"I often used to say, "writes Dumont,[2125] "that if a hundred persons

were stopped at haphazard in the streets of London, and a hundred in the

streets of Paris, and a proposal were made to them to take charge of the

Government, ninety-nine would accept it in Paris and ninety-nine would

refuse it in London... The Frenchman thinks that all difficulties can

be overcome by a little quickness of wit. Mirabeau accepted the post of

reporter to the Committee on Mines without having the slightest tincture

of knowledge on the subject."

In short, most of them enter politics "like the gentleman who, on being

asked if he knew how to play on the harpsichord, replied, 'I cannot

tell, I never tried, but I will see.'"

"The Assembly had so high an opinion of itself, especially the left side

of it, that it would willingly have undertaken the framing of the Code

of Laws for all nations... Never has so many men been seen together,

fancying that they were all legislators, and that they were there to

correct all the errors of the past, to remedy all mistakes of the human

mind, and ensure the happiness of all ages to come. Doubt had no

place in their minds, and infallibility always presided over their

contradictory decrees."--

This is because they have a theory and because, according to their

notion, this theory renders special knowledge unnecessary. Herein they

are thoroughly sincere, and it is of set purpose that they reverse all

ordinary modes of procedure. Up to this time a constitution used to be

organized or repaired like a ship. Experiments were made from time to

time, or a model was taken from vessels in the neighborhood; the first

aim was to make the ship sail; its construction was subordinated to its

work; it was fashioned in this or that way according to the materials on

hand; a beginning was made by examining these materials, and trying to

estimate their rigidity, weight, and strength.--All this is reactionary;

the age of Reason has come and the Assembly is too enlightened to drag

on in a rut. In conformity with the fashion of the time it works by

deduction, after the method of Rousseau, according to an abstract notion

of right, of the State and of the social compact.[2126] According to

this process, by virtue of political geometry alone, they shall have the

perfect vessel and since it perfect it follows that it will sail, and

that much better than any empirical craft.--They legislate according

to this principle, and one may imagine the nature of their discussions.

There are no convincing facts, no pointed arguments; nobody would

ever imagine that the speakers were gathered together to conduct real

business. Through speech after speech, strings of hollow abstractions

are endlessly renewed as in a meeting of students in rhetoric for the

purpose of practice, or in a society of old bookworms for their own

amusement. On the question of the veto "each orator in turn, armed with

his portfolio, reads a dissertation which has no bearing whatever" on

the preceding one, which makes a "sort of academical session,"[2127]

a succession of pamphlets fresh every morning for several days. On the

question of the Rights of Man fifty-four speakers are placed on the

list.

"I remember," says Dumont, "that long discussion, which lasted for

weeks, as a period of deadly boredom,--vain disputes over words, a

metaphysical jumble, and most tedious babble; the Assembly was turned

into a Sorbonne lecture-room," and all this while chateaux were burning,

while town-halls were being sacked, and courts dared no longer hold

assize, while the distribution of wheat was stopped, and while society

was in course of dissolution. In the same manner the theologians of the

Easter Roman Empire kept up their wrangles about the uncreated light of

Mount Tabor while Mahomet II was battering the walls of Constantinople

with his cannon.--Ours, of course, are another sort of men, juvenile

in feeling, sincere, enthusiastic, even generous, and further, more

devoted, laborious, and in some cases endowed with rare talent. But

neither zeal, nor labor, nor talent are of any use when not employed in

the service of a sound idea; and if in the service of a false one, the

greater they are the more mischief they do.

Towards the end of the year 1789, there can be not doubt of this;

and the parties now formed reveal their presumption, improvidence,

incapacity, and obstinacy. "This Assembly," writes the American

ambassador,[2128] "may be divided into three parties;--

one called the aristocrats, consists of the high clergy, the

parliamentary judges, and such of the nobility as think they ought to

form a separate order." This is the party which offers resistance to

follies and errors, but with follies and errors almost equally great.

In the beginning "the prelates,[2129] instead of conciliating the curés,

kept them at a humiliating distance, affecting distinctions, exacting

respect," and, in their own chamber, "ranging themselves apart on

separate benches." The nobles, on the other hand, the more to alienate

the commons, began by charging these with, "revolt, treachery, and

treason," and by demanding the use of military force against them. Now

that the victorious Third-Estate has again overcome them and overwhelms

them with numbers, they become still more maladroit, and conduct the

defense much less efficiently than the attack. "In the Assembly," says

one of them, "they do not listen, but laugh and talk aloud;" they

take pains to embitter their adversaries and the galleries by their

impertinence. "They leave the chamber when the President puts the

question and invite the deputies of their party to follow them, or

cry out to them not to take part in the deliberation: through this

desertion, the clubbists become the majority, and decree whatever they

please." It is in this way that the appointment of judges and bishops

is withdrawn from the King and assigned to the people. Again, after the

return from Varennes, when the Assembly finds out that the result of its

labors is impracticable and wants to make it less democratic, the whole

of the right side refuses to share in the debates, and, what is worse,

votes with the revolutionaries to exclude the members of the Constituent

from the Legislative Assembly. Thus, not only does it abandon its

own cause, but it commits self-destruction, and its desertion ends in

suicide.--

A second party remains, "the middle party,"[2130] which consists of

well-intentioned people from every class, sincere partisans of a good

government; but, unfortunately, they have acquired their ideas of

government from books, and are admirable on paper. But as it happens

that the men who live in the world are very different from imaginary men

who dwell in the heads of philosophers, it is not to be wondered at if

the systems taken out of books are fit for nothing but to be upset by

another book. Intellects of this stamp are the natural prey of utopians.

Lacking the ballast of experience they are carried away by pure logic

and serve to enlarge the flock of theorists.--The latter form the third

party, which is called the "enragés (the wild men), and who, at the

expiration of six months, find themselves "the most numerous of all."

"It is composed," says Morris, "of that class which in America is known

by the name of pettifogging lawyers, together with a host of curates and

many of those persons who in all revolutions throng to the standard

of change because they are not well.[2131] This last party is in close

alliance with the populace and derives from this circumstance very great

authority."

All powerful passions are on its side, not merely the irritation of the

people tormented by misery and suspicion, not merely the ambition and

self-esteem of the bourgeois, in revolt against the ancient régime,

but also the inveterate bitterness and fixed ideas of so many suffering

minds and so many factious intellects, Protestants, Jansenists,

economists, philosophers, men who, like Fréteau, Rabout-Saint-Etienne,

Volney, Sieyès, are hatching out a long arrears of resentments or hopes,

and who only await the opportunity to impose their system with all the

intolerance of dogmatism and of faith. To minds of this stamp the past

is a dead letter; example is no authority; realities are of no account;

they live in their own Utopia. Sieyès, the most important of them all,

judges that "the whole English constitution is charlatanism, designed

for imposing on the people;"[2132] he regards the English "as children

in the matter of a constitution," and thinks that he is capable of

giving France a much better one. Dumont, who sees the first committees

at the houses of Brissot and Clavières, goes away with as much anxiety

as "disgust."

"It is impossible," he says, "to depict the confusion of ideas, the

license of the imagination, the burlesque of popular notions. One

would think that they saw before them the world on the day after the

Creation."

They seem to think, indeed, that human society does not exist, and that

they are appointed to create it. Just as well might ambassadors "of

hostile tribes, and of diverse interests, set themselves to arrange

their common lot as if nothing had previously existed." There is no

hesitation. They are satisfied that the thing can be easily done, and

that, with two or three axioms of political philosophy, the first man

that comes may make himself master of it. Immoderate conceit of this

kind among men of experience would seem ridiculous; in this assembly of

novices it is a strength. A flock which has lost its way follows those

who appears to forge ahead; they are the most irrational but they

are the most confident, and in the Chamber as in the nation it is the

daredevils who become leaders.

III.--The Power Of Simple, General Ideas.

Ascendancy of the revolutionary party--Theory in its favor--

The constraint thus imposed on men's minds--Appeal to the

passions--Brute force on the side of the party--It profits

by this--Oppression of the minority.

Two advantages give this party the ascendancy, and these advantages are

of such importance that henceforth whoever possesses them is sure of

being master.--In the first place the prevailing theory is on the

side of the revolutionaries, and they alone are, in the second place,

determined thoroughly to apply it. This party, therefore, is the only

one which is consistent and popular in the face of adversaries who are

unpopular and inconsequent. Nearly all of the latter, indeed, defenders

of the ancient régime, or partisans of a limited monarchy, are likewise

imbued with abstract principles and philosophical speculation. The most

refractory nobles have advocated the rights of man in their memorials.

Mounier, the principal opponent of the demagogues, was the

leader of the commons when they proclaimed themselves to be the

National--Assembly.[2133] This is enough: they have entered the narrow

defile which leads to the abyss. They had no idea of it at the first

start, but one step leads to another, and, willing or unwilling, they

march on, or are pushed on. When the abyss comes in sight it is too

late; they have been driven there by the logical results of their own

concessions; they can do nothing but wax eloquent and indignant;

having abandoned their vantage ground, they find no halting-place

remaining.--There is an enormous power in general ideas, especially

if they are simple, and appeal to the passions. None are simpler than

these, since they are reducible to the axiom which assumes the rights

of man, and subordinate to them every institution, old or new. None are

better calculated to inflame the sentiments, since the doctrine enlists

human arrogance and pride in its service, and, in the name of justice,

consecrates all the demands of independence and domination. Consider

three-fourths of the deputies, immature and prejudiced, possessing no

information but a few formulas of the current philosophy, with no thread

to guide them but pure logic, abandoned to the declamation of lawyers,

to the wild utterances of the newspapers, to the promptings of

self-esteem, to the hundred thousand tongues which, on all sides, at the

bar of the Assembly, at the tribune, in the clubs, in the streets, in

their own breasts, repeat unanimously to them, and every day, the same

flattery:

"You are sovereign and omnipotent. Right is vested in you alone. The

King exists only to execute your will. Every order, every corporation,

every power, every civil or ecclesiastical association is illegitimate

and null the moment you declare it to be so. You may even transform

religion. You are the fathers of the country. You have saved France, you

will regenerate humanity. The whole world looks on you in admiration;

finish your glorious work--forward, always forward."

