THE FALL OF THE MONARCHY.
♦Flight of the Royal Family.♦
To the King and Queen their position had long since become intolerable.
They regarded the constitution as a monstrous work, based on principles
subversive of all good government. To the laws establishing the
Civil Constitution of the Clergy and imposing an oath on beneficed
ecclesiastics, Louis had given his official consent with reluctance,
but as he was unable to obtain the sanction of the Pope to what he had
done, his peace of conscience was gone. The Queen was greatly suspected
of using her influence to incite her husband against the revolution.
She was intensely unpopular. Up to the middle of the century France
had pursued a policy of opposition to Austria. In 1756 jealousy of
England, and of England’s ally, the rising state of Prussia, had
brought about an offensive and defensive alliance between France and
Austria. The national feeling of hostility had, however, not died out,
and the insignificant part that France took in foreign affairs was
ascribed not to the decadence of the monarchy, but to the Austrian
alliance. To make firm the bond, the partisans of the new system had
accomplished, in 1770, a marriage between Louis, then Dauphin, and
Marie Antoinette, daughter of the Empress Queen, Maria Theresa. Thus,
from her first entrance into the country, Marie Antoinette had been
regarded with disfavour, as the pledge of an unpopular alliance.
Courtiers and intriguers, opposed to the faction which had brought
about her marriage, had accused her of sacrificing French to Austrian
interests, and had bruited false and scandalous tales against her name.
By the revolutionary journalists she was now held up to execration
as the untrue wife and false Queen, the betrayer of France, who was
seeking by aid of Austrian troops to put down the revolution in blood.
Now that trouble had destroyed her love of dissipation and brought
into relief the strong side of her character, Marie Antoinette devoted
all the energy of which her mind was capable to the task of recovering
for her husband and bequeathing to her son the reins of government.
She found her chief pleasure in the fulfilment of her duties as wife
and mother, and by her dignified bearing impressed those who came into
contact with her with a high idea of her daring and intellect. Less
ready, however, than her husband to make concessions, and far more
so to practise deceit, she proved an evil councillor to Louis. Both
desired that the constitution should fail, and regarded the increase
of disorder with indifference, under the idea that suffering would
speedily recall their penitent subjects to the foot of the throne.
Meanwhile, Louis made repeated and public avowals of his satisfaction
with the constitution, intending hereafter to withdraw his words on
the plea that he was not at liberty to express his true opinion. Since
the winter a plan of flight to the eastern frontier was projected, but
its execution was delayed owing to want of money and troops. The Queen
relied on her brother, the Emperor Leopold, to place whatever Austrian
troops were in Luxemburg at her disposal in case of need. She thought
that if the King were once in safety on the frontier, and able to
protect his supporters, a large portion of the nation would rally round
him, and that it would be possible to make a settlement which, while
leaving to the country some form of constitutional government, would
set the royal authority above the heads of all subjects. Rumours that
the King intended flight had for months been floating about. In April,
the national guard, in spite of Lafayette’s remonstrances, detained by
force the royal carriages when on the point of starting for the Palace
of St. Cloud, a short distance outside the city.
The King and Queen had for some time been preparing for flight, though
the day of departure had been from various causes delayed. Servants
who could not be trusted had to be dismissed, and clothes and other
articles forwarded to the frontier ready for use. On the night of
June 20 the King, disguised as a valet, his sister, the Princess
Elizabeth, the Queen, the two children, and their governess, left the
Tuileries unobserved, and were driven in a hackney-carriage a short
distance outside Paris. Here they found ready waiting them a large
new travelling coach, built for the occasion, and three soldiers of
the bodyguard, dressed in yellow liveries, and prepared to act as
couriers. The destination of the royal party was Montmédy, close to
the Luxemburg frontier; and the Marquis of Bouillé, who commanded
in that quarter, had undertaken to station detachments of troops to
guard the way at all the chief towns and villages after Chalons. It
was already two o’clock at night when the coach left Paris behind.
The driver urged on his horses at a quick pace, some eight miles an
hour, and about five o’clock in the afternoon the travellers reached
Chalons-sur-Marne. At this point the most dangerous part of the journey
seemed over. At the next post-house, Pont Sommevesle, Louis expected to
see the first detachment of Bouillé’s troops. On his arrival, a little
after six, he was, however, disappointed. Bouillé had, indeed, with
considerable skill, ordered the passage of troops so that detachments
should be present at all the principal places on the road along which
the royal party was travelling; but unfortunately at each station
those in command lacked either zeal or capacity, or both. Because the
coach was three or four hours behind the time expected, the troops had
already withdrawn from Pont Sommevesle. At St. Menehould, Louis, who
incautiously put his head out of window, was recognised by the master
of the post, Drouet, who observed his likeness to the image of the King
on the assignats. Though not stopped, the coach was pursued by Drouet
and others, whilst the troops present in the town suffered themselves
to be disarmed. About midnight the coach safely reached Varennes, a
little town divided in two by the river Aire. While the bodyguards
were vainly seeking in the darkness a relay of horses, which was
waiting on the farther side of the bridge, Drouet and his companions
rode into the town, roused the mayor, and with whatever waggons and
barrels came first to hand, blocked the road over the bridge. The coach
was stopped, and the travellers compelled to alight and enter a house
belonging to a grocer, the procureur of the commune. This was close to
the bridge, beyond which were sixty hussars in their barracks. Their
officers, in place of calling them out on the first alarm, rode off to
seek instructions of Bouillé, who was miles away, at Stenay. Fifty or
sixty more troops arrived shortly afterwards, and during the night it
was still possible to disperse the opposers with a charge, and force a
way through the barricade. The officers, unwilling to do it on their
own responsibility, sought commands of Louis, who refused to take any
decisive action. The Queen, nearly on her knees, implored the wife of
the procureur, Madame Sauce, to let them proceed on their way. The
woman expressed sympathy for her, but said that she too had a husband
and children to care for. Meanwhile barricades were being strengthened,
the alarm-bells were ringing through all the countryside, and by the
morning the town was crowded with national guards, with whom the
troops were drinking. The return journey was therefore begun, and five
days after their departure the fugitives re-entered the Tuileries as
prisoners (June 25).
