in the _Journal de Paris_ an avenging satire, which branded the
shoulders of the ex-galley slaves as with a new hot iron. The sweet
{120} and pathetic elegiast, the Catullus, the Tibullus of France,
added a bronze chord to his lyre:--
Hail, divine triumph! Enter within our walls!
Bring us these warriors so famed
For Desilles' blood, and for the obsequies
Of many Frenchmen massacred...
One day alone could win so much renown,
And this fair day will shine upon us soon!
When thou shalt lead Jourdan to our army,
And Lafayette to the scaffold!
Jourdan was the slaughterer, the headsman, the torturer of the Glacier
of Avignon, who, coming under the provisions of the amnesty, had
arrived to take part in the triumph of the Swiss of Chateauvieux. The
acclamations were lugubrious. The lanterns and torches shed a funereal
glare. Nothing is more doleful than enthusiasm for ignominy. The
applause accorded to disgrace and crime sounds like sinister derision.
Outraged public conscience extinguishes the fires of apotheoses such as
these. Madame Elisabeth, in a letter of April 18, speaks with a sort
of pity of this odious but ridiculous fete: "The people have been to
see Dame Liberty waggling about on her triumphal car, but they shrugged
their shoulders. Three or four hundred _sans-culottes_ followed,
crying 'Long live the nation! Long live liberty! Long live the
_sans-culottes_! to the devil with Lafayette!' All this was noisy but
sad. The National Guards took no part in it; on the contrary, they
were indignant, and Petion, they say, is ashamed of his conduct. {121}
The next day a pike surmounted by a red bonnet was carried noiselessly
through the garden, and did not remain there long." The Princess de
Lamballe, who was living at the Tuileries in the Pavilion of Flora,
could see the pike thus carried by a passer. It may, perhaps, have
been that belonging to one of the Septembrists,--that on which her own
head was to be placed.
The _Moniteur_, however, grew ecstatic over the fete. "There are
plenty of others," it said, "who will describe the march of the
triumphal cortege, the groups composing it, the car of Liberty,
conducted by Fame, drawn by twenty superb horses, preceded by ravishing
music which was sometimes listened to in religious silence and
sometimes interrupted by wild, irregular dances whose very disorder was
rendered more piquant by the fraternal union reigning in all hearts....
The people were there in all their might, and did not abuse it. There
was not a weapon to repress excesses, and not an excess to be
repressed." It concluded thus: "We say to the administration: Give
such festivals as these often. Repeat this one every year on April 15;
let the feast of Liberty be our spring festival; and let other civic
solemnities signalize the return of the other seasons. In former days
the people had none but those of their masters, and all that was
accomplished by them was their depravity and abasement. Give them some
that shall be their own, and that will elevate their souls, develop
their sensibilities, and fortify their courage. They {122} will
create, or, better, they have already created, a new people. Popular
festivals are the best education for the people."
Optimists, how will your illusions terminate? You who see nothing but
an idyl in all this, can not you perceive that such ceremonies are the
prelude to massacres, and that an odor of blood mingles with their
perfumes? All who took part on either side of the heated controversy
which preceded the ovation to the Swiss of Chateauvieux, will be
pursued by fate. Gouvion, who had sworn never again to set foot within
the precincts of the Assembly where the murderers of his brother
triumphed, kept his word. On the very day of that shameful session he
asked to be sent to the Army of the North, and three months later was
to be carried off by a cannon-ball. Still more melancholy was to be
the fate of Petion, who showed such complaisance toward the Swiss on
this occasion. He, once so popular that in 1791 he was asked to allow
the ninth child, which a citizeness had just presented to her country,
"to be baptized in his name, revered almost as much as that of the
Divinity"; he of whom some one said at that time, "For the same reason
which would have made Jesus a suitable mayor of Jerusalem, Petion is a
suitable mayor of Paris; there is too striking a resemblance between
them to be overlooked," was sadly to exclaim some months later: "I am
one of the most notable examples of popular inconsistency.... For a
long time I have said to myself and to my {123} friends: The people
will hate me still more than they have loved me. I can no longer
either enter or depart from the place where we hold our sessions
without being exposed to the grossest insults and the most seditious
threats. How often have I not heard them say as I was passing:
'Scoundrel! we will have your head!'"
