THE PALAIS BOURBON.
The Palais Bourbon--Its History--The National Convention--Philippe
Egalité.
The Palais Bourbon, situated between the Quai d’Orsay on the north and
the Place de Bourgogne on the south, bears a name which is singularly
inappropriate to the edifice in its modern character; for neither under
the ancient monarchy nor under the restored Bourbons has the great
monarchical family of France shown the least favour towards the
parliamentary discussions of which in modern times the Palais Bourbon
has been the scene. The building was constructed in 1772 by the Italian
architect, Gardini, at the orders of the Dowager-Duchess of Bourbon.
After passing through various hands, the Palais Bourbon was made
national property at the time of the Revolution, when “Maison de la
Revolution” was the name given to it. In 1795 its principal
reception-rooms were transformed into a hall for the Council of the Five
Hundred, and it was at the same time enlarged. The present façade was
added in 1804 under Napoleon I.
Among the other remarkable halls contained in the Palais Bourbon as it
at present exists, the most important is the one in which, under the
name now of Chamber of Deputies, now of Legislative Body, the French
Parliament has held its sittings.
The hall arranged in 1795 for the Council of the Five Hundred was
afterwards occupied by the Legislative Body of the Empire, and again,
under the Restoration, by the Chamber of Deputies. In 1814 the Palais
Bourbon was, as property, restored to the Prince de Condé, who left the
use of it to the State for the benefit of the Chamber. The Government
bought from the prince in 1827 a portion of the palace, and purchased
the rest from the Duke of Aumale in 1830, the full price paid amounting
to 10,500,000 francs. In 1829 the Hall of the Five Hundred was replaced
provisionally by a building of wood, in lieu of which the hall as it now
exists was soon afterwards constructed. After the Revolution of 1848 a
wooden hall was built in the courtyard of the palace to receive the nine
hundred deputies of the Constituent Assembly. This hall was invaded by
the mob on the 15th of May, 1848, and demolished after the _coup d’état_
of the 2nd of December, 1851.
The Legislative Body of the Empire was now installed in the former
Chamber of Deputies until the 4th of September, 1870, when the palace of
the Legislative Body was once more invaded by the mob.
The most famous parliamentary debates, however, of the French, and the
most important parliamentary trials, have taken place not in the Palais
Bourbon but at the Tuileries and at the Luxemburg. Under the reign of
Louis Philippe, in the best days of Guizot and Thiers, debates of the
greatest interest took place at the Palais Bourbon in the “Chamber of
Deputies,” as the French representative body was at that time called;
for with each new government the name of the assembly, as of almost
every other institution in France, is changed. All public establishments
are from time to time Royal, National, or Imperial; and the body which
corresponds in France to the House of Commons in England is called, turn
by turn, Chamber of Representatives, Chamber of Deputies, or Legislative
Body. No country, indeed, has had so many legislative and governing
assemblies as France, which until the Revolution was as nearly as
possible an absolute monarchy. The States-General, under the ancient
régime, were convoked from time to time by the king, but had no real
power. The most that can be said in their favour is that they at least
preserved among the people the idea of popular representation. In 1788,
the year before the Revolution, there was a general demand for a
convocation of the States-General, to which an unexpected reply was made
by the calling together of Constituent and Legislative Assemblies. These
bodies both admitted the royal veto as a bar upon their decisions. But
the Convention, the Revolution having now been accomplished, recognised
no counterbalancing power, no control of any kind. It governed the
country through its commissaries and its committees.
The constitution of the year 3 of the Republic (1792) divided the
legislative power into two assemblies, the Council of the Five Hundred
and the Council of the Elders. To the former belonged the initiative, to
the latter the final decision.
