FROM THE 6TH OF OCTOBER, 1789, TO THE DEATH OF MIRABEAU, APRIL, 1791
The period which forms the subject of this chapter was less remarkable for
events than for the gradually decided separation of parties. In proportion
as changes were introduced into the state and the laws, those whose
interests or opinions they injured declared themselves against them. The
revolution had had as enemies, from the beginning of the states-general,
the court; from the union of orders and the abolition of privileges, the
nobility; from the establishment of a single assembly and the rejection of
the two chambers, the ministry and the partisans of the English form of
government. It had, moreover, against it since the departmental
organization, the provinces; since the decree respecting the property and
civil constitution of the clergy, the whole ecclesiastical body; since the
introduction of the new military laws, all the officers of the army. It
might seem that the assembly ought not to have effected so many changes at
once, so as to have avoided making so many enemies; but its general plans,
its necessities, and the very plots of its adversaries, required all these
innovations.
After the 5th and 6th of October, the assembly emigrated as the court had
done after the 14th of July. Mounier and Lally-Tollendal deserted it,
despairing of liberty from the moment their views ceased to be followed.
Too absolute in their plans, they wanted the people, after having
delivered the assembly on the 14th of July, suddenly to cease acting,
which was displaying an entire ignorance of the impetus of revolutions.
When the people have once been made use of, it is difficult to disband
them, and the most prudent course is not to contest, but to regulate
intervention. Lally-Tollendal renounced his title of Frenchman, and
returned to England, the land of his ancestors. Mounier repaired to
Dauphiné, his native province, which he endeavoured to excite to a revolt
against the assembly. It was inconsistent to complain of an insurrection,
and yet to provoke one, especially when it was to the profit of another
party, for his was too weak to maintain itself against the ancient régime
and the revolution. Notwithstanding his influence in Dauphiné, whose
former movements he had directed, Mounier was unable to establish there a
centre of permanent resistance, but the assembly was thereby warned to
destroy the ancient provincial organisation, which might become the frame-
work of a civil war.
After the 5th and 6th of October, the national representatives followed
the king to the capital, which their common presence had contributed
greatly to tranquillise. The people were satisfied with possessing the
king, the causes which had excited their ebullition had ceased. The duke
of Orleans, who, rightly or wrongly, was considered the contriver of the
insurrection, had just been sent away; he had accepted a mission to
England; Lafayette was resolved to maintain order; the national guard,
animated by a better spirit, acquired every day habits of discipline and
obedience; the corporation, getting over the confusion of its first
establishment, began to have authority. There remained but one cause of
disturbance--the scarcity of provisions. Notwithstanding the zeal and
foresight of the committee entrusted with the task of providing supplies,
daily assemblages of the people threatened the public tranquillity. The
people, so easily deceived when suffering, killed a baker called François,
who was unjustly accused as a monopolist. On the 21st of October a martial
law was proclaimed, authorizing the corporation to employ force to
disperse the mob, after having summoned the citizens to retire. Power was
vested in a class interested in maintaining order; the districts and the
national guard were obedient to the assembly. Submission to the law was
the prevailing passion of that epoch. The deputies on their side only
aspired at completing the constitution and effecting the re-organisation
of the state. They had the more reason for hastening their task, as the
enemies of the assembly made use of what remained of the ancient régime,
to occasion it embarrassment. Accordingly, it replied to each of their
endeavours by a decree, which, changing the ancient order of things,
deprived them of one of their means of attack.
It began by dividing the kingdom more equally and regularly. The
provinces, which had witnessed with regret the loss of their privileges,
formed small states, the extent of which was too vast, and the
administration too independent. It was essential to reduce their size,
change their names, and subject them to the same government. On the 22nd
of December, the assembly adopted in this respect the project conceived by
Sieyès, and presented by Thouret in the name of the committee, which
occupied itself constantly on this subject for two months.
France was divided into eighty-three departments, nearly equal in extent
and population; the departments were subdivided into districts and
cantons. Their administration received a uniform and hierarchical form.
The department had an administrative council composed of thirty-six
members, and an executive directory composed of five members: as the names
indicate, the functions of the one were to decide, and of the other to
act. The district was organised in the same way; although on a smaller
scale, it had a council and a directory, fewer in number, and subordinate
to the superior directory and council. The canton composed of five or six
parishes, was an electoral not an administrative division; the active
citizens, and to be considered such it was necessary to pay taxes
amounting to three days' earnings, united in the canton to nominate their
deputies and magistrates. Everything in the new plan was subject to
election, but this had several degrees. It appeared imprudent to confide
to the multitude the choice of its delegates, and illegal to exclude them
from it; this difficult question was avoided by the double election. The
active citizens of the canton named electors intrusted with nominating the
members of the national assembly, the administrators of the department,
those of the district, and the judges of tribunals; a criminal court was
established in each department, a civil court in each district, and a
police-court in each canton.
Such was the institution of the department. It remained to regulate that
of the corporation: the administration of this was confided to a general
council and a municipality, composed of members whose numbers were
proportioned to the population of the towns. The municipal officers were
named immediately by the people, and could alone authorize the employment
of the armed force. The corporation formed the first step of the
association, the kingdom formed the last; the department was intermediate
between the corporation and the state, between universal interests and
purely local interests.
