deposited them in the hands of our bankers, with instructions, however,
not to issue them until Congress should ratify the measure. This done,
he returned to London, and I set out for Paris; and, as nothing urgent
forbade it, I determined to return along the banks of the Rhine, to
Strasburg, and thence strike off to Paris. I accordingly left Amsterdam
on the 30th of March, and proceeded by Utrecht, Nimegnen, Cleves,
Duysberg, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bonne, Coblentz, Nassau, Hocheim,
Frankfort, and made an excursion to Hanau, then to Mayence, and another
excursion to Rudesheim, and Johansberg; then by Oppenheim, Worms, and
Manheim, making an excursion to Heidelberg, then by Spire, Carlsruhe,
Rastadt, and Kelh, to Sfrasburg, where I arrived April the 16th,
and proceeded again on the 18th, by Phalsbourg, Fenestrange, Dieuze,
Moyenvie, Nancy, Toul, Ligny, Barleduc, St. Diziers, Vitry, Chalons sur
Marne, Epernay, Chateau Thierri, Meaux, to Paris, where I arrived on
the 23d of April: and I had the satisfaction to reflect, that by this
journey, our credit was secured, the new government was placed at ease
for two years to come, and that, as well as myself, relieved from the
torment of incessant duns, whose just complaints could not be silenced
by any means within our power.
A Consular Convention had been agreed on in ‘84, between Dr. Franklin
and the French government, containing several articles, so entirely
inconsistent with the laws of the several states, and the general spirit
of our citizens, that Congress withheld their ratification, and sent
it back to me, with instructions to get those articles expunged, or
modified, so as to render them compatible with our laws. The Minister
unwillingly released us from these concessions, which, indeed,
authorized the exercise of powers very offensive in a free state. After
much discussion, the Convention was reformed in a considerable degree,
and was signed by the Count Montmorin and myself, on the 14th of
November, ‘88; not indeed, such as I would have wished; but such as
could be obtained with good humor and friendship.
On my return from Holland, I found Paris as I had left it, still in
high fermentation. Had the Archbishop, on the close of the Assembly of
Notables, immediately carried into operation the measures contemplated,
it was believed they would all have been registered by the Parliament;
but he was slow, presented his edicts, one after another, and at
considerable intervals, which gave time for the feelings excited by the
proceedings of the Notables to cool off, new claims to be advanced, and
a pressure to arise for a fixed constitution, not subject to changes
at the will of the King. Nor should we wonder at this pressure, when
we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which this people were
ground to powder; when we pass in review the weight of their taxes, and
the inequality of their distribution; the oppressions of the tythes,
the failles, the corvees, the gabelles, the farms and the barriers;
the shackles on commerce by monopolies; on industry by guilds and
corporations; on the freedom of conscience, of thought, and of speech;
on the freedom of the press by the censure; and of the person by lettres
de cachet; the cruelty of the criminal code generally; the atrocities
of the rack; the venality of Judges, and their partialities to the rich;
the monopoly of military honors by the noblesse; the enormous expenses
of the Queen, the Princes, and the Court; the prodigalities of pensions;
and the riches, luxury, indolence, and immorality of the Clergy. Surely
under such a mass of misrule and oppression, a people might justly
press for thorough reformation, and might even dismount their roughshod
riders, and leave them to walk, on their own legs. The edicts, relative
to the corvees and free circulation of grain, were first presented to
the Parliament and registered; but those for the impot territorial,
and stamp tax, offered some time after, were refused by the Parliament,
which proposed a call of the States General, as alone competent to their
authorization. Their refusal produced a bed of justice, and their exile
to Troyes. The Advocates, however, refusing to attend them, a suspension
in the administration of justice took place. The Parliament held out for
awhile, but the ennui of their exile and absence from Paris, began at
length to be felt, and some dispositions for compromise to appear. On
their consent, therefore, to prolong some of the former taxes, they were
recalled from exile. The King met them in session, November 19, ‘87,
promised to call the States General in the year ‘92, and a majority
expressed their assent to register an edict for successive and annual
loans from 1788 to ‘92; but a protest being entered by the Duke of
Orleans, and this encouraging others in a disposition to retract,
the King ordered peremptorily the registry of the edict, and left the
assembly abruptly. The Parliament immediately protested, that the votes
for the enregistry had not been legally taken, and that they gave no
sanction to the loans proposed. This was enough to discredit and defeat
them. Hereupon issued another edict, for the establishment of a _cour
plenière_ and the suspension of all the Parliaments in the kingdom.
