I.--Composition of the Legislative Assembly.
Social rank of the Deputies. Their inexperience,
incompetence, and prejudices.
If it be true that a nation should be represented by its superior
men, France was strangely represented during the Revolution. From one
Assembly to another we see the level steadily declining; especially is
the fall very great from the Constituent to the Legislative Assembly.
The actors entitled to perform withdraw just as they begin to understand
their parts; and yet more, they have excluded themselves from the
theatre, while the stage is surrendered to their substitutes.
"The preceding Assembly," writes an ambassador,[2201] "contained men of
great talent, large fortune, and honorable name, a combination which had
an imposing effect on the people, although violently opposed to personal
distinctions. The actual Assembly is but little more than a council of
lawyers, got together from every town and village in France."
In actual fact, out of 745 deputies, indeed, "400 lawyers belong, for
the most part, to the dregs of the profession"; there are about twenty
constitutional priests, "as many poets and literary men of but little
reputation, almost all without any fortune," the greater number being
less than thirty years old, sixty being less than twenty-six,[2202]
nearly all of them trained in the clubs and the popular assemblies".
There is not one noble or prelate belonging to the ancient régime,
no great landed proprietor,[2203] no head of a service, no eminent
specialist in diplomacy, in finance, in the administrative or military
arts. But three general officers are found there, and these are of the
lower rank,[2204] one of them having held his appointment but three
months, and the other two being wholly unknown.--At the head of the
diplomatic committee stands Brissot, itinerant journalist, lately
traveling about in England and the United States. He is supposed to be
competent in the affairs of both worlds; in reality he is one of those
presuming, threadbare, talkative fellows, who, living in a garret,
lecture foreign cabinets and reconstruct all Europe. Things, to them,
seem to be as easily worked out as words and sentences: one day,[2205]
to entice the English into an alliance with France, Brissot proposes to
place two towns, Dunkirk and Calais, in their hands as security; another
day, he proposes "to make a descent on Spain, and, at the same time, to
send a fleet to conquer Mexico."--The leading member on the committee on
finances is Cambon, a merchant from Montpellier, a good accountant,
who, at a later period, is to simplify accounting and regulate the Grand
Livre of the public debt, which means public bankruptcy. Mean-while,
he hastens this on with all his might by encouraging the Assembly to
undertake the ruinous and terrible war that is to last for twenty-three
years; according to him, "there is more money than is needed for
it."[2206] In actual fact, the guarantee of assignats is used up and the
taxes do not come in. They live only on the paper money they issue. The
assignats lose forty per centum, and the ascertained deficit for 1792
is four hundred millions.[2207] But this revolutionary financier relies
upon the confiscations which he instigates in France, and which are
to be set agoing in Belgium; here lies all his invention, a systematic
robbery on a grand scale within and without the kingdom.
As to the legislators and manufacturers of constitutions, we have
Condorcet, a cold-blooded fanatic and systematic leveler, satisfied that
a mathematical method suits the social sciences fed on abstractions,
blinded by formuloe, and the most chimerical of perverted intellects.
Never was a man versed in books more ignorant of mankind; never did a
lover of scientific precision better succeed in changing the character
of facts. It was he who, two days before the 20th of June, amidst the
most brutal public excitement, admired "the calmness" and rationality of
the multitude; "considering the way people interpret events, it might
be supposed that they had given some hours of each day to the study of
analysis." It is he who, two days after the 20th of June, extolled the
red cap in which the head of Louis XVI. had been muffled. "That crown
is as good as any other. Marcus Aurelius would not have despised
it."[2208]--Such is the discernment and practical judgment of the
leaders; from these one can form an opinion of the flock. It consists
of novices arriving from the provinces and bringing with them the
principles and prejudices of the newspaper. So remote from the center,
having no knowledge of general affairs or of their unity, they are
two years behind their brethren of the Constituent Assembly. They are
described in the following manner by Malouet,[2209]
"Most of them, without having decided against a monarchy, had decided
against the court, the aristocracy, and the clergy, ever imagining
conspiracies and believing that defense consisted solely in attack.
There were still many men of talent among them, but with no experience;
they even lacked that which we had obtained. Our patriot deputies, in
great part, were aware of their errors; the novices were not, they were
ready to begin all over again."
Moreover, they have their own political bent, for nearly all of them
are upstarts of the new régime. We find in their ranks 264 department
administrators, 109 district administrators, 125 justices and
prosecuting-attorneys, 68 mayors and town officers, besides about twenty
officers of the National Guard, constitutional bishops and curés. The
whole amounting to 566 of the elected functionaries, who, for the past
twenty months, have carried on the government under the direction
of their electors. We have seen how this was done and under what
conditions, with what compliances and with what complicity, with what
deference to clamorous opinion, with what docility in the presence of
rioters, with what submission to the orders of the mob, with what a
deluge of sentimental phrases and commonplace abstractions. Sent to
Paris as deputies, through the choice or toleration of the clubs, they
bear along with them their politics and their rhetoric. The result is
an assemblage of narrow, perverted, hasty, inflated and feeble minds; at
each daily session, twenty word-mills turn to no purpose, the greatest
of public powers at once becoming a manufactory of nonsense, a school of
extravagancies, and a theatre for declamation.
II.--Degree and quality of their intelligence and Culture.
Is it possible that serious men could have listened to such weird
nonsense until the bitter end?