♦Split between constitutionalists and ultra-democrats.♦
When Louis’s flight was first reported, intense alarm prevailed at
Paris. It was expected that civil war, already organised, was on the
point of breaking out, and that the emigrants were about to cross the
frontier. The King’s capture brought a sense of relief, but did not
tend to lessen the difficulties of the situation. In justification
of his departure, Louis had left behind him a document, in which he
criticised the constitution from an unfavourable point of view, and
called in question all that had been done since October 1789. Thus
by act and word he had made known, without disguise, his intention
not to rule in accordance with the constitution, and henceforth
it was impossible that the country should have confidence in him.
Ultra-democrats with one voice wisely pronounced his protest and flight
a virtual abdication. Some, slow to take a decided part, amongst whom
Robespierre was prominent, or desirous of putting the Duke of Orleans
forward, demanded Louis’s deposition and a regency; others, as Brissot,
Desmoulins, and Danton, more sanguine and more outspoken, called
for the establishment of a republic. The Cordeliers, under Danton’s
guidance, covered the walls with placards in favour of a republic.
The Jacobins, following Robespierre, stopped short of this, and asked
only for the deposition of Louis. Closing their eyes, however, to the
undoubted fact of the King’s insincerity, the deputies of the left and
centre rallied together to support the tottering throne. They were
aware that the republican party was but a small minority. Lafayette and
Barnave, as well as other deputies, held themselves pledged in honour
to Louis to maintain his throne. In case of deposition, there was
increased danger of involving France in foreign war. Neither a change
of succession nor a regency appeared desirable. The King’s brothers
were emigrants, the Duke of Orleans a tool in the hands of Parisian
demagogues. Above all, there was fear that the deposition of Louis
would tend to undermine the constitution itself, and give increased
influence to the advocates of pure democracy. Under the influence of
such motives, the Assembly determined to restore the executive power
to Louis, should he accept the constitution when presented to him as
a completed whole. The republican party attempted a demonstration
against this decision. On Sunday, July 17, a large gathering of persons
assembled in the Champ de Mars, where a petition was signed asking
the Assembly to reconsider its decrees. The meeting itself was not
illegal, and in character perfectly peaceful. It was possible, however,
that within twenty-four hours the petition would be brought before the
Assembly supported by an armed and threatening mob. Urged on by the
monarchists, the municipal officers, accompanied by Lafayette and the
national guard, marched to the place of assemblage. Before the Riot Act
was read or dispersion possible, some companies fired, in irritation,
into the throng, killing and maiming several persons, men, women, and
children. General flight followed, and the petition was no more heard
of.
♦Attempt to revise the Constitution.♦
This event, known in the annals of the revolution as the massacre of
the Champ de Mars, caused complete severance between the men who were
bent on maintaining the constitution and the ultra-democratic party. A
schism took place in the Jacobins. The constitutionalists founded a new
club, the Feuillants, so called because it met in a convent formerly
belonging to monks of that name, while the ultra-democrats remained in
undisputed possession of the Jacobins. Amongst the constitutionalists
or Feuillants were Lafayette, Barnave, the Lameths, and all the most
prominent men of the centre and left. Could they have done their
work over again, they would have introduced material changes in the
constitution, with the double object of making it more acceptable
to the King, and enabling the ministry to exercise control over the
administrative bodies. Their main fear was that, after the dissolution
of the existing Assembly, new men would come into power who, having
had no hand in framing the constitution, would not have the same
interest as themselves in sustaining it. According to a constitutional
law, those who had been deputies could neither enter the ministry nor
hold any government appointment for a certain number of years; while
a special law forbade the election of men who had been members of the
present constituent Assembly to the ensuing Legislature. Robespierre
had proposed this latter law in April 1791, and to obtain its adoption
had appealed to the deputies to give proof of disinterestedness.
When the constitutional laws were adopted in a body, ready for final
presentation to Louis, some few amendments were made, but the attempt
of the constitutionalists to obtain the repeal of these important
disqualifications failed. The right voted with Robespierre and Pétion,
rejoicing over the falling out of their opponents.
♦Work of the Assembly.♦
Louis, when the constitution was presented to him, undertook to
govern in accordance with it, and the deputies then dispersed to give
place to their successors (September 30). Called upon to effect in
the course of a few months changes which could only be accomplished
without convulsions in the course of years, whatever their errors, they
had rendered France many and great services. By their legal reforms
alone they did away with an untold amount of mental and physical
suffering. By their economical and financial reforms they paved the
way for a new era in agriculture and industrialism. If, under passion
and prejudice, they had on occasions wantonly increased the number
and fury of opponents, yet much that they had been called on to do
remained still undone, and when they closed the sittings there was
small prospect that the tide of revolution would stop at the limit
which they had drawn. They had found neither time nor opportunity to
establish any general system of poor relief or any national system of
education. By their decrees dealing with proprietary rights they had
struck at the root of the old law, but the work of promulgating a new
code they left to those who came after them. With the fiefs had fallen
the law of primogeniture, but liberty of devise had been left in the
main unrestricted, though in default of a will all relations equal
in blood inherited equally. This principle of equal division was not
a speculative invention of the revolution, but as regards land held
by certain tenures, it had already existed in some parts of France.
The finances of the state had been restored only on paper. All the
expenses of government were regulated and the civil list fixed. Four
main branches of the revenue, tobacco and salt monopolies, excise
duties, and duties on wine had been abolished. The yearly expenditure,
including the expenses of the Established Church, was estimated at
27,900,000_l._, of which 21,350,000_l._ had to be raised by taxation.
In place of the _taille_ a tax of 13,125,000_l._, rated by local
boards, was imposed on lands and buildings. Taxes of 2,625,000_l._
were imposed on personal property. The remaining 6,000,000_l._ were
to be raised by various forms of indirect taxation, custom duties,
stamp taxes, and trade patents. The debt, however, during these two
and a half years of revolution had been greatly augmented, and the
deficit increased. The holders of the abolished offices had been
liberally indemnified, and the reforms effected in all departments
cost the nation no less than 61,200,000_l._, swelling the state debt
to more than 87,500,000_l._ Meanwhile the people had refused to pay
the old taxes long before their abolition by the Assembly, and it was
now only with difficulty that some portion of the new was collected.