This being opposed, as might be expected, by reclamations from all the
Parliaments and Provinces, the King gave way, and by an edict of July
5th, ’88, renounced his _cour plenière_, and promised the States General
for the first of May, of the ensuing year: and the Archbishop, finding
the times beyond his faculties, accepted the promise of a Cardinal’s
hat, was removed (September ‘88) from the Ministry, and Mr. Necker was
called to the department of finance. The innocent rejoicings of the
people of Paris on this change, provoked the interference of an officer
of the city guards, whose order for their dispersion not being obeyed,
he charged them with fixed bayonets, killed two or three, and wounded
many. This dispersed them for the moment, but they collected the next
day in great numbers, burnt ten or twelve guardhouses, killed two or
three of the guards, and lost six or eight more of their own number. The
city was hereupon put under martial law, and after a while the tumult
subsided. The effect of this change of ministers, and the promise of the
States General at an early day tranquillized the nation. But two
great questions now occurred. 1st. What proportion shall the number of
deputies of the _Tiers Etat_ bear to those of the Nobles and Clergy?
And, 2nd. Shall they sit in the same or in distinct apartments? Mr.
Necker, desirous of avoiding himself these knotty questions, proposed a
second call of the same Notables, and that their advice should be asked
on the subject. They met, November 9, ‘88, and, by five bureaux against
one, they recommended the forms of the States General of 1614; wherein
the Houses were separate, and voted by orders, not by persons. But the
whole nation declaring at once against this, and that the _Tiers
Etat_ should be, in numbers, equal to both the other orders, and the
Parliament deciding for the same proportion, it was determined so to be,
by a declaration of December 27th, ‘88. A Report of Mr. Necker, to
the King, of about the same date, contained other very important
concessions. 1. That the King could neither lay a new tax, nor prolong
an old one. 2. It expressed a readiness to agree on the periodical
meeting of the States. 3. To consult on the necessary restriction on
_lettres de cachet_; and 4. How far the press might be made free. 5. It
admits that the States are to appropriate the public money; and 6.
That Ministers shall be responsible for public expenditures. And these
concessions came from the very heart of the King. He had not a wish but
for the good of the nation; and for that object, no personal sacrifice
would ever have cost him a moment’s regret; but his mind was weakness
itself, his constitution timid, his judgment null, and without
sufficient firmness even to stand by the faith of his word. His Queen,
too, haughty and bearing no contradiction, had an absolute ascendancy
over him; and around her were rallied the King’s brother D’Artois,
the court generally, and the aristocratic part of his Ministers,
particularly Breteuil, Broglio, Vauguyon, Foulon, Luzerne, men whose
principles of government were those of the age of Louis XIV. Against
this host, the good counsels of Necker, Montmorin, St. Priest, although
in unison with the wishes of the King himself, were of little avail. The
resolutions of the morning, formed under their advice, would be reversed
in the evening, by the influence of the Queen and court. But the hand
of Heaven weighed heavily indeed on the machinations of this junto;
producing collateral incidents, not arising out of the case, yet
powerfully co-exciting the nation to force a regeneration of its
government, and overwhelming, with accumulated difficulties, this
liberticide resistance. For, while laboring under the want of money
for even ordinary purposes, in a government which required a million
of livres a day, and driven to the last ditch by the universal call
for liberty, there came on a winter of such severe cold, as was without
example in the memory of man, or in the written records of history. The
Mercury was at times 50° below the freezing point of Farenheit, and 22°
below that of Reaumur. All out-door labor was suspended, and the poor,
without the wages of labor, were, of course, without either bread
or fuel. The government found its necessities aggravated by that of
procuring immense quantities of firewood, and of keeping great fires at
all the cross streets, around which the people gathered in crowds, to
avoid perishing with cold. Bread, too, was to be bought, and distributed
daily, _gratis_, until a relaxation of the season should enable the
people to work: and the slender stock of bread-stuff had for some time
threatened famine, and had raised that article to an enormous price. So
great, indeed, was the scarcity of bread, that, from the highest to the
lowest citizen, the bakers were permitted to deal but a scanty allowance
per head, even to those who paid for it; and, in cards of invitation
to dine in the richest houses, the guest was notified to bring his own
bread. To eke out the existence of the people, every person who had
the means, was called on for a weekly subscription, which the Cures
collected, and employed in providing messes for the nourishment of the
poor, and vied with each other in devising such economical compositions
of food, as would subsist the greatest number with the smallest means.