"I am a tiller of the soil,"[2210] says one deputy, "I now dare speak
of the antique nobility of my plow. A yoke of oxen once constituted
the pure, incorruptible legal worthies before whom my good ancestors
executed their contracts, the authenticity of which, far better recorded
on the soil than on flimsy parchment, is protected from any species of
revolution whatever."
Is it conceivable that the reporter of a law, that is about to exile or
imprison forty thousand priests, should employ in an argument such silly
bombast as the following?[2211]
"I have seen in the rural districts the hymeneal torch diffusing only
pale and somber rays, or, transformed into the flambeaux of furies,
the hideous skeleton of superstition seated even on the nuptial couch,
placed between nature and the wedded, and arresting, etc.... Oh Rome,
art thou satisfied? Art thou then like Saturn, to whom fresh holocausts
were daily imperative?... Depart, ye creators of discord! The soil of
liberty is weary of bearing you. Would ye breathe the atmosphere of the
Aventine mount? The national ship is already prepared for you. I hear on
the shore the impatient cries of the crew; I see the breezes of liberty
swelling its sails. Like Telemachus, ye will go forth on the waters to
seek your father; but never will you have to dread the Sicilian rocks,
nor the seductions of a Eucharis."
Courtesies of pedants, rhetorical personifications, and the invective of
maniacs is the prevailing tone. The same defect characterizes the best
speeches, namely, an overexcited brain, a passion for high-sounding
terms, the constant use of stilts and an incapacity for seeing things
as they are and of so describing them. Men of talent, Isnard, Guadet,
Vergniaud himself, are carried away by hollow sonorous phrases like a
ship with too much canvas for its ballast. Their minds are stimulated by
souvenirs of their school lessons, the modern world revealing itself
to them only through their Latin reminiscences.--François de Nantes is
exasperated at the pope "who holds in servitude the posterity of Cato
and of Scoevola."--Isnard proposes to follow the example of the Roman
senate which, to allay discord at home, got up an outside war:
between old Rome and France of 1792, indeed, there is a striking
resemblance.--Roux insists that the Emperor (of Austria) should give
satisfaction before the 1st of March; "in a case like this the Roman
people would have fixed the term of delay; why shouldn't the French
people fix one?..." "The circle of Popilius" should be drawn around
those petty, hesitating German princes. When money is needed to
establish camps around Paris and the large towns, Lasource proposes to
dispose of the national forests and is amazed at any objection to the
measure. "Coesar's soldiers," he exclaims, "believing that an ancient
forest in Gaul was sacred, dared not lay the axe to it; are we to share
their superstitious respect?"[2212]--Add to this collegiate lore the
philosophic dregs deposited in all minds by the great sophist then in
vogue. Larivière reads in the tribune[2213] that page of the "Contrat
Social," where Rousseau declares that the sovereign may banish members
"of an unsocial religion," and punish with death "one who, having
publicly recognized the dogmas of civil religion, acts as if he did
not believe in them." On which, another hissing parrot, M. Filassier,
exclaims, "I put J. J. Rousseau's proposition into the form of a motion
and demand a vote on it."--In like manner it is proposed to grant very
young girls the right of marrying in spite of their parents by stating,
according to the "Nouvelle Héloise"
"that a girl thirteen or fourteen years old begins to sigh for the union
which nature dictates. She struggles between passion and duty, so that,
if she triumphs, she becomes a martyr, something that is rare in nature.
It may happen that a young person prefers the serene shame of defeat to
a wearisome eight year long struggle."
Divorce is inaugurated to "preserve in matrimony that happy peace of
mind which renders the sentiments livelier."[2214] Henceforth this will
no longer be a chain but "the acquittance of an agreeable debt which
every citizen owes to his country... Divorce is the protecting spirit of
marriage."[2215]
On a background of classic pedantry, with only vague and narrow notions
of ordinary instruction, lacking exact and substantial information, flow
obscenities and enlarged commonplaces enveloped in a mythological gauze,
spouting in long tirades as maxims from the revolutionary manual. Such
is the superficial culture and verbal argumentation from which vulgar
and dangerous ingredients the intelligence of the new legislators is
formed.[2216]
III.--Aspects of their sessions.
Scenes and display at the club.--Co-operation of spectators.
From this we can imagine what their sessions were. "More in-coherent and
especially more passionate than those of the Constituent Assembly"[2217]
they present the same but intensified characteristics. The argument is
weaker, the invective more violent, and the dogmatism more intemperate.
Inflexibility degenerates into insolence, prejudice into fanaticism, and
near-sightedness into blindness. Disorder becomes a tumult and constant
din an uproar. Suppose, says an eye-witness,
"a classroom with hundreds of pupils quarreling and every instant on the
point of seizing each other by the hair. Their dress neglected, their
attitudes angry, with sudden transitions from shouting to hooting.. is a
sight hard to imagine and to which nothing can be compared."
