I.--Paris.
Powerlessness and discords of the authorities.--The people,
king.
The powerlessness, indeed, of the heads of the Government, and the
lack of discipline among all its subordinates, are much greater in the
capital than in the provinces.--Paris possesses a mayor, Bailly; but
"from the first day, and in the easiest manner possible,"[1401] his
municipal council, that is to say, "the assembly of the representatives
of the commune, has accustomed itself to carry on the government alone,
overlooking him entirely." There is a central administration, the
municipal council, presided over by the mayor; but, "at this time,
authority is everywhere except where the preponderating authority should
be; the districts have delegated it and at the same time retained it;"
each of them acts as if it were alone and supreme.--There are secondary
powers, the district-committees, each with its president, its clerk, its
offices, and commissioners; but the mobs of the street march on without
awaiting their orders; while the people, shouting under their" windows,
impose their will on them;--in short, says Bailly again, "everybody knew
how to command, but nobody knew how to obey."
"Imagine," writes Loustalot[1402] himself; "a man whose feet, hands, and
limbs possessed each its own intelligence and will, whose one leg would
wish to walk when the other one wanted to rest, whose throat would close
when the stomach demanded food, whose mouth would sing when the eyelids
were weighed down with sleep; and you will have a striking picture of
the condition of things in the capital"
There are "sixty Republics"[1403] in Paris; each district is an
independent, isolated power, which receives no order without criticizing
it, always in disagreement and often in conflict with the central
authority or with the other districts. It receives denunciations, orders
domiciliary visits, sends deputations to the National Assembly, passes
resolutions, posts its bills, not only in its own quarter but throughout
the city, and sometimes even extends its jurisdiction outside of Paris.
Everything comes within its province, and particularly that which
ought not to do so.--On the 18th of July, the district of
Petits-Augustins[1404] "decrees in its own name the establishment of
justices of the peace," under the title of tribunes, and proceeds at
once to elect its own, nominating the actor Molé. On the 30th, that of
the Oratoire annuls the amnesty which the representatives of the commune
in the Hôtel-de-Ville had granted, and orders two of its members to go
to a distance of thirty leagues to arrest M. de Bezenval. On the 19th of
August, that of Nazareth issues commissions to seize and bring to Paris
the arms deposited in strong places. From the beginning each assembly
sent to the Arsenal in its own name, and "obtained as many cartridges
and as much powder as it desired." Others claim the right of keeping a
watchful eye over the Hôtel-de-Ville and of reprimanding the National
Assembly. The Oratoire decides that the representatives of the commune
shall be invited to deliberate in public. Saint-Nicholas des Champs
deliberates on the veto and begs the Assembly to suspend its vote.--It
is a strange spectacle, that of these various authorities each
contradicting and destroying the other. To-day the Hôtel-de-Ville
appropriates five loads of cloth which have been dispatched by the
Government, and the district of Saint-Gervais opposes the decision of
the Hôtel-de-Ville. To-morrow Versailles intercepts grain destined
for Paris, while Paris threatens, if it is not restored, to march on
Versailles. I omit the incidents that are ridiculous:[1405] anarchy
in its essence is both tragic and grotesque, and, in this universal
breaking up of things, the capital, like the kingdom, resembles a
bear-garden when it does not resemble a Babel.
But behind all these discordant authorities the real sovereign, who is
the mob, is very soon apparent.--On the 15th of July it undertakes the
demolition of the Bastille of its own accord, and this popular act is
sanctioned; for it is necessary that appearances should be kept up;
even to give orders after the blow is dealt, and to follow when it is
impossible to lead.[1406] A short time after this the collection of
the octroi at the barriers is ordered to be resumed; forty armed
individuals, however, present themselves in their district and say, that
if guards are placed at the octroi stations, "they will resist force
with force, and even make use of their cannon."--On the false rumor that
arms are concealed in the Abbey of Montmartre, the abbess, Madame de
Montmorency, is accused of treachery, and twenty thousand persons invade
the monastery.--The commander of the National Guard and the mayor are
constantly expecting a riot; they hardly dare absent themselves a day
to attend the King fête at Versailles. As soon as the multitude can
assemble in the streets, an explosion is imminent. "On rainy days," says
Bailly, "I was quite at my ease."--It is under this constant pressure
that the Government is carried on; and the elect of the people, the most
esteemed magistrates, those who are in best repute, are at the mercy of
the throng who clamor at their doors. In the district of St. Roch,[1407]
after many useless refusals, the General Assembly, notwithstanding all
the reproaches of its conscience and the resistance of its reason, is
obliged to open letters addressed to Monsieur, to the Duke of Orleans,
and to the Ministers of War, of Foreign Affairs, and of the Marine. In
the committee on subsistence, M. Serreau, who is indispensable and who
is confirmed by a public proclamation, is denounced, threatened,
and constrained to leave Paris. M. de la Salle, one of the strongest
patriots among the nobles, is on the point of being murdered for having
signed an order for the transport of gunpowder;[1408] the multitude, in
pursuit of him, attach a rope to the nearest street-lamp, ransack the
Hôtel-de-Ville, force every door, mount into the belfry, and seek for
the traitor even under the carpet of the bureau and between the legs of
the electors, and are only stayed in their course by the arrival of the
National Guard.
The people not only sentence but they execute, and, as is always the
case, blindly. At Saint-Denis, Chatel, the mayor's lieutenant, whose
duty it is to distribute flour, had reduced the price of bread at
his own expense: on the 3rd of August his house is forced open at two
o'clock in the morning, and he takes refuge in a steeple; the mob follow
him, cut his throat and drag his head along the streets.--Not only do
the people execute, but they pardon--and with equal discernment. On the
11th of August, at Versailles, as a parricide is about to be broken on
the wheel, the crowd demand his release, fly at the executioner, and set
the man free.[1409] Veritably this is sovereign power like that of the
oriental sovereign who arbitrarily awards life or death! A woman who
protests against this scandalous pardon is seized and comes near being
hung; for the new monarch considers as a crime whatever is offensive to
his new majesty. Again, he receives public and humble homage. The
Prime Minister, on imploring the pardon of M. de Bezenval at the
Hôtel-de-Ville, in the presence of the electors and of the public, has
put it in appropriate words:
"It is before the most unknown, the obscurest citizen of Paris that I
prostrate myself; at whose feet I kneel."
A few days before this, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and at Poissy, the
deputies of the National Assembly not only kneel down in words, but
actually, and for a long time, on the pavement in the street, and
stretch forth their hands, weeping, to save two lives of which only
one is granted to them.--Behold the monarch by these brilliant signs!
Already do the young, who are eager imitators of all actions that are
in fashion, ape them in miniature; during the month which follows the
murder of Berthier and Foulon, Bailly is informed that the gamins in the
streets are parading about with the heads of two cats stuck on the ends
of two poles.[1410]
II.--The distress of the people.
The dearth and the lack of work.--How men of executive
ability are recruited.
A pitiable monarch, whose recognized sovereignty leaves him more
miserable than he was before! Bread is always scarce, and before the
baker's doors the row of waiting people does not diminish. In vain
Bailly passes his nights with the committee on supplies; they are always
in a state of terrible anxiety. Every morning for two months there is
only one or two days' supply of flour, and often, in the evening, there
is not enough for the following morning.[1411] The life of the capital
depends on a convoy which is ten, fifteen, twenty leagues off; and which
may never arrive: one convoy of twenty carts is pillaged on the 18th of
July, on the Rouen road; another, on the 4th of August, in the vicinity
of Louviers. Were it not for Salis' Swiss regiment, which, from the 14th
of July to the end of September, marches day and night as an escort,
not a boat-load of grain would reach Paris from Rouen.[1412]--The
commissaries charged with making purchases or with supervising the
expeditions are in danger of their lives. Those who are sent to
provinces are seized, and a column of four hundred men with cannon has
to be dispatched to deliver them. The one who is sent to Rouen learns
that he will be hung if he dares to enter the place. At Mantes a mob
surrounds his cabriolet, the people regarding whoever comes there for
the purpose of carrying away grain as a public pest; he escapes with
difficulty out of a back door and returns on foot to Paris.--From the
very beginning, according to a universal rule, the fear of a short
supply helps to augment the famine. Every one lays in a stock for
several days; on one occasion sixteen loaves of four pounds each are
found in an old woman's garret. The bakings, consequently, which are
estimated according to the quantity needed for a single day, become
inadequate, and the last of those who wait at the bakers' shops for
bread return home empty-handed.--On the other hand the appropriations
made by the city and the State to diminish the price of bread simply
serve to lengthen the rows of those who wait for it; the countrymen
flock in thither, and return home loaded to their villages. At
Saint-Denis, bread having been reduced to two sous the pound, none
is left for the inhabitants. To this constant anxiety add that of
unemployment. Not only is there no certainty of there being bread at the
bakers' during the coming week, but many know that they will not have
money in the coming week with which to buy bread. Now that security has
disappeared and the rights of property are shaken, work is wanting. The
rich, deprived of their feudal dues, and, in addition thereto of their
rents, have reduced their expenditure; many of them, threatened by the
committee of investigation, exposed to domiciliary visits, and liable to
be informed against by their servants, have emigrated. In the month of
September M. Necker laments the delivery of six thousand passports in
fifteen days to the wealthiest inhabitants. In the month of October
ladies of high rank, refugees in Rome, send word that their domestics
should be discharged and their daughters placed in convents. Before the
end of 1789 there are so many fugitives in Switzerland that a house,
it is said, brings in more rent than it is worth as capital. With this
first emigration, which is that of the chief spendthrifts, the Count
d'Artois, Prince de Conti, Duc de Bourbon, and so many others, the
opulent foreigners have left, and, at the head of them, the Duchesse
de l'Infantado, who spent 800,000 livres a year. There are only three
Englishmen in Paris.
