the local recorder, who revenges himself for having formerly bowed too
low.--The following year, M. de Beaumont, having formally and under
notarial sanction bought a church which was sold by the district, along
with the ornaments and objects of worship it contained, the mayor and
municipal officers, followed by a lot of workmen, come and carry away
and destroy everything--confessionals, altars, and even the saint's
canonised body, which had been interred for one hundred and fifty years:
so that, after their departure, "the edifice resembled a vast barn
filled with ruins and rubbish."[3323] It must be noted that, at this
very time, M. de Beaumont is military commandant at Perigord. The
treatment he undergoes shows what is in reserve for ordinary nobles. I
do not recommend them to attend official sales of property.[3324]--Will
they even be free in their domestic enjoyments, and on entering a
drawing-room are they sure of quietly passing an evening there?--At
Paris, even, a number of persons of rank, among them the ambassadors
of Denmark and Venice, are listening to a concert in a mansion in the
Faubourg Saint-Honoré given by a foreign virtuoso, when a cart enters
the court loaded with fifty bundles of hay, the monthly supply for the
horses. A patriot, who sees the cart driven in, imagines that the King
is concealed underneath the hay, and that he has come there for the
purpose of plotting with the aristocrats about his flight. A mob
gathers, and the National Guard arrives, along with a commissioner,
while four grenadiers stand guard around the cart. The commissioner,
in the meantime, inspects the hotel; he sees music-stands, and the
arrangements for a supper; comes back, has the cart unloaded, and states
to the people that he has found nothing suspicious. The people do not
believe him, and demand a second inspection. This is made by twenty-four
delegates; the bundles of hay, moreover, are counted, and several of
them are unbound, but all in vain. Disappointed and irritated, having
anticipated a spectacle, the crowd insists that all the invited guests,
men and women, should leave the house on foot, and only get into
their carriages at the end of the street. "First comes a file of empty
carriages;" next, "all the guests in their evening attire, and the
ladies in full dress, trembling with fear, with downcast eyes, between
two rows of men, women, and children, who stare them in the face, and
overwhelm them with insults."[3325]
Suspected of holding secret meetings, and called to account in his own
house, has the noble at least the right to frequent a public saloon,
to eat in a restaurant, and to take the fresh air in a balcony?--The
Vicomte de Mirabeau, who has just dined in the Palais-Royal, stands at
the window to take the air, and is recognized; there is a
gathering, and the cry is soon heard, "Down with Mirabeau-Tonneau
(barrel-Mirabeau)!"[3326] "Gravel is flung at him from all sides, and
occasionally stones. One of the window-panes is broken by a stone.
Immediately picking up the stone, he shows it to the crowd, and, at
the same time, quietly places it on the sill of the window, in token of
moderation." There is a loud outcry; his friends force him to withdraw
inside, and Bailly, the mayor, comes in person to quiet the aggressors.
In this case there are good reasons for their hatred. The gentleman
whom they stone is a bon-vivant, large and fat, fond of rich epicurean
Suppers; and on this account the populace imagine him to be a monster,
and even worse, an ogre. With regard to these nobles, whose greatest
misfortune is to be over-polished and too worldly, the over-excited
imagination revives its old nursery tales.--M. de Montlosier, living in
the Rue Richelieu, finds that he is watched on his way to the National
Assembly. One woman especially, from thirty to thirty-two years of age,
who sold meat at a stall in the Passage Saint-Guillaume, "regarded him
with special attention. As soon as she saw him coming she took up a
long, broad knife which she sharpened before him, casting furious looks
at him." He asks his housekeeper what this means. Two children of that
quarter have disappeared, carried off by gipsies, and the report is
current that M. de Montlosier, the Marquis de Mirabeau, and other
deputies of the "right," meet together "to hold orgies in which they eat
little children."
In this state of public opinion there is no crime which is not imputed
to them, no insult which is not freely bestowed on them. "Traitors,
tyrants, conspirators, assassins," such is the current vocabulary of
the clubs and newspapers in relation to them. "Aristocrat" signifies
all this, and whoever dares to refute the calumny is himself an
aristocrat.--At the Palais-Royal, it is constantly repeated that M. de
Castries, in his last duel, made use of a poisoned sword, and an officer
of the navy who protests against this false report is himself accused,
tried on the spot, and condemned "to be shut up in the guard-house or
thrown into the fountain."[3327]--The nobles must beware of defending
their honor in the usual way and of meeting an insult with a challenge!
At Castelnau, near Cahors,[3328] one of those who, the preceding year,
marched against the incendiaries, M. de Bellud, Knight of Saint-Louis,
on coming down the public square with his brother, a guardsman, is
greeted with cries of "The aristocrat! to the lamp post!" His brother is
in a morning coat and slippers, and not wishing to get into trouble they
do not reply. A squad of the National Guard, passing by, repeats the
cry, but they still remain silent. The shout continues, and M. de
Bellud, after some time has elapsed, begs the captain to order his men
to be quiet. He refuses, and M. de Bellud demands satisfaction outside
the town. At these words the National Guards rush at M. de Bellud with
fixed bayonets. His brother receives a saber-cut on the neck, while he,
defending himself with his sword, slightly wounds the captain and one
of the men. The two brothers, alone against the whole body, fight on,
retreating to their house, in which they are blockaded. Towards seven
o'clock in the evening, two or three hundred National Guards from
Cahors arrive to reinforce the besiegers. The house is taken, and
the guardsman, escaping across the fields, sprains his ankle and is
captured. M. de Bellud, who has found his way into another house,
continues to defend himself there: the house is set on fire and burnt,
together with two others alongside of it. Taking refuge in a cellar he
still keeps on firing. Bundles of lighted straw are thrown in at the
air-holes. Almost suffocated, he springs out, kills his first assailant
with a shot from one pistol, and himself with another. His head is cut
off with that of his servant. The guardsman is made to kiss the two
heads, and, on his demanding a glass of water, they fill his mouth
with the blood which drops from the severed head of his brother. The
victorious gang then set out for Cahors, with the two heads stuck on
bayonets, and the guardsman in a cart. It comes to a halt before a house
in which a literary circle meets, suspected by the Jacobin club. The
wounded man is made to descend from the cart and is hung: his body is
riddled with balls, and everything the house contains is broken up,
"the furniture is thrown out of the windows, and the house pulled
down."--Every popular execution is of this character, at once prompt and
complete, similar to those of an Oriental monarch who, on the instant,
without inquiry or trial, avenges his offended majesty, and for
every offense, knows no other punishment than death. At Tulle, M. de
Massy,[3329] lieutenant of the "Royal Navarre," having struck a man that
insulted him, is seized in the house in which he took refuge, and, in
spite of the three administrative bodies, is at once massacred.--At
Brest, two anti-revolutionary caricatures having been drawn with
charcoal on the walls of the military coffee-house, the excited crowd
lay the blame of it on the officers; one of these, M. Patry, takes it
upon himself, and, on the point of being torn to pieces, attempts to
kill himself. He is disarmed, but, when the municipal authorities come
to his assistance, they find him "already dead through an infinite
number of wounds," and his head is borne about on the end of a
pike.[3330]--
VI.--Conduct of officers.
Their self-sacrifice.--Disposition of the soldiery.
--Military outbreaks.--Spread and increase of
insubordination.--Resignation of the officers.
Much better would it be to live under an Eastern king, for he is not
found everywhere, nor always furious and mad, like the populace. Nowhere
are the nobles safe, neither in public nor in private life, neither in
the country nor in the towns, neither associated together nor separate.
Popular hostility hangs over them like a dark and threatening cloud from
one end of the territory to the other, and the tempest bursts upon them
in a continuous storm of vexations, outrages, calumnies, robberies, and
acts of violence; here, there, and almost daily, bloody thunderbolts
fall haphazard on the most inoffensive heads, on an old man asleep, on a
Knight of Saint-Louis taking a walk, on a family at prayers in a church.
But, in this aristocracy, crushed down in some places and attacked
everywhere, the thunderbolt finds one predestined group which attracts
it and on which it constantly falls, and that is the corps of officers.
VI.--Conduct of the officers.
Their self-sacrifice.--Disposition of the soldiery.
--Military outbreaks.--Spread and increase of
insubordination.--Resignation of the officers.
With the exception of a few fops, frequenters of drawing-rooms, and the
court favorites who have reached a high rank through the intrigues of
the antechamber, it was in this group, especially in the medium ranks,
that true moral nobility was then found. Nowhere in France was there so
much tried, substantial merit. A man of genius, who associated with
them in his youth, rendered them this homage: many among them are
men possessing "the most amiable characters and minds of the highest
order."[3331] Indeed, for most of them, military service was not a
career of ambition, but an obligation of birth. It was the rule in each
noble family for the eldest son to enter the army, and advancement was
of but little consequence. He discharged the debt of his rank; this
sufficed for him, and, after twenty or thirty years of service, the
order of Saint-Louis, and sometimes a meager pension, were all he had
a right to expect. Amongst nine or ten thousand officers, the great
majority coming from the lower and poorer class of provincial nobles,
body-guards, lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant-colonels, and
even colonels, have no other pretension. Satisfied with favors[3332]
restricted to their subordinate rank, they leave the highest grades of
the service to the heirs of the great families, to the courtiers or to
the parvenus at Versailles, and content themselves with remaining the
guardians of public order, and the brave defenders of the State. Under
this system, when the heart is not depraved it becomes exalted; it is
made a point of honor to serve without compensation; there is nothing
but the public welfare in view, and all the more because, at this
moment, it is the absorbing topic of all minds and of all literature.
Nowhere has practical philosophy, that which consists in a spirit
of abnegation, more deeply penetrated than among this unrecognized
nobility. Under a polished, brilliant, and sometimes frivolous exterior,
they have a serious soul; the old sentiment of honor is converted
into one of patriotism. Set to execute the laws, with force in hand to
maintain peace through fear, they feel the importance of their mission,
and, for two years, fulfill its duties with extraordinary moderation,
gentleness, and patience, not only at the risk of their lives, but
amidst great and multiplied humiliations, through the sacrifice of their
authority and self-esteem, through the subjection of their intelligent
will to the dictation and incapacity of the masters imposed upon them.
