May, 1789, and Versailles was chosen as the place of their
meetings. On the 4th, half Paris poured into that town to see
the court and the deputies marching in procession to the
solemn religious ceremony, which was to inaugurate the
important epoch. ... On the following day, the States-general,
to the number of 1,200 persons, assembled in the spacious and
richly decorated 'salle des menus plaisirs.' The King
appeared, surrounded by his family, with all the magnificence
of the ancient court, and was greeted by the enthusiastic
applause of the deputies and spectators." The king made a
speech, followed by Barentin, the keeper of the great seal,
and by Necker. The latter "could not prevail upon himself to
avow to the Assembly the real state of affairs. He announced
an annual deficit of 56,000,000 francs, and thereby confused
the mind of the public, which, since the meeting of the
Notables, had always been discussing a deficit of from
120,000,000 to 140,000,000.
{1260}
He was quite right in assuming that those 56,000,000 might be
covered by economy in the expenditure; but it was both
irritating and untrue, when he, on this ground, denied the
necessity of summoning the States-general, and called their
convocation a free act of royal favour. ... The balance of
income and expenditure might, indeed, easily be restored in
the future, but the deficit of former years had been
heedlessly allowed to accumulate, and by no one more than by
Necker himself. A floating debt of 550,000,000 had to be
faced--in other words, therefore, more than a whole year's
income had been expended in advance. ... The real deficit of
the year, therefore, at the lowest calculation, amounted to
more than 200,000,000, or nearly half the annual income. ...
These facts, then, were concealed, and thus the ministry was
necessarily placed in a false position towards the
States-general; the continuance of the former abuses was
perpetuated, or a violent catastrophe made inevitable. ... For
the moment the matter was not discussed. Everything yielded to
the importance of the constitutional question--whether the
three orders should deliberate in common or apart--whether
there should be one single representative body, or independent
corporations. This point was mooted at once in its full extent
on the question, whether the validity of the elections should
be scrutinised by each order separately, or by the whole
Assembly. We need not here enter into the question of right;
but of this there can be no doubt, that the government, which
virtually created the States-general afresh [since there had
been no national meeting of the Estates since the
States-general of 1614-see above: A. D. 1610-1619], had the
formal right to convoke them either in one way or the other,
as it thought fit. ... They [the government] infinitely
lowered their own influence and dignity by leaving a most
important constitutional question to the decision and the
wrangling of the three orders; and they frustrated their own
practical objects, by not decidedly declaring for the union of
the orders in one assembly. Every important measure of reform,
which had in view the improvement of the material and
financial condition of the country, would have been mutilated
by the clergy and rejected by the nobles. This was
sufficiently proved by the 'cahiers' of the electors ['written
instructions given by the electors to the deputies']. The
States themselves had to undertake what the government had
neglected. That which the government might have freely and
legally commanded, now led to violent revolution. But there
was no choice left; the commons would not tolerate the
continuance of the privileged orders; and the state could not
tolerate them if it did not wish to perish. The commons, who
on this point were unanimous, considered the system of a
single Assembly as a matter of course. They took care not to
constitute themselves as 'tiers état,' but remained passive,
and declared that they would wait until the Assembly should be
constituted as a whole. Thus slowly and cautiously did they
enter on their career. ... Indisputably the most important and
influential among them was Count Mirabeau, the representative
of the town of Aix in Provence, a violent opponent of
feudalism, and a restless participator in all the recent
popular commotions. He would have been better able than any
man to stimulate the Assembly to vigorous action; but even he
hesitated, and kept back his associates from taking any
violent steps, because he feared that the inconsistency and
inexperience of the majority would bring ruin on the state.
... It was only very gradually that the 'tiers état' began to
negotiate with the other orders. The nobles shewed themselves
haughty, dogmatical, and aggressive; and the clergy cautious,
unctuous, and tenacious. They tried the efficacy of general
conferences; but as no progress was found to have been made
after three weeks, they gave up their consultations on the
25th of May. The impatience of the public, and the necessities
of the treasury, continually increased; the government,
therefore, once more intervened, and Necker was called upon to
propose a compromise," which was coldly rejected by the
nobles, who "declared that they had long ago finished their
scrutiny, and constituted themselves as a separate order. They
thus spared the commons the dreaded honour of being the first
to break with the crown. The conferences were again closed on
the 9th of June. The leaders of the commons now saw that they
must either succumb to the nobility, or force the other orders
to submission."
_H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution.,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 8 (volume 1)._
_Prince de Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
part 1 (volume 1)._
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (June).
The Third Estate seizes the reins, proclaims itself the
National Assembly, and assumes sovereign powers.