It used to be a city of luxury, it was the European hot-house of costly
and refined pleasures, but once the glass was broken then the delicate
plants perish, their lovers leave, and there is no employment now for
the innumerable hands which cultivated them. Fortunate are they who at
the relief works obtain a miserable sum by handling a pick-axe! "I saw,"
says Bailly, "mercers, jewellers, and merchants implore the favor of
being employed at twenty sous the day." Enumerate, if you can, in one or
two recognized callings, the hands which are doing nothing:[1413] 1,200
hair-dressers keep about 6,000 journeymen; 2,000 others follow the same
calling in private-houses; 6,000 lackeys do but little else than this
work. The body of tailors is composed of 2,800 masters, who have under
them 5,000 workmen. "Add to these the number privately employed--the
refugees in privileged places like the abbeys of Saint-Germain and
Saint-Marcel, the vast enclosure of the Temple, that of Saint-John the
Lateran, and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and you will find at least
12,000 persons cutting, fitting, and sewing." How many in these two
groups are now idle! How many others are walking the streets, such
as upholsterers, lace-makers, embroiderers, fan-makers, gilders,
carnage-makers, binders, engravers, and all the other producers of
Parisian nick-nacks! For those who are still at work how many days are
lost at the doors of bakers' shops and in patrolling as National
Guards! Gatherings are formed in spite of the prohibitions of the
Hôtel-de-Ville,[1414] and the crowd openly discuss their miserable
condition: 3,000 journeymen-tailors near the Colonnade,
as many journeymen-shoemakers in the Place Louis XV., the
journeymen-hairdressers in the Champs-Elysees, 4,000 domestics without
places on the approaches to the Louvre,--and their propositions are on a
level with their intelligence. Servants demand the expulsion from
Paris of the Savoyards who enter into competition with them.
Journeymen-tailors demand that a day's wages be fixed at forty sous, and
that the old-clothes dealers shall not be allowed to make new ones. The
journeymen-shoemakers declare that those who make shoes below the fixed
price shall be driven out of the kingdom. Each of these irritated and
agitated crowds contains the germ of an outbreak--and, in truth, these
germs are found on every pavement in Paris: at the relief works, which
at Montmartre collect 17,000 paupers; in the Market, where the bakers
want to hang the flour commissioners, and at the doors of the bakers,
of whom two, on the 14th of September and on the 5th of October, are
conducted to the lamp post and barely escape with their lives.--In this
suffering, mendicant crowd, enterprising men become more numerous every
day: they consist of deserters, and from every regiment; they reach
Paris in bands, often 250 in one day. There, "caressed and fed to the
top of their bent,"[1415] having received from the National Assembly
50 livres each, maintained by the King in the enjoyment of their
advance-money, entertained by the districts, of which one alone incurs
a debt of 14,000 livres for wine and sausages furnished to them, "they
accustom themselves to greater expense," to greater license, and are
followed by their companions. "During the night of the 31st of July the
French Guards on duty at Versailles abandon the custody of the King and
betake themselves to Paris, without their officers, but with their arms
and baggage," that "they may take part in the cheer which the city of
Paris extends to their regiment." At the beginning of September, 16,000
deserters of this stamp are counted.[1416] Now, among those who commit
murder these are in the first rank; and this is not surprising when we
take the least account of their antecedents, education, and habits. It
was a soldier of the "Royal Croat" who tore out the heart of Berthier.
They were three soldiers of the regiment of Provence who forced the
house of Chatel at Saint-Denis, and dragged his head through
the streets. It is Swiss soldiers who, at Passy, knock down the
commissioners of police with their guns. Their headquarters are at the
Palais-Royal, amongst women whose instruments they are, and amongst
agitators from whom they receive the word of command. Henceforth, all
depends on this word, and we have only to contemplate the new popular
leaders to know what it will be.
III.--The new popular leaders.
Their ascendancy.--Their education.--Their sentiments.
--Their situation.--Their councils.--Their denunciations.
Administrators and members of district assemblies, agitators of
barracks, coffee-houses, clubs and public thoroughfares, writers of
pamphlets, penny-a-liners are multiplying as fast as buzzing insects are
hatched on a sultry night. After the 14th of July thousands of jobs have
become available for released ambitions; "attorneys, notaries'
clerks, artists, merchants, shopkeepers, comedians and especially
advocates;[1417] each wants to be either an officer, a director, a
councillor, or a minister of the new reign; while journals, which are
established by dozens,[1418] form a permanent tribune, where speakers
come to court the people to their personal advantage." Philosophy,
fallen into such hands, seems to parody itself; and nothing equals its
emptiness, unless it be its mischievousness and success. Lawyers, in
the sixty assembly districts, roll out the high-sounding dogmas of the
revolutionary catechism. This or that one, passing from the question
of a party wall to the constitution of empires, becomes the improvised
legislator, so much the more inexhaustible and the more applauded as
his flow of words, showered upon his hearers, proves to them that every
capacity and every right are naturally and legitimately theirs.
"When that man opened his mouth," says a cold-blooded witness, "we were
sure of being inundated with quotations and maxims, often apropos of
street lamp posts, or of the stall of a herb-dealer. His stentorian
voice made the vaults ring; and after he had spoken for two hours,
and his breath was completely exhausted, the admiring and enthusiastic
shouts which greeted him amounted almost to frenzy. Thus the orator
fancied himself a Mirabeau, while the spectators imagined themselves the
Constituent Assembly, deciding the fate of France."
The journals and pamphlets are written in the same style. Every brain
is filled with the fumes of conceit and of big words; the leader of the
crowd is he who raves the most, and he guides the wild enthusiasm which
he increases.
Let us consider the most popular of these chiefs; they are the green or
the dry fruit of literature, and of the bar. The newspaper is the
stall which every morning offers them for sale, and if they suit the
overexcited public it is simply owing to their acid or bitter flavor.
Their empty, unpracticed minds are wholly void of political conceptions;
they have no capacity or practical experience. Desmoulins is twenty-nine
years of age, Loustalot twenty-seven, and their intellectual ballast
consists of college reminiscences, souvenirs of the law schools, and the
common-places picked up in the houses of Raynal and his associates.
As to Brissot and Marat, who are ostentatious humanitarians, their
knowledge of France and of foreign countries consists in what they have
seen through the dormer windows of their garrets, and through utopian
spectacles. In minds like these, empty or led astray, the Contrat-Social
could not fail to become a gospel; for it reduces political science to
a strict application of an elementary axiom which relieves them of all
study, and hands society over to the caprice of the people, or, in other
words, delivers it into their own hands.--Hence they demolish all
that remains of social institutions, and push on equalization until
everything is brought down to the same level.
"With my principles," writes Desmoulins,[1419] "is associated the
satisfaction of putting myself where I belong, of showing my strength to
those who have despised me, of lowering to my level all whom fortune has
placed above me: my motto is that of all honest people: 'No superiors!'"
Thus, under the great name of Liberty, each vain spirit seeks its
revenge and finds its nourishment. What is sweeter and more natural than
to justify passion by theory, to be factious in the belief that this is
patriotism, and to cloak the interests of ambition with the interests of
humanity?
Let us picture to ourselves these directors of public opinion as they
were three months earlier: Desmoulins, a briefless barrister, living in
furnished lodgings with petty debts, and on a few louis extracted from
his relations. Loustalot, still more unknown, was admitted the previous
year to the Parliament of Bordeaux, and has landed at Paris in search of
a career. Danton, another second-rate lawyer, coming out of a hovel in
Champagne, borrowed the money to pay his expenses, while his stinted
household is kept up only by means of a louis which is given to him
weekly by his father-in-law, who is a coffee-house keeper. Brissot, a
strolling Bohemian, formerly employee of literary pirates, has roamed
over the world for fifteen years, without bringing back with him either
from England or America anything but a coat out at elbows and false
ideas; and, finally, Marat; a writer that has been hissed, an abortive
scholar and philosopher, a misrepresenter of his own experiences, caught
by the natural philosopher Charles in the act of committing a scientific
fraud, and fallen from the top of his inordinate ambition to the
subordinate post of doctor in the stables of the Comte d'Artois.--At the
present time, Danton, President of the Cordeliers, can arrest any one he
pleases in his district, and his violent gestures and thundering voice
secure to him, till something better turns up, the government of his
section of the city. A word of Marat's has just caused Major Belzunce at
Caen to be assassinated. Desmoulins announces, with a smile of triumph,
that "a large section of the capital regards him as one among the
principal instigators of the Revolution, and that many even go so far as
to say that he is the author of it." Is it to be supposed that, borne so
high by such a sudden jerk of fortune, they wish to put on the drag and
again descend? and is it not clear that they will aid with all
their might the revolt which hoists them towards the loftiest
summits?--Moreover, the brain reels at a height like this; suddenly
launched in the air and feeling as if everything was tottering around
them, they utter exclamations of indignation and terror, they see plots
on all sides, imagine invisible cords pulling in an opposite direction,
and they call upon the people to cut them. With the full weight of their
inexperience, incapacity, and improvidence, of their fears, credulity,
and dogmatic obstinacy, they urge on popular attacks, and their
newspaper articles or discourses are all summed up in the following
phrases:
"Fellow-citizens, you, the people of the lower class, you who listen
to me, you have enemies in the Court and the aristocracy. The
Hôtel-de-Ville and the National Assembly are your servants. Seize your
enemies with a strong hand, and hang them, and let your servants know
that they must quicken their steps!"
Desmoulins styles himself "District-attorney of the gallows,"[1420] and
if he at all regrets the murders of Foulon and Berthier, it is because
this too expeditious judgment has allowed the proofs of conspiracy to
perish, thereby saving a number of traitors: he himself mentions twenty
of them haphazard, and little does he care whether he makes mistakes.
"We are in the dark, and it is well that faithful dogs should bark, even
at all who pass by, so that there may be no fear of robbers."
From this time forth Marat[1421] denounces the King, the ministers,
the administration, the bench, the bar, the financial system and the
academies, all as "suspicious;" at all events the people only suffer on
their account.
"The Government is monopolizing grain, to make us to pay through the
nose for a poisonous bread."
The Government, again, through a new conspiracy is about to blockade
Paris, so as to starve it with greater ease. Utterances of this kind,
at such a time, are firebrands thrown upon fear and hunger to kindle
the flames of rage and cruelty. To this frightened and fasting crowd the
agitators and newspaper writers continue to repeat that it must act,
and act alongside of the authorities, and, if need be, against them.
In other words, We will do as we please; we are the sole legitimate
masters;
"in a well-constituted government, the people as a body are the real
sovereign: our delegates are appointed only to execute our orders; what
right has the clay to rebel against the potter?"
On the strength of such principles, the tumultuous club which occupies
the Palais-Royal substitutes itself for the Assembly at Versailles.
Has it not all the titles for this office? The Palais-Royal "saved the
nation" on the 12th and 13th of July. The Palais-Royal, "through its
spokesmen and pamphlets," has made everybody and even the soldiers
"philosophers." It is the house of patriotism, "the rendezvous of the
select among the patriotic," whether provincials or Parisians, of all
who possess the right of suffrage, and who cannot or will not exercise
it in their own district. "It saves time to come to the Palais-Royal.