For a noble officer to respond to the requisitions of an extemporized
bourgeois municipal body,[3333] to subordinate his competence, courage,
and prudence to the blunders and alarms of five or six inexperienced,
frightened, and timid attorneys, to place his energy and daring at the
service of their presumption, feebleness, and lack of decision,
even when their orders or refusal of orders are manifestly absurd or
injurious, even when they are opposed to the previous instructions of
his general or of his minister, even when they end in the plundering
of a market, the burning of a chateau, the assassination of an innocent
person, even when they impose upon him the obligation of witnessing
crime with his sword sheathed and arms folded,[3334]--this is a hard
task. It is hard for the noble officer to see independent, popular, and
bourgeois troops organized in the face of his own troops, rivals and
even hostile, in any case ten times as numerous and no less exacting
than sensitive--hard to be expected to show them deference and extend
civilities to them, to surrender to them posts, arsenals, and citadels,
to treat their chiefs as equals, however ignorant or unworthy, and
whatever they may be--here a lawyer, there a Capuchin, elsewhere a
brewer or a shoemaker, most generally some demagogue, and, in many a
town or village, some deserter or soldier drummed out of his regiment
for bad conduct, perhaps one of the noble's own men, a scamp whom he has
formerly discharged with the yellow cartridge, telling him to go and
be hung elsewhere. It is hard for the noble officer to be publicly and
daily calumniated on account of his rank and title, to be characterized
as a traitor at the club and in the newspapers, to be designated by
name as an object of popular suspicion and fury, to be hooted at in the
streets and in the theater, to submit to the disobedience of his men, to
be denounced, insulted, arrested, fleeced, hunted down and slaughtered
by them and by the populace, to see before him a cruel, ignoble, and
unavenged death--that of M. de Launay, murdered at Paris--that of M.
de Belzunce, murdered at Caen--that of M. de Beausset, murdered at
Marseilles--that of M. de Voisins, murdered at Valence--that of M. de
Rully, murdered at Bastia, or that of M. de Rochetailler, murdered at
Port-au-Prince.[3335] All this is endured by the officers among the
nobles. Not one of the municipalities, even Jacobin, can find any
pretext which will warrant the charge of disobeying orders. Through tact
and deference they avoid all conflict with the National Guards. Never
do they give provocation, and, even when insulted, rarely defend
themselves. Their gravest faults consist of imprudent conversations,
vivacious expressions and witticisms. Like good watch-dogs amongst a
frightened herd which trample them under foot, or pierce them with
their horns, they allow themselves to be pierced and trampled on without
biting, and would remain at their post to the end were they not driven
away from it.
All to no purpose: doubly suspicious as members of a proscribed class,
and as heads of the army, it is against them that public distrust
excites the most frequent explosions, and so much the more as the
instrument they handle is singularly explosive. Recruited by volunteer
enlistment "amongst a passionate, turbulent, and somewhat debauched
people," the army is composed of "all that are most fiery, most
turbulent, and most debauched in the nation."[3336] Add to these the
sweepings of the alms-houses, and you find a good many blackguards
in uniform! When we consider that the pay is small, the food bad,
discipline severe, no promotion, and desertion endemic, we are no longer
surprised at the general disorder: license, to such men, is too powerful
a temptation. With wine, women, and money they have from the first
been made turncoats, and from Paris the contagion has spread to
the provinces. In Brittany,[3337] the grenadiers and chasseurs of
Ile-de-France "sell their coats, their guns, and their shoes, exacting
advances in order to consume it in the tavern;" fifty-six soldiers of
Penthièvre "wanted to murder their officers," and it is foreseen that,
left to themselves, they will soon, for lack of pay, "betake themselves
to the highways, to rob and assassinate." In Euree-et-Loir, the
dragoons,[3338] with saber and pistols in hand, visit the farmers'
houses and take bread and money, while the foot soldiers of the
"Royal-Comtois" and the dragoons of the "Colonel-Général" desert in
bands in order to go to Paris, where amusement is to be had. The main
thing with them is "to have a jolly time." In fact, the extensive
military insurrections of the earliest date, those of Paris, Versailles,
Besançon, and Strasbourg, began or ended with a revel.--Out of these
depths of gross desires there has sprung up natural or legitimate
ambitions. A number of soldiers, for twenty years past, have learned how
to read, and think themselves qualified to be officers. One quarter of
those enlisted, moreover, are young men born in good circumstances, and
whom a caprice has thrown into the army. They choke in this narrow, low,
dark, confined passage where the privileged by birth close up the issue,
and they will march over their chiefs to secure advancement. These are
the discontented, the disputants, the orators of the mess-room, and
between these barrack politicians and the politicians of the street an
alliance is at once formed.--Starting from the same point they march on
to the same end, and the imagination which has labored to blacken the
Government in the minds of the people, blackens the officers in the
minds of the soldiers.
The Treasury is empty and there are arrears of pay. The towns, burdened
with debt, no longer furnish their quotas of supplies; and at Orleans,
with the distress of the municipality before them, the Swiss of
Chateauvieux were obliged to impose on themselves a stoppage of one sou
per day and per man to have wood in winter.[3339] Grain is scarce, the
flour is spoilt, and the army bread, which was bad, has become worse.
The administration, worm-eaten by old abuses, is deranged through the
new disorder, the soldiers suffering as well through its dissolution
as through their extravagance.--They think themselves robbed and
they complain, at first with moderation; and justice is done to their
well-founded claims. Soon they exact accounts, and these are made out
for them. At Strasbourg, on these being verified before Kellermann and
a commissioner of the National Assembly, it is proved that they have not
been wronged out of a sou; nevertheless a gratification of six francs a
head is given to them, and they cry out that they are content and have
nothing more to ask for. A few months after this fresh complaints arise,
and there is a new verification: an ensign, accused of embezzlement and
whom they wished to hang, is tried in their presence; his accounting is
tidy; none of them can cite against him a proven charge, and, once more,
they remain silent. On other occasions, after hearing the reading of
registers for several hours, they yawn, cease to listen, and go outside
to get something to drink.--But the figures of their demands, as these
have been summed up by their mess-room calculators, remain implanted in
their brains; they have taken root there, and are constantly springing
up without any account or refutation being able to extirpate them. No
more writings nor speeches--what they want is money: 11,000 livres for
the Beaune regiment, 39,500 livres for that of Forez, 44,000 livres for
that of Salm, 200,000 livres for that of Chateauvieux, and similarly for
the rest. So much the worse for the officers if the money-chest does not
suffice for them; let them assess each other, or borrow on their note
of hand from the municipality, or from the rich men of the town.--For
greater security, in divers places, the soldiers take possession of the
military chest and mount guard around it: it belongs to them, since they
form the regiment, and, in any case, it is better that it should be in
their hands than in suspected hands.--Already, on the 4th of June, 1790,
the Minister of War announces to the Assembly that "the military body
threatens to fall into a perfect state of anarchy." His report shows
"the most incredible pretensions put forth in the most plain-spoken
way--orders without force, chiefs without authority, the military chest
and flags carried away, the orders of the King himself openly defied,
the officers condemned, insulted, threatened, driven off; some of them
even captive amidst their own troops, leading a precarious life in
the midst of disgust and humiliations, and, as the climax of horror,
commanders having their throat cut under the eyes and almost in the arms
of their own soldiers."
It is much worse after the July Federation. Entertained, flattered,
and indoctrinated at the clubs, their delegates, inferior officers and
privates, return to the regiment Jacobins; and henceforth correspond
with the Jacobins of Paris, "receiving their instructions and reporting
to them,"[3340]--Three weeks later, the Minister of War gives notice to
the National Assembly that there is no limit to the license in the army.
"Couriers, the bearers of fresh complaints, are arriving constantly."
In one place "a statement of the fund is demanded, and it is proposed to
divide it." Elsewhere, a garrison, with drums beating, leaves the town,
deposes its officers, and comes back sword in hand. Each regiment is
governed by a committee of soldiers. "It is in this committee that the
detention of the lieutenant-colonel of Poitou has been twice arranged;
here it is that 'Royal-Champagne' conceived the insurrection" by which
it refused to recognize a sub-lieutenant sent to it. "Every day
the minister's cabinet is filled with soldiers who are sent as
representatives to him, and who proudly come and intimate to him the
will of their constituents." Finally, at Strasbourg, seven regiments,
each represented by three delegates, formed a military congress.
The same month, the terrible insurrection of Nancy breaks out--three
regiments in revolt, the populace with them, the arsenal pillaged, three
hours of furious fighting in the streets, the insurgents firing from the
windows of the houses and from the cellar openings, five hundred
dead among the victors, and three thousand among the vanquished.--The
following month, and for six weeks,[3341] there is another insurrection,
less bloody, but more extensive, better arranged and more obstinate,
that of the whole squadron at Brest, a mutiny of twenty thousand men,
at first against their admiral and their officers, then against the new
penal code and against the National Assembly itself. The latter,
after remonstrating in vain, is obliged not only not to take rigorous
measures, but again to revise its laws.[3342]
From this time forth, I cannot enumerate the constant outbreaks in the
fleet and in the army.--Authorized by the minister, the soldier goes
to the club, where he is repeatedly told that his officers, being
aristocrats, are traitors. At Dunkirk, he is additionally taught how to
get rid of them. Clamors, denunciations, insults, musket-shots--these
are the natural means, and they are put in practice: but there is
another, recently discovered, by which an energetic officer of whom they
are afraid may be driven away. Some patriotic bully is found who comes
and insults him. If the officer fights and is not killed, the municipal
authorities have him arraigned, and his chiefs send him off along with
his seconds "in order not to disturb the harmony between the soldier and
the citizen." If he declines the proposed duel, the contempt of his men
obliges him to quit the regiment. In either case he is got out of the
way.[3343]--They have no scruples in relation to him. Present or absent,
a noble officer must certainly be plotting with his emigrant companions;
and on this a story is concocted. Formerly, to prove that sacks of flour
were being thrown into the river, the soldiers alleged that these sacks
were tied with blue cords (cordons bleus). Now, to confirm the belief
that an officer is conspiring with Coblentz, it suffices to state that
he rides a white horse; a certain captain, at Strasbourg, barely escapes
being cut to pieces for this crime; "the devil could not get it out of
their heads that he was acting as a spy, and that the little grey-hound"
which accompanies him on his rides "is used to make signals. "--One year
after, at the time when the National Assembly completes its work, M.
de Lameth, M. Fréteau, and M. Alquier state before it that Luckner,
Rochambeau, and the most popular generals, "no longer are responsible
for anything." The Auvergne regiment has driven away its officers and
forms a separate society, which obeys no one. The second battalion of
Beaune is on the point of setting fire to Arras. It is almost necessary
to lay siege to Phalsbourg, whose garrison has mutinied. Here,
"disobedience to the general's orders is formal." There "are soldiers
who have to be urged to stand sentinel; whom they dare not put in
confinement for discipline; who threaten to fire on their officers; who
stray off the road, pillage everything, and take aim at the corporal who
tries to bring them back." At Blois, a part of the regiment "has just
arrived without either clothes or arms, the soldiers having sold all on
the road to provide for their debauchery." One among them, delegated by
his companions, proposes to the Jacobins at Paris to "de-aristocratise"
the army by cashiering all the nobles. Another declares, with the
applause of the club, that "seeing how the palisades of Givet are
constructed, he is going to denounce the Minister of War at the tribunal
of the sixth arrondissement of Paris."
It is manifest that, for noble officers, the situation is no longer
tenable. After waiting patiently for twenty-three months, many of them
left through conscientiousness, when the National Assembly, forcing a
third oath upon them, struck out of the formula the name of the King,
their born general.[3344]--Others depart at the end of the Constituent
Assembly, "because they risk being hung." A large number resign at the
end of 1791 and during the first months of 1792, in proportion as
the new code and the new recruiting system for the army develop their
results.[3345] In fact, on the one hand, through the soldiers and
inferior officers having a voice in the election of their chiefs and
a seat in the military courts, "there is no longer the shadow of
discipline; verdicts are given from pure caprice; the soldier contracts
the habit of despising his superiors, of whose punishments he has no
fear, and from whom he expects no reward; the officers are paralyzed
to such a degree as to become entirely superfluous personages." On the
other hand, the majority of the National Volunteers are composed of "men
bought by the communes" and administrative bodies, worthless characters
of the street-corners, rustic vagabonds forced to march by lot or
bribery,"[3346] and along with them, enthusiasts and fanatics to such an
extent that, from March, 1792, from the spot of their enlistment to
the frontier, their track is everywhere marked by pillage, robbery,
devastation, and assassinations. Naturally, on the road and at the
frontier, they denounce, drive away, imprison, or murder their officers,
and especially the nobles. 3/4 And yet, in this extremity, numbers of
noble officers, especially in the artillery and engineer corps, persist
in remaining at their posts, some through liberal ideas, and others out
of respect for their instructions; even after the 10th of August, even
after the 2nd of September, even after the 21st of January, like their
generals Biron, Custine, de Flers, de Broglie, and de Montesquiou, with
the constant perspective of the guillotine that awaits them on leaving
the battlefield and even in the ministerial offices of Carnot.