The passionate excitement of Paris.
Dismissal of Necker.
Rising of the mob.
"At last ... on the proposal of Sieyès [the Abbé, deputy for
Paris] and amid a storm of frantic excitement, the Third
Estate alone voted themselves 'the National Assembly,' invited
the other two orders to join them, and pushing their
pretensions to sovereignty to the highest point, declared that
the existing taxes, not having been consented to by the
nation, were all illegal. The National Assembly, however,
allowed them to be levied till its separation, after which
they were to cease if not formally regranted. This great
revolution was effected on June 17, and it at once placed the
Third Order in a totally new relation both to the other orders
and to the Crown. There were speedy signs of yielding among
some members of the privileged orders, and a fierce wave of
excitement supported the change. Malouet strongly urged that
the proper course was to dissolve the Assembly and to appeal
to the constituencies, but Necker declined, and a feeble and
ineffectual effort of the King to accomplish a reunion, and at
the same time to overawe the Third Order, precipitated the
Revolution. The King announced his intention of holding a
royal session on June 22, and he summoned the three orders to
meet him. It was his design to direct them to unite in order
to deliberate in common on matters of common interest, and to
regain the royal initiative by laying down the lines of a new
constitution. ... On Saturday, the 20th, however, the course
of events was interrupted by the famous scene in the tennis
court. Troops had lately been pouring to an alarming extent
into Paris, and exciting much suspicion in the popular party,
and the Government very injudiciously selected for the royal
session on the following Monday the hall in which the Third
Order assembled. The hall was being prepared for the occasion,
and therefore no meeting could be held.
{1261}
The members, ignorant of the fact, went to their chamber and
were repelled by soldiers. Furious at the insult, they
adjourned to the neighbouring tennis court [Jeu-de-Paume]. A
suspicion that the King meant to dissolve them was abroad, and
they resolved to resist such an attempt. With lifted hands and
in a transport of genuine, if somewhat theatrical enthusiasm,
they swore that they would never separate 'till the
constitution of the kingdom and the regeneration of public
order were established on a solid basis.' ... One single
member, Martin d'Auche, refused his assent. The Third Estate
had thus virtually assumed the sole legislative authority in
France, and like the Long Parliament in England had denied the
King's power to dissolve them. ... Owing to the dissension
that had arisen, the royal session was postponed till the
23rd, but on the preceding day the National Assembly met in a
church, and its session was a very important one, for on this
occasion a great body of the clergy formally joined it. One
hundred and forty-eight members of the clergy, of whom 134
were curés, had now given their adhesion. Two of the nobles,
separating from their colleagues, took the same course. Next
day the royal session was held. The project adopted in the
council differed so much from that of Necker that this
minister refused to give it the sanction of his presence.
Instead of commanding the three orders to deliberate together
in the common interest, it was determined in the revised
project that the King should merely invite them to do so. ...
It was ... determined to withdraw altogether from the common
deliberation 'the form of the constitution to be given to the
coming States-General,' and to recognise fully the essential
distinction of the three orders as political bodies, though
they might, with the approval of the Sovereign, deliberate in
common. Necker had proposed ... that the King should
decisively, and of his own authority, abolish all privileges
of taxation, but in the amended article the King only
undertook to give his sanction to this measure on condition of
the two orders renouncing their privileges. On the other hand,
the King announced to the Assembly a long series of articles
of reform which would have made France a thoroughly
constitutional country, and have swept away nearly all the
great abuses in its government. ... He annulled the
proceedings of June 17, by which the Third Estate alone
declared itself the Legislature of France. He reminded the
Assembly that none of its proceedings could acquire the force
of law without his assent, and he asserted his sole right as
French Sovereign to the command of the army and police. He
concluded by directing the three orders to withdraw and to
meet next day to consider his proposals. The King, with the
nobles and the majority of the clergy, at once withdrew, but
the Third Order defiantly remained. It was evident that the
attempt to conciliate, and the attempt to assert the royal
authority, had both failed. The Assembly proclaimed itself
inviolable. It confirmed the decrees which the King had
annulled. Sieyès declared, in words which excited a transport
of enthusiasm, that what the Assembly was yesterday it still
was to-day; and two days later, the triumph of the Assembly
became still more evident by the adhesion of 47 of the
nobility. After this defection the King saw the hopelessness
of resistance, and on the 27th he ordered the remainder of the
nobles to take the same course. ... In the mean time the real
rulers of the country were coming rapidly to the surface. ...