There is no need there of appealing to the President for the right to
speak, or to wait one's time for a couple of hours. The orator proposes
his motion, and, if it finds supporters, mounts a chair. If he is
applauded, it is put into proper shape. If he is hissed, he goes away.
This was the way of the Romans." Behold the veritable National Assembly!
It is superior to the other semi-feudal affair, encumbered with "six
hundred deputies of the clergy and nobility," who are so many intruders
and who "should be sent out into the galleries."--Hence the pure
Assembly rules the impure Assembly, and "the Café Foy lays claim to the
government of France."
IV.--Intervention by the popular leaders with the Government.
Their pressure on the Assembly.
On the 30th of July, the harlequin who led the insurrection at Rouen
having been arrested, "it is openly proposed at the Palais Royal[1422]
to go in a body and demand his release."--On the 1st of August, Thouret,
whom the moderate party of the Assembly have just made President, is
obliged to resign; the Palais-Royal threatens to send a band and murder
him along with those who voted for him, and lists of proscriptions,
in which several of the deputies are inscribed, begin to be
circulated.--From this time forth, on all great questions-the abolition
of the feudal system, the suppression of tithes, a declaration of the
rights of man, the dispute about the Chambers, the King's power of
veto,[1423] the pressure from without inclines the balance: in this
way the Declaration of Rights, which is rejected in secret session by
twenty-eight bureaus out of thirty, is forced through by the tribunes in
a public sitting and passed by a majority.--Just as before the 14th of
July, and to a still greater extent, two kinds of compulsion influence
the votes, and it is always the ruling faction which employs both its
hands to throttle its opponents. On the one hand this faction takes post
on the galleries in knots composed nearly always of the same persons,
"five or six hundred permanent actors," who yell according to understood
signals and at the word of command.[1424] Many of these are French
Guards, in civilian clothes, and who relieve each other: previously
they have asked of their favorite deputy "at what hour they must come,
whether all goes on well, and whether he is satisfied with those fools
of parsons (calotins) and the aristocrats." Others consist of low women
under the command of Théroigne de Méricourt, a virago courtesan, who
assigns them their positions and gives them the signal for hooting
or for applause. Publicly and in full session, on the occasion of the
debate on the veto, "the deputies are applauded or insulted by the
galleries according as they utter the word 'suspensive,' or the word
'indefinite.' "Threats," (says one of them) "circulated; I heard
them on all sides around me." These threats are repeated on going out:
"Valets dismissed by their masters, deserters, and women in rags,"
threaten the refractory with the lamp post, "and thrust their fists in
their faces. In the hall itself, and much more accurately than before
the 14th of July, their names are taken down, and the lists, handed
over to the populace," travel to the Palais-Royal, from where they
are dispatched in correspondence and in newspapers to the
provinces.[1425]--Thus we see the second means of compulsion; each
deputy is answerable for his vote, at Paris, with his own life, and,
in the province, with those of his family. Members of the former
Third-Estate avow that they abandon the idea of two Chambers, because
"they are not disposed to get their wives' and children's throats cut."
On the 30th of August, Saint-Hurugue, the most noisy of the Palais-Royal
barkers, marches off to Versailles, at the head of 1,500 men, to
complete the conversion of the Assembly. This garden club indeed, from
the heights of its great learning, integrity, and immaculate reputation,
decides that the ignorant, corrupt, and doubtful deputies must be got
rid of." That they are such cannot be questioned, because they defend
the royal sanction; there are over 600 and more, 120 are deputies of the
communes, who must be expelled to begin with, and then must be brought
to judgment.[1426] In the meantime they are informed, as well as the
Bishop of Langres, President of the National Assembly, that "15,000 men
are ready to light up their chateaux and in particular yours, sir."
To avoid all mistake, the secretaries of the Assembly are informed
in writing that '2,000 letters" will be sent into the provinces to
denounce to the people the conduct of the malignant deputies: "Your
houses are held as a surety for your opinions: keep this in mind, and
save yourselves!" At last, on the morning of the 1st of August, five
deputations from the Palais-Royal, one of them led by Loustalot, march
in turn to the Hôtel-de-Ville, insisting that the drums should be beaten
and the citizens be called together for the purpose of changing the
deputies, or their instructions, and of ordering the National Assembly
to suspend its discussion on the veto until the districts and provinces
could give expression to their will: the people, in effect, alone being
sovereign, and alone competent, always has the right to dismiss or
instruct anew its servants, the deputies. On the following day, August
2nd, to make matters plainer, new delegates from the same Palais-Royal
suit gestures to words; they place two fingers on their throats, on
being introduced before the representatives of the commune, as a hint
that, if the latter do not obey, they will be hung.
After this it is vain for the National Assembly to make any show of
indignation, to declare that it despises threats, and to protest its
independence; the impression is already produced. "More than 300 members
of the communes," says Mounier, "had decided to support the absolute
veto." At the end of ten days most of these had gone over, several of
them through attachment to the King, because they were afraid of "a
general uprising," and "were not willing to jeopardize the lives of the
royal family." But concessions like these only provoke fresh extortions.
The politicians of the street now know by experience the effect of
brutal violence on legal authority. Emboldened by success and by
impunity, they reckon up their strength and the weakness of the latter.
One blow more, and they are undisputed masters. Besides, the issue is
already apparent to clear-sighted men. When the agitators of the public
thoroughfares, and the porters at the street-corners, convinced of their
superior wisdom, impose decrees by the strength of their lungs, of their
fists, and of their pikes, at that moment experience, knowledge, good
sense, cool-blood, genius, and judgment, disappear from human affairs,
and things revert back to chaos. Mirabeau, in favor of the veto for
life, saw the crowd imploring him with tears in their eyes to change his
opinion:
"Monsieur le Comte, if the King obtains this veto, what will be the use
of a National Assembly? We shall all be slaves "[1427]
Outbursts of this description are not to be resisted, and all is lost.
Already, near the end of September, the remark applies which Mirabeau
makes to the Comte de la Marck:
"Yes, all is lost; the King and Queen will be swept away, and you will
see the populace trampling on their lifeless bodies."
Eight days after this, on the 5th and 6th of October, it breaks out
against both King and Queen, against the National Assembly and the
Government, against all government present and to come; the violent
party which rules in Paris obtains possession of the chiefs of France
to hold them under strict surveillance, and to justify its intermittent
outrages by one permanent outrage.
V.--The 5th and 6th of October.
Once more, two different currents combine into one torrent to hurry the
crowd onward to a common end.--On the one hand are the cravings of the
stomach, and women excited by the famine:
"Now that bread cannot be had in Paris, let us go to Versailles and
demand it there; once we have the King, Queen, and Dauphin in the midst
of us, they will be obliged to feed us;" we will bring back "the Baker,
the Bakeress, and the Baker's boy." --On the other hand, there is
fanaticism, and men who are pushed on by the need to dominate.
"Now that our chiefs yonder disobey us,--let us go and make them obey us
forthwith; the King is quibbling over the Constitution and the Rights of
Man--make him approve them; his guards refuse to wear our cockade--make
them accept it; they want to carry him off to Metz--make him come to
Paris, here, under our eyes and in our hands, he, and the lame Assembly
too, will march straight on, and quickly, whether they like it or not,
and always on the right road."--Under this confluence of ideas the
expedition is arranged.[1428] Ten days before this, it is publicly
alluded to at Versailles. On the 4th of October, at Paris, a woman
proposes it at the Palais-Royal; Danton roars at the Cordeliers;
Marat, "alone, makes as much noise as the four trumpets on the Day of
Judgment." Loustalot writes that a second revolutionary paroxysm is
necessary." "The day passes," says Desmoulins, "in holding councils at
the Palais-Royal, and in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, on the ends of
the bridges, and on the quays... in pulling off the cockades of but one
color.... These are torn off and trampled under foot with threats of the
lamp post, in case of fresh offense; a soldier who is trying to
refasten his, changes his mind on seeing a hundred sticks raised against
him."[1429] These are the premonitory symptoms of a crisis; a huge ulcer
has formed in this feverish, suffering body, and it is about to break.
But, as is usually the case, it is a purulent concentration of the most
poisonous passions and the foulest motives. The vilest of men and
women were engaged in it. Money was freely distributed. Was it done by
intriguing subalterns who, playing upon the aspirations of the Duke of
Orleans, extracted millions from him under the pretext of making him
lieutenant-general of the kingdom? Or is it due to the fanatics who,
from the end of April, clubbed together to debauch the soldiery, and
stir up a body of ruffians for the purpose of leveling and destroying
everything around them?[1430] There are always Machiavellis of the
highways and of houses of ill-fame ready to excite the foul and the
vile of both sexes. On the first day that the Flemish regiment goes into
garrison at Versailles an attempt is made to corrupt it with money and
women. Sixty abandoned women are sent from Paris for this purpose, while
the French Guards come and treat their new comrades. The latter have
been treated at the Palais-Royal, while three of them, at Versailles,
exclaim, showing some crown pieces of six livres, "What a pleasure it
is to go to Paris! one always comes back with money!" In this way,
resistance is overcome beforehand. As to the attack, women are to be the
advanced guard, because the soldiers will scruple to fire at them;
their ranks, however, will be reinforced by a number of men disguised
as women. On looking closely at them they are easily recognized,
notwithstanding their rouge, by their badly-shaven beards, and by their
voices and gait.[1431] No difficulty has been found in obtaining men
and women among the prostitutes of the Palais-Royal and the military
deserters who serve them as bullies. It is probable that the former lent
their lovers the cast-off dresses they had to spare. At night all will
meet again at the common rendezvous, on the benches of the National
Assembly, where they are quite as much at home as in their own
houses.[1432]--In any event, the first band which marches out is of this
stamp, displaying the finery and the gaiety of the profession; "most of
them young, dressed in white, with powdered hair and a sprightly air;"
many of them "laughing, singing, and drinking," as they would do at
setting out for a picnic in the country. Three or four of them are known
by name--one brandishing a sword, and another, the notorious Théroigne.