VII.--Emigration and its causes.
The first laws against the emigrants.
It is, accordingly, necessary that the officers and nobles should go
away, should go abroad; and not only they, but also their families.
"Gentlemen who have scarcely six hundred livres income set out on
foot,"[3347] and there is no doubt as to the motive of their departure.
"Whoever will impartially consider the sole and veritable causes of
the emigration," says an honest man, "will find them in anarchy. If the
liberty of the individual had not been daily threatened, if;" in the
civil as in the military order of things, "the senseless dogma, preached
by the factions, that crimes committed by the mob are the judgments of
heaven, had not been put in practice, France would have preserved three
fourths of her fugitives. Exposed for two years to ignominious dangers,
to every species of outrage, to innumerable persecutions, to the steel
of the assassin, to the firebrands of incendiaries, to the most
infamous charges, 'to the denouncement of' their corrupted domestics,
to domiciliary visits" prompted by the commonest street rumor, "to
arbitrary imprisonment by the Committee of Inquiry," deprived of their
civil rights, driven out of primary meetings, "they are held accountable
for their murmurs, and punished for a sensibility which would touch the
heart in a suffering criminal."--" Resistance is nowhere seen; from
the prince's throne to the parsonage of the priest, the tempest has
prostrated all malcontents in resignation." Abandoned "to the restless
fury of the clubs, to informers, to intimidated officials, they find
executioners on all sides where prudence and the safety of the State
have enjoined them not even to see enemies. . . . Whoever has detested
the enormities of fanaticism and of public ferocity, whoever has
awarded pity to the victims heaped together under the ruins of so many
legitimate rights and odious abuses, whoever, finally, has dared to
raise a doubt or a complaint, has been proclaimed an enemy of
the nation. After this representation of malcontents as so many
conspirators, every crime committed against them has been legitimated in
public opinion.[3348] The public conscience, formed by the factions
and by that band of political corsairs who would be the disgrace of a
barbarous nation, have considered attacks against property and towns
simply as national justice, while, more than once, the news of the
murder of an innocent person, or of a sentence which threatened him
with death, has been welcomed with shouts of joy Two systems of natural
right, two orders of justice, two standards of morality were accordingly
established; by one of these it was allowable to do against one's
fellow-creature, a reputed aristocrat, that which would be criminal if
he were a patriot. . . . Was it foreseen that, at the end of two
years, France, teeming with laws, with magistrates, with courts, with
citizen-guards, bound by solemn oaths in the defense of order and the
public safety, would still and continually be an arena in which wild
beasts would devour unarmed men "--With all, even with old men, widows
and children, it is a crime to escape from their clutches. Without
distinguishing between those who fly to avoid becoming a prey, and
those who arm to attack the frontier, the Constituent and Legislative
Assemblies alike condemn all absentees. The Constituent Assembly[3349]
trebled their real and personal taxes, and prescribed that there should
be a triple lien on their rents and dues. The Legislative Assembly
sequestrates, confiscates, and puts into the market their possessions,
real and personal, amounting to nearly fifteen hundred millions of cash
value. Let them return and place themselves under the knives of the
populace; otherwise they and their posterity shall all be beggars.--At
this stroke indignation overflows, and a bourgeois who is liberal and
a foreigner, Mallet du Pan, exclaims,[3350] "What! twenty thousand
families absolutely ignorant of the Coblentz plans and of its
assemblies, twenty thousand families dispersed over the soil of Europe
by the fury of clubs, by the crimes of brigands, by constant lack of
security, by the stupid and cowardly inertia of petrified authorities,
by the pillage of estates, by the insolence of it cohort of tyrants
without bread or clothes, by assassinations and incendiarism, by the
base servility of silent ministers, by the whole series of revolutionary
scourges,--what' these twenty thousand desolate families, women and old
men, must see their inheritances become the prey of national robbery!
What! Madame Guillin, who was obliged to fly with horror from the
land where monsters have burnt her dwelling, slaughtered and eaten
her husband, and who live with impunity by the side of her home--shall
Madame Guillin see her fortune confiscated for the benefit of the
communities to which she owes her dreadful misfortunes! Shall M. de
Clarac, under penalty of the same punishment, go and restore the ruins
of his chateau, where an army of scoundrels failed to smother him!"--So
much the worse for them if they dare not come back! They are to undergo
civil death, perpetual banishment, and, in case the ban be violated,
they will be given up to the guillotine. In the same case with them
are others who, with still greater innocence, have left the territory,
magistrates, ordinary rich people, burgesses, or peasants, Catholics,
and particularly one entire class, the nonjuring clergy, from the
cardinal archbishop down to the simple village vicar, all prosecuted,
then despoiled, then crushed by the same popular oppression and by the
same legislative oppression, each of these two persecutions exciting and
aggravating the other to such an extent that, at last, the populace and
the law, one the accomplice of the other, no longer leave a roof nor
a piece of bread, nor an hour's safety to a gentleman or to a
priest.[3351]
VIII.--Attitude of the non-juring priests.
How they become distrusted.--Illegal arrests by local
administrations.--Violence or complicity of the National
Guards.--Outrages by the populace.--Executive power in the
south.--The sixth jacquerie.--Its two causes.--Isolated
outbreaks in the north, east, and west,--General eruption in
the south and in the center.
The ruling passion flings itself on all obstacles, even those placed by
itself across its own track. Through a vast usurpation the minority
of non-believers, indifferent or lukewarm, has striven to impose its
ecclesiastical forms on the Catholic majority, and the situation
thereby created for the Catholic priest is such that unless he becomes
schismatic, he cannot fail to appear as an enemy. In vain has he obeyed!
He has allowed his property to be taken, he has left his parsonage, he
has given the keys of the church to his successor, he has kept aloof;
he does not transgress, either by omission or commission, any article of
any decree. In vain does he avail himself of his legal right to abstain
from taking an oath repugnant to his conscience. This alone makes him
appear to refuse the civic oath in which the ecclesiastical oath is
included, to reject the constitution which he accepts in full minus a
parasite chapter, to conspire against the new social and political order
of things which he often approves of; and to which he almost always
submits.[3352] In vain does he confine himself to his special and
recognized domain, the spiritual direction of things. Through this
alone he resists the new legislators who pretend to furnish a spiritual
guidance, for, by virtue of being orthodox, he must believe that the
priest whom they elect is excommunicated, that his sacraments are vain;
and, in his office as pastor, he must prevent his sheep from going to
drink at an impure source. In vain might he preach to them moderation
and respect. Through the mere fact that the schism is effected, its
consequences unfold them selves, and the peasants will not always remain
as patient as their pastor. They have known him for twenty years; he has
baptized them and married them; they believe that his is the only true
mass; they are not satisfied to be obliged to attend another two or
three leagues away, and to leave the church, their church which their
ancestors built, and where from father to son they have prayed for
centuries, in the hands of a stranger, an intruder and heretic, who
officiates before almost empty benches, and whom gendarmes, with guns in
their hands, have installed. Assuredly, as he passes through the street,
they will look upon him askance: it is not surprising that the women and
children soon hoot at him, that stones are thrown at night through his
windows, that in the strongly Catholic departments, Upper and Lower
Rhine, Doubs and Jura, Lozère, Deux-Sêvres and Vendée, Finistère,
Morbihan, and Côtes-du-Nord, he is greeted with universal desertion,
and then expelled through public ill-will. It is not surprising that
his mass is interrupted and that his person is threatened;[3353] that
disaffection which thus far had only reached the upper class, descends
to the popular strata; that, from one end of France to the other, a
sullen hostility prevails against the new institutions; for now the
political and social constitution is joined to the ecclesiastical
constitution like an edifice to its spire, and, through this sharp
pinnacle, seeks the storm even within the darkening clouds of heaven.
The evil all springs out of this unskillful, gratuitous, compulsory
fusion, and, consequently, from those who effected it.
But never will a victorious party admit that it has made a mistake.
In its eyes the nonjuring priests are alone culpable; it is irritated
against their factious conscience; and, to crush the rebellion even in
the inaccessible sanctuary of personal conviction, there is no legal or
brutal act of violence which it will not allow itself to commit.
Behold, accordingly, a new sport thrown open; and the game is immensely
plentiful. For it comprises not only the black or gray robes, more than
forty thousand priests, over thirty thousand nuns, and several thousand
monks, but also the devoted orthodox, that is to say the women of the
low or middle class, and, without counting provincial nobles, a majority
of the serious, steady bourgeoisie, a majority of the peasantry-almost
the whole population of several provinces, east, west, and in the south.
A name is bestowed on them, as lately on the nobles; it is that of
fanatic, which is equivalent to aristocrat, for it also designates
public enemies likewise placed by it beyond the pale of the law.
Little does it matter whether the law favors them, for it is interpreted
against them, arbitrarily construed and openly violated by the partial
or intimidated administrative bodies which the Constitution has
withdrawn from the control of the central authority and subjected to
the authority of popular gatherings. From the first months of 1791,
the hounding begins; the municipalities, districts, and departments
themselves often take the lead in beating up the game. Six months later,
the Legislative Assembly, by its decree of November 29,[3354] sounds the
tally-ho, and, in spite of the King's veto, the hounds on all sides dash
forward. During the month of April, 1792, forty-two departments pass
against nonjuring priests "acts which are neither prescribed nor
authorized by the Constitution," and, before the end of the Legislative
Assembly, forty-three others will have followed in their train.--Through
this series of illegal acts, without offense, without trial, non-jurors
are everywhere in France expelled from their parishes, relegated to the
principal town of the department or district, in some places imprisoned,
put on the same footing with the emigrants, and despoiled of their
property, real and personal.[3355] Nothing more is wanting against them
but the general decree of deportation which is to come as soon as the
Assembly can get rid of the King.
In the meantime, the National Guards, who have extorted the laws,
endeavor to aggravate them in their application; and there is nothing
strange in their animosity. Commerce is at a standstill, industry
languishes, the artisan and shopkeeper suffer, and, in order to account
for the universal discontent, it is attributed to the insubordination
of the priest. Were it not for his stubbornness all would go well, since
the Constitution is perfect, and he is the only one who does not accept
it. But, in not accepting it, he attacks it. He, therefore, is the last
obstacle in the way of public happiness; he is the scapegoat, let us
drive the obnoxious creature away! And the urban militia, sometimes
on its own authority, sometimes instigated by the municipal body its
accomplice; is seen disturbing public worship, dispersing congregations,
seizing priests by the collar, pushing them by the shoulders out of
the town, and threatening them with hanging if they dare to return.
