age as Ducos, and of an equally striking but more masculine beauty than
Barbaroux. Duprat, his countryman and friend, accompanied him to the
tribunal. He was followed by Duchâtel, deputy of Deux Sévres, aged
twenty-seven years, who had been carried to the tribunal almost in a
dying state wrapped in blankets, to vote against the death of the
"Tyrant," and who was termed, from this act and this costume, the
"Spectre of Tyranny."
Carra, deputy of Sâone and Loire at the Convention, sat next to
Duchâtel. His vulgar physiognomy, the stoop of his shoulders, his large
head and disordered attire contrasted with the beauty and stature of
Duchâtel Learned, confused, fanatic, declamatory, impetuous alike in
attack or resistance, he had sided with the Gironde to combat the
excesses of the people.
A man of rustic appearance and garb, Duperret, the involuntary victim of
Charlotte Corday, sat next to Carra. He was of noble birth, but
cultivated with his own hands the small estate of his forefathers.
Gensonné followed them: he was a man of five-and-thirty, but the
ripeness of his intellect, and the resolution that dictated his opinions
gave his features that look of energy and decision that belongs to
maturer age.
Next came Lasource, a man of high-flown language and tragical
imagination. His unpowdered and closely-cut hair, his black coat, his
austere demeanour, and grave and ascetic features, recalled the minister
of the Holy Gospel and those Puritans of the time of Cromwell who sought
for God in liberty, and in their trial, martyrdom.
Valazé seemed like a soldier under fire; his conscience told him it was
his duty to die, and he died.
The Abbé Fauchet came immediately after Valazé. He was in his fiftieth
year, but the beauty of his features, the elevation of his stature, and
the freshness of his colour, made him appear much younger. His dress,
from its colour and make, befitted his sacred profession, and his hair
was so cut as to show the tonsure of the priest, so long covered by the
red bonnet of the revolutionist.
Brissot was the last but one.
Last came Vergniaud, the greatest and most illustrious of them all. All
Paris knew, and had beheld him in the tribune, and was now curious to
gaze not only on the orator on a level with his enemies, but the man
reduced to take his place on the bench of the accused. His prestige
still followed him, and he was one of those men from whom everything,
even impossibilities, are expected.
_IV.--The Banquet of Death_
The jury closed the debate on October 30, at eight o'clock in the
evening. All the accused were declared guilty of having conspired
against the unity and indivisibility of the republic, and condemned to
death. One of them, who had made a motion with his hand as though to
tear his garments, slipped from his seat on to the floor. It was Valazé.
"What, Valazé, are you losing your courage?" said Brissot, striving to
support him.
"No, I am dying," returned Valazé. And he expired, his hand on the
poignard with which he had pierced his heart.
At this spectacle silence instantly prevailed, and the example of Valazé
made the young Girondists blush for their momentary weakness.
It was eleven o'clock at night. After a moment's pause, occasioned by
the unexpectedness of the sentence and the emotion of the prisoners, the
sitting was closed amidst cries of "Vive la République!"
The Girondists, as they quitted their places, cried simultaneously. "We
die innocent! Vive la République!"
They were all confined for this their last night on earth in the large
dungeon, the waiting room of death.
The deputy Bailleul, their colleague at the Assembly, proscribed like
them, but who had escaped the proscription, and was concealed in Paris,
had promised to send them from without on the day of their trial a last
repast, triumphant or funeral, according to the sentence. Bailleul,
though invisible, kept his promise through the agency of a friend. The
funeral supper was set out in the large dungeon; the daintiest meats,
the choicest wines, the rarest flowers, and numerous flambeaux decked
the oaken table--prodigality of dying men who have no need to save aught
for the following day.