Superior good sense and rooted convictions could alone stand firm

against this flood of seductions and solicitations; but vacillating and

ordinary men are carried away by it. In the harmony of applause which

rises, they do not hear the crash of the ruins they produce. In any

case, they stop their ears, and shun the cries of the oppressed; they

refuse to admit that their work could possibly bring about evil results;

they accept the sophisms and untruths which justify it; they allow the

assassinated to be calumniated in order to excuse the assassins; they

listen to Merlin de Douay, who, after three or four jacqueries, when

pillaging, arson, and murder are going on in all the provinces, has just

declared in the name of the Committee on Feudalism[2134] that "a law

must be presented to the people, the justice of which may enforce

silence on the feudatory egoists who, for the past six months, so

indecently protest against plunder; the wisdom of which may restore to

a sense of duty the peasant who has been led astray for a moment by

his resentment of a long oppression." And when Raynal, the surviving

patriarch of the philosophic party, one day, for a wonder, takes

the plain truth with him into their tribune, they resent his

straightforwardness as an outrage, and excuse it solely on the ground of

his imbecility. An omnipotent legislator cannot depreciate himself; like

a king he is condemned to self-admiration in his public capacity. "There

were not thirty deputies amongst us," says a witness, "who thought

differently from Raynal," but "in each other's presence the credit of

the Revolution, the perspective of its blessings, was an article of

faith which had to be believed in;" and, against their own reason,

against their conscience, the moderates, caught in the net of their own

acts, join the revolutionaries to complete the Revolution.

Had they refused, they would have been compelled; for, to obtain the

power, the Assembly has, from the very first, either tolerated

or solicited the violence of the streets. But, in accepting

insurrectionists for its allies, it makes them masters, and henceforth,

in Paris as in the provinces, illegal and brutal force becomes the

principal power of the State. "The triumph was accomplished through the

people; it was impossible to be severe with them;"[2135] hence, when

insurrections were to be put down, the Assembly had neither the courage

nor the force necessary. "They blame for the sake of decency; they frame

their deeds by expediency." and in turn justly undergo the pressure

which they themselves have sanctioned against others. Only three or four

times do the majority, when the insurrection becomes too daring--after

the murder of the baker François, the insurrection of the Swiss Guard at

Nancy, and the outbreak of the Champ de Mars--feel that they themselves

are menaced, vote for and apply martial law, and repel force with force.

But, in general, when the despotism of the people is exercised only

against the royalist minority, they allow their adversaries to be

oppressed, and do not consider themselves affected by the violence which

assails the party of the "right:" they are enemies, and may be given

up to the wild beasts. In accordance with this, the "left" has made its

arrangements; its fanaticism has no scruples; it is principle, it is

absolute truth that is at stake; this must triumph at any cost. Besides,

can there be any hesitation in having recourse to the people in the

people's own cause? A little compulsion will help along the good cause,

and hence the siege of the Assembly is continually renewed. This was the

practice already at Versailles before the 6th of October, while now, at

Paris, it is kept up more actively and with less disguise.

At the beginning of the year 1790,[2136] the band under pay comprises

seven hundred and fifty effective men, most of them deserters or

soldiers drummed out of their regiments, who are at first paid five

francs and then forty sous a day. It is their business to make or

support motions in the coffee-houses and in the streets, to mix with

the spectators at the sittings of the sections, with the groups at the

Palais-Royal, and especially in the galleries of the National-Assembly,

where they are to hoot or applaud at a given signal. Their leader is a

Chevalier de Saint-Louis, to whom they swear obedience, and who receives

his orders from the Committee of Jacobins. His first lieutenant at the

Assembly is a M. Saule, "a stout, small, stunted old fellow, formerly an

upholsterer, then a charlatan hawker of four penny boxes of grease (made

from the fat of those that had been hung--for the cure of diseases of

the kidneys) and all his life a sot.... who, by means of a tolerably

shrill voice, which was always well moistened, has acquired some

reputation in the galleries of the Assembly." In fact, he has forged

admission tickets he has been turned out; he has been obliged to resume

"the box of ointment, and travel for one or two months in the provinces

with a man of letters for his companion." But on his return, "through

the protection of a groom of the Court, he obtained a piece of ground

for a coffee-house against the wall of the Tuileries garden, almost

alongside of the National Assembly," and now it is at home in his

coffee-shop behind his counter that the hirelings of the galleries "come

to him to know what they must say, and to be told the order of the day

in regard to applause." Besides this, he is there himself; "it is he

who for three years is to regulate public sentiment in the galleries

confided to his care, and, for his useful and satisfactory services,

the Constituent Assembly will award him a recompense," to which the

Legislative Assembly will add "a pension of six hundred livres, besides

a lodging in an apartment of the Feuillants."

We can divine how men of this stamp, thus compensated, do their work.

From the top of the galleries[2137] they drown the demands of the

"right" by the force of their lungs; this or that decree, as, for

instance, the abolition of titles of nobility, is carried, "not by

shouts, but by terrific howls."[2138] On the arrival of the news of the

sacking of the Hôtel de Castries by the populace, they applaud. On the

question coming up as to the decision whether the Catholic faith shall

be dominant, "they shout out that the aristocrats must all be hung, and

then things will go on well." Their outrages not only remain unpunished,

but are encouraged: this or that noble who complains of their hooting

is called to order, while their interference and vociferations, their

insults and their menaces, are from this time introduced as one of the

regular wheels of legislative operations. Their pressure is still worse

outside the Chamber.[2139] The Assembly is obliged several times to

double its guard. On the 27th of September, 1790, there are 40,000

men around the building to extort the dismissal of the Ministers, and

"motions for assassination" are made under the windows, On the 4th of

January, 1791, whilst on a call of the house the ecclesiastical deputies

pass in turn to the tribune, to take or refuse the oath to the civil

constitution of the clergy, a furious clamor ascends in the Tuileries,

and even penetrates into the Chamber. "To the lamp post with all those

who refuse!" On the 27th of September, 1790, M. Dupont, economist,

having spoken against the assignats, is surrounded on leaving the

Chamber and hooted at, hustled, pushed against the basin of the

Tuileries, into which he was being thrown when the guard rescued him. On

the 21st of June, 1790, M. de Cazalès just misses "being torn to pieces

by the people."[2140] Deputies of the "right" are threatened over and

over again by gestures in the streets and in the coffee-houses; effigies

of them with ropes about the neck are publicly displayed. The Abbé Maury

is several times on the point of being hung: he saves himself once by

presenting a pistol. Another time the Vicomte de Mirabeau is obliged

to draw his sword. M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, having voted against the

annexation of the Comtat to France, is assailed with chairs and clubs

in the Palais-Royal, pursued into a porter's room and from thence to his

dwelling; the howling crowd break in the doors, and are only repelled

with great difficulty. It is impossible for the members of the "right"

to assemble together; they are "stoned" in the church of the Capuchins,

then in the Salon Français in the Rue Royale, and then, to crown the

whole, an ordinance of the new judges shuts up their hall, and punishes

them for the violence which they have to suffer.[2141] In short they are

at the mercy of the mob. The most moderate, the most liberal, and the

most manly both in heart and head, Malouet, declares that "in going to

the Assembly he rarely forgot to carry his pistols with him."[2142]

"For two years," he says, "after the King's flight, we never enjoyed one

moment of freedom and security."

" On going into a slaughter-house," writes another deputy, "you see some

animals at the entrance which still have a short time to live, until

the hour comes to dispatch them. Such was the impression which the

assemblage of nobles, bishops, and parliamentarians[2143] on the right

side made on my mind every time I entered the Assembly, the executioners

of the left side permitting them to breathe a little longer."

They are insulted and outraged even upon their benches; "placed

between peril within and peril without, between the hostility of the

galleries,"[2144] and that of the howlers at the entrance, "between

personal insults and the abbey of Saint-Germain, between shouts of

laughter celebrating the burning of their chateaux and the clamors

which, thirty times in a quarter of an hour, cry down their opinions,"

they are given over and denounced "to the ten thousand Cerberuses" of

the journals and of the streets, who pursue them with their yells and

"cover them with their slaver." Any expedient is good enough for putting

down their opposition, and, at the end of the session, in full Assembly,

they are threatened with "a recommendation to the departments," which

means the excitement of riots and of the permanent jacquerie of the

provinces against them in their own houses.--Parliamentary strategy

of this sort, employed uninterruptedly for twenty-nine months, finally

produces its effect. Many of the weak are gained over;[2145] even on

characters of firm temper fear has a hold; he who would march under fire

with head erect shuddered at the idea of being dragged in the gutter by

the rabble; the brutality of the populace always exercises a material

ascendancy over finely strung nerves. On the 12th of July, 1791,[2146]

the call of the house decreed against the absentees proves that one

hundred and thirty-two deputies no longer appear in their places. Eleven

days before, among those who take no further part in the proceedings.

Thus, before the completion of the Constitution, the whole of the

opposition, more than four hundred members, over one-third of the

Assembly, is reduced to flight or to silence. By dint of oppression, the

revolutionary party has got rid of all resistance, while the violence

which gave to it ascendancy in the streets, now gives to it equal

ascendance within the walls of Parliament.

IV.--Refusal to supply the ministry

Effects of this mistake--Misconception of the situation--The

committee of investigation--Constant alarms--Effects of

ignorance and fear on the work of the Constituent Assembly.

Generally in an omnipotent assembly, when a party takes the lead and

forms a majority, it furnishes the Ministry; and this fact suffices

to give, or to bring back to it, some glimpse of common sense. For its

leaders, with the Government in their own hands, become responsible for

it, and when they propose or pass a law, they are obliged to anticipate

its effect. Rarely will a Secretary of War or of the Navy adopt a

military code which goes to establish permanent disobedience in the

army or in the navy. Rarely will a Secretary of the Treasury propose an

expenditure for which there is not a sufficient revenue, or a system of

taxation that provides no returns. Placed where full information can

be procured, daily advised of every details, surrounded by skillful

counselors and expert clerks, the chiefs of the majority, who thus

become heads of the administration, immediately drop theory for

practice; and the fumes of political speculation must be pretty dense

in their minds if they exclude the multiplied rays of light which

experience constantly sheds upon them. Let the most stubborn of

theorists take his stand at the helm of a ship, and, whatever be the

obstinacy of his principles or his prejudices, he will never, unless he

is blind or led by the blind, persist in steering always to the right

or always to the left. Just so after the flight to Varennes, when the

Assembly, in full possession of the executive power, directly controls

the Ministry, it comes to recognize for itself that its constitutional

machine will not work, except in the way of destruction; and it is the

principal revolutionaries, Barnave, Duport, the Lameths, Chapelier, and

Thouret,[2147] who undertake to make alterations in the mechanisms so

as to lessen its friction. But this source of knowledge and reason,

however, to which they are momentarily induced to draw, in spite of

themselves and too late, has been turned off by themselves from the very

beginning. On the 6th of November, 1789, in deference to principle

and in dread of corruption, the Assembly had declared that none of

its members should hold ministerial office. We see it in consequence

deprived of all the instruction which comes from direct contact with

affairs, surrendered without any counterpoise to the seductions

of theory, reduced by its own decision to become a mere academy of

legislation only.