Madeleine Chabry Louison, who is selected to address the King, is a
pretty grisette who sells flowers, and, no doubt, something else, at the
Palais-Royal. Some appear to belong to the first rank in their calling,
and to have tact and the manners of society--suppose, for instance,
that Champfort and Laclos sent their mistresses. To these must be added
washerwomen, beggars, bare-footed women, and fishwomen, enlisted for
several days before and paid accordingly. This is the first nucleus,
and it keeps on growing; for, by compulsion or consent, the
troop incorporates into it, as it passes along, all the women it
encounters--seamstresses, portresses, housekeepers, and even respectable
females, whose dwellings are entered with threats of cutting off
their hair if they do not fall in. To these must be added vagrants,
street-rovers, ruffians and robbers--the lees of Paris, which accumulate
and come to the surface every time agitation occurs: they are to be
found already at the first hour, behind the troop of women at the
Hôtel-de-Ville. Others are to follow during the evening and in the
night. Others are waiting at Versailles. Many, both at Paris and
Versailles, are under pay: one, in a dirty whitish vest, chinks gold and
silver coin in his hand.--Such is the foul scum which, both in front and
in the rear, rolls along with the popular tide; whatever is done to stem
the torrent, it widens out and will leave its mark at every stage of its
overflow.
The first troop, consisting of four or five hundred women, begin
operations by forcing the guard of the Hôtel-de-Ville, which is
unwilling to make use of its bayonets. They spread through the rooms
and try to burn all the written documents they can find, declaring that
there has been nothing but scribbling since the Revolution began.[1433]
A crowd of men follow after them, bursting open doors, and pillaging
the magazine of arms. Two hundred thousand francs in Treasury notes are
stolen or disappear; several of the ruffians set fire to the building,
while others hang an abbé. The abbé is cut down, and the fire
extinguished only just in time: such are the interludes of the popular
drama. In the meantime, the crowd of women increases on the Place de
Grève, always with the same unceasing cry, "Bread!" and "To Versailles!"
One of the conquerors of the Bastille; the usher Maillard, offers
himself as a leader. He is accepted, and taps his drum; on leaving
Paris, he has seven or eight thousand women with him, and, in addition,
some hundreds of men; by dint of remonstrances, he succeeds in
maintaining some kind of order amongst this rabble as far as
Versailles.--But it is a rabble notwithstanding, and consequently so
much brute force, at once anarchical and imperious. On the one hand,
each, and the worst among them, does what he pleases--which will be
quite evident this very evening. On the other hand, its ponderous mass
crushes all authority and overrides all rules and regulations--which is
at once apparent on reaching Versailles.--Admitted into the Assembly, at
first in small numbers, the women crowd against the door, push in with a
rush, fill the galleries, then the hall, the men along with them, armed
with clubs, halberds, and pikes, all pell-mell, side by side with the
deputies, taking possession of their benches, voting along with them,
and gathering about the President, who, surrounded, threatened, and
insulted, finally abandons the position, while his chair is taken by
a woman.[1434] A fishwoman commands in a gallery, and about a hundred
women around her shout or keep silence at her bidding, while she
interrupts and abuses the deputies:
"Who is that speaker there? Silence that blabbermouth; he does not know
what he is talking about. The question is how to get bread. Let papa
Mirabeau speak--we want to hear him."
A decree on subsistence having been passed, the leaders demand something
in addition; they must be allowed to enter all places where they suspect
any monopolizing to be going on, and the price of "bread must be fixed
at six sous the four pounds, and meat at six sous per pound."
"You must not think that we are children to be played with. We are ready
to strike. Do as you are bidden."
All their political injunctions emanate from this central idea. And
further:
"Send back the Flemish regiment--it is a thousand men more to feed, and
they take bread out of our mouths."--"Punish the aristocrats, who hinder
the bakers from baking." "Down with the skull-cap; the priests are the
cause of our trouble!"--"Monsieur Mounier, why did you advocate that
villainous veto? Beware of the lamp post!"
Under this pressure, a deputation of the Assembly, with the President at
its head, sets out on foot, in the mud, through the rain, and watched by
a howling escort of women and men armed with pikes: after five hours
of waiting and entreaty, it wrings from the King, besides the decree on
subsistence, about which there was no difficulty, the acceptance,
pure and simple, of the Declaration of Rights, and his sanction to the
constitutional articles.--Such is the independence of the King and the
Assembly.[1435] Thus are the new principles of justice established, the
grand outlines of the Constitution, the abstract axioms of political
truth under the dictatorship of a crowd which extorts not only blindly,
but which is half-conscious of its blindness.
"Monsieur le President," some among the women say to Mounier, who
returns with the Royal sanction, "will it be of any real use to us? will
it give poor folks bread in Paris?"
Meanwhile, the scum has been bubbling up around the chateau; and the
abandoned women subsidized in Paris are pursuing their calling.[1436]
They slip through into the lines of the regiment drawn on the square, in
spite of the sentinels. Théroigne, in an Amazonian red vest, distributes
money among them.
"Side with us," some say to the men; "we shall soon beat the King's
Guards, strip off their fine coats and sell them."
Others lie sprawling on the ground, alluring the soldiers, and make such
offers as to lead one of them to exclaim, "We are going to have a jolly
time of it!" Before the day is over, the regiment is seduced; the women
have, according to their own idea, acted for a good motive. When a
political idea finds its way into such heads, instead of ennobling them,
it becomes degraded there; its only effect is to let loose vices which a
remnant of modesty still keeps in subjection, and full play is given to
luxurious or ferocious instincts under cover of the public good.--The
passions, moreover, become intensified through their mutual interaction;
crowds, clamor, disorder, longings, and fasting, end in a state of
frenzy, from which nothing can issue but dizzy madness and rage.--This
frenzy began to show itself on the way. Already, on setting out, a woman
had exclaimed,
"We shall bring back the Queen's head on the end of a pike!"[1437]
On reaching the Sèvres bridge others added,
"Let us cut her throat, and make cockades of her entrails!"
Rain is falling; they are cold, tired, and hungry, and get nothing to
eat but a bit of bread, distributed at a late hour, and with difficulty,
on the Place d'Armes. One of the bands cuts up a slaughtered horse,
roasts it, and consumes it half raw, after the manner of savages. It is
not surprising that, under the names of patriotism and "justice," savage
ideas spring up in their minds against "members of the National Assembly
who are not with the principles of the people," against "the Bishop
of Langres, Mounier, and the rest." One man in a ragged old red coat
declares that "he must have the head of the Abbé Maury to play nine-pins
with." But it is especially against the Queen, who is a woman, and in
sight, that the feminine imagination is the most aroused.
"She alone is the cause of the evils we endure.... she must be killed,
and quartered." --Night advances; there are acts of violence, and
violence engenders violence.
"How glad I should be," says one man, "if I could only lay my hand on
that she-devil, and strike off her head on the first curbstone!"
Towards morning, some cry out,
"Where is that cursed cat? We must eat her heart out... We'll take
off her head, cut her heart out, and fry her liver!" --With the first
murders the appetite for blood has been awakened; the women from Paris
say that "they have brought tubs to carry away the stumps of the
Royal Guards," and at these words others clap their hands. Some of the
riffraff of the crowd examine the rope of the lamp post in the court of
the National Assembly, and judging it not to be sufficiently strong, are
desirous of supplying its place with another "to hang the Archbishop
of Paris, Maury, and d'Espréménil."--This murderous, carnivorous rage
penetrates even among those whose duty it is to maintain order, one
of the National Guard being heard to say that "the body-guards must be
killed to the last man, and their hearts torn out for a breakfast."
Finally, towards midnight, the National Guard of Paris arrives; but
it only adds one insurrection to another, for it has likewise mutinied
against its chiefs.[1438]
"If M. de Lafayette is not disposed to accompany us," says one of the
grenadiers, "we will take an old grenadier for our commander."
Having come to this decision, they sought the general at the
Hôtel-de-Ville, and the delegates of six of the companies made their
instructions known to him.
"General, we do not believe that you are a traitor, but we think that
the Government is betraying us.... The committee on subsistence is
deceiving us, and must be removed. We want to go to Versailles to
exterminate the body-guard and the Flemish regiment who have trampled
on the national cockade. If the King of France is too feeble to wear
his crown, let him take it off; we will crown his son and things will go
better."
In vain Lafayette refuses, and harangues them on the Place de Grève; in
vain he resists for hours, now addressing them and now imposing silence.
Armed bands, coming from the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau,
swell the crowd; they take aim at him; others prepare the lamp-post. He
then dismounts and endeavors to return to the Hôtel-de-Ville, but his
grenadiers bar the way:
"Morbleu, General, you will stay with us; you will not abandon us!"
Being their chief it is pretty plain that he must follow them; which
is also the sentiment of the representatives of the commune at the
Hôtel-de-Ville, who send him their authorization, and even the order to
march, "seeing that it is impossible for him to refuse."
Fifteen thousand men thus reach Versailles, and in front of and along
with them thousands of ruffians, protected by the darkness. On this side
the National Guard of Versailles, posted around the chateau, together
with the people of Versailles, who bar the way against vehicles, have
closed up every outlet.[1439] The King is prisoner in his own palace,
he and his, with his ministers and his court, and with no defense. For,
with his usual optimism, he has confided the outer posts of the chateau
to Lafayette's soldiers, and, through a humanitarian obstinacy which he
is to maintain up to the last,[1440] he has forbidden his own guards
to fire on the crowd, so that they are only there for show. With common
right in his favor, the law, and the oath which Lafayette had just
obliged his troops to renew, what could he have to fear? What could be
more effective with the people than trust in them and prudence? And by
playing the sheep one is sure of taming brutes!
From five o'clock in the morning they prowl around the palace-railings.
Lafayette, exhausted with fatigue, has taken an hour's repose,[1441]
which hour suffices for them.[1442] A populace armed with pikes and
clubs, men and women, surrounds a squad of eighty-eight National Guards,
forces them to fire on the King's Guards, bursts open a door, seizes
two of the guards and chops their heads off. The executioner, who is a
studio model, with a heavy beard, stretches out his blood-stained hands
and glories in the act; and so great is the effect on the National Guard
that they move off; through sensibility, in order not to witness such
sights: such is the resistance! In the meantime the crowd invade the
staircases, beat down and trample on the guards they encounter, and
burst open the doors with imprecations against the Queen. The Queen runs
off; just in time, in her underclothes; she takes refuge with the King
and the rest of the royal family, who have in vain barricaded themselves
in the oeil-de-Boeuf, a door of which is broken in: here they stand,
awaiting death, when Lafayette arrives with his grenadiers and saves
all that can be saved--their lives, and nothing more. For, from the crowd
huddled in the marble court the shout rises, "To Paris with the King!" a
command to which the King submits.