The repast was prolonged until dawn. Vergniaud, seated at the centre of
the table, presided, with the same calm dignity he had presided at the
Convention on the night of August 10. The others formed groups, with the
exception of Brissot, who sat at the end of the table, eating but
little, and not uttering a word. For a long time nothing in their
features or conversation indicated that this repast was the prelude to
death. They ate and drank with appetite, but sobriety; but when the
table was cleared, and nothing left except the fruit, wine, and flowers,
the conversation became alternately animated, noisy and grave, as the
conversation of careless men, whose thoughts and tongues are freed by
wine.
Towards the morning the conversation became more solemn. Brissot spoke
prophetically of the misfortunes of the republic, deprived of her most
virtuous and eloquent citizens. "How much blood will it require to wash
out our own?" cried he. They were silent, and appeared terrified at the
phantom of the future evoked by Brissot.
"My friends," replied Vergniaud, "we have killed the tree by pruning it.
It was too aged. Robespierre cuts it. Will he be more fortunate than
ourselves? No, the soul is too weak to nourish the roots of civic
liberty; this people is too childish to wield its laws without hurting
itself. We were deceived as to the age in which we were born, and in
which we die for the freedom of the world."
A long silence followed this speech of Vergniaud's, and the conversation
turned from earth to heaven.
"What shall we be doing to-morrow at this time?" said Ducos, who always
mingled mirth with the most serious subjects. Each replied according to
his nature.
Vergniaud reconciled in a few words all the different opinions. "Let us
believe what we will," said he, "but let us die certain of our life and
the price of our death. Let us each sacrifice what we possess, the one
his doubt, the other his faith, all of us our blood, for liberty. When
man offers himself a victim to Heaven, what more can he give?"
When all was ready, and the last lock of hair had fallen on the stones
of the dungeon, the executioners and _gens d'armes_ made the condemned
march in a column to the court of the palace, where five carts,
surrounded by an immense crowd, awaited them. The moment they emerged
from the Conciergerie, the Girondists burst into the "Marseillaise,"
laying stress on these verses, which contained a double meaning:
_Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé._
From this moment they ceased to think of themselves, in order to think
of the example of the death of republicans they wished to leave the
people. Their voices sank at the end of each verse, only to rise more
sonorous at the first line of the next verse. On their arrival at the
scaffold they all embraced, in token of community in liberty, life, and
death, and then resumed their funeral chant.
All died without weakness. The hymn became feebler at each fall of the
axe; one voice still continued it, that of Vergniaud. Like his
companions, he did not die, but passed in enthusiasm, and his life,
begun by immortal orations, ended in a hymn to the eternity of the
revolution.
* * * * *
HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
The Modern Régime
The early life of Hippolyte Adolphe Taine is notable for its
successes and its disappointments. Born at Vouziers, in
Ardennes, on April 21, 1838, he passed with great distinction
through the Collège de Bourbon and the École Normale. Until he
was twenty-five he filled minor positions at Toulon, Nevers,
and Poitiers; and then, hopeless of further promotion, he
abandoned educational work, returned to Paris, and devoted
himself to letters. During 1863-64 he produced his "History of
English Literature," a work which, on account of Taine's
uncompromising determinist views, raised a clerical storm in
France. About 1871 Taine conceived the idea of his great life
work, "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine," in which he
proposed to trace the causes and effects of the revolution of
1789. The first of the series, "The Ancient Régime," appeared
in 1875; the second, "The Revolution," in 1878-81-85; and the
third, "The Modern Régime," in 1890-94. As a study of events
arising out of the greatest drama of modern times the
supremacy of the last-named is unquestioned. It stands apart
as a trenchant analysis of modern France, Taine's conclusions
being that the Revolution, instead of establishing liberty,
destroyed it. Taine died on March 5, 1893.
_I.--The Architect of Modern France_
In trying to explain to ourselves the meaning of an edifice, we must
take into account whatever has opposed or favoured its construction, the
kind and quality of its available materials, the time, the opportunity,
and the demand for it; but, still more important, we must consider the
genius and taste of the architect, especially whether he is the
proprietor, whether he built it to live in himself, and, once installed
in it, whether he took pains to adapt it to his own way of living, to
his own necessities, to his own use.