Nay, still worse, through another effect of the same error, it condemns

itself by its own act to constant fits of panic. For, having allowed

the power which it was not willing to assume to slip into indifferent or

suspect hands, it is always uneasy, and all its decrees bear an uniform

stamp, not only of the willful ignorance within which it confines

itself, but also of the exaggerated or chimerical fears in which its

life is passed.--Imagine a ship conveying a company of lawyers, literary

men, and other passengers, who, supported by a mutinous and poorly fed

crew, take full command, but refuse to select one of their own number

for a pilot or for the officer of the watch. The former captain

continues to nominate them; through very shame, and because he is a

good sort of man, his title is left to him, and he is retained for the

transmission of orders. If these orders are absurd, so much the worse

for him; if he resists them, a fresh mutiny forces him to yield; and

even when they cannot be executed, he has to answer for their being

carried out. In the meantime, in a room between decks, far away from the

helm and the compass, our club of amateurs discuss the equilibrium of

floating bodies, decree a new system of navigation, have the ballast

thrown overboard, crowd on all sail, and are astonished to find that

the ship heels over on its side. The officer of the watch and the pilot

must, evidently, have managed the maneuver badly. They are accordingly

dismissed and others put in their place, while the ship heels over

farther yet and begins to leak in every joint. Enough: it is the

fault of the captain and the old staff of officers, They are not

well-disposed; for a beautiful system of navigation like this ought to

work well; and if it fails to do so, it is because some one interferes

with it. It is positively certain that some of those people belonging

to the former régime must be traitors, who would rather have the ship

go down than submit; they are public enemies and monsters. They must

be seized, disarmed, put under surveillance, and punished.--Such is the

reasoning of the Assembly. Evidently, to reassure it, a message from the

Minister of the Interior chosen by the Assembly, to the lieutenant of

police whom he had appointed, to come to his office every morning, would

be all that was necessary. But it is deprived of this simple resource by

its own act, and has no other expedient than to appoint a committee of

investigation to discover crimes of "treason against the nation."[2148]

What could be more vague than such a term? What could be more

mischievous than such an institution?--Renewed every month, deprived of

special agents, composed of credulous and inexperienced deputies, this

committee, set to perform the work of a Lenoir or a Fouché, makes up for

its incapacity by violence, and its proceedings anticipate those of

the Jacobine inquisition.[2149] Alarmist and suspicious, it encourages

accusations, and, for lack of plots to discover, it invents them.

Inclinations, in its eyes, stand for actions, and floating projects

become accomplished outrages. On the denunciation of a domestic who has

listened at a door, on the gossip of a washerwoman who has found a scrap

of paper in a dressing-gown, on the false interpretation of a letter,

on vague indications which it completes and patches together by

the strength of its imagination, it forges a coup d'état, makes

examinations, domiciliary visits, nocturnal surprises and arrests;[2150]

it exaggerates, blackens, and comes in public session to denounce the

whole affair to the National Assembly. First comes the plot of the

Breton nobles to deliver Brest to the English;[2151] then the plot for

hiring brigands to destroy the crops; then the plot of 14th of July to

burn Paris; then the plot of Favras to murder Lafayette, Necker, and

Bailly; then the plot of Augeard to carry off the King, and many others,

week after week, not counting those which swarm in the brains of the

journalists, and which Desmoulins, Fréron, and Marat reveal with a

flourish of trumpets in each of their publications.

"All these alarms are cried daily in the streets like cabbages

and turnips, the good people of Paris inhaling them along with the

pestilential vapors of our mud."[2152]

..............Now, in this aspect, as well as in a good many others, the

Assembly is the people; satisfied that it is in danger,[2153] it makes

laws as the former make their insurrections, and protects itself by

strokes of legislation as the former protects itself by blows with

pikes. Failing to take hold of the motor spring by which it might direct

the government machine, it distrusts all the old and all the new wheels.

The old ones seem to it an obstacle, and, instead of utilizing them,

it breaks them one by one--parliaments, provincial states, religious

orders, the church, the nobles, and royalty. The new ones are

suspicious, and instead of harmonizing them, it puts them out of gear

in advance--the executive power, administrative powers, judicial

powers, the police, the gendarmerie, and the army.[2154] Thanks to

these precautions it is impossible for any of them to be turned against

itself; but, also, thanks to these precautions, none of them can perform

their functions.[2155]

In building, as well as in destroying, the Assembly had two bad

counselors, on the one hand fear, on the other hand theory; and on the

ruins of the old machine which it had demolished without discernment,

the new machine, which it has constructed without forecast, will work

only to its own ruin.

*****

[Footnote 2101: Arthur Young, June 15, 1789.--Bailly, passim,--Moniteur,

IV. 522 (June 2, 1790).--Mercure de France (Feb. 11 1792).]

[Footnote 2102: Moniteur, v. 631 (Sep. 12, 1790), and September 8th

(what is said by the Abbé Maury).--Marmontel, book XIII. 237.--Malouet,

I. 261.--Bailly, I. 227.]

[Footnote 2103: Sir Samuel Romilly, "Mémoires," I. 102, 354.--Dumont,

158. (The official rules bear are dated July 29, 1789.)]

[Footnote 2104: Cf. Ferrières, I. 3. His repentance is affecting.]

[Footnote 2105: Letter from Morris to Washington, January 24, 1790 See

page 382, "A diary of the French revolution", Greenwood Press, Westport,

Conn. 1972.--Dumont 125--Garat, letter to Condorcet.]

[Footnote 2106: Arthur Young, I. 46. "Tame and elegant, uninteresting

and polite, the mingled mass of communicated ideas has power neither

to offend nor instruct..... All vigor of thought seems excluded from

expression..... Where there is much polish of character there is little

argument."--Cabinet des Estampes. See engravings of the day by Moreau,

Prieur, Monet, representing the opening of the States-General. All the

figures have a graceful, elegant, and genteel air.]

[Footnote 2107: Marmontel, book XIII. 237.--Malouet, I. 261.--Ferrières,

I. 19.]

[Footnote 2108: Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790.--Likewise (De

Ferrières, I.71) the decree on the abolition of nobility was not the

order of the day, and was carried by surprise.]

[Footnote 2109: Ferrières, I. 189.--Dumont, 146.]

[Footnote 2110: Letter of Mirabeau to Sieyès, June 11, 1790. "Our nation

of monkeys with the throats of parrots."--Dumont, 146. "Sieyès and

Mirabeau always entertained a contemptible opinion of the Constituent

Assembly."]

[Footnote 2111: Moniteur, I, 256, 431 (July 16 and 31, 1789).--Journal

des Débats et Décrets, 105, July 16th "A member demands that M. de Lally

should put his speech in writing. The whole Assembly has repeated this

request."]

[Footnote 2112: Moniteur. (March 11, 1790). "A nun of St. Mandé, brought

to the bar of the house, thanks the Assembly for the decree by which

the cloisters are opened, and denounces the tricks, intrigues, and

even violence exercised in the convents to prevent the execution of

the decree."--Ibid. March 29, 1790. See the various addresses which are

read. "At Lagnon, the mother of a family assembled her ten children,

and swore with them and for them to be loyal to the nation and to

the King."--Ibid. June 5, 1790. "M. Chambroud reads the letter of the

collector of customs of Lannion, in Brittany, to a priest, a member

of the National Assembly. He implores his influence to secure the

acceptance of his civic oath and that of all his family, ready to wield

either the censer, the cart, the scales, the sword, or the pen." On

reading a number of these addresses the Assembly appears to be a

supplement of the Petites Affiches (a small advertising journal in

Paris).]

[Footnote 2113: Moniteur, October 23, 1789.]

[Footnote 2114: A well-known writer of children's stories.--

21Tr.]

[Footnote 2115: Ferrières, II. 65 (June 10,1790).--De Montlosier, I.

402. "One of these puppets came the following day to get his money

of the Comte de Billancourt, mistaking him for the Duc de Liancourt.

'Monsieur,' says he, 'I am the man who played the Chaldean yesterday.'"]

[Footnote 2116: Buchez and Roux, X. 118 (June 16, 1791).]

[Footnote 2117: See the printed list of deputies, with the indication of

their baillage or sénéchaussée, quality, condition, and profession.]

[Footnote 2118: De Bouillé, 75.--When the King first saw the list of the

deputies, he exclaimed," What would the nation have said if I had made

up my council or the Notables in this way?" (Buchez and Roux, IV. 39.)]

[Footnote 2119: Gouverneur Morris, July 31, 1789.]

[Footnote 2120: Gouverneur Morris, February 25, 1789.--Lafayette,

"Mémoires," V. 492. Letter of Jefferson, February 14, 1815.--Arthur

Young, June 27 and 29, 1789.]

[Footnote 2121: Morris, July 1, 1789.]

[Footnote 2122: Morris, July 4, 1789.]

[Footnote 2123: Mallet du Pan, Mercure, September 26, 1789.]

[Footnote 2124: Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790; November 22, 1790.]

[Footnote 2125: Dumont, 33, 58, 62.]

[Footnote 2126: Sir Samuel. Romilly, "Mémoirs," I. 102. "It was their

constant course first, decree the principle and leave the drawing up

of what they had so resolved (or, as they called it, la rédaction) for

later. It is astonishing how great an influence it had on their debates

and measures".--Ibid. I. 354. Letter by Dumont, June 2, 1789. "They

prefer their own folly to all the results of British experience. They

revolt at the idea of borrowing anything from our government, which is

scoffed at here as one of the iniquities of human reason; although they

admit that you have two or three good laws; but that you should presume

to have a constitution is not to be sustained."]

[Footnote 2127: Dumont, 138, 151.]

[Footnote 2128: Morris, January 24, 1790.]

[Footnote 2129: Marmontel, XII. 265.--Ferrières,. I. 48¸ II. 50, 58,

126.--Dumont, 74.]

[Footnote 2130: Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790.--According to

Ferrières this party comprised about three hundred members.]

[Footnote 2131: Here Ambassador Morris describes the kind of man who

should form the backbone of all later revolutions whether communist or

fascist ones. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2132: Dumont, 33, 58, 62.]

[Footnote 2133: De Lavergne, "Les Assemblées Provinciales," 384.

Deliberations of the States of Dauphiny, drawn up by Mournier and signed

by two hundred gentlemen (July, 1788). "The rights of man are derived

from nature alone, and are independent of human conventions."]

[Footnote 2134: Report by Merlin de Douai, February 8, 1790,

p.2.--Malouet, II, 51.]