Now that the great hostage is in their hands, will they deign to accept
the second one? This is doubtful. On the Queen approaching the balcony
with her son and daughter, a howl arises of "No children!" They want to
have her alone in the sights of their guns, and she understands that. At
this moment M. de Lafayette, throwing the shield of his popularity over
her, appears on the balcony at her side and respectfully kisses her
hand. The reaction is instantaneous in this over-excited crowd. Both
the men and especially the women, in such a state of nervous tension,
readily jump from one extreme to another, rage bordering on tears. A
portress, who is a companion of Maillard's,[1443] imagines that she
hears Lafayette promise in the Queen's name "to love her people and be
as much attached to them as Jesus Christ to his Church." People sob and
embrace each other; the grenadiers shift their caps to the heads of the
body-guard. Everything will be fine: "the people have won their King
back."--Nothing is to be done now but to rejoice; and the cortege moves
on. The royal family and a hundred deputies, in carriages, form the
center, and then comes the artillery, with a number of women bestriding
the cannons; next, a convoy of flour. Round about are the King's Guards,
each with a National Guard mounted behind him; then comes the National
Guard of Paris, and after them men with pikes and women on foot, on
horseback, in cabs, and on carts; in front is a band bearing two severed
heads on the ends of two poles, which halts at a hairdresser's, in
Sèvres, to have these heads powdered and curled;[1444] they are made to
bow by way of salutation, and are daubed all over with cream; there are
jokes and shouts of laughter; the people stop to eat and drink on the
road, and oblige the guards to clink glasses with them; they shout and
fire salvos of musketry; men and women hold each other's hands and
sing and dance about in the mud.--Such is the new fraternity: a funeral
procession of legal and legitimate authorities, a triumph of brutality
over intelligence, a murderous and political Mardi-gras, a formidable
masquerade which, preceded by the insignia of death, drags along with it
the heads of France, the King, the ministers, and the deputies, that it
may constrain them to rule to until according to its frenzy, that it may
hold them under its them pikes until it is pleased to slaughter them.
VI.--The Government and the nation in the hands of the revolutionary
party.
This time there can be no mistake: the Reign of Terror is fully and
firmly established. On this very day the mob stops a vehicle, in which
it hopes to find M. de Virieu, and declares, on searching it, that "they
are looking for the deputy to massacre him, as well as others of whom
they have a list."[1445] Two days afterwards the Abbé Grégoire tells
the National Assembly that not a day passes without ecclesiastics being
insulted in Paris, and pursued with "horrible threats." Malouet is
advised that "as soon as guns are distributed among the militia, the
first use made of them will be to get rid of those deputies who are bad
citizens," and among others of the Abbé Maury. "The moment I stepped out
into the streets," writes Mounier, "I was publicly followed. It was a
crime to be seen in my company. Wherever I happened to go, along
with two or three of my companions, it was stated that an assembly of
aristocrats was forming. I had become such an object of terror that they
threatened to set fire to a country-house where I had passed twenty-four
hours; and, to relieve their minds, a promise had to be given that
neither myself nor my friends should be again received into it." In one
week five or six hundred deputies have their passports[1446] made out,
and hold themselves ready to depart. During the following month one
hundred and twenty give in their resignations, or no longer appear
in the Assembly. Mounier, Lally-Tollendal, the Bishop of Langres, and
others besides, quit Paris, and afterwards France. Mallet du Pan writes,
"Opinion now dictates its judgment with steel in hand. Believe or die is
the anathema which vehement spirits pronounce, and this in the name
of Liberty. Moderation has become a crime." After the 7th of October,
Mirabeau says to the Comte de la Marck:
"If you have any influence with the King or the Queen, persuade them
that they and France are lost if the royal family does not leave Paris.
I am busy with a plan for getting them away."
He prefers everything to the present situation, "even civil war;"
for "war, at least, invigorates the soul," while here, "under the
dictatorship of demagogues, we are being drowned in slime." Given up
to itself, Paris, in three months, "will certainly be a hospital, and,
perhaps, a theater of horrors." Against the rabble and its leaders, it
is essential that the King should at once coalesce "with his people,"
that he should go to Rouen, appeal to the provinces, provide a Centre
for public opinion, and, if necessary, resort to armed resistance.
Malouet, on his side, declares that "the Revolution, since the 5th of
October, "horrifies all sensible men, and every party, but that it
is complete and irresistible." Thus the three best minds that are
associated with the Revolution--those whose verified prophecies attest
genius or good sense; the only ones who, for two or three years, and
from week to week, have always predicted wisely, and who have employed
reason in their demonstrations--these three, Mallet du Pan, Mirabeau,
Mabuet, agree in their estimate of the event, and in measuring its
consequences. The nation is gliding down a declivity, and no one
possesses the means or the force to arrest it. The King cannot do it:
"undecided and weak beyond all expression, his character resembles those
oiled ivory balls which one vainly strives to keep together."[1447] And
as for the Assembly, blinded, violated, and impelled on by the theory
it proclaims, and by the faction which supports it, each of its grand
decrees only renders its fall the more precipitate.
*****
[Footnote 1401: Bailly, "Mémoires," II. 195, 242.]
[Footnote 1402: Elysée Loustalot, journalist, editor of the paper
"Révolutions de Paris," was a young lawyer who had shown a natural
genius for innovative journalism. He was to die already in 1790. (SR.)]
[Footnote 1403: Montjoie, ch. LXX, p. 65.]
[Footnote 1404: Bailly, II. 74, 174, 242, 261, 282, 345, 392.]
[Footnote 1405: Such as domiciliary visits and arrests apparently made
by lunatics. ("Archives de la Préfecture de Police de Paris.")--And
Montjoie, ch. LXX. p.67. Expedition of the National Guard against
imaginary brigands who are cutting down the crops at Montmorency and the
volley fired in the air.--Conquest of Ile-Adam and Chantilly.]
[Footnote 1406: Bailly, II. 46, 95, 232, 287, 296.]
[Footnote 1407: "Archives de la Préfecture de Police," minutes of the
meeting of the section of Butte des Moulins, October 5, 1789.]
[Footnote 1408: Bailly, II. 224.--Dusaulx, 418, 202, 257, 174, 158. The
powder transported was called poudre de traite (transport); the people
understood it as poudre de traître (traitor). M. de la Salle was near
being killed through the addition of an r. It is he who had taken
command of the National Guard on the 13th of July.]
[Footnote 1409: Floquet, VII. 54. There is the same scene at Granville,
in Normandy, on the 16th of October. A woman had assassinated her
husband, while a soldier who was her lover is her accomplice; the woman
was about to be hung and the man broken on the wheel, when the populace
shout, "The nation has the right of pardon," upset the scaffold, and
save the two assassins.]
[Footnote 1410: Bailly, II. 274 (August 17th).]
[Footnote 1411: Bailly, II, 83, 202, 230, 235, 283, 299.]
[Footnote 1412: Mercure de France, the number for September 26th.--De
Goncourt, p. 111.]
[Footnote 1413: Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," I, 58; X. 151.]
[Footnote 1414: De Ferrières, I. 178.--Buchez and Roux, II. 311,
316.--Bai11y, II. 104, 174, 207, 246, 257, 282.]
[Footnote 1415: Mercure de France, September 5th, 1789. Horace Walpole's
Letters, September 5, 1789.--M. de Lafayette, "Mémoires," I. 272. During
the week following the 14th of July, 6,000 soldiers deserted and went
over to the people, besides 400 and 800 Swiss Guards and six battalions
of the French Guards, who remain without officers, and do as they
please. Vagabonds from the neighboring villages flock in, and there are
more than "30,000 strangers and vagrants" in Paris.]
[Footnote 1416: Bailly, II. 282. The crowd of deserters was so great
that Lafayette was obliged to place a guard at the barriers to keep them
from entering the city. "Without this precaution the whole army would
have come in."]
[Footnote 1417: De Ferrières, I. 103.--De Lavalette, I. 39.--Bailly, I.
53 (on the lawyers). "It may be said that the success of the Revolution
is due to this class."--Marmontel, II. 243 "Since the first elections
of Paris, in 1789, I remarked," he says, "this species of restless
intriguing men, contending with each other to be heard, impatient to
make themselves prominent....It is well known what interest this body
(the lawyers) had to change Reform into Revolution, the Monarchy into
a Republic; the object was to organize for itself a perpetual
aristocracy."--Buchez and Roux, II. 358 (article by C. Desmoulins). "In
the districts everybody exhausts his lungs and his time in trying to be
president, vice-president, secretary or vice-secretary"]
[Footnote 1418: Eugène Hatin, "Histoire de la Presse," vol. V. p. 113.
"Le Patriote français" by Brissot, July 28, 1789.--"L'Ami du Peuple,"
by Marat, September 12, 1789.--"Annales patriotiques et littéraires," by
Carra and Mercier, October 5, 1789,--"Les Révolutions de Paris," chief
editor Loustalot, July 17th, 1789.--"Le Tribun du peuple," letters
by (middle of 1789).--"Révolutions de France et de Brabant," by C.
Desmoulins, November 28, 1789; his "France libre" (I believe of the
month of August, and his "Discours de la Lanterne" of the month of
September).--"The Moniteur" does not make its appearance until November
24, 1789. In the seventy numbers which follow, up to February 3, 1790,
the debates of the Assembly were afterwards written out, amplified, and
put in a dramatic form. All numbers anterior to February 3, 1790, are
the result of a compilation executed in the year IV. The narrative part
during the first six months of the Revolution is of no value. The report
of the sittings of the Assembly is more exact, but should be revised
sitting by sitting and discourse by discourse for a detailed history
of the National Assembly. The principal authorities which are really
contemporary are, "Le Mercure de France," "Le Journal de Paris," "Le
point de Jour" by Barrère, the "Courrier de Versailles," by Gorsas, the
"Courrier de Provence" by Mirabeau, the "Journal des Débats et Décrets,"
the official reports of the National assembly, the "Bulletin de
l'Asemblée Nationale," by Marat, besides the newspapers above cited
for the period following the 14th of July, and the speeches, which are
printed separately.]
[Footnote 1419: C. Desmoulins, letters of September 20th and of
subsequent dates. (He quote, a passage from Lucan in the sense
indicated).--Brissot, "Mémoires," passim.--Biography of Danton by
Robinet. (See the testimony of Madame Roland and of Rousselin de
Saint-Albin.)]