At Douay,[3356] with guns in hand, they force the directory of the
department to order the closing of all the oratories and chapels in
hospitals and convents. At Caen, with loaded guns and with a cannon,
they march forth against the neighboring parish of Verson, break into
houses, gather up fifteen persons suspected of orthodoxy--canons,
merchants, artisans, workmen, women, girls, old men, and the infirm--cut
off their hair, strike them with the but-ends of their muskets, and lead
them back to Caen fastened to the breach of the cannon; and all this
because a nonjuring priest still officiated at Verson, and many pious
persons from Caen attended his mass: Verson, consequently, is a focal
center of counter-revolutionary gatherings. Moreover, in the houses
which were broken into, the furniture was smashed, casks stove in, and
the linen, money, and plate stolen, the rabble of Caen having joined
the expedition.--Here, and everywhere, there is nothing to do but to
let this rabble have its own way; and as it operates against the
possessions, the liberty; the life, and the sense of propriety of
dangerous persons, the National Militia is careful not to interfere
with it. Consequently, the orthodox, both priests and believers, men and
women, are now at its mercy, and, thanks to the connivance of the armed
force, which refuses to interpose, the rabble satisfy on the proscribed
class its customary instincts of cruelty, pillage, wantonness, and
destructiveness.
Whether public or private, the order of the day is always to hinder
worship, while the means employed are worthy of those who carry them
out.--Here, a nonjuring priest having had the boldness to minister to
a sick person, the house which he has just entered is taken by assault,
and the door and windows of a house occupied by another priest are
smashed.[3357] There, the lodgings of two workmen, who are accused of
having had their infants baptized by a refractory priest, are sacked and
nearly demolished. Elsewhere, a mob refuses to allow the body of an
old curé, who had died without taking the oath, to enter the cemetery.
Farther on, a church is assaulted during vespers, and everything is
broken to pieces: on the following day it is the turn of a neighboring
church, and, in addition, a convent of Ursuline nuns is devastated.--At
Lyons, on Easter-day, 1791, as the people are leaving the six o'clock
mass, a troop, armed with whips, falls upon the women.[3358] Stripped,
bruised, prostrated, with their heads in the dirt, they are not left
until they are bleeding and half-dead; one young girl is actually at the
point of death; and this sort of outrage occurs so frequently that even
ladies attending the orthodox mass in Paris dare not go out
without sewing up their garments around them in the shape of
drawers.--Naturally, to make the most of the prey offered to them,
hunting associations are formed. These exist in Montpellier, Arles,
Uzès, Alais, Nîmes, Carpentras, and in most of the towns or burgs of
Gard, Vaucluse, and l'Hérault, in greater or less number according to
the population of the city: some counting from ten to twelve, and others
from two to three hundred determined men, of every description: among
them are found "strike-hards" (tape-dur), former brigands, and escaped
convicts with the brand still on their backs. Some of them oblige their
members to wear a medal as a visible mark of recognition; all assume
the title of executive power, and declare that they act of their own
authority, and that it is necessary to "quicken the law."[3359] Their
pretext is the protection of sworn priests; and for twenty months,
beginning with April, 1791, they operate to this effect with heavy
knotted dubs garnished with iron points," without counting sabers and
bayonets. Generally, their expeditions are nocturnal. Suddenly, the
houses of "citizens suspected of a want of patriotism," of nonjuring
ecclesiastics, of the monks of the Christian school, are invaded;
everything is broken or stolen, and the owner is ordered to leave the
place in twenty-four hours: sometimes, doubtless through an excess of
precaution, he is beaten to death on the spot. Besides this, the band
also works by day in the streets, lashes the women, enters the churches
saber in hand, and drives the nonjuring priest from the altar. All of
this is done with the connivance and in the sight of the paralyzed
or complaisant authorities, by a sort of occult and complementary
government, which not only supplies what is missing in the
ecclesiastical law, but also searches the pockets of private
individuals.--At Nîmes, under the leadership of a patriotic
dancing-master, not content with "decreeing proscriptions, killing,
scourging, and often murdering," these new champions of the Gallican
Church undertake to reanimate the zeal of those liable to contribution.
A subscription having been proposed for the support of the families of
the volunteers about to depart, the executive power takes upon itself
to revise the list of offerings: it arbitrarily taxes those who have not
given, or who, in its opinion, have given too little some "poor workmen
fifty livres, others two hundred, three hundred, nine hundred, and
a thousand, under penalty of wrecked houses and severe treatment."
Elsewhere, the volunteers of Baux and other communes near Tarascon help
themselves freely, and, "under the pretext that they are to march for
the defense of the country, levy enormous contributions on proprietors,"
on one four thousand, and on another five thousand livres. In default of
payment, they carry away all the grain on one farm, even to the reserve
seed, threatening to make havoc with everything, and even to burn, in
case of complaint, so that the owners dare not say a word, while the
attorney-general of the neighboring department, afraid on his own
account, begs that his denunciation may be kept secret.--From the slums
of the towns the jacquerie has spread into the rural districts. This is
the sixth and the most extensive seen for three years.[3360]
Two spurs impel the peasant on.--On the one hand he is frightened by
the clash of arms, and the repeated announcements of an approaching
invasion. The clubs and the newspapers since the declaration of Pilnitz,
and the Orators in the Legislative Assembly for four months past, have
kept him alarmed with their trumpet-blasts, and he urges on his oxen in
the furrow with cries of "Woa, Prussia!" to one, and to the other, "Gee
up, Austria!" Austria and Prussia, foreign kings and nobles in league
with the emigrant nobles, are going to return in force to re-establish
the salt-tax, the excise, feudal-dues, tithes, and to retake national
property already sold and re-sold, with the aid of the gentry who have
not left, or who have returned, and the connivance of non-juring
priests who declare the sale sacrilegious and refuse to absolve the
purchasers.--On the other hand, Holy Week is drawing near, and for the
past year qualms of conscience have disturbed the purchasers. Up to
March 24, 1791, the sales of national property had amounted to only 180
millions; but, the Assembly having prolonged the date of payment and
facilitated further sales in detail, the temptation proves too strong
for the peasant; stockings and buried pots are all emptied of their
savings. In seven months the peasant has bought to the amount of 1,346
millions,[3361] and finally possesses in full and complete ownership the
morsel of land which he has coveted for so many years, and sometimes an
unexpected plot, a wood, a mill, or a meadow. At the present time he has
to settle accounts with the church, and, if the pecuniary settlement is
postponed, the Catholic settlement comes on the appointed day.
According to immemorial tradition he is obliged to take the communion
at Easter,[3362] his wife also, and likewise his mother; and if he,
exceptionally, does not think this of consequence, they do. Moreover, he
requires the sacraments for his old sick father, his new-born child, and
for his other child of an age to be confirmed. Now, communion, baptism,
confession, all the sacraments, to be of good quality, must proceed from
a safe source, just as is the case with flour and coin; there is only
too much counterfeit money now in the world, and the sworn priests are
daily losing credit, like the assignats. There is no other course to
pursue, consequently, but to resort to the non-juror, who is the only
one able to give valid absolutions. And it so happens that he not only
refuses this, but he is said to be inimical to the whole new order of
things.--In this dilemma the peasant falls back upon his usual resource,
the strength of his arms; he seizes the priest by the throat, as
formerly his lord, and extorts an acquittance for his sins as formerly
for his feudal dues. At the very least he strives to constrain the
non-jurors to swear, to close their separatist churches, and bring the
entire canton to the same uniform faith.--Occasionally also he avenges
himself against the partisans of the non-jurors, against chateaux
and houses of the opulent, against the nobles and the rich, against
proprietors of every class. Occasionally, likewise, as, since the
amnesty of September, 1791, the prisons have been emptied, as one-half
of the courts are not yet installed,[3363] as there has been no police
for thirty months, the common robbers, bandits, and vagrants, who swarm
about without repression or surveillance, join the mob and fill their
pockets.
Here, in Pas-de-Calais,[3364] three hundred villagers, headed by a
drummer, burst open the doors of a Carthusian convent, steal everything,
eatables, beverages, linen, furniture, and effects, whilst, in the
neighboring parish, another band operates in the same fashion in the
houses of the mayor and of the old curé, threatening "to kill and
burn all," and promising to return on the following Sunday.--There,
in Bas-Rhin, near Fort Louis, twenty houses of the aristocrats are
pillaged.--Elsewhere in Ile-et-Vilaine, bodies of rural militia,
combined, go from parish to parish, and, increasing in numbers in
consequence of their very violence until they form bands of two thousand
men. They close churches, drive away nonjuring priests, remove clappers
from the bells, eat and drink what they please at the expense of the
inhabitants, and often, in the houses of the mayor or tax-registrar,
indulge in the pleasure of breaking everything to pieces. Should any
public officer remonstrate with them they shout, "At the aristocrat!"
One of these unlucky counselors is struck on the back with the but-end
of a musket, and two others have guns aimed at them; the chiefs of the
expedition are in no better predicament, and, according to their own
admission, if they are at the head of the mob it is to make sure they
themselves will not be pillaged or hung. The same spectacle presents
itself in Mayenne, in Orne, in Moselle, and in the Landes.[3365]--These,
however, are but isolated irruptions, and very mild; in the south and
in the center, the plague is apparent in an immense leprous spot, which
extending from Avignon to Perigueux, and from Aurillac to Toulouse,
suddenly covers, nearly without with any discontinuity, ten departments,
Vaucluse, Ardèche, Gard, Cantal, Corrèze, Lot, Dordogne, Gers,
Haute-Garonne, and Hérault. Vast rural masses are set in motion at the
same time, on all sides and owing to the same causes: the approach of
war and the coming of Easter.--In Cantal, at the assembly of the canton
held at Aurillac for the recruitment of the army,[3366] the commander
of a village National Guard demands vengeance "against those who are not
patriots," and the report is spread that an order has come from Paris to
destroy the chateaux. Moreover, the insurgents allege that the priests,
through their refusal to take the oath, are bringing the nation into
civil war: "we are tired of not having peace on their account; let them
become good citizens, so that everybody may go to mass." On the strength
of this, the insurgents enter houses, put the inhabitants to ransom,
not only priests and former nobles, "but also those who are suspected
of being their partisans, those who do not attend the mass of the
constitutional priest," and even poor people, artisans and tillers of
the ground, whom they tax five, ten, twenty, and forty francs, and
whose cellars and bread-bins they empty. Eighteen chateaux are pillaged,
burnt, or demolished, and among others, those of several gentlemen and
ladies who have not left the country. One of these, M. d'Humières, is an
old officer of eighty years; Madame de Peyronenc saves her son only by
disguising him as a peasant; Madame de Beauclerc, who flies across the
mountain, sees her sick child die in her arms. At Aurillac, gibbets are
set up before the principal houses; M. de Niossel, a former lieutenant
of a criminal court, put in prison for his safety, is dragged out, and
his severed head is thrown on a dunghill; M. Collinet, just arrived
from Malta, and suspected of being an aristocrat, is ripped open, cut
to pieces, and his head is carried about on the end of a pike. Finally,
when the municipal officers, judges, and royal commissioner commence
proceedings against the assassins, they find themselves in such great
danger that they are obliged to resign or to run away. In like manner,
in Haute-Garonne,[3367] it is also "against non-jurors and their
followers" that the insurrection has begun. This is promoted by the fact
that in various parishes the constitutional curé belongs to the
club, and demands the riddance of his adversaries. One of them at
Saint-Jean-Lorne, "mounted on a cart, preaches pillage to a mob of
eight hundred persons." Each band, consequently, begins by expelling
refractory priests, and by forcing their supporters to attend the mass
of the sworn priest.--But such success, wholly abstract and barren, is
of little advantage, and peasants in a state of revolt are not satisfied
so easily. When parishes march forth by the dozen and devote their day
to the service of the public, they must have some compensation in wood,
wheat, wine, or money,[3368] and the expense of the expedition may be
defrayed by the aristocrats. Not merely the upholders of non-jurors
are aristocrats, as, for example, an old lady here and there, "very
fanatical, and who for forty years has devoted all her income to acts of
philanthropy," "but well-to-do persons, peasants or gentlemen;" for, "by
keeping their wine and grain unsold in their cellars and barns, and by
not undertaking more work than they need, so as to deprive workmen in
the country of their means of subsistence," they design "to starve out"
the poor folk. Thus, the greater the pillage, the greater the service
to the public. According to the insurgents, it is important "to diminish
revenues enjoyed by the enemies of the nation, in order that they
may not send their revenues to Coblentz and other places out of the
kingdom." Consequently, bands of six or eight hundred or a thousand men
overrun the districts of Toulouse and Castelsarrasin. All proprietors,
aristocrats, and patriots are put under contribution. Here, in the
house of "the philanthropic but fanatical old maid, they break open
everything, destroy the furniture, taking away eighty-two bushels of
wheat and sixteen hogsheads of wine." Elsewhere, at Roqueferrière,
feudal title-deeds are burnt, and a chateau is pillaged. Farther on, at
Lasserre, thirty thousand francs are exacted and the ready money is
all carried off. Almost everywhere the municipal officers, willingly or
unwillingly, authorize pillaging. Moreover, "they cut down provisions to
a price in assignats very much less than their current rate in silver,"
and they double the price of a day's work. In the meantime, other bands
devastate the national forests, and the gendarmes, in order not to be
called aristocrats, have no idea but of paying court to the pillagers.
