FORMING THE CONSTITUTION.
Arming of the Peasants.--Destruction of Feudal Charters.--Sermon of
the Abbé Fauchet.--Three Classes in the Assembly.--Declaration of
Rights.--The Three Assemblies.--The Power of the Press.--Efforts
of William Pitt to sustain the Nobles.--Questions on the
Constitution.--Two Chambers in one?--The Veto.--Famine in the
City.--The King's Plate melted.--The Tax of a Quarter of each one's
Income.--Statement of Jefferson.
An utterly exhausted treasury compelled Louis XVI. and the court
of France to call together the States-General. The deputies of the
people, triumphing over the privileged classes, resolved themselves
into a National Assembly, and then proceeded to the formation of a
constitution which should limit the hitherto despotic powers of the
crown. Though there were a few individuals of the nobles and of the
higher clergy who cordially espoused the popular cause, the great mass
of the privileged class clung firmly together in desperate endeavors
to regain their iniquitous power. Many of these were now emigrants,
scattered throughout Europe, and imploring the interference of foreign
courts in their behalf. The old royalist army, some two hundred
thousand strong, amply equipped and admirably disciplined, still
retained its organization, and was still under its old officers, the
nobles; but the rank and file of this army were from the people, and
their sympathies were with the popular cause.
The nobles were now prepared for the most atrocious act of treason.
They wished to surrender the naval arsenals of France to the English
fleet, so that England, in possession of the great magazines of war,
could throw any number of soldiers into the kingdom unresisted, while
the Prussians and Austrians, headed by the emigrant noblesse, should
invade France from the east. The English government, however, which
subsequently became an accomplice in the conspiracy of the French
nobles, by accepting the surrender of Toulon, was not yet prepared to
take the bold step of invading France simply to rivet the chains of
despotism upon the French people.
The English embassador, Dorset, who was residing at Versailles,
revealed the plot to the ministers of the king. They, however, kept
the secret until it was disclosed by an intercepted letter from Dorset
to the Count d'Artois (subsequently Charles X). This discovery vastly
increased the alarm of the nation. Perils were now multiplying on
every side. The most appalling rumors of invasion filled the air.
Bands of marauders, haggard, starving, brutal, swept over the country,
burning, devouring, and destroying. It was supposed at first that they
were the advance battalions of the invaders, sent by the emigrants to
chastise France into subjection. Alarm increased to terror. Mothers
in almost a delirium of fear sought places of concealment for their
children. The peasant in the morning ran to his field to see if it had
been laid waste. At night he trembled lest he should awake to behold
conflagration and ruin. There was no law. The king's troops were
objects of especial dread. The most insolent of the nobles were in
command, and with money and wine they sought to bribe especially the
Germans and the Swiss to be obedient to their wishes.
It was this peril which armed France. Villages, peasants, all were
united to defend themselves against these terrible brigands. The
arsenals of the old castles contained arms. Nerved by despair, the
roused multitudes simultaneously besieged all these castles, and
demanded and seized the weapons necessary for their defense. It was as
a movement of magic. A sudden danger, every where menacing, every where
worked the same result. In one short week France sprung up armed and
ready for war. Three millions of men had come from the furrow and the
shop, and fiercely demanded "Where are the brigands? Lead us to meet
our foes, whoever and wherever they may be."[201]
The lords in an hour found themselves helpless. The peasants, hitherto
so tame and servile, were now soldiers, roused to determination and
proud of their newly discovered power. Awful was the retribution. The
chateaux blazed--funeral fires of feudality--on every hill and in
every valley. One can only be surprised that the hour of retribution
should have been delayed for so many ages, and that when it came the
infuriated, degraded, brutalized masses did not proceed to even greater
atrocities. Though deeds of cruelty were perpetrated which cause the
ear that hears to tingle, still, on the whole, mercy predominated.
In many cases lords who had treated their serfs kindly were protected
by their vassals, as children would protect a father. The Marquis of
Montfermail was thus shielded from harm. In Dauphiné a castle was
assailed during the absence of the lord. His lady was at home alone
with the children. The peasants left the castle and its inmates
unharmed, destroying only those feudal charters which were the
title-deeds of despotism.
These titles, engrossed on fine parchment and embellished with gorgeous
seals, were the pride of the noble family--the evidence of their
antiquity. They were preserved with great reverence, deposited in
costly caskets, which caskets, enveloped in velvet, were safely placed
in oaken chests, and those chests, iron-ribbed and with ponderous
locks, were guarded in a strong part of the feudal tower. The peasants
ever gazed with awe upon the tower of the archives. They understood the
significancy of those title-deeds--the badges of their degradation,
the authority to which the lords appealed in support of their tyranny,
insolence, and nameless outrages.
"Our country-people," writes Michelet, "went straight to the tower.
For many centuries that tower had seemed to sneer at the valley,
sterilizing, blighting, oppressing it with its deadly shadow. A
guardian of the country in barbarous times, standing there as a
sentinel, it became later an object of horror. In 1789 what was it but
the odious witness of bondage, a perpetual outrage to repeat every
morning to the man trudging to his labor the everlasting humiliation
of his race? 'Work, work on, son of serfs! Earn for another's profit.