[Footnote 2135: Dumont, 133.--De Montlosier, I, 355, 361.]

[Footnote 2136: Bertrand de Molleville, II. 221 (according to a police

report).--Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution," I. 215. (Report of the

agent Dutard, May 13, 1793)--Lacretelle, "Dix Ans d'Epreuves," p.35. "It

was about midnight when we went out in the rain, sleet, and snow, in the

piercing cold, to the church of the Feuillants, to secure places for the

galleries of the Assembly, which we were not to occupy till noon on the

following day. We were obliged, moreover, to contend for them with a

crowd animated by passions, and even by interests, very different from

our own. We were not long in perceiving that a considerable part of the

galleries was under pay, and that the scenes of cruelty which gave pain

to us were joy to them. I cannot express the horror I felt on hearing

those women, since called tricoteuses, take a delight in the already

homicidal doctrines of Robespierre, enjoying his sharp voice and

feasting their eyes on his ugly face, the living type of envy." (The

first months of 1790.)]

[Footnote 2137: Moniteur, V. 237 (July 26, 1790); V. 594. (September 8,

1790); V. 631 (September 12, 1790); VI. 310 (October 6, 1790). (Letter

of the Abbé Peretti.)]

[Footnote 2138: De Ferrières, II. 75.--Moniteur, VI. 373 (September 6,

1790).--M. de Virieu. "Those who insult certain members and hinder the

freedom of debate by hooting or applause must be silenced. Is it the

three hundred spectators who are to be our judges, or the nation?" M.

Chasset, President: "Monsieur opinionist, I call you to order. You speak

of hindrances to a free vote; there has never been anything of the kind

in this Assembly."]

[Footnote 2139: Sauzay, I 140. Letter of M. Lompré, liberal deputy, to

M. Séguin, chanoine (towards the end of November, 1789). "The service

becomes more difficult every day; we have become objects of popular

fury, and, when no other resource was left to us to avoid the tempest

but to get rid of the endowments of the clergy, we yielded to force. It

had become a pressing necessity, and I should have been sorry to have

had you still here, exposed to the outrages and violence with which I

have been repeatedly threatened."]

[Footnote 2140: Mercure de France, Nos. of January 15, 1791; October 2,

1790; May 14,1791.--Buchez and Roux, V. 343 (April 13, 1790); VII.

76 (September 2, 1790); X. 225 ( June 21, 1791).--De Montlosier, I.

357.--Moniteur, IV, 427.]

[Footnote 2141: Archives of the Police, exposed by the Committee of the

district of Saint-Roch. Judgment of the Police Tribunal, May 15, 1790.]

[Footnote 2142: Malouet, II. 68.--De Montlosier, II. 217, 257 (Speech of

M. Lavie, September 18, 1791).]

[Footnote 2143: I.e. members of the old local parlements.]

[Footnote 2144: Mercure, October 1, 1791. (Article by Mallet du Pan.)]

[Footnote 2145: Malouet II. 66. "Those only who were not intimidated

by insults or threats, nor by actual blows, could come forward as

opponents."]

[Footnote 2146: Buchez and Roux, X. 432, 465.]

[Footnote 2147: Malouet, II, 153.]

[Footnote 2148: Decrees of July 23rd and 28th, 1789.--"Archives

Nationales." Papers of Committee of Investigation, passim. Among other

affairs see that of Madame de Persan (Moniteur, V. 611, sitting of

September 9, 1790), and that of Malouet ("Mémoires" II. 12).]

[Footnote 2149: Buchez and Roux, IV. 56 (Report of Garan de Coulon); V.

49 (Decision of the Committee of Investigation, December 28, 1789).]

[Footnote 2150: The arrests of M. de Riolles, M. de Bussy, etc., of

Madame de Jumilhac, of two other ladies, one at Bar-le-Duc and the other

of Nancy, etc.]

[Footnote 2151: Sitting of July 28, 1789, the speeches of Duport and

Rewbell, etc.--Mercure, No. of January 1, 1791 (article by Mallet

du Pan).--Buchez and Roux, V. 146l "Behold five or six successive

conspiracies--that of the sacks of flour, that of the sacks of money,

etc." (Article by Camille Desmoulins.)]

[Footnote 2152: "Archives de la Préfecture de Police." Extract from the

registers of the deliberations of the Conseil-Général of the district

of Saint-Roch, October 10 1789: Arrête: to request all the men in the

commune to devote themselves, with all the prudence, activity, and force

of which they are capable, to the discovery, exposure, and publication

of the horrible plots and infernal treachery which are constantly

meditated against the inhabitants of the capital; to denounce to the

public the authors, abettors, and adherents of the said plots, whatever

their rank may be; to secure their persons and insure their punishment

with all the rigor which outrages of this kind call for. The commandant

of the battalion and the district captains come daily to consult with

the committee. "While the alarm lasts, the first story of each house is

to be lighted with lamps during the night: all citizens of the district

are requested to be at home by ten o'clock in the evening at the

latest, unless they should be on duty... . All citizens are invited

to communicate whatever they may learn or discover in relation to the

abominable plots which are secretly going on in the capital."]

[Footnote 2153: Letter of M. de Guillermy, July 31, 1790 ("Actes des

Apôtres," V. 56). "During these two nights (July 13th and 14th, 1789)

that we remained in session I heard one deputy try to get it believed

that an artillery corps had been ordered to point its guns against our

hall; another, that it was undermined, and that it was to be blown up;

another went so far as to declare that he smelt powder, upon which M. le

Comte de Virieu replied that power had no odor until it was burnt."]

[Footnote 2154: Dumont, 351. "Each constitutional law was a party

triumph."]

[Footnote 2155: Here Taine indicates how subversive parties may proceed

to weaken a nation prior to their take-over.(SR.)]

CHAPTER II. DESTRUCTION.

I.--Two principal vices of the ancient régime.

Two principal reforms proposed by the King and the

privileged classes.--They suffice for actual needs.--

Impracticable if carried further.

In the structure of the old society there were two fundamental vices

which called for two reforms of corresponding importance.[2201]

In the first place, those who were privileged having ceased to render

the services for which the advantages they enjoyed constituted their

compensation and their privileges were no longer anything but a

gratuitous charge imposed on one portion of the nation for the benefit

of the other. Hence the necessity for suppressing them.

In the second place, the Government, being absolute, made use of public

resources as if they were its own private property, arbitrarily and

wastefully;[2202] it was therefore necessary to impose upon it some

effective and regular restraints.

To render all citizens equal before taxation, to put the purse of the

tax-payers into the hands of their representatives, such was the twofold

operation to be carried out in 1789; and the privileged class as well

as the King willingly lent themselves to it. Not only, in this respect,

were the memorials of nobles and clergy in perfect harmony, but the

monarch himself; in his declaration of the 23rd of June, 1789, decreed

the two articles. Henceforth, every tax or loan was to obtain the

consent of the States-General; this consent was to be renewed at each

new meeting of the States; the public estimates were to be annually

published, discussed, specified, apportioned, voted on and verified by

the States; there were to be no arbitrary assessments or use of public

funds; allowances were to be specially assigned for all separate

services, the household of the King included. In each province or

district-general, there was to be an elected Provincial Assembly,

one-half composed of ecclesiastics and nobles, and the other half of

members of the Third-Estate, to apportion general taxes, to manage local

affairs, to decree and direct public works, to administer hospitals,

prisons, workhouses, and to continue its function, in the interval of

the sessions, through an intermediary commission chosen by itself; so

that, besides the principal control of the center, there were to be

thirty subordinate controlling powers at the extremities. There was

to be no more exemption or distinction in the matter of taxation; the

roadtax (covée) was to be abolished, also the right of franc-fief[2203]

imposed on plebeians; the rights of mortmain,[2204] subject to

indemnity, and internal customs duties. There was to be a reduction of

the captaincies, a modification of the salt-tax and of the excise,

the transformation of civil justice, too costly for the poor, and of

criminal justice, too severe for the humbler classes. Here we have,

besides the principal reform, equalization of taxes; the beginning and

inducement of the more complete operation which is to strike off the

last of the feudal manacles. Moreover; six weeks later, on the 4th of

August; the privileged, in an outburst of generosity, come forward

of their own accord to cut off or undo the whole of them. This double

reform thus encountered no obstacles, and, as Arthur Young reported to

his friends, it merely required one vote to have it adopted.[2205]

This was enough; for all real necessities were now satisfied. On the one

hand, through the abolition of privileges in the matter of taxation,

the burden of the peasant and, in general, on the small tax-payer

was diminished one-half, and perhaps two thirds; instead of paying

fifty-three francs on one hundred francs of net income, he paid no more

than twenty-five or even sixteen;[2206] an enormous relief, and one

which, with the proposed revision of the excise and salt duties, made a

complete change in his condition. Add to this the gradual redemption

of ecclesiastical and feudal dues: and after twenty years the peasant,

already proprietor of a fifth of the soil, would, without the violent

events of the Revolution, in any case have attained the same degree of

independence and well-being which he was to achieve by passing through

it. On the other hand, through the annual vote on the taxes, not only

were waste and arbitrariness in the employment of the public funds put

a stop to, but also the foundations of the parliamentary system of

government were laid: whoever holds the purse-strings is, or becomes,

master of the rest; henceforth in the maintenance or establishment of

any service, the assent of the States was to be necessary. Now, in the

three Chambers which the three orders were thenceforward to form, there

were two in which the plebeians predominated. Public opinion, moreover,

was on their side, while the King, the true constitutional monarch, far

from possessing the imperious inflexibility of a despot, did not now

possess the initiative of an ordinary person. Thus the preponderance

fell to the communes, and they could legally, without any collision,

execute multiply, and complete, with the aid of the prince and through

him, all useful reforms.[2207]--This was enough; for human society,

like a living body, is seized with convulsions when it is subjected to

operations on too great a scale, and these, although restricted, were

probably all that France in 1789 could endure. To equitably reorganize

afresh the whole system of direct and indirect taxation; to revise,

recast, and transfer to the frontiers the customs-tariffs; to suppress,

through negotiations and with indemnity, feudal and ecclesiastical

claims, was an operation of the greatest magnitude, and as complex as

it was delicate. Things could be satisfactorily arranged only through

minute inquiries, verified calculations, prolonged essays, and mutual

concessions. In England, in our day, a quarter of a century has been

required to bring about a lesser reform, the transformation of tithes

and manorial-rights; and time likewise was necessary for our Assemblies

to perfect their political education,[2208] to get of their theories, to

learn, by contact with practical business, and in the study of details,

the distance which separates speculation from practice; to discover that

a new system of institutions works well only through a new system of

habits, and that to decree a new system of habits is tantamount to

attempting to build an old house.--Such, however, is the work they

undertake. They reject the King's proposals, the limited reforms, the

gradual transformations. According to them, it is their right and their

duty to re-make society from top to bottom. Such is the command of pure

reason, which has discovered the Rights of Man and the conditions of the

Social Contract.