After all this, it is manifest that property no longer exists for
anybody except for paupers and robbers.--In effect, in Dordogne,[3369]
under the pretext of driving away nonjuring priests, frequently mobs
gather to pillage and rob whatever comes in their way. . . . All the
grain that is found in houses with weathercocks is sequestrated."
The rustics exploit, as communal property, all the forests, all the
possessions of the emigrants; and this operation is radical; for
example, a band, on finding a new barn of which the materials strike
them as good, demolish it so as to share with each other the tiles and
timber.--In Corrèze, fifteen thousand armed peasants, who have come to
Tulle to disarm and drive off the supporters of the non-jurors, break
everything in suspected houses, and a good deal of difficulty is found
in sending them off empty-handed. As soon as they get back home, they
sack the chateaux of Saint-Gal, Seilhac, Gourdon, Saint-Basile, and La
Rochette, besides a number of country-houses, even of absent plebeians.
They have found a quarry, and never was the removal of property more
complete. They carefully carry off, says an official statement, all that
can be carried--furniture, curtains, mirrors, clothes-presses, pictures,
wines, provisions, even floors and wooden panels, "down to the smallest
fragments of iron and wood-work," smashing the rest, so that nothing
"remains of the house but its four walls, the roof and the staircase."
In Lot, where for two years the insurrection is permanent, the damage
is much greater. During the night between the 30th and 31st of January,
"all the best houses in Souillac" are broken open, "sacked and pillaged
from top to bottom,"[3370] their owners being obliged to fly, and so
many outbreaks occur in the department, that the directory has no time
to render an account of them to the minister. Entire districts are
in revolt; as, "in each commune all the inhabitants are accomplices,
witnesses cannot be had to support a criminal prosecution, and crime
remains unpunished." In the canton of Cabrerets, the restitution of
rents formerly collected is exacted, and the reimbursement of charges
paid during twenty years past. The small town of Lauzerte is invaded by
surrounding bodies of militia, and its disarmed inhabitants are at
the mercy of the Jacobin suburbs. For three months, in the district of
Figeac, "all the mansions of former nobles are sacked and burnt;" next
the pigeon-cots are attacked, "and all country-houses which have a good
appearance." Barefooted gangs "enter the houses of well-to-do people,
physicians, lawyers, merchants, burst open the doors of cellars, drink
the wine," and riot like drunken victors. In several communes these
expeditions have become a custom; "a large number of individuals are
found in them who live on rapine alone," and the club sets them the
example. For six months, in the principal town, a coterie of the
National Guard, called the Black Band, expel all persons who are
displeasing to them, "pillaging houses at will, beating to death,
wounding or mutilating by saber-strokes, all who have been proscribed in
their assemblies," and no official or advocate dares lodge a complaint.
Brigandage, borrowing the mask of patriotism, and patriotism borrowing
the methods of brigandage, have combined against property at the same
time as against the ancient régime, and, to free themselves from all
that inspires them with fear, they seize all which can provide them with
booty.
And yet this is merely the outskirts of the storm; the center is
elsewhere, around Nîmes, Avignon, Arles, and Marseilles, in a country
where, for a long time, the conflict between cities and the conflict
between religions have kindled and accumulated malignant passions.[3371]
Looking at the three departments of Gard, Bouches-de-Rhône and Vaucluse,
one would imagine one's self in the midst of a war with savages.
In fact, it is a Jacobin and plebeian invasion, and, consequently,
conquest, dispossession, and extermination,--in Gard, a swarm of
National Guards copy the jacquerie: the dregs of the Comtat come to the
surface and cover Vaucluse with its scum; an army of six thousand from
Marseilles sweeps down on Arles.--In the districts of Nîmes, Sommières,
Uzès, Alais, Jalais, and Saint-Hippolyte, title-deeds are burnt,
proprietors put to ransom, and municipal officers threatened with death
if they try to interpose; twenty chateaux and forty country-houses are
sacked, burnt, and demolished.--The same month, Arles and Avignon,[3372]
given up to the bands of Marseilles and of the Comtat, see confiscation
and massacres approaching.--Around the commandant, who has received the
order to evacuate Aries,[3373] "the inhabitants of all parties" gather
as suppliants, "clasping his hands, entreating him with tears in their
eyes not to abandon them; women and children cling to his boots," so
that he does not know how to free himself without hurting them; on his
departure twelve hundred families emigrate. After the entrance of the
Marseilles band we see eighteen hundred electors proscribed, their
country-houses on the two banks of the Rhone pillaged, "as in the times
of Saracen pirates," a tax of 1,400,000 livres levied on all people in
good circumstances, absent or present, women and girls promenaded
about half-naked on donkeys and publicly whipped." "A saber committee"
disposes of lives, proscribes and executes: it is the reign of sailors,
porters, and the dregs of the populace.--At Avignon,[3374] it is that of
simple brigands, incendiaries and assassins, who, six months previously,
converted the Glacière[3375] into a charnel-house. They return in
triumph and state that "this time the Glacière will be full." Five
hundred families had already sought asylum in France before the first
massacre; now, the entire remainder of the honest bourgeoisie, twelve
hundred persons, take to flight, and the terror is so great that the
small neighboring towns dare not receive emigrants. In fact, from this
time forth, both departments throughout Vaucluse and Bouches-de-Rhône
are a prey: Bands of two thousand armed men, with women, children, and
other volunteer followers, travel from commune to commune to live as
they please at the expense of "fanatics." The well-bred people are not
the only ones they despoil. Plain cultivators, taxed at 10,000 livres,
have sixty men billeted on them; their cattle are slain and eaten before
their eyes, and everything in their houses is broken up; they are driven
out of their lodgings and wander as fugitives in the reed-swamps of the
Rhone, awaiting a moment of respite to cross the river and take refuge
in the neighboring department.[3376] Thus, from the spring of 1792,
if any citizen is suspected of unfriendliness or even of indifference
towards the ruling faction, if, through but one opinion conscientiously
held, he risks the vague possibility of mistrust or of suspicion, he
undergoes popular hostility, pillage, exile, and worse besides; no
matter how loyal his conduct may be, nor how loyal he may be at heart,
no matter that he is disarmed and inoffensive; it is all the same
whether it be a noble, bourgeois, peasant, aged priest, or woman; and
this while public peril is yet neither great, present, nor visible,
since France is at peace with Europe, and the government still subsists
in its entirety.
IX.--General state of opinion.
The three convoys of non-juring priests on the Seine.--
Psychological aspects of the Revolution.
What will it be, then, now when the peril, already become palpable and
serious, is daily increasing, now when war has begun, when Lafayette's
army is falling back in confusion, when the Assembly declares the
country in danger, when the King is overthrown, when Lafayette defects
and goes abroad, when the soil of France is invaded, when the frontier
fortresses surrender without resistance, when the Prussians are entering
Champagne, when the insurrection in La Vendée adds the lacerations of
civil war to the threats of a foreign war, and when the cry of treachery
arises on all sides?--Already, on the 14th of May, at Metz,[3377] M.
de Fiquelmont, a former canon, seen chatting with a hussar on the Place
Saint-Jacques, was charged with tampering with people on behalf of the
princes, carried off in spite of a triple line of guards, and beaten,
pierced, and slashed with sticks, bayonets, and sabers, while the mad
crowd around the murderers uttered cries of rage: and from month to
month, in proportion as popular fears increase, popular imagination
becomes more heated and its delirium grows.--You can see this yourself
by one example. On the 31st of August, 1792,[3378] eight thousand
non-juring priests, driven out of their parishes, are at Rouen, a town
less intolerant than the others, and, in conformity with the decree
which banishes them, are preparing to leave France. Two vessels have
just carried away about a hundred of them; one hundred and twenty others
are embarking for Ostend in a larger vessel. They take nothing with them
except a little money, some clothes, and one or at most two portions of
their breviary, because they intend to return soon. Each has a regular
passport, and, just at the moment of leaving, the National Guard have
made a thorough inspection so as not to let a suspected person escape.
It makes no difference. On reaching Quilleboeuf the first two convoys
are stopped. A report has spread, indeed, that the priests are going to
join the enemy and enlist, and the people living round about jump
into their boats and surround the vessels. The priests are obliged to
disembark amidst a tempests of "yells, blasphemies, insults, and abuse:"
one of them, a white-headed old man, having fallen into the mud, the
cries and shouts redouble; if he is drowned so much the better, there
will be one less! On landing all are put in prison, on bare stones,
without straw or bread, and word is sent to Paris to know what must be
done with so many cassocks. In the meantime the third vessel, short of
provisions, has sent two priests to Quilleboeuf and to Pont-Audemer to
have twelve hundred pounds of bread baked: pointed out by the village
militia, they are chased out like wild beasts, pass the night in a wood,
and find their way back with difficulty empty-handed. The vessel itself
being signaled, is besieged. "In all the municipalities on the banks of
the river drums beat incessantly to warn the population to be on their
guard. The appearance of an Algerian or Tripolitan corsair on the shores
of the Adriatic would cause less excitement. One of the seamen of the
vessel published a statement that the trunks of the priests transported
were full of every kind of arms." and the country people constantly
imagine that they are going to fall upon them sword and pistol in hand.