It lacks nothing for making it a club of the lowest species. Here,
in advance, we contemplate the ways of the future revolutionary
inquisition. They welcome burlesque denunciations; enter into petty
police investigations; weigh the tittle-tattle of porters and the
gossip of servant-girls; devote an all-night session to the secrets of
a drunkard.[2218] They enter on their official report and without any
disapproval, the petition of M. Huré, "living at Pont-sur-Yonne, who,
over his own signature, offers one hundred francs and his arm to become
a killer of tyrants." Repeated and multiplied hurrahs and applause with
the felicitations of the president is the sanction of scandalous or
ridiculous private misconduct seeking to display itself under the
cover of public authority. Anacharsis Clootz, "a Mascarille officially
stamped," who proposes a general war and who hawks about maps of Europe
cut up in advance into departments beginning with Savoy, Belgium and
Holland "and thus onward to the Polar Sea," is thanked and given a seat
on the benches of the Assembly.[2219] Compliments are made to the Vicar
of Sainte-Marguerite and his wife is given a seat in the Assembly
and who, introducing "his new family," thunders against clerical
celibacy.[2220] Crowds of men and women are permitted to traverse the
hall letting out political cries. Every sort of indecent, childish and
seditious parade is admitted to the bar of the house.[2221] To-day it
consists of "citoyennes of Paris," desirous of being drilled in military
exercises and of having for their commandants "former French guardsmen;"
to-morrow children come and express their patriotism with "touching
simplicity," regretting that "their trembling feet do not permit them to
march, no, fly against the tyrants;" next to these come convicts of
the Château--Vieux escorted by a noisy crowd; at another time the
artillerymen of Paris, a thousand in number, with drums beating;
delegates from the provinces, the faubourgs and the clubs come
constantly, with their furious harangues, and imperious remonstrances,
their exactions, their threats and their summonses.--In the intervals
between the louder racket a continuous hubbub is heard in the clatter of
the tribunes.[2222] At each session "the representatives are chaffed by
the spectators; the nation in the gallery is judge of the nation on the
floor;" it interferes in the debates, silences the speakers, insults
the president and orders the reporter of a bill to quit the tribune. One
interruption, or a simple murmur, is not all; there are twenty, thirty,
fifty in an hour, clamoring, stamping, yells and personal abuse. After
countless useless entreaties, after repeated calls to order, "received
with hooting," after a dozen "regulations that are made, revised,
countermanded and posted up" as if better to prove the impotence of the
law, of the authorities and of the Assembly itself, the usurpations of
these intruders keep on increasing. They have shouted for ten months
"Down with the civil list! Down with the ministerials! Down with those
curs! Silence, slaves!' On the 26th of July, Brissot himself is to
appear lukewarm and be struck on the face with two plums. "Three or
four hundred individuals without either property, title, or means of
subsistence... have become the auxiliaries, petitioners and umpires of
the legislature," their paid violence completely destroying whatever is
still left of the Assembly's reason.[2223]
IV.--The Parties.
The "Right."--"Center."--The "Left."--Opinions and
sentiments of the Girondins.--Their Allies of the extreme
"left."
In an assembly thus composed and surrounded, it is easy to foresee on
which side the balance will turn.--Through the meshes of the electoral
net which the Jacobins have spread over the whole country, about one
hundred well-meaning individuals of the common run, tolerably sensible
and sufficiently resolute, Mathieu Dumas, Dumolard, Becquet, Gorguereau,
Vaublanc, Beugnot, Girardin, Ramond, Jaucourt, were able to pass and
form the party of the "Right."[2224] They resist to as great an extent
as possible, and seem to have obtained a majority.--For, of the four
hundred deputies who have their seats in the center, one hundred and
sixty-four are inscribed on the rolls with them at the Feuillants club,
while the rest, under the title of "Independents," pretend to be of
no party.[2225] Besides, the whole of these four hundred, through
monarchical traditions, respect the King; timid and sensible, violence
is repugnant to them. They distrust the Jacobins, dread what is
unknown, desire to be loyal to the Constitution and to live in peace.
Nevertheless, the pompous dogmas of the revolutionary catechism
still have their prestige with them; they cannot comprehend how the
Constitution which they like produces the anarchy which they detest;
they are "foolish enough to bemoan the effects while swearing to
maintain their causes; totally deficient in spirit, in union and in
boldness," they float backwards and forwards between contradictory
desires, while their predisposition to order merely awaits the steady
impulsion of a vigorous will to turn it in the opposite direction.--On
such docile material the "Left" can work effectively. It comprises,
indeed, but one hundred and thirty-six registered Jacobins and about
a hundred others who, in almost all cases, vote with the party;[2226]
rigidity of opinion, however, more than compensates for lack of numbers.
In the front row are Guadet, Brissot, Gensonné, Veygniaud, Ducos, and
Condorcet, the future chiefs of the Girondists, all of them lawyers or
writers captivated by deductive politics, absolute in their convictions
and proud of their faith. According to them principles are true and must
be applied without reservation;[2227] whoever would stop half-way is
wanting in courage or intelligence. As for themselves their minds
are made up to push through. With the self-confidence of youth and of
theorists they draw their own conclusions and hug themselves with their
strong belief in them. "These gentlemen," says a keen observer,[2228]
"professed great disdain for their predecessors, the Constituents,
treating them as short-sighted and prejudiced people incapable of
profiting by circumstances."
"To the observations of wisdom, and disinterested wisdom,[2229] they
replied with a scornful smile, indicative of the aridity proceeding from
self-conceit. One exhausted himself in reminding them of events and in
deducing causes from these; one passed in turn from theory to experience
and from experience to theory to show them their identity and, when they
condescended to reply it was to deny the best authenticated facts and
contest the plainest observations by opposing to these a few trite
maxims although eloquently expressed. Each regarded the other as if they
alone were worthy of being heard, each encouraging the other with
the idea that all resistance to their way of looking at things was
pusillanimity."
In their own eyes they alone are capable and they alone are patriotic.