Proscribed with the Girondins, May 31, 1793, he fled at first to
Normandy, and afterwards into the Gironde, wandering from town to town,
from field to field, and hiding for several months thirty feet under
ground, in a sort of well; the poor people who showed him hospitality
paid for it with their heads. Ah! how disenchanted he must have been
with that revolutionary policy of which he had been the enthusiastic
promoter! How sad was the farewell to life signed by him and Buzot:
"Now that it has been demonstrated that liberty is hopelessly lost;
that the principles of morality and justice are trodden under foot;
that there is nothing to choose between two despotisms,--that of the
brigands who are tearing the vitals of France and that of foreign
powers; that the nation has lost all its energy; that it lies at the
feet of the tyrants by whom it is oppressed; that we can render no
further service to our country; that, far from being able to give
happiness to the beings we hold most dear, we shall bring down hatred,
vengeance, and misfortune upon them, so long as we live,--we have
resolved to quit life and be no longer witnesses of the slavery which
is about to desolate our unhappy country."
{124}
After ending with this cry of grief and indignation: "We devote the
vile scoundrels who have destroyed liberty and plunged France into an
abyss of evils to the scorn and indignation of all time," the two
proscripts were found dead in a wheat-field about a league from
Saint-Emilion. Their bodies were half devoured by wolves.
And how will Andre Chenier end? On the day of the Swiss fete, the city
where such a scandal took place seemed to him insupportable. For
several days he sought refuge in the country where he could breathe a
purer air beneath the blossoming trees. But contemplation of nature
did not soothe him. Running to meet danger, he returned and threw
himself into the furnace, more ardent and indignant than before. With
manly enthusiasm he exclaimed: "It is above all when the sacrifices
which must be made to truth, liberty, and country are dangerous and
difficult, that they are accompanied by inexpressible delights. It is
in the midst of spying accusations, outrages, and proscriptions, it is
in dungeons and on scaffolds, that virtue, probity, and constancy taste
the pleasures of a proud and pure conscience." Andre had a
presentiment of his fate.
He was to die on the same day and the same scaffold as his friend
Roucher, a few hours earlier than the moment when Robespierre's
condemnation would have saved them. It is thus that he was to pay with
his life for his opposition to the fete of the Swiss of Chateauvieux,
and Collot d'Herbois was avenged. {125} But after the turn of the
victims came that of the headsmen. The unlucky comedian who, pursuing
even his comrades with his hatred, asked that "the head of the _Comedie
Francaise_ should be guillotined and the rest transported," the
impresario of the fete of the Swiss galley slaves, the organizer of the
Lyons massacres, Collot d'Herbois, cursed by friends and enemies, was
transported to Guiana and died there in 1796, just as he had lived, in
an access of burning fever.
[1] The oath taken by the deputies of the third estate in the
tennis-court of Versailles, in 1789.
{126}
XII.
THE DECLARATION OF WAR.
The wave of anarchy constantly rose higher, but the optimists,
sheltering themselves, like Petion, in a beatific calm, obstinately
closed their eyes and would not see it. Abroad and at home there was
such a series of shocks and agitations, of struggles and emotions,
perils and troubles; things hurried on so fast, and the scenes of the
drama were so varied and so violent, that what happened to-day was
forgotten by the morrow. The noise of the fete of the Swiss of
Chateauvieux had hardly ceased when the shouts of the multitude were
heard saluting Louis XVI., who had just declared war on Austria.
In reality, the King did not desire war, but the bellicose current had
become irresistible. The court of Vienna had shown itself intractable.
It forbade the princes who owned possessions in Lorraine and Alsace to
receive the indemnities offered by France in exchange for their feudal
rights, and threatened to have the Diet of Ratisbonne annul any private
treaties they might conclude concerning them. The electors of Treves,
Cologne, and Mayence undisguisedly favored the levying of troops by the
emigrant {127} princes, and even paid subsidies toward their support.