The execution of this plan, which organized the sovereignty of the people,
which enabled all citizens to concur in the election of their magistrates,
and entrusted them with their own administration, and distributed them
into a machinery which, by permitting the whole state to move, preserved a
correspondence between its parts, and prevented their isolation, excited
the discontent of some provinces. The states of Languedoc and Brittany
protested against the new division of the kingdom, and on their side the
parliaments of Metz, Rouen, Bordeaux, and Toulouse rose against the
operations of the assembly which suppressed the Chambres de Vacations,
abolished the orders, and declared the commissions of the states
incompetent. The partisans of the ancient régime employed every means to
disturb its progress; the nobility excited the provinces, the parliaments
took resolutions, the clergy issued mandates, and writers took advantage
of the liberty of the press to attack the revolution. Its two principal
enemies were the nobles and the bishops. Parliament, having no root in the
nation, only formed a magistracy, whose attacks were prevented by
destroying the magistracy itself, whereas the nobility and the clergy had
means of action which survived the influence of the body. The misfortunes
of these two classes were caused by themselves. After harassing the
revolution in the assembly, they afterwards attacked it with open force--
the clergy, by internal insurrections--the nobility, by arming Europe
against it. They had great expectations from anarchy, which, it is true,
caused France many evils, but which was far from rendering their own
position better. Let us now see how the hostilities of the clergy were
brought on; for this purpose we must go back a little.
The revolution had commenced with the finances, and had not yet been able
to put an end to the embarrassments by which it was caused. More important
objects had occupied the attention of the assembly. Summoned, no longer to
defray the expenses of administration, but to constitute the state, it had
suspended its legislative discussions, from time to time, in order to
satisfy the more pressing necessities of the treasury. Necker had proposed
provisional means, which had been adopted in confidence, and almost
without discussion. Despite this zeal, he did not without displeasure see
the finances considered as subordinate to the constitution, and the
ministry to the assembly. A first loan of thirty millions (1,200,000l.),
voted the 9th of August, had not succeeded; a subsequent loan of eighty
millions (3,200,000l.), voted the 27th of the same month, had been
insufficient. Duties were reduced or abolished, and they yielded scarcely
anything, owing to the difficulty of collecting them. It became useless to
have recourse to public confidence, which refused its aid; and in
September, Necker had proposed, as the only means, an extraordinary
contribution of a fourth of the revenue, to be paid at once. Each citizen
was to fix his proportion himself, making use of that simple form of oath,
which well expressed these first days of honour and patriotism:--"_I
declare with truth._"
Mirabeau now caused Necker to be invested with a complete financial
dictatorship. He spoke of the urgent wants of the state, of the labours of
the assembly which did not permit it to discuss the plan of the minister,
and which at the same time prevented its examining any other; of Necker's
skill, which ensured the success of his own measure; and urged the
assembly to leave with him the responsibility of its success, by
confidently adopting it. As some did not approve of the views of the
minister, and others suspected the intentions of Mirabeau with respect to
him, he closed his speech, one of the most eloquent he ever delivered, by
displaying bankruptcy impending, and exclaiming, "Vote this extraordinary
subsidy, and may it prove sufficient! Vote it; for if you have doubts
respecting the means, you have none respecting the want, and our inability
to supply it. Vote it, for the public circumstances will not bear delay,
and we shall be accountable for all postponement. Beware of asking for
time; misfortune never grants it. Gentlemen, on the occasion of a
ridiculous motion at the Palais Royal, an absurd incursion, which had
never had any importance, save in feeble imaginations, or the minds of men
of ill designs and bad faith, you once heard these words, '_Catiline is at
the gates of Rome, and yet they deliberate!_' And yet there were around us
neither Catiline, nor perils, nor factions, nor Rome. But now bankruptcy,
hideous bankruptcy, is there; it threatens to consume you, your
properties, your honour, and yet you deliberate!" Mirabeau had carried
away the assembly by his oratory; and the patriotic contribution was voted
with unanimous applause.
But this resource had only afforded momentary relief. The finances of the
revolution depended on a more daring and more vast measure. It was
necessary not only to support the revolution, but to repair the immense
deficit which stopped its progress, and threatened its future destiny. One
way alone remained--to declare ecclesiastical property national, and to
sell it for the rescue of the state. Public interest prescribed this
course; and it could be done with justice, the clergy not being the
proprietors, but the simple administrators of this property, devoted to
religion, and not to the priests. The nation, therefore, by taking on
itself the expenses of the altar, and the support of its ministers might
procure and appropriate an important financial resource, and obtain a
great political result.
It was important not to leave an independent body, and especially an
ancient body, any longer in the state; for in a time of revolution
everything ancient is hostile. The clergy, by its formidable hierarchy and
its opulence, a stranger to the new changes, would have remained as a
republic in the kingdom. Its form belonged to another system: when there
was no state, but only bodies, each order had provided for its own
regulation and existence. The clergy had its decretals, the nobility its
law of fiefs, the people its corporations; everything was independent,
because everything was private. But now that functions were becoming
public, it was necessary to make a magistracy of the priesthood as they
had made one of royalty; and, in order to make them dependent on the
state, it was essential they should be paid by it, and to resume from the
monarch his domains, from the clergy its property, by bestowing on each of
them suitable endowments. This great operation, which destroyed the
ancient ecclesiastical régime, was effected in the following manner:
One of the most pressing necessities was the abolition of tithes. As these
were a tax paid by the rural population to the clergy, the sacrifice would
be for the advantage of those who were oppressed by them. Accordingly,
after declaring they were redeemable, on the night of the 4th of August,
they were suppressed on the 11th, without providing any equivalent. The
clergy opposed the measure at first, but afterwards had the good sense to
consent. The archbishop of Paris gave up tithes in the name of all his
brethren, and by this act of prudence he showed himself faithful to the
line of conduct adopted by the privileged classes on the night of the 4th
of August; but this was the extent of his sacrifices.