Work, and without hope.' Every morning and every evening, for a
thousand years, perhaps more, that tower had been cursed. A day came
when it was to fall.
"O glorious day, how long have you been in coming! How long our fathers
expected and dreamed of you in vain! The hope that their sons would
at length behold you was alone able to support them, otherwise they
would have no longer consented to live. They would have died in their
agony. And what has enabled me, their companion, laboring beside them
in the furrow of history and drinking their bitter cup, to revive the
suffering Middle Ages, and yet not die of grief? Was it not you, O
glorious day, first day of liberty? I have lived in order to relate
your history!"
Thus far the religious sentiment of France, as expressed by nearly all
the pastors and the great proportion of their Christian flocks, was
warmly in favor of the Revolution. The higher clergy alone, bishops,
archbishops, and cardinals, who were usually the younger sons of the
nobles, and were thus interested in the perpetuation of abuses, united
with the lords. As in the National Assembly so it was in the nation
itself, that the working clergy were among the most conspicuous of
the sons of freedom. Religious services were held in the churches in
grateful commemoration of the fall of the Bastille.[202] The vast
cathedral of Nôtre Dame was thronged to listen to a sermon from the
Abbé Fauchet, who consecrated to the memory of those who fell on that
occasion the homage of his extraordinary eloquence. He selected for his
text the words of St. Paul, "For, brethren, ye have been called unto
liberty."--Gal. v. 13.
"The false interpreters of the divine oracle," said the abbé, "have
wished, in the name of heaven, to keep the people in subjection to
the will of their masters. They have consecrated despotism. They
have rendered God an accomplice with tyrants. These false teachers
exult because it is written, '_Render unto Cæsar the things that are
Cæsar's_.' But that which is not Cæsar's, is it necessary to render to
him that? And _liberty_ does not belong to Cæsar. It belongs to human
nature."[203]
The abbé unquestionably read the divine oracles aright. The
corner-stone of true democracy can only be found in the word of God.
The revelation there presented of God as a common father, and all
mankind as his children, made of one blood, brethren--it is that
revelation upon which is founded the great fundamental principle of
democracy, equality of rights. The very highest attainment of political
wisdom is the realization of the divine word, _"Whatsoever ye would
that others should do unto you, do ye even so unto them_."
The whole audience were transported with the clear and eloquent
enunciation of the politics of the gospel of Christ. As the orator
left the sacred cathedral he was greeted with the loudest plaudits. A
civic crown was placed upon his brow, and two companies of the National
Guard escorted him home, with the waving of banners and the clangor of
trumpets, and through the acclamations of the multitudes who thronged
the streets.[204]
While France was in this state of tumult and terror, threatened with
invasion from abroad, and harassed by brigands at home, the nobles
plotting treason, law powerless, and universal anarchy reigning, the
National Assembly was anxiously deliberating to restore order to the
country and to usher in the reign of justice and prosperity. The old
edifice was destroyed. A new one was to be erected. But there were now
three conspicuous parties developing themselves in the Assembly.
The first was composed of the nobles and the higher clergy, who still,
as a body, adhered to the court, and who eagerly fomented disorders
throughout the kingdom, hoping thus to compel the nation, as the only
escape from anarchy, to return to the old monarchy.
The second was composed of the large proportion of the Assembly,
sincere, intelligent, patriotic men, earnest for liberty, but for
liberty restrained by law. They were almost to a man monarchists,
wishing to ingraft _upon the monarchy of France_ institutions similar
to those of republican America. The English Constitution was in the
main their model.
A third party was just beginning to develop itself, small in numbers,
of turbulent, visionary, energetic men, eager for the overthrow of
all the institutions and customs of the past, and for the sudden
introduction of an entirely new era. Making no allowance for the
ignorance of the masses, and for the entire inexperience of the French
in self-government, they wished to cut loose from all the restraints of
liberty and of law, and to plunge into the wildest freedom.
The first and the third classes, the Aristocrats and the
ultra-Democrats, joined hand in hand to overthrow the Moderates, as the
middle party were called, each hoping thus to introduce the reign of
its own principles. Thus they both were ready to exasperate the masses
and to encourage violence. These were the two implacable foes against
whom the Revolution, and subsequently the Empire under Napoleon, had
ever to contend. Despotism and Jacobinism have ever been the two allied
foes against rational liberty in France.
The patriots of the middle, or moderate party, who had not as yet
assumed any distinctive name, for the parties in the Assembly were
but just beginning to marshal their forces for the fight, earnestly
deplored all scenes of violence. Such scenes only thwarted their
endeavors for the regeneration of France.
The Assembly now engaged with great eagerness in drawing up a
declaration of rights, to be presented to the people as the creed
of liberty. It was thought that if such a creed could be adopted,
based upon those self-evident truths which are in accordance with the
universal sense of right, the people might then be led to rally around
this creed with a distinct object in view.