They refused to recognize the official ambassadors of Louis XVI., while
recognizing the plenipotentiaries of these princes. There was talk of
holding a Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle for the purpose of intimidating
the National Assembly. The successor of the Emperor Leopold, Francis
II., who, before his election to the Empire, had assumed the title of
King of Hungary and Bohemia, displayed extremely martial sentiments.
Austria, which had sent forty thousand men to the Low Countries and
twenty thousand to the Rhine, had just signed a treaty of alliance with
Prussia, "to put an end to the troubles in France." Dumouriez urgently
demanded the court of Vienna to explain itself. It finally sent the
French Ambassador, Marquis de Noailles, a dry, curt, and formal note,
naming the only conditions on which peace could be preserved. These
were: the re-establishment of the French monarchy on the bases of the
royal declaration of June 23, 1789, and, consequently, the restoration
of the nobility and clergy as orders; the restitution of Church
property; the return of Alsace to the German princes, with all their
sovereign and feudal rights; and, finally, the surrender of Avignon and
the county of Venaisson to the Holy See.
"In truth," says Dumouriez in his Memoirs, "if the Viennese minister
had slept through the entire thirty-three months that had elapsed since
the royal seance, and had dictated this note on awaking {128} without
knowledge of what had happened, he could not have proposed conditions
more incongruous with the progress of the Revolution.... The new
social compact was founded on the abolition of the orders and the
equality of all citizens. The financial system, which alone could
prevent bankruptcy, was founded on the creation of assignats. The
assignats were hypothecated on the property of the clergy, now become
the property of the nation, and the greater part of which had been
already sold. The nation, therefore, could not accept these conditions
except by violating its Constitution, destroying property, ruining its
purchasers, annulling its assignats, and declaring bankruptcy. Could
so humiliating an obedience be expected from a great nation, proud of
having conquered its liberty? and that for the sake of placing itself
once more under the yoke of nobles who, having abandoned their King
himself, now threatened to re-enter their country with sword and flame
and every scourge of vengeance?"
The entire National Assembly reasoned in the same way as Dumouriez. A
cry for war arose on all sides. The Girondins saw in it the
indispensable consecration of the Revolution. The Feuillants hoped
that besides proving creditable to the government, it would accomplish
the additional end of drawing away from Paris and other great cities a
multitude of turbulent men who, for lack of anything else to do, were
disturbing public order. Certain reactionists, stifling the sentiment
of patriotism in their hearts, {129} were equally anxious for war, in
the secret hope that it would prove disastrous for the French army, and
result in the re-establishment of the old regime. On the other hand,
there were good citizens, inclined to optimism and judging others by
themselves, who thought that when confronted with an enemy, all
intestine dissensions would vanish as by enchantment, and that the new
Constitution, hallowed by victory and glory, would ensure the country a
most brilliant destiny. Ministers were unanimous, and enthusiasm
universal. Even if he had so desired, Louis XVI. could no longer
resist it. On April 20, 1792, he went to the Assembly. The hall was
filled with a crowd which comprehended the importance and solemnity of
the act about to be accomplished.
According to Dumouriez, the King was very majestic: "I come," he said,
"in accordance with the terms of the Constitution, formally to propose
war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia." He afterwards paid the
greatest attention to the report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
and seemed, by the motions of his head and hands, to approve it in
every respect. He returned to the Tuileries amidst general
acclamations. War was unanimously decided on, and Dumouriez went to
the diplomatic committee in order to draw up the declaration. At ten
in the evening the decree was brought in and carried to the King, who
sanctioned it at once.
Thus commenced that gigantic war which France was to wage against all
Europe, and which ended, {130} twenty-three years later, in the
disaster of Waterloo. How many battles, what suffering, and what a
prodigious shedding of blood! And to attain what end? Simply the
point of departure; that is to say, in the political order, to
constitutional monarchy, and in territory, to the boundaries of 1792.