A short time after, the debate respecting the possession of ecclesiastical
property began. Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, proposed to the clergy that
they should renounce it in favour of the nation, which would employ it in
defraying the expenses of worship, and liquidating its debt. He proved the
justice and propriety of this measure; and he showed the great advantages
which would accrue to the state. The property of the clergy amounted to
several thousand millions of francs. After paying its debts, providing for
the ecclesiastical services and that of hospitals, and the endowment of
its ministers, sufficient would still remain to extinguish the public
debt, whether permanent or annuities, and to reimburse the money paid for
judicial offices. The clergy rose against this proposition. The discussion
became very animated; and it was decided, in spite of their resistance,
that they were not proprietors, but simple depositaries of the wealth that
the piety of kings and of the faithful had devoted to religion, and that
the nation, on providing for the service of public worship, had a right to
recall such property. The decree which placed it at its disposal was
passed on the 2nd of December, 1789.
From that moment the hatred of the clergy to the revolution broke out. At
the commencement of the states-general it had been less intractable than
the nobility, in order to preserve its riches; it now showed itself as
opposed as they to the new régime, of which it became the most tenacious
and furious foe. Yet, as the decree placed ecclesiastical property at the
disposal of the nation, without, as yet, displacing it, it did not break
out into opposition at once. The administration was still confided to it,
and it hoped that the possessions of the church might serve as a mortgage
for the debt, but would not be sold.
It was, indeed, difficult to effect the sale, which, however, could not be
delayed, the treasury only subsisting on anticipations, and the exchequer,
which supplied it with bills, beginning to lose all credit on account of
the number it had issued.
They obtained their end, and proceeded with the new financial organisation
in the following manner: The necessities of this and the following year
required a sale of this property to the amount of four hundred millions of
francs; to facilitate it, the corporation of Paris made considerable
subscriptions, and the municipalities of the kingdom followed the example
of Paris. They were to return to the treasury the equivalent of the
property they received from the state to sell to private individuals; but
they wanted money, and they could not deliver the amount since they had
not yet met with purchasers. What was to be done? They supplied municipal
notes intended to reimburse the public creditors, until they should
acquire the funds necessary for withdrawing the notes. Once arrived thus
far, they saw that, instead of municipal notes, it would be better to
create exchequer bills, which would have a compulsory circulation, and
answer the purpose of specie: this was simplifying the operation by
generalising it. In this way the assignats had their origin.
This invention was of great utility to the revolution, and alone secured
the sale of ecclesiastical property. The assignats, which were a means of
payment for the state, became a pledge to the creditors. The latter by
receiving them were not obliged to accept payment in land for what they
had furnished in money. But sooner or later the assignats would fall into
the hands of men disposed to realise them, and then they were to be
destroyed at the same time that they ceased to be a pledge. In order that
they might fulfil their design, their forced circulation was required; to
render them safe, the quantity was limited to the value of the property
proposed for sale; and that they might not fall by too sudden a change,
they were made to bear interest. The assembly, from the moment of their
issue, wished to give them all the consistency of money. It was hoped that
specie concealed by distrust would immediately re-appear, and that the
assignats would enter into competition with it. Mortgage made them quite
as sure, and interest made them more profitable; but this interest, which
was attended with much inconvenience, disappeared after the first issue.
Such was the origin of the paper money issued under so much necessity, and
with so much prudence, which enabled the revolution to accomplish such
great things, and which was brought into discredit by causes that belonged
less to its nature than to the subsequent use made of it.
When the clergy saw by a decree of the 29th of December the administration
of church property transferred to the municipalities, the sale they were
about to make of it to the value of four hundred millions of francs, and
the creation of a paper money calculated to facilitate this spoliation,
and render it definitive, it left nothing undone to secure the
intervention of God in the cause of its wealth. It made a last attempt: it
offered to realize in its own name the loan of four hundred millions of
francs, which was rejected, because otherwise, after having decided that
it was not the proprietor of church property, it would thus have again
been admitted to be so. It then sought every means of impeding the
operations of the municipalities. In the south, it raised catholics
against protestants; in the pulpit, it alarmed consciences; in the
confessional, it treated sales as sacrilegious, and in the tribune it
strove to render the sentiments of the assembly suspected. It excited as
much as possible religious questions for the purpose of compromising the
assembly, and confounding the cause of its own interest with that of
religion. The abuses and inutility of monastic vows were at this period
admitted by every one, even by the clergy. At their abolition on the 13th
of February, 1790, the bishop of Nancy proposed incidentally and
perfidiously that the catholic religion alone should have a public
worship. The assembly were indignant at the motives that suggested such a
proposition, and it was abandoned. But the same motion was again brought
forward in another sitting, and after stormy debates the assembly declared
that from respect to the Supreme Being and the catholic religion, the only
one supported at the expense of the state, it conceived it ought not to
decide upon the question submitted to it.
Such was the disposition of the clergy, when, in the months of June and
July, 1790, the assembly turned its attention to its internal
organization. The clergy waited with impatience for this opportunity of
exciting a schism. This project, the adoption of which caused so much
evil, went to re-establish the church on its ancient basis, and to restore
the purity of its doctrine; it was not the work of philosophers, but of
austere Christians, who wished to support religion by the state, and to
make them concur mutually in promoting its happiness. The reduction of
bishoprics to the same number as the departments, the conformity of the
ecclesiastical circumscription with the civil circumscription, the
nomination of bishops by electors, who also chose deputies and
administrators, the suppression of chapters, and the substitution of
vicars for canons, were the chief features of this plan; there was nothing
in it that attacked the dogmas or worship of the church. For a long time
the bishops and other ecclesiastics had been nominated by the people; as
for diocesan limits, the operation was purely material, and in no respect
religious. It moreover generously provided for the support of the members
of the church, and if the high dignitaries saw their revenues reduced, the
curés, who formed the most numerous portion, had theirs augmented.