For two months, from the 1st of August till the early part of October,
the Assembly was engaged in discussing the Bill of Rights and the
Constitution. But it was found that there had now suddenly sprung
up three Assemblies instead of one, each potent in its sphere, and
that between the three a spirit of rivalry and of antagonism was very
rapidly being engendered.
The first was the National Assembly at Versailles, originally
consisting of twelve hundred deputies, but now dwindled down by
emigration and other absence to about eight hundred.
The second was the municipal government of Paris, consisting of three
hundred representatives from the different sections or wards of the
city, and which held its sessions at the Hôtel de Ville. As Paris
considered itself France, the municipality of Paris began to arrogate
supreme power.
The third was the colossal assembly of the Parisian populace, an
enormous, tumultuous, excitable mass, every day gathered in the garden
of the Palais Royal. This assembly, daily becoming more arrogant,
often consisted of from ten to twelve thousand. It was continually in
session. Here was the rendezvous for all of the lower orders, men and
women. Impassioned orators, of great powers of popular eloquence, but
ignorant and often utterly unprincipled, mounted tables and chairs, and
passionately urged all their crude ideas.
Reflecting men soon began to look upon this assembly with alarm.
Its loud murmurs were echoed through the nation, boding only evil;
but emancipated France could not commence its career by prohibiting
liberty of speech. La Fayette anxiously looked in upon this portentous
gathering, and listened to the falsehood, the exaggerations, and the
folly with which its speakers deluded the populace, but he could
not interfere. Indeed, it soon became perilous for any one in that
assembly to plead the cause of law and order. He was at once accused as
an aristocrat, and was in peril of the doom of Berthier and Foulon.
And now suddenly there uprose another power which overshadowed all
the rest--the power of a free press. Newspapers and pamphlets deluged
the land. They were read universally; for the public mind was so
roused that those who could not read themselves eagerly listened to
the reading from others, at the corners of the streets, in shops and
hovels.[205]
France was now doomed to blood and woe. It is easy to say that if the
populace had been virtuous and enlightened all would have gone well;
or if the nobles and the higher clergy would have united with the true
patriots freedom might have been saved. But the populace were not
virtuous and enlightened, and the nobles were so inexorably hostile
to all popular rights that they were resolute to whelm France in ruin
rather than relinquish their privileges. France, as France then was,
could have been saved by no earthly wisdom. The Royalists openly
declared that the only chance of restoring the old system of government
was to have recourse to civil war, and they were eager to invoke so
frightful a remedy.
One of the most popular of the journals was "The Friend of the People,"
by Marat. This journal already declared that the National Assembly was
full of aristocrats, and that it must be dissolved to make way for a
better.[206] "We have wrested power," wrote Marat, "from the nobles but
to place it in the hands of the moneyed class. What have we gained? The
people are still poor and starving. We need another revolution." "Yes,"
echoed the mob of Paris, "we need another revolution."
The roar from the Palais Royal fell ominously upon the ears of the
Assembly at Versailles, and of the municipality at the Hôtel de Ville.
And now all the starving trades and employments began to congregate by
themselves for discussion and combined action. First came the servants,
destitute of place, of shelter, of bread, whose masters had fled from
insurgent Paris into the country or had emigrated. The court-yard of
the Louvre was their rendezvous. The soldiers debated at the Oratoire,
the hair-dressers in the Elysian Fields, and the tailors at the
Colonnade.[207] These bodies soon became, as it were, committees of
the great central congress of the populace ever gathered at the Palais
Royal.
The noblest men in the National Assembly were already beginning to
despond. Firmly, however, they proceeded in the endeavor to reconstruct
society upon the basis of justice and liberty. The measure to which
their attention was now chiefly devoted was to adopt a Constitution,
which was to be prefaced by a Bill of Rights. La Fayette was active in
this movement, and was unquestionably assisted by Thomas Jefferson,
then American minister at Paris.
This celebrated declaration of rights, adopted on the 18th of August,
1789, was a simple enunciation of those principles which are founded in
nature and truth and which are engraven on all hearts. They were axioms
upon which every intelligent legislator must proceed in forming a just
code of laws. It declares that all mankind are born free and equal;
that the objects to be gained by human governments are liberty, the
security of property, and protection from oppression; that sovereignty
resides in the nation and emanates from the people; that law is the
expression of the will of the people; that the expenses of government
should be assessed upon the governed in proportion to their property;
that all the adult male inhabitants are entitled to vote; that freedom
consists in the liberty to do any thing which does not injure another,
and should have no limits but its interference with the rights of
others.[208]
These were noble sentiments nobly expressed; and, though execrated in
monarchical Europe, were revered in republican America. These were
the principles against which despotic Europe, coalesced by the genius
of William Pitt, rose in arms.[209] The battle was long and bloody.