Dissatisfied with the working of these two bodies, Bonaparte introduced
a parliamentary reform of the most remarkable kind. According to his
constitution of the year 1797, the Legislative Body was to be divided
into two assemblies, one of which was to discuss the laws submitted to
it by the Government, the other to accept the decisions in the upper
chamber without debate and simply by way of registration. After the fall
of Napoleon the restored monarchy, obliged by the circumstances of the
time to tolerate the existence of a parliament, formed the Chamber of
Representatives, which, under the government of Louis Philippe, was
succeeded by the Chamber of Deputies, destined to play an important part
in the political history of the country. Under the Second Empire the
governmental forms of the First Empire were as much as possible
introduced. The Legislative Body and the Senate came now once more into
existence, the former being empowered to discuss the laws proposed by
the Government, the latter to prevent their promulgation should they,
under the influence of the debates, have taken a form which the
Government might consider objectionable. Under the Third Republic the
French chambers have resumed something of the importance they possessed
under Louis Philippe. Their powers, indeed, have been increased, though
they contain no such distinguished men as those which gave character and
brilliancy to the Chamber of Deputies between the years 1830 and 1848.
[Illustration: FAÇADE OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES ON PLACE DU PALAIS
BOURBON.]
The assembly of the States-General held at Versailles in May, 1789,
preceded by three months the taking of the Bastille; and it was in this
assembly that the task-work of the peasants--their serfdom, that is to
say--was abolished; that obnoxious feudal rights of various kinds were
suppressed; and that religious liberty, individual liberty, liberty of
the press, and general equality before the law were proclaimed.
The Bastille was taken while the assembly was in full deliberation, and
this event gave to its discussions and decisions a more liberal, more
revolutionary turn than ever.
The assembly of the States-General followed the king to Paris, and soon
afterwards installed itself in the riding-school of the Tuileries. After
the flight of Louis XVI. (June 21, 1791) it took possession of the
executive power, and held it with a firm hand until the acceptance of
the constitution by the king on the 14th of September. On the 30th of
the same month it dispersed, to be replaced by the Legislative Assembly,
to which, in virtue of a resolution proposed by Robespierre, no member
of the previous assembly could belong. The number of laws, acts, and
decrees passed by the assembly afterwards to be known as the Constituent
amounted to not less than 3,250.
[Illustration: CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES FROM THE QUAI D’ORSAY.]
The Legislative Assembly of 1791, in which, as just mentioned, no member
of the famous Constituent Assembly could sit, began by swearing
allegiance to the constitution just proclaimed. A number of _émigrés_
having assembled on the frontier, it confiscated their property, and
took proceedings against the king’s brothers, the chiefs of the fugitive
royalists now threatening return. It replied to the coalition against
France by a declaration of war, called the country to arms, and decreed
the formation of a camp of 20,000 men beneath the walls of Paris. The
king making objection to these vigorous measures, the Assembly declared
the monarchy at an end, and on the 10th of August it was abolished, or
rather “suspended,” by law.
On the 10th of August, 1792, the Legislative Assembly, in presence of
Louis XVI., decreed the “provisional suspension of the chief of the
executive power,” and the convocation of a national convention--that is
to say an extraordinary assembly invested by the people with full powers
for reconstituting the government of the country. The members of the new
legislative body were to be chosen by double election. Every Frenchman
who was of age, and possessed not a house but a “domicile,” had a right
to vote for an elector; and the electors thus chosen elected in their
turn the members of the new assembly. There was one elector to every
hundred citizens; and at the primary elections the merits of the
candidates for electoral honours were freely discussed.
The procedure of the Convention was almost identical with that of the
Constituent and Legislative Assembly. Many readers will be surprised to
hear that among the 749 deputies forming the National Convention there
were sixteen bishops, eight episcopal grand vicars, eighteen priests,
and seven Protestant ministers; besides one prince of the blood (the
Duke of Orleans, nicknamed Philippe Égalité), and a number of barristers
and lawyers, officers of the king’s army, now disbanded; former members
of the Paris Parliament, nobles, landed proprietors, doctors, men of
science, men of letters, several poets, painters, and actors; a few
merchants and manufacturers, and only one workman, a wool-carder named
Armonville. The Convention, though a Revolutionary assembly, can
scarcely be said to have been a democratic one. On the 20th of September
the new representatives of the people held a preparatory sitting in the
Hall of the Hundred Swiss at the Tuileries. On the 21st the Convention
reassembled at the Tuileries, and notified its official existence to the
Legislative Assembly, which at once deposited its powers in the hands of
the new representatives of the people, who thereupon established
themselves in the Riding School. The Convention did not take possession
of the Tuileries until eight months afterwards, May 10th, 1793, the
unfortunate king having meanwhile, been sentenced to death and (Jan. 21)
executed.