Not only to pay state creditors, but also to cover the expenses of
government, resort had been had to new issues of assignats, and in
the spring of 1791 the paper money fell in value about ten per cent.
Metal money became scarce, being sent out of the kingdom or kept in
reserve. To supply the circulation, assignats of a few shillings value
had been created, and thus their fall in value affected all classes.
In September 1791 there were in circulation assignats to the value of
about 48,125,000_l._
♦Plans of the Queen.♦
Marie Antoinette and Louis had no other aim in accepting the
constitution than to deceive the nation until foreign powers were
ready to act in their behalf. After her return from Varennes the Queen
repeatedly urged on her brother, the Emperor Leopold, to effect the
meeting of a European congress for the settlement of French affairs.
This congress was to have at its disposition an army; but the Queen
wished that war should be avoided. Her expectation was that the
country, under terror of invasion, would gladly accept the mediation of
the King, and consent to a remodelling of the constitution according
to his wishes. She sought to separate the cause of the crown alike
from the cause of emigrants and of constitutionalists. She recalled
with bitterness the opposition of the nobles to the government
before 1789, and deeply resented their subsequent flight as a base
desertion of the royal cause. Their present conduct stood in the way
of the accomplishment of her own plans and heightened her feelings of
resentment. They refused to accept as sincere the King’s acceptance
of the constitution; they excited the country by threats of invasion
and vengeance; and, by representing themselves as defenders of the
monarchy, brought on Louis suspicion of being their accomplice. ‘The
cowards,’ she indignantly wrote, ‘first to abandon us, and then to
require that we should think only of them and their interests!’ To
alliance with the constitutionalists Marie Antoinette was as averse as
to alliance with the emigrants. Even were they willing and able to make
some modifications in the constitution, to rule on their terms was to
rule under their tutorship. Accordingly, while pretending to be acting
with them, she looked forward with impatience to the day when she might
with safety show her hand and prove them her tools and dupes.
♦State of Europe.♦
There was, however, small probability that a European congress would
meet; still less that the nation would, without resistance, submit
to foreign interference. Europe was in a disturbed condition. The
great powers had no confidence in one another, nor were they desirous
of acting in union. The empire of which the Queen’s brother was the
head was composed of more than 300 states, greatly varying in size.
The Peace of Westphalia, concluded at the end of the Thirty Years’
War (1648), had assured the princes all the rights of independent and
absolute rulers. Imperial institutions were in decay. The military
organisation of the empire was very defective and inefficient for its
defence. The Diet consisted merely of a few diplomatists, sitting
permanently at Ratisbon, who were representatives of the larger states,
and whom the smaller entrusted with their votes. Under Frederick the
Great (1740–1786) Prussia had developed into a strong power, which
acted as a rival to Austria within the empire. On all important
occasions the larger states followed the lead either of the Emperor
or of the King of Prussia, and between the cabinets of Vienna and
Berlin a bitter antagonism existed. Russia was another state which,
during the past hundred years, had risen into prominence. The Empress
Catherine II. was an able and ambitious woman, who had made use of the
rivalry existing between Prussia and Austria to interfere with effect
in the affairs of Central Europe. Throughout the century, all the great
powers, influenced by ambition and a desire for strengthening their
frontiers, had pursued a policy of territorial aggrandisement. Louis
XIV. had taken from the empire Alsace and Lorraine; Frederick the Great
had torn Silesia from Austria; in 1772, Catherine II., Frederick the
Great, and Maria Theresa together had deprived Poland of some of her
provinces; more recently the Emperor Joseph II., son of Maria Theresa,
had sought to incorporate Bavaria with the Austrian dominions, and
had formed an alliance with Catherine for the spoliation of Turkey.
In 1783 Catherine obtained the Crimea, thus extending her dominions
to the Black Sea. Under this condition of things, the main security
of the weaker states was found in the jealousy existing between the
more powerful. The principle of the balance of power required that
no large alterations should be made in the map of Europe, and that no
one power should make territorial acquisitions unless others obtained
an equivalent. Thus the opposition of Frederick the Great had foiled
Joseph’s project of incorporating Bavaria. It was the traditional
policy of France to support Sweden, Poland, and Turkey against
aggression, and the readiness with which the first partition of Poland
was carried out in 1772 was wholly owing to the decadence into which
the French monarchy had fallen under Louis XV.
♦Europe and the revolution.♦
In 1789, when the States-General met, Joseph and Catherine were engaged
in hostilities with Turkey, while England, Holland, and Prussia
threatened to take part in the conflict on behalf of the Porte. This
war in the east, and the possibility of a European conflict diverted
attention from affairs in France. In February 1790, however, the
enterprising and ambitious Joseph II. died; and his brother and
successor, Leopold II., a prince of cool and cautious temperament, made
it his chief object to restore order within his own dominions, more
especially in Hungary and Belgium, which were still in a disturbed
state owing to Joseph’s reforms. To insure Austria against being
attacked by Prussia, he made, in July 1790, a treaty with Frederick
William II., nephew of Frederick the Great, at Reichenbach, and,
to free his hands more completely, entered into negotiations with
Turkey. He had no disposition to attempt the restoration of absolute
monarchy in France. It was the belief of continental statesmen that
where, as in Poland or in England, a constitutional form of monarchy
existed, the executive was necessarily weak and precluded from acting
with vigour or decision in foreign affairs. Hence neither Leopold
nor his chancellor, Kaunitz, took exception to the establishment of
constitutional monarchy in France, which indeed they regarded as a pure
gain to Austria. But after the flight of the royal family to Varennes,
and the manifestation of republican opinions in Paris, foreign princes
began to look on Louis’s cause as the cause of kings, and to dread
lest revolutionary principles, spreading beyond France, should render
their own thrones insecure. Leopold, desirous to aid his sister, sought
the alliance of Frederick William, and made peace with the Porte at
Sistova. A meeting was held between the two allied princes at Pilnitz,
where they signed a declaration expressing their readiness to undertake
armed intervention in French affairs, if other European powers would
unite with them (August 27). Practically this declaration was no more
than a threat. Neither Leopold nor Frederick William contemplated
immediate resource to arms. The English cabinet, directed by Pitt, had
already refused to take part in common action. The alliance between
Austria and Prussia was as yet but loosely knit and was regarded with
distrust by the old school of both Austrian and Prussian statesmen.
