectacle, facest thy end. Thou fallest,

and some spit upon thy prostrate form, others stab thee with their

knives. Still living, thy body is hurried before the tribunal thou

thyself didst form, and thence to the guillotine. O Robespierre,

thinkest thou now there is a God?

License, not liberty. Mania, not reason. How fared the spirit of

Lafayette during this debauchery in the name of freedom?

V

A brief interval of less than ten years intervened between the closing

scenes of the American Revolution and the opening scenes of the French

Revolution. Democracy in America was a victor, and the republic had been

established. Democracy in France was just entering upon its cyclonic and

hideous struggle for the right to live.

The government of France was at that time an absolute despotism. The

king was the supreme arbiter of its destinies. He was the head of the

army. He appointed his own ministers, made his own laws, levied and

raised taxes at his pleasure, and lavished his treasures as he pleased.

The common people were more like cattle than men. They tilled the ground

and bore the yoke; the king and the aristocracy wielded the whip. Years

of suffering ignorance for the many--years of riotous profligacy for the

few!

True democracy is world-wide. It knows no nationality. All mankind are

its countrymen. When at the close of the American war Lafayette returned

to France, he hung in his house a copy of the American Declaration of

Independence upon one of the walls, leaving the corresponding space on

the opposite side vacant. "What do you mean to place here?" asked one of

his friends. "A Declaration of Rights for France," he replied.

Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, the first giant of the

Hohenzollerns and the fountain head of modern Prussian autocracy,

attracted by Lafayette's military reputation, invited him to the royal

palace at Potsdam to witness and take part in the review of the Prussian

army. At dinner one evening Frederick declared confidently his opinion

that America would not long be a republic, but would return to the good

old system. "Never, sir," replied his guest. "A monarchy, a nobility can

never exist in America." "Sir," said the monarch, "I knew a young man

who, after having visited countries where liberty and equality reigned,

conceived the idea of establishing the same system in his own country.

Do you know what happened to him?" "No, sir." "He was hanged," replied

the King with a smile.

In 1789 the mutterings of the coming storm became more ominous, but the

King of France, deafened by the clamour of cackling advice from his

aristocracy, either could not or would not hear. Almost bankrupt

because of the extravagance of the court, he needed money, still more

money, and called an "assembly of notables" to assist in devising

measures to relieve his embarrassed finances. They were men from the

most distinguished of the nobility. Lafayette was one. In a letter to

Washington he humorously remarked that "wicked people called them

not-ables." Lafayette's part in the assembly consisted in making a bold

protest against the prodigality of the crown. "All the millions given up

to cupidity or depredation," he forcefully exclaimed to the noble

gathering, "are the fruit of the sweat, the tears, and perhaps the

blood, of the nation"; and he concluded by requesting that the King

convoke a real National Assembly, made up of representatives of the

common people. It was the beginning of the Revolution. For Lafayette's

part in this the King's prime minister, Calonne, proposed to the

monarch to send Lafayette to the Bastile.

Nothing was accomplished by the notables, and the monarch then decided

to assemble the states-general. This was not a legislative body, but an

assembly of representatives from the nobility, the clergy, and the

common people, sometimes called by the crown when it needed assistance,

the commons always being in the minority. The commons, _le tiers état_

grasped the opportunity, met by themselves, and on June 17, 1789,

resolved themselves into a National Assembly, to accomplish the

regeneration of France.

Troops were summoned by the crown to put down the rebellion, and more

than fifty thousand mercenary troops from foreign states were engaged by

the King to take the place of the French troops, whom he distrusted.

Lafayette joined with the National Assembly, and then and there proposed

to it the first draft of that French Declaration of Rights for which he

had prophetically left a space on the wall of his home. The essence of

his draft lies in the following extract: "No man can be subject to any

laws, excepting those which have received the assent of himself or his

representatives, and which are promulgated beforehand and applied

legally. The principle of all sovereignty resides in the nation."

On July 14, 1789, the storm broke. The gigantic fortress of the Bastile

which for ages had reared its menacing head among the people of Paris, a

terrible engine of despotic military autocracy, was attacked and taken

by the mob. M. De Launay, its Governor, was killed by a bayonet thrust,

and his head cut from his body and carried through the streets upon a

pitchfork. "And in this bloody manner, into those dungeons where

thousands had wasted away, often without trial and with no knowledge of

the charges against them, liberty sent her first ray of sunlight."

"When oppression renders a revolution necessary, insurrection becomes

the holiest of duties," was the ringing message of Lafayette to the

Assembly. The key of the Bastile was given to him as the representative

of freedom in Europe, and together with a sketch of the ruins of that

fortress of despotism, he sent it to George Washington. "It is a

tribute," he wrote, "which I owe, as a son to my adopted father--as an

aide-de-camp to my general--as a missionary of liberty to its

patriarch."

A National Guard, a new army of two hundred thousand citizen soldiers,

was authorized and formed by the National Assembly, both for the

protection of the rights of the people at home and for resistance to

possible foreign aggression. Lafayette, now thirty-two years of age, was

chosen its commander-in-chief. Thus was born democracy in France.