The Reveillon Riot.--Opening of the States-general.--The Queen is insulted
by the Partisans of the Duc d'Orléans.--Discussions as to the Number of
Chambers.--Career and Character of Mirabeau.--Necker rejects his Support.
--He determines to revenge himself.--Death of the Dauphin.
The meeting of the States-general, as has been already seen, was fixed for
the 4th of May, 1789; and, as if it were fated that the bloody character
of the period now to be inaugurated should be displayed from the very
outset, the elections for the city of Paris, which were only held in the
preceding week, were stained with a riot so formidable as to be commonly
spoken of in the records of the time as an insurrection.[1]
One of the candidates for the representation of the Third Estate was a
paper-maker of the name of Reveillon, a man eminent for his charity and
general liberality, but one who was believed to regard the views of the
extreme reformers with disfavor. He was so popular with his own workmen,
who were very numerous, and with their friends, who knew his character
from them, that he was generally expected to succeed. The opposite party,
who had candidates of their own, and had the support of the purse of the
Duc d'Orléans, were determined that he should not; and no way seemed so
sure as to murder him. Bands of ferocious-looking ruffians were brought in
from the country districts, armed with heavy bludgeons, and, as was
afterward learned, well supplied with money; and on the morning of the
28th of April news was brought to the Baron de Besenval, the commander of
the Royal Guards, that a mob of several thousand men had collected in the
streets, who had read a mock sentence, professing to have been passed by
the Third Estate, which condemned Reveillon to be hanged, after which they
had burned him in effigy, and then attacked his house, which they were
sacking and destroying. They even ventured to attack the first company of
soldiers whom De Besenval sent to the rescue; and it was not till he
dispatched a battalion with a couple of field-pieces to the spot that the
plunderers were expelled from the house and the riot was quelled. Nearly
five hundred of the mob were killed, but when the Parliament proceeded to
set on foot a judicial inquiry into the cause of the tumult, Necker
prevailed on the secretary of state to suppress the investigation, as he
feared to exasperate D'Orléans further by giving publicity to his
machinations, which he did not yet suspect either the extent or the
object.[2]
A momentary tranquility was, however, restored at Paris; and all eyes were
turned from the capital to Versailles, where the first few days of May
were devoted to the receptions of the States-general by the king and
queen, ceremonies which might have had a good effect, since the bitterest
adversaries of the court were favorably impressed by the grace and
affability of the queen; but which many shrewd judges afterward believed
to have had a contrary influence, from the offense taken by the
representatives of the Commons at some of the details of the ancient
etiquette, which on so solemn an occasion was revived in all its stately
strictness. The dignitaries of the Church wore their most sumptuous robes.
The Nobles glittered with silk and gold lace; jeweled clasps fastened
plumes of feathers in their hats; orders glittered on their breasts; and
many a precious stone sparkled in the hilts of their swords. The
representatives of the Commons were allowed neither feathers, nor
embroidery, nor swords; but were forced to content themselves with plain
black cloaks, and an unadorned homeliness of attire, which seemed as if
intended to exclude all idea of their being the equals of those other
orders of which they had for a moment become the colleagues. And, in a
similar spirit it was arranged that, after the folding-doors of the saloon
in which the sovereigns were awaiting them were thrown wide open to admit
the representatives of the higher orders, the Commons were let in through
a side door. And though in the eyes of persons habituated to the
ceremonious niceties of court life these distinctions seemed matters of
course, and, as such, unworthy of notice, it can hardly be wondered at if
they were galling to men accustomed only to the simpler manners of a
provincial town; and who, proud of their new position and deeply impressed
with its importance, fancied they saw in them a settled intention to
degrade both them and their constituents by thus stamping them with a
badge of inferiority before all the spectators.
The opening of the States-general was fixed for the 5th of May, and on the
day before, which was Sunday, a solemn mass was performed at the principal
church in Versailles, that of Notre Dame; after which the congregation
proceeded to another church, that of St. Louis, to hear a sermon from the
Bishop of Nancy. It was a stately procession that moved from one church to
the other, and it was afterward remembered as the very last in which the
royal pair appeared before their subjects with the undiminished
magnificence of ancient ceremony. First, after a splendid escort of
troops, came the members of the States in their several orders; then the
king marched by himself; the queen followed; and behind her came the
princes and princesses of the royal family of the blood, the officers of
state and of the household, and companies of the Body-guard brought up the
rear. The acclamations of the spectators were loud as the deputies of the
States, and especially as the representatives of the Commons, passed on;
loud, too, as the king; moved forward, bearing himself with unusual
dignity; but, when the queen advanced, though still the main body of the
people cheered with sincere respect, a gang of ruffians, among whom were
several women,[3] shouted out "Long live the Duke of Orléans!" in her ear,
with so menacing an accent that, she nearly fainted with terror. By a
strong mastery over herself she shook off the agitation, which was only
perceived by her immediate attendants; but the disloyal feeling thus shown
toward her at the outset was a sad omen of the spirit in which one party
at least was prepared to view the measures of the Government; and, so far
as she was concerned, of the degree in which her enemies had succeeded in
poisoning the minds of the people against her, as the person whose
resistance to their meditated encroachments on the royal authority was
likely to prove the most formidable.