But a pretext was wanting, and the civil constitution of the clergy was
eagerly seized upon. From the outset of the discussion, the archbishop of
Aix protested against the principles of the ecclesiastical committee. In
his opinion, the appointment or suspension of bishops by civil authority
was opposed to discipline; and when the decree was put to the vote, the
bishop of Clermont recapitulated the principles advanced by the archbishop
of Aix, and left the hall at the head of all the dissentient members. The
decree passed, but the clergy declared war against the revolution. From
that moment it leagued more closely with the dissentient nobility. Equally
reduced to the common condition, the two privileged classes employed all
their means to stop the progress of reform.
The departments were scarcely formed when agents were sent by them to
assemble the electors, and try new nominations. They did not hope to
obtain a favourable choice, but aimed at fomenting divisions between the
assembly and the departments. This project was denounced from the tribune,
and failed as soon as it was made known. Its authors then went to work in
another way. The period allotted to the deputies of the states-general had
expired, their power having been limited to one year, according to the
desire of the districts. The aristocrats availed themselves of this
circumstance to require a fresh election of the assembly. Had they gained
this point, they would have acquired a great advantage, and with this view
they themselves appealed to the sovereignty of the people. "Without
doubt," replied Chapelier, "all sovereignty rests with the people; but
this principle has no application to the present case; it would be
destroying the constitution and liberty to renew the assembly before the
constitution is completed. This is, indeed, the hope of those who wish to
see liberty and the constitution perish, and to witness the return of the
distinction of orders, of prodigality in the public expenditure, and of
the abuses that spring from despotism." At this moment all eyes were
turned to the Right, and rested on the abbé Maury. "_Send those people to
the Châtelet,_" cried the latter, sharply; "_or if you do not know them,
do not speak of them._" "The constitution," continued Chapelier, "can only
be made by one assembly. Besides, the former electors no longer exist; the
bailiwicks are absorbed in the departments, the orders are no longer
separate. The clause respecting the limitation of power is consequently
without value; it will therefore be contrary to the constitution, if the
deputies do not retain their seats in this assembly; their oath commands
them to continue there, and public interest requires it."
"You entangle us in sophisms," replied the abbé Maury; "how long have we
been a national convention? You talk of the oath we took on the 20th of
June, without considering that it cannot weaken that which we made to our
constituents. Besides, gentlemen, the constitution is completed; you have,
only now to declare that the king enjoys the plenitude of the executive
power. We are here for the sole purpose of securing to the French nation
the right of influencing its legislation, of establishing the principle
that taxation shall be consented to by the people, and of securing our
liberty. Yes, the constitution is made; and I will oppose every decree
calculated to limit the rights of the people over their representatives.
The founders of liberty ought to respect the liberty of the nation; the
nation is above us all, and we destroy our authority by limiting the
national authority."
The abbé Maury's speech was received with loud applause from the Right.
Mirabeau immediately ascended the tribune. "It is asked," said he, "how
long the deputies of the people have been a national convention? I answer,
from the day when, finding the door of their session-house surrounded by
soldiers, they went and assembled where they could, and swore to perish
rather than betray or abandon the rights of the nation. Whatever our
powers were, that day their nature was changed; and whatever powers we may
have exercised, our efforts and labours have rendered them legitimate, and
the adhesion of the nation has sanctified them. You all remember the
saying of the great man of antiquity, who had neglected legal forms to
save his country. Summoned by a factious tribune to declare whether he had
observed the laws, he replied, 'I swear I have saved my country!'
Gentlemen," he exclaimed, turning to the deputies of the commons, "I swear
that you have saved France!"
The assembly then rose by a spontaneous movement, and declared that the
session should not close till their task was accomplished.
Anti-revolutionary efforts were increasing, at the same time, without the
assembly. Attempts were made to seduce or disorganize the army, but the
assembly took prudent measures in this respect. It gained the affections
of the troops by rendering promotion independent of the court, and of
titles of nobility. The count d'Artois and the prince de Condé, who had
retired to Turin after the 14th of July, corresponded with Lyons and the
south; but the emigrants not having yet the external influence they
afterwards acquired at Coblentz, and failing to meet with internal
support, all their efforts were vain. The attempts at insurrection,
originating with the clergy in Languedoc, had as little effect. They
brought on some transient disturbances, but did not effect a religious
war. Time is necessary to form a party; still more is required to induce
it to decide on serious hostilities. A more practicable design was that of
carrying off the king and conveying him to Peronne. The marquis de Favras,
with the support of _Monsieur_, the king's brother, was preparing to
execute it, when it was discovered. The Châtelet condemned to death this
intrepid adventurer, who had failed in his enterprise, through undertaking
it with too much display. The king's flight, after the events of October,
could only be effected furtively, as it subsequently happened at Varennes.