Groups of local agitators and of the scum of the Paris mob
began to overawe the representatives of the nation, and to
direct the course of its policy. Troops were poured into
Paris, but their presence was an excitement without being a
protection, for day after day it became more evident that
their discipline was gone, and that they shared the sympathies
and the passions of the mob. ... At the same time famine grew
daily more intense, and the mobs more passionate and more
formidable. The dismissal of Necker on the evening of July 11
was the spark which produced the conflagration that had long
been preparing. Next day Paris flew to arms. The troops with
few exceptions abandoned the King."
_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 20 (volume 5)._
ALSO IN:
_E. Dumont,
Recollections of Mirabeau,
chapters 4-5._
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July).
The mob in arms.
Anarchy in Paris.
The taking of the Bastille.
"On the 12th of July, near noon, on the news of the dismissal
of Necker, a cry of rage arises in the Palais-Royal; Camille
Desmoulins, mounted on a table, announces that the Court
meditates 'a St. Bartholomew of patriots.' The crowd embrace
him, adopt the green cockade which he has proposed, and oblige
the dancing-saloons and theatres to close in sign of mourning:
they hurry off to the residence of Curtius [a plaster-cast
master], and take the busts of the Duke of Orleans and of
Necker and carry them about in triumph. Meanwhile, the
dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, drawn up on the Place
Louis-Quinze, find a barricade of chairs at the entrance of
the Tuilleries, and are greeted with a shower of stones and
bottles. Elsewhere, on the Boulevard, before the Hôtel
Montmorency, some of the French Guards, escaped from their
barracks, fired on a loyal detachment of the 'Royal Allemand.'
The tocsin is sounding on all sides, the shops where arms are
sold are pillaged, and the Hôtel-de-Ville is invaded; 15 or 16
well-disposed electors, who meet there, order the districts to
be assembled and armed.--The new sovereign, the people in arms
and in the street, has declared himself. The dregs of society
at once come to the surface. During the night between the 12th
and 13th of July, 'all the barriers, from the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, besides those of
the Faubourgs Saint-Marcel and Saint-Jacques, are forced and
set on fire.' There is no longer an 'octroi'; the city is
without a revenue just at the moment when it is obliged to
make the heaviest expenditures. ... 'During this fearful
night, the bourgeoisie kept themselves shut up, each trembling
at home for himself and those belonging to him.' On the following
day, the 13th, the capital appears to be given up to bandits
and the lowest of the low. ... During these two days and
nights, says Bailly, 'Paris ran the risk of being pillaged,
and was only saved from the marauders by the national guard.'
... Fortunately the militia organized itself, and the
principal inhabitants and gentlemen enrol themselves; 48,000
men are formed into battalions and companies; the bourgeoisie
buy guns of the vagabonds for three livres apiece, and sabres
or pistols for twelve sous. At last, some of the offenders are
hung on the spot, and others disarmed, and the insurrection again
becomes political.
{1262}
But, whatever its object, it remains always wild, because it
is in the hands of the populace. ... There is no leader, no
management. The electors who have converted themselves into
the representatives of Paris seem to command the crowd, but it
is the crowd which commands them. One of them, Legrand, to
save the Hôtel-de-Ville, has no other resource but to send for
six barrels of gun-powder, and to declare to the assailants
that he is about to blow everything into the air. The
commandant whom they themselves have chosen, M. de Salles, has
twenty bayonets at his breast during a quarter of an hour,
and, more than once, the whole committee is near being
massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the premises where the
discussions are going on, and petitions are being made, 'a
concourse of 1,500 men pressed by 100,000 others who are
forcing an entrance,' the wainscoting cracking, the benches
upset one over another ... a tumult such as to bring to mind
'the day of judgment,' the death-shrieks, songs, yells, and
'people beside themselves, for the most part not knowing where
they are nor what they want.' Each district is also a petty
centre, while the Palais-Royal is the main centre. ... One
wave gathers here and another there, their strategy consists
in pushing and in being pushed. Yet, their entrance is
effected only because they are let in. If they get into the
Invalides it is owing to the connivance of the soldiers.--At
the Bastille, firearms are discharged from ten in the morning
to five in the evening against walls 40 feet high and 30 feet
thick, and it is by chance that one of their shots reaches an
'invalide' on the towers. They are treated the same as
children whom one wishes to hurt as little as possible. The
governor, on the first summons to surrender, orders the cannon
to be withdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the garrison swear
not to fire if it is not attacked; he invites the first of the
deputations to lunch; he allows the messenger dispatched from
the Hôtel-de-Ville to inspect the fortress; he receives
several discharges without returning them, and lets the first