Millions perished. The terrible drama was closed, for a season, by the
triumph of despots at Waterloo.[210]
The Assembly now turned its attention to the organization of the
legislative body of the nation. The all-absorbing question was whether
the National Congress or Parliament should meet in one chamber or in
two; if in two, whether the upper house should be an aristocratic,
hereditary body, like the House of Lords in the British Parliament,
or an elective republican Senate, as in the American Congress. The
debate was long and impassioned. The people would not consent to an
_hereditary_ House of Lords, which would remain an almost impregnable
fortress of aristocratic usurpation. They were, however, inclined to
assent to an upper house to be composed exclusively of the clergy and
the nobles, but to be elected by the people. To this arrangement the
haughty lords peremptorily refused their assent. They were equally
opposed to an _election_ to the upper house even by the nobles and
the clergy, for the high lords and great dignitaries of the Church
looked down upon the lower nobility and upon the working clergy with
almost as much contempt as they regarded the people. Finding the nobles
hostile to any reasonable measure, the masses of the people became
more and more irritated. The vast gathering at the Palais Royal soon
became unanimous in clamoring for but one chamber. The lords were their
enemies, and in a house of lords they could see only a refuge for old
and execrable feudality and an insurmountable barrier to reform.[211]
When the vote was taken there were five hundred for a single chamber
and but one hundred for two chambers.[212] It was unquestionably a
calamity to France that two chambers could not have been organized. But
the infatuation of the nobles now for the second time prevented this
most salutary check upon hasty legislation.
The next question to be decided was the _royal veto_. All were united
that the laws should be presented to the king for his sanction or
refusal. The only question was whether the veto should be absolute
or limited. That of the King of England is absolute. That of the
President of the United States is limited. All France was agitated
by this question. Here the aristocracy made their last desperate
stand and fought fiercely. Many of the popular party, alarmed in view
of the rapid progress of events, advocated the absolute veto. Its
inconsistency, however, with all enlightened principles of liberty was
too apparent to be concealed. That the caprice of a single man, and
he perhaps weak or dissolute, should permanently thwart the decrees
of twenty-seven millions of people appeared so absurd that the whole
nation rose against it.
The fate of liberty seemed to depend upon this question, as the
absolute veto would enable the court, through the king, to annul every
popular measure. The crowds in Paris became turbulent and menacing.
Threatening letters were sent to members of the National Assembly. The
Parisian mob even declared its determination to march to Versailles,
and drive from the Assembly those in favor of the veto. The following
letter, addressed to the Bishop of Langres, then president of the
Assembly, may be presented as a specimen of many with which the hall
was flooded:
"The patriotic assembly of the Palais Royal have the honor to make it
known to you, sir, that if the aristocratic faction, formed by some
of the nobility and the clergy, together with one hundred and twenty
ignorant and corrupt deputies, continue to disturb the general harmony,
and still insist upon the absolute veto, fifteen hundred men are ready
to _enlighten_ their country seats and houses, and particularly your
own."[213]
"I shall never forget," writes Dumont, "my going to Paris one of those
days with Mirabeau, and the crowd of people we found waiting for his
carriage about Le Say the bookseller's shop. They flung themselves
before him, entreating him, with tears in their eyes, not to suffer the
absolute veto."
"They were in a phrensy. 'Monsieur le Comte,' said they, 'you are the
people's father. You must save us. You must defend us against those
villains who are bringing back despotism. If the king gets this veto,
what is the use of the National Assembly? We are all slaves! All is
undone.'[214] There was as much ability in the tumultuous gathering at
the Palais Royal as in the National Assembly, and more of impassioned,
fiery eloquence. This disorderly body assumed the name of the Patriotic
Assembly, and was hourly increasing in influence and in the boldness of
its demands. Camille Desmoulins was one of its most popular speakers.
He was polished, keen, witty, having the passions of his ever-varying,
ever-excitable audience perfectly at his command. He could play with
their emotions at his pleasure, and though not an _earnest_ man, for
jokers seldom are, he was eager and reckless."[215]
St. Huruge was, however, the great orator of the populace, the
Mirabeau of the Palais Royal. A marquis by birth, he had suffered long
imprisonment in the Bastille by _lettre de cachet_. Oppression had
driven him mad, and _he_ was thoroughly earnest. Every day he uttered
the most fierce and envenomed invectives against that aristocratic
power by whose heel he had been crushed. He was a man of towering
stature, impassioned gesticulation, and with a voice like the roar of a
bull.
On Monday, August 30th, there was a report at the Palais Royal that
Mirabeau was in danger of arrest. St. Huruge immediately headed a band
of fifteen hundred men, and set out for Versailles for his protection.
It was a mob threatening violence, and La Fayette, at the head of a
detachment of the National Guard, stopped them and drove them back.
Murmurs now began to arise against La Fayette and the National Guard.
Rumors were set in circulation that La Fayette was in league with the
aristocrats. Excitement was again rapidly increasing, as the people
feared that, after all, they were to be betrayed and again enslaved.
[Illustration: LA FAYETTE REVIEWING THE NATIONAL GUARD.]