Because they have read Rousseau and Mably, because their tongue is
untied and their pen flowing, because they know how to handle the
formuloe of books and reason out an abstract proposition, they fancy that
they are statesmen.[2230] Because they have read Plutarch and "Le Jeune
Anacharsis," because they aim to construct a perfect society out of
metaphysical conceptions, because they are in a ferment about the coming
millennium, they imagine themselves so many exalted spirits. They have
no doubt whatever on these two points even after everything has fallen
in through their blunders, even after their obliging hands are sullied
by the foul grasp of robbers whom they were the first to instigate, and
by that of executioners of which they are partners in complicity.[2231]
To this extent is self-conceit the worst of sophists. Convinced of their
superior enlightenment and of the purity of their sentiments, they
put forth the theory that the government should be in their hands.
Consequently they lay hold of it in the Legislative body in ways that
are going to turn against them in the Convention. They accept for allies
the worst demagogues of the extreme "Left," Chabot, Couthon, Merlin,
Bazière, Thuriot, Lecointre, and outside of it, Danton, Robespierre,
Marat himself, all the levelers and destroyers whom they think of use to
them, but of whom they themselves are the instruments. The motions they
make must pass at any cost and, to ensure this, they let loose against
their adversaries the low, yelping mob which others, still more
factious, will to-morrow let loose on them.
V.--Their means of action.
Dispersion of the Feuillants' club.--Pressure of the
tribunes on the Assembly.--Street mobs.
Thus, for the second time, the pretended freedom fighters seek power by
boldly employing force.--They begin by suppressing the meetings of the
Feuillants club.[2232] The customary riot is instigated against these,
whereupon ensue tumult, violent outcries and scuffles; mayor Pétion
complains of his position "between opinion and law," and lets things
take their course; finally, the Feuillants are obliged to evacuate
their place of meeting.--Inside the Assembly they are abandoned to the
insolence of the galleries. In vain do they get exasperated and protest.
Ducastel, referring to the decree of the Constituent Assembly, which
forbids any manifestation of approbation or disapprobation, is greeted
with murmurs. He insists on the decree being read at the opening of each
session, and "the murmurs begin again."[2233] "Is it not scandalous,"
says Vaublanc, "that the nation's representatives speaking from the
tribune are subject to hootings like those bestowed upon an actor on
the stage!" whereupon the galleries give him three rounds more. "Will
posterity believe," says Quatremère, "that acts concerning the honor,
the lives, and the fortunes of citizens should be subject, like games in
the arena, to the applause and hisses of the spectators!" "Come to the
point!" shout the galleries. "If ever," resumes Quatremère, "the most
important of judicial acts (an act of capital indictment) can be exposed
to this scandalous prostitution of applause and menaces..." "The murmurs
break out afresh."--Every time that a sanguinary or incendiary measure
is to be carried, the most furious and prolonged clamor stops the
utterance of its opponents: "Down with the speaker! Send the reporter
of that bill to prison! Down! Down! Sometimes only about twenty of the
deputies will applaud or hoot with the galleries, and sometimes it
is the entire Assembly which is insulted. Fists are thrust in the
president's face. All that now remains is "to call down the galleries on
the floor to pass decrees," which proposition is ironically made by one
of the "Right."[2234]
Great, however, as this usurpation may be, the minority, in order to
suppress the majority, accommodate themselves to it, the Jacobins in
the chamber making common cause with the Jacobins in the galleries.
The disturbers should not be put out; "it would be excluding from our
deliberations," says Grangeneuve, "that which belongs essentially to the
people." On one of the deputies demanding measures to enforce silence,
"Torné demands that the proposition be referred to the Portugal
inquisition." Choudieu "declares that it can only emanate from deputies
who forget that respect which is due to the people, their sovereign
judge."[2235] "The action of the galleries," says Lecointe-Puyraiveaux,
"is an outburst of patriotism." Finally, this same Choudieu, twisting
and turning all rights about with incomparable audacity, wishes to
confer legislative privileges on the audience, and demands a decree
against the deputies who, guilty of popular lèse-majesté, presume
to complain of those who insult them.--Another piece of oppressive
machinery, still more energetic, operates outside on the approaches to
the Assembly. Like their predecessors of the Constituent Assembly, the
members of the "Right" "cannot leave the building without encountering
the threats and imprecations of enraged crowds. Cries of 'to the
lantern!' greet the ears of Dumolard, Vaublanc, Raucourd, and Lacretelle
as often as those of the Abbé Maury and Montlosier."[2236] After having
hurled abuse at the president, Mathieu Dumas, they insult his wife
who has been recognized in a reserved gallery.[2237] In the Tuileries,
crowds are always standing there listening to the brawlers who denounce
suspected deputies by name, and woe to any among them who takes that
path on his way to the chamber! A broadside of insults greets him as he
passes along. If the deputy happens to be a farmer, they exclaim: "Look
at that queer old aristocrat--an old peasant dog that used to watch
cows!" One day Hua, on going up the steps of the Tuileries terrace, is
seized by the hair by an old vixen who bids him "Bow your head to your
sovereigns, the people, you bastard of a deputy!" On the 20th of June
one of the patriots, who is crossing the Assembly room, whispers in his
ear, "You scamp of a deputy, you'll never die but by my hand!" Another
time, having defended the juge-de-paix Larivière, there awaits him at
the door, in the middle of the night, "a set of blackguards, who crowd
around him and thrust their fists and cudgels in his face;" happily,
his friends Dumas and Daverhoult, two military officers, foreseeing
the danger, present their pistols and set him free "although with
some difficulty."--As the 10th of August draws near there is more open
aggression. Vaublanc, for having defended Lafayette, just misses being
cut to pieces three times on leaving the Assembly; sixty of the deputies
are treated in the same fashion, being struck, covered with mud, and
threatened with death if they dare go back.[2238]--With such allies a
minority is very strong. Thanks to its two agencies of constraint it
will detach the votes it needs from the majority and, either through
terror or craft, secure the passage of all the decrees it needs.