When the Convention began its sittings the enemy’s outposts were only
seventy-five miles from Paris, and the German powers, who had invaded
France, were preparing to take a terrible vengeance on the country
which, if it had not actually dethroned, had formally “suspended” the
power of its king.
“Kings” exclaimed the Bishop of Blois in an excited debate, “are in the
moral order what monsters are in the physical”; and in the midst of
general acclamation the Assembly adopted unanimously this declaration:
“ROYALTY IS ABOLISHED IN FRANCE.”
The Girondists, who for some time had the upper hand in the Convention,
wished to spare the king, and some of them proposed to leave the
decision of his fate to the people at large; confident, no doubt, that
the verdict of the nation would be, if not altogether favourable, at
least not fatal to the unhappy monarch. The Girondists, however, could
not get their views adopted by the Assembly generally; and in the end
many of them voted for the king’s death.
The king having been tried and found guilty by the Assembly, each member
was called upon to declare in writing what sentence the convicted
monarch deserved. Some were for keeping him in prison until peace was
made with the invading powers, and then sending him into exile on
condition of his never attempting to return. The greater number,
however, of the deputies were in favour of death. One, more brutal than
the others, is said to have recorded his view as to the sentence that
should be passed in these cynical words: “La mort sans phrase.” M.
Edouard Fournier has, however, well explained, in his admirable little
volume, “Les Mots Historiques,” that whereas in most cases the deputy
signing the register explained, in one or more phrases, why he was in
favour of a particular sentence, the sentence in this particular case
was given without one word of explanation, “sans phrase” in short, as
the registrar put it.
The day of the king’s sentence, one of the deputies, Lepelletier
Saint-Fargeau, who had voted for death, was assassinated just after he
had left the Assembly, by a former member of the Body-guard named Pàris.
The Convention ordered that he should receive the honours of the
Pantheon, and assisted in a body at his funeral. This incident caused a
deep sensation, deeper, it is said, even than the execution of the king,
which took place on the 21st of January, 1793. The deepest indignation,
too, was excited by the news that among those who had voted for the
king’s death was his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, the so-called Philippe
Égalité, whose son, Louis Philippe, was thirty-seven years afterwards to
ascend the French throne. Writing in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ a few
years after the latter event, Châteaubriand reproached the reigning king
in plain terms with being the son of a regicide. Arguing that since the
execution of Louis XVI., and as a punishment for that crime, it had
become impossible to establish monarchy in France, he added:--
“Napoleon saw the diadem fall from his brow in spite of his victories;
Charles X., in spite of his piety. To discredit the Crown finally in
the eyes of the nations, it has been permitted to the son of the
regicide to lie for one moment in the bloodstained bed of the murdered
man.” That Louis Philippe suffered this outburst to be published
unchallenged has been regarded as a proof of his extreme tolerance in
press matters. Probably, however, he thought it prudent not to invite
general attention to words which, by a large portion of his subjects,
would have been accepted as justifiable.
It has been said by the defenders of the “regicide” that Philippe
Égalité did his best not to be present at the sitting of the Convention
when sentence had to be passed on the unfortunate king; but that he was
threatened by his friends of the Left with assassination unless he voted
with them for the “death of the tyrant.” However that may be, he took
his seat among the judges by whom the fate of his royal kinsman was to
be decided, and, when it became his turn to deliver his opinion, did so
in the following words: “Occupied solely with my duty, convinced that
all those who have attacked, or might afterwards attack, the sovereignty
of the people deserve death, I pronounce the death of Louis.”
Philippe Égalité had looked for general approval, and had voted in fear
of death--which awaited him all the same, and came to him in the very
form in which a few months before it had been inflicted on the unhappy
Louis. When his vote was made known cries of indignation from all sides
warned him that he had transgressed one of the great moral laws which
are observed even by men who violate all others. Then it was that a
former soldier of the King’s Body-guard, hearing of Philippe Égalité’s
unnatural offence, resolved to kill him, but not being able to find him,
killed another less guilty “regicide” in his place.