II--Nature of societies, and the principle of enduring constitutions.

Apply the Social Contract, if you like, but apply it only to those for

whom it was drawn up. These were abstract beings, belonging neither to

a period nor to a country, perfect creatures hatched out under the

magic wand of a metaphysician. They had as a matter of fact come into

existence by removing all the characteristics which distinguish one man

from another,[2209] a Frenchman from a Papuan, a modern Englishman from

a Briton in the time of Caesar, and by retaining only the part which is

common to all.[2210] The essence thus obtained is a prodigiously meager

one, an infinitely curtailed extract of human nature, that is, in the

phraseology of the day,

"A BEING WITH A DESIRE TO BE HAPPY AND THE FACULTY OF REASONING,"

nothing more and nothing else. After this pattern several million

individuals, all precisely alike, have been prepared while, through a

second simplification, as extraordinary as the first one, they are all

supposed to be free and all equal, without a past, without kindred,

without responsibility, without traditions, without customs, like so

many mathematical units, all separable and all equivalent, and then it

is imagined that, assembled together for the first time, these proceed

to make their primitive bargain. From the nature they are supposed to

possess and the situation in which they are placed, no difficulty is

found in deducing their interests, their wills, and the contract between

them. But if this contract suits them, it does not follow that it suits

others. On the contrary, if follows that is does not suit others; the

inconvenience becomes extreme on its being imposed on a living society;

the measure of that inconvenience will be the immensity of the distance

which divides a hollow abstraction, a philosophical phantom, an empty

insubstantial image from the real and complete man.

In any event we are not here considering a specimen, so reduced and

mutilated as to be only an outline of a human being; no, we are to the

contrary considering Frenchmen of the year 1789. It is for them alone

that the constitution is being made: it is therefore they alone who

should be considered; they are manifestly men of a particular species,

having their peculiar temperament, their special aptitudes, their own

inclinations, their religion, their history, all adding up into a mental

and moral structure, hereditary and deeply rooted, bequeathed to them by

the indigenous stock, and to which every great event, each political

or literary phase for twenty centuries, has added a growth, a

transformation or a custom. It is like some tree of a unique species

whose trunk, thickened by age, preserves in its annual rings and in its

knots, branches, and curvatures, the deposits which its sap has made

and the imprint of the innumerable seasons through which it has passed.

Using the philosophic definition, so vague and trite, to such an

organism, is only a puerile label teaching us nothing.--And all the more

because extreme diversities and inequalities show themselves on this

exceedingly elaborate and complicated background,--those of age,

education, faith, class and fortune; and these must be taken into

account, for these contribute to the formation of interests, passions,

and dispositions. To take only the most important of these, it is clear

that, according to the average of human life,[2211] one-half of the

population is composed of children, and, besides this, one-half of the

adults are women. In every twenty inhabitants eighteen are Catholic,

of whom sixteen are believers, at least through habit and tradition.

Twenty-five out of twenty-six millions of Frenchmen cannot read, one

million at the most being able to do so; and in political matters only

five or six hundred are competent. As to the condition of each class,

its ideas, its sentiments, its kind and degree of culture, we should

have to devote a large volume to a mere sketch of them.

There is still another feature and the most important of all. These men

who are so different from each other are far from being independent, or

from contracting together for the first time. They and their ancestors

for eight hundred years form a national body, and it is because they

belong to this body that they live, multiply, labor, make acquisitions,

become enlightened and civilized, and accumulate the vast heritage of

comforts and intelligence which they now enjoy. Each in this community

is like the cell of an organized body; undoubtedly the body is only

an accumulation of cells, but the cell is born, subsists, develops and

attains its individual ends only be the healthy condition of the whole

body. Its chief interest, accordingly, is the prosperity of the whole

organism, and the fundamental requirement of all the little fragmentary

lives, whether they know it or not, is the conservation of the

great total life in which they are comprised as musical notes in a

concert.--Not only is this a necessity for them, but it is also a duty.

We are all born with a debt to our country, and this debt increases

while we grow up; it is with the assistance of our country, under the

protection of the law, upheld by the authorities, that our ancestors

and parents have given us life, property, and education. Each person's

faculties, ideas, attitudes, his or her entire moral and physical being

are the products to which the community has contributed, directly or

indirectly, at least as tutor and guardian. By virtue of this the state

is his creditor, just as a destitute father is of his able-bodied son;

it can lay claim to nourishment, services, and, in all the force or

resources of which he disposes, it deservedly demands a share.--This he

knows and feels, the notion of country is deeply implanted within him,

and when occasion calls for it, it will show itself in ardent emotions,

fueling steady sacrifice and heroic effort.--Such are veritable

Frenchmen, and we at once see how different they are from the simple,

indistinguishable, detached monads which the philosophers insist on

substituting for them. Their association need not be created, for it

already exists; for eight centuries they have a "common weal" (la chose

publique). The safety and prosperity of this common weal is at once

their interest, their need, their duty, and even their most secret wish.

If it is possible to speak here of a contract, their quasi-contract is

made and settled for them beforehand. The first article, at all events,

is stipulated for, and this overrides all the others. The nation must

not be dissolved. Public authorities must, accordingly, exist, and

these must be respected. If there are a number of these, they must be

so defined and so balanced as to be of mutual assistance, instead of

neutralizing each other by their opposition. Whatever government is

adopted, it must place matters in the hands best qualified to conduct

them. The law must not exist for the advantage of the minority, nor for

that of the majority, but for the entire community.--In regard to this

first article no one must derogate from it, neither the minority nor

the majority, neither the Assembly elected by the nation, nor the nation

itself, even if unanimous. It has no right arbitrarily to dispose of the

common weal, to put it in peril according to its caprice, to subordinate

it to the application of a theory or to the interest of a single class,

even if this class is the most numerous. For, that which is the common

weal does not belong to it, but to the whole community, past, present,

and to come. Each generation is simply the temporary manager and

responsible trustee of a precious and glorious patrimony which it has

received from the former generation, and which it has to transmit to

the one that comes after it. In this perpetual endowment, to which all

Frenchmen from the first days of France have brought their offerings,

there is no doubt about the intentions of countless benefactors; they

have made their gifts conditionally, that is, on the condition that the

endowment should remain intact, and that each successive beneficiary

should merely serve as the administrator of it. Should any of the

beneficiaries, through presumption or levity, through rashness or

one-sidedness, compromise the charge entrusted to them, they wrong

all their predecessors whose sacrifices they invalidate, and all their

successors whose hopes they frustrate. Accordingly, before undertaking

to frame a constitution, let the whole community be considered in its

entirety, not merely in the present but in the future, as far as the

eye can reach. The interest of the public, viewed in this far-sighted

manner, is the end to which all the rest must be subordinate, and for

which a constitution provides. A constitution, whether oligarchic,

monarchist, or aristocratic, is simply an instrument, good if it attains

this end, and bad if it does not attain it, and which, to attain it,

must, like every species of mechanism, vary according to the ground,

materials, and circumstances. The most ingenious is illegitimate if it

dissolves the State, while the clumsiest is legitimate if it keeps the

State intact. There is none that springs out of an anterior, universal,

and absolute right. According to the people, the epoch, and the degree

of civilization, according to the outer or inner condition of things,

all civil or political equality or inequality may, in turn, be or cease

to be beneficial or hurtful, and therefore justify the legislator in

removing or preserving it. It is according to this superior and salutary

law, and not according to an imaginary and impossible contract, that he

is to organize, limit, delegate and distribute from the center to

the extremities, through inheritance or through election, through

equalization or through privilege, the rights of the citizen and the

power of the community.

III.--The estates of a society.

Political aptitude of the aristocracy.--Its disposition in

1789.--Special services which it might have rendered.--The

principle of the Assembly as to original equality.

--Rejection of an Upper Chamber.--The feudal rights of the

aristocracy.--How far and why they were worthy of respect.

--How they should have been transformed.--Principle of the

Assembly as to original liberty.--Distinction established by

it in feudal dues; application of its principle.--The

lacunae of its law.--Difficulties of redemption.--Actual

abolition of all feudal liens.--Abolition of titles and

territorial names.--Growing prejudice against the

aristocracy.--Its persecutions.--The emigration.

Was it necessary to begin by making a clean sweep, and was it advisable

to abolish or only to reform the various orders and corporations?--Two

prominent orders, the clergy and the nobles, enlarged by the ennobled

plebeians who had grown wealthy and acquired titled estates, formed a

privileged aristocracy side by side with the Government, whose favors it

might receive on the condition of seeking them assiduously and with

due acknowledgment, privileged on its own domains, and taking advantage

there of all rights belonging to the feudal chieftain without performing

his duties. This abuse was evidently an enormous one and had to

be ended. But, it did not follow that, because the position of the

privileged class on their domains and in connection with the Government

was open to abuse, they should be deprived of protection for person and

property on their domains, and of influence and occupation under the

Government.--A favored aristocracy, when it is unoccupied and renders

none of the services which its rank admits of, when it monopolizes all

honors, offices, promotions, preferences, and pensions,[2212] to the

detriment of others not less needy and deserving, is undoubtedly a

serious evil. But when an aristocracy is subject to the common law, when

it is occupied, especially when its occupation is in conformity with its

aptitudes, and more particularly when it is available for the formation

of an upper elective chamber or an hereditary peerage, it is a vast

service.--In any case it cannot be irreversibly suppressed; for,

although it may be abolished by law, it is reconstituted by facts. The

legislator must necessarily choose between two systems, that which lets

it lie fallow, or that which enables it to be productive, that which

drives it away from, or that which rallies it round, the public service.

In every society which has lived for any length of time, a nucleus of

families always exists whose fortunes and importance are of ancient

date. Even when, as in France in 1789, this class seems to be exclusive,

each half century introduces into it new families; judges, governors,

rich businessmen or bankers who have risen to the tope of the social

ladder through the wealth they have acquired or through the important

offices they have filled; and here, in the medium thus constituted, the

statesman and wise counselor of the people, the independent and able

politician is most naturally developed.--Because, on the one hand,

thanks to his fortune and his rank, a man of this class is above all

vulgar ambitions and temptations. He is able to serve gratis; he is not

obliged to concern himself about money or about providing for his family

and making his way in the world. A political mission is no interruption

to his career; he is not obliged, like the engineer, merchant, or

physician, to sacrifice either his business, his advancement, or his

clients. He can resign his post without injury to himself or to

those dependent on him, follow his own convictions, resist the noisy

deleterious opinions of the day, and be the loyal servant, not the

low flatterer of the public. Whilst, consequently, in the inferior or

average conditions of life, the incentive is self-interest, with him the

grand motive is pride. Now, amongst the deeper feelings of man there is

none which is more adapted for transformation into probity, patriotism,

and conscientiousness; for the first requisite of the high-spirited

man is self-respect, and, to obtain that, he is induced to deserve it.