The position of the court was equivocal and embarrassing. It encouraged
every anti-revolutionary enterprise and avowed none; it felt more than
ever its weakness and dependence on the assembly; and while desirous of
throwing off the yoke, feared to make the attempt because success appeared
difficult. Accordingly, it excited opposition without openly co-operating
in it; with some it dreamed of the restoration of the ancient régìme, with
others it only aimed at modifying the revolution. Mirabeau had been
recently in treaty with it. After having been one of the chief authors of
reform, he sought to give it stability by enchaining faction. His object
was to convert the court to the revolution, not to give up the revolution
to the court. The support he offered was constitutional; he could not
offer any other; for his power depended on his popularity, and his
popularity on his principles. But he was wrong in suffering it to be
bought. Had not his immense necessities obliged him to accept money and
sell his counsels, he would not have been more blameable than the
unalterable Lafayette, the Lameths and the Girondins, who successively
negotiated with it. But none of them gained the confidence of the court;
it only had recourse to them in extremity. By their means it endeavoured
to suspend the revolution, while by the means of the aristocracy it tried
to destroy it. Of all the popular leaders, Mirabeau had perhaps the
greatest ascendancy over the court, because he was the most winning, and
had the strongest mind.
The assembly worked unceasingly at the constitution, in the midst of these
intrigues and plots. It decreed the new judicial organization of France.
All the new magistracies were temporary. Under the absolute monarchy, all
powers emanated from the throne, and all functionaries were appointed by
the king; under the constitutional monarchy, all powers emanating from the
people, the functionaries were to be appointed by it. The throne alone was
transmissible; the other powers being the property neither of a man nor of
a family, were neither of life-tenure, nor hereditary. The legislation of
that period depended on one sole principle, the sovereignty of the nation.
The judicial functions had themselves that changeable character. Trial by
jury, a democratic institution formerly common to nearly all the
continent, but which in England alone had survived the encroachments of
feudalism and the throne, was introduced into criminal causes. For civil
causes special judges were nominated. Fixed courts were established, two
courts of appeal to prevent error, and a _cour de cassation_ intended to
secure the preservation of the protecting forms of the law. This
formidable power, when it proceeds from the throne, can only be
independent by being fixed; but it must be temporary when it proceeds from
the people; because, while depending on all, it depends upon no one.
In another matter, quite as important, the right of making peace or war,
the assembly decided a new and delicate question, and this in a sure,
just, and prompt manner, after one of the most luminous and eloquent
discussions that ever distinguished its sittings. As peace and war
belonged more to action than to will, it confided, contrary to the usual
rule, the initiative to the king. He who was best able to judge of its
fitness was to propose the question, but it was left to the legislative
body to decide it.
The popular torrent, after having burst forth against the ancient regime,
gradually subsided into its bed; new dykes restrained it on all sides. The
government of the revolution was rapidly becoming established. The
assembly had given to the new régime its monarch, its national
representation, its territorial division, its armed force, its municipal
and administrative power, its popular tribunals, its currency, its clergy;
it had made an arrangement with respect to its debt, and it had found
means to reconstruct property without injustice.
The 14th of July approached: that day was regarded by the nation as the
anniversary of its deliverance, and preparations were made to celebrate it
with a solemnity calculated to elevate the souls of the citizens, and to
strengthen the common bonds of union. A confederation of the whole kingdom
was appointed to take place in the Champ de Mars; and there, in the open
air, the deputies sent by the eighty-three departments, the national
representatives, the Parisian guard, and the monarch, were to take the
oath to the constitution. By way of prelude to this patriotic fête, the
popular members of the nobility proposed the abolition of titles; and the
assembly witnessed another sitting similar to that of the 4th of August.
Titles, armorial bearings, liveries, and orders of knighthood, were
abolished on the 20th of June, and vanity, as power had previously done,
lost its privileges.
This sitting established equality everywhere, and made things agree with
words, by destroying all the pompous paraphernalia of other times.
Formerly titles had designated functions; armorial bearings had
distinguished powerful families; liveries had been worn by whole armies of
vassals; orders of knighthood had defended the state against foreign foes,
Europe against Islamism; but now, nothing of this remained. Titles had
lost their truth and their fitness; nobility, after ceasing to be a
magistracy, had even ceased to be an ornament; and power, like glory, was
henceforth to spring from plebeian ranks. But whether the aristocracy set
more value on their titles than on their privileges, or whether they only
awaited a pretext for openly declaring themselves, this last measure, more
than any other, decided the emigration and its attacks. It was for the
nobility what the civil constitution had been for the clergy, an occasion,
rather than a cause of hostility.
The 14th of July arrived, and the revolution witnessed few such glorious
days--the weather only did not correspond with this magnificent fête. The
deputies of all the departments were presented to the king, who received
them with much affability; and he, on his part, met also with the most
touching testimonies of love, but as a constitutional king. "Sire," said
the leader of the Breton deputation, kneeling on one knee, and presenting
his sword, "I place in your hands the faithful sword of the brave Bretons:
it shall only be reddened by the blood of your foes." Louis XVI. raised
and embraced him, and returned the sword. "It cannot be in better hands
than in those of my brave Bretons," he replied; "I have never doubted
their loyalty and affection; assure them that I am the father and brother,
the friend of all Frenchmen." "Sire," returned the deputy, "every
Frenchman loves, and will continue to love you, because you are a citizen-
king."
The confederation was to take place in the Champ de Mars. The immense
preparations were scarcely completed in time; all Paris had been engaged
for several weeks in getting the arrangements ready by the 14th. At seven
in the morning, the procession of electors, of the representatives of the
corporation, of the presidents of districts, of the national assembly, of
the Parisian guard, of the deputies of the army, and of the federates of
the departments, set out in complete order from the site of the Bastille.
The presence of all these national corps, the floating banners, the
patriotic inscriptions, the varied costumes, the sounds of music, the joy
of the crowd, rendered the procession a most imposing one. It traversed
the city, and crossed the Seine, amidst a volley of artillery, over a
bridge of boats, which had been thrown across it the preceding day. It
entered the Champ de Mars under a triumphal arch, adorned with patriotic
inscriptions. Each body took the station assigned it in excellent order,
and amidst shouts of applause.