Very different was the feeling excited by the conduct of Philippe
Égalité in the breast of the king himself. “I don’t know by what
chance,” says the Abbé Edgeworth in his “Relation sur les Derniers
Momens du Roi,” “the conversation fell upon Philippe. The king seemed to
be well acquainted with his intrigues and with the horrid part he had
taken at the Convention. But he spoke of him without any bitterness, and
with pity rather than with anger. ‘What have I done to my cousin,’ he
exclaimed, ‘that he should so persecute me? What object could he have?
Oh, he is more to be pitied than I am. My lot is melancholy, no doubt,
but his is much more so.’”
Meanwhile the faction of the Assembly which in the beginning of
September, 1792, had, by its excited declamation and denunciation,
brought about the massacre of the prisoners, was constantly attempting,
in combination with other factions, to arrest some of the most
influential members of the majority, accuse them of treason, and bring
them before the Revolutionary Tribunal. On the 2nd of June, 1793, they
struck their first blow; and on the 3rd of October in the same year they
denounced forty-four deputies, ordered the arrest of seventy-one, and
compelled many more to take to flight and seek safety in concealment.
The majority was thus diminished by 150 members: the minority in fact
became the majority.
Then one of the authors of these measures, Robespierre, hoping to
monopolise whatever fruits they might bear, and finding no further
obstacle to his ambition, became dictator in fact, bent everything
beneath his will, and reigned by terror. During fourteen months he
subjected the French to a ferocious tyranny. At Paris alone thirty,
forty, sixty heads fell daily. At length, on the 27th of July, 1794,
this monster, together with his chief accomplices, paid his reckoning,
and France was delivered from an intolerable yoke. To the general
desolation, grief, and alarm now succeeded the liveliest joy. The doors
of many prisons were thrown open; the instrument of death ceased to ply
its blade.
The Convention, free and tranquil, despite the difficulties it
experienced from foreign factions, was now to pursue its way and to give
France a constitution. On the 26th of October, 1795, it terminated its
session.
The Conventional Assembly, at war with all the States of Europe, at war
even with the French inhabitants of some of the western provinces,
surrounded by distractions and dangers to which some of its own members
fell victims, did not omit to encourage the arts and sciences,
particularly those of practical utility, nor to found public
institutions of the highest importance. The development it gave to the
national schools and hospitals, to mention these alone, has already been
touched upon in previous chapters. A report drawn up in the third year
of the Republic by the savant Foucroy, in the name of the Committee of
Public Safety, on the “Arts which had served for the defence of the
Republic,” contains some interesting details. Within nine months, it was
boasted, 12,000,000 pounds of saltpetre had been manufactured and
stored in the magazines of the Republic, whereas, previously, the merest
fraction of that quantity had been yearly produced.
A method had been introduced, moreover, for manufacturing gunpowder in a
few hours with machines of the greatest simplicity. Hitherto France had
been dependent on the neighbouring nations for the manufacture of steel.
England and Germany had been accustomed to furnish her with this metal
at a charge of about 4,000,000 francs a year. Now several factories rose
in places where the production of steel had been hitherto unknown.
During the same period many improvements were introduced in the
manufacture of muskets; the number of cannon foundries was greatly
increased, a species of balloon was used as a war vehicle; and, to pass
from war to peace, weights and measures were rendered uniform.
The system of national education with nominal charges (averaging ten
francs a month), at the gymnasiums, with free lectures by the best
professors at the Sorbonne and the College of France, is due to the
Convention. So, too, is the famous Conservatoire de Musique, with its
gratuitous teaching, which has had the effect of turning France from an
unmusical into an eminently musical nation. For an interesting and
valuable account of the constructive measures adopted by the French
Republic, which is usually credited with measures of destruction alone,
the reader is referred to Mr. Morse Stephens’s excellent “History of the
French Revolution.”
Having been endowed by the Republic with a legislative body, France was
never afterwards without one, though its importance varied according to
the form and character of the Government. From the Riding School of the
Tuileries the Assembly moved to the Tuileries itself, and governing the
country as the Convention really did, it had the right, perhaps, to
establish itself in the palace of the French kings. Napoleon, however,
wanted the Tuileries for himself; and his Legislative Body now held its
unimportant discussions in the Palais Bourbon; which remained the home
of the French Parliament, under various names, until in 1871 the seat of
government was changed from Paris to Versailles.