VI.--Parliamentary maneuvers.
Abuses of urgency.--Vote on the principle.--Call by name.
--Intimidation of the "Center."--Opponents inactive.--The
majority finally disposed of.
Sometimes it succeeds surreptitiously by rushing them through. As "there
is no order of the day circulated beforehand, and, in any event, none
which anybody is obliged to adhere to,"[2239] the Assembly is captured
by surprise. "The first knave amongst the 'Left,' (which expression,
says Hua, I do not strike out, because there were many among those
gentlemen), brought up a ready-made resolution, prepared the evening
before by a clique. We were not prepared for it and demanded that it
should be referred to a committee. Instead of doing this, however, the
resolution was declared urgent, and, whether we would or not, discussion
had to take place forthwith."[2240]--"There were other tactics equally
perfidious, which Thuriot, especially, made use of. This great rascal
got up and proposed, not the draft of a law, but what he called a
principle; for instance, a decree should be passed confiscating the
property of the émigrés,.. or that unsworn priests should be subject to
special surveillance.[2241]... In reply, he was told that his principle
was the core of a law, the very law itself; so let it be debated by
referring it to a committee to make a report on it.--Not at all--the
matter is urgent; a committee might fix the articles as it pleases;
they are worthless if the principle is not common sense." Through this
expeditious method discussion is stifled. The Jacobins purposely prevent
the Assembly from giving the matter any consideration. They count on its
bewilderment. In the name of reason, they discard reason as far as
they can, and hasten a vote because their decrees do not stand up to
analysis.--At other times, and especially on grand occasions, they
compel a vote. In general, votes are given by the members either sitting
down or standing up, and, for the four hundred deputies of the "Center,"
subject to the scolding of the exasperated galleries, it is a
tolerably hard trial. "Part of them do not arise, or they rise with
the 'Left'."[2242] If the "Right" happens to have a majority, "this is
contested in bad faith and a call of the house is demanded." Now, "the
calls of the house, through an intolerable abuse, are always published;
the Jacobins declaring that it is well for the people to know their
friends from their enemies." The meaning of this is that this list of
the opposition will soon serve as a list of the outlaws, on which
the timid are not disposed to inscribe themselves. The result is an
immediate defection in the heavy battalions of the "Centre"; "this is
a positive fact," says Hua, "of which we were all witnesses; we always
lost a hundred votes on the call of the house."--Towards the end they
give up, and protest no more, except by staying away: on the 14th of
June, when the abolishment of the whole system of feudal credit was
being dealt with, only the extreme left was attending; the rest of the
"Assembly hall was nearly empty"; out of 497 deputies in attendance, 200
had left the session.[2243] Encouraged for a moment by the appearance of
some possible protection, they twice exonerate General Lafayette, behind
whom they see an army,[2244] and brave the despots of the Assembly, the
clubs, and the streets. But, for lack of a military chief and base, the
visible majority is twice obliged to yield, to keep silent, and fly
or retreat under the dictatorship of the victorious faction, which
has strained and forced the legislative machine until it has become
disjointed and broken down.[2245]
*****
[Footnote 2201:"Correspondence (manuscript) of Baron de Staël," with his
Court in Sweden. Oct. 6, 1791.]
[Footnote 2202: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis,
duc), chancelier de France, in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris
1893.--Dumouriez, "Mémoires," III. ch. V: "The Jacobin party, having
branches all over the country, used its provincial clubs to control
the elections. Every crackbrain, every seditious scribbler, all the
agitators were elected ... very few enlightened or prudent men, and
still fewer of the nobles, were chosen."--Moniteur, XII. 199 (meeting of
April 23, 1792). Speech M. Lecointe-Puyravaux. "We need not dissimulate;
indeed, we are proud to say, that this legislature is composed of
persons who are not rich."]
[Footnote 2203: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," I. 521. "The excitement in
the electoral assemblages was very great; the aristocrats and large
land-owners abstained from coming there."--Correspondance de Mirabeau
et du Comte de la Mark, III. 246, Oct.10, 1791. "Nineteen twentieths of
this legislature have no other transportation (turn-out) than galoshes
and umbrellas. It has been estimated, that all these deputies put
together do not possess 300,000 livres solid income. The majority of the
members of this Assembly have received no education whatever."]
[Footnote 2204: They rank as Maréchaux de camp, a grade corresponding to
that of brigadier-general. They are Dupuy-Montbrun (deceased in March,
1792), Descrots-d'Estrée, a weak and worn old man whom his children
forced into the Legislative Assembly, and, lastly, Mathieu Dumas, a
conservative, and the only prominent one.]