[Footnote 1420: "Discours de la Lanterne." See the epigraph of the
engraving.]
[Footnote 1421: Buchez and Roux; III. 55; article of Marat, October lst.
"Sweep all the suspected men out of the Hôtel-de-Ville. . . . . Reduce
the deputies of the communes to fifty; do not let them remain in office
more than a month or six weeks, and compel them to transact business
only in public."--And II. 412, another article by Marat.--Ibid. III.
21. An article by Loustalot.--C. Desmoulins, "Discours de la Lanterne,"
passim.--Bailly, II. 326.]
[Footnote 1422: Mounier, "Des causes qui ont empêche les Français d'être
libre," I. 59.--Lally-Tollendal, second letter, 104.--Bailly, II. 203.]
[Footnote 1423: De Bouillé, 207.--Lally-Tollendal, ibid, 141,
146.--Mounier, ibid., 41, 60.]
[Footnote 1424: Mercure de France, October 2, 1790 (article of Mallet du
Pan: "I saw it"). Criminal proceedings at the Châtelet on the events of
October 5th and 6th. Deposition of M. Feydel, a deputy, No. 178.----De
Montlosier, i. 259.--Desmoulins (La Lanterne). "Some members of the
communes are gradually won over by pensions, by plans for making a
fortune and by flattery. Happily, the incorruptible galleries are always
on the side of the patriots. They represent the tribunes of the people
seated on a bench in attendance on the deliberations of the Senate and
who had the veto. They represent the metropolis and, fortunately, it
is under the batteries of the metropolis that the constitution is being
framed." (C. Desmoulins, simple-minded politician, always let the cat
out of the bag.)]
[Footnote 1425: "Procédure du Châtelet," Ibid. Deposition of M. Malouet
(No. 111). "I received every day, as well as MM. Lally and Mounier,
anonymous letters and lists of proscriptions on which we were inscribed.
These letters announced a prompt and violent death to every deputy that
advocated the authority of the King."]
[Footnote 1426: Buchez and Roux, I. 368, 376.---Bailly, II. 326,
341.--Mounier, ibid., 62, 75.]
[Footnote 1427: Etienne Dumont, 145.--Correspondence between Comte de
Mirabeau and Comte de la Marck.]
[Footnote 1428: "Procédure criminelle du Châtelet," Deposition
148.--Buchez and Roux, III. 67, 65. (Narrative of Desmoulins, article
of Loustalot.) Mercure de France, number for September 5, 1789. "Sunday
evening, August 30, at the Palais-Royal, the expulsion of several
deputies of every class was demanded, and especially some of those from
Dauphiny... They spoke of bringing the King to Paris as well as the
Dauphin. All virtuous citizens, every incorruptible patriot, was
exhorted to set out immediately for Versailles."]
[Footnote 1429: These acts of violence were not reprisals; nothing of
the kind took place at the banquet of the body-guards (October 1st).
"Amidst the general joy," says an eye-witness, "I heard no insults
against the National Assembly, nor against the popular party, nor
against anybody. The only cries were 'Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine!
We will defend them to the death!'" (Madame de Larochejacquelein,
p.40.--Ibid. Madame Campan, another eye-witness.)--It appears to be
certain, however, that the younger members of the National Guard at
Versailles turned their cockades so as to be like other people, and it
is also probable that some of the ladies distributed white cockades.
The rest is a story made up before and after the event to justify the
insurrection.--Cf. Lerol, "Histoire de Versailles," II. 20-107. Ibid.
p. 141. "As to that proscription of the national cockade, all witnesses
deny it." The originator of the calumny is Gorsas, editor of the
Courrier de Versailles.]
[Footnote 1430: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 88, 110,
120, 126, 127, 140, 146, 148.--Marmontel, "Mémoires," a conversation
with Champfort, in May, 1789.--Morellet, "Mémoires," I. 398. (According
to the evidence of Garat, Champfort gave all his savings, 3,000 livres,
to defray the expenses of maneuvers of this description.)--Malouet
(II. 2). knew four of the deputies "who took direct part in this
conspiracy."]
[Footnote 1431: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." 1st. On the Flemish
soldiers. Depositions 17, 20, 24, 35, 87, 89, 98.--2nd. On the men
disguised as women. Depositions 5, 10, 14, 44, 49, 59, 60, 110,
120, 139, 145, 146, 148. The prosecutor designates six of them to
be seized.--3rd. On the condition of the women of the expedition.
Depositions 35, 83, 91, 98, 146, and 24.--4th. On the money distributed.
Depositions 49, 56, 71, 82, 110, 126.]
[Footnote 1432: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 61.
"During the night scenes, not very decent, occurred among these people,
which the witness thought it useless to relate."]
[Footnote 1433: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 35, 44,
81.--Buchez and Roux, III. 120. (Minutes of the meeting of the Commune,
October 5th.) Journal de Paris, October 12th. A few days after, M. Pic,
clerk of the prosecutor, brought "a package of 100,000 francs which he
had saved from the enemies' hands," and another package of notes was
found thrown, in the hubbub, into a receipt-box.]
[Footnote 1434: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 61,
77, 81, 148, 154.--Dumont, 181.--Mounier, "Exposé justificatif," and
specially "Fait relatif à la dernière insurrection."]
[Footnote 1435: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 168. The
witness sees on leaving the King's apartment "several women dressed as
fish-wives, one of whom, with a pretty face, has a paper in her hand,
and who exclaims as she holds it up, 'He! F..., we have forced the guy
to sign.' "]
[Footnote 1436: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 89, 91,
98. "Promising all, even raising their petticoats before them."]
[Footnote 1437: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet," Depositions 9, 20,
24, 30, 49, 61, 82, 115, 149, 155.]
[Footnote 1438: Procédure criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 7, 30,
35, 40.--Cf. Lafayette, "Mémoires," and Madame Campan, "Mémoires."]
[Footnote 1439: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 24.
A number of butcher-boys run after the carriages issuing from the
Petite-Ecurie shouting out, "Don't let the curs escape!"]
[Footnote 1440: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 101, 91,
89, and 17. M. de Miomandre, a body-guard, mildly says to the ruffians
mounting the staircase: "My friends, you love your King, and yet you
come to annoy him even in his palace!"]
[Footnote 1441: Malouet, II. 2. "I felt no distrust," says Lafayette in
1798; "the people promised to remain quiet."]
[Footnote 1442: "Procédure Criminelle du Chatelet." Depositions 9, 16,
60, 128, 129, 130, 139, 158, 168, 170.--M. du Repaire, body-guard, being
sentry at the railing from two o'clock in the morning, a man passes his
pike through the bars saying, "You embroidered b. . . , your turn
will come before long." M. de Repaire, "retires within the sentry-box
without saying a word to this man, considering the orders that have been
issued not to act."]
[Footnote 1443: "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 82,
170--Madame Campan. II. 87.--De Lavalette, I.33.--Cf. Bertrand de
Molleville, Mémoires.]
[Footnote 1444: Duval, "Souvenirs de la Terreur," I. 78. (Doubtful in
almost everything, but here he is an eye-witness. He dined opposite the
hair-dresser's, near the railing of the Park of Saint-Cloud.)--M. de
Lally-Tollendal's second letter to a friend. "At the moment the King
entered his capital with two bishops of his council with him in the
carriage, the cry was heard, 'Off to the lamp post with the bishops!'"]
[Footnote 1445: De Montlosier, I. 303.--Moniteur, sessions of the 8th,
9th, and 10th of October.--Malouet, II. 9, 10, 20.--Mounier, Recherches
sur les Causes, etc., and "Addresse aux Dauphinois."]
[Footnote 1446: De Ferrières, I. 346. (On the 9th of October, 300
members have already taken their passports.) Mercure de France, No. of
the 17th October. Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck, I. 116,
126, 364.]
[Footnote 1447: Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck, I.175.
(The words of Monsieur to M. de la Marck.)]
BOOK SECOND. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, AND THE RESULT OF ITS LABORS.
CHAPTER I.--CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE FRAMING OF GOOD LAWS.
Among the most difficult undertakings in this world is the formulation
of a national constitution, especially if this is to be a complete and
comprehensive work. To replace the old structures inside which a great
people has lived by a new, different, appropriate and durable set of
laws, to apply a mold of one hundred thousand compartments on to the
life of twenty-six million people, to construct it so harmoniously,
adapt it so well, so closely, with such an exact appreciation of their
needs and their faculties, that they enter it of themselves and move
about it without collisions, and that their spontaneous activity
should at once find the ease of familiar routine,--is an extraordinary
undertaking and probably beyond the powers of the human mind. In any
event, the mind requires all its powers to carry the undertaking out,
and it cannot protect itself carefully enough against all sources of
disturbance and error. An Assembly, especially a Constituent Assembly,
requires, outwardly, security and independence, inwardly, silence
and order, and generally, calmness, good sense, practical ability and
discipline under competent and recognized leaders. Do we find anything
of all this in the Constituent Assembly?
I.--These conditions absent in the Assembly
Causes of disorder and irrationality--The place of meeting
--The large number of deputies--Interference of the galleries
--Rules of procedure wanting, defective, or disregarded.--The
parliamentary leaders--Susceptibility and over-excitement of
the Assembly--Its paroxysms of enthusiasm.--Its tendency to
emotion.--It encourages theatrical display--Changes which
these displays introduce in its good intentions.
We have only to look at it outwardly to have some doubts about it. At
Versailles, and then at Paris, the sessions are held in an immense hall
capable of seating 2,000 persons, in which the most powerful voice must
be strained in order to be heard. It is not calculated for the moderate
tone suitable for the discussion of business; the speaker is obliged to
shout, and the strain on the voice communicates itself to the mind; the
place itself suggests declamation; and this all the more readily because
the assemblage consists of 1,200, that is to say, a crowd, and almost
a mob. 'At the present day (1877), in our assemblies of five or six
hundred deputies, there are constant interruptions and an incessant
buzz; there is nothing so rare as self-control, and the firm resolve to
give an hour's attention to a discourse opposed to the opinions of the
hearers.--What can be done here to compel silence and patience? Arthur
Young on different occasions sees "a hundred members on the floor at
once," shouting and gesticulating. "Gentlemen, you are killing me!" says
Bailly, one day, sinking with exhaustion. Another president exclaims in
despair, "Two hundred speaking at the same time cannot be heard; will
you make it impossible then to restore order in the Assembly?" The
rumbling, discordant din is further increased by the uproar of the
galleries.[2101]
"In the British Parliament," writes Mallet du Pan, "I saw the
galleries cleared in a trice because the Duchess of Gordon happened
unintentionally to laugh too loud."
