This literary foppery was one of the few things in which he was
consistent. Royalist or Girondist, Jacobin or Imperialist, he was always
a Trissotin.
As the monarchical party became weaker and weaker, Barere gradually
estranged himself more and more from it, and drew closer and closer to
the republicans. It would seem that, during this transition, he was for
a time closely connected with the family of Orleans. It is certain that
he was entrusted with the guardianship of the celebrated Pamela,
afterwards Lady Edward Fitzgerald; and it was asserted that he received
during some years a pension of twelve thousand francs from the Palais
Royal.
At the end of September, 1791, the labors of the National Assembly
terminated, and those of the first and last Legislative Assembly
commenced.
It had been enacted that no member of the National Assembly should sit
in the Legislative Assembly; a preposterous and mischievous regulation,
to which the disasters which followed must in part be ascribed. In
England, what would be thought of a Parliament which did not contain one
single person who had ever sat in Parliament before? Yet it may safely
be affirmed that the number of Englishmen who, never having taken any
share in public affairs, are yet well qualified, by knowledge and
observation, to be members of the legislature is at least a hundred
times as great as the number of Frenchmen who were so qualified in 1791.
How, indeed, should it have been otherwise? In England, centuries of
representative government have made all educated people in some measure
statesmen. In France the National Assembly had probably been composed of
as good materials as were then to be found. It had undoubtedly removed a
vast mass of abuses; some of its members had read and thought much about
theories of government; and others had shown great oratorical talents.
But that kind of skill which is required for the constructing,
launching, and steering of a polity was lamentably wanting; for it is a
kind of skill to which practice contributes more than books. Books are
indeed useful to the politician, as they are useful to the navigator and
to the surgeon. But the real navigator is formed on the waves; the real
surgeon is formed at bedsides; and the conflicts of free states are the
real school of constitutional statesmen. The National Assembly had,
however, now served an apprenticeship of two laborious and eventful
years. It had, indeed, by no means finished its education; but it was no
longer, as on the day when it met, altogether rude to political
functions. Its later proceedings contain abundant proof that the members
had profited by their experience. Beyond all doubt, there was not in
France any equal number of persons possessing in an equal degree the
qualities necessary for the judicious direction of public affairs; and,
just at this moment, these legislators, misled by a childish wish to
display their own disinterestedness, deserted the duties which they had
half learned, and which nobody else had learned at all, and left their
hall to a second crowd of novices, who had still to master the first
rudiments of political business. When Barere wrote his Memoirs, the
absurdity of this self-denying ordinance had been proved by events, and
was, we believe, acknowledged by all parties. He accordingly, with his
usual mendacity, speaks of it in terms implying that he had opposed it.
There was, he tells us, no good citizen who did not regret this fatal
vote. Nay, all wise men, he says, wished the National Assembly to
continue its sittings as the first Legislative Assembly. But no
attention was paid to the wishes of the enlightened friends of liberty;
and the generous but fatal suicide was perpetrated. Now the fact is that
Barere, far from opposing this ill-advised measure, was one of those who
most eagerly supported it; that he described it from the tribune as wise
and magnanimous; that he assigned, as his reasons for taking this view,
some of those phrases in which orators of his class delight, and which,
on all men who have the smallest insight into politics, produce an
effect very similar to that of ipecacuanha. "Those," he said, "who have
framed a constitution for their country are, so to speak, out of the
pale of that social state of which they are the authors; for creative
power is not in the same sphere with that which it has created."
M. Hippolyte Carnot has noticed this untruth, and attributes it to mere
forgetfulness. We leave it to him to reconcile his very charitable
supposition with what he elsewhere says of the remarkable excellence of
Barere's memory.
Many members of the National Assembly were indemnified for the sacrifice
of legislative power, by appointments in various departments of the
public service. Of these fortunate persons Barere was one. A high Court
of Appeal had just been instituted. This court was to sit at Paris; but
its jurisdiction was to extend over the whole realm; and the departments
were to choose the judges. Barere was nominated by the department of the
Upper Pyrenees, and took his seat in the Palace of Justice. He asserts,
and our readers may, if they choose, believe, that it was about this
time in contemplation to make him Minister of the Interior, and that, in
order to avoid so grave a responsibility, he obtained permission to pay
a visit to his native place. It is certain that he left Paris early in
the year 1792, and passed some months in the south of France.
In the meantime, it became clear that the constitution of 1791 would
not work. It was, indeed, not to be expected that a constitution new
both in its principles and its details would at first work easily. Had
the chief magistrate enjoyed the entire confidence of the people, had he
performed his part with the utmost zeal, fidelity, and ability, had the
representative body included all the wisest statesmen of France, the
difficulties might still have been found insuperable. But, in fact, the
experiment was made under every disadvantage. The King, very naturally,
hated the constitution. In the Legislative Assembly were men of genius
and men of good intentions, but not a single man of experience.