The vast space of the Champ de Mars was inclosed by raised seats of turf,
occupied by four hundred thousand spectators. An antique altar was erected
in the middle; and around it, on a vast amphitheatre, were the king, his
family, the assembly, and the corporation. The federates of the
departments were ranged in order under their banners; the deputies of the
army and the national guards were in their ranks, and under their ensigns.
The bishop of Autun ascended the altar in pontifical robes; four hundred
priests in white copes, and decorated with flowing tricoloured sashes,
were posted at the four corners of the altar. Mass was celebrated amid the
sounds of military music; and then the bishop of Autun blessed the
oriflamme, and the eighty-three banners.
A profound silence now reigned in the vast inclosure, and Lafayette,
appointed that day to the command in chief of all the national guards of
the kingdom, advanced first to take the civic oath. Borne on the arms of
grenadiers to the altar of the country, amidst the acclamations of the
people, he exclaimed with a loud voice, in his own name, and that of the
federates and troops: "We swear eternal fidelity to the nation, the law,
and the king; to maintain to the utmost of our power the constitution
decreed by the national assembly, and accepted by the king; and to remain
united with every Frenchman by the indissoluble ties of fraternity."
Forthwith the firing of cannon, prolonged cries of "Vive la nation!" "Vive
le roi!" and sounds of music, mingled in the air. The president of the
national assembly took the same oath, and all the deputies repeated it
with one voice. Then Louis XVI. rose and said: "I, king of the French,
swear to employ all the power delegated to me by the constitutional act of
the state, in maintaining the constitution decreed by the national
assembly and accepted by me." The queen, carried away by the enthusiasm of
the moment, rose, lifted up the dauphin in her arms, and showing him to
the people, exclaimed: "Behold my son, he unites with me in the same
sentiments." At that moment the banners were lowered, the acclamations of
the people were heard, and the subjects believed in the sincerity of the
monarch, the monarch in the affection of the subjects, and this happy day
closed with a hymn of thanksgiving.
The fêtes of the confederation were protracted for some days.
Illuminations, balls, and sports were given by the city of Paris to the
deputies of the departments. A ball took place on the spot where had
stood, a year before, the Bastille; gratings, fetters, ruins, were
observed here and there, and on the door was the inscription, "_Ici on
danse_," a striking contrast with the ancient destination of the spot. A
contemporary observes: "They danced indeed with joy and security on the
ground where so many tears had been shed; where courage, genius, and
innocence had so often groaned; where so often the cries of despair had
been stifled." A medal was struck to commemorate the confederation; and at
the termination of the fêtes the deputies returned to their departments.
The confederation only suspended the hostility of parties. Petty intrigues
were resumed in the assembly as well as out of doors. The duke of Orleans
had returned from his mission, or, more strictly speaking, from his exile.
The inquiry respecting the events of the 5th and 6th of October, of which
he and Mirabeau were accused as the authors, had been conducted by the
Châtelets inquiry, which had been suspended, was now resumed. By this
attack the court again displayed its want of foresight; for it ought to
have proved the accusation or not to have made it. The assembly having
decided on giving up the guilty parties, had it found any such, declared
there was no ground for proceeding; and Mirabeau, after an overwhelming
outburst against the whole affair, obliged the Right to be silent, and
thus arose triumphantly from an accusation which had been made expressly
to intimidate him.
They attacked not only a few deputies but the assembly itself. The court
intrigued against it, but the Right drove this to exaggeration. "We like
its decrees," said the abbé Maury; "we want three or four more of them."
Hired libellists sold, at its very doors, papers calculated to deprive it
of the respect of the people; the ministers blamed and obstructed its
progress. Necker, still haunted by the recollection of his former
ascendancy, addressed to it memorials, in which he opposed its decrees and
gave it advice. This minister could not accustom himself to a secondary
part: he would not fall in with the abrupt plans of the assembly, so
entirely opposed to his ideas of gradual reform. At length, convinced or
weary of the inutility of his efforts, he left Paris, after resigning, on
the 4th of September, 1790, and obscurely traversed those provinces which
a year before he had gone through in triumph. In revolutions, men are
easily forgotten, for the nation sees many in its varied course. If we
would not find them ungrateful, we must not cease for an instant to serve
according to their own desire.
On the other hand, the nobility which had found a new subject of
discontent in the abolition of titles, continued its anti-revolutionary
efforts. As it did not succeed in exciting the people, who, from their
position, found the recent changes very beneficial, it had recourse to
means which it considered more certain; it quitted the kingdom, with the
intention of returning thither with all Europe as its armed ally; but
while waiting till a system of emigration could be organised, while
waiting for the appearance of foreign foes to the revolution, it continued
to arouse enemies to it in the interior of the kingdom. The troops, as we
have before observed, had already for some time been tampered with in
various ways. The new military code was favourable to the soldiers;
promotion formerly granted to the nobility was now granted to seniority.
Most of the officers were attached to the ancient régime, nor did they
conceal the fact. Compelled to take what had become the common oath, the
oath of fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king, some left the army,
and increased the number of emigrants, while others endeavoured to win the
soldiers over to their party.
General Bouillé was of this number. After having long refused to take the
civic oath, he did so at last with this intention. He had a numerous body
of troops under his command near the northern frontier; he was clever,
resolute, attached to the king, opposed to the revolution, such as it had
then become, though the friend of reform; a circumstance that afterwards
brought him into suspicion at Coblentz. He kept his army isolated from the
citizens, that it might remain faithful, and that it might not be infected
with the spirit of insubordination which they communicated to the troops.