It was a significant hint, too, of the projects already formed by the
worthless prince whose adherents these ruffians proclaimed themselves. The
Duc d'Orléans conceived himself to have lately received a fresh
provocation, and an additional motive for revenge. His eldest son, the Duc
de Chartres,[4] was now a boy of sixteen, and he had proposed to the king
to give him Madame Royale in marriage; an idea which the queen, who held
his character in deserved abhorrence, had rejected with very decided marks
of displeasure. He was also stimulated by views of personal ambition. The
history of England had been recently studied by many persons in France
besides the king and queen; and there were not wanting advisers to point
out to the duke that the revolution which had taken place in England
exactly a century before had owed its success to the dethronement of the
reigning sovereign and the substitution of another member of the royal
family in his place. As William of Orange was, after the king's own
children, the next heir to James II., so was the Duc d'Orléans now the
next heir, after the king's children and brothers, to Louis XVI.; and for
the next five months there can be no doubt that he and his partisans, who
numbered in their body some of the most influential members of the States-
general, kept constantly in view the hope of placing him on the throne
from which they were to depose his cousin.
The next day the States were formally opened by Louis in person. The place
of meeting was a spacious hall which, two years before, had been used for
the meeting of the Notables. It had been the scene of many a splendid
spectacle in times past, but had never before witnessed so imposing or
momentous a ceremony. The town itself had not risen into notice till the
memory of the preceding States-general had almost passed away. And now,
after all the deputies had ranged themselves to receive their sovereign,
the representatives of the clergy on the right of the throne, the Nobles
on the left, the Commons in denser masses at the bottom of the hall;[5] as
the king, accompanied by the queen, leading two of her children[6] by the
hand, and attended by all the princes of the royal family and of the
blood, by the dukes and peers of the kingdom, the ministers and great
officers of state, entered and took his seat on the throne, the most
unimpassioned spectator must have felt that he was beholding a scene at
once magnificent and solemn; and one, from long desuetude, as novel as if
it had been wholly unprecedented, such as might well inaugurate a new
policy or a new constitution.
Could those who beheld it as spectators, could those who bore a part in
the solemnity, have looked into futurity; could they have divined that no
other hall would ever again see that virtuous and beneficent king
surrounded with that pomp, or received with that reverential homage which
was now paid to him as as unquestioned right; nay, that the end, of which
this day was the beginning, scarcely one single person of all those now
present, whether men in the flower of their strength, women in the pride
of their beauty, or even children in their infantine innocence and grace,
would live to behold; but that sovereigns and subjects were destined,
almost without exception, to perish with circumstances of unutterable,
unimaginable horror and misery, as the direct consequence of this day's
pageant; we may well believe that the most sanguine of those who now
greeted it with eager hope and exultation would rather have averted his
eyes from the ill-omened spectacle, and would have preferred to bear the
worst evils of which he was anticipating the abolition, to bringing on his
country the calamities which were about to fall upon it.
A large state arm-chair, a little lower than the throne, had been set
beside it for the queen; the princes and princesses were ranged on each
side on a row of chairs without arms; and, when all had taken their
places, the king opened the session with a short speech, leaving the real
business to be unfolded at greater length by his ministers. In order to
feel assured of the proper emphasis and expression, he had rehearsed his
speech frequently to the queen; and, as he now delivered it with unusual
dignity and gracefulness, it was received with frequent acclamations,
though some of those who were watching all that passed with the greatest
anxiety fancied that one or two compliments to the queen which it
contained met with a colder response; while, at its close, the
representatives of the Third Estate gave an indication of their feeling
toward the other orders, and provoked a display on their part which
promised little cordiality to their deliberations. The king, who had
uncovered himself while speaking, on resuming his seat replaced his hat.
The Nobles, according to the ancient etiquette, replaced theirs; and many
of the Commons at once asserted their equality with them by also covering
themselves. Such an assumption was a breach of all established custom. The
Nobles were indignant, and with angry shouts demanded the removal of the
Commons' hats. They were met with louder clamor by the Commons, and in a
moment the whole hall was in an uproar, which was only allayed by the
presence of mind of Louis himself, who, as if oppressed by the heat, laid
aside his own hat, when, as a matter of course, the Nobles followed his
example. The deputies of the Commons did the same, and peace was restored.
The king's speech was followed by another short one from the keeper of the
seals, which received but little attention; and by one of prodigious
length from Necker, which was equally injudicious and unacceptable to his
hearers, both in what it said and in what it omitted. He never mentioned
the question of constitutional reform. He said nothing of what the
Commons, at least, thought still more important--the number of chambers in
which the members were to meet; and, though he dilated at the most profuse
length on the condition of the finances, and on his own success in
re-establishing public credit, they were by no means pleased to hear him
assert that success had removed any absolute necessity for their meeting
at all, and that they had only been called together in fulfillment of the
king's promise, that so the sovereign might establish a better harmony
between the different parts of the Constitution.
Before any business could be proceeded with, it was necessary for the
members to have the writs of their elections properly certified and
registered, for which they were to meet on the following day. We need not
here detail the artifices and assumptions by which the members of the
Third Estate put forward pretensions which were designed to make them
masters of the whole Assembly; nor is it necessary to unfold at length the
combination of audacity and craft, aided by the culpable weakness of
Necker, by which they ultimately carried the point they contended for,
providing that the three orders should deliberate and vote together as one
united body in one chamber. Emboldened by their success, they even
proceeded to a step which probably not one among them had originally
contemplated; and, as if one of their principal objects had been to disown
the authority of the king by which they had been called together, they
repudiated the title of States-general, and invented for themselves a new
name, that of "The National Assembly," which, as it had never been heard
of before, seemed to mark that they owed their existence to the nation,
and not to the sovereign.
But the discussions that took place before all these points were settled,
presented, besides the importance of the conclusion which was adopted,
another feature of powerful interest, since it was in them that the
members first heard the voice of the Count de Mirabeau, who, more than any
other deputy, was supposed during the ensuing year to be able to sway the
whole Assembly, and to hold the destinies of the nation in his hands.
Necker's daughter, the celebrated Baroness de Staël, wife of the Swedish
embassador, who was present at the opening of the States, which, as her
father's daughter, she regarded with exulting confidence as the body of
legislators who were to regenerate the nation, remarked, as the long
procession passed before her eyes, that of the six hundred deputies of the
Commons[7], the Count de Mirabeau alone bore a name which was previously
known; and he was manifestly out of his place as a representative of the
Commons. His history was a strange one. He was the eldest son of a
Provençal noble, of Italian origin, great wealth, and a ferocious
eccentricity of character, which made him one of the worst possible
instructors for a youth of brilliant talents, unbridled passions, and a
disposition equally impetuous in its pursuit of good and of evil. Even
before he arrived at manhood he had become notorious for every kind of
profligacy; while his father, in an almost equal degree, provoked the
censure of those who interested themselves in the career of a youth of
undeniable ability, by punishments of such severity as wore the appearance
of vengeance rather than of fatherly correction. In six or seven years he
obtained no fewer than fifteen warrants, or letters under seal, for the
imprisonment of his son in different jails or fortresses, while the young
man seemed to take a wanton pleasure in showing how completely all efforts
for his reformation were thrown away. Though unusually ugly (he himself
compared his face to that of a tiger who had had the small-pox), he was
irresistible among women. While one of the youngest subalterns in the
army, he made love, rarely without success, to the mistresses or wives of
his superior officers, and fought duel after duel with those who took
offense at his gallantries, From one castle in which he was imprisoned he
was aided to escape by the wife of an officer of the garrison, who
accompanied his flight. From another he was delivered by the love of a
lady of the highest rank, the Marchioness de Monnier, whom he had met at
the governor's table.
When, after some years of misery, the marchioness terminated them by
suicide, he seduced a nun of exquisite beauty to leave her convent for his
sake; and as France was no longer a safe residence for them, he fled to
Frederick of Prussia, who, equally glad to welcome him as a Frenchman, a
genius, and a profligate, received him for a while into high favor. But he
was penniless; and Frederick was never liberal of his money. Debt soon
drove him from Prussia, and he retired to England, where he made
acquaintance with Fox, Fitzpatrick, and other men of mark in the political
circles of the day. He was at all times and amidst all his excesses both
observant and studious; and while witnessing in person the strife of
parties in this country, he learned to appreciate the excellencies of our
Constitution, both in its theory and in its practical working. But
presently debt drove him from London as it had driven him from Berlin;
and, after taking refuge for a short time in Holland and Switzerland, he
was hesitating whither next to betake himself, when, hearing of the
elections for the States-general, he resolved to offer himself as a
candidate; and returned to Provence to seek the suffrages of the Nobles of
his own county.
Unluckily, his character was too well known in his native district; and
the Nobles, unwilling to countenance the ambition of one who had obtained
so evil a notoriety, rejected him. Full of indignation, he turned to the
Third Estate, offering himself as a representative of the Commons. In his
speeches to the citizens of Aix and Marseilles--for he canvassed both
towns--he inveighed against Necker and the Government with an eloquence
which electrified his audience, who had never before been addressed in the
language of independence. He was returned for both towns, and hastened to
Versailles, eager to avenge on the Nobles, the body which, as he felt, he
had a right to have represented, the affront which had driven him, against
his will, to seek the votes of a class with which he had scarcely a
feeling in common; for in the whole Assembly there was no man less of a
democrat in his heart, or prouder of his ancestry and aristocratic
privileges.
He differed from most of his colleagues, inasmuch as he, from the first,
had distinct views of the policy desirable for the nation, which he
conceived to be the establishment of a limited constitutional monarchy,
such as he had seen in England.[8] But no man in the whole Assembly was
more inconsistent, as he was ever changing his views, or at least his
conduct and language, at the dictates of interest or wounded pride;
sometimes, as it might seem, in the mere wantonness of genius, as if he
wished to show that he could lead the Assembly with equal ease to take a
course, or to retrace its steps--that it rested with him alone alike to do
or to undo. The only object from which he never departed was that of
making all parties feel and bow to his influence. And it is this very
inconsistency which so especially connects his career for the rest of his
life with the fortunes of the queen, since, while he misunderstood her
character, and feared her power with the king and ministers as likely to
be exerted in opposition to his own views, he was the most ferocious and
most foul of her enemies: when he saw that she was willing to accept his
aid, and when he therefore began to conceive a hope of making her useful
to himself in the prosecution of his designs, no man was louder in her
praise, nor, it must be admitted, more energetic or more judicious in the
advice which he gave her.
His language on the first occasion on which he made his voice heard in the
Assembly was eminently characteristic of him, so manifestly was it
directed to the attainment of his own object--that of making himself
necessary to the court, and obtaining either office or some pension which
might enable him to live, since his own resources had long been exhausted
by his extravagance. D'Espresménil had strongly advocated the doctrine
that the meeting of the three orders in separate chambers was a
fundamental principle of the monarchy; and Mirabeau, in opposition to him,
moved an address to the king, which represented the Third Estate as
desirous to ally itself with the throne, so as to enable it to resist the
pretensions of the clergy and the nobles; and, as this speech of his
produced no overture from the minister, in the middle of June he made a
direct offer to Necker to support the Government, if Necker had any plan
at all which was in the least reasonable;[9] and he gave proof of his
sincerity by vigorously opposing some proposals of the extreme reformers.
But, with incredible folly, Necker rejected his support, treating his
arguments to his face as insignificant, and affirming that their views
were irreconcilable, since Mirabeau wished to govern by policy, while he
himself preferred morality.
He at once resolved to revenge himself on the minister who had thus
slighted him,[10] and he was not long in finding an opportunity. On the
23d of June, after the States had assumed their new form, and Louis at a
royal sitting had announced the reforms he had resolved to grant, and
which were so complete that the most extreme reformers admitted that they
could have wished for nothing more, except that they should themselves
have taken them, and that the king should not have given them, Mirabeau
took the lead in throwing down a defiance to his sovereign; refusing to
consent to the adjournment of the Assembly, as was natural on the
withdrawal of the king, and declaring that they, the members of the
Commons, would not quit the hall unless they were expelled by bayonets.
But, violently as Versailles and Paris were agitated throughout May and
June, Marie Antoinette took no part in the discussion which these
questions excited. She had a still graver trouble at home. Her eldest son,
the dauphin, whose birth had been greeted so enthusiastically by all
classes, had, as we have seen, long been sickly. Since the beginning of
the year his health had been growing worse, and on the 4th of June he
died; and, though his bereaved mother bore up bravely under his loss, she
felt it deeply, and for a time was almost incapacitated from turning her
attention to any other subject.