What! to have filled Europe with noise and renown; to have carried the
standards of France from east to west, from north to south; to have
camped victoriously in Brussels, Milan, Venice, Rome, Naples, Cairo,
Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, Moscow; to have enlarged the borders of valor,
heroism, and self-sacrifice in order to arrive, after so many efforts,
just at the spot where the strife began? Ah! how short-sighted is
human wisdom, how deceitful the previsions of mortal man, how sterile
the agitations of republics and monarchs! "Assuredly!" says Dumouriez,
"if the Emperor and the King of Prussia could have foreseen that France
was able to withstand all Europe, they would not have meddled with her
domestic quarrels; they would have treated the _emigres_ not with
confidence, but compassion; they would have responded frankly and
without trickery to the minister's negotiation; the Revolution would
have been accomplished without cruelties; Europe would have remained at
peace, and France would be happy." What sadness underlies all history,
and what disproportion there is between man's sacrifices and their
results! The Revolution was achieved. All necessary liberties had
been conquered. Privileges {131} existed no longer. Animated by
excellent intentions, Louis XVI. would have been the best of
constitutional sovereigns, had his subjects possessed wisdom. Why this
long misunderstanding between him and his people? Why, on one side,
the insensate attitude of the _emigres_, whose task seemed to be to
justify the revolutionists; and why, on the other, those savage
passions which seemed trying to justify the wrathful recriminations of
Coblentz? Why that untimely intervention of Austria which irritated
French national sentiment and gave a political pretext to inexcusable
violence, cruelty, and crime? Inextricable confusion of false
situations! Multitudes asked themselves in what direction right and
duty lay. A large contingent of the French nobility heartily desired
the success of foreign armies. At Coblentz a gathering of twenty-two
thousand gentlemen hastened to the side of the seven Bourbon princes:
the Comte de Provence, the Comte d'Artois, the Duc de Berry, the Duc
d'Angouleme, the Prince de Conde, the Duc de Bourbon, and the Duc
d'Enghien.
As M. de Lamartine has said: "Infidelity to the country called itself
fidelity to the King. Desertion called itself honor. Fealty to the
throne was the religion of the French nobility. To them the
sovereignty of the people seemed an insolent dogma against which it was
necessary to draw the sword under penalty of sharing the crime. There
was real devotion in the act by which these men, young and {132} old,
abandoned their rank in the army, and the ties of country and family,
and rushed into a foreign land to defend the white flag as common
soldiers.... Their country symbolized duty for the patriots; to the
_emigres_, duty meant the throne. One of these parties deceived itself
concerning its duty, but both of them believed they were performing it."
As to the unfortunate Louis XVI., he suffered cruelly. It was like
death to him to declare war against his nephew, and at certain moments
he felt that this Austrian army against which his troops contended
might yet be his last resource. He could not even flatter himself that
the sacrifice he had made of his sympathies and family feelings would
be repaid by the love and confidence of his people.
"We have no difficulty nowadays in comprehending," says M. Geffroy very
justly, "what pure patriotism there was in that young army of 1792,
which represented new France. But this army, formed in independence of
the old regiments, was none the less, in the eyes of the Queen, a
veritable army of sedition. She thought of it as composed of the
victors of the Bastille, those whom Mirabeau styled the greatest
scoundrels of Paris; the very rabble who came to Versailles on the 6th
of October. She believed they could be crushed by the first attack at
the frontier, and that France and Paris would be rid of them." The
following reflection by M. Geffroy is very judicious: "Marie Antoinette
committed a double error, but honest men who had not the same {133}
overpowering motives as she, have committed it likewise. I do not
allude merely to those Frenchmen who, after April 20, remained in the
ranks of the Emigration, and who, apparently, did not suppose
themselves to be betraying the true interests of their country. But
look at M. de Bouille. He even accepted a command in the foreign army
under Gustavus III. And yet M. de Bouille is an honest man who knows
France and loves her ardently. Observe, in his Memoirs, his
involuntary pride in our success, and how he shrugs his shoulders at
the bluster of the Prussian officers."
It is not yet well understood what vigor, enthusiasm, and martial ardor
animated that brave national army, which, according to the foreigners,
was but a band of rioters, but which was suddenly to appear on the
battle-field as a people of heroes. Honor took refuge in the camps.