By skilful management, and the ascendancy of a great mind, he also
succeeded in retaining the confidence and attachment of his soldiers. It
was not thus elsewhere. The officers were the objects of a general
dislike; they were accused of diminishing the pay, and having no concern
for the great body of the troops. The prevailing opinions had also
something to do with this dissatisfaction. These combined causes led to
revolts among the men; that of Nancy, in August, 1790, produced great
alarm, and became almost the signal of a civil war. Three regiments, those
of Châteauvieux, Maître-de-camp, and the King's own, rebelled against
their chiefs. Bouillé was ordered to march against them; he did so at the
head of the garrison and national guard of Metz. After an animated
skirmish, he subdued them. The assembly congratulated him; but Paris,
which saw in Bouillé a conspirator, was thrown into fresh agitation at
this intelligence. Crowds collected, and the impeachment of the ministers
who had given orders to Bouillé to march upon Nancy was clamorously
demanded. Lafayette, however, succeeded in allaying this ebullition,
supported by the assembly, which, finding itself placed between a counter-
revolution and anarchy, opposed both with equal wisdom and courage.
The aristocracy triumphed at the sight of the difficulties which perplexed
the assembly. They imagined that it would be compelled to be dependent on
the multitude, or deprive itself entirely of its support; and in either
case the return to the ancient régime appeared to them short and easy. The
clergy had its share in this work. The sale of church property, which it
took every means to impede, was effected at a higher price than that
fixed. The people, delivered from tithes and reassured as to the national
debt, were far from listening to the angry suggestions of the priests;
they accordingly made use of the civil constitution of the clergy to
excite a schism. We have seen that this decree of the assembly did not
affect either the discipline or the creed of the church. The king
sanctioned it on the 26th of December; but the bishops, who sought to
cover their interests with the mantle of religion, declared that it
encroached on the spiritual authority. The pope, consulted as to this
purely political measure, refused his assent to it, which the king
earnestly sought, and encouraged the opposition of the priests. The latter
decided that they would not concur in the establishment of the civil
constitution; that those of them who might be suppressed would protest
against this uncanonical act, that every bishopric created without the
concurrence of the pope should be null, and that the metropolitans should
refuse institution to bishops appointed according to civil forms.
The assembly strengthened this league by attempting to frustrate it. If,
contrary to their real desire, it had left the dissentient priests to
themselves, they would not have found the elements of a religious war. But
the assembly decreed that the ecclesiastics should swear fidelity to the
nation, the law, and the king, and to maintain the civil constitution of
the clergy. Refusal to take this oath was to be attended by the
substitution of others in their bishoprics and cures. The assembly hoped
that the higher clergy from interest, and the lower clergy from ambition,
would adopt this measure.
The bishops, on the contrary, thought that all the ecclesiastics would
follow their example, and that by refusing to swear, they would leave the
state without public worship, and the people without priests. The result
satisfied the expectations of neither party; the majority of the bishops
and curés of the assembly refused to take the oath, but a few bishops and
many curés took it. The dissentient incumbents were deprived, and the
electors nominated successors to them, who received canonical institution
from the bishops of Autun and Lida. But the deprived ecclesiastics refused
to abandon their functions, and declared their successors intruders, the
sacraments administred by them null, and all Christians who should venture
to recognise them excommunicated. They did not leave their dioceses; they
issued charges, and excited the people to disobey the laws; and thus an
affair of private interest became first a matter of religion and then a
matter of party. There were two bodies of clergy, one constitutional, the
other refractory; they had each its partisans, and treated each other as
rebels and heretics. According to passion or interest, religion became an
instrument or an obstacle; and while the priests made fanatics the
revolution made infidels. The people, not yet infected with this malady of
the upper classes, lost, especially in towns, the faith of their fathers,
from the imprudence of those who placed them between the revolution and
their religion. "The bishops," said the marquis de Ferrières, who will not
be suspected, "refused to fall in with any arrangements, and by their
guilty intrigues closed every approach to reconciliation; sacrificing the
catholic religion to an insane obstinacy, and a discreditable attachment
to their wealth."
Every party sought to gain the people; it was courted as sovereign. After
attempting to influence it by religion, another means was employed, that
of the clubs. At that period, clubs were private assemblies, in which the
measures of government, the business of the state, and the decrees of the
assembly were discussed; their deliberations had no authority, but they
exercised a certain influence. The first club owed its origin to the
Breton deputies, who already met together at Versailles to consider the
course of proceeding they should take. When the national representatives
were transferred from Versailles to Paris, the Breton deputies and those
of the assembly who were of their views held their sittings in the old
convent of the Jacobins, which subsequently gave its name to their
meetings. It did not at first cease to be a preparatory assembly, but as
all things increase in time, the Jacobin club did not confine itself to
the influencing the assembly; it sought also to influence the municipality
and the people, and received as associates members of the municipality and
common citizens. Its organization became more regular, its action more
powerful; its sittings were regularly reported in the papers; it created
branch clubs in the provinces, and raised by the side of legal power
another power which first counselled and then conducted it.