Here, the thronging crowd of spectators, stringers, delegates from the
Palais-Royal, soldiers disguised as citizens, and prostitutes collected
and marshaled, applaud, clap their hands, stamp and hoot, at their
pleasure. This is carried to so great an extent that M. de
Montlosier ironically proposes "to give the galleries a voice in
the deliberations."[2102] Another member wishes to know whether the
representatives are so many actors, whom the nation sends there to
endure the hisses of the Paris public. Interruptions, in fact, take
place as in a theater, and, frequently, if the members do not give
satisfaction, they are forced to desist. On the other hand, the deputies
who are popular with this energetic audience, on which they keep and
eye, are actors before the footlights: they involuntarily yield to its
influence, and exaggerate their ideas as well as their words to be in
unison with it. Tumult and violence, under such circumstances, become
a matter of course, and the chances of an Assembly acting wisely are
diminished by one-half; on becoming a club of agitators, it ceases to be
a conclave of legislators.
Let us enter and see how this one proceeds. Thus encumbered, thus
surrounded and agitated, does it take at least those precautions without
which no assembly of men can govern itself. When several hundred persons
assemble together for deliberation, it is evident that some sort of an
internal police is necessary; first of all, some code of accepted usage,
some written precedents, by which its acts may be prepared and defined,
considered in detail, and properly passed. The best of these codes it
ready to hand: at the request of Mirabeau, Romilly has sent over the
standing orders of the English House of Commons.[2103] But with the
presumption of novices, they pay no attention to this code; they imagine
it is needless for them; they will borrow nothing from foreigners; they
accord no authority to experience, and, not content with rejecting the
forms it prescribes, "it is with difficulty they can be made to follow
any rule whatever." They leave the field open to the impulsiveness of
individuals; any kind of influence, even that of a deputy, even of one
elected by themselves, is suspected by them; hence their choice of a
new president every fortnight.--They submit to no constraint or control,
neither to the legal authority of a parliamentary code, nor to the moral
authority of parliamentary chiefs. They are without any such; they are
not organized in parties; neither on one side nor on the other is a
recognized leader found who fixes the time, arranges the debate, draws
up the motion, assigns parts, and gives the rein to or restrains
his supporters. Mirabeau is the only one capable of obtaining this
ascendancy; but, on the opening of the Assembly, he is discredited by
the notoriety of his vices, and, towards the last, is compromised by his
connections with the Court. No other is of sufficient eminence to have
any influence; there is too much of average and too little of superior
talent.--Their self-esteem is, moreover, as yet too strong to allow any
concessions. Each of these improvised legislators has come satisfied
with his own system, and to submit to a leader to whom he would entrust
his political conscience, to make of him what three out of four of these
deputies should be, a voting machine, would require an apprehension of
danger, some painful experience, an enforced surrender which he is far
from realizing.[2104] For this reason, save in the violent party, each
acts as his own chief, according to the impulse of the moment, and the
confusion may be imagined. Strangers who witness it, lift their hands in
pity and astonishment. "They discuss nothing in their Assembly,"
writes Gouverneur Morris,[2105] "One large half of the time is spent
in hallowing and bawling.... Each Man permitted to speak delivers the
Result of his Lubrications," amidst this noise, taking his turn as
inscribed, without replying to his predecessor, or being replied to by
his successor, without ever meeting argument by argument; so that while
the firing is interminable, "all their shots are fired in the air."
Before this "frightful clatter" can be reported, the papers of the day
are obliged to make all sorts of excisions, to prune away "nonsense,"
and reduce the "inflated and bombastic style." Chatter and clamor, that
is the whole substance of most of these famous sittings.
"You would hear," says a journalist, "more yells than speeches; the
sittings seemed more likely to end in fights than in decrees... . Twenty
times I said to myself, on leaving, that if anything could arrest and
turn the tide of the Revolution, it would be a picture of these meetings
traced without caution or adaptation... All my efforts were therefore
directed to represent the truth, without rendering it repulsive. Out
of what had been merely a row, I concocted a scene... I gave all the
sentiments, but not always in the same words. I translated their yells
into words, their furious gestures into attitudes, and when I could not
inspire esteem, I endeavored to rouse the emotions."
There is no remedy for this evil; for, besides the absence of
discipline, there is an inward and fundamental cause for the disorder.
These people are too susceptible. They are Frenchmen, and Frenchmen
of the eighteenth century; brought up in the amenities of the utmost
refinement, accustomed to deferential manners, to constant kind
attentions and mutual obligations, so thoroughly imbued with the
instinct of good breeding that their conversation seems almost insipid
to strangers.[2106]--And suddenly they find themselves on the thorny
soil of politics, exposed to insulting debates, flat contradictions,
venomous denunciation, constant detraction and open invective; engaged
in a battle in which every species of weapon peculiar to a parliamentary
life is employed, and in which the hardiest veterans are scarcely able
to keep cool. Judge of the effect of all this on inexperienced, highly
strung nerves, on men of the world accustomed to the accommodations
and amiabilities of universal urbanity. They are at once beside
themselves.--And all the more so because they never anticipated a
battle; but, on the contrary, a festival, a grand and charming idyll, in
which everybody, hand in hand, would assemble in tears around the throne
and save the country amid mutual embraces. Necker himself arranges, like
a theater, the chamber in which the sessions of the Assembly are to
be held.[2107] "He was not disposed to regard the Assemblies of the
States-General as anything but a peaceful, imposing, solemn, august
spectacle, which the people would enjoy;" and when the idyll suddenly
changes into a drama, he is so frightened that it seems to him as if a
landslide had occurred that threatened, during the night, to break
down the framework of the building.--At the time of the meeting of the
States-General, everybody is delighted; all imagine that they are about
to enter the promised land. During the procession of the 4th of May,
"tears of joy," says the Marquis de Ferrières, "filled my eyes... . In a
state of sweet rapture I beheld France supported by Religion" exhorting
us all to concord. "The sacred ceremonies, the music, the incense, the
priests in their sacrificial robes, that dais, that orb radiant with
precious stones. .. I called to my mind the words of the prophet... . My
God, my country, and my countrymen, all were one with myself!"
Such emotions repeatedly explode in the course of the session, and
resulted in the passage of laws which no one could have imagined.
"Sometimes,"[2108] writes the American ambassador, "a speaker gets up
in the midst of a deliberation, makes a fine discourse on a different
subject, and closes with a nice little resolution which is carried with
a hurrah. Thus, in considering the plan of a national bank proposed by
M. Necker, one of them took it into his head to move that every member
should give his silver buckles, which was agreed to at once, and the
honorable mover laid his upon the table, after which the business went
on again."
Thus, over-excited, they do not know in the morning what they will do
in the afternoon, and they are at the mercy of every surprise. When they
are seized with these fits of enthusiasm, infatuation spreads over all
the benches; prudence gives way, all foresight disappears and every
objection is stifled. During the night of the 4th of August,[2109]
"nobody is master of himself. The Assembly presents the spectacle of an
inebriated crowd in a shop of valuable furniture, breaking and smashing
at will whatever they can lay their hands on."
"That which would have required a year of care and reflection," says
a competent foreigner, "was proposed, deliberated over, and passed by
general acclamation. The abolition of feudal rights, of titles, of the
privileges of the provinces, three articles which alone embraced a whole
system of jurisprudence and statesmanship, were decided with ten or
twelve other measures in less time than is required in the English
Parliament for the first reading of an important bill."
"Such are our Frenchmen," says Mirabeau again, "they spend a month in
disputes about syllables, and overthrow, in a single night, the whole
established system of the Monarchy!"[2110]
The truth is, they display the nervousness of women, and, from one end
of the Revolution to the other, this excitability keeps on increasing.
Not only are they excited, but the pitch of excitement must be
maintained, and, like the drunkard who, once stimulated, has recourse
again to strong waters, one would say that they carefully try to expel
the last remnants of calmness and common sense from their brains. They
delight in pompous phrases, in high-sounding rhetoric, in declamatory
sentimental strokes of eloquence: this is the style of nearly all their
speeches, and so strong is their taste, they are not satisfied with
the orations made amongst themselves. Lally and Necker, having made
"affecting and sublime" speeches at the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Assembly
wish them to be repeated before them:[2111] this being the heart of
France, it is proper for it to answer to the noble emotions of all
Frenchmen. Let this heart throb on, and as strongly as possible, for
that is its office, and day by day it receives fresh impulses. Almost
all sittings begin with the reading of flattering addresses or of
threatening denunciations. The petitioners frequently appear in person,
and read their enthusiastic effusions, their imperious advice, their
doctrines of dissolution. To-day it is Danton, in the name of Paris,
with his bull visage and his voice that seems a tocsin of insurrection;
to-morrow, the vanquishers of the Bastille, or some other troop, with a
band of music which continues playing even into the hall. The meeting is
not a conference for business, but a patriotic opera, where the eclogue,
the melodrama, and sometimes the masquerade, mingle with the cheers and
the clapping of hands.[2112]--A serf of the Jura is brought to the
bar of the Assembly aged one hundred and twenty years, and one of the
members of the cortège, "M. Bourbon de la Crosnière, director of a
patriotic school, asks permission to take charge of an honorable old
man, that he may be waited on by the young people of all ranks, and
especially by the children of those whose fathers were killed in the
attack on the Bastille." [2113] Great is the hubbub and excitement. The
scene seems to be in imitation of Berquin,[2114] with the additional
complication of a mercenary consideration.