Compare, from this point of view, the gentry and nobility of England

with the "politicians" of the United States.--On the other hand,

with equal talents, a man who belongs to this sphere of life enjoys

opportunities for acquiring a better comprehension of public affairs

than a poor man of the lower classes. The information he requires is

not the erudition obtained in libraries and in private study. He must

be familiar with living men, and, besides these, with agglomerations

of men, and even more with human organizations, with States, with

Governments, with parties, with administrative systems, at home and

abroad, in full operation and on the spot. There is but one way to reach

this end, and that is to see for himself, with his own eyes, at once

in general outline and in details, by intercourse with the heads of

departments, with eminent men and specialists, in whom are gathered up

the information and the ideas of a whole class. Now the young do not

frequent society of this description, either at home or abroad, except

on the condition of possessing a name, family, fortune, education and a

knowledge of social observances. All this is necessary to enable a

young man of twenty to find doors everywhere open to him to be received

everywhere on an equal footing, to be able to speak and to write three

or four living languages, to make long, expensive, and instructive

sojourns in foreign lands, to select and vary his position in the

different branches of the public service, without pay or nearly so, and

with no object in view but that of his political culture Thus brought up

a man, even of common capacity, is worthy of being consulted. If he is

of superior ability, and there is employment for him, he may become a

statesman before thirty; he may acquire ripe capacities, become prime

Minister, the sole pilot, alone able, like Pitt, Canning, or Peel, to

steer the ship of State between the reefs, or give in the nick of time

the touch to the helm which will save the ship.--Such is the service to

which an upper class is adapted. Only this kind of specialized stud farm

can furnish a regular supply of racers, and, now and then, the favorite

winner that distances all his competitors in the European field.

But in order that they may prepare and educate themselves for this

career, the way must be clear, and they must not be compelled to travel

too repulsive a road. If rank, inherited fortune, personal dignity, and

refined manners are sources of disfavor with the people; if, to obtain

their votes, he is forced to treat as equals electoral brokers of low

character; if impudent charlatanism, vulgar declamation, and servile

flattery are the sole means by which votes can be secured, then, as

nowadays in the United States, and formerly in Athens, the aristocratic

body will retire into private life and soon settle down into a state

of idleness. A man of culture and refinement, born with an income of a

hundred thousand a year, is not tempted to become either manufacturer,

lawyer, or physician. For want of other occupation he loiters about,

entertains his friends, chats, indulges in the tastes and hobbies of an

amateur, is bored or enjoys himself. As a result one of society's great

forces is thus lost to the nation. In this way the best and largest

acquisition of the past, the heaviest accumulation of material and

of moral capital, remain unproductive. In a pure democracy the upper

branches of the social tree, not only the old ones but the young ones,

remain sterile. When a vigorous branch passes above the rest and

reaches the top it ceases to bear fruit. The élite of the nation is thus

condemned to constant and irremediable failures because it cannot find

a suitable outlet for its activity. It wants no other outlet, for in all

directions its rival, who are born below it, can serve as usefully and

as well as itself. But this one it must have, for on this its aptitudes

are superior, natural, unique, and the State which refuses to employ

it resembles the gardener who in his fondness for a plane surface would

repress his best shoots.[2213]--Hence, in the constructions which aim to

utilize the permanent forces of society and yet maintain civil equality,

the aristocracy is brought to take a part in public affairs by the

duration and gratuitous character of its mission, by the institution of

an hereditary character, by the application of various machinery, all

of which is combined so as to develop the ambition, the culture, and

the political capacity of the upper class, and to place power, or the

control of power, in its hands, on the condition that it shows itself

worthy of exercising it.--Now, in 1789, the upper class was not unworthy

of it. Members of the parliaments, the noblemen, bishops, capitalists,

were the men amongst whom, and through whom, the philosophy of the

eighteenth century was propagated. Never was an aristocracy more

liberal, more humane, and more thoroughly converted to useful

reforms;[2214] many of them remain so under the knife of the guillotine.

The magistrates of the superior tribunals, in particular, traditionally

and by virtue of their institution, were the enemies of excessive

expenditure and the critics of arbitrary acts. As to the gentry of the

provinces, "they were so weary," says one of them,[2215] "of the Court

and the Ministers that most of them were democrats." For many years,

in the Provincial Assemblies, the whole of the upper class, the clergy,

nobles, and Third-Estate, furnishes abundant evidence of its good

disposition, of its application to business, its capacity and even

generosity. Its mode of studying, discussing, and assigning the local

taxation indicates what it would have done with the general budget had

this been entrusted to it. It is evident that it would have protected

the general taxpayer as zealously as the taxpayer of the province,

and kept as close an eye upon the public purse at Paris as on that of

Bourges or of Montauban.--Thus were the materials of a good chamber

ready at hand, and the only thing that had to be done was to convene

them. On having the facts presented to them, its members would have

passed without difficulty from a hazardous theory to common-sense

practice, and the aristocracy which had enthusiastically given an

impetus to reform in its saloons would, in all probability, have carried

it out effectively and with moderation in the Parliament.

Unhappily, the Assembly is not providing a Constitution for contemporary

Frenchmen, but for abstract beings. Instead of seeing classes in society

one placed above the other, it simply sees individuals in juxtaposition;

its attention is not fixed on the advantage of the nation, but on the

imaginary rights of man. As all men are equal, all must have an equal

share in the government. There must be no orders in a State, no avowed

or concealed political privileges, no constitutional complications or

electoral combinations by which an aristocracy, however liberal and

capable, may put its hands upon any portion of the public power.--On

the contrary, because it was once privileged to enjoy important and

rewarding public employment, the candidacy of the upper classes is now

suspect. All projects which, directly or indirectly, reserve or provide

a place for it, are refused: At first the Royal Declaration, which, in

conformity with historical precedents, maintained the three orders in

three distinct chambers, and only summoned them to deliberate together

"on matters of general utility." Then the plan of the Constitutional

Committee, which proposed a second Chamber, appointed for life by the

King on the nomination of the Provincial Assemblies. And finally the

project of Mounier who proposed to confide to these same Assemblies the

election of a Senate for six years, renewed by thirds every two years.

This Senate was to be composed of men of at least thirty-five years of

age, and with an income in real property of 30,000 livres per annum. The

instinct of equality is too powerful and a second Chamber is not wanted,

even if accessible to plebeians. Through it,[2216]

"The smaller number would control the greater;"... "we should fall

back on the humiliating distinctions" of the ancient regime; "we should

revivify the germ of an aristocracy which must be exterminated."....

"Moreover, whatever recalls or revives feudal Institutions is bad, and

an Upper Chamber is one of its remnants." ...."If the English have

one, it is because they have been forced to make a compromise with

prejudice."

The National Assembly, sovereign and philosophic, soars above their

errors, their trammel; and their example. The depository of truth, it

has not to receive lessons from others, but to give them, and to offer

to the world's admiration the first type of a Constitution which is

perfect and in conformity with principle, the most effective of any in

preventing the formation of a governing class; in closing the way to

public business, not only to the old noblesse, but to the aristocracy

of the future; in continuing and exaggerating the work of absolute

monarchy; in preparing for a community of officials and administrators;

in lowering the level of humanity; in reducing to sloth and brutalizing

or blighting the elite of the families which maintain or raise

themselves; and in withering the most precious of nurseries, that in

which the State recruits its statesmen.[2217]

Excluded from the Government, the aristocracy is about to retire

into private life. Let us follow them to their estates: Feudal rights

instituted for a barbarous State are certainly a great draw-back in a

modern State. If appropriate in an epoch when property and sovereignty

were fused together, when the Government was local, when life was

militant, they form an incongruity at a time when sovereignty and

property are separated, when the Government is centralized, when the

regime is a pacific one. The bondage which, in the tenth century,

was necessary to re-established security and agriculture, is, in the

eighteenth century, purposeless thralldom which impoverishes the soil

and fetters the peasant. But, because these ancient claims are liable

to abuse and injurious at the present day, it does not follow that they

never were useful and legitimate, nor that it is allowable to abolish

them without indemnity On the contrary, for many centuries, and, on

the whole, so long as the lord of the manor resided on his estates this

primitive contract was advantageous to both parties, and to such an

extent that it has led to the modern contract. Thanks to the pressure of

this tight bandage, the broken fragments of the community can be

again united, and society once more recover its solidity, force,

and activity.--In any event, that the institution, like all human

institutions, took its rise in violence and was corrupted by abuses is

of little consequence; the State, for eight hundred years, recognized

these feudal claims, and, with its own consent and the concurrence of

its Courts, they were transmitted, bequeathed, sold, mortgaged, and

exchanged, like any other species of property. Only two or three

hundred, at most, now remained in the families of the original

proprietors. "The largest portion of the titled estates," says a

contemporary,[2218] "have become the property of capitalists, merchants,

and their descendants; the fiefs, for the most part, being in the

hands of the bourgeois of the towns." All the fiefs which, during two

centuries past, have been bought by new men, now represent the economy

and labor of their purchasers.--Moreover; whoever the actual holders

may be, whether old or whether new men, the State is under obligation to

them, not only by general right--and because, from the beginning, it

is in its nature the guardian of all property,--but also by a special

right, because it has itself sanctioned this particular species of

property. The buyers of yesterday paid their money only under its

guarantee; its signature is affixed to the contract, and it has bound

itself to secure to them the enjoyment of it. If it prevents them

from doing so, let it make them compensation; in default of the thing

promised to them, it owes them the value of it. Such is the law in cases

of expropriation for public utility; in 1834, for instance, the English,

for the legal abolition of slavery, paid to their planters the sum of

£20,000,000. --But that is not sufficient: when, in the suppression

of feudal rights, the legislator's thoughts are taken up with the

creditors, he has only half performed his task; there are two sides to

the question, and he must likewise think of the debtors. If he is

not merely a lover of abstractions and of fine phrases, if that which

interests him is men and not words, if he is bent upon the effective

enfranchisement of the cultivator of the soil, he will not rest content

with proclaiming a principle, with permitting the redemption of rents,

with fixing the rate of redemption, and, in case of dispute, with

sending parties before the tribunals. He will reflect that the

peasantry, jointly responsible for the same debt will find difficulty

in agreeing among themselves; that they are afraid of litigation; that,

being ignorant, they will not know how to set about it; that, being

poor, they will be unable to pay; and that, under the weight of discord,

distrust, indigence, and inertia, the new law will remain a dead letter,

and only exasperate their cupidity or kindle their resentment. In

anticipation of this disorder the legislator will come to their

assistance; he will interpose commissions of arbitration between them

and the lord of the manor; he will substitute a scale of annuities for a

full and immediate redemption; he will lend them the capital which they

cannot borrow elsewhere; he will establish a bank, rights, and a mode of

procedure,--in short, as in Savoy in 1771, in England in 1845,[2219] and

in Russia in 1861, he will relieve the poor without despoiling the rich;

he will establish liberty without violating the rights of property; he

will conciliate interests and classes; he will not let loose a brutal

peasant revolt (Jacquerie) to enforce unjust confiscation; and he will

terminate the social conflict not with strife but with peace.