[Footnote 2205: "Correspondance du Baron de Staël," Jan.19,
1792.--Gouverneur Morris (II.162, Feb. 4, 1792) writes to Washington
that M. de Warville, on the diplomatic committee, proposed to cede
Dunkirk and Calais to England, as a pledge of fidelity by France, in any
engagement which she might enter into. You can judge, by this, of the
wisdom and virtue of the faction to which he belongs--Buchez et Roux,
XXX 89 (defense of Brissot, Jan. 5, 1793) "Brissot, like all noisy,
reckless, ambitious men, started in full blast with the strangest
paradoxes. In 1780. in his 'Recherches philosophiques sur le droit
de propriété,' he wrote as follows: 'If 40 crowns suffice to maintain
existence, the possession of 200,000 crowns is plainly unjust and a
robbery... Exclusive ownership is a veritable crime against nature...
The punishment of robbery in our institutions is an act of virtue which
nature herself commands.'"]
[Footnote 2206: Moniteur, speech by Cambon, sittings of Feb. 2 and April
20, 1792.]
[Footnote 2207: Ibid., (sitting of April 3). Speech by M. Cailliasson.
The property belonging to the nation, sold and to be sold, is valued
at 2,195 millions, while the assignats already issued amount to 2,100
millions.--Cf. Mercure de France, Dec. 17, 1791, p.201; Jan.28, 1792,
p. 215; May 19, 1792, p. 205.--Dumouriez, "Mémoires," III. 296, and 339,
340, 344, 346.--"Cambon, a raving lunatic, without education, humane
principle, or integrity (public) a meddler, an ignoramus, and very
giddy. He tells me that one resource remained to him, which is, to seize
all the coin in Belgium, all the plate belonging to the churches, and
all the cash deposits... that, on ruining the Belgians, on reducing them
to the same state of suffering as the French, they would necessarily
share their fate with them; that they would then be admitted members of
the Republic, with the prospect of always making headway, through the
same line of policy; that the decree of Dec. 15, 1792, admirably favored
this and, because it tended to a complete disorganization, and that the
luckiest thing that could happen to France was to disorganize all
its neighbors and reduce them to the same state of anarchy." (This
conversation between Cambon and Dumouriez occurs in the middle of
January, 1793.)--Moniteur, XIV. 758 (sitting of Dec. 15, 1792). Report
by Cambon.]
[Footnote 2208: Chronique de Paris, Sept. 4, 1792. "It is a sad
and terrible situation which forces a people, naturally amiable and
generous, to take such vengeance!"--Cf. the very acute article, by
St. Beuve, on Condorcet, in "Causeries du Lundi,"--Hua (a colleague of
Condorcet, in the Legislative Assembly), "Mémoires," 89. "Condorcet,
in his journal, regularly falsified things, with an audacity which
is unparelleled. The opinions of the 'Right' were so mutilated and
travestied the next day in his journal, that we, who had uttered them,
could scarcely recognise them. On complaining of this to him and on
charging him with perfidy, the philosopher only smiled."]
[Footnote 2209: Malouet, II. 215.--Dumouriez, III. ch. V. "They were
elected to represent the nation to defend, they say, its interests
against a perfidious court."]
[Footnote 2210: Moniteur, X. 223 (session of Oct. 26, 1791). Speech by
M. François Duval.--Grandiloquence is the order of the day at the very
first meeting. On the 1st of October, 1791, twelve old men, marching in
procession, go out to fetch the constitutional act. "M. Camus, keeper of
the records, with a composed air and downcast eyes, enters with measured
steps," bearing in both hands the sacred document which he holds against
his breast, while the deputies stand up and bare their heads. "People of
France," says an orator, "citizens of Paris, all generous Frenchmen,
and you, our fellow citizens--virtuous, intelligent women, bringing your
gentle influence into the sanctuary of the law--behold the guarantee of
peace which the legislature presents to you!"--We seem to be witnessing
the last act of an opera.]
[Footnote 2211: Ibid., XII. 230 (sessions of April 26 and May 5). Report
and speech by François de Nantes. The whole speech, a comic treasure
from the beginning to the end, ought to have been quoted: "Tell me,
pontiff of Rome, what your sentiments will be when you welcome your
worthy and faithful co-operators?.. I behold your sacred hands, ready to
launch those pontifical thunderbolts, which, etc... Let the brazier
of Scoevola be brought in, and, with our outstretched palms above the
burning coals, we will show that there is no species of torture, no
torment which can excite a frown on the brow of him whom the love of
country exalts above humanity!"--Suppose that, just at this moment, a
lighted candle had been placed under his hand!]
[Footnote 2212: Moniteur, XI. 179 (session of Jan. 20, 1792).--Ibid.,
216 (session of Jan. 24).--XII. 426 (May 9).]
[Footnote 2213: Ibid., XII. 479 (session of May 24).--XIII. 71 (session
of July 7, speech by Lasource).--Cf. XIV. 301 (session of July 31) a
quotation from Voltaire brought in for the suppression of the convents.]
[Footnote 2214: Moniteur. Speech by Aubert Dubayer, session of Aug. 30.]
[Footnote 2215: Speech by Chaumette, procureur of the commune, to the
newly married. (Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 408).]
[Footnote 2216: The class to which they belonged has been portrayed, to
the life, by M. Roye-Collard (Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," IV. 263):
"A young lawyer at Paris, at first received in a few houses on the Ile
St. Louis, he soon withdrew from this inferior world of attorneys
and pettyfoggers, whose tone oppressed him. The very thought of the
impression this gallant and intensely vulgar mediocrity made upon him,
still inspired disgust. He much preferred to talk with longshoremen, if
need be, than with these scented limbs of the law."]