But small matters are not closely looked into, and the Assembly, under
the pressure of the galleries, stoops to shows, such as are held
at fairs. Sixty vagabonds who are paid twelve francs a head, in the
costumes of Spaniards, Dutchmen, Turks, Arabs, Tripolitans, Persians,
Hindus, Mongols, and Chinese, conducted by the Prussian Anacharsis
Clootz, enter, under the title of Ambassadors of the Human Race, to
declaim against tyrants, and they are admitted to the honors of the
sitting. On this occasion the masquerade is a stroke devised to hasten
and extort the abolition of nobility.[2115] At other times, there is
little or no object in it; its ridiculousness is inexpressible, for the
farce is played out as seriously and earnestly as in a village award
of prizes. For three days, the children who have taken their first
communion before the constitutional bishop have been promenaded through
the streets of Paris; at the Jacobin club they recite the nonsense they
have committed to memory; and, on the fourth day, admitted to the bar
of the Assembly, their spokesman, a poor little thing of twelve years,
repeats the parrot-like tirade. He winds up with the accustomed oath,
upon which all the others cry out in their piping, shrill voices, "We
swear!" As a climax, the President, Trejlhard, a sober lawyer, replies
to the little gamins with perfect gravity in a similar strain, employing
metaphors, personifications, and everything else belonging to the
stock-in-trade of a pedant on his platform:
"You merit a share in the glory of the founders of liberty, prepared as
you are to shed your blood in her behalf."
Immense applause from the "left" and the galleries, and a decree
ordering the speeches of both president and children to be printed. The
children, probably, would rather have gone out to play; but, willingly
or unwillingly, they receive or endure the honors of the sitting.[2116]
Such are the tricks of the stage and of the platform by which the
managers here move their political puppets. Emotional susceptibility,
once recognized as a legitimate force, thus becomes an instrument
of intrigue and constraint. The Assembly, having accepted theatrical
exhibitions when these were sincere and earnest, is obliged to tolerate
them when they become mere sham and buffoonery. At this vast national
banquet, over which it meant to preside, and to which, throwing the
doors wide open, it invited all France, its first intoxication was
due to wine of a noble quality; but it has touched glasses with the
populace, and by degrees, under the pressure of its associates, it has
descended to adulterated and burning drinks, to a grotesque unwholesome
inebriety which is all the more grotesque and unwholesome, because it
persists in believing itself to be reason.
II.--Inadequacy of its information.
Its composition--The social standing and culture of the
larger number--Their incapacity. Their presumption
--Fruitless advice of competent men.--Deductive politics
--Parties--The minority; its faults--The majority; its
dogmatism.
If reason could only resume its empire during the lucid intervals!
But reason must exist before it can govern, and in no French Assembly,
except the two following this, have there ever been fewer political
intellects.--Strictly speaking, with careful search, there could
undoubtedly be found in France, in 1789, five or six hundred experienced
men, such as the intendants and military commanders of every province;
next to these the prelates, administrators of large dioceses the members
of the local "parlements," whose courts gave them influence, and who,
besides judicial functions, possessed a portion of administrative power;
and finally, the principal members of the Provincial Assemblies, all of
them influential and sensible people who had exercised control over
men and affairs, at once humane, liberal, moderate, and capable of
understanding the difficulty, as well as the necessity, of a great
reform; indeed, their correspondence, full of facts, stated with
precision and judgment, when compared with the doctrinaire rubbish of
the Assembly, presents the strongest possible contrast.--But most of
these lights remain under a bushel; only a few of them get into the
Assembly; these burn without illuminating, and are soon extinguished in
the tempest.' I. The venerable Machault is not there, nor Malesherbes;
there are none of the old ministers or the marshals of France. Not one
of the intendants is there, except Malouet, and by the superiority of
this man, the most judicious of the Assembly, one can judge the services
which his colleagues would have rendered. Out of two hundred and
ninety-one members of the clergy,[2117] there are indeed forty-eight
bishops or archbishops and thirty-five abbots or canons, but, being
prelates and with large endowments, they excite the envy of their order,
and are generals without any soldiers. We have the same spectacle among
the nobles. Most of them, the gentry of the provinces, have been elected
in opposition to the grandees of the Court. Moreover, neither the
grandees of the Court, devoted to worldly pursuits, nor the gentry of
the provinces, confined to private life, are practically familiar with
public affairs. A small group among them, twenty-eight magistrates
and about thirty superior officials who have held command or have been
connected with the administration, probably have some idea of the peril
of society; but it is precisely for this reason that they seem to be
behind the age and remain without influence.--In the Third-Estate, out
of five hundred and seventy-seven members, only ten have exercised
any important functions, those of intendant, councillor of state,
receiver-general, lieutenant of police, director of the mint, and others
of the same category. The great majority is composed of unknown lawyers
and people occupying inferior positions in the profession, notaries,
royal attorneys, register commissaries, judges and assessors of;
the présidial, bailiffs and lieutenants of the bailiwick, simple
practitioners confined from their youth to the narrow circle of an
inferior jurisdiction or to a routine of scribbling, with no escape
but philosophical excursions in imaginary space under the guidance of
Rousseau and Raynal. There are three hundred and seventy-three of this
class, to whom may be added thirty-eight farmers and husbandmen, fifteen
physicians, and, among the manufacturers, merchants, and capitalists,
some fifty or sixty who are their equals in education and in political
capacity. Scarcely one hundred and fifty proprietors are here from the
middle class.[2118] To these four hundred and fifty deputies, whose
condition, education, instruction, and mental range qualified them for
being good clerks, prominent men in a commune, honorable fathers of a
family, or, at best, provincial academicians, add two hundred and eight
curés, their equals; this makes six hundred and fifty out of eleven
hundred and eighteen deputies, forming a positive majority, which,
again, is augmented by about fifty philosophical nobles, leaving out the
weak who follow the current, and the ambitious who range themselves on
the strong side.--We may divine what a chamber thus made up can do, and
those who are familiar with such matters prophesy what it will do.[2119]
"There are some able men in the National Assembly," writes the American
minister, "yet the best heads among them would not be injured by
experience, and, unfortunately, there are great numbers who, with much
imagination, have little knowledge, judgment, or reflection."
It would be just as sensible to select eleven hundred notables from an
inland province and entrust them to the repair of an old frigate. They
would conscientiously break the vessel up, and the frigate they would
construct in its place would founder before it left port.
If they would only consult the pilots and professional
shipbuilders!--There are several of such to be found around them, whom
they cannot suspect, for most of them are foreigners, born in free
countries, impartial, sympathetic, and, what is more, unanimous. The
Minister of the United States writes, two months before the convocation
of the States-General:[2120]
"I, a republican, and just, as it were, emerged from that Assembly which
has formed one of the most republican of republican constitutions,--I
preach incessantly respect for the prince, attention to the rights of
the nobility, and moderation, not only in the object, but also in the
pursuit of it."
Jefferson, a democrat and radical, expresses himself no differently. At
the time of the oath of the Tennis Court, he redoubles his efforts to
induce Lafayette and other patriots to make some arrangement with the
King to secure freedom of the press, religious, liberty, trial by jury,
the habeas corpus, and a national legislature,--things which he could
certainly be made to adopt,--and then to retire into private life, and
let these institutions act upon the condition of the people until they
had rendered it capable of further progress, with the assurance that
there would be no lack of opportunity for them to obtain still more.
"This was all," he continues, "that I thought your countrymen able to
bear soberly and usefully."
Arthur Young, who studies the moral life of France so conscientiously,
and who is so severe in depicting old abuses, cannot comprehend the
conduct of the Commons.
"To set aside practice for theory... in establishing the interests of a
great kingdom, in securing freedom to 25,000,000 of people, seems to me
the very acme of imprudence, the very quintessence of insanity."
Undoubtedly, now that the Assembly is all-powerful, it is to be hoped
that it will be reasonable:
"I will not allow myself to believe for a moment that the
representatives of the people can ever so far forget their duty to
the French nation, to humanity, and their own fame, as to suffer
any inordinate and impracticable views--any visionary or theoretic
systems--... to turn aside their exertions from that security which is
in their hands, to place on the chance and hazard of public commotion
and civil war the invaluable blessings which are certainly in their
power. I will not conceive it possible that men who have eternal fame
within their grasp will place the rich inheritance on the cast of a die,
and, losing the venture, be damned among the worst and most profligate
adventurers that ever disgraced humanity."
As their plan becomes more definite the remonstrances become more
decided, and all the expert judges point out to them the importance of
the wheels which they are willfully breaking.
"As they have[2121] hitherto felt severely the authority exercised over
them in the name of their princes, every limitation of that authority
seems to them desirable. Never having felt the evils of too weak an
executive, the disorders to be apprehended from anarchy make as yet no
impression"--"They want an American Constitution,[2122] but with a
King instead of a President, without reflecting they have no American
citizens to support that Constitution... If they have the good sense
to give the nobles, as nobles, some portion of the national power, this
free constitution will probably last, But otherwise it will degenerate
either into a pure monarchy, or a vast republic, or a democracy. Will
the latter last? I doubt it. I am sure that it will not, unless the
whole nation is changed."
A little later, when they renounce a parliamentary monarchy to put in
its place "a royal democracy," it is at once explained to them that such
an institution applied to France can produce nothing but anarchy, and
finally end in despotism.
"Nowhere[2123] has liberty proved to be stable without a sacrifice of
its excesses, without some barrier to its own omnipotence... . Under
this miserable government... the people, soon weary of storms, and
abandoned without legal protection to their seducers or to their
oppressors, will shatter the helm, or hand it over to some audacious
hand that stands ready to seize it."
Events occur from month to month in fulfillment of these predictions,
and the predictions grow gloomier and more gloomy. It is a flock of wild
birds:[2124]
"It is very difficult to guess whereabouts the flock will settle when
it flies so wild... . This unhappy country, bewildered in the pursuit
of metaphysical whims, presents to our moral view a mighty ruin. The
Assembly, at once master and slave, new in power, wild in theory, raw in
practice, engrossing all functions without being able to exercise any,
has freed that fierce, ferocious people from every restraint of religion
and respect... . Such a state of things cannot last... The glorious
opportunity is lost and for this time, at least, the Revolution has
failed."
We see, from the replies of Washington, that he is of the same opinion.
On the other side of the Channel, Pitt, the ablest practician, and
Burke, the ablest theorist, of political liberty, express the same
judgment. Pitt, after 1789, declares that the French have overleaped
freedom. After 1790, Burke, in a work which is a prophecy as well as a
masterpiece, points to military dictatorship as the termination of the
Revolution, "the most completely arbitrary power that has ever appeared
on earth." Nothing is of any effect. With the exception of the small
powerless group around Malouet and Mounier, the warnings of Morris,
Jefferson, Romilly, Dumont, Mallet du Pan, Arthur Young, Pitt and Burke,
all of them men who have experience of free institutions, are received
with indifference or repelled with disdain. Not only are our new
politicians incapable, but they think themselves the contrary, and their
incompetence is aggravated by their infatuation.