The agitated assembly at the Palais Royal sent a deputation to
Versailles to Mounier, one of the most influential and truly patriotic
of the deputies, announcing to him that twenty thousand men were
ready to march to Versailles to drive the aristocrats out of the
Assembly. At the same time an address was received by the president
from the citizens of Rennes, declaring that those who should vote
for the absolute veto were traitors to their country. Under these
circumstances, the king sent a message to the National Assembly,
stating that he should be satisfied with a limited, or, as it was
then called, a _suspensive_ veto. In taking the question the absolute
veto was rejected, and the suspensive veto adopted by a vote of 673
to 355. By this measure the veto of the king would suspend the action
of any legislative enactment during two subsequent sessions of the
Legislature. If, after this, the Legislature still persisted, the
king's veto was overruled and the act went into effect. This was giving
the king much greater power than the President of the United States
possesses. A two-thirds vote of both houses can immediately carry any
measure against the veto of the President. Freedom of opinion, of
worship, and of the press were also decreed.
These questions being thus settled, it was now voted that the measures
thus far adopted were constitutional, not legislative; and that,
consequently, they were to be presented to the king, not for his
sanction, but for promulgation. It was also voted by acclaim that the
crown should be hereditary and the person of the king inviolable, the
ministers alone being responsible for the measures of government.
To republican eyes these seem like mild measures of reform, though
they have been most severely condemned by the majority of writers
upon the French Revolution in monarchical Europe. If the nobles had
yielded to these reasonable reforms, the horrors which ensued might
have been avoided. If combined Europe had not risen in arms against
the Revolution, the regeneration of France might, perhaps, have been
peacefully achieved.[216]
In every nation there are thousands of the ignorant, degraded,
miserable, who have nothing to lose and something to hope from anarchy.
The inmates of the dens of crime and infamy, who are only held in check
by the strong restraints of law, rejoice in the opportunity to sack
the dwellings of the industrious and the wealthy, and to pour the tide
of ruin through the homes of the virtuous and the happy. This class
of abandoned men and women was appallingly increasing. They flocked
to the city from all parts of the kingdom, and Paris was crowded with
spectres, emaciate and ragged, whose hideous and haggard features spoke
only of vice and misery. Sièyes expressed to Mirabeau his alarm in view
of the portentous aspect of affairs.
"You have let the bull loose," Mirabeau replied, "and now you complain
that he butts with his horns."[217]
Much has been said respecting the _motives_ which influenced Mirabeau.
Whatever his motives may have been, his conduct was consistent. All
his words and actions were in favor of liberty sustained by strong
law. He wished for the overthrow of aristocratic insolence and
feudal oppression, from which he had so severely suffered. He wished
to preserve the monarchical form of government, and to establish a
constitution which should secure to all the citizens equality of
rights.[218]
Feudality was now destroyed, and a free constitution adopted. Still,
business was stagnant, the poor destitute of employment and in a
state of starvation. As an act of charity, seventeen thousand men
were employed by the municipality of Paris digging on the heights of
Montmartre at twenty sous a day. The suffering was so great that the
office of the municipality was crowded with tradesmen and merchants
imploring employment on these terms. "I used to see," writes the mayor,
Bailly, "good tradespeople, mercers and goldsmiths, who prayed to
be admitted among the beggars employed at Montmartre in digging the
ground. Judge what I suffered."
The city government sunk two thousand dollars a day in selling bread
to the poor at less than cost; and yet there were emissaries of the
court buying up this bread and destroying it to increase the public
distress.[219] On the 19th day of August the city of Paris contained
food sufficient but for a single day. Bailly and La Fayette were in an
agony of solicitude. So great was the dismay in Paris, that all the
rich were leaving. Sixty thousand passports were signed at the Hôtel de
Ville in three months.[220]
Armed bands were exploring the country to purchase food wherever it
could be found, and convey it to the city. Six hundred of the National
Guard were stationed by day and by night to protect the corn-market
from attack. It is surprising that when the populace were in such
distress so few acts of violence should have been committed.[221]
The kind heart of the king was affected by this misery. He sent nearly
all his plate to be melted and coined at the mint for the relief of
the poor. This noble example inspired others. General enthusiasm was
aroused, and the hall of the National Assembly was crowded with the
charitable bringing voluntary contributions for the relief of the
poor. Rich men sent in their plate, patriotic ladies presented their
caskets of jewelry, and the wives of tradesmen, artists, and mechanics
brought the marriage gifts which they had received and the ornaments
which embellished their dwellings. Farmers sent in bags of corn,
and even poor women and children offered their mites. A school-boy
came with a few pieces of gold which his parents had sent to him for
spending-money. This overflowing of charity presented a touching
display of the characteristic magnanimity and impulsiveness of the
French people.[222]
[Illustration: PATRIOTIC CONTRIBUTIONS.]
But private charity, however profuse, is quite inadequate to the wants
of a nation. These sums were soon expended, and still the unemployed
poor crawled fasting and emaciated about the streets. Necker's plans
for loans were frustrated. No one would lend. To whom should he lend?