Affairs in the east, moreover, called for unremitting attention.
Poland, situated between three powerful and grasping neighbours, was
a prey to perpetual anarchy. The monarchy was elective, and the king
was kept in check by the fierce and seditious nobility by whose votes
he was placed on the throne. The peasantry were downtrodden serfs, and
the middle class without political rights; king and nobles struggling
for power invited foreign interference, and Russia and Prussia by
turns exercised ascendancy at Warsaw. In May 1791, a patriotic party,
eager to secure national independence by the establishment of a strong
government, obtained the adoption of a new constitution, curtailing the
privileges of the nobles and making the crown hereditary. This measure
at once excited the hostility of Catherine. She gave support to its
opponents, and in order that she might carry out her designs in Poland
undisturbed made peace with Turkey, and sought to stir up a European
war in the west, encouraging the French emigrants, and instigating the
German powers to interfere in their behalf. Catherine’s zeal, however,
rendered Leopold the less willing to involve himself in hostilities,
since events on the Vistula were of much more moment to him than the
details of the French constitution. When, therefore, in September,
Louis agreed to rule in accordance with the constitution, he affected
to regard him as a free agent, and in the hope that the constitutional
party would maintain the upper hand, turned a deaf ear to his sister’s
entreaties that he would obtain the meeting of a European congress.
The King of Prussia entertained a violent hatred of the principles of
the revolution, but Polish affairs and distrust of Austria restrained
him from coming forward as a champion of Louis’s cause. Thus, while
continental princes agreed that the revolutionary tide must be stayed,
nothing was settled as to time and means.
♦The new Legislature.♦
In such a state of foreign affairs the new Legislative Assembly met
(October 1), the only one which ever came together in accordance
with that constitution which had cost so much labour to build up. It
consisted of 740 deputies, who represented exclusively revolutionary
France. There were in it no partisans of the old rule, and no reformers
with aristocratic tendencies. The right side was now composed of
constitutionalists, who held that only by close adherence to the
constitution could the country be safely guided between the double
perils of reaction and anarchy. Though without confidence in the King,
they regarded him as much less powerful for harm than the leaders of
the Parisian populace, and sought on all occasions to maintain him in
the unrestrained exercise of his constitutional prerogatives. The left
of the Assembly, though avowedly constitutionalist, at heart cherished
a desire for the establishment of a more democratic government, and
the abolition of monarchy. A group of men, remarkable for youth,
talent, and eloquence, sat on this side of the house. They were called
Girondists, because their chief orators--Vergniaud, Gensonné, Guadet,
and others who formerly belonged to the bar of Bordeaux--had been
returned by the department of the Gironde. These men were fervent
democrats and republicans, and at the same time defenders of the
principle of individual liberty. They were also sceptics and theists,
inheritors of Voltaire’s passionate scorn and hatred of Catholicism.
Brissot, who now had a seat in the house, belonged to them, and his
journal became the recognised organ of their party. Their policy was
mainly dictated by a theoretic aversion to monarchical government,
and nervous apprehension of the consequences of Louis’s treachery.
Alive, however, to the fact that public opinion was in favour of the
constitution, they formed no definite plans for its destruction, but
endeavoured to obtain the adoption of measures calculated to reveal the
King’s duplicity, and so to weaken the hold that the throne had upon
the affection of the nation. The body of deputies forming the centre
of the Assembly sincerely desired the maintenance of the constitution,
but had no reliance on the good faith of Louis, and hence oscillated
between the right and the left, being desirous of maintaining the
throne, and yet being afraid to give to the executive a hearty support
or to take strong measures for the suppression of insurrectionary
movements.
♦Ecclesiastical policy.♦
Important questions pressed upon the Legislature for solution. The
ecclesiastical settlement attempted by the constituent Assembly was
being daily proved impracticable. In many cases the administrative
bodies strove hard to preserve the peace and to keep the Churches
open, both to the nonjurors and their rivals; but their efforts were
hopeless. Without a military force always at command it was practically
impossible to maintain both parties in their legal rights. In some
departments the nonjurors set themselves at the head of insurgent
peasants. In others they were subjected to insult and outrage. At Paris
they could celebrate mass only under the protection of national guards.
During the summer of 1791 many administrative bodies, on the plea that
by no other means could order be preserved, prohibited nonjurors from
officiating in parish churches, and required them to reside in the
chief town of the department, away from their former parishioners. The
Legislature had no choice but either to abandon the imposition of the
oath or to follow it out to its logical consequences, and to regard
those who refused to take it as enemies to the existing order. The
last course accorded best with the prejudices of the majority, who
accused the nonjurors of being the sole authors of troubles to which
the situation itself could not fail to give rise. Some on the left
proposed to exile them in a body. The Girondists detested them as the
most bigoted of Catholics. The right weakly sought, on the ground of
religious liberty, to leave matters as they were; but the centre here
voted with the left, and a decree was passed depriving nonjurors of
their pensions, and preventing their officiating in public (November
25). Louis, however, refused his sanction, and the situation remained
unchanged.
♦Foreign policy.♦
A second and no less important question before the Assembly was the
policy to be pursued in relation to the emigrants and to foreign
powers. The Elector of Treves and other rulers of the small states, lay
and ecclesiastical, on the Rhine, gave encouragement and aid to the
emigrants in arming against France. These princes were eager to involve
the larger states of the Empire in hostilities. Their territories
were amongst the worst governed in Germany, and they feared lest
revolutionary principles should prove contagious, and affect their own
subjects. Many of them had, besides, a special ground of complaint. In
Alsace and Lorraine they possessed rights as seigneurs, secured to them
by the Treaty of Westphalia, and of which the decrees of August 4 (p.
50) had deprived them. This matter, however, might easily have been
arranged between France and the Empire had there been a disposition on
either side to maintain peace.