[Footnote 2217: Etienne Dumont, "Mémoires," 40.--Mercure de France, Nov.
19, 1791; Feb. 11 and March 3, 1792. (articles by Mallet du Pan).]
[Footnote 2218: Moniteur, Dec. 17 (examination at the bar of the house
of Rauch, a pretended labor contractor, whom they are obliged to send
off acquitted). Rauch tells them: "I have no money, and cannot find
a place where I can sleep at less than 6 sous, because I pee in the
bed."--Moniteur, XII. 574. (session of June 4), report by Chabot: "A
peddler from Mortagne, says that a domestic coming from Coblentz told
him that there was a troop about to carry off the king and poison him,
so as to throw the odium of it on the National Assembly." Bernassais de
Poitiers writes: "A brave citizen told me last evening: 'I have been to
see a servant-girl, living with a noble. She assured me that her master
was going to-night to Paris, to join the 30,000, who, in about a month,
meant to cut the throats of the National Assembly and set fire to every
corner of Paris!'"--"M. Gerard, a saddler at Amiens, writes to us
that Louis XVI is to be aided in his flight by 5,000 relays, and that
afterwards they are going to fire red-hot bullets on the National
Assembly."]
[Footnote 2219: Mercure de France, Nov. 5, 1791 (session of Oct.
25).--Ibid., Dec. 23.-Moniteur, XII. 192 (session of April 21,
1792).--XII. 447 (address to the French, by Clootz): "God brought order
out of primitive chaos; the French will bring order out of feudal chaos.
God is mighty, and manifested his will; we are mighty, and we will
manifest our will... The more extensive the seat of war the sooner,
and more fortunately, will the suit of plebeians against the nobles be
decided... We require enemies,.. Savoy, Tuscany, and quickly, quickly!"]
[Footnote 2220: Cf. Moniteur, XI. 192 (sitting of Jan. 22, 1792). "M.
Burnet, chaplain of the national guard, presents himself at the bar of
the house with an English woman, named Lydia Kirkham, and three small
children, one of which is in her arms. M. Burnet announces that she is
his wife and that the child in her arms is the fruit of their affection.
After referring to the force of natural sentiments which he could not
resist, the petitioner thus continues: 'One day, I met one of those
sacred questioners. Unfortunate man, said he, of what are you guilty? Of
this child, sir; and I have married this woman, who is a Protestant, and
her religion has nothing to do with mine... Death or my wife! Such
is the cry that nature now and always will, inspire me with."--The
petitioner receives the honors of the Assembly.--(Ibid., XII 369).]
[Footnote 2221: The grotesque is often that of a farce. "M. Piorry, in
the name of poor; but virtuous citizens, tenders two pairs of buckles,
with this motto: 'They have served to hold the shoe-straps on my feet;
they will serve to reduce under them, with the imprint and character
of truth, all tyrants leagued against the constitution' (Moniteur, XII.
457, session of May 21)"--Ibid., XIII. 249 (session of July 25). "A
young citoyenne offers to combat, in person, against the enemies of her
country;" and the president, with a gallant air, replies: "Made rather
to soothe, than to combat tyrants, your offer, etc."]
[Footnote 2222: Moniteur, XL 576 (session of March 6); XII. 237, 314,
368 (sessions of April 27, May 5 and 14).]
[Footnote 2223: Mercure de France. Sept. 19,1791, Feb.11, and March 3,
1792.--Buchez et Roux, XVI 185 (session of July 26, 1792).]
[Footnote 2224: "Mémoires de Mallet du Pan," 1433 (tableau of the three
parties, with special information).]
[Footnote 2225: Buchez et Roux, XII. 348 (letter by the deputy Chéron,
president of the Feuillants Club). The deputies of the Legislative
Assembly, registered at the Feuillants Club, number 264 besides a large
number of deputies in the Constituent Assembly.--According to Mallet du
Pan the so-called Independents number 250.]
[Footnote 2226: These figures are verified by decisive ballottings
(Mortimer-Ternauz, II. 205, 348.)]
[Footnote 2227: Moniteur, XII. 393 (session of May 15, speech by
Isnard): "The Constituent Assembly only half dared do what it had the
power to do. It has left in the field of liberty, even around the very
roots of the young constitutional tree, the old roots of despotism and
of the aristocracy... It has bound us to the trunk of the constitutional
tree, like powerless victims given up to the rage of their
enemies."----Etienne Dumont saw truly the educational defects peculiar
to the party. He says, apropos of Madame Roland: "I found in her too
much of that distrustful despotism which belongs to ignorance of
the world.. . What her intellectual development lacked was a greater
knowledge of the world and intercourse with men of superior judgment to
her own. Roland himself had little intellectual breadth, while all
those who frequented her house never rose above the prejudices of the
vulgar."]
[Footnote 2228: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.]
[Footnote 2229: Madame de Stael, "Considerations sur la Révolution
Française," IIIrd part, ch. III.-Madame de Staël conversed with them
and judges them according to the shrewd perceptions of a woman of the
world.]
[Footnote 2230: Louvet, "Mémoires" 32. "I belonged to the bold
philosophers who, before the end of 1791, lamented the fate of a great
nation, compelled to stop half-way in the career of freedom," and, on
page 38--"A minister of justice was needed. The four ministers (Roland,
Servane, etc.) cast their eyes on me... Duranthon was preferred to me.