Such is the social edifice erected by Napoleon Bonaparte, its architect,
proprietor, and principal occupant from 1799 to 1814. It is he who has
made modern France. Never was an individual character so profoundly
stamped on any collective work, so that, to comprehend the work, we must
first study the character of the man.
Contemplate in Guérin's picture the spare body, those narrow shoulders
under the uniform wrinkled by sudden movements, that neck swathed in its
high, twisted cravat, those temples covered by long, smooth, straight
hair, exposing only the mask, the hard features intensified through
strong contrasts of light and shade, the cheeks hollow up to the inner
angle of the eye, the projecting cheek-bones, the massive, protuberant
jaw, the sinuous, mobile lips, pressed together as if attentive; the
large, clear eyes, deeply sunk under the broad arched eyebrows, the
fixed oblique look, as penetrating as a rapier, and the two creases
which extend from the base of the nose to the brow as if in a frown of
suppressed anger and determined will. Add to this the accounts of his
contemporaries who saw or heard the curt accent, or the sharp, abrupt
gesture, the interrogating, imperious, absolute tone of voice, and we
comprehend how, the moment they accosted him, they felt the dominating
hand which seizes them, presses them down, holds them firmly, and never
relaxes its grasp.
Now, in every human society a government is necessary, or, in other
words, an organisation of the power of the community. No other machine
is so useful. But a machine is useful only as it is adapted to its
purpose; otherwise it does not work well, or it works adversely to that
purpose. Hence, in its construction, the prime necessity of calculating
what work it has to do, also the quantity of the materials one has at
one's disposal.
During the French Revolution, legislators had never taken this into
consideration; they had constituted things as theorists, and likewise as
optimists, without closely studying them, or else regarding them as they
wished to have them. In the national assemblies, as well as with the
public, the task was deemed easy and ordinary, whereas it was
extraordinary and immense, for the matter in hand consisted in effecting
a social revolution and in carrying on a European war.
What is the service which the public power renders to the public? The
principal one is the protection of the community against the foreigner,
and of private individuals against each other. Evidently, to do this, it
must _in all cases_ be provided with indispensable means, namely,
diplomats, an army, a fleet, arsenals, civil and criminal courts,
prisons, a police, taxation and tax-collectors, a hierarchy of agents
and local supervisors, who, each in his place and attending to his
special duty, will co-operate in securing the desired effect. Evidently,
again, to apply all these instruments, the public power must have,
_according to the case_, this or that form of constitution, this or that
degree of impulse and energy; according to the nature and gravity of
external or internal danger, it is proper that it should be concentrated
or divided, emancipated from control or under control, authoritative or
liberal. No indignation need be cherished beforehand against its
mechanism, whatever this may be. Properly speaking, it is a vast engine
in the human community, like any given industrial machine in a factory,
or any set of organs belonging to the living body.
Unfortunately, in France, at the end of the eighteenth century, a bent
was taken in the organisation of this machine, and a wrong bent. For
three centuries and more the public power had unceasingly violated and
discredited spontaneous bodies. At one time it had mutilated them and
decapitated them. For example, it had suppressed provincial governments
_(états)_ over three-quarters of the territory in all the electoral
districts; nothing remained of the old province but its name and an
administrative circumscription. At another time, without mutilating the
corporate body, it had enervated and deformed it, or dislocated and
disjointed it.
Corporations and local bodies, thus deprived of, or diverted from, their
purpose, had become unrecognisable under the crust of the abuses which
disfigured them; nobody, except a Montesquieu, could comprehend why they
should exist. On the approach of the revolution they seemed, not organs,
but excrescences, deformities, and, so to say, superannuated
monstrosities. Their historical and natural roots, their living germs
far below the surface, their social necessity, their fundamental
utility, their possible usefulness, were no longer visible.