This want of bread had been foreseen for some time past, and M. de
Montmorin had desired me to notify it in America, and that, in addition
to the market price, a premium should be given on what should be brought
from the United States. Notice was accordingly given, and produced
considerable supplies. Subsequent information made the importations from
America, during the months of March, April, and May, into the Atlantic
ports of France, amount to about twenty-one thousand barrels of flour,
besides what went to other ports, and in other months; while our
supplies to their West Indian islands relieved them also from that
drain. This distress for bread continued till July.
Hitherto no acts of popular violence had been produced by the struggle
for political reformation. Little riots, on ordinary incidents, had
taken place at other times, in different parts of the kingdom, in which
some lives, perhaps a dozen or twenty, had been lost; but in the month
of April, a more serious one occurred in Paris, unconnected, indeed,
with the Revolutionary principle, but making part of the history of
the day. The Fauxbourg St. Antoine, is a quarter of the city inhabited
entirely by the class of day-laborers and journeymen in every line. A
rumor was spread among them, that a great paper-manufacturer, of the
name of Reveillon, had proposed, on some occasion, that their wages
should be lowered to fifteen sous a day. Inflamed at once into rage,
and without inquiring into its truth, they flew to his house in
vast numbers, destroyed every thing in it, and in his magazines and
work-shops, without secreting, however, a pin’s worth to themselves, and
were continuing this work of devastation, when the regular troops were
called in. Admonitions being disregarded, they were of necessity fired
on, and a regular action ensued, in which about one hundred of them were
killed, before the rest would disperse. There had rarely passed a year
without such a riot, in some part or other of the kingdom; and this
is distinguished only as cotemporary with the Revolution, although not
produced by it.
The States General were opened on the 5th of May, ‘89, by speeches from
the King, the Garde des Sceaux, Lamoignon, and Mr. Necker. The last was
thought to trip too lightly over the constitutional reformations which
were expected. His notices of them in this speech, were not as full
as in his previous _Rapport au Roi_. This was observed, to his
disadvantage: but much allowance should have been made for the situation
in which he was placed, between his own counsels and those of the
ministers and party of the court. Overruled in his own opinions,
compelled to deliver, and to gloss over those of his opponents, and even
to keep their secrets, he could not come forward in his own attitude.