For several long days the famished convoy remains moored in the stream,
are carefully watched. Boats filled with volunteers and peasants row
around it uttering insults and threats: in the neighboring meadows the
National Guards form themselves in line of battle. Finally, a decision
is arrived at. The bravest, well armed get into skiffs, approach the
vessel cautiously, choose the most favorable time and spot, rush on
board, and take possession; and are perfectly astonished to find neither
enemies nor arms.--Nevertheless, the priests are confined on board, and
their deputies, must make their appearance before the mayor. The latter,
a former usher and good Jacobin, being the most frightened, is the most
violent. He refuses to stamp the passports, and, seeing two priests
approach, one provided with a sword-cane and the other with an
iron-pointed stick, thinks that there is to be a sudden attack. "Here
are two more of them," he exclaims with terror; "they are all going to
land. My friends, the town is in danger!"--On hearing this the crowd
becomes alarmed, and threatens the deputies; the cry of "To the lamp
post!" is heard, and, to save them, National Guards are obliged to
conduct them to prison in the center of a circle of bayonets.--It must
be noted that these madmen are "at bottom the kindest people in the
world." After the boarding of the ship, one of the most ferocious,
by profession a barber, seeing the long beards of these poor priests,
instantly cools down, draws forth his tools, and good-naturedly sets
to work, spending several hours in shaving them. In ordinary times
ecclesiastics received nothing but salutations; three years previously
they were "respected as fathers and guides." But at the present moment
the rustic, the man of the lower class, is out of his bearings. Forcibly
and against nature, he has been made a theologian, a politician, a
police captain, a local independent sovereign; and in such a position
his head is turned. Among these people who seem to have lost their
senses, only one, an officer of the National Guard, remains cool; he is,
besides, very polite, well-behaved, and an agreeable talker; he comes
in the evening to comfort the prisoners and to take tea with them
in prison; in fact, he is accustomed to tragedies and, thanks to his
profession, his nerves are in repose--this person is the executioner.
The others, "whom one would take for tigers," are bewildered sheep; but
they are not the less dangerous; for, carried away by their delirium,
they bear down with their mass on whatever gives them umbrage.--On
the road from Paris to Lyons[3379] Roland's commissioners witness this
terrible fright. "The people are constantly asking what our generals
and armies are doing; they have vengeful expressions frequently on their
lips. Yes, they say, we will set out, but we must (at first) purge the
interior."
Something appalling is in preparation. The seventh jacquerie is drawing
near, this one universal and final--at first brutal, and then legal
and systematic, undertaken and carried out on the strength of abstract
principles by leaders worthy of the means they employ. Nothing like it
ever occurred in history; for the first time we see brutes gone mad,
operating on a grand scale and for a long time, under the leadership of
blockheads who have become insane.
There is a certain strange malady commonly encountered in the quarters
of the poor. A workman, over-taxed with work, in misery and badly fed,
takes to drink; he drinks more and more every day, and liquors of the
strongest kind. After a few years his nervous system, already weakened
by spare diet, becomes over-excited and out of balance. An hour comes
when the brain, under a sudden stroke, ceases to direct the machine; in
vain does it command, for it is no longer obeyed; each limb, each
joint, each muscle, acting separately and for itself starts convulsively
through discordant impulses. Meanwhile the man is gay; he thinks himself
a millionaire, a king, loved and admired by everybody; he is not aware
of the mischief he is doing to himself he does not comprehend the advice
given him, he refuses the remedies offered to him, he sings and shouts
for entire days, and, above all, drinks more than ever.--At last his
face grows dark and his eyes become blood-shot. Radiant visions give way
to black and monstrous phantoms; he sees nothing around him hut menacing
figures, traitors in ambush, ready to fall upon him unawares, murderers
with upraised arms ready to cut his throat, executioners preparing
torments for him; and he seems to be wading in a pool of blood. So he
precipitates, and, in order that he himself may not be killed, he
kills. No one is more to be dreaded, for his delirium sustains him;
his strength is prodigious, his movements unforeseen, and he endures,
without heeding them, suffering and wounds under which a healthy man
would succumb.--France, like such a madman, exhausted by fasting under
the monarchy, drunk by the unhealthy drug of the Social-Contract, and by
countless other adulterated or fiery beverages, is suddenly struck with
paralysis of the brain; at once she is convulsed in every limb through
the incoherent play and contradictory twitching of her discordant
organs. At this time she has traversed the period of joyous madness, and
is about to enter upon the period of somber delirium: behold her capable
of daring, suffering, and doing all, capable of incredible exploits and
abominable barbarities, the moment her guides, as erratic as herself,
indicate an enemy or an obstacle to her fury.
THE END.
*****
[Footnote 3301: Moniteur, XI. 763. (Sitting of March 28,
1792.)--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3235. (Deliberation of the Directory
of the Department, November 29, 1791, and January 27, 1792.--Petition
of the Municipality of Mende and of forty-three others, November 30,
1791.)]
[Footnote 3302: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3198. Minutes of the meeting
of the municipal officers of Arles, September 2, 1791.--Letters of the
Royal Commissioners and of the National Assembly, October 24, November
6, 14, 17, 21, and December 21, 1791.--The Commissioners, to be
impartial, attend in turn a mass by a nonjuring priest and one by a
priest of the opposite side. "The church is full" with the former and
always empty with the latter.]
[Footnote 3303: "Mémoire" of M. Mérilhon, for Froment, passim.--Report
of M. Alquier, p. 54.--De Dampmartin, I. 208.]
[Footnote 3304:--De Dampmartin, I. 208.They would exclaim to the
catholic peasants: "Allons, mes enfants, Vive le Roi!" (shouts of
enthusiasm): "those wretches of democrats, let us make an example of
them, and restore the sacred rights of the throne and the altar!"--"As
you please," replied the rustics in their patois, "but we must hold
fast to the Revolution, for there are some good things about it."--They
remain calm, refuse to march to the assistance of Uzès, and withdraw
into their mountains on the first sign of the approach of the National
Guard.]
[Footnote 3305: This is what the author Soljenitsyne observed about
his Russian countrymen in an interview with M. Pivot in the French
television in 1998. (SR.)]
[Footnote 3306: Dauban, "La Demagogie à Paris," p.598; Letter of M. de
Brissac, August 25, 1789.]
[Footnote 3307: Moniteur, X. 339. (Journal de Troyes, and a letter from
Perpignan, November, 1791.)]
[Footnote 3308: Mercure de France, No. for September 3, 1791. "Let
Liberty be presented to us, and all France will kneel before her;
but noble and proud hearts will eternally resist the oppression which
assumes her sacred mask. They will invoke liberty, but liberty without
crime, the liberty which is maintained without dungeons, without
inquisitors, without incendiaries, without brigands, without forced
oaths, without illegal coalitions, without mob outrages; that liberty,
finally, which allows no oppressor to go unpunished, and which does
not crush peaceable citizens beneath the weight of the chains it has
broken."]
[Footnote 3309: Rivarol, "Mémoires," p.367. (Letter of M. Servan,
published in the "Actes des Apôtres.")]
[Footnote 3310: The King's brother, later to become King of France under
the name of Louis XVIII. (SR.)]
[Footnote 3311: "Archives Nationa1es," F7. 3257. Official reports,
investigations, and correspondence in relation with the affair of M.
Bussy (October, 1790).]
[Footnote 3312: Mercure de France, May 15, 1790. (Letter of Baron de
Bois-d'Aisy, April 29, read in the National Assembly.)--Moniteur, IV.
302. Sitting of May 6. (Official statement of the Justice of the Peace
of Vitteaux, April 28.)]
[Footnote 3313: "Archives Nationales," DXXIX. 4. Letter of M.
Belin-Chatellenot (near Asnay-le-Duc) to the President of the National
Assembly, July 1, 1791. "In the realm of liberty we live under the most
cruel tyranny, and in a state of the most complete anarchy, while the
administrative bodies and the police, still in their infancy, seem to
act only in fear and trembling. . . . So far, in all crimes, they
are more concerned with extenuating the facts, than in punishing the
offense. The result is that the guilty have had no other restraint on
them than a few gentle phrases like this: Dear brothers and friends,
you are in the wrong, be careful," etc.--Ibid. , F7, 3229. Letter of the
Directory of the Department of Marne, July 13, 1791. (Searches by the
National Guard in chateaux and the disarming of formerly privileged
persons.) "None of our injunctions were obeyed." For example, there is
breakage and violence in the residence of M. Guinaumont at Merry, the
gun, shot and powder of the game-keeper even are carried off. "M. de
Guinaumont is without the means of defending himself against a mad dog
or any other savage brute that might come into his woods or into
his courtyard." The Mayor of Merry, with the National Guard, under
compulsion, tells them in vain that they are breaking the law.--Petition
of Madame d'Ambly, wife of the deputy, June 28, 1791. Not having the
guns which she had already given up, she is made to pay 150 francs.]
[Footnote 3314: "Archives Nationales," DXXIX. 4. Letters of the
Administrators of the Department of Rhône-et-Loire, July 6, 1791. (M.
Vilet is one of the signers.)--Mercure de France, October 8, 1791.]
[Footnote 3315: Mercure de France, August 20, 1791, the article by
Mallet du Pan. "The details of the picture I have just sketched were
all furnished me by Madame Dumoutet herself." I am "authorized by her
signature to guarantee the accuracy of this narrative."]
[Footnote 3316: Mercure de France, August 20, 1791, the article by
Mallet du Pan. "The proceedings instituted at Lyons confirmed this
banquet of cannibals."]
[Footnote 3317: The letter of the Department ends with this either naïve
or ironical expression: "You have now only one conquest to make, that of
making the people obey and submit to the law."]
[Footnote 3318: "Archives Nationales," P7, 3,200. See documents relating
to the affair of November 5, 1792, and the events which preceded it
or followed it, and among others "Lettres du Directoire et du
Procureur-syndic du Departement;" "Pétition et Mémoire pour les
Déténus;" "Lettres d'un Témoin," M. de Morant.--Moniteur, X. 356.
"Minutes of the meeting de la Municipalité de Caen" and of the
"Directoire du Departement," XI.1264, 206. "Rapport de Guadet," and
documents of the trial.--"Archives Nationales," ibid. .--"Lettres de
M. Cahier," Minister of the Interior, January 26, 1792, of M. C. D.
de Pontécoulant, President of the Department Directory, February 3,
1792.--Proclamation by the Directory.]
[Footnote 3319: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3200. Letter of September
26, 1791.--Letter found on one of the arrested gentlemen. "A cowardly
bourgeoisie, directors in cellars, a clubbist (Jacobin) municipality,
waging the most illegal war against us."]
[Footnote 3320: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3200. Letter of the
Attorney-General of Bayeux, May 14, 1792, and of the Directory of
Bayeux, May 21, 1792.--At Bayeux, likewise; the refugees are denounced
and in peril. According to their verified statements they scarcely
amounted to one hundred. "Several nonjuring priests, indeed, are found
among them. (But) the rest, for the most part, consist of the heads of
families who are known to reside habitually in neighboring districts,
and who have been forced to leave their homes after having been, or
fearing to become, victims of religious intolerance or of the threats of
factions and of brigands."]