The old régime was dying; the new not yet born. In this terrible
emergency Necker proposed the desperate measure of imposing a tax of
one quarter of every man's income, declaring that there was no other
refuge from bankruptcy. The interest upon the public debt could no
longer be paid, the wages of the soldiers were in arrears, and the
treasury utterly empty. The proposal frightened the Assembly, but
Mirabeau ascended the tribune, and in one of his most impassioned
appeals carried the measure by acclamation.[223] The distracted state
of the kingdom, however, prevented the act thus enthusiastically
adopted from being carried into effect.[224]
Thomas Jefferson was at this time, as we have before mentioned, the
American minister in Paris, and was constantly consulted by the leaders
of the Revolution. In his memoirs, speaking of these events, he writes,
"The first question, whether there should be a king, met with no
opposition, and it was readily agreed that the government of France
should be monarchical and hereditary.
"Shall the king have a negative on the laws? Shall that negative
be absolute, or suspensive only? Shall there be two chambers of
legislation, or one only? If two, shall one of them be hereditary, or
for life, or for a fixed term; and named by the king or elected by the
people?
"These questions found strong differences of opinion, and produced
repulsive combinations among the patriots. The aristocracy was cemented
by a common principle of preserving the ancient régime, or whatever
should be nearest to it. Making this their polar star, they moved in
phalanx, gave preponderance on every question to the minorities of
the patriots, and always to those who advocated the least change. The
features of the new constitution were thus assuming a fearful aspect,
and great alarm was produced among the honest patriots by these
dissensions in their ranks.
"In this uneasy state of things I received one day a note from the
Marquis de la Fayette, informing me that he should bring a party of six
or eight friends to ask a dinner of me the next day. I assured him of
their welcome. When they arrived, they were La Fayette himself, Dupont,
Barnave, Alexander Lameth, Blacon, Mounier, Maubourg, and Dagout. These
were leading patriots of honest but differing opinions, sensible of
the necessity of effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices; knowing
each other, and not afraid therefore to unbosom themselves mutually.
This last was a material principle in the selection. With this view the
marquis had invited the conference, and had fixed the time and place,
inadvertently as to the embarrassment under which he might place me.
"The cloth being removed and wine set on the table, after the American
manner, the marquis introduced the objects of the conference by
summarily reminding them of the state of things in the Assembly, the
course which the principles of the Constitution were taking, and the
inevitable result, unless checked by more concord among the patriots
themselves. He observed that though he also had his opinion, he was
ready to sacrifice it to that of his brethren of the same cause; but
that a common opinion must now be formed, or the aristocracy would
carry every thing, and that, whatever they should now agree on, he, at
the head of the national force, would maintain.
"The discussions began at the hour of four, and were continued till ten
o'clock in the evening, during which time I was a silent witness to a
coolness and candor of argument unusual in the conflicts of political
opinion; to a logical reasoning and chaste eloquence disfigured by no
gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being
placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed
to us by Plato, by Xenophon, and Cicero. The result was that the king
should have a suspensive veto on the laws, that the Legislature should
be composed of a single body only, and that to be chosen by the people.
This concordat decided the fate of the Constitution. The patriots
all rallied to the principles thus settled, carried every question
agreeably to them, and reduced the aristocracy to insignificance and
impotence."[225]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 201: "Our Revolution," said Napoleon at St. Helena, "was
a natural convulsion, as irresistible in its effects as an eruption
of Vesuvius. When the mysterious fusion which takes place in the
entrails of the earth is at such a crisis that an explosion follows,
the eruption bursts forth. The unperceived workings of the discontent
of the people follow exactly the same course. In France the sufferings
of the people, the moral combinations which produce a revolution, had
arrived at maturity, and an explosion accordingly took place."]
[Footnote 202: Madame de Genlis, who witnessed the demolition of the
Bastille, in her gossiping yet very interesting memoirs, writes, "I
experienced the most exquisite joy in witnessing the demolition of that
terrible monument, in which had been immured and where had perished,
without any judicial forms, so many innocent victims. The desire to
have my pupils see it led me to take them from St. Leu to pass a few
hours in Paris, that they might see from the garden of Beaumarchais
all the people of Paris engaged in destroying the Bastille. It is
impossible to give one an idea of that spectacle. It must have been
seen to conceive of it as it was. That redoubtable fortress was covered
with men, women, and children, toiling with inexpressible ardor upon
the loftiest towers and battlements. The astonishing number of workmen,
their activity, their enthusiasm, the joy with which they saw this
frightful monument of despotism crumbling down, the avenging hands
which seemed to be those of Providence, and which annihilated with so
much rapidity the work of many ages, all that spectacle spoke equally
to the imagination and the heart."--_Mémoires sur le Dix-huitième
Siècle et la Revolution Française de Madame la Comtesse de Genlis_,
tome iii., p. 261.]
[Footnote 203: Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 18.]
[Footnote 204: "Tyranny," said Fauchet, in reference to the skeletons
found in the Bastille, "had sealed them within the walls of those
dungeons, which she believed to be eternally impenetrable to the light.