The composition of the Assembly, although equivalent, on the whole, to
what had been expected, was something different in its elements. It had
been supposed, that a superior education would carry into the scale
of the Commons, a respectable portion of the Noblesse. It did so as to
those of Paris, of its vicinity, and of the other considerable cities,
whose greater intercourse with enlightened society had liberalized their
minds, and prepared them to advance up to the measure of the times. But
the Noblesse of the country, which constituted two thirds of that body,
were far in their rear. Residing constantly on their patrimonial feuds,
and familiarized, by daily habit, with Seigneurial powers and practices,
they had not yet learned to suspect their inconsistence with reason and
right. They were willing to submit to equality of taxation, but not to
descend from their rank and prerogatives to be incorporated in session
with the _Tiers Etat_. Among the Clergy, on the other hand, it had been
apprehended that the higher orders of the Hierarchy, by their wealth and
connections, would have carried the elections generally; but it turned
out, that in most cases, the lower clergy had obtained the popular
majorities. These consisted of the Cureés sons of the peasantry, who
had been employed to do all the drudgery of parochial services for ten,
twenty, or thirty louis a year; while their superiors were consuming
their princely revenues in palaces of luxury and indolence. The
objects for which this body was convened, being of the first order of
importance, I felt it very interesting to understand the views of the
parties of which it was composed, and especially the ideas prevalent,
as to the organization contemplated for their government. I went,
therefore, daily from Paris to Versailles, and attended their debates,
generally till the hour of adjournment. Those of the Noblesse were
impassioned and tempestuous. They had some able men on both sides,
actuated by equal zeal. The debates of the Commons were temperate,
rational, and inflexibly firm. As preliminary to all other business,
the awful questions came on: Shall the States sit in one, or in distinct
apartments? And shall they vote by heads or houses? The opposition was
soon found to consist of the Episcopal order among the clergy, and two
thirds of the _Noblesse_; while the _Tiers Etat_ were, to a man, united
and determined. After various propositions of compromise had failed,
the Commons undertook to cut the Gordian knot. The Abbe Sieyes, the most
logical head of the nation, (author of the pamphlet ‘_Qu’est ce que le
Tiers Etat?_’ which had electrified that country, as Paine’s ‘Common
Sense’ did us,) after an impressive speech on the 10th of June, moved
that a last invitation should be sent to the Nobles and Clergy, to
attend in the hall of the States, collectively or individually, for the
verification of powers, to which the Commons would proceed immediately,
either in their presence or absence. This verification being finished,
a motion was made, on the 15th, that they should constitute themselves a
National Assembly; which was decided on the 17th, by a majority of four
fifths. During the debates on this question, about twenty of the Curés
had joined them, and a proposition was made, in the chamber of the
Clergy, that their whole body should join. This was rejected, at first,
by a small majority only; but, being afterwards somewhat modified, it
was decided affirmatively, by a majority of eleven. While this was under
debate, and unknown to the court, to wit, on the 19th, a council was
held in the afternoon, at Marly, wherein it was proposed that the King
should interpose, by a declaration of his sentiments, in a _séance
royale_. A form of declaration was proposed by Necker, which, while it
censured, in general, the preceedings, both of the Nobles and Commons,
announced the King’s views, such as substantially to coincide with the
Commons. It was agreed to in Council, the _séance_ was fixed for the
22nd, the meetings of the States were till then to be suspended, and
every thing, in the mean time, kept secret. The members, the next
morning (the 20th) repairing to their house, as usual, found the doors
shut and guarded, a proclamation posted up for a séance, royale on the
22nd, and a suspension of their meetings in the mean, time. Concluding
that their dissolution was now to take place, they repaired to a
building called the _Jeu de paume_ (or Tennis court), and there bound
themselves by oath to each other, never to separate, of their own
accord, till they had settled a constitution for the nation, on a solid
basis, and, if separated by force, that they would reassemble in some
other place. The next day they met in the church of St. Louis, and were
joined by a majority of the clergy. The heads of the aristocracy saw
that all was lost without some bold exertion. The King was still at
Marly. Nobody was permitted to approach him but their friends. He was
assailed by falsehoods in all shapes. He was made to believe that the
Commons were about to absolve the army from their oath of fidelity
to him, and to raise their pay. The court party were now all rage and
desperation. They procured a committee to be held, consisting of the
King and his Ministers, to which Monsieur and the Count d’Artois
should be admitted. At this committee, the latter attacked Mr. Necker
personally, arraigned his declaration, and proposed one which some of
his prompters had put into his hands. Mr. Necker was browbeaten and
intimidated, and the King shaken. He determined that the two plans
should be deliberated on the next day, and the _séance royale_ put off a
day longer. This encouraged a fiercer attack on Mr. Necker the next day.