The principles of foreign policy pursued by the cabinets of Europe,
and the theories promulgated by the revolutionists, were in direct
opposition to one another. Statesmen took no account of national
forces or aspirations, but, intent on territorial acquisitions, were
ready to distribute populations of the same race and tongue among
different masters as suited diplomatic combinations. On the contrary,
the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people involved a right to
national independence. The constituent Assembly had publicly declared
the aversion of the French nation to offensive wars, and had given
proof of its pacific tendencies by limiting the army to 150,000
men. But the flight of the King and the drawing together of Austria
and Prussia gave rise to great uneasiness as to the intentions of
those powers, while the threat of interference in the Declaration of
Pilnitz gave deep offence to the national pride. Measures were taken
for increasing the army by an additional force of 97,000 volunteers.
The Legislative, like the constituent Assembly, repudiated ideas of
aggression and conquest, but became rapidly inflamed with warlike
zeal. It gave expression to the intense feelings of hatred existing
against the emigrants by a decree condemning to death as traitors all
Frenchmen who, after the end of the year, should still be beyond the
frontier in arms against their country (November 9). Louis refused to
sanction the decree, and thus increased the suspicion resting on him
of being the secret accomplice of those against whom it was aimed. The
Girondists desired war with Austria. They were aware that there was no
immediate danger of attack from the great powers, and that both the
emigrants and the princes who abetted them, unless supported by the
Emperor, were impotent; but they believed that, during war, the King’s
duplicity would be clearly revealed, and judged it the wiser course, in
place of waiting for attack, to begin hostilities, while Leopold still
sought to avoid them. Enthusiastic confidence in the national spirit
to fight to the last extremity in defence of its independence, and the
expectation that the principles of the revolution would spread rapidly
amongst other nations, and cause them to rise against their rulers,
led the Girondists to entertain no doubt of the success of their arms.
‘Let us tell Europe,’ exclaimed a fiery orator, Isnard, ‘that if
cabinets engage kings in a war against peoples, we will engage peoples
in a war against kings.’ Of the constitutionalists few cared to avoid
a rupture. The majority looked forward to war as a means of insuring
the ascendancy of their own party, and of bringing into existence
a powerful army under Lafayette’s command. There was no difficulty
in finding a ground of quarrel with Leopold either as Emperor or as
King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Assembly threatened to attack the
empire unless the bands of emigrants on the frontier were dispersed.
Afterwards, shifting its ground, it accused Leopold of having broken
the treaty of 1756 between France and Austria, and declared that a
refusal to renounce all treaties directed against the independence of
the French nation--in other words, his understanding with the King of
Prussia--would be held tantamount to a declaration of war (January 25,
1792). This hostile attitude of the Assembly hastened the conclusion of
a defensive alliance between Austria and Prussia; after which Leopold,
no longer caring to delay hostilities, added fuel to the flame by
claiming a right of interference in the internal affairs of France,
and by accusing the Assembly of being under the illegal ascendancy of
republicans and Jacobins.
The outbreak of war might probably have been postponed, but it could
hardly have been definitely averted. The doctrines of social and
political equality announced by the French revolutionists were not, as
were the arguments from law and precedent which had in the seventeenth
century risen to the surface in the English Long Parliament, adapted
merely to the country in which they arose. They were applicable to all
the states of Western Europe. Hence, they acquired all the force of a
religious propaganda. As in the sixteenth century men were not asked
whether they were Germans or Frenchmen, but whether they were Catholics
or Protestants, so now they would be first asked whether they were
on the side of the revolutionary opinions or not. Before that great
division of opinions all national antagonisms sank into comparative
insignificance. The French revolutionist could not long avoid being
carried away by a fierce desire to give effectual aid to his brother
revolutionist abroad, and the German or English anti-revolutionist
could not long keep his hands out of the fray whilst the classes in
France with whom he warmly sympathised were being borne down and
oppressed.
♦Declaration of War.♦
The ministry at this important crisis was disunited and without the
confidence of the Assembly. While the Assembly desired war, Delessart,
minister of foreign affairs, sought to maintain peace. The minister
of war, Narbonne, a friend of Lafayette, flung so much energy and
enthusiasm into the work of making preparations for hostilities that he
won support from both sides of the Assembly. Bertrand de Molleville,
minister of marine, was a reactionary. Louis through aversion to
Lafayette dismissed Narbonne from office. Brissot took advantage of
the discontent that this step excited amongst constitutionalists
to bring a charge of high treason against Delessart for betraying
the interests of France to Austria (March 10). This attack led to a
break-up of the cabinet, and Louis, whose one object now was to tide
with safety over the next few months, till the arrival of the allies at
Paris, put in office men who represented the opinions dominant in the
Assembly. Roland and Clavière, respectively ministers of the interior
and of finance, belonged to the Girondists. Dumouriez, minister of
foreign affairs, was an able, self-confident and unscrupulous soldier,
eager to obtain distinction and a career. On March 1, Leopold had
died. His son and successor, Francis, a young man of four-and-twenty,
who was some months later elected Emperor, cared less to avoid a
rupture than his father had done. The new French ministry was above
all a war ministry, and on the official proposition of the King, the
Assembly amid loud applause, declared war against Francis, as King of
Hungary and Bohemia (April 20). Wars have often been entered on with
as little ground of offence, but rarely with more rashness than when
the Assembly thus engaged France in hostilities with Austria, which
would necessarily involve a war also with her ally Prussia. The French
fortresses were out of repair and the army completely disorganised.
Since 1789 hundreds of officers had resigned, deserted, or had been
driven away by their men. According to the laws of the constituent
Assembly under officers were elected out of the ranks, and officers
generally advanced according to length of service. There were, however,
hundreds of vacancies still unfilled, and desertions both in army and
navy continued. Of the 150,000 troops of the line, 50,000 had yet to be
recruited. The 97,000 volunteers ordered to be raised were for the most
part unarmed and untrained.
♦Robespierre and the Jacobins.♦
The peril of the country excited on all sides suspicion and distrust,
increasing the bitterness of party strife and threatening to undermine
the standing ground alike of constitutionalists and Girondists.
Girondists as little as constitutionalists had an interest in making
further alterations in the bases of social order. If the Girondists
held more democratic notions of life and government, yet by equality
they understood equality of rights alone, and were to the full as
zealous defenders of the principles of internal free trade and
individual liberty. They were also political purists and precisians,
who, while decrying the aristocracies of birth and wealth, were intent
on founding one of talent and virtue. Hence no sooner had they obtained
possession of the ministries than they came into sharp collision with
whatever members of the ultra-democratic party did not share their
genuine devotion to impracticable ideals. A spirit different from
theirs was by this time rising into prominence amongst the Jacobins.