_II.--The Body-Social of a Despot_
Corporations, and local bodies being thus emasculated, by the end of the
eighteenth century the principal features of modern France are traced; a
creature of a new and strange type arises, defines itself, and issues
forth its structure determining its destiny. It consists of a social
body organised by a despot and for a despot, calculated for the use of
one man, excellent for action under the impulsion of a unique will, with
a superior intelligence, admirable so long as this intelligence remains
lucid and this will remain healthy; adapted to a military life and not
to civil life and therefore badly balanced, hampered in its development,
exposed to periodical crises, condemned to precocious debility, but able
to live for a long time, and for the present, robust, alone able to bear
the weight of the new dominion and to furnish for fifteen successive
years the crushing labour, the conquering obedience, the superhuman,
murderous, insensate effort which its master, Napoleon, exacts.
However clear and energetic the ideas of Napoleon are when he sets to
work to make the New Régime, his mind is absorbed by the preoccupations
of the sovereign. It is not enough for him that his edifice should be
monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful. First of all, as he lives in it
and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants it habitable, and
habitable for Frenchmen of the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into
account the habits and dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and
permanent wants for which the new structure is to provide. These wants,
however, must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for
he is a calculator as close as he is profound, and deals only with
positive facts.
To restore tranquillity, many novel measures are essential. And first,
the political and administrative concentration just decreed, a
centralisation of all powers in one hand, local powers conferred by the
central power, and this supreme power in the hands of a resolute chief
equal in intelligence to his high position; next, a regularly paid army,
carefully equipped, properly clothed, and fed, strictly disciplined, and
therefore obedient and able to do its duty without wavering or
faltering, like any other instrument of precision; an active police
force and _gendarmerie_ held in check; administrators independent of
those under their jurisdiction--all appointed, maintained, watched and
restrained from above, as impartial as possible, sufficiently competent,
and, in their official spheres, capable functionaries; finally, freedom
of worship, and, accordingly, a treaty with Rome and the restoration of
the Catholic Church--that is to say, a legal recognition of the orthodox
hierarchy, and of the only clergy which the faithful may accept as
legitimate--in other words, the institution of bishops by the Pope, and
of priests by the bishops. This done, the rest is easily accomplished.
The main thing now is to dress the severe wounds the revolution has
made--which are still bleeding--with as little torture as possible, for
it has cut down to the quick; and its amputations, whether foolish or
outrageous, have left sharp pains or mute suffering in the social
organism.
Above all, religion must be restored. Before 1789, the ignorant or
indifferent Catholic, the peasant at his plough, the mechanic at his
work-bench, the good wife attending to her household, were unconscious
of the innermost part of religion; thanks to the revolution, they have
acquired the sentiment of it, and even the physical sensation. It is the
prohibition of the mass which has led them to comprehend its importance;
it is the revolutionary government which has transformed them into
theologians.
From the year IV. (1795) the orthodox priests have again recovered their
place and ascendancy in the peasant's soul which the creed assigns to
them; they have again become the citizen's serviceable guides, his
accepted directors, the only warranted interpreters of Christian truth,
the only authorised dispensers and ministers of divine grace. He attends
their mass immediately on their return, and will put up with no other.
Napoleon, therefore, as First Consul, concludes the Concordat with the
Pope and restores religion. By this Concordat the Pope "declares that
neither himself nor his successors shall in any manner disturb the
purchasers of alienated ecclesiastical property, and that the ownership
of the said property, the rights and revenues derived therefrom, shall
consequently remain incommutable in their hands or in those of their
assigns."
There remain the institutions for instruction. With respect to these,
the restoration seems more difficult, for their ancient endowment is
almost entirely wasted; the government has nothing to give back but
dilapidated buildings, a few scattered investments formerly intended for
the maintenance of a college scholarship, or for a village schoolhouse.
And to whom should these be returned, since the college and the
schoolhouse no longer exist? Fortunately, instruction is an article of
such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure it for his
children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if not too dear;
only, he wants that which pleases him in kind and in quality, and,
therefore, from a particular source, bearing this or that factory stamp
or label.