The day of revelation is come. The bones have arisen at the voice
of French liberty. They depose against centuries of oppression and
death, prophesying the regeneration of human nature and the life of
nations."--_Dussaulx, OEuvre des Sept Jours._]
[Footnote 205: At St. Helena, the subject of conversation one day
turned upon the freedom of the press. The subject was discussed
with much animation by the companions of the emperor, he listening
attentively to their remarks. "Nothing can resist," said one,
"the influence of a free press. It is capable of overthrowing
every government, of agitating every society, of destroying every
reputation." "It is only its _prohibition_," said another, "which is
dangerous. If it be restricted it becomes a mine which must explode;
but if left to itself it is merely an unbent bow, that can inflict no
wound."
"The _liberty of the press_," said Napoleon, "is not a question open
for consideration. Its prohibition under a representative government is
a gross anachronism, a downright absurdity. I therefore, on my return
from Elba, abandoned the press to all its excesses, and I am confident
that the press in no respect contributed to my downfall."
In Napoleon's last letter to his son he writes, "My son will be obliged
to allow the liberty of the press. This is a necessity in the present
day. The liberty of the press ought to become, in the hands of the
government, a powerful auxiliary in diffusing through all the most
distant corners of the empire sound doctrines and good principles. To
leave it to itself would be to fall asleep upon the brink of danger. On
the conclusion of a general peace I would have instituted a Directory
of the Press, composed of the ablest men of the country, and I would
have diffused, even to the most distant hamlet, my ideas and my
intentions."--_Las Casas._]
[Footnote 206: Mirabeau, Camille Desmoulins, Brissot, Condorcet,
Mercier, Carra, Gorsas, Marat, and Barrere, all published journals,
and some of them had a very extensive circulation. _L'Ami du Peuple_,
by Marat, was a very energetic sheet. Mirabeau printed ten thousand
copies of his _Courrier de Province_. But by far the most popular and
influential paper was the _Revolutions de Paris_, whose unknown editor
was Loustalot, a sincere, earnest, laborious young man, who died in
1792, at the age of twenty-nine. Two hundred thousand copies of his
paper were frequently sold.--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 240.]
[Footnote 207: Miguet, p. 64.]
[Footnote 208: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, a Christian patriot and one
of the most active members of the National Assembly, writes: "It is
possible that all the kings of Europe may form a coalition against a
humble page of writing; but, after a number of cannon-shots, and when
those potentates have destroyed three or four hundred thousand men
and laid waste twenty countries, it will not be the less true that
_men are born free and equal as to their rights, and that the nation
is the sovereign_. And it is possible that their obstinacy may have
occasioned the discovery of other truths which, but for the wrath of
those great princes, mankind would never have thought of."--_Political
Reflections_, p. 176.]
[Footnote 209: "All the wars of the European Continent against the
Revolution and against the Empire were begun by England and supported
by English gold. At last the object was attained; not only was the
ancient family restored to the throne, but France was reduced to its
original limits, its naval force destroyed, and its commerce almost
annihilated."--_Encyclopædia Americana, Art. Great Britain._]
[Footnote 210: "William Pitt," said the Emperor Napoleon at St. Helena,
"was the master of European policy. He held in his hands the moral fate
of nations. He kindled the fire of discord throughout the universe; and
his name, like that of Erostratus, will be inscribed in history amid
flames, lamentations, and tears. The first sparks of our Revolution,
then the resistance that was opposed to the national will, and finally
the horrid crimes that ensued, all were his work. Twenty-five years
of universal conflagration; the numerous coalitions that added fuel
to the flame; the revolution and devastation of Europe; the bloodshed
of nations; the frightful debt of England, by which all these horrors
were maintained; the pestilential system of loans, by which the people
of Europe are oppressed; the general discontent that now prevails--all
must be attributed to Pitt.
"Posterity will brand him as a scourge, and the man so lauded in
his own time will hereafter be regarded as the genius of evil. Not
that I consider him to have been willfully atrocious, or doubt his
having entertained the conviction that he was acting right. But
St. Bartholomew had also its conscientious advocates. The Pope and
cardinals celebrated it by a _Te Deum_, and we have no reason to doubt
their having done so in sincerity. Such is the weakness of human reason
and judgment! Whether it be the effect of admiration and gratitude or
the result of mere instinct and sympathy, Pitt is, and will continue to
be, the idol of the European aristocracy. There was, indeed, a touch of
the Sylla in his character. His system has kept the popular cause in
check and brought about the triumph of the nobles.
"As for Fox, one must not look for his model among the ancients. He
is himself a model, and his principles will sooner or later rule the
world. Certainly the death of Fox was one of the fatalities of my
career. Had his life been prolonged affairs would have taken a totally
different turn. The cause of the people would have triumphed, and we
should have established a new order of things in Europe."]