The saddest result of the long exercise of arbitrary authority is
that it renders mutual confidence impossible. The legacy of the old
system of government to the new France was distrust. Man distrusted
man, and class distrusted class. Thousands of persons who had embarked
in the revolution full of sentimental hope and confidence were now
rushing into the opposite extreme. They had known so little of their
fellow creatures as to imagine that the new equality would be received
with enthusiasm, even by those who had profited the most by the old
inequality; and they now fancied that under every reluctance to accept
the fullest results of the revolution was concealed a deep design
to betray it. A perfect self-confidence easily leads to the most
deep-rooted suspicion; and those who, after the long seclusion from
all participation in practical politics to which most Frenchmen had
been condemned for centuries, were inevitably ignorant how complicated
modern society is, readily imagined all who differed from them to
be traitors to their country. Not only was this suspicion directed
against the King and those of the once privileged orders who remained
in France, but it fastened upon all superiority of station or of
intellect. Many who had been educated in the theories of Rousseau to
believe unreasonably in the purity and intelligence of the masses,
learned no less unreasonably to distrust every man who in any way
rose above the common level, and offered himself with more or less
qualification as a rallying point to the disorganised society around
him.
The man who most represented this prevailing distrust of all
superiority would in the end gain for a time that very superiority
which he himself denied to be desirable, but which was required by
the very necessities of human nature. Such a man was Maximilien
Robespierre. A lawyer from Arras, he had been so far influenced by the
teaching of Rousseau as to throw up a lucrative judicial post, lest he
should be compelled to condemn a fellow-creature to death. From such
feelings of pity for the human race to cruelty towards individuals
there is in times of revolution, but a short step. The few who stood
in the way of the entrance of the people into the promised land, where
liberty, equality, and fraternity were to become the accepted rule of
life, soon came to be regarded as monsters of wickedness, whom it was
the duty of every good citizen to sweep away from the earth for very
kindness’ sake. The time for such a proscription had not yet come.
But Robespierre, though he was now excluded from the Legislature, as
having been a member of the last Assembly, was always on the alert in
the Jacobins, ready in dry and acrid tones to draw attention to every
delinquency of those who were struggling to build up authority. The
social and political formulas of Rousseau alone had taken root in his
mind. He cared for equality, and he cared for democracy. For individual
liberty he ceased to care as soon as he found himself in a position to
get the better of his adversaries by resorting to the arms of absolute
and despotic governments. He was certain to be a dangerous and a cruel
opponent. His mind was logical and narrow, he was ambitious and envious
of all above himself, cunning and hypocritical, yet earnest in pursuit
of his aims, incapable of strong affection, of a generous act or a
magnanimous resolution, and wholly devoid of moral sense. Whoever stood
in his light he regarded at once as a personal enemy and a traitor to
the people’s cause. By temperament he was nervous and cautious. He
never set himself at the head of popular movements, always guarded his
statements so as to mean much or little, according to circumstances;
and in case of danger, delayed till the last moment to take a decided
part. Robespierre opposed the war because he divined that both
constitutionalists and Girondists entered upon it with the aim of
obtaining for themselves mastery over France. While the Girondists
accused him of making himself the people’s idol, he accused them of
seeking power for party purposes. In the end he entirely destroyed the
popularity originally enjoyed by Brissot, Guadet, and others in the
Jacobins. The society had become even more democratic in character
since the constitutionalists abandoned it in July 1791. The galleries
were opened to the public, and were ordinarily filled by the most
ardent revolutionists belonging to the lower and lower middle classes.
Of this audience Robespierre won the entire confidence. He put himself
forward as the special representative of the people, whose wisdom
and goodness formed his constant theme. He personified the distrust
felt by the lower classes towards the possessors of rank, wealth, and
talent. He was himself indifferent to the enjoyments that wealth can
give, absolutely incorruptible, an orator without brilliant qualities
of any kind, but in appearance and language always respectable. Behind
Robespierre, frequenters of the Jacobins and joining in the attack on
the Girondists, were Desmoulins and others, to whom the preciseness and
exclusiveness of Roland and Brissot gave offence, besides adventurers
and agitators of the lowest type, whose sole object was to pave the way
for their own advent to power and office. Marat, in his journal, openly
accused the Girondists as well as the constitutionalists of being sold
to the court, and included both in the general proscription which he
unceasingly urged on the people of Paris.
♦Administrative anarchy.♦
The party conflicts waged in the capital were repeated in the
departments. The central government was powerless to impose uniform
action. Roland, the minister of the interior, issued circulars,
inculcating the duty of obedience to the laws, but words were powerless
to restrain the passions which the revolution had let loose. Each
administrative body followed its own course, according as it was
under the dominion of constitutionalist or Girondist opinions. In the
departments round Paris small armies of peasants and brigands, often
with municipal officers at their head, went about fixing a maximum
price of corn and other articles of food. In Languedoc and Guienne
insurgent bands extorted money and pillaged country houses. But nowhere
was administrative anarchy so great and crime so rife as in the four
departments of Gard, Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, and Lozère, where
reactionary and revolutionary elements came into violent collision.
In Lozère attempts were being made to excite amongst the peasantry
a Catholic reaction, and an armed camp, in communication with the
emigrants, was formed at Jalès. On the other hand, the municipality
at Marseilles, composed of violent ultra-democrats, raised a force
of 4,000 men, and disarmed a Swiss regiment at Aix, and the national
guard of Arles. Avignon, under mob rule, witnessed the commission of
horrible crimes. The Comtat Venaissin had belonged to the Pope since
1273, and Avignon, its chief town, since 1348. After the meeting of
the States-General civil war broke out within this small territory
between the supporters and opponents of revolutionary principles and of
union with France. The constituent Assembly sent mediators who patched
up a peace in January 1791. In September 1791 it at last decreed the
union of Avignon and the Comtat to France. But it had been too late to
prevent the perpetration of the most atrocious deeds. The force raised
by the French party, which had been recruited from the lowest sources,
quarrelled with its employers, the municipality of Avignon. A number
of persons were imprisoned without regard to age or sex. One of the
insurgent officers was in revenge brutally murdered in the streets.