The state invites everybody, the communes as well as private persons, to
the undertaking. It is on their liberality that it relies for replacing
the ancient foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies in favour of new
establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with the
most invariable respect." Meanwhile, and as a precautionary measure, it
assigns to each its eventual duty; if the commune establishes a primary
school for itself, it must provide the tutor with a lodging, and the
parents must compensate him; if the commune founds a college or accepts
a _lycée,_ it must pay for the annual support of the building, while the
pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly.
In this way the heavy expenses are already met, and the state, the
manager-general of the service, furnishes simply a very small quota; and
this quota, mediocre as a rule, is found almost null in fact, for its
main largess consists in 6,400 scholarships which it establishes and
engages to support; but it confers only about 3,000 of them, and it
distributes nearly all of these among the children of its military or
civil employees, so that the son's scholarship becomes additional pay
for the father; thus, the two millions which the state seems, under this
head, to assign to the _lycées,_ are actually gratifications which it
distributes among its functionaries and officials. It takes back with
one hand what it bestows with the other.
This being granted, it organises the university and maintains it, not at
its own expense, however, but at the expense of others, at the expense
of private persons and parents, of the communes, and, above all, at the
expense of rival schools and private boarding-schools, of the free
institutions, and all this in favour of the university monopoly which
subjects these to special taxation as ingenious as it is multifarious.
Whoever is privileged to carry on a private school, must pay from two to
three hundred francs to the university; likewise, every person obtaining
permission to lecture on literature or on science.
_III.--The New Taxation, Fiscal and Bodily_
Now, as to taxes. The collection of a direct tax is a surgical operation
performed on the taxpayer, one which removes a piece of his substance;
he suffers on account of this, and submits to it only because he is
obliged to. If the operation is performed on him by other hands, he
submits to it voluntarily or not; but if he has to do it himself,
spontaneously and with his own hands, it is not to be thought of. On the
other hand, the collection of a direct tax according to the
prescriptions of distributive justice is a subjection of each taxpayer
to an amputation proportionate to his bulk, or at least to his surface;
this requires delicate calculation and is not to be entrusted to the
patients themselves; for not only are they surgical novices and poor
calculators, but, again, they are interested in calculating falsely.
To this end, Napoleon establishes two divisions of direct taxation: one,
the real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer without any
property; and the other the personal tax, which does affect him, but
lightly. Such a system favours the poor; in other words, it is an
infraction of the principle of distributive justice; through the almost
complete exemption of those who have no property, the burden of direct
taxation falls almost entirely on those who own property. If they are
manufacturers, or in commerce, they support still another burden, that
of the license tax, which is a supplementary impost proportioned to
their probable gains. Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes,
levied on the probable or certain income derived from invested or
floating capital, the exchequer adds an eventual tax on capital itself,
consisting of the _mutation_ tax, assessed on property every time it
changes hands through gift, inheritance, or by contract, obtaining its
title under free donation or by sale, and which tax, aggravated by the
_timbre_, is enormous, since, in most cases, it takes five, seven, nine,
and up to ten and one-half per cent, on the capital transmitted.
One tax remains, and the last, that by which the state takes, no longer
money, but the person himself, the entire man, soul and body, and for
the best years of his life, namely, military service. It is the
revolution which has rendered this so burdensome; formerly it was light,
for, in principle, it was voluntary. The militia, alone, was raised by
force, and, in general, among the country people; the peasants furnished
men for it by casting lots. But it was simply a supplement to the active
army, a territorial and provincial reserve, a distinct, sedentary body
of reinforcements, and of inferior rank which, except in case of war,
never marched; it turned out but nine days of the year, and, after 1778,
never turned out again. In 1789 it comprised in all 75,260 men, and for
eleven years their names, inscribed on the registers, alone constituted
their presence in the ranks.