bridge be carried without firing a shot. When, at length, he
does fire, it is at the last extremity, to defend the second
bridge, and after having notified the assailants that he is
going to do so. ... The people, in turn, are infatuated with
the novel sensations of attack and resistance, with the smell
of gunpowder, with the excitement of the contest; all they can
think of doing is to rush against the mass of stone, their
expedients being on a level with their tactics: A brewer
fancies that he can set fire to this block of masonry by
pumping over it spikenard and poppy-seed oil mixed with
phosphorus. A young carpenter, who has some archæological
notions, proposes to construct a catapult. Some of them think
that they have seized the governor's daughter, and want to
burn her in order to make the father surrender. Others set
fire to a projecting mass of buildings filled with straw, and
thus close up the passage. 'The Bastille was not taken by main
force,' says the brave Elie, one of the combatants; 'it was
surrendered before even it was attacked,' by capitulation, on
the promise that no harm should be done to anybody. The
garrison, being perfectly secure, had no longer the heart to
fire on human beings while themselves risking nothing, and, on
the other hand, they were unnerved by the sight of the immense
crowd. Eight or nine hundred men only were concerned in the
attack, most of them workmen or shopkeepers belonging to the
faubourg, tailors, wheelwrights, mercers, and wine-dealers,
mixed with the French Guards. The Place de la Bastille,
however, and all the streets in the vicinity, were crowded
with the curious who came to witness the sight; 'among them,'
says a witness, 'were a number of fashionable women of very
good appearance, who had left their carriages at some
distance.' To the 120 men of the garrison, looking down from
their parapets, it seemed as though all Paris had come out
against them. It is they, also, who lower the drawbridge and
introduce the enemy; everybody has lost his head, the besieged
as well as the besiegers, the latter more completely because
they are intoxicated with the sense of victory. Scarcely have
they entered when they begin the work of destruction, and the
latest arrivals shoot at random those that come earlier; 'each
one fires without heeding where or on whom his shot tells.'
Sudden omnipotence and the liberty to kill are a wine too
strong for human nature. ... Elie, who is the first to enter
the fortress, Cholat, Hulin, the brave fellows who are in
advance, the French Guards who are cognizant of the laws of
war, try to keep their word of honour; but the crowd pressing
on behind them know not whom to strike, and they strike at
random. They spare the Swiss soldiers who have fired on them,
and who, in their blue smocks, seem to them to be prisoners;
on the other hand, by way of compensation, they fall furiously
on the 'invalides' who opened the gates to them; the man who
prevented the governor from blowing up the fortress has his
wrist severed by the blow of a sabre, is twice pierced with a
sword and is hung, and the hand which had saved one of the
districts of Paris is promenaded through the streets in
triumph. The officers are dragged along and five of them are
killed, with three soldiers, on the spot, or on the way." M.
de Launay, the governor, after receiving many wounds, while
being dragged to the Hotel-de-Ville, was finally killed by
bayonet thrusts, and his head, cut from his body, was
placarded and borne through the streets upon a pitchfork.
_H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1)._
"I was present at the taking of the Bastille. What has been
styled the fight was not serious, for there was absolutely no
resistance shown. Within the hold's walls were neither
provisions nor ammunition. It was not even necessary to invest
it. The regiment of gardes françaises which had led the
attack, presented itself under the walls on the rue Saint
Antoine side, opposite the main entrance, which was barred by
a drawbridge. There was a discharge of a few musket shots, to
which no reply was made, and then four or five discharges from
the cannon. It has been claimed that the latter broke the
chains of the drawbridge. I did not notice this, and yet I was
standing close to the point of attack. What I did see plainly
was the action of the soldiers, invalides, or others, grouped
on the platform of the high tower, holding their muskets stock
in the air, and expressing by all means employed under similar
circumstances their desire of surrendering. The result of this
so-called victory, which brought down so many favors on the
heads of the so-called victors, is well-known. The truth is,
that this great fight did not for a moment frighten the
numerous spectators who had flocked to witness its result.
Among them were many women of fashion, who, in order to be
closer to the scene, had left their carriages some distance
away."
_Chancellor Pasquier,
Memoirs,
pages 55-56._
ALSO IN:
_D. Bingham,
The Bastille,
volume 2, chapters 9-12._
_R. A. Davenport,
History of the Bastile,
chapter 12._
_J. Claretie,
Camille Desmoulins and his Wife,
chapter 1, section 4._
{1263}
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (July).
Practical surrender of authority by the king.
Organization of the National Guard with Lafayette in command.
Disorder and riot in the provinces.
Hunger in the capital.
The murder of Foulon and Berthier.