It is just the reverse in 1789 In conformity with the doctrine of the

social contract, the principle is set up that every man is born free,

and that his freedom has always been inalienable. If he formerly

submitted to slavery or to serfdom, it was owing to his having had a

knife at his throat; a contract of this sort is essentially null and

void. So much the worse for those who have the benefit of it at the

present day; they are holders of stolen property, and must restore it to

the legitimate owners. Let no one object that this property was acquired

for cash down, and in good faith; they ought to have known beforehand

that man and his liberty are not commercial matters, and that unjust

acquisitions rightly perish in their hands.[2220] Nobody dreams that

the State which was a party to this transaction is the responsible

guarantor. Only one scruple affects the Assembly; its jurists and

Merlin, its reporter, are obliged to yield to proof; they know that

in current practice, and by innumerable ancient and modern titles, the

noble in many cases is nothing but an ordinary lessor, and that if, in

those cases, he collects his dues, it is simply in his capacity as a

private person, by virtue of a mutual contract, because he has given a

perpetual lease of a certain portion of his land; and he has given

it only in consideration of an annual payment in money or produce, or

services, together with another contingent claim which the farmer pays

in case of the transmission of the lease. These two obligations could

not be canceled without indemnity; if it were done, more than one-half

of the proprietors in France would be dispossessed in favor of the

farmers. Hence the distinction which the Assembly makes in the feudal

dues.--On the one hand it abolishes without indemnity all those dues

which the noble receives by virtue of being the local sovereign, the

ancient proprietor of persons and the usurper of public powers; all

those which the lessee paid as serf, subject to rights of inheritance,

and as former vassal or dependent. On the other hand, it maintains

and decrees as redeemable at a certain rate all those which the noble

receives through his title of landed proprietor and of simple lessor;

all those which the lessee pays by virtue of being a free contracting

party, former purchaser, tenant, farmer or grantee of landed estate.--By

this division it fancies that it has respected lawful ownership by

overthrowing illegitimate property, and that in the feudal scheme of

obligations, it has separated the wheat from the chaff.[2221]

But, through the principle, the drawing up and the omissions of its

law, it condemns both to a common destruction; the fire on which it has

thrown the chaff necessarily burns up the wheat.--Both are in fact bound

up together in the same sheaf. If the noble formerly brought men under

subjection by the sword, it is also by the sword that he formerly

acquired possession of the soil. If the subjection of persons is invalid

on account of the original stain of violence, the usurpation of the soil

is invalid for the same reason. And if the sanction and guarantee of

the State could not justify the first act of brigandage, they could not

justify the second; and, since the rights which are derived from unjust

sovereignty are abolished without indemnity, the rights which are

derived from unjust proprietorship should be likewise abolished without

compensation.----The Assembly, with remarkable imprudence, had declared

in the preamble to its law that "it abolished the feudal system

entirely," and, whatever its ulterior reservations might be, the fiat

has gone forth. The forty thousand sovereign municipalities to which the

text of the decree is read pay attention only to the first article, and

the village attorney, imbued with the rights of man, easily proves to

these assemblies of debtors that they owe nothing to their creditors.

There must be no exceptions nor distinctions: no more annual rents,

field-rents, dues on produce, nor contingent rents, nor lord's dues and

fines, or fifths.[2222] If these have been maintained by the Assembly,

it is owing to misunderstanding, timidity, inconsistency, and on all

sides, in the rural districts, the grumbling of disappointed greed or of

unsatisfied necessities is heard:[2223]

"You thought that you were destroying feudalism, while your redemption

laws have done just the contrary. . . . Are you not aware that what was

called a Seigneur was simply an unpunished usurper? . . . That detestable

decree of 1790 is the ruin of lease-holders. It has thrown the villages

into a state of consternation. The nobles reap all the advantage of

it. . . Never will redemption be possible. Redemption of unreal claims!

Redemption of dues that are detestable!"

In vain the Assembly insists, specifies and explains by examples and

by detailed instructions the mode of procedure and the conditions of

redemption. Neither the procedure nor its conditions are practicable. It

has made no provisions for facilitating the agreement of parties and

the satisfaction of feudal liens, no special arbitrators, nor bank for

loans, nor system of annuities. And worse still, instead of clearing the

road it has barred it by legal arrangements. The lease-holder is not

to redeem his annual rent without at the same time compounding for the

contingent rent: he is not allowed on his own to redeem his quota since

he is tied up in solidarity with the other partners. Should his hoard

be a small one, so much the worse for him. Not being able to redeem the

whole, he is not allowed to redeem a part. Not having the money with

which to relieve himself from both ground-rents and lord's dues he

cannot relieve himself from ground-rents. Not having the money to

liquidate the debt in full of those who are bound along with him-self,

he remains a captive in his ancient chains by virtue of the new law

which announces to him his freedom.

In the face of these unexpected trammels the peasant becomes furious:

His fixed idea, from the outbreak of the Revolution, is that he no

longer owes anything to anybody, and, among the speeches, decrees,

proclamations, and instructions which rumor brings to his ears, he

comprehends but one phrase, and is determined to comprehend no other,

and that is, that henceforth his obligations are removed. He does not

swerve from this, and since the law hinders, instead of aiding him, he

will break the law. In fact, after the 4th of August, 1789, feudal dues

cease to be collected. The claims which are maintained are not enforced

any more than those which are suppressed. Whole communities come and

give notice to the lord of the manor that they will not pay any more

rent. Others, with sword in hand, compel him to give them acquittances.

Others again, to be more secure, break open his safe, and throw his

title-deeds into the fire.[2224] Public force is nowhere strong enough

to protect him in his legal rights. Officers dare not serve writs, the

courts dare not give judgment, administrative bodies dare not decree in

his favor. He is despoiled through the connivance, the neglect, or

the impotence of all the authorities which ought to defend him. He is

abandoned to the peasants who fell his forests, under the pretext that

they formerly belonged to the commune; who take possession of his

mill, his wine-press, and his oven, under the pretext that territorial

privileges are suppressed.[2225] Most of the gentry of the provinces are

ruined, without any resource, and have not even their daily bread; for

their income consisted in seignorial rights, and in rents derived from

their real property, which they had let on perpetual leases, and now,

in accordance with the law, one-half of this income ceases to be paid,

while the other half ceases to be paid in spite of the law. One hundred

and twenty-three millions of revenue, representing two thousand millions

and a half of capital in the money of that time, double, at least, that

of the present day, thus passes as a gift, or through the toleration of

the National Assembly, from the hands of creditors into those of their

debtors. To this must be added an equal sum for revenue and capital

arising from the tithes which are suppressed without compensation, and

by the same stroke.--This is the commencement of the great revolutionary

operation, that is to say, of the universal bankruptcy which, directly

or indirectly, is to destroy all contracts, and abolish all debts in

France. Violations of property, especially of private property, cannot

be made with impunity. The Assembly desired to lop off only the

feudal branch; but, in admitting that the State can annul, without

compensation, the obligations which it has guaranteed, it put the ax to

the root of the tree, and other rougher hands are already driving it in

up to the haft.

Nothing now remains to the noble but his title, his territorial name,

and his armorial bearings, which are innocent distinctions, since they

no longer confer any jurisdiction or pre-eminence upon him, and which,

as the law ceases to protect him, the first comer may borrow with

impunity. Not only, moreover, do they do no harm, but they are even

worthy of respect. With many of the nobles the title of the estate

covers the family name, the former alone being made use of. If one

were substituted for the other, the public would have difficulty in

discovering M. de Mirabeau, Lafayette, and M. de Moutmorency, under the

new names Riquetti, M. Mottié, and M. Bouchard. Besides, it would be

wrong to the bearer of it, to whom the abolished title is a legitimate

possession, often precious, it being a certificate of quality and

descent, an authentic personal distinction of which he cannot be

deprived without losing his position, rank, and worth, in the human

world around him.--The Assembly, however, with a popular principle

at stake, gives no heed to public utility, nor to the rights of

individuals. The feudal system being abolished, all that remains of

it must be got rid of. A decree is passed that "hereditary nobility is

offensive to reason and to true liberty;" that, where it exists, "there

is no political equality."[2226] Every French citizen is forbidden to

assume or retain the titles of prince, duke, count, marquis, chevalier,

and the like, and to bear any other than the "true name of his family;"

he is prohibited from making his servants wear liveries, and from having

coats-of-arms on his house or on his carriage. In case of any infraction

of this law a penalty is inflicted upon him equal to six times the sum

of his personal taxes; he is to be struck off the register of citizens,

and declared incapable of holding any civil or military office. There

is the same punishment if to any contract or acquittance he affixes his

accustomed signature; if; through habit or inadvertence, he adds the

title of his estate to his family name--if; with a view to recognition,

and to render his identity certain, he merely mentions that he once bore

the former name. Any notary or public officer who shall write, or allow

to be written, in any document the word ci-devant (formerly) is to be

suspended from his functions. Not only are old names thus abolished, but

an effort is made to efface all remembrance of them. In a little while,

the childish law will become a murderous one. It will be but a little

while and, according to the terms of this same decree, a military

veteran of seventy-seven years, a loyal servant of the Republic, and a

brigadier-general under the Convention, will be arrested on returning to

his native village, because he has mechanically signed the register of

the revolutionary committee as Montperreux instead of Vannod, and, for

this infraction, he will be guillotined along with his brother and his

sister-in-law.[2227]

Once on this road, it is impossible to stop; for the principles which

are proclaimed go beyond the decrees which are passed, and a bad law

introduces a worse. The Constituent Assembly[2228] had supposed that

annual dues, like ground-rents, and contingent dues, like feudal duties

(lods et rentes), were the price of an ancient concession of land, and,

consequently, the proof to the contrary is to be thrown upon the tenant.