[Footnote 211: The higher nobility of Great Britain consists of 26
dukes, 35 marquises, 217 earls, 65 viscounts, 191 barons. Each of
these takes the title of _lord_ and is entitled by birth to a seat in
the House of Lords, if we except the peers of Scotland and Ireland,
who have a seat with the lords only by deputation, the Scotch peers
choosing 16 and the Irish 28. There are, besides, six archbishops and
42 bishops, who, by virtue of their office, are styled _lords_ and
have a seat in the House of Lords. The lower nobility, consisting of
baronets and knights, have no privileges but the honor of their title.
They are somewhere between one and two thousand in number. The higher
nobility, including the dignitaries of the Church, six archbishops
and 42 bishops, in 1813 amounted to 554 families. The total revenue
of the _temporal nobility_, according to Colquhoun, was $25,000,000,
which makes an average of about $48,000 a year for each noble family.
According to the same authority, the total revenue of the _spiritual
lords_ was $1,200,000, which would average $25,000 a year for each. The
English say that those nobles are exceedingly valuable. They ought to
be. They cost enough. See Enc. Am., Art. Great Britain.]
[Footnote 212: Michelet. M. Rabaud de St. Etienne says 911 for one, 89
for two. Alison, without giving his authority, states 499 for one, 87
for two.]
[Footnote 213: The French Revolutions from 1789 to 1848, by T.W.
Redhead, vol. i., p. 59.]
[Footnote 214: Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 156.]
[Footnote 215: "What will always astonish those who are acquainted
with the history of other revolutions is, that in this miserable
and famished state of Paris, denuded of all authority, there were,
on the whole, but very few serious acts of violence. One word, one
reasonable observation, occasionally a jest, was sufficient to check
them. On the first days only subsequent to the 14th of July there
were instances of violence committed. The people, full of the idea
that they were betrayed, sought for their enemies hap-hazard, and
were near making some cruel mistakes. M. de la Fayette interposed
several times at the critical moment, and was attended to. On these
occasions M. de la Fayette was truly admirable. He found in his heart,
in his love for order and justice, words and happy sayings above his
nature."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 227.]
[Footnote 216: "I hear it sometimes said that the French should
have contented themselves with laying down principles for their own
particular state, without spreading abroad those principles among
other nations. But is it really their fault if their principles
are so general as to be adapted to all men, of all times, and of
all countries? Nay, is it not a proof of the excellence of their
principles, which depend neither upon ages, nor on prejudices, nor on
climates? Have they invented them maliciously, and in order to impose
on kings and on the great? And is there any man so silly as to scruple
to rebuild his shattered dwelling, because others might be tempted
to re-edify theirs? If the French language is understood through all
Europe, are the French to blame? Ought they, through fear of being
listened to and imitated, to observe a strict silence, or speak a
language different from their own?"--_History of the Revolutions of
France, by M. Rabaud de St. Etienne_, p. 180.]
[Footnote 217: Dumont, vol. i., p. 66.]
[Footnote 218: "The particulars of Mirabeau's conduct are not yet
thoroughly known, but they are soon likely to be. I have had in my
hands several important documents, and especially a paper written in
the form of a profession of faith, which constituted his secret treaty
with the court. I am not allowed to give the public any of these
documents, or to mention the names of the holders. I can only affirm
what the future will sufficiently demonstrate, when all these papers
shall have been published.
"What I am able to assert with sincerity is, that Mirabeau never had
any hand in the supposed plots of the Duke of Orleans. Mirabeau left
Provence with a single object, that of combating arbitrary power, by
which he had suffered, and which his reason as well as his sentiments
taught him to consider as detestable. In his manners there was great
familiarity, which originated in a feeling of his strength. Hence it
was that he was frequently supposed to be the friend and accomplice
of many persons with whom he had no common interest. I have said,
and I repeat it, he had no party. Mirabeau remained poor till his
connection with the court. He then watched all parties, strove to make
them explain themselves, and was too sensible of his own importance to
pledge himself lightly."--_Hist, of the Fr. Rev., by M.A. Thiers_, vol.
i., p. 94.]
[Footnote 219: Histoire de la Revolution Française, par Villiaumé, p.
54.]
[Footnote 220: Revolutions de Paris, t. 11, No. 9, p. 8.]
[Footnote 221: "Occasionally loads of flour were seized and detained on
their passage by the neighboring localities whose wants were pressing.
Versailles and Paris shared together. But Versailles kept, so it was
said, the finest part, and made a superior bread. This was a great
cause of jealousy. One day, when the people of Versailles had been
so imprudent as to turn aside for themselves a supply intended for
the Parisians, Bailly, the honest and respectful Bailly, wrote to M.
Necker that, if the flour were not restored, thirty thousand men would
go and fetch it on the morrow. Fear made him bold. It often happened
at midnight that he had but half the flour necessary for the morning
market."--_Michelet_, p. 231.]
[Footnote 222: Even the courtesans came forward with their
contributions. The following letter was received by the National
Assembly, accompanied by a purse of gold:
"Gentlemen! I have a heart to love. I have amassed some property
in loving. I place it in your hands, a homage to the country. May
my example be imitated by my companions of all ranks."--_Hist. des
Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros_, p. 21.]
[Footnote 223: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., 89.]
[Footnote 224: Alison.]