His comrades, led by Jourdan, a brigand by profession, retaliated
by killing in cold blood sixty and more prisoners--men, women, and
children--whose bodies they flung into a dungeon beneath a tower of the
Papal palace (October, 1791). The assassins, though they were at first
imprisoned, afterwards obtained their release in right of an amnesty,
which the constituent Assembly before its dispersion had passed,
covering all crimes attaching to the revolution.
♦Position of Girondists.♦
The undisguised enmity of Robespierre, the cry raised for a maximum
price of corn, the tragedy of Avignon, the illegalities and crimes
incessantly committed, alarmed the Girondists, and tended to restrain
them from coming to open breach with the constitutionalists; but they
continued to regard domestic treason as far more dangerous than mob
violence, both to themselves and to France, and fearing to give the
executive the least vantage ground whence to facilitate the advance of
the Allies, opposed with vehemence the employment of coercive measures,
either to suppress political agitation on the part of the clubs, or
to restrain administrative bodies from passing beyond their legal
functions. They still entertained the belief that the people would be
brought to obey the voice of reason, and thought that were Louis’s
treachery once set in a clear light, the storm of revolution would pass
over with the establishment of a republican government, and the country
return without effort to paths of law and amity.
♦The 20th June.♦
Sense of danger made the Assembly the more eager to resort to
repressive measures against the emigrants and the nonjurors. The
property, real and personal, of the emigrants, was put under charge of
the administrative bodies, and their revenues confiscated by the state.
A decree, to which, however, the King refused his sanction, authorised
the directories of the departments to banish nonjurors who refused to
take an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law, and the King (May
27). Sanguine expectations of victory had been rapidly dissipated. In
April the Belgian frontier was crossed; but the troops on their first
meeting with the enemy fled in disorder, disobeying their officers,
whom they accused of treason. Servan, the minister of war, proposed the
formation of an armed camp for the protection of Paris. Much opposition
was however, raised to the project, and the Assembly decreed (June 6)
that 20,000 volunteers, recruited in the departments, should meet at
Paris to take part in the celebration of a federal festival on July
14, the third anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. The real object
of those who supported the decree was to have a force at Paris with
which to maintain mastery over the city should the Allies penetrate
into the interior. Louis left the decree unsanctioned, as he had the
one directed against nonjurors. The agitators of the sections sought
to get up an armed demonstration against this exercise of the King’s
constitutional prerogative. Though armed demonstrations were illegal,
the municipality offered but a perfunctory and half-hearted resistance.
Bailly had resigned office in the autumn of the preceding year. The
new mayor, Pétion, was a Girondist. During the winter half of the
municipal officers had been re-elected, and of the new members many
were ultra-democrats. Lafayette, no longer at the head of the national
guard, commanded on the eastern frontier. The officers of the guard
were mostly constitutionalists, but there was so little confidence in
the King that few were prepared to act with vigour or could answer
for the conduct of their men. Louis, irritated at the pressure put
on him by Roland, Clavière, and Servan to sanction the two decrees,
dismissed the three ministers from office (June 13). Dumouriez, who
had quarrelled with his colleagues, supported the King in taking this
step, but in face of the hostility of the Assembly himself resigned
office (June 15). Three days later a letter from Lafayette was read
in the Assembly. The general denounced the Jacobins as the authors of
all disorders, called on the Assembly to maintain the prerogatives
of the crown, and intimated that his army would not submit to see
the constitution violated (June 18). Possibly the dismissal of the
ministers and the writing of this letter were measures concerted
between the King and Lafayette. In any case the King’s motive was to
excite division between the constitutionalists and the Girondists, so
as to weaken the national defence. The dismissal of the ministers was,
however, regarded by the Girondists as a proof of the truth of their
worst suspicions, and no measures were taken to prevent an execution
of the project of making an armed, and therefore illegal demonstration
against the royal policy. On June 20, thousands of persons, carrying
pikes or whatever weapon came to hand, and accompanied by several
battalions of the national guard, marched from St. Antoine to the hall
of the Assembly. A deputation read an address demanding the recall of
the ministers. Afterwards the whole of the procession, men, women, and
children, dancing, singing, and carrying emblems, defiled through the
chamber. Instigated by their leaders they broke into the Tuileries. The
King, who took his stand on a window seat, was mobbed for four hours.
To please his unwelcome visitors, he put on his head a red cap, such
as was now commonly worn at the Jacobins as an emblem of liberty, in
imitation of that which was once worn by the emancipated Roman slave.
He declared his intention to observe the constitution, but neither
insult nor menace could prevail on him to promise his sanction to the
two decrees. The Queen, separated from the King, sat behind a table on
which she placed the Dauphin, exposed to the gaze and taunts of the
crowds which slowly traversed the palace apartments. At last, but not
before night, the mob left the Tuileries without doing further harm,
and order was again restored.
This insurrection and the slackness, if not connivance, of the
municipal authorities, excited a widespread feeling of indignation
amongst constitutionalists. Lafayette came to Paris, and at the bar of
the Assembly demanded in person what he had before demanded by letter
(June 28). With him, as with other former members of the constituent
Assembly, it was a point of honour to shield the persons of the King
and Queen from harm. Various projects for their removal from Paris were
formed, but policy and sentiment alike forbade Marie Antoinette to take
advantage of them. There was hazard in their execution, and the aims
of their authors were not hers. The one gleam of light on the horizon
of this unhappy Queen was the advance of the Allies. ‘Better die,’
she one day bitterly exclaimed, ‘than be saved by Lafayette and the
constitutionalists!’
♦Country declared in danger.♦
There was, no doubt, a possibility of the Allies reaching Paris that
summer, but this enormously increased the danger of the internal
situation. There were 80,000 Austrians and Prussians collecting on the
other side of the Rhine. To oppose their advance there were but 40,000
men stationed at Metz and Sedan, half of whom were recruits who had
never seen fire. The new ministers were constitutional monarchists
of weak type, who had neither energy nor a decided policy. It was
known that the army was not in a fit state to repel the enemy. The
Girondist orators unnerved the Assembly by asking whether the King
and his ministers desired that it should be in such a state? Both in
Paris and in the departments thousands of honest and patriotic men,
disgusted with party violence, and not knowing which side to take,
withdrew wholly into private life, or went to serve on the frontier.