The Legislative Assembly is about to assume that these same rentals

are the result of an old feudal usurpation, and that, consequently, the

proof to the contrary must rest with the proprietor. His rights cannot

be established by possession from time immemorial, nor by innumerable

and regular acquittances; he must produce the act of enfeoffment which

is many centuries old, the lease which has never, perhaps, been written

out, the primitive title already rare in 1720,[2229] and since stolen

or burnt in the recent jacqueries: otherwise he is despoiled without

indemnity. All feudal claims are swept away by this act without

exception and without compensation.

In a similar manner, the Constituent Assembly, setting common law aside

in relation to inheritances ab intestato, had deprived all eldest sons

and males of any advantages.[2230] The Convention, suppressing the

freedom of testamentary bequest, prohibits the father from disposing

of more than one-tenth of his possessions; and again, going back to the

past, it makes its decrees retrospective: every will opened after the

14th of July, 1789, is declared invalid if not in conformity with

this decree; every succession from the 14th of June, 1789, which is

administered after the same date, is re-divided if the division has not

been equal; every donation which has been made among the heirs after the

same date is void. Not only is the feudal family destroyed in this way,

but it must never be reformed. The aristocracy, being once declared a

venomous plant, it is not sufficient to prime it away, but it must be

extirpated, not only dug up by the root, but its seed must be crushed

out.--A malignant prejudice is aroused against it, and this grows from

day to day. The stings of self-conceit, the disappointments of ambition,

and envious sentiments have prepared the way. Its hard, dry kernel

consists of the abstract idea of equality. All around revolutionary

fervor has caused blood to flow, has embittered tempers, intensified

sensibilities, and created a painful abscess which daily irritation

renders still more painful. Through steadily brooding over a purely

speculative preference this has become a fixed idea, and is becoming

a murderous one. It is a strange passion, one wholly of the brains,

nourished by magniloquent phrases, but the more destructive, because

phantoms are created out of words, and against phantoms no reasoning nor

actual facts can prevail. This or that shopkeeper who, up to this time,

had always formed his idea of nobles from his impressions of the members

of the Parliament of his town or of the gentry of his canton, now

pictures them according to the declamations of the club and the

invectives of the newspapers. The imaginary figure, in his mind, has

gradually absorbed the living figure: he no longer sees the calm and

engaging countenance, but a grinning and distorted mask. Kindliness or

indifference is replaced by animosity and distrust; they are overthrown

tyrants, ancient evil-doers, And enemies of the public; he is satisfied

beforehand and without further investigation that they are hatching

plots. If they avoid being caught, it is owing to their address and

perfidy, and they are only the more dangerous the more inoffensive

they appear. Their sub-mission is merely a feint, their resignation

hypocrisy, their favorable disposition, treachery. Against these

conspirators who cannot be touched the law is inadequate; let us stretch

it in practice, and as they wince at equality let us try to make them

bow beneath the yoke.

In fact, illegal persecution precedes legal prosecution; the privileged

person who, by the late decrees, seems merely to be brought within the

pale of the common law, is, in fact; driven outside of it. The King,

disarmed, is no longer able to protect him; the partial Assembly repels

his complaints; the committee of inquiry regards him as a culprit

when he is simply oppressed. His income, his property, his repose, his

freedom, his home, his life, that of his wife and of his children, are

in the hands of an administration elected by the crowd, directed by

clubs, and threatened or violated by the mob. He is debarred from the

elections. The newspapers denounce him. He undergoes domiciliary

visits. In hundreds of places his chateau is sacked; the assassins and

incendiaries who depart from it with their hands full and steeped in

blood are not prosecuted, or are shielded by an amnesty:[2231] it is

established by innumerable precedents that he may be run down with

impunity. To prevent him from defending himself, companies of the

National Guard come and seize his arms: he must become a prey, and

an easy prey, like game kept back in its enclosure for an approaching

hunt.--In vain he abstains from provocation and reduces himself to

the standing of a private individual. In vain does he patiently endure

numerous provocations and resist only extreme violence. I have read

many hundreds of investigations in the original manuscripts, and almost

always I have admired the humanity of the nobles, their forbearance,

their horror of bloodshed. Not only are a great many of them men of

courage and all men of honor, but also, educated in the philosophy of

the eighteenth century, they are mild, sensitive, and deeds of violence

are repugnant to them. Military officers especially are exemplary, their

great defect being their weakness: rather than fire on the crowd they

surrender the forts under their command, and allow themselves to be

insulted and stoned by the people. For two years,[2232] "exposed to a

thousand outrages, to defamation, to daily peril, persecuted by clubs

and misguided soldiers," disobeyed, menaced, put under arrest by their

own men, they remain at their post to prevent the ranks from being

broken up; "with stoic perseverance they put up with contempt of their

authority that they may preserve its semblance, their courage is of that

rarest kind which consists in remaining at the post of duty, impassive

beneath both affronts and blows.--Through a wrong of the greatest

magnitude, an entire class which have no share in the favors of

the Court, and which suffered as many injuries as any of the common

plebeians, is confounded with the titled parasites who besiege the

antechambers of Versailles. Twenty-five thousand families, "the nursery

of the army and the fleet," the elite of the agricultural proprietors,

also many gentlemen who look after and turn to account the little

estates on which they live, and "who have not left their homes a year in

their lives," become the pariahs of their canton.[2233] After 1789, they

begin to feel that their position is no longer tenable.[2234]

" It is absolutely in opposition to the rights of man," says another

letter from Franche-Comté, "to find one's self in perpetual fear of

having one's throat cut by scoundrels who are daily confounding liberty

with license."

"I never knew anything so wearying," says another letter from Champagne,

"as this anxiety about property and security. Never was there a better

reason for it. A moment suffices to let loose an intractable population

which thinks that it may do what it pleases, and which is carefully

sustained in that error."

"After the sacrifices that we have made," says a letter from Burgundy,

"we could not expect such treatment. I thought that our property would

be the last violated because the people owed us some return for staying

at home in the country to expend among them the few resources that

remain to us. . . (Now), I beg the Assembly to repeal the decree on

emigration; otherwise it may be said that people are purposely kept here

to be assassinated. . . In case it should refuse to do us this justice,

I should be quite as willing to have it decree an act of proscription

against us, for we should not then be lulled to sleep by the protection

of laws which are doubtless very wise, but which are not respected

anywhere."

" It is not our privileges," say several others, "it is not our nobility

that we regret; but how is the persecution to which we are abandoned to

be supported? There is no safety for us, for our property, or for our

families. Wretches who are our debtors, the small farmers who rob us of

our incomes, daily threaten us with the torch and the lamp post. We do

not enjoy one hour of repose; not a night that we are certain to

pass through without trouble. Our persons are given up to the vilest

outrages, our dwellings to an inquisition of armed tyrants; we are

robbed of our rentals with impunity, and our property is openly

attacked. We, being now the only people to pay imposts, are unfairly

taxed; in various places our entire incomes would not suffice to pay

the quota which crushes us. We can make no complaint without incurring

the risk of being massacred. The tribunals and the administrative

bodies, the tools of the multitude, daily sacrifice us to its attacks.

Even the Government seems afraid of compromising itself by claiming the

protection of the laws on our behalf. It is sufficient to be pointed

out as an aristocrat to be without any security. If our peasants, in

general, have shown more honesty, consideration, and attachment toward

us, every bourgeois of importance, the wild members of clubs, the vilest

of men who sully a uniform, consider themselves privileged to insult us,

and these wretches go unpunished and are protected! Even our religion

is not free. One of our number has had his house sacked for having shown

hospitality to an old curé of eighty belonging to his parish who refused

to take the oath. Such is our fate. We are not so base as to endure it.

Our right to resist oppression is not due to a decree of the National

Assembly, but to natural law. We are going to leave, and to die if

necessary. But to live under such a revolting anarchy! Should it not be

broken up we shall never set foot in France again!"

The operation is successful. The Assembly, through its decrees and

institutions, through the laws it enacts and the violence which it

tolerates, has uprooted the aristocracy and cast it out of the country.

The nobles, now the reverse of privileged, cannot remain in a country

where, while respecting the law, they are really beyond its pale. Those

who first emigrated on the 15th of July, 1789, along with the Prince de

Condé, received at their houses the evening before they left a list of

the proscribed on which their names appeared, and a reward was

promised to whoever would bring their heads to the cellar of the

Palais-Royal--Others, in larger numbers, left after the occurrences

of the 6th of October.--During the last months of the Constituent

Assembly,[2235]

"the emigration goes on in companies composed of men of every condition.

. . . Twelve hundred gentlemen have left Poitou alone; Auvergne,

Limousin, and ten other provinces have been equally depopulated of their

landowners. There are towns in which nobody remains but common workmen,

a club, and the crowd of devouring office-holders created by the

Constitution. All the nobles in Brittany have left, and the emigration

has begun in Normandy, and is going on in the frontier provinces.

"More than two-thirds of the army will be without officers." On being

called upon to take the new oath in which the King's name is purposely

omitted, "six thousand officers send in their resignation."

The example gradually becomes contagious; they are men of the sword, and

their honor is at stake. Many of them join the princes at Coblentz,

and subsequently do battle against France in the belief that they are

contending only against their executioners.

The treatment of the nobles by the Assembly is the same as the treatment

of the Protestants by Louis XIV.[2236] In both cases the oppressed are a

superior class of men. In both cases France has been made uninhabitable

for them. In both cases they are reduced to exile, and they are

punished because they exiled them selves. In both cases it ended in a

confiscation of their property, and in the penalty of death to all who

should harbor them. In both cases, by dint of persecution, they are

driven to revolt. The insurrection of La Vendée corresponds with the

insurrection of the Cévennes; and the emigrants, like the refugees of

former times, will be found under the flags of Prussia and of England.

One hundred thousand Frenchmen driven out at the end of the seventeenth

century, and one hundred thousand driven out at the end of the

eighteenth century! Mark how an intolerant democracy completes the work

of an intolerant monarchy. The moral aristocracy was mowed down in the

name of uniformity; the social aristocracy is mowed down in the name of

equality. For the second time, an absolute principle, and with the same

effect, buries its blade in the heart of a living society.

The success is complete. One of the deputies of the Legislative

Assembly, early in its session, on being informed of the great increase

in emigration, joyfully exclaims,

"SO MUCH THE BETTER; FRANCE IS BEING PURGED!"