[Footnote 3321: Lenin has probably read this during his studies in Paris
and maybe been confirmed in his plan to create a new elite, an elite he
eventually began to make use of from 1917 and onwards, an elite which
continues to rule Russia and a great part of the world today. (SR.)]
[Footnote 3322: Mercure de France, June 4, 1790 (letter from Cahors, May
17, and an Act of the Municipality, May 10, 1790).]
[Footnote 3323: "Archives Nationales," F7, 1223. Letter of count Louis
de Beaumont, November 9, 1791. His letter, in a very moderate tone,
thus end: "You must admit, sir, that it is very disagreeable and even
incredible, that the Municipal Officers should be the originators of the
disorders which occur in this town."]
[Footnote 3324: Mercure de France, January 7, 1792. M. Granchier de Riom
petitions the Directory of his Department in relation to the purchase of
the cemetery, where his father had been interred four years before; his
object is to prevent it from being dug up, which was decreed, and to
preserve the family vault. He at the same time wishes to buy the church
of Saint-Paul, in order to insure the continuance of the masses in
behalf of his father's soul. The Directory replies (December 5, 1791):
"considering that the motives which have determined the petitioner in
his declaration are a pretense of good feeling under which there is
hidden an illusion powerless to pervert a sound mind, the Directory
decides that the application of the sieur Granchier cannot be granted."]
[Footnote 3325: De Ferrières, II. 268 (April 19, 1791).]
[Footnote 3326: De Montlosier, II. 307, 309, 312.]
[Footnote 3327: Moniteur, VI. 556. Letter of M d'Aymar, commodore,
November 18, 1790.]
[Footnote 3328: Mercure de France, May 28, and June 16, 1791 (letters
from Cahors and Castelnau, May 18).]
[Footnote 3329: Mercure de France, number of May 28, 1791. At the
festival of the Federation, M. de Massy would not order his cavalry to
put their chapeaux on the points of their swords, which was a difficult
maneuver. He was accused of treason to the nation on account of this,
and obliged to leave Tulle for several months.--"Archives Nationales,"
F7, 3204. Extract from the minutes of the tribunal of Tulle, May 10,
1791.]
[Footnote 3330: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3215, "Minutes of the meeting
des Officiers Municipaux de Brest," June 23, 1791.]
[Footnote 3331: "Mémoires de Cuvier" ("Eloges Historiques," by
Flourens), I, 177. Cuvier, who was then in Havre (1788), had pursued the
higher studies in a German administrative school. "M. de Surville," he
says, an officer in the Artuis regiment, "has one of the must refined
minds and most amiable characters I ever encountered. There were a good
many of this sort among his comrades, and I am always astonished how
such men could vegetate in the obscure ranks of an infantry regiment."]
[Footnote 3332: De Dampmartin, I. 133. At the beginning of the year
1790, "inferior officers said: 'We ought to demand something, for
we have at least as many grievances as our troopers,' "--M. de la
Rochejacquelein, after his great success in La Vendée, said: "I hope
that the King, when once he is restored, will give me a
regiment." He aspired to nothing more ("Mémoires de Madame de la
Rochejacquelein").--Cf. "Un Officier royaliste au Service de la
Republique," by M. de Bezancenet, in the letters and biography of
General de Dommartin killed in the expedition to Egypt.]
[Footnote 3333: Correspondence of MM. de Thiard, de Caraman, de Miran,
de Bercheny, etc., above cited, passim.--Correspondence of M. de Thiard,
May 5, 1780: "The town of Vannes has an authoritative style which begins
to displease me. It wants the King to furnish drum-sticks. The first log
of wood would provide these, with greater ease and promptness."]
[Footnote 3334: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3248, March 16, 1791.
At Douai, Nicolon, a grain-dealer, is hung because the municipal
authorities did not care to proclaim martial law. The commandant, M. de
la Noue, had not the right of ordering his men to move, and the murder
took place before his eyes.]
[Footnote 3335: The last named, especially, died with heroic meekness
(Mercure de France, June 18, 1791).--Sitting of June 9, speeches by two
officers of the regiment of Port-au-Prince, one of them an eye-witness.]
[Footnote 3336: "De Dampmartin," II. 214. Desertion is very great, even
in ordinary times, supplying foreign armies with "a fourth of their
effective men."--Towards the end of 1789, Dubois de Crancé, an old
musketeer and one of the future "men of the mountain," stated to the
National Assembly that the old system of recruiting supplied the army
with "men without home or occupation, who often became soldiers to
avoid civil penalties" (Moniteur, II. 376, 381, sitting of December 12,
1789).]
[Footnote 3337: "Archives Nationales," KK, 1105, Correspondence of M.
de Thiard, September 4 and 7, 1789, November 20, 1789, April 28, and May
29, 1790. "The spirit of insubordination which begins to show itself
in the Bassigny regiment is an epidemic disease which is insensibly
spreading among all the troops. . . . The troops are all in a state of
gangrene, while all the municipalities oppose the orders they receive
concerning the movements of troops."]
[Footnote 3338: "Archives Nationales," H,1453. Correspondence of M. de
Bercheny, July 12, 1790.]
[Footnote 3339: "Mémoire Justificatif" (by Grégoire), on behalf of two
soldiers, Emery and Delisle.--De Bouillé, "Mémoires."--De Dampmartin,
I.128, 144.--"Archives Nationales," KK, 1105, Correspondence of M. de
Thiard, July 2 and 9, 1790.--Moniteur, sittings of September 3 and June
4, 1790.]
[Footnote 3340: De Bouillé, p. 127.--Moniteur, sitting of August 6,
1790, and that of May 27, 1790.--Full details in authentic documents of
the affair at Nancy, passim.--Report of M. Emmery, August 16, 1790, and
other documents in Buchez and Roux, VII. 59-162.--De Bezancenet, p.35.
Letters of M. de Dommartin (Metz, August 4, 1790). "The Federation
there passed off quietly, only, a short time after, some soldiers of a
regiment took it into their heads to divide the (military) fund, and at
once placed sentinels at the door of the officer having charge of the
chest, compelling him to open it (désacquer). Another regiment has since
put all its officers under arrest. A third has mutinied, and wanted to
take all its horses to the market-place and sell them.. . . Everywhere
the soldiers are heard to say that if they want money they know where to
find it."]
[Footnote 3341: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3215, letters of the Royal
Commissioners, September 27, October 1, 4, 8, 11, 1790. the commencement
of the Revolution, had most to do with the insurrections in the
interior. "What means can four commissioners employ to convince 20,000
men, most of whom are seduced by the real enemies of the public welfare?
In consequence of the replacing of the men the crews are, for the most
part, composed of those who are almost ignorant of the sea, who know
nothing of the rules of subordination, and who, at the commencement of
the Revolution, had most to do with the insurrections in the interior."]
[Footnote 3342: Mercure de France. October 2, 1790. Letter of the
Admiral, M. d'Albert de Rioms, September 16. The soldiers of the
Majestueux have refused to drill, and the sailors of the Patriote to
obey.--"I wished to ascertain beforehand if they had any complaint to
make against their captain?--No.--If they complained of myself?--No.--If
they had any complaints to make against their officers?--No.--It is the
revolt of one class against another class; their sole cry is 'Vive la
Nation et les Aristocrates à la lanterne!' The mob have set up a gibbet
before the house of M. de Marigny, major-general of marines; he has
handed in his resignation. M. d'Albert tenders his resignation."--Ibid,
June 18, 1791 (letter from Dunkirk, June 3).]
[Footnote 3343: De Dampmartin, I. 222, 219. Mercure de France, September
3, 1791. (Sitting of August 23.)--Cf. Moniteur (same date). "The Ancient
Régime," p.377.]
[Footnote 3344: Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires," I. 24. "The sentiment I
entertained for the person of the King is difficult to define. . .
(It was) a sentiment of devotion of an almost religious character, a
profound respect as if due to a being of a superior order. At this time
the word king possessed a magic power in all pure and upright hearts
which nothing had changed. This delicate sentiment. . . still existed
in the mass of the nation, especially among the well-born, who,
sufficiently remote from power, were rather impressed by its brilliancy
than by its imperfections." De Bezancenet, 27. Letter of M. de
Dommartin, August 24, 1790. "We have just renewed our oath. I hardly
know what it all means. I, a soldier, know only my King; in reality I
obey two masters, who, we are told, will secure my happiness and that of
my brethren, if they agree together."]
[Footnote 3345: De Dampmartin, I. 179. See the details of his
resignation (III. 185) after June 20, 1792.--Mercure de France, April
14, 1792. Letter from the officers of the battalion of the Royal
chasseurs of Provence (March 9). They are confined to their barracks by
their soldiers, who refuse to obey their orders, and they declare that,
on this account, they abandon the service and leave France.]
[Footnote 3346: Rousset, "Les Volontaires de 1791 à 1794", p. 106. Letter
of M. de Biron to the minister (August, 1792); p.225, letter of Vezu,
commander of the 3rd battalion of Paris, to the army of the north (July
24, 1793).--"A Residence in France from 1792 to 1795" (September,
1792. Arras). See notes at the end of vol. II. for the details of these
violent proceedings.]
[Footnote 3347: Mercure de France, March 5, June 4, September 3, October
22, 1791. (Articles by Mallet du Pan.--Ibid., April 14, 1792). More than
six hundred naval officers resigned after the mutiny of the squadron
at Brest. "Twenty-two grave revolts in the ports on shipboard remained
unpunished, and several of them through the decisions of the naval
jury." "There is no instance of any insurrection, in the ports or on
shipboard, or any outrage upon a naval officer, having been punished.
. . . It is not necessary to seek elsewhere for the causes of the
abandonment of the service by naval officers. According to their letters
all offer their lives to France, but refuse to command those who will
not obey."]
[Footnote 3348: This was done by Hitler against the Jews and by the
Communists against their "enemy" the bourgeois. (SR.)]
[Footnote 3349: Duvergier, "Decrees of August 1-6, 1791; February 9-11,
1792; March 30 to April 8, 1792; July 24-28, 1792; March 28 to April 5,
1793."--Report by Roland, January 6, 1793. He estimates this property
at 4,800 millions, of which 1,800 millions must be deducted for the
creditors of the emigrants; 3,000 millions remain. Now, at this date,
the assignats are at a discount of 55 per cent. from their nominal
figure.]
[Footnote 3350: Mercure de France,, February 18, 1792.]
[Footnote 3351: Already Tacitus noted some 2000 years ago that, "It is
part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt." (SR.)]
[Footnote 3352: Cf. on this general attitude of the clergy, Sauzay, V.
I. and the whole of V. II.--Mercure de France, September 10, 1791: "No
impartial man will fail to see that, in the midst of this oppression,
amidst so many fanatical charges of which the reproach of fanaticism and
revolt is the pretext, not one act of resistance has yet been manifest.
Informers and municipal bodies, governed by clubs, have caused a large
number of non-jurors to be cast into dungeons. All have come out of
them, or groan there untried, and no tribunal has found any of them
guilty."--Report of M. Cahier, Minister of the Interior, February
18, 1792. He declares that "he had no knowledge of any priest being
convicted by the courts as a disturber of the public peace, although
several had been accused."--Moniteur May 6, 1792. (Report of Français de
Nantes) "Not one has been punished for thirty months."]