To rouse the nation to a sense of peril the Assembly caused public
proclamation to be made in every municipality that the country was in
danger. The appeal was responded to with enthusiasm, and within six
weeks more than 60,000 volunteers enlisted. The Duke of Brunswick, the
commander-in-chief of the allied forces, published a manifesto, drawn
up by the emigrants. If the authors of this astounding proclamation had
deliberately intended to serve the purpose of those Frenchmen who were
bent on kindling zeal for the war, they could not have done anything
more likely to serve their purpose. The powers required the country to
submit unconditionally to Louis’s mercy. All who offered resistance
were to be treated as rebels to their King, and Paris was to suffer
military execution if any harm befell the royal family.
♦August 10.♦
The Jacobins openly proposed to depose the King. Those who shared
their views in the Assembly, however, consisted of but a small body
of members, who were called the Mountain, because they occupied the
topmost benches on the left. Unhappily the majority refused to take
into consideration a question the solution of which in the sense
indicated by the Jacobins would have spared much future misery to
both King and people. In the house of Roland, the dismissed Girondist
minister of the interior, projects were discussed of defending the
line of the Loire in case of the Allies reaching the capital. Madame
Roland, a talented, enthusiastic woman, who directed the actions of her
husband, was the centre of a small, and uncompromising circle, which
was ready to abet the destruction of the throne by violence. But the
leading Girondists--Vergniaud, Brissot, Guadet, and Gensonné--unwilling
that the republic should owe its origin to violence, were prepared to
give support to the throne had Louis assented to make the executive
dependent on the Legislature, and to restore the late ministers to
office. Their overtures to this effect were, however, rejected; and,
meanwhile, a second insurrection, which had for its object the King’s
deposition, was in preparation. The Assembly, after declaring the
country in danger, had authorised the sections of Paris, as well
as the administrative authorities throughout France, to meet at
any moment. The sections had, in consequence, been able to render
themselves entirely independent of the municipality. In each of the
sectional or primary assemblies from 700 to 3,000 active citizens had
the right to vote, but few cared to attend, and thus it constantly
happened that a small active minority spoke and acted in the name
of an apathetic constitutional majority. Thousands of volunteers
passed through Paris on their way to the frontier, some of whom were
purposely retained to take part in the insurrection. The municipality
of Marseilles, at the request of Barbaroux, a young friend of the
Rolands, sent up a band of 500 men, who first sung in Paris the verses
celebrated as the ‘Marseillaise.’ The danger was the greater since
every section had its own cannon and a special body of cannoneers, who
nearly to a man were on the side of the revolutionists. The terrified
and oscillating Assembly made no attempt to suppress agitation,
but acquitted (August 8) Lafayette, by 406 against 280 votes, of a
charge of treason made against him by the left, on the ground that
he had sought to intimidate the Legislature. This vote was regarded
as tantamount to a refusal to pass sentence of deposition on Louis.
On the following night the insurrection began. Its centre was in the
Faubourg of St. Antoine, and it was organised by but a small number
of men. Mandat, the commander-in-chief of the national guard, was an
energetic constitutionalist, who had taken well concerted measures
for the defence of the Tuileries. But the unscrupulousness of the
conspirators was more than a match for his zeal. Soon after midnight
commissioners from twenty-eight sections met together at the Hôtel de
Ville, and forced the Council-General of the Municipality to summon
Mandat before it, and to send out orders to the officers of the guard
in contradiction to those previously given. Mandat, unaware of what
was passing, obeyed the summons, and on his arrival was arrested and
murdered. After this the commissioners dispersed the lawful council
and usurped its place. At the Tuileries were about 950 Swiss and more
than 4,000 national guards. Early in the morning the first bands of
insurgents appeared. On the fidelity of the national guards it was
impossible to rely; and the royal family, attended by a small escort,
left the palace, and sought refuge with the Assembly. Before their
departure orders had been given to the Swiss to repel force by force,
and soon the sound of firing spread alarm through Paris. The King sent
the Swiss instructions to retire, which they punctually obeyed. One
column, passing through the Tuileries gardens, was shot down almost
to a man. The rest reached the Assembly in safety, but several were
afterwards massacred on their way to prison. For twenty-four hours
the most frightful anarchy prevailed. Numerous murders were committed
in the streets. The assailants, some hundreds of whom had perished,
sacked the palace, and killed all the men whom they found there. Of
the 749 deputies only 284 ventured to attend the sitting. The Assembly
was flooded by dense crowds calling for the deposition of the King.
A decree was passed pronouncing Louis provisionally suspended, and
summoning a National Convention to decide on the future form of
government. The distinction between active and passive citizens was
abolished, and manhood suffrage ordained. Roland, Clavière, and Servan
were restored to office, and the candidate of the Mountain, Danton,
appointed minister of justice.
The throne which had for so many centuries been the symbol of law and
order for the French nation, had fallen in a day before the attack of a
disorganised mob. Yet the very ease with which the insurgents succeeded
in their task carries conviction with it that the catastrophe was the
result of causes which had been long at work. In truth, the throne
of Louis had, since the meeting of the States-General, ceased to be
the symbol of law and order. Unable to guide the people whom he had
once called his subjects, Louis had become an obstacle in their path.
It was but natural that he should feel dissatisfied with the course
of events which had reduced him to that nullity for which alone his
character fitted him. Even in time of peace his existence in a place
of nominal authority would have been irritating alike to himself and
to those who still called him King. With the outbreak of war his
position became absolutely untenable. He could not but wish well to the
invaders, whose advent would free him from degradation and personal
constraint. The mere suspicion that such a wish was entertained by
him--and such a suspicion would be hard to silence--would arm against
him all who most prized the independence of their country, or would
make them indifferent to his fall. Even if he did nothing to assist the
invaders, his continuance on the throne would paralyse the national
defence. To remove the cause of that paralysis was the first step to
that reorganisation of anarchical France which the invasion had made
imperative. Though Louis had been struck down by a violent and unruly
mob, the submission of France to the act done in its name was more than
the outcome of that helplessness to which Frenchmen had been condemned
by centuries of despotic government. It was the silent acknowledgment
that Louis was out of place upon the throne.