This was the first mistake of the republican party. It paid dear for it.
That mistake cost my country a good deal of blood and many tears."
Later on, he thinks that he has the qualifications for ambassador to
Constantinople.]
[Footnote 2231: Buzot, "Mémoires" (Ed. Dauban), pp.31, 39. "Born with a
proud and independent spirit which never bowed at any one's command, how
could I accept the idea of a man being held sacred? With my heart and
head possessed by the great beings of the ancient republics, who are the
greatest honor to the human species, I practiced their maxims from my
earliest years, and nourished myself on a study of their virtues... The
pretended necessity of a monarchy... could not amalgamate, in my mind,
with the grand and noble conceptions formed by me, of the dignity of
the human species. Hope deceived me, it is true, but my error was too
glorious to allow me to repent of it."--Self-admiration is likewise the
mental substratum of Madame Roland, Roland, Pétion, Barbaroux, Louvet,
etc., (see their writings). Mallet du Pan well says: "On reading the
memoirs of Madame Roland, one detects the actress, rehearsing for the
stage. "--Roland is an administrative puppet and would-be orator, whose
wife pulls the strings. There is an odd, dull streak in him, peculiarly
his own. For example, in 1787 (Guillon de Montléon, "Histoire de la
ville de Lyon, pendant la Révolution," 1.58), he proposes to utilize
the dead, by converting them into oil and phosphoric acid. In 1788, he
proposes to the Villefranche Academy to inquire "whether it would not be
to the public advantage to institute tribunals for trying the dead?" in
imitation of the Egyptians. In his report of Jan. 5, 1792, he gives a
plan for establishing public festivals, "in imitation of the Spartans,"
and takes for a motto, Non omnis moriar (Baron de Girardot, "Roland and
Madame Roland". I. 83, 185)]
[Footnote 2232: Political club uniting moderate and constitutional
monarchists. They got their nickname because they held their meetings in
the old convent formerly used by the feullants, a branch of Cistercians
who, led by LaBarrière, broke away in 1577. The Feuillant Club was
dissolved in 1791. (SR).]
[Footnote 2233: Moniteur, XI. 61 (session of Jan 7, 1792).--Ibid., 204
(Jan. 25); 281 (Feb. 1); 310 (Feb. 4); 318 (Feb. 6); 343 (Feb. 9); 487
(Feb. 26).--XII. 22 (April 2). Reports of all the sessions must be read
to appreciate the force of the pressure. See, especially, the sessions
of April 9 and 16, May 15 and 29, June 8, 9, 15, and 25, July 1, 2,
5, 9, 11, 17, 18, and 21, and, after this date, all the
sessions.--Lacretelle, "Dix Ans d'Epreuves," p. 78-81. "The Legislative
Assembly served under the Jacobin Club while keeping up a counterfeit
air of independence. The progress which fear had made in the French
character was very great, at a time when everything was pitched in the
haughtiest key... The majority, as far as intentions go, was for the
conservatives; the actual majority was for the republicans."]
[Footnote 2234: Moniteur, XIII. 212, session of July 22.]
[Footnote 2235: Moniteur, XII. 22, session of April
2.--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 95.--Moniteur, XIII. 222, session of July 22.]
[Footnote 2236: Lacretelle, "Dix Ans d'Epreuves," 80.]
[Footnote 2237: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," II. 88 (Feb. 23).--Hua,
"Mémoires d'un Avocat au Parliament de Paris," 106, 121, 134, 154.
Moniteur, XIII. 212 (session of July 21), speech by M.---"The avenues
to this building are daily beset with a horde of people who insult the
representatives of the nation."]
[Footnote 2238: De Vaublanc, "Mémoires," 344.--Moniteur, XIII. 368
(letters and speeches of deputies, session of Aug. 9).]
[Footnote 2239: Hua, 115.--Ibid., 90. 3 out of 4 deputies of
Seine-et-Oise were Jacobins. "We met once a week to talk over the
affairs of the department. We were obliged to drive out the vagabonds
who, even at the table, talked of nothing but killing."]
[Footnote 2240: Moniteur, XII. 702. For example, on the 19th of
June, 1792, on a motion unexpectedly proposed by Condorcet, that the
departments be authorized to burn all titles (to nobility) in the
various depots.--Adopted at once, and unanimously.]
[Footnote 2241: Later Stalin and his successors should invest the United
Nations and other international organizations to indirectly propose and
ensure the acceptance of a new convention of human rights, children's
rights, the rights of refugees etc. In many cases these became the
base of national legislation which is now giving trouble to many of the
Western democracies. (SR).]
[Footnote 2242: Hua, 114.]
[Footnote 2243: Moniteur, XII. 664.--Mercure de France, June 23, 1792.]
[Footnote 2244: Hua, 141.--Mathieu Dumas, II. 399: "It is remarkable
that Lafond de Ladébat, one of our trustiest friends, was elected
president on the 23rd of July, 1792. This shows that the majority of the
Assembly was still sound; but it was only brought about by a secret vote
in the choice of candidates. The same men who obeyed their consciences,
through a sentiment of justice and of propriety, could not face the
danger which surrounded them in the threats of the factions when they
were called upon to vote by rising or sitting."]
[Footnote 2245: This description and others of the same period have
undoubtedly been studied carefully by thousands of socialists and
political hopefuls who, in any case, made use of similar tactics to take
over thousands of governing committees, institutions and organizations.
(SR).]