The Jacobin club, as it lost its primitive character and became a popular
assembly, had been forsaken by part of its founders. The latter
established another society on the plan of the old one, under the name of
the club of '89. Sieyès, Chapelier, Lafayette, La Rochefoucauld directed
it, as Lameth and Barnave directed that of the Jacobins. Mirabeau belonged
to both, and by both was equally courted. These clubs, of which the one
prevailed in the assembly and the other amongst the people, were attached
to the new order of things, though in different degrees. The aristocracy
sought to attack the revolution with its own arms; it opened royalist
clubs to oppose the popular clubs. That first established under the name
of the _Club des Impartiaux_ could not last because it addressed itself to
no class opinion. Reappearing under the name of the _Club Monarchique_, it
included among its members all those whose views it represented. It sought
to render itself popular with the lower classes, and distributed bread;
but far from accepting its overtures, the people considered such
establishments as a counter-revolutionary movement. The people disturbed
their sittings, and obliged them several times to change their place of
meeting. At length, the municipal authority found itself obliged, in
January, 1791, to close this club, which had been the cause of several
riots.
The distrust of the multitude was extreme; the departure of the king's
aunts, to which it attached an exaggerated importance, increased its
uneasiness, and led it to suppose another departure was preparing. These
suspicions were not unfounded, and they occasioned a kind of rising which
the anti-revolutionists sought to turn to account by carrying off the
king. This project failed, owing to the resolution and skill of Lafayette.
While the crowd went to Vincennes to demolish the dungeon which they said
communicated with the Tuileries, and would favour the flight of the king,
more than six hundred persons armed with swords and daggers entered the
Tuileries to compel the king to flee. Lafayette, who had repaired to
Vincennes to disperse the multitude, returned to quell the anti-
revolutionists of the château, after dissipating the mob of the popular
party, and by this second expedition he regained the confidence which his
first had lost him.
The attempt rendered the escape of Louis XVI. more feared than ever.
Accordingly, a short time after, when he wished to go to Saint Cloud, he
was prevented by the crowd and even by his own guard, despite the efforts
of Lafayette, who endeavoured to make them respect the law, and the
liberty of the monarch. The assembly on its side, after having decreed the
inviolability of the prince, after having regulated his constitutional
guard, and assigned the regency to the nearest male heir to the crown,
declared that his flight from the kingdom would lead to his dethronement.
The increasing emigration, the open avowal of its objects, and the
threatening attitude of the European cabinets, all cherished the fear that
the king might adopt such a determination.
Then, for the first time, the assembly sought to stop the progress of
emigration by a decree; but this decree was a difficult question. If they
punished those who left the kingdom, they violated the maxims of liberty,
rendered sacred by the declaration of rights; if they did not raise
obstacles to emigration, they endangered the safety of France, as the
nobles merely quitted it in order to invade it. In the assembly, setting
aside those who favoured emigration, some looked only at the right, others
only at the danger, and every one sided with or opposed the restrictive
law, according to his mode of viewing the subject. Those who desired the
law, wished it to be mild; but only one law could be practicable at such a
moment, and the assembly shrank from enacting it. This law, by the
arbitrary order of a committee of three members, was to pronounce a
sentence of civil death on the fugitive, and the confiscation of his
property. "The horror expressed on the reading of this project," cried
Mirabeau, "proves that this is a law worthy of being placed in the code of
Draco, and cannot find place among the decrees of the national assembly of
France. I proclaim that I shall consider myself released from every oath
of fidelity I have made towards those who may be infamous enough to
nominate a dictatorial commission. The popularity I covet, and which I
have the honour to enjoy, is not a feeble reed; I wish it to take root in
the soil, based on justice and liberty." The exterior position was not yet
sufficiently alarming for the adoption of such a measure of safety and
revolutionary defence.
Mirabeau did not long enjoy the popularity which he imagined he was so
sure of. That was the last sitting he attended. A few days afterwards he
terminated a life worn out by passions and by toil. His death, which
happened on the 2nd of March, 1791, was considered a public calamity; all
Paris attended his funeral; there was a general mourning throughout
France, and his remains were deposited in the receptacle which had just
been consecrated _aux grands hommes_, in the name of _la patrie
reconnaissante_. No one succeeded him in power and popularity; and for a
long time, in difficult discussions, the eyes of the assembly would turn
towards the seat from whence they had been accustomed to hear the
commanding eloquence which terminated their debates. Mirabeau, after
having assisted the revolution with his daring in seasons of trial, and
with his powerful reasoning since its victory, died seasonably. He was
revolving vast designs; he wished to strengthen the throne, and
consolidate the revolution; two attempts extremely difficult at such a
time. It is to be feared that royalty, if he had made it independent,
would have put down the revolution; or, if he had failed, that the
revolution would have put down royalty. It is, perhaps, impossible to
convert an ancient power into a new order; perhaps a revolution must be
prolonged in order to become legitimate, and the throne, as it recovers,
acquire the novelty of the other institutions.
From the 5th and 6th of October, 1789, to the month of April, 1791, the
national assembly completed the reorganization of France; the court gave
itself up to petty intrigues and projects of flight; the privileged
classes sought for new means of power, those which they formerly possessed
having been successively taken from them. They took advantage of all the
opportunities of disorder which circumstances furnished them with, to
attack the new régime and restore the old, by means of anarchy. At the
opening of the law courts the nobility caused the Chambres de vacations to
protest; when the provinces were abolished, it made the orders protest. As
soon as the departments were formed, it tried new elections; when the old
writs had expired, it sought the dissolution of the assembly; when the new
military code passed, it endeavoured to excite the defection of the
officers; lastly, all these means of opposition failing to effect the
success of its designs, it emigrated, to excite Europe against the
revolution. The clergy, on its side, discontented with the loss of its
possessions still more than with the ecclesiastical constitution, sought
to destroy the new order by insurrections, and to bring on insurrections
by a schism. Thus it was during this epoch that parties became gradually
disunited, and that the two classes hostile to the revolution prepared the
elements of civil and foreign war.