It was there that men whom the Jacobin Club enraged, and who had no
consolation for their patriotic grief but the virile emotions of
combat, went to fight and die. Why did not Louis XVI. call to mind
that he was the commander-in-chief of the army? Ah! had he been a
soldier, had he been accustomed to wear a uniform, to command, and,
above all, to speak to his troops, how quickly he would have come to
the end of his difficulties! Count de Vaublanc had good reason to say:
"Anything can be done with Frenchmen if one knows how to animate and
impress them with vehement ardor; otherwise, nothing need be
expected.... Never did {134} a prince merit better the eternal rewards
promised by religion to the true Christian; and yet his example should
forever teach kings that their conduct must be totally different from
his. Lacking the courage which acts, the most virtuous king cannot
achieve his own safety." Why did not Louis XVI. go amongst his
soldiers? Victory would have given him a sceptre and a crown. While
he still retained his sword, why did he leave it in the scabbard? Why
did he not remember that it might launch thunderbolts?
On the contrary, Louis XVI. hesitates, fumbles, temporizes. Count de
Vaublanc says again: "This wretched time proves thoroughly that finesse
is the most detestable means of conducting great affairs. Nothing but
finesse was opposed to the impetuous attacks of the Jacobins. All was
dissimulation; conversations, writings, measures; authority acted only
by crooked ways. With a thousand means of safety, people were lost
because they pushed prudence to excess, and extreme prudence always
degenerates into despicable means. I was in every great crisis of the
Revolution, and I have always seen the same faults produce the same
misfortunes. It is the same thing in revolution as in war; no matter
how prudent a general may be, he must take some risk. Otherwise it
would be impossible to gain a single battle."
Ah! how true and how striking is that great saying of Bossuet: "When
God wills to overthrow empires, all is feeble and irregular in their
designs." {135} Undecided and fickle, Louis XVI. does not even know
whether to desire the success or the failure of the Austrian army. He
has no plan, no steadiness of purpose. The secret mission he gives to
Mallet du Pan is a fresh proof of the irresolution of his character and
his policy. What is it he asks? To have the Powers declare that they
are making war against an anti-social faction, and not the French
nation; that they are undertaking the defence of legitimate governments
and of peoples against anarchy; that they will treat only with the
King; that they shall demand perfect liberty for him; that they convoke
a congress to which the _emigres_ may be admitted as complainants, and
where the general scheme of claims and reclamations shall be negotiated
under the auspices and the guarantee of the great courts of Europe.
Hesitating between Austria and his own kingdom, the unhappy monarch
attempts to continue that equivocal system, that see-saw policy in
which he has succeeded so ill, and which constrains him to
dissimulation, that last resource of the feeble. Sent to Germany with
instructions written by Louis XVI., with his own hand, Mallet du Pan
recommends the sovereigns to be cautious in advancing into France, to
observe the greatest prudence in dealing with the inhabitants of the
invaded provinces, and to precede their arrival by a manifesto in which
they declare conciliatory and pacific intentions. It follows that
official ministers of the King did not possess his confidence and were
not the interpreters of his mind. A {136} sort of occult and
mysterious government existed, with a diplomacy, secret funds, and
agents abroad and at home. Such a system, lacking all grandeur and
sincerity, could accomplish nothing but catastrophes.
Meanwhile, the war had begun under the most painful conditions. The
invasion of Belgium, arranged for the end of April, failed miserably.
Near Mons, Biron's troops took to flight, threatening to fire on their
officers, and crying: "We are betrayed!" At Lille, General Theobald
Dillon was massacred by his own soldiers. Such news caused
indescribable emotion in Paris. Popular mistrust and irritation
reached their height. The different parties hurled reproaches and
accusations in each other's face. The Girondins, finding the National
Guard too conservative, demanded pikes for the men of the faubourgs who
had no guns. The _sans-culottes_ enlisted. The army of assassins was
organized. The only thing left to do before giving the signal for a
riot was to obtain from the King a last concession,--the disbanding of
his guard.
{137}
XIII.
THE DISBANDING OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL GUARD.