His draught of a declaration was entirely broken up, and that of the
Count d’Artois inserted into it. Himself and Montmorin offered their
resignation, which was refused; the Count d’Artois saying to Mr. Necker,
‘No, sir, you must be kept as the hostage; we hold you responsible for
all the ill which shall happen.’ This change of plan was immediately
whispered without doors. The _Noblesse_ were in triumph; the people in
consternation. I was quite alarmed at this state of things. The soldiery
had not yet indicated which side they should take, and that which they
should support would be sure to prevail. I considered a successful
reformation of government in France as insuring a general reformation
through Europe, and the resurrection to a new life of their people,
now ground to dust by the abuses of the governing powers. I was much
acquainted with the leading patriots of the Assembly. Being from a
country which had successfully passed through a similar reformation,
they were disposed to my acquaintance, and had some confidence in me.
I urged, most strenuously, an immediate compromise; to secure what the
government was now ready to yield, and trust to future occasions for
what might still be wanting. It was well understood that the King would
grant, at this time, 1. Freedom of the person by _habeas corpus_. 2.
Freedom of conscience: 3. Freedom of the press: 4. Trial by jury: 5. A
representative legislature: 6. Annual meetings: 7. The origination of
laws: 8. The exclusive right of taxation and appropriation: and 9. The
responsibility of ministers: and with the exercise of these powers they
could obtain, in future, whatever might be further necessary to improve
and preserve their constitution. They thought otherwise, however, and
events have proved their lamentable error. For, after thirty years
of war, foreign and domestic, the loss of millions of lives, the
prostration of private happiness, and the foreign subjugation of their
own country for a time, they have obtained no more, nor even that
securely. They were unconscious of (for who could foresee?) the
melancholy sequel of their well-meant perseverance; that their physical
force would be usurped by a first tyrant to trample on the independence,
and even the existence, of other nations: that this would afford a fatal
example for the atrocious conspiracy of kings against their people;
would generate their unholy and homicide alliance to make common cause
among themselves, and to crush, by the power of the whole, the efforts
of any part, to moderate their abuses and oppressions. When the King
passed, the next day, through the lane formed from the Chateau to the
_Hotel des Etats_, there was a dead silence. He was about an hour in
the House, delivering his speech and declaration. On his coming out, a
feeble cry of _Vive le Roy_ was raised by some children, but the people
remained silent and sullen. In the close of his speech, he had ordered
that the members should follow him, and resume their deliberations the
next day. The _Noblesse_ followed him, and so did the clergy, except
about thirty, who, with the _Tiers_, remained in the room, and entered
into deliberation. They protested against what the King had done,
adhered to all their former proceedings, and resolved the inviolability
of their own persons. An officer came to order them out of the room
in the King’s name. ‘Tell those who sent you,’ said Mirabeau, ‘that we
shall not move hence but at our own will, or the point of the bayonet.’
In the afternoon, the people, uneasy, began to assemble in great numbers
in the courts and vicinities of the palace. This produced alarm. The
Queen sent for Mr. Necker. He was conducted, amidst the shouts and
acclamations of the multitude, who filled all the apartments of the
palace. He was a few minutes only with the Queen, and what passed
between them did not transpire. The King went out to ride. He passed
through the crowd to his carriage, and into it, without being in the
least noticed. As Mr. Necker followed him, universal acclamations
were raised of ‘_Vive Monsieur Necker, vive le sauveur de la France
opprimée_.’ He was conducted back to his house, with the same
demonstrations of affection and anxiety. About two hundred deputies of
the _Tiers_, catching the enthusiasm of the moment, went to his house,
and extorted from him a promise that he would not resign. On the 25th,
forty-eight of the Nobles joined the _Tiers_, and among them the Duke of
Orleans. There were then with them one hundred and sixty-four members
of the clergy, although the minority of that body still sat apart, and
called themselves the Chamber of the Clergy. On the 26th, the Archbishop
of Paris joined the Tiers, as did some others of the clergy and of the
_Noblesse_.