[Footnote 3353: On these spontaneous brutal acts of the Catholic
peasants, cf. "Archives Nationales," F7, 3236 (Lozère, July-November,
1791). Deliberation of the district of Florac, July 6, 1791, and
the official statement of the commissioner of the department on the
disturbances in Espagnac. On the 5th of July, Richard, a constitutional
curé, calls upon the municipality to proceed to his installation. "The
ceremony could not take place, owing to the hooting, of the women and
children, and the threats of various persons who exclaimed: 'Kill him!
strangle him, he is a Protestant, is married, and has children;' and
owing to the impossibility of entering the church, the doors of which
were obstructed by the large number of women standing in front of
them:"--On the 6th of July, he is installed, but with difficulty.
"Inside the church a crowd of women uttered loud cries and bemoaned the
removal of their old curé On returning, in the streets, a large number
of women, unsettled by the sight of the constitutional cure, turned
their faces aside. . . and contented themselves with uttering disjointed
words.--without doing anything more than cover their faces with their
bonnets, casting themselves on the ground."--July 15. The clerk will
no longer serve at the mass nor ring the bells; the curé, Richard,
attempting to ring them himself, the people threaten him with
ill-treatment if he runs the risk.--September 8, 1791. Letter from the
curé of Fau, district of Saint-Chély. "That night I was on the brink
of death through a troop of bandits who took my parsonage away from
me, after having broken in the doors and windows."--December 30, 1791.
Another curé who goes to take possession of his parsonage is assailed
with stones by sixty women, and thus pursued beyond the limits of the
parish.--August 5, 1791. Petition of the constitutional bishop of Mende
and his four vicars. "Not a day passes that we are not insulted in the
performance of our duties. We cannot take a step without encountering
hooting. If we go out we are threatened with cowardly assassination,
and with being beaten with clubs."--F7, 3235 (Bas-Rhin, letter from
the Directory of the Department, April 9, 1792): "Ten out of eleven, at
least, of the Catholics refuse to recognize sworn priests."]
[Footnote 3354: Duvergier, decrees (not sanctioned) of November 29
and May 27, 1792.--Decree of August 26, 1792, after the fall of the
throne.--Moniteur, XII. 200 (sitting of April 23, 1793). Report of the
Minister of the Interior.]
[Footnote 3355: Lallier, "Le District de Machecoul," p.261,
263.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3234. Demand of the prosecuting
attorney of the commune of Tonneins (December 21, 1791) for the arrest
or expulsion of eight priests "at the slightest act of internal or
external hostility."--Ibid., F7, 3264. Act of the Council-general
of Corrèze (July 16, 17, 18, 1792) to place in arrest all nonjuring
priests.--Between these two dates, act, of various kinds and of
increasing severity are found in nearly all the departments against the
non-jurors.]
[Footnote 3356: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3250. Official statement by
the directory of the department, March 18, 1791, with all the documents
in relation thereto.--F7, 3200. Letter of the Directory of Calvados,
June 13, 1792, with the interrogations. The damages are estimated at
15,000 livres.]
[Footnote 3357: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3234. An Act of the Directory
of Lot, February 24, 1792, on the disturbances at Marmande.--F7, 3239,
official statement of the municipal body of Rheims, November 5, 6, 7,
1791. The two workmen are a harness-maker and a wool-carder. The priest
who administered the baptism is put in prison as a disturber of the
public peace.--F7, 3219. Letter of the royal commissioner at the
tribunal of Castelsarrasin, March 5, 1792.--F7, 3203. Letter of the
directory of the district of La Rochelle, June 1, 1792. "The armed
force, a witness of these crimes and summoned to arrest these persons in
the act, refused to obey."]
[Footnote 3358: Memorandum by Camille Jourdan (Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries
du Lundi," XII. 250). The guard refuses to give any assistance, coming
too late and merely "to witness the disorder, never to repress it."]
[Footnote 3359: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3217. Letters of the curé
of Uzès, January 29, 1792; of the curé of Alais, April 5, 1792; of the
administrators of Gard, July 28, 1792; of the prosecuting attorney, M.
Griolet, July 2, 1792; of Castanet, former gendarme, August 25, 1792;
of M. Griolet, September 28, 1792.--Ibid. , F7, 3223. Petition by M.M.
Thueri and Devès in the name of the oppressed of Montpellier, November
17, 1791; letter of the same to the minister, October 28, 1791; letter of
M. Dupin, prosecuting attorney, August 23, 1791; Act of the Department,
August 9, 1791; Petition of the inhabitants of Courmonterral, August 25,
1791]
[Footnote 3360: Moniteur, XII. 16, sitting of April 1, 1792. Speech by
M. Laureau. "Behold the provinces in flames, insurrection in nineteen
departments, and revolt everywhere declaring itself. . . The only
liberty is that of brigandage; we have no taxation, no order, no
government." Mercure de France, April 7, 1792. "More than twenty
departments are now participating in the horrors of anarchy and in a
more or less destructive insurrection."]
[Footnote 3361: Moniteur, XII. 30. Speech by M. Caillasson. The total
amount of property sold up to November 1, 1791, is 1,526 millions; the
remainder for sale amounts to 669 millions.]
[Footnote 3362: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3225. Letter of the Directory
of Ille-et-Vilaine, March 24, 1792. "The National Guards of the district
purposely expel all nonjuring priests, who have not been replaced, under
the pretext of the trouble they would not fail to cause at Easter."]
[Footnote 3363: Moniteur, XI. 420. (Sitting of February 18, 1792.)
Report by M. Cahier, Minister of the Interior.]
[Footnote 3364: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3250. Deposition of the
municipal officers of Gosnay and Hesdiguel (district of Béthune), May
18, 1792. Six parishes took part in this expedition; the mayor's wife
had a rope around her neck, and came near being hung.--Moniteur, XII,
154, April 15, 1792.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3225. Letter of the
Directory of Ile-et-Vilaine, March 24, 1792, and official statement
of the commissioners for the district of Vitré; letter of the same
directory, April 21, 1792, and report of the commissioners sent to
Acigné, April 6.]
[Footnote 3365: Moniteur, XII. 200. Report of M. Cahier, April 23, 1792.
The directories of these four departments refuse to cancel their illegal
acts, alleging that "their armed National Guards pursue refractory
priests."]
[Footnote 3366: Mercure de France, April 7, 1792. Letters written from
Aurillac.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3202.--Letter of the directory
of the district of Aurillac, March 27, 1792 (with seven official
statements); of the directory of the district of Saint-Flour, March 19
(with the report of its commissioners); of M. Duranthon, minister
of justice, April 22; petition of M. Lorus, municipal officer of
Aurillac.--Letter of M. Duranthon, June 9, 1792. "I am just informed by
the royal commissioner of the district of Saint-Flour that, since the
departure of the troops, the magistrates dare no longer exercise their
functions in the midst of the brigands who surround them."]
[Footnote 3367: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3219. Letters of M. Niel,
administrator of the department of Haute-Garonne, February 27, 1792; of
M. Sainfal, March 4; of the directory of the department, March 1; of the
royal commissioner, tribunal of Castelsarrasin, March 13.]
[Footnote 3368: The following are some examples of these rustic desires:
At Lunel, 4000 peasants and village National Guards strive to enter,
to hang the aristocrats. Their wives are along with them, leading their
donkeys with "baskets which they hope to carry away full." ("Archives
Nationales," F7, 3523. Letter of the municipal body of Lunel, November
4, 1791.) At Uzès it is with great difficulty that they can rid
themselves of the peasants who came in to drive out the Catholic
royalists. In vain "were they given plenty to eat and to drink;" they go
away "in bad humor, especially the women who led the mules and asses to
carry away the booty, and who had not anticipated returning home with
empty hands." (De Dampmartin, I. 195.) In relation to the siege of
Nantes by the Vendéans: "An old woman said to me, 'Oh, yes, I was there,
at the siege. My sister and myself had brought along our sacks. We
counted on entering at least as far as the Rue de la Casserie'" (the
street of jeweler's shops). (Michelet, V 211.)]
[Footnote 3369: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3209. Letters of the royal
commissioner at the tribunal of Mucidan, March 7, 1792; of the public
prosecutor of the district of Sarlat, January. 1792.--Ibid. , F7, 3204.
Letters of the administrators of the district of Tulle, April 15, 1792;
of the directory of the department, April 18; petition of Jacques Labruc
and his wife, with official statement of the justice of the peace, April
24. "All these acts of violence were committed under the eyes of the
municipal authorities. They took no steps to prevent them, although they
had notice given them in time."]
[Footnote 3370: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Letters of M. Brisson,
commissioner of the naval classes of Souillac, February 2, 1792; of the
directory of the department, March 14, 1792.--Petition of the brothers
Barrié (with supporting documents), October 11, 1791.--Letter of the
prosecuting attorney of the department, April 4, 1792. Report of the
commissioners sent to the district of Figeac, January 5, 1792. Letter of
the administrators of the department, May 27, 1792.]
[Footnote 3371: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3217. Official reports of the
commissioners of the department of Gard, April 1, 2, 3, and 6, 1792, and
letter of April 6. One land-owner is taxed 100,000 francs.--Ibid., F7,
3223. Letter of M Dupin, prosecuting attorney of l'Hérault, February 17
and 26, 1792. "At the chateau of Pignan, Madame de Lostanges has not
one complete piece of furniture left. The cause of these disturbances
is religious passion. Five or six nonjuring priests had retreated to
the chateau,"--Moniteur, sitting of April 16, 1792. Letter from the
directory of the department of Gard.--De Dampmartin, II, 85. At Uzès,
fifty or sixty men in masks invade the ducal chateau at ten o'clock in
the evening, set fire to the archives, and the chateau is burnt.]
[Footnote 3372: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Official statements
of Augier and Fabre, administrators of the Bouches-de-Rhône, sent to
Avignon, May 11, 1792. (The reappearance of Jourdan, Mainvielle, and the
assassins of La Glacière took place April 29.)]
[Footnote 3373: De Dampmartin, II. 63. Portalis, "Il est temps de
parler" (pamphlet), passim. "Archives Nationales," F7, 7090. Memorandum
of the commissioners of the municipal administration of Arles, year IV.,
Nivôse 22.]
[Footnote 3374: Mercure de France, May 19, 1792. (Sitting of May 4.).
Petition of forty inhabitants of Avignon at the bar of the Legislative
Assembly.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letter of the royal
commissioners at the tribunal of Apt, March 15, 1792; official report
of the municipality, March 22; Letters of the Directory of Apt, March 23
and 28, 1792.]
[Footnote 3375: Large cellar where the ice collected during the winter
was kept for later use. (SR.)]
[Footnote 3376: "Archives Nationales," ibid. Letter of Amiel, president
of the bureau of conciliation at Avignon, October 28, 1792, and other
letters to the minister Roland.--F7, 3217, Letter of the Justice of the
Peace at Roque-Maure, October 31, 1792.]
[Footnote 3377: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3246. Official report of the
municipality of Metz (with supporting documents), May 15, 1792.]
[Footnote 3378: "Mémoires de l'Abbé Baton," one of the priests of the
third convoy (a bishop is appointed from Séez), p. 233.]
[Footnote 3379: "Archives Nationales" F7, 3225. Letter of citizen
Bonnemant, commissioner to minister Roland, September 11, 1792.]
End of The French Revolution, Volume 1.