Nevertheless, if France had been suffered to settle her own affairs
without foreign interference, it is possible that the calamities which
followed might have been averted. The King, who, with many good
qualities, was sluggish and sensual, might have found compensation for
his lost prerogatives in his immense civil list, in his palaces and
hunting grounds, in soups, Perigord pies, and champagne. The people,
finding themselves secure in the enjoyment of the valuable reforms which
the National Assembly had, in the midst of all its errors, effected,
would not have been easily excited by demagogues to acts of atrocity;
or, if acts of atrocity had been committed, those acts would probably
have produced a speedy and violent reaction. Had tolerable quiet been
preserved during a few years, the constitution of 1791 might perhaps
have taken root, might have gradually acquired the strength which time
alone can give, and might, with some modifications which were
undoubtedly needed, have lasted down to the present time. The European
coalition against the Revolution extinguished all hope of such a result.
The deposition of Louis was, in our opinion, the necessary consequence
of that coalition. The question was now no longer, whether the King
should have an absolute Veto or a suspensive Veto, whether there should
be one chamber or two chambers, whether the members of the
representative body should be reeligible or not; but whether France
should belong to the French. The independence of the nation, the
integrity of the territory, were at stake; and we must say plainly that
we cordially approve of the conduct of those Frenchmen who, at that
conjuncture, resolved, like our own Blake, to play the men for their
country, under whatever form of government their country might fall.
It seems to us clear that the war with the Continental coalition was, on
the side of France, at first a defensive war, and therefore a just war.
It was not a war for small objects, or against despicable enemies. On
the event were staked all the dearest interests of the French people.
Foremost among the threatening powers appeared two great and martial
monarchies, either of which, situated as France then was, might be
regarded as a formidable assailant. It is evident that, under such
circumstances, the French could not, without extreme imprudence, entrust
the supreme administration of their affairs to any person whose
attachment to the national cause admitted of doubt. Now, it is no
reproach to the memory of Louis to say that he was not attached to the
national cause. Had he been so, he would have been something more than
man. He had held absolute power, not by usurpation, but by the accident
of birth and by the ancient polity of the kingdom. That power he had, on
the whole, used with lenity. He had meant well by his people. He had
been willing to make to them, of his own mere motion, concessions such
as scarcely any other sovereign has ever made except under duress. He
had paid the penalty of faults not his own, of the haughtiness and
ambition of some of his predecessors, of the dissoluteness and baseness
of others. He had been vanquished, taken captive, led in triumph, put in
ward. He had escaped; he had been caught; he had been dragged back like
a runaway galley slave to the oar. He was still a state prisoner. His
quiet was broken by daily affronts and lampoons. Accustomed from the
cradle to be treated with profound reverence, he was now forced to
command his feelings, while men who, a few months before, had been
hackney writers or country attorneys, sat in his presence with covered
heads, and addressed him in the easy tone of equality. Conscious of fair
intentions, sensible of hard usage, he doubtless detested the
Revolution; and, while charged with the conduct of the war against the
confederates, pined in secret for the sight of the German eagles and the
sound of the German drums. We do not blame him for this. But can we
blame those who, being resolved to defend the work of the National
Assembly against the interference of strangers, were not disposed to
have him at their head in the fearful struggle which was approaching? We
have nothing to say in defence or extenuation of the insolence,
injustice, and cruelty with which, after the victory of the republicans,
he and his family were treated. But this we say, that the French had
only one alternative, to deprive him of the powers of first magistrate,
or to ground their arms and submit patiently to foreign dictation. The
events of the tenth of August sprang inevitably from the league of
Pilnitz. The King's palace was stormed; his guards were slaughtered. He
was suspended from his regal functions; and the Legislative Assembly
invited the nation to elect an extraordinary Convention, with the full
powers which the conjuncture required. To this Convention the members of
the National Assembly were eligible; and Barere was chosen by his own
department.
The Convention met on the twenty-first of September, 1792. The first
proceedings were unanimous. Royalty was abolished by acclamation. No
objections were made to this great change; and no reasons were assigned
for it. For certainly we cannot honor with the name of reasons such
apothegms, as that kings are in the moral world what monsters are in the
physical world; and that the history of kings is the martyrology of
nations. But, though the discussion was worthy only of a debating club
of schoolboys, the resolution to which the Convention came seems to have
been that which sound policy dictated. In saying this, we do not mean to
express an opinion that a republic is, either in the abstract the best
form of government, or is, under ordinary circumstances, the form of
government best suited to the French people. Our own opinion is, that
the best governments which have ever existed in the world have been
limited monarchies; and that France, in particular, has never enjoyed so
much prosperity and freedom as under a limited monarchy. Nevertheless,
we approve of the vote of the Convention which abolished kingly
government. The interference of foreign powers had brought on a crisis
which made extraordinary measures necessary. Hereditary monarchy may be,
and we believe that it is, a very useful institution in a country like
France. And masts are very useful parts of a ship. But, if the ship is
on her beam ends, it may be necessary to cut the masts away. When once
she has righted, she may come safe into port under jury rigging, and
there be completely repaired. But, in the meantime, she must be hacked
with unsparing hand, lest that which, under ordinary circumstances, is
an essential part of her fabric, should, in her extreme distress, sink
her to the bottom. Even so there are political emergencies in which it
is necessary that governments should be mutilated of their fair
proportions for a time, lest they be cast away forever; and with such an
emergency the Convention had to deal. The first object of a good
Frenchman should have been to save France from the fate of Poland. The
first requisite of a government was entire devotion to the national
cause. That requisite was wanting in Louis; and such a want, at such a
moment, could not be supplied by any public or private virtues. If the
King were set aside the abolition of kingship necessarily followed. In
the state in which the public mind then was, it would have been idle to
think of doing what our ancestors did in 1688, and what the French
Chamber of Deputies did in 1830. Such an attempt would have failed
amidst universal derision and execration. It would have disgusted all
zealous men of all opinions; and there were then few men who were not
zealous. Parties fatigued by long conflict, and instructed by the severe
discipline of that school in which alone mankind will learn, are
disposed to listen to the voice of a mediator. But when they are in
their first heady youth, devoid of experience, fresh for exertion,
flushed with hope, burning with animosity, they agree only in spurning
out of their way the daysman who strives to take his stand between them
and to lay his hand upon them both. Such was in 1792 the state of
France. On one side was the great name of the heir of Hugh Capet, the
thirty-third king of the third race; on the other side was the great
name of the republic. There was no rallying point save these two. It was
necessary to make a choice; and those, in our opinion, judged well who,
waiving for the moment all subordinate questions, preferred independence
to subjugation, and the natal soil to the emigrant camp.
As to the abolition of royalty, and as to the vigorous prosecution of
the war, the whole Convention seemed to be united as one man. But a deep
and broad gulf separated the representative body into two great parties.
On one side were those statesmen who are called, from the name of the
department which some of them represented, the Girondists, and, from the
name of one of their most conspicuous leaders, the Brissotines. In
activity and practical ability, Brissot and Gensonne were the most
conspicuous among them. In parliamentary eloquence, no Frenchman of that
time can be considered as equal to Vergniaud. In a foreign country, and
after the lapse of half a century, some parts of his speeches are still
read with mournful admiration. No man, we are inclined to believe, ever
rose so rapidly to such a height of oratorical excellence. His whole
public life lasted barely two years. This is a circumstance which
distinguishes him from our own greatest speakers, Fox, Burke, Pitt,
Sheridan, Windham, Canning. Which of these celebrated men would now be
remembered as an orator, if he had died two years after he first took
his seat in the House of Commons? Condorcet brought to the Girondist
party a different kind of strength. The public regarded him with justice
as an eminent mathematician, and, with less reason, as a great master of
ethical and political science; the philosophers considered him as their
chief, as the rightful heir, by intellectual descent and by solemn
adoption, of their deceased sovereign D'Alembert. In the same ranks were
found Gaudet, Isnard, Barbaroux, Buzot, Louvet, too well known as the
author of a very ingenious and very licentious romance, and more
honorably distinguished by the generosity with which he pleaded for the
unfortunate, and by the intrepidity with which he defied the wicked and
powerful. Two persons whose talents were not brilliant, but who enjoyed
a high reputation for probity and public spirit, Petion and Roland, lent
the whole weight of their names to the Girondist connection. The wife of
Roland brought to the deliberations of her husband's friends masculine
courage and force of thought, tempered by womanly grace and vivacity.
Nor was the splendor of a great military reputation wanting to this
celebrated party. Dumourier, then victorious over the foreign invaders,
and at the height of popular favor, must be reckoned among the allies of
the Gironde.
The errors of the Brissotines were undoubtedly neither few nor small;
but, when we fairly compare their conduct with the conduct of any other
party which acted or suffered during the French Revolution, we are
forced to admit their superiority in every quality except that single
quality which in such times prevails over every other, decision. They
were zealous for the great social reform which had been effected by the
National Assembly; and they were right. For, though that reform was, in
some respects, carried too far, it was a blessing well worth even the
fearful price which has been paid for it. They were resolved to maintain
the independence of their country against foreign invaders; and they
were right. For the heaviest of all yokes is the yoke of the stranger.
They thought that, if Louis remained at their head, they could not carry
on with the requisite energy the conflict against the European
coalition. They therefore concurred in establishing a republican
government; and here, again, they were right. For, in that struggle for
life and death, it would have been madness to trust a hostile or even a
half-hearted leader.
Thus far they went along with the revolutionary movement. At this point
they stopped; and, in our judgment, they were right in stopping, as they
had been right in moving. For great ends, and under extraordinary
circumstances, they had concurred in measures which, together with much
good, had necessarily produced much evil; which had unsettled the public
mind; which had taken away from government the sanction of prescription;
which had loosened the very foundations of property and law. They
thought that it was now their duty to prop what it had recently been
their duty to batter. They loved liberty, but liberty associated with
order, with justice, with mercy, and with civilization. They were
republicans; but they were desirous to adorn their republic with all
that had given grace and dignity to the fallen monarchy. They hoped that
the humanity, the courtesy, the taste, which had done much in old times
to mitigate the slavery of France, would now lend additional charms to
her freedom. They saw with horror crimes, exceeding in atrocity those
which had disgraced the infuriated religious factions of the sixteenth
century, perpetrated in the name of reason and philanthropy. They
demanded, with eloquent vehemence, that the authors of the lawless
massacre, which, just before the meeting of the Convention, had been
committed in the prisons of Paris, should be brought to condign
punishment. They treated with just contempt the pleas which have been
set up for that great crime. They admitted that the public danger was
pressing; but they denied that it justified a violation of those
principles of morality on which all society rests. The independence and
honor of France were indeed to be vindicated, but to be vindicated by
triumphs and not by murders.
Opposed to the Girondists was a party which, having been long execrated
throughout the civilized world, has of late--such is the ebb and flow of
opinion--found not only apologists, but even eulogists. We are not
disposed to deny that some members of the Mountain were sincere and
public-spirited men. But even the best of them, Carnot for example and
Cambon, were far too unscrupulous as to the means which they employed
for the purpose of attaining great ends. In the train of these
enthusiasts followed a crowd, composed of all who, from sensual, sordid,
or malignant motives, wished for a period of boundless license.
When the Convention met, the majority was with the Girondists, and
Barere was with the majority. On the King's trial, indeed, he quitted
the party with which he ordinarily acted, voted with the Mountain, and
spoke against the prisoner with a violence such as few members even of
the Mountain showed.
The conduct of the leading Girondists on that occasion was little to
their honor. Of cruelty, indeed, we fully acquit them; but it is
impossible to acquit them of criminal irresolution and disingenuousness.
They were far, indeed, from thirsting for the blood of Louis; on the
contrary, they were most desirous to protect him. But they were afraid
that, if they went straightforward to their object, the sincerity of
their attachment to republican institutions would be suspected. They
wished to save the King's life, and yet to obtain all the credit of
having been regicides. Accordingly, they traced out for themselves a
crooked course, by which they hoped to attain both their objects. They
first voted the King guilty. They then voted for referring the question
respecting his fate to the whole body of the people. Defeated in this
attempt to rescue him, they reluctantly, and with ill-suppressed shame
and concern, voted for the capital sentence. Then they made a last
attempt in his favor, and voted for respiting the execution. These zig
zag politics produced the effect which any man conversant with public
affairs might have foreseen. The Girondists, instead of attaining both
their ends, failed of both. The Mountain justly charged them with having
attempted to save the King by underhand means. Their own consciences
told them, with equal justice, that their hands had been dipped in the
blood of the most inoffensive and most unfortunate of men. The direct
path was here, as usual, the path not only of honor but of safety. The
principle on which the Girondists stood as a party was, that the season
for revolutionary violence was over, and that the reign of law and order
ought now to commence. But the proceeding against the King was clearly
revolutionary in its nature. It was not in conformity with the laws. The
only plea for it was that all ordinary rules of jurisprudence and
morality were suspended by the extreme public danger. This was the very
plea which the Mountain urged in defence of the massacre of September,
and to which, when so urged, the Girondists refused to listen. They
therefore, by voting for the death of the King, conceded to the Mountain
the chief point at issue between the two parties. Had they given a
manful vote against the capital sentence, the regicides would have been
in a minority. It is probable that there would have been an immediate
appeal to force. The Girondists might have been victorious. In the worst
event, they would have fallen with unblemished honor. Thus much is
certain, that their boldness and honesty could not possibly have
produced a worse effect than was actually produced